Reid, Allan

English

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals

Book Reviews 105important text. As Stovel explains in an annotated note to “Tribalism as UsVersus Them,” “the appearance of the typescript” in the York UniversityArchives suggests that the piece was meant to be included in Heart of a Stranger(225). The content of the piece also suggests as much. So often in these essays,Laurence draws connections—as she does in “Tribalism as Us VersusThem”—between the world she experiences when she is away, and the worldthat is her home.The essays in Heart of a Stranger are important not only because they give usinsight into Laurence’s own worldview, but also because they have a politicalbent. The essays foreground Laurence’s journey to other places and also herjourney to discover her own political position in relation to such places. Thecollection brings together Laurence’s Canadian and African interests. Forexample, Laurence wrote the essay entitled “The Poem and the Spear” after shewrote her first Canadian novel, The Stone Angel, demonstrating that her Africanconcerns continued well into her writing of the Manawaka series. Like the essayentitled “Man of Our People,” which takes up the colonization of First Nations inCanada, “The Poem and the Spear” exemplifies Laurence’s anti-imperial stance.Laurence expresses her concern not only with the history of the colonization ofthe Métis in Canada, but also with the ongoing subordination of indigenouspeople.Stovel’s edition makes available Laurence’s major essays and foregroundsthem as both personal and political. While reading Laurence’s essays in Heart of aStranger, one realizes how relevant they are to today’s world. The voice ofLaurence, like the voice of Gabriel, indeed has something to tell us today: aboutthe importance of ending the exploitation of peoples; about the importance ofcross-cultural understanding; about the importance of anti-imperialist practice.The voice of Laurence is also an individual one—a voice that depicts the positionof a Canadian woman traveler who is acutely aware of her privileged position inforeign lands. The text is a valuable contribution to Laurence’s corpus of work,and it is significant that it is in print once again.W. J. Leatherbarrow, ed.The Cambridge Companion to DostoevskiiCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi+244. $65.00 $23.99Reviewed by Allan ReidThere is a great deal of justification and rationalization in W. J.Leatherbarrow’s introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii. Hespends several pages arguing for the need for such a “companion,” and for therelevance of Dostoevskii. There are references to comments about Dostoevskii’s106 The International Fiction Review 33 (2006)preeminence as a thinker, novelist, or incompetent, by the usual suspects such asEinstein, Steiner, and Nabokov, respectively. He goes on to question and discussDostoevskii’s relevance to contemporary readers and culture, and skates around(and around) questions about how such anthologies have been and or should becompiled and read, and a range of related questions that delicately prod thelurking but silent figure of contemporary literary theory (and theories). He alsodiscusses intended readership at far too great a length. This is all rather tedious,but one can only hope that readers either do not start here, or if they do, that theykeep going. The second half of the introduction is a superb, concise overview ofeach contribution, of how it works into the volume as a whole, and how it fitsinto the editor’s vision of the project. As Leatherbarrow explains it, he hopes tocapture some of the complex interrelationships of high and low culture, and “toidentify areas that had an enduring impact upon, and resonance in, Dostoevskii’sart and which, in some cases if not all, have not been addressed in anappropriately persistent or sophisticated way in previous critical introductions”(11). The volume itself is a great success, and the final eight pages of theintroduction where he speaks about it directly could actually serve as acompelling and meaningful introduction to Dostoevskii for neophytes andseasoned readers alike. One can only hope that the first ten pages do not preventanyone from going on.The contributors, as can be expected, are all leading scholars in nineteenth-century Russian literature and Dostoevskii studies. The essay titles are directlyinformative, all more or less of the “Dostoevskii and X” type, but there is nothingelse formulaic about the content. Some sound familiar, for example, “Dostoevskiiand Psychology” (Robert L. Belknap), “Dostoevskii and Science” (Diane OenningThompson), or “Dostoevskii and the Intelligentsia” (Derek Offord). There arealso less familiar juxtapositions, such as “Dostoevskii and the Russian FolkHeritage” (Faith Wigzell), and “Dostoevskii and Money” (Boris Christa). None ofthese topics is entirely new, of course, but the formulation of questions, theanalysis, and the scholarship are fresh and stimulating. The manner in whichLeatherbarrow has conceived the volume makes it implicit that individual essayswill not focus on particular works but instead cut across Dostoevskii’s oeuvre,although some still concentrate on a relatively smaller number of selected texts.Overall, and this can be confirmed by scanning the index, most of the majorworks, and many of the minor and/or occasional writings receive treatment in atleast one of these pieces, and several reappear across a good number of theessays. Given the size of the volume, the editor can definitely be commended forachieving a balance of treatment. While I will eschew a summary of theindividual articles, I would venture the opinion that they all will be judged toadd to a fuller appreciation of Dostoevskii and his works. Not all readers willnecessarily enjoy Gary Saul Morson’s “playful” setup of his conclusion to thevolume (“Conclusion: Reading Dostoevskii”), nor is it really a conclusion in anynormal sense, but ultimately it delivers the kind of thoughtful and genuinelyBook Reviews 107helpful perspective that its subject deserves while illuminating fundamentalquestions which many readers share.I have some minor quibbles with this volume. The “Chronology” is quiteskimpy and should either have been expanded (doubled in size), or omitted. Thebibliography contains the essential references, but it, too, could have beenexpanded to great advantage. Furthermore, there is no recognition of the need toinclude some indication of the current state of Dostoevskii studies in Russia.Given the history of his treatment especially during the Soviet period, it isdisappointing not to find at least one essay by a leading Russian scholar ofDostoevskii. This would also be of particular service to those readers andscholars who do not read Russian, and there are many. While the editor defineshis undertaking as an edited volume bringing together the insights of “some ofthe finest contemporary Western Dostoevskii scholars” (10), one is left to wonderabout the reason for that self-imposed limitation. Finally, and this may be trivial,it seems puzzling that Leatherbarrow has opted for the transliterated spelling(Dostoevskii)—which I feel obliged to follow, while “Dostoevsky” is much morecommon in both popular and scholarly publications.These caveats are minor on any scale. This volume will be useful forresearchers, general readers, and for the undergraduate and graduate classroom.Joanna TrollopeBrother and SisterToronto: McArthur and Company, 2004. Pp. 311. $24.95Reviewed by Nora Foster StovelJoanna Trollope—who writes historical romances under the pen nameCaroline Harvey and who has authored Britannia’s Daughters, a study of womenin the British Empire—has published a dozen novels in sixteen years: The Choir,A Village Affair, A Passionate Man, The Rector’s Wife, The Men and the Girls, ASpanish Lover, The Best of Friends, Next of Kin, Other People’s Children, Marrying theMistress, Girl from the South, and, most recently, Brother and Sister. As the titles ofher novels suggest, Trollope’s forte is family life in contemporary England,especially village life, often with an ecclesiastical flavor. Relationships andsituations that appear unassailable are rocked by changes that demandadjustment and accommodation. Trollope excels at detailing the fallout of suchseismic shocks.Brother and Sister is no different. The titular characters, born of differentmothers but adopted by the same parents, now married and settled with childrenof their own, have grown up unusually close, united by the knowledge that,

W. J. Leatherbarrow, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii

https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/download/715/1056

W. J. Leatherbarrow, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of New Brunswick: Centre for Digital Scholarship Journals