The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

This is the China experience of the newcomer
to China, stumbling blindly through
the culture while being treated like a
"celebrity ... from a land that is magic,... so
free, where people can do what they want."
In some sections, however, the events
lack credibility. When Li Ming enters
Rudy's room to make love with him, it
seems as if they exist on an island when, in
fact, they might more typically have to
worry about the ubiquitous building doorman
downstairs and the intimidating signin
book which local visitors to foreigners'
living quarters so often fear.
Rudy is a very naive lad indeed and Li
Ming a little too lacking in caution for a
young college faculty member and applicant
to international conferences and
North American graduate schools.
However, the hyperbolic nature of their
characters and their actions enhances the
story as does the earthy realism of Lou
whose fiat refusal to establish a relationship
with Rudy captures his essence in a nugget
of truth: "You see, I can't compete with
some mythical Chinese goddess that you're
never going to see again."
As Cumyn suggests, foreign interference
in a society whose politics and culture are
so alien can unwittingly harm innocent
people who may not themselves be aware of
the repercussions of their own actions until
it is too late. In Li Ming's words," Nothing
will happen to you. ... It is my life that is
running away!" The real goddess is China
itself and the yearning of foreigners for all
that they may want to make it be.
Cumyn deserves commendation for
painting a vivid and poetic prose picture of
the dizzying effect an encounter with China
can have on the foreign psyche. The task
now is for a foreigner to penetrate the cultural
bubble more deeply and write a story
depicting the Chinese inside their own
country from a truly multi-dimensional
perspective.
Studies of the Majors
Judith Halden-Sullivan
The Topology of Being: The Poetics of Charles
Olson. Peter Lang n.p.
Irene Niechoda
A Sourcery for Books I and 2 ofbpNichol's The
Martyrology. ECW $25.00
Reviewed by Douglas Barbour
Among the many things these two books
do, they demonstrate how far along Olson
studies have moved in the past couple of
decades and how far Nichol studies have to
go; but each, in its own way, testifies to the
importance of the 'marginal' writer whose
work it explores. Although he is still not
really accepted among the Ivy League critics
like Helen Vendler (which only goes to
show how out of touch with modern
American poetic experimentation such
critics are), Charles Olson is well recognized
as the major innovator he was by
many of the most interesting poets and
critics writing today, as a glimpse at the
Bibliography of Judith Halden-Sullivan's
intriguing short study of his poetics shows.
bpNichol will eventually be recognized as a
similarly engendering figure in Canadian
and contemporary writing, but as yet there
are only two studies of his work, plus a
couple of special issues of journals (Open
Letter and Line). George Butterick edited
both The Collected Poems of Charles Olson
and The Maximus Poems (both with
University of California Press) as well as
publishing his massive and necessary A
Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles
Olson, and most of the rest of Olson's vast
writings are available to the interested
reader. In contrast, Nichol's equally vast
oeuvre is scattered widely in small press
publications, and even The Martyrology has
been mostly out of print for some time
(although Coach House Press is reprinting
it over the next few years). Halden-
Sullivan's essay on Olson's poetics is the