Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Summer 1999
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 19, No. 3, Summer 1999, pp. 215-216.
Abstract
Western Canadian novelist W. O. Mitchell died in March 1998, dramatically punctuating the appearance of this handsome book that sets out to determine the significance of his life's work. For fifty years W. O. "Bill" Mitchell has been a dominant icon of writing in Canada. This thick collection of literary essays, reminiscences, and anecdotes attempts to redress the relative absence of critical commentary the writer has received.
The book is uneven and often contradictory, as one might expect from an assembly of academics, relatives, former students, and theater colleagues. But as the Lathams say in their introduction, "The popularity of W. O. Mitchell as a literary figure who has bridged the divide between academic art and popular culture is a remarkable phenomenon" and needs to be assessed. As many essays reiterate, Mitchell himself was torn between the ambitious, visionary statements of the literary novel (Who Has Seen the Wind, 1947) and his more instinctive (and perhaps commercial) commitment to popular storytelling, such as the Jake and the Kid stories, first published in 1942. The intent of the book is "to provide the kind of debate that makes for the good company of a lively cultural community."
On the basis of the evidence in these twenty pieces, there is not much debate about what will last. Literary scholar .W. J. Keith evaluates Mitchell's career in the volume's best essay, "'The Litmus Years': The Early Writing of W. O. Mitchell." Like others, he is full of praise for the "prairie classic" Who Has Seen the Wind, dismissing most of the rest (eight novels, fiftyodd stories and about ten stage plays) as the "sentimental romanticism that is bedrock W. O. Mitchell." Keith is harsh but insightfuland precise in his critical observations.
In fact every essay acknowledges the supremacy of the first novel, about twelve-yearold Brian O'Connal's quest for spiritual insight in a world of benign nature and corrupt civilization, set in Mitchell's native town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Several go on to defend (or apologize for) Mitchell's later novels, which generally feature a failed writer as the central character. One exception is Terry Goldie's provocative and persuasive article, "W. O. Mitchell and the Pursuit of the Homosocial Ideal."
Comments
Copyright 1999 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln