Morris Wolfe, ed. Aurora: New Canadian Writing 1978

     Morris Wolfe, ed. Aurora: New Canadian Writing 1978 Short stories and poems, the latter mostly unreadable; the influence of the West Coast school destroyed a lot of writers’ ears, and most of the rest don’t seem to realise that a poem must sound good. Still, Al Purdy and Miriam Waddington are in good form. The stories for the most part are narrator-focussed tales of some sensitive soul’s scarring by the awful indifference of the Universe, or worse.
     Rudy Wiebe’s straightforward telling of the tale of Broken Arm satisfies. He has the knack of telling a story neutrally, so that protagonist’s point of view appears undistorted and clear. A great story in my opinion. Guy Vanderhaeghe’s “Man Descending” is one the few stories about a gormless twit that not only convinces but also arouses compassion. But most of the rest are at best of “academic interest”, the sort of stories that some student of Canadian literature will read dutifully in order to produce an essay. They even seem written for that purpose, with their self-conscious “social relevance”. * to **** (2003)