The Matrix Interviews: Moosehead Anthology, 8

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.

The Quebec journal Matrix has been publishing interviews with writers
for more than a quarter of a century. This book contains 16 out of 36
that appeared between 1975 and 2000. Unfortunately, however, we are
never told what principle of selection governed either the choice of
subjects or the choice among available interviews. The majority focus on
writers who live or have lived in Quebec, but there are also interviews
with Martin Amis and Amitav Ghosh. Again, most are comparative newcomers
to the literary scene, though they also include Marie-Claire Blaise,
D.G. Jones, and Irving Layton. Some are poets, some novelists, and one
(David Fennario) a playwright.

As a result, the collection lacks coherence. The selections are too
arbitrary to be representative in any meaningful way. One would need to
be sublimely catholic or undiscriminating in one’s literary taste to
respond with enthusiasm to all these writers. Individual readers may
well consult specific interviews in library copies, but I can’t see
many for whom this would be an essential book to own.

Interviews can be cruelly revealing, and a reader sensitive to the
possibilities of language can readily separate the sheep from the goats.
Some, frankly, lack a language in which useful literary discourse can be
conducted; others fall back on the clichés of currently fashionable
attitudes (colonialism, feminism, etc.) with depressing results. A
few—notably Layton, Jones, and especially Neil Bissoondath—display
genuine thoughtfulness and independent judgment.

As for the interviewers, some have done their homework, and ask the
appropriate questions calculated to bring out the best in their
interviewees. But others seem obtuse (Bissoondath’s interviewer, for
example, finds difficulty in comprehending his radical originality),
while a few virtually prevent serious discussion (I’m unimpressed by
those who ask “What’s your favourite colour?” or “Do you know
the strategies of pinball?”).

On the whole, then, this is a disappointing collection, though it may
well reflect quite accurately the current literary situation. After all,
real writers are always few and far between.