This Is Our Writing

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

In his acknowledgments, T.F. Rigelhof notes that John Metcalf encouraged
him to write a book on the Canadian writers he “admired or
deplored.” Metcalf has also served as his editor. Some of the pieces
here were published as book reviews in the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa
Citizen, The Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail.

In 11 essays, Rigelhof explores what he finds best and worst about
writing in Canada. The lead piece begins “Books matter.” Amen to
that. Some of the Canadian writers whom he admires are Mavis Gallant,
Mordecai Richler, Norman Levine, Hugh Hood, and Irving Layton.

Rigelhof’s articles meander like a riverside path. They have some of
the charms of such terrain, and many of the frustrations. Readers with
an itch to know where they are going, or being led, may become
impatient. One thing leads to another. It’s best to relax and go with
the flow. Like Rigelhof.

“Why Read What They Write?” takes off from a satirical article on
Canlit published in 1983 in the Financial Post Magazine. Rigelhof has no
compunctions about quoting and paraphrasing other writers at great
length. He is by turns amusing, irritating, infuriating. In “Dull and
Very Stiff,” he takes aim at Robertson Davies, a writer he finds
grossly overpraised. “She’ll Always Have Paris” praises Mavis
Gallant, with time out for Rigelhof’s childhood. “Tales Catching
Tales,” my favorite in a collection that left me unenthusiastic,
explores Hugh Hood’s fiction with insight and appreciation.

This Is Our Writing is not for those who like a direct route to the
door. Taken slowly, in small doses, it’s food for thought and could
provide the start of some good arguments.