\s mYevtew ELECTRONIC ADDITION - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWClarke's inappropriate title shows theconfusion of values that mars thesestories. Women rule in none of them, butto men insecure about their manhood ina new northern setting, their womenappear to rule because they remind themen of how little control they have overtheir own lives. In each of these stories,Clarke's men feel their manhood threatenedthrough lack of ownership (ofhouses, cars, or women) and lash out atthe nearest targets — usually women —in self-destructive despair. The melodramaticendings — a murder and twofires — show how all this frustrationleads to violence, but also reinforce thereader's feeling that Clarke is not reallyin control of his material. In a defianceof logic, his narratives, as well as hischaracters, equate the authority of thegrandmother in the Caribbean home withthe authority of the law, the job and theschool in Canada. A real hatred forwomen sweeps through these pages, yetthe capitalist bureaucracy that dehumanizesall his characters would seem to bethe chief object of his criticism.Digging up the Mountains shows nosuch confusion. Whereas most of Clarke'sstories share the perspectives of the"down and outs" — the unsuccessfulgamblers and drunkards who live incheap boarding houses and collect bottlesfor cash — Bissoondath's stories maintaina middle class perspective, from whichClarke's characters are seen to be anundifferentiated, threatening mob. Asthe book's blurb promises, Bissoondath"brings vividly to life the human side ofthe stories we read every day in thenewspapers." But this is only partiallytrue, and only partially a virtue. Like hismore famous uncle, V. S. Naipaul, Bissoondathwrites of "the human side" ofthe capitalist threatened by labour unrestor an insurrection of the unemployed,small enclaves of carefully preservedsecurity invaded by the insecuritysurging up from the slums. In "The Revolutionary"this bias becomes offensive,with its Reaganite implication that anyoneseeking any kind of change must bea dangerous fool, but in the title story,and in "There are a Lot of Ways to Die,""In the Kingdom of the Golden Dust,"and "Counting the Wind," his touch isfaultless. These are brilliantly movingstories, rivalling the best of Naipaul. Andunlike Clarke's his women are sensitivelydrawn. "Dancing" and particularly "TheCage" provide memorable insight intothe ways gender further complicates livesalready torn between alternative culturaltraditions.Neil Bissoondath is an important newwriter and Digging Up the Mountainsprobably one of the most accomplishedCanadian publications of the year, yet itsexcellence remains marred for me by aquality I can hardly identify. Like Naipaul,Bissoondath writes of the ThirdWorld and particularly of his own islandTrinidad, for a foreign audience, carefullyincorporating explanations of alllocal references into his text. There isnothing wrong with this, of course. Itmay even be valuable in facilitatingcross-cultural communication. But hereit seems to go along with the author'sassumption of authority more generally.Neil Bissoondath writes with authority.His kind of writing makes it very easyfor the reader to enjoy his stories andnever to miss what has been excluded.All foreign elements — different culturesand revolutionary violence — are "explained"by being brought within theauthorial value system — a system characterized,as the blurb explains, by "aremarkably mature understanding and astout refusal to take sides."But Bissoondath does take sides. Bynarrating his stories from the perspectivesof characters who perceive revolutionaryviolence as mindless outbreaksand who see themselves as helpless vic-161