\s mYevtew ELECTRONIC ADDITION - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWA second aspect of McFadden's collectionwhich concerns me is the lack ofintegration of his "art of darkness" withthe shorter lyrics which display the macabrehumour and wit familiar to readersof his earlier work. In "How I'd Liketo Die," McFadden gives us an outrageousand blackly comic list of possiblemeans of death which recalls the earlyOndaatje: "I'd like to be swallowedalive by a giant anaconda." The last line,however, completely and awkwardlyshatters the tone of the poem: "I wouldnot like to die in a nuclear holocaust."Bombing the reader seems a relativelyineffectual way of promoting disarmament.In the final analysis, neither McFaddennor Souster creates in his poetry theimpact that a reading of Carolyn Forché'saccount of her experiences in ElSalvador (in Jones' anthology) does, orthat Timothy Findley's tale of globaldestruction, Not Wanted on the Voyage,does. But lest we despairingly assume thatthe current global madness may only becaptured in expository prose or fiction, Ioffer the following lines from RobertLowell's "Fall 1961" as a moving argumentto the contrary :All autumn, the chafe and jarof nuclear war;/we have talked our extinction to death.I swim like a minnowbehind my studio window . . .Our end drifts nearer . . .DISPLACEMENTLORRAINE M. YORKRICHARD APPiGNANESi, Italia Perversa: PartOne: Stalin's Orphans. Montreal BookCentre, $19.95.THIS AMBITIOUS AND dense novel opensin Montreal at the funeral of the oddestCanadian "franco-anglified" immigrantto appear in our literature to date:Pierre Orson a.k.a. Piero Orsini a.k.a.Piero Ossaf raghi — child musical prodigyand Stalinist Quebec revolutionary, witha vision of international terrorism called"Destroying America." Everyone in thisnovel partakes of the immigrant's linguisticand referential displacement, foreveryone has many names: Piero's wife,Madeleine (a.k.a. Madlena) Castigny deNichel, is nicknamed by her father MamselleDirty — a name that sticks ! Thenovel's theme of the immigrant as orphanbegins to take on a firmly Oedipal structureas Piero is portrayed as the one whohad to find —• and destroy — his roots,be they ideological (his Swiss tutor) orfamilial.In the second section, "Vienna," weactually meet Piero, alive but ailing, inthe city of Freud. Not surprisingly, theformer prodigy and Stalinist terrorist isnow revealed as a psychiatric researcherand neuro-physiologist on some sort ofmysterious quest. He even turns out to bedirectly related to the subject of one ofthe cases in Freud's Psycho pathology ofEveryday Life. Aside from this, the novelstresses that neither Piero nor Madlenahas any idea why they are in Vienna.The implied search for the roots of hispaternal past, clearly linked to Oedipalguilt, will probably lead Piero to Zagrebin the promised sequel to this novel. Butin this one, his involvement with a bizarrecabal offers but few hints as to themeaning and function of its mysticism,politics, dramatic productions, and possiblesexual victimization. One suspectsthat some point is being made about thebody/spirit relationship and about therelation of the past to the present, butthis is only a suspicion.The problem is that there is too muchmystery for this reader. Piero the prodigymanages to be unconvincing in his boredbut relentless searching; the mysteries arewithout purpose (so far) ; entire episodes159