FP Grove in Europe and Canada

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

In 1971, Professor Douglas Spettigue of Queen’s University discovered
that, before coming to Canada, the novelist Frederick Philip Grove had
led a vigorous and even notorious literary life in Europe as Felix Paul
Greve. Since that time, scholars have been trying to fit together all
the jigsaw pieces of his fragmented (not to say, rackety) life. The
process has been hindered by the problems of conducting research on two
continents and in several languages. But a consistent story has
gradually emerged, and Klaus Martens, a scholar bilingual in German and
English, has not only gathered all the as-yet-available information
together but added some remarkable new discoveries of his own.

Martens devotes most of his space to the German years, but he shows how
the new information about Greve affects our understanding of the later
life and writings of Grove. Moreover, despite his title, he has
unearthed some fascinating evidence that, while remaining just short of
absolute proof, strongly suggests the pattern of life that Grove/Greve
led in the United States in the frustratingly mysterious three years
between his European disappearance and his emergence in Canada.

Despite some heavy (almost Grove-like!) prose and the occasional
introduction of characters into the narrative without adequate
explanation of their origins, this is an excellent book. Martens is a
gifted literary sleuth, and he has added immeasurably to our
understanding of this most enigmatic of Canadian literary figures. He
argues convincingly for Greve’s hitherto unrecognized distinction as
an influential literary translator, uncovers his attempt to qualify as
an archeologist, and even (most intriguingly) reveals that he once
occupied rooms in a Munich pension at the same time as Thomas Mann.

The book is generously illustrated with photographs, many appearing
here for the first time, and the bibliography at the end is the most
complete yet published. This is one of those rare books that permanently
alter the way we look at a writer about whom much has already been
written.