The Literary Review of Canada

Magazine Issue ›› April 2006

• Contents
• Letters

In the April 2006 Issue

• Not So Fast, Reformers

  An essay

  Paul Wilson

• Lots of Sex, Please, We’re Humans

  A review of Edward Shorter’s Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire

  Jacqueline Murray

• Plus ça change

  A review of The Middle Power Project: Canada and the Founding of the United Nations, by Adam Chapnick

  David M. Malone

• Size Matters

  A review of The Dance of Molecules: How Nanotechnology Is Changing Our Lives, by Ted Sargent

  Robert J. Sawyer

• The Judges and the Media

  A review of The Last Word: Media Coverage of the Supreme Court of Canada, by Florian Sauvageau, David Schneiderman and David Taras

  Kirk Makin

• Mystery in the Tropics

  A review of Dead Man in Paradise, by J.B. MacKinnon

  Charles Wilkins

• Dazzling and Disappointing

  A review of The Walking Boy, by Lydia Kwa

  Jamie Zeppa

• Surviving the Commune

  A review of Katrina Onstad’s How Happy to Be

  Cathy Stonehouse

• The Carrot and the Stick

  A review of Responding to Youth Crime in Canada, by Anthony N. Doob and Carla Cesaroni

  Elliott Leyton

• Wood, Glass and Stone

  A review of Up North: Where Canada’s Architecture Meets the Land, by Lisa Rochon

  Joe Berridge

• An Incendiary Tale

  A review of The Hanging of Angélique: Canada, Slavery and the Burning of Montreal, by Afua Cooper

  Desmond Morton

• A Literary Horserace

  A review of Running the Rapids: A Writer’s Life, by Kildare Dobbs

  George Jonas

• The Hapless Hunt for Paradise Lost

  A review of David F. Noble’s Beyond the Promised Land: The Movement and the Myth

  Wade Rowland

• Why Are We in Afghanistan?

  A review of Friendly Fire: The Untold Story of the U.S. Bombing that Killed Four Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan, by Michael Friscolanti

  Bruce Rolston

• To Go to Huangshan (The Yellow Mountains)

  A poem

  Roo Borson

• Lupins: Canada Day 2002

  A poem

  Shelagh Hewitt Kareda

• Voyage

  A poem

  Shelagh Hewitt Kareda

• Letters & Responses

  Michael Adams, Alan Twigg, Patrick Watson, Sam DiFalco, Ian Montagnes, Lawrence Wardroper

• Cover art and pictures throughout the issue by Cinders McLeod

  Cinders McLeod studied art, performance, filmmaking and television in England. She played doublebass and sang in a band that toured Britain and Europe for five years, cartooned for British newspapers for ten and moved back to Toronto with her Glaswegian family five years ago. She has cartooned and designed for The Globe and Mail ever since.

Letters for April 2006

• Re: “Mystery in the Tropics,” Charles Wilkins

  It is rare that a writer is given an opportunity to respond to reviews, and I will try not to abuse the privilege by being thin-skinned. On the question of whether I as a writer have “the authority even to consider forgiveness” for my uncle’s long-ago assassination, for example, I will only say that in doing so I join hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who believe that, through processes of truth and reconciliation, questions of forgiveness and impunity are worth pursuing without relent.

  What I must address more strongly is the suggestion, in an otherwise thoughtful and informed review, that my final “speculative account” of Father Arthur’s murder amounts to “invention of the ‘facts’.” It is extremely important, particularly as the controversy surrounding James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces threatens to consign narrative non-fiction to a purgatory between truth and lies, to differentiate among that which is invented, that which retains an element of speculation but is supported by witnesses and documentation, and that which is provable beyond dispute. The account Mr. Wilkins refers to contains nothing invented. It would be better characterized as a summary of the facts and evidence gathered to that point, most of which can be traced to revelations earlier in the book. From the phase of the moon to the order of shots fired to the psychological reactions of the men involved, the passages described by Mr. Wilkins are the product of research, not imagination. “The ultimate acceptance of uncertainty,” about which I am in accord with the reviewer, does not preclude the making of a case that is amply supported and defensible.

  I write in my Notes & Acknowledgements for Dead Man in Paradise that “Records, interviews or personal observations support every detail presented as fact, and I have taken pains to ensure that speculation is identifiable as such.” In the case of the chapter referred to by Mr. Wilkins, I may have taken too many pains. Always wiser, I think, for a writer to question his own clarity than to cast doubt on his reader’s sensitivity.

  J.B. MacKinnon
  Vancouver, British Columbia

• Re: "Not So Fast, Reformers,” by Paul Wilson

  Paul Wilson’s essay is correct in many ways but missing some of the most potent criticisms of the pro- posal to change to a proportional representation voting system in Canada.

  A PR voting system is aimed at correcting a usual 10-15 percent error rate in election results. What proponents of PR usually fail to note is that quite often the ruling party is the second-choice party of many of the opposition parties’ support- ers, and as a result the error rate likely has little significant impact in terms of the actual decisions and actions of governments. (Wilson addresses this point more generally in his discussion of the meaning of “representativeness,” and he correctly points out that the impact on governance is not fully provable in any case.)

  Proponents of PR will contest Wilson’s citing of the claim that the coalition governments usu- ally formed by PR systems are unstable. Wilson would have been better to leave this often-used but unproven criticism of PR out of his essay, as he does list many other proven negative impacts of PR.

The LRC welcomes letters. We reserve the right to publish such letters and edit them for length, clarity and accuracy. E-mail editor[at]lrcreview[dot]com.