Writing the roaming subject : the biotext in Canadian literature / Joanne Saul.

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Writing the Roaming Subject explores issues of identity formation, representation, and resistance in Canada and suggests that these are particularly crucial questions during a period of Canadian literary history.

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CHOICE Review

Derived from Saul's thesis, this book investigates "biotext," a hot term for biographies containing national identity. In looking at Michael Ondaatje, Fred Wah, Daphne Marlatt, and Roy Kiyooka, Saul (Univ. of Toronto) uses as guides Shirley Neuman, Smaro Kamboureli, and other usual suspects from the Canadian academic lit-crit avant-garde. Saul's prose features the requisite neologisms, quirky metaphors, specialized definitions, and in-group puns associated with lectures on texts delivered in ivy-covered halls. She has a way of smoothing out the French-derived perspectives and terminology, and she is a deft student of Canadian political-intellectual history. Robert Kroetsch and Aretha van Herk have done similar work, not only as novelists--e.g., The Studhorse Man (1969) and The Tent Peg (1981), respectively--but also as critics. Canada was once a leader in comparative literature, and scholars like Ted Blodgett, Milan Dimic, and Uri Margolin offer a wider perspective than does Saul: Canada is not unique, and the Old World has much to offer. So does the US, barely mentioned by Saul, though its influence on Canadian life extends to every book, author, and problem Saul discusses. ^BSumming Up: Optional. Large collections supporting study of Canadian literature at the upper-division undergraduate level and above. R. H. Solomon formerly, University of Alberta