Book Reviews

Politics and Peace

Armin Wiebe (Author)
The Second Coming of Yeeat Shpanst. Turnstone Press
Search for this book at Amazon.ca

Farley Mowat (Author)
Aftermath: Travels in a Post-War World. Key Porter Books
Search for this book at Amazon.ca

Reviewed by Bryan N. S. Gooch

Of the many responses to Canada's post-Meech deterioration—a kind of venom-induced constitutional sickness which, unchecked, rapidly affects the national nervous system, turning the country into an irrational, bilious mess—Armin Wiebe's The Second Coming of Yeeat Shpanst is one of the most amusing. The book's primary setting is the fictional prairie town of Gutenthal, a Mennonite hamlet of essentially familiar proportion, complete with grain elevator and other amenities. An unsuccessful local politician, Yeeat Shpanst, suddenly returns to his town—shortly after a Prime Minister delivers a pathetically hopeless plea to the nation—to appear as a kind of messiah, only to vanish while leaving behind a curious black book full of visionary speeches. The national cause is taken up by Oata Siemens and other locals who seek to restore the country's sense of place and direction, the whole narrative sustained both by Oata's prolix creativity made tangible by her incessant fictional scribblings with carpenters' pencils in a virtual truckload of Farmers' Union notebooks and by periodic sightings of Shpanst in a wildly honking Lazy Leisure Camper, a source of inspiration and instruction to his group of farm-based and curiously driven disciples. What emerges is a dream-like view of the national fabric, with elements ranging from the rural field, to the local railway branch-line, to Parliament Hill; such features are the national touch-points, yet here, as in a real dream (and dreams have their own reality for the dreamer), the factual and fictional, the past and the present are stirred and blended into a mythic mix of heady proportion which, since the reader can remember and re-explore the dream in whole or in part, will serve to remind one of what has been lost in the introspective and selfish provincial dither¬ing about the collective pattern of the national quilt. (The search for unity in this country ironically goes on just when Canadian institutions and symbols are being deliberately compromised, dismantled, and expunged.) Even Sir John A. comes thundering by, riding the pilot of the "Countess of Dufferin." Haggling, ineffective politicians and bizarre policies do not fare well. The citizens can be roused—even by the wide-spread systematic air-dropping of plastic pop bottles containing visionary political messages. And the omnipresent power and economic pressure of the United States gets its share of coverage through an interior mythology. Like James Reaney's Colours in the Dark with its marvelous "play-box," Wiebe's fantasy will stir many memories and emotions in the course of its often hilarious, hazy romp: perhaps the antidote concocted from our combined memories will indeed remove the effects of the political snake-bite. The humour ranges from the subtle to the bald. The local language—"flat German"—is not a problem when it appears: Wiebe's glossaries take care of that. However, the occasional candid reporting of the physical relationships of certain principal characters may cause some readers dismay; such passages can seem both unnecessary and unamusing.

Though Farley Mowat's Aftermath takes the reader away from Canada's shores to the now peaceful sites of the battlefields of France and Italy over which Canadians fought and often died in World War Two, and to locations in England where they waited and trained for the raging conflicts, this book also brings a clear sense of the past, of Canada's place on the international stage, of the way in which, despite internal disagreements, it was possible for this country to work in a focused way to defeat utterly sinister forces both military and intellectual. Here is classic Mowat—with clear, lucid, delightful prose—offering a post-war tour (with his wife) of splendid scenes with charming, kindly people to talk to set against the shadow of carnage and loss. The emphasis, though, is on beauty, on regrowth and re-building, on humanity and the necessity of humane response. Mowat does not preach—he does not need to. The sense of revulsion at the destruction which he witnessed—some of which he recounts—during military service is clear enough. And so is the gratitude of the people whose lands Canada helped to free from Nazi dominion. Mowat's account of his travels is not pure nostalgia and is, in the end, far from sombre; the vision and tone are positive, and the vignettes are instructive and often delightful, despite some nervous moments as the reader rides with the Mowats in their little English Hillman (named "Liz") as they challenge narrow roads and mountain passes while threatened by careering Citroens and Renaults driven by maniacal locals. The characters met along the way come alive—the immediacy of the dialogue plays an obvious role here, as do the descriptive details which so clearly delineate person and place, whether master brewer in England or the environs of Positano. And Mowat's diction and con¬trol of pace are superb—there is simply not a weak moment or a loose passage in the book. There is none of the sense of a pedestrian "battlefields I have known" approach or of the basic travelogue—"places you ought to visit." This is a remarkable series of reflections, some funny and some poignant, by a distinguished writer, clear in his vision of himself and his national identity, reflections which take the reader to new/old worlds through Mowat's gaze and which reveal much about the writer himself—a kind of double experience which, ultimately, is the gift of the best of artists.

If Wiebe offers a riotous brew—a long-ish therapeutic draught in The Second Coming... —which may go some way to help us remember and reorder our national priorities, Mowat's Aftermath provides a clear, restorative cordial, a first-rate vintage of superlative and unforgettable quality.

This review originally appeared in Canadian Literature #154 (Autumn 1997), (Essays on Boas, Atwood, Lowry & Munro). (pg. 160 - 162)

***Please note that the articles and reviews from the Canadian Literature website (www.canlit.ca) may not be the final versions as they are printed in the journal, as additional editing sometimes takes place between the two versions. If you are quoting from the website, please indicate the date accessed when citing the web version of reviews and articles.