\s mYevtew ELECTRONIC ADDITION - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWpursuing his poetic calling, however, ourbull becomes a lawyer. But Mélie summonshim back to the farm and his truevocation, and he returns, every ounce abull, full of libido and poetry. In thenovelette "The Dead Cow in the Canyon,"a much less ambiguous bull falls inlove with a dead cow. Spurned by herghost, driven mad by his yearnings, hegores his present mistress Eglantine, andher baby is born. These bulls are variationson old myths, but they bear Ferron'sabsurdist signature. They look forwardto the amorous bulls of Hodginsand Kroetsch in works such as The Inventionof the World and What theCrow Said almost two decades later.Magic realism, flowering as it didamong the writers of South America inmid-century, has not been the healthiesttransplant up here, but to Ferron, thismode seemed almost second nature, andhe latched on to this vision of things wellbefore the English-Canadian writers ofthe 1970's began to benefit from thelessons of Borges, Marquez, and theircolleagues. Ferron seems to have inheritedhis brand of magic realism fromabsurdists like Ionesco.I must admit I wrestled my waythrough both collections, but again forvery different reasons. Watmough's bookwas badly edited and proofed. Duringone dialogue his narrator switches tenseat least four times. During another, oneof his characters, whom we are to takevery seriously, lapses time after time intoembarrassing stage Irish ("Oi — Oi Imusn't go too far. 'Twould be a terribleprice Oi'd be payin' if they was to foindout." ). The prose is sometimes sloppy :"The truth was it was a girl's bike and Iwonder if you can imagine how thatmade me feel as I pedalled the inertlump of rusty metal, with its chromiumparts flaking, as I pantingly strove tokeep up with Fred . . . and Sandy .. . asthey sped down . . . (italics mine)." Theprose is sometimes laboured :I nodded. But my curt acceptance concealeda quite ridiculous spurt of wellbeing.It was Jimmy's easy recognition ofmy profound unsettling wrought by thatplace and his taking over of the social helm.The way he instinctively belied his juniorityand took the weight of responsibility fromme as delicious as the time, a year or soearlier, when a waitress in a candlelit restaurantin Montana had asked me for anID before she would serve us wine.Sometimes the combination of old worldforms and new world content grinds likethe remittance man prose we used to readover here at the turn of the century:For some ten minutes we endeavoured tochat. Even taciturn Fred lifted himself sufficientlyfrom his Indian silence to profferthe odd monosyllable in answer to a question.Simon thawed out to the extent ofribbing Jimmy about his carpet-pissingpuppy while the latter, when not summoninga riposte to the taunts of his Whitefriend, busied himself in indicating to methe possible sites where violence mighterupt at any moment.These annoyances of style, which sometimessound condescending, could havebeen eliminated by a sharp-eyed andperhaps tyrannical editor, the kind mostserious prose writers need.Because Watmough does have talent.It shows most clearly in the fast-pacedadventures. "Incident in the Forest," forexample, is the story of Davey's pursuitof a rapist. Since the story is seenthrough the eyes of the older Davey recallingthe younger one (and his friendDanny), the rapist himself never quitetakes on a human dimension. He is ahideous pervert, there as a scapegoat forthe boys' own righteous, repressed sexuality.He is the bogeyman who must bestoned. Davey and Danny do not hesitateto cast the first stone: "When the heavylump of clay, thrown by Danny, hit thebastard in the back, the pleasurablespurt I felt was well-nigh sexual." The167