Identity and Community: Reflections on English, Yiddish and French Literature in Canada

Irving Massey sets out to compare three Canadian authors in terms of the concepts of identity and community. For his examination of these questions, he has chosen Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Ida Maza, and Michel Tremblay as writers whose works allow him to reflect on English, Yiddish, and French literature in Canada. Massey proposes to show that the literary works chosen are significant, representative, and "should serve as a catalyst for fresh approaches to social theory" (12), but the reader may question his choice of authors. All Canadian, the three come from different backgrounds and literary traditions. Furthermore, the three write at very different periods, from the turn of the century to the thirties to the present. So although this study aims to provide a rich set of elements for comparison, it also weakens itself by setting in motion so many variables that comparisons sometimes feel imprecise or strained.

The concepts of identity and community Massey examines are not only important, they are complex and many-sided. In his introduction the author thus explores notions of social theory, particularly postmodern social theory. He then returns to these concepts in his fifth and final chapter. In the introduction, he comments on elements such as the disintegration of centralized governments and of countries, which leads him to the view that cultural centralization is doomed (18). He also reiterates certain generalizations common to postmodern social theory. For instance, in his opinion, multiculturalism can be seen as a product of economic strategy developed by multinational corporations (20). This is debatable, and as this thread of the argument is not taken up in the chapters on specific authors, its relevance to the discussion is not entirely clear.

Massey returns to the examination of social theory in the last chapter, where he differentiates between community and polis:

The polis is, so to speak, the functional aspect of a group. The community is created by feelings of cohesiveness, which make people want to be together and make them more comfortable with each other than with other people; it works by recognition. (155-56)

Although Massey invites readers to pursue this chapter first, if they so desire, it would perhaps have been helpful if these observations had been made before the study of the individual authors, thus allowing readers a better sense of the social theory import of Massey's argument.

The first chapter of the book is concerned with identity and the experience of isolation as exemplified by the writing of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, a minor writer who specialized in the animal story. Massey analyzes Roberts' style in part because he feels it has influenced his own style of writing. He asserts that some features of style may be learned by imprinting, a statement with which those who observe children acquiring language will readily agree. However, Massey's more interesting proposition is that the study of minor literature should be approached through the identification of values not available through works that are "paramount in the canon" (29). Yet Massey does not make clear how this might be applied to the author in question. He does examine the concern with solitude but in some ways defeats his own purpose while appearing to defend himself by asserting: "Of course, by this point, Canadian literature has become so multifarious that many other patterns may be identified within it" (46).

The second chapter focuses on Ida Maza (the author's mother), the Montreal Yiddish Renaissance, and a set of values almost opposite to those analyzed in the previous chapter: the sense of community. Massey evokes his childhood, considers the problem of anecdotal history and compares anthropology to history. He cites Yiddish writers such as N. J. Gottlieb, Avraham Shlomo, Shkolnikov, and Segal, as well as artists such as Nekhemia Lerman, Beys Afroyim, and Manievitch. Perhaps the most remarkable passage of this chapter is the description of Maza herself:

My mother herself, along with the equivalent of a full-time job as social worker, placement officer, psychiatric counselor, and fund raiser, not to mention copy editor and literary agent, also contrived to read more than I did as a full-time student of literature, write literary criticism, lecture, do numerous translations, produce four books of poetry and an autobiography, send off about ten letters a day, and keep abreast of cultural developments in both the Jewish and the international domains. (62)

Massey then proceeds to analyze Maza's poems (providing the original Yiddish as well as the English translation), poems which contribute to the community: the elegies, poems for and about children, nature poetry, and the poems of maturity.

In this same chapter, Massey comments again in passing on his own writing style. He has already explained at the beginning of the book that he will be using a mixture of personal reminiscence, philosophical comment, and literary criticism. While I agree with the author that "a blending of these elements is important if we are to achieve a form of criticism that is not doctrinaire or scholastic" (12), it seems to me that the blending has not been effectively achieved in this work. In this chapter, his comment runs as follows: