Near-Great Canadian Novel
PARSONS, ALICE BEAL
Near-Great Canadian Novel Review by ALICE BEAL PARSONS TWO SOLITUDES. Bg Hugh Moe-/,«»» ««? DueU, Sloe* and Peorre. 120 payee. $3-00. THIS first important Canadian novel is » literary event,...
...niere intimately than we have before, and cause tor soul-searching in 'publishing world...
...By flaying these two legends off against ?ach other, politicians have succeeded in preventing necessary reform...
...I am set forgetting Do* Passes" brilliant panoramic surveys, or Farrell's equally brilliant Chicago miniatures...
...MacLennan doesn't know this yet He has an unusually sensitive understanding of the human heart He has observed much...
...as steadily and whole aa Mac Iannan has looked at Canada...
...We meant a novel that would place comprehensive human beings like you and me in this realized America, that would show us struggling with th* perennial human conflicts in a specialised time and place...
...Among tbe resultant casualties is the notion of "th* great American novel," that for a hundred years or more was leid to be just over the horizon...
...Aad a* if this second story wem net sufficient MacLeansn then traasfar* his attention, to Peul, the oa4t ef AnasUse's old age, who ia tern will be caught ia World War IL If instead ef this too large canvas he had concentrated on Tallard's fight to Indus trialize Saint-Marc, an effort opposed by Father Beau Man, who rallied to his cause all the French-Canadian prejudice* of th* district, be might have had a deeply interesting novel...
...It is the chief weakness of Mac-tLwnan's book that he should have tried .*» cover three generations...
...His theme is the disruptive effect on Canada of two "group-legends," the one French-Canadian, the other English...
...Aa artist's brain,* he observes, "is like a distillery...
...Elizabeth Madox Roberta' incomparable Time of Man, called by Ford Madoz Ford the greatest American novel...
...A distillery take* years to produce anything but hooch...
...For several decade* wc have asserted our originality by scoffing at the most dearly cherished concepts of our fathers...
...But his book is uneven...
...But be has many of the qualities ef aa important writer...
...They am true characters, worthy of the painstaking explication that rmot** a lasting literary figure...
...It is a measure of his accomplishment, however, that I want him to tell mom of all them people...
...Ha never Action*l izes...
...Hi* owe brain baa produced mech move than hooch...
...I remember, too, Ruth Suckow's middle western stories, some of them certainly destined for long life...
...He has verve, sympathy, eloquence...
...A man of % 18th century, an admirer of Voltaire, a believer in th* rights of man, humane, magnanimous, he is equally out of step With the priest-dominated peasants of Ml countryside, and with the smug Asnnciera wao milk Canada from their...
...But what did we mean by the great American novel...
...The too bumptious, eagle-screaming phrase, of course, deserves a smile...
...He hews all the time to the task he has set himself, that of trying to express hi* sense of his Canadian World and of himself...
...Th* necessity the French feel for maintain ing their Frenchness intact against the English, and that conversely the English,) feel for maintaining their English-Apia, against the French, has intensified the European-derived characteristics of both and delayed the appearance of a true Canadian type...
...He has ssany felicitous ? anient i* aad ' passages...
...I predict that Mac lennan's book will hasten the appear-ane* of such a type, since no people attain* true political consciousness until it sees itself in the mirror of a natnthal ?ature...
...THIS first important Canadian novel is » literary event, cause far rejoicing fai thana states, tine* it opens the door for aa to know our geographical and political Siamese twin ???m...
...In old age Walt Whitman, who had devoted his whole life to the effort, observed that it is very difficult to add anything to literaturo...
...His book is a rich mina I would like to see him draw out one conflict, and develop it for all it is worth...
...We meant a novel that would bring our country as a whole alive for as, as Dickens brought England alive, aa Balzac brought France, as Tolstoi brought Russia...
...Yet the statement just made ia true...
...Ansstase Tallard, th* Seig-J??pr of Saint-Marc, who has lived to as* the formerly great estates of his fllaily dwindle to a few modest farms, and who derive* most of his income from toll* over a bridge, is the best realized °f MacLennan'* characters...
...Although MacLennan is a Nova Sco-tian and a former Rhodes Scholar, he is most successful with his French-Cansdians...
...But after the first wrestling* of our literary renaissance of th* twenties, we became so sophisticated that we laughed off the notion of a great American novel...
...in Montreal...
...He moves from AnasUse to his fanatically Catholic eon, Marina, who is unwillingly caught in the dragnet of World War I and returns to become a sinister fascist poli tieiaa...
...As it is, he has been in too mach of a harry, and has bad to much ground to cover that thia book fails of real distinction...
...We are rich in con-ieTJnerary talent...
...He could then, in subsequent books,-bam gone on to Marias and Paul...
...the tumultuous outpourings of Tom Wolfe, tbe distinguished if twisted tslent of Faulkner...
...And while we are «tili alternately laughing and weeping maudlin tears over Holly woodish exaggerations and distortions, MacLennan gives us an interesting book that can at least be called a rough draft for a great Canadian novel...
...It is a long time ?ece any highly intelligent and serious American novelist has looked at tha ?.S...
...It steadily deteriorates as it approaches the present time, not, I think, because be wearies from the effort, but because be lama the perspective that enabled him to am Anaataae Taliard distinctly...
Vol. 28 • April 1945 • No. 17
