From Cohen to Carson: The Poet’s Novel in Canada (review)

The study ends with a discussion of Ondaatje's The English Patient and Anne Michaels's Fugitive Pieces, both of which Rae uses as bulwarks against the attacks on the poet's novel by several critics. Given that one of the undercurrent arguments throughout the study is that the Canadian poet's novel develops as a "response to the complexity of living in a society where cultural frames of reference conflict, inspire, frustrate, and seduce," the equation of Canada with predominantly white anglophones is a frame that Rae should have at least explained and probably should have questioned (296). Rae's study thus does very important work by focusing on the narratological strategies that underpin these poet's novels. [...]the running argument that the poet-novelists in the study subtly but consistently make reference to and build upon each others' works convincingly makes a point for viewing the poet's novel in Canada as forming an important countertradition to the more accepted canon of Canadian realist fiction.