Kurelek: A Biography by Patricia Morley

Abstract

consciously to have intended such analogic structures without necessarily intending any consequences, as though two types of ambiguity or of structure were somehow “better” than one. Such empty formalism is both extended and contradicted by what seems to be a subterranean desire for value judge­ ments, both by Blish and, on occasion, by Ketterer who wants to “salvage” a jungle story by suggesting it may be a parody of the genre (134) or to assert Doctor Mirabilis’s “artistic value” (192). In addition, moral judgements seem implicit in A Case of Conscience and After Judgement Day, where both vocabulary and narrative evoke questions of good and evil, yet, as Ketterer argues, the text of the latter seems to assert the relativism of morality, and the interdependency of good and evil (297, 301, 305). Thus, Tesseract will certainly be of interest to any specialist in sciencefiction because of its massive and intelligently used material. In addition, since it raises questions about authorial intention and control, about formalism and value judgements, about differance and indeterminism, intentional or otherwise, no one interested in literary theory will fail to find it both profitable and, on occasion, exacerbating in lively ways. N OTES The reviewer gratefully acknowledges the support of SSHRCC during 1987-88. 1 The entries in the “ Primary Bibliography” are arranged chronologically but identified by genre (N6 = sixth novel). While this arrangement is very useful for some purposes, it does make tracking works back to their sources difficult. In the text there are a very few typographical errors — a “ panicy French traitor,” for instance (266) — but the level of proofreading is generally excellent. 2 Ketterer’s earlier view of science-fiction as apocalyptic would allow such millenarian works as Foster’s Game Players of Zan and LeGuin’s Always Coming Home to fit the genre. See New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974. 3 Blish’s sexual analogies are similarly problematic. Some seem to undercut the narrative (69) ; others are problematical in themselves (e.g., the pilot of a missile flown into a tunnel is an eight-year-old girl [114 ; 341, n. 33]), particularly when joined with Blish’s interest in the “ paraphernalia of submission” (323, n. 36). Helen m olitor / University of Manitoba Patricia Morley, Kurelek: A Biography (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1986). 338. $34.95 In her discussion of William Kurelek’s Foreword to his “Manitoba Bog Paint­ ings” exhibition at Galerie Agnès Lefort in March 1965, biographer Patricia Morley highlights one of the frequent errors in chronology that seems to shadow Kurelek’s autobiographical writing. She observes: “ He was always a 239 storyteller, not a historian” (192-93). Ironically, Morley’s meticulously re­ searched Kurelek: A Biography reveals the extent to which she is a much better historian than she is storyteller. To clarify, what is missing from Mor­ ley’s text is the promise of its “Kurelek: The Man and the Myth” introduc­ tion : “Kurelek’s life is one of the strangest stories ever told” (1). While the reader welcomes the breadth of factual material that Morley accumulates as she traces Kurelek’s career as both artist and writer, he comes to resent the disconnectedness of the shifting portraits Morley composes. Too often, the reader’s developing sense of the conflicting impulses within Kurelek himself becomes hidebound by Morley’s seeming inability to follow through. For example, Morley brings into play psychiatric assessments of Kurelek’s emotional and psychological state during the beginning of his stay in London and readily acknowledges the extent to which those problems undermined the veracity of the artist’s observations. The liability of Kurelek’s personality was such that “ Bill could dramatize and foreshorten, by artistic licence, when it pleased him” (79). Having established this point repeatedly, Morley offers the reader choices in interpretation when none seem possible. While recount­ ing Kurelek’s sense that his canvases were poorly received by instructors at a local art school where he took evening classes shortly after his discharge from Maudsley Hospital in London, Morley observes: “The teachers must have been blind, or Bill’s need for praise bottomless, since the three large works done...