There is Hope!
by St. Clair Carr,
literary editor, NEW IMPROVED HEAD
Reviewed in this article:Realia by Will Aitken (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2000; 258 pages; $29.95 Cdn.)
The Dog Rules by William J. Thomas (Toronto, Key Porter, 2000; small format; 188 pages; $21.95 Cdn.)English literature is suffering from an epidemic of one-fisted writing. Many non-fiction texts are haphazard assemblages of undefined concepts described by inappropriate adjectives – for example, almost anything can now be described as "delicious." In fiction, many books are written in a style characterized by outlandish description, unnatural grammatical constructions (using nouns as adverbs is a favourite stunt), and a general lack of concern for the traditional considerations of literary style.
For example, I got no further in reading the novel which won this year's Booker Prize than the last sentence of the first paragraph: "Nothing much was left of her but charred smithereens." That sentence consists of a cliche, a frivolous word, and an adjective. No doubt Ms Atwood was trying to create a literary effect by modifying the usually unmodified smithereens and by using the frivolous smithereens to describe a grave occurrence, but the effect she produces is to persuade the reader that both the narrator and the author are trivial persons.
But there is hope! I am pleased to say that I have just read two current books in a row which were written in elegant and forceful style, and that I am going to tell you about them now.
The Dog Rules, by William J. Thomas, is a work of humour – that is, you will find it in the humour section at the bookstore. The success of a humorous work being largely a matter of the reader's taste and mood, I will say little about my opinion of how humorous it is. I will note, though, that Mr. Thomas demonstrates mastery of the skills of literary humour. In fact I concluded that, since Mr. Thomas and I are the same age, he has been throughout his life using his time much more productively than I have (he provides illustrations as well).
The device through which Mr. Thomas achieves his humorous effects is the familiar one of getting us to laugh at ourselves. The thesis of this book is that people make fools of themselves when dealing with their dogs. He considers a number of reasons why they may do this, between chapters providing lists of rules of dog ownership.
What distinguishes a work of humour from a work of philosophy is that a work of humour does not attempt to draw a reasoned conclusion from its observations, but instead concludes with an appeal to sentiment (that is why Mark Kingwell is properly considered a humorist). Mr. Thomas's last chapter features heartwarming accounts of supposed manifestations of the nobility of what he refers to as his dog's soul. The point as usual is to take the reader's mind off the disturbing implications of the observations of human life which have served as the source of humour. Usually following these implications to their logical conclusion would prove highly depressing, so the humorist provides a sentimental interpretation of them instead.
The Dog Rules is no Three Men in a Boat, but then very little humour is. It is, though, an accomplished, intelligent, and humane account of the human condition, and therefore I recommend it to you, our accomplished, intelligent, and humane readers.
Another accomplished, intelligent, and humane account of the human condition is Realia, by Will Aitken. This account, though, is openly fictional, and it finishes not in warming of the heart but in ambiguity. According to contemporary criteria, then, it is a novel.
Realia are everyday objects used as teaching aids. The narrator of Realia, Louise Painchaud, is an Albertan who uses realia to teach English at a girls' school in Japan, and who also attempts to deduce Japanese culture from the objects it produces (in an interview about the book in eye Aitken referred to the archeological definition of realia as objects from an inaccessible culture) and from the way it uses the objects that Western culture produces.
Aitken takes his plot from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Louise is Eurydice, Japanese pop star Oro is Orpheus, and the underworld is represented by a drug called Emptiness. The jacket blurb claims that Realia explores "how ancient myth still feeds the heart of pop culture." I doubt, though, that Greek myth has much influence on Japanese pop culture (or on Western), and I see no evidence in the book itself that Aitken intended to imply that there was any.
Realia is simply the story of an intelligent and vulnerable person trying to understand the world; the myth is a vehicle for Aitken's ideas and observations. Aitken comes to no firm conclusions about how to understand the world, but the intellectual content of Realia is still far greater than that in many novels. Aitken also writes in a lively and forceful style which appears to be the style in which one-fisted novelists aspire to write but in which they fail to, often laughably.
The character of the narrator is well realized. The Japanese characters are not well realized, but since they are presented through the eyes of a narrator who is supposed not to understand them this cannot be taken as a failure of characterization.
I do not want to betray the ending of Realia, but I can say that like the ending of The Dog Rules, the ending of Realia deals with a less than ideal way in which people cope with the demands of reality (oh – realia also means realities).
Like The Dog Rules, Realia is well written and intelligent and does not condescend to the reader. It is no The Auction Sale, but then very little fiction is. Realia presents serious ideas in elegant, lively, and forceful style, and is decidedly worthy of the attention of you, our accomplished, intelligent, and humane readers.
There is Hope © John FitzGerald, 2000
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