sewn paper
e-mail the Author The Black Turtleneck Conspiracy
Literary Criticism
March 2002
192 pages
ISBN 0-88984-240-X
$19.95
`Henighan repeats all the
Readers who are interested
`it's the liveliest,
`This is criticism
standard myths, and combines
bitter mockery of writers
with simple nonsense.'
- Russell Smith,
The Globe and Mail
in theoretical essays on the
subject of Canadian literature
may also be interested in
Ripostes: Reflections on
Canadian Literature (1998)
by Philip Marchand
of the Toronto Star
and also quite possibly
This Is Our Writing (2000)
by T.F. Rigelhof
of Dawson College.
most cogently argued,
most provocative and most
infuriatingly self-satisfied
work of literary criticism
to be published in this country
in at least the last decade.
- Robert Reid,
Kitchener-Waterloo Record
that is non-academic,
readable, respectful of
genuine literary accomplishment
and merciless towards pretence
and muddle.
How badly we need it.'
- Philip Marchand,
The Toronto Star
When Words
Deny the World
Stephen Henighan
Reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement
When Words Deny the World is a compelling report from the front
lines of Canadian writing.
Engagingly written but highly controversial, `Words' joyfully slaughters
the reputations of Timothy Findley, Barbara Gowdy, Anne Michaels, Carol Shields,
Michael Ondaatje, the Giller Prize, and the Globe and Mail bestseller list.
In a series of maverick essays, fiction writer
and literary journalist Stephen Henighan takes on the decade of the 1990s,
when Canadian writing became, before all else, a commercial enterprise. Where
most commentators have disregarded the impact of globalization on the way
Canadians write and publish, Henighan makes this his central concern.
``Stephen Henighan calls it as he sees it in his new book, When
Words Deny the World, a collection of essays about Canadian literature
and literary institutions. And what he sees, contrary to most
commentators, is that free trade and globalization are having a
significant influence on Canadian writing and publishing.
`We talk about the impact of free trade and globalization on every
other aspect of society,' he says, `but literature is seen as
something that just emerges from the creative ether above the heads of
writers. The Canadian publishing industry has been restructured just
as much as anything else, and that's reflected in the stories told.' '' - @ Guelph
`Henighan is at his best when taking on individual works or writers.
His analysis of such classics of ``free trade fiction'' as The English Patient,
Fugitive Pieces, and The Stone Diaries are some of the most
blistering and erudite pieces of Canadian literary criticism ever published,
displaying his knowledge of post-colonial literary theory and the dynamics of
the written word. Though unnecessarily bilious at times, Henighan
puts the average book reviewer to shame in these pieces.' - James Grainger, Quill & Quire
Examining both Canadian fiction and Canada's changing literary
institutions, Henighan explores subjects ranging from best-seller lists
to the Giller Prize, from `voice appropriation' to Toronto-centrism,
from Americanization to the literary languages of the Americas. He
examines the disintegration of the traditional Canadian linked
short-story collection and probes whether Canadian writers abroad
can be considered `post-colonial'. Analysing novels such as Michael
Ondaatje's The English Patient, Anne Michaels's Fugitive Pieces
and Carol Shields's The Stone Diaries as expressions of a free
trade culture, he reaches conclusions that are original, irreverent
and devastating.
`Hatred of Toronto, and all the people who live there, is not a rational thing;
it's just a national tradition, like sugar shacks and Carnaval; it binds the country.
And it usually is a humorous inclination: We construct a myth of a city
of callous bankers and yuppie lawyers who are terrified of a little snow
on their shoes. It's lighthearted, and it makes other cities feel not so bad
that they don't have three universities, an art college, all the media
and all the publishing industry in their downtowns.
But in the arts and publishing, the mockery takes on a much darker tone.
Toronto is not just ridiculous, it's oppressive:
It's part of a cabal of ``superficial and commercial'' publishers
and writers, and secretly collaborative media, who conspire
to ruin Canadian literature and keep all its hoarded riches to itself.' - Russell Smith, The Globe and Mail
[ Russell Smith is also the author of Noise ]
`Henighan is a writer who respects his material, and offers us close
and convincing observation.' - Books in Canada
`Most of the pieces were previously published in one form or another since
1988. However, the sum of the collection is far greater than its parts.
First, it's the first substantial book of Canadian literary criticism to
appear post North American Free Trade Agreement. Henighan is the first
Canadian literary journalist to take a penetrating look at the impact of
globalization on Canadian literature - and what he sees isn't pretty.
Second, it's the liveliest, most cogently argued, most provocative and most
infuriatingly self-satisfied work of literary criticism to be published in
this country in at least the last decade. Consequently, it's a must-read for
anyone with even the slightest interest in either the literature or the
culture of Canada - professional and general reader alike. ...
`How compelling is When Words Deny the World? I received a review copy,
consisting of loose leaf pages in a binder, and I read it like a mystery
novel. I couldn't put the damn thing down, even when my wrists got sore from
holding it.' I received a copy of the book late last week and it is a volume I will
return to often. I have already recommended it to friends.' - Robert Reid, Kitchener-Waterloo Record
`Young fogeys afflicted by mediocrity and the itch to write ... have
never hesitated to reveal their animus against high spirits,
wit, irrepressible creativity and my fame both here and abroad. I
sympathize with them, for their suffering and deeply felt
humiliation must be intolerable.... Clearly, Stephen Henighan
lacks both common sense and common decency.' - Irving Layton.
[ See `Layton and the Feminist'
for a considered explanation of this assessment. ]
`[Henighan] demonstrates an agile control over his subject
matter, moving comfortably all over the globe, inhabiting his
diverse characters with convincing psychological detail.' - The Canadian Forum
`What makes the book as a whole hard to ignore are the
evidences, provided throughout, of Henighan's powers as a
literary critic. Those powers are considerable, which is bad news
for such popular `literary' writers as Jane Urquhart, Bonnie
Burnard, Carol Shields, Timothy Findley and so on, all of whom
Henighan eviscerates. Naturally, I think Henighan is a great
critic. On the evidence of this book, he loathes the same novels
I loathe, and likes the same ones I like. (Although I think
rather more of Barbara Gowdy than he does, and rather less of
Margaret Laurence.)
`Agreement is always sweet, but trust me: Whatever opinion
Henighan advances about a book, he supports with coherent
reasoning. He recognizes Ondaatje's great literary gifts, for
example, but noses infallibly the central weakness of a novel
like The English Patient: `Ondaatje has enjoyed his
greatest success in the tossed-salad forms of Coming Through
Slaughter and Running In The Family,' he writes,
`where fractured structures enabled him to duck out of scenes
before they dragged on to pomposity and barnacled metaphors.' He
carefully analyzes the syntax and logic and diction of some prose
from The English Patient, and concludes that these
elements `betray the exertions of a writer who thinks visually
rather than viscerally or psychologically.' I wish I could have
been as precise and pertinent as that in my own criticism of the
novel.
`Our books were once condemned for being too Canadian. Being perpetually hammered
over the head by this foreign perception, we subsequently internalized "our inexorable
transferral from a postcolonial realm to a globalized sphere" and commenced writing
what Stephen Henighan, in When Words Deny the World, labels "Free Trade Fiction".
Citing the success of Michael Ondaatje, Anne Michaels, Rohinton Mistry and others,
Henighan details his "flight from history" theory in this brilliantly insurgent
book of 14 essays.'
- Kenneth J Harvey, the Globe & Mail
`Henighan's book will prove to be a good read for those with a keen interest
in Canadian studies in our region because of the above-mentioned parallels that we
can discover in it between Canadian culture and our own. In addition, we gain
more intimate knowledge of contentious issues, books and authors in contemporary
Canada than dictionary entries can ever provide. Henighan's often idiosyncratic
views, reminiscent in their style of the controversial essays of John Metcalf,
who actually prepared this book for the press, are sure to produce an inspiring
effect. We can feel literary life pulsating in Stephen Henighan's work and
we emerge from it with more information about, and definitely more concern for,
Canadian culture and literature.'
-- Maria Palla, The Central European Journal of Canadian Studies
`One does not need to agree with everything that Stephen Henighan asserts about Canadian literature
and politics in the 1990s -- and I, for one, do not -- to welcome this brilliant and decidedly prickly book
as the most admirable, informative, and above all provocative analysis of the plight of Canadian culture
since John Metcalf's Kicking Against the Pricks (1982). As an intellectual with a professional expertise
in Spanish rather than English, he is mercifully independent of the pull of ideology
that makes most of the literary criticism emanating from the academic CanLit specialists such depressing reading.
As a thoughtful and passionately committed writer of novels and short stories, he has experienced
the publishing jungle at first hand, knows what he is talking about, and -- most important of all -- has
the courage to speak out.
Henighan is a master of exposé©. He documents the financially motivated corruption behind
journalistic bestseller lists, condemns the totalitarian menace of appropriation of voice charges,
reveals the dubious pretensions of the Giller Prize, complains with justice of the political constraints
too often placed upon newspaper reviewers, and demonstrates the commercial processes
that have produced what he calls homogenized book-sellers.
Moreover, in some cruel but convincing cultural and critical analyses, he succeeds
in putting The English Patient, Fugitive Pieces, The Stone Diaries, and Away
into suitably reduced perspective. One may or may not agree, but one cannot help but applaud
the fact that a highly intelligent and perceptive observer of the trends and fashions
in contemporary writing is engaging in serious and appropriately pungent criticism.
This is an angry book by someone who has not only read everything by his contemporaries
but has absorbed it and come to shrewd judgments about its implications. Unfortunately,
as Henighan well knows, it will be ignored or shrugged off by those who are most
in need of its challenge.
Above all, congratulations to Porcupine's Quill for publishing it,
and thus making a courageous effort to keep us honest.'
-- W J Keith, Canadian Book Review Annual
Photo by Martin Schwalbe
Henighan's literary journalism has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, the Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and many other publications. He has published scholarly articles on literature in major international journals such as The Modern Language Review, Comparative Literature Studies and the Bulletin of Hispanic Studies.
Lecturer in Spanish at University College,
Oxford and Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Queen Mary and Westfield
College, University of London, Stephen Henighan has also taught English as a Second
Language in Colombia and Moldova, and Creative Writing at Concordia
University, the Maritime Writers' Workshop and the University of
Guelph. He currently teaches Spanish-American literature and culture in
the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Guelph.