Why is it that most of the 10 letterspublished were those of authors, or friends of authors, or reviewers, nigglingand spatting over material published in your magazine with which they were in some way connected? What are wereaders left to conclude? That in culling the letters to theeditor, you are trying to make the section imitate life in the insular, cattymilieu of book publishing? That many of your contributors can`t seemto get it right the first time, leaving Letters to collect the random bits ofcorrection, reflection, and rebuttal omitted in the original piece? Or that the letters of actual readers,who are less concerned with sniping than with good writing, must take a backseat in the one department of the magazine ostensibly devoted to them? Keith Gamberg Who`sWho? DONALD KEATING asks in his letter in your December issue"Who is George Galt? Is he a Mulroney man?" The first question is apuzzler I`m still trying to answer. About the second let me say this: Mr.Keating is upset because I didn`t like George Radwanski and Julia Luttrell`s The Will of a Nation, avacuous book that invokes an anti-Mulroney mantra as a miracle cure for all ofCanada`s present ills. Because I refuse to join in the mindless chant, Keatinghowls loud enough for both of us. To underscore his own credibility, he says hetook 42 pages of notes when reading the book. Wow! That may be more pages ofhard data than the authors had to start with. Trouble is, Keating doesn`tbother to address any of my precise objections to the book`s arguments. Instead,he is all attitude and indignation, apparently believing it`s enough to fingerme as someone who doesn`t blindly applaud all of Mulroney`s detractors. There`s a huge opportunity for a fresh,intelligent public-policy debate on the economy in this country. But simplisticTorybashing and let`s-pretend revisionism about where we came from aren`tgoing to help. No amount of romantic nostalgia about Canada`s cosy prosperity10 or 20 years ago is going to see us through the 1990s. By the way, who is Donald Keating? George Galt Toronto OffensiveWords IN YOUR October issue Brian Fawcett reviewed our publication entitled Workplace Guide: Practical Action for theEnvironment ("Conceiving NewWorlds") - While neither Harmony Foundation nor the many organizations whohave written to us with their positive comments agree with his negative review,it`s his prerogative. However, I take great exception to theuse of the expression "part safety-Nazi nonsense." Mr. Fawcett maynot like the book, but this reference is highly offensive and shows contempt for the victims ofNazism. Mr. Fawcett may think he is being clever, but in fact calls intoquestion his credibility and yours, and begs the question whether or notsupport from the Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council is appropriate. I hope you will ask Mr. Fawcett to showsome class and apologize for his offensive choice of words. Michael Bloomfield Environmental Education in Action Harmony Foundation Ottawa Brian Fawcett and BiC reply: Whatwe have here is an example of the phenomenon linguists call"melioration," which the Oxford Companion to the English Language definesas "A process of semantic change in which there is an improvement or`upward shift` in the meaning of a word." Hunter S. Thompson`s use of thephrase "spiritual Nazis" in an article in the Nov. 14 Globe and Mail (DOis another example of how the word "Nazi" has lost its specificassociation with the Third Reich`s National Socialist Party, and become a moregeneral synonym for aggressive or authoritarian behaviour. Thus the Vandals,once the scourge of the Roman Empire, have given their name to a kind ofproperty damage, and the Vikings, in earlier times much feared raiders, are nowbest known as the name of the Minnesota franchise in the National FootballLeague. As for Mr. Bloomfield`s questioning ofour Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council support, we`ll let our readersjudge whose language is the more "offensive." AS A LIBRARIAN, I take great offence to Brian Fawcett`s trashing of The State of Canada`s Environment (October).Certainly many of his points are true: it was an extravagance oftaxpayers` money, its prose is not as vivid as Mr. Fawcett`s, and thegovernment`s self-congratulatory submessage is suspect. However, the mainpurpose of the book is to provide facts, and it does this very well. The graphsinform, the layout helps elucidate, the citations are complete, and the indexworks. What more could students ask for? This book, unlike the others in thegroup review, is intended for purchase by libraries, not individuals, andprovides what students and their teachers want: facts in small gulps. No, it is"not meant to be read," it is meant to be excerpted for term papers. And now to get picky. While cynicism is aperfectly fine approach, two of Mr. Fawcett`s cynical points in the review wereoff-base. First, the book`s lack of pagination is not a government plot so muchas a convention used by many publicly and privately published reference books.It is divided into numbered chapters that are then sequentially numbered. Whatis so horrible about that? Second, the direct quote in the review comes notfrom the text of the book, but from the verso of the title page, down therewhere all the unread small print is. For a government publication, remarkablylittle of this book is bureaucratic jargon. Kathy Ruffle Prince George, B.C. TheRight Title HEATHER ROBERTSON`s temper tantrum aboutmy book in your November issue is too silly to be worth a response. One comment is unavoidable, though. Thebook`s title is not the "portentous" Tapestry of War: Politics and Passion, Canada`sComing of Age in the Great War described inher review. It is Tapestry ofWar: A Private View of Canadians in the Great War. Still,Robertson did get right - and right into her opening, piqued paragraph - thetitles of "my novel" WillieI A Romance andof "my documentary" ATerrible Beauty, the Art of Canada at War. Sandra Gwyn Toronto Editors` Note: HeatherRobertson reviewed Tapestry ofWar from an advance copysupplied by the publisher, which gave Politics and Passion, Canada`s Coming of Age in the Great War asthe book`s subtitle. Sandra Gwyn is presumably aware of whatever reasons led tothe publisher`s subsequent change of subtitle; they in any case have nothing todo with Heather Robertson`s assessment of the contents of Tapestry of War. NoCop-Out J - D. CARPENTER ("Looking forPoetry," December) may like to know that Hans Jewinski, the poet cop, haswritten for a number of years, and continues to write, a regular column for usat Toronto`s Midtown Voice. Workingout of the Regent Park police station, Jewinski advises our readers to"Think Like A Bandit," in a crime-prevention column whoseobservations are as pithy and well stated as his poems. Roger Burford Mason Toronto Morbid`sAppearance I WOULD just like to point out that, as Isaid in my last letter, the word "morbid" does indeed appear inRichard Perry`s review of seven coffee-table books in your September issue.After writing about four of the books, including Harvest, hesays, "If these books all sound too subliminally morbid, you can alwayschoose to flip through SummerCottages." So no, he did not say "Harvest is amorbid book," but he did use the word in reference to the book, and westill think the review was unfair. The book is anything but morbid, not evensubliminally. Caroline Walker Fifth House Saskatoon CanadianDefinitions PRAISE To HeatherKirk for her article on Stephen Leacock ("Heritage Under Siege,"November) and the dangers that threaten his manuscripts, his homes, and hismemory. As she truly affirms, Leacock "helped us define who we were, andtherefore are"; and if we ignore what he was and stood for, we`ll becheapening ourselves in the process. I`ve not read James Doyle`s new Leacockbiography, but Kirk reports him as describing Leacock personifying those"negative values" of British North Americans: "smugness,""hypocrisy," and the rest. Well, what of it? We`ve heard that"Britcrit" line a thousand times before, and we have our own brandsof smugness and hypocrisy in our day that can match anything Leacock had inhis! So, I hope earnestly that some of the right people readyour article. Perhaps it will help spur them to action, to properly preservefor us this "cultural Sir John A. Macdonald," as you termed him, andwhatever it was of goodand great that he stood for. We search so desperately for a definition of "Canadian,"yet we abandon our national symbols by default, one by one. As it has donebefore, Books in Canada hastaken a stand on the side of what`shealthy and hopeful and right. Paul R. Sheppard Brockville, Ont. UnfairTrashing WOULD Books in Canada invite an avowed racistto review a volume on multiculturalism or a self-declared chauvinist tocritique a history of feminism?Surely not! Then why is Jeff Walker, a rabid specialist in denial so proud of his OntarioSkeptics membership, enlisted to review Sylvia Fraser`s Book of Strange (December)? Offering Walker a book on the paranormalis like giving a tome on circumnavigation to a member of the FlatEarth Society. Of course he unfairly trashed Sylvia Fraser`s work. He did thesame to my Hungry Ghosts inthe Toronto Star acouple of yearsearlier. I declined to respond at that time, choosing to ignore hisfrothy-mouthed bias. But resistance is called for when publications continue togive this professional scoffer a podium for his mockery. I hope the day will dawn when theCanadian literary establishment shows some sensitivity towards, and somerespect for, explorations of thenon-material world. Fair criticism is fair game; blind prejudice is to beavoided. Joe Fisher Fergus, Ont. SharedHistory I FEEL OBLIGED to take exception to Arnold Ages`s review of Jews and French Quebeckers (September),by Jacques Langlais and David Rome, and particularly his view that this bookwill neutralize Mordecai Richler`s 0 Canada! 0 Quebec!. This mighthave been true if Langlaisand Rome had discussed more carefully the "two hundred years of shared (notsacred) history." Regrettably this is not the case. Jews and French Quebeckers hasnumerous mistakes and misinterpretations, and I am surprised that ProfessorAges did not cite even one. Does Ages believe that there has been any"merging" of theFrench and Jewish ethno-cultural communities as the preface to the Englishedition of thisbook suggests? Moreover, can one really claim that the hierarchy-ruled RomanCatholic parish and the voluntarily established Jewish congregation are sosimilar that the two may by compared as "parallel structures"? There are inexplicable omissions of somesignificant examples of FrenchJewishexperience: e.g., Langlais and Rome fail to relate that, in 1833, S. B. Hartwas sworn in as a justice of thepeace in Trois Rivieres by a French oath commissioner who allowed him to omitthe words "on the true faith of a Christian." Theydiscuss the case of BanjoHart, and Moses Hayes in Montreal but fail to note that English-languagecommissioners would not permit them to take the oath in the same way.Historical mistakes and errors ofomission are found in other parts of this book. There are also inaccuracies that shouldhave been caught by a good editor. For instance, the authors begin their lastchapter with a quote from this writer in a book I co-authored with the lateWilliam Kurelek. In a footnote they give the source correctly as Jewish Life in Canada (Hurtig,1976), but then they attribute the quote to a speech "at the goldenanniversary celebration of theSaint-Jean Baptiste Society, June 24, 1902." 1 am two decades short of my 90thbirthday. If anyone wantsa reasoned response to, and evaluation of, Richler`s book, I recommend a seriesof articlesby Ben Shek in the September, October, and November 1992 editions of Outlook magazine.Shek recently retired as professor of French at the Universityof Toronto. Abraham Arnold Winnipeg BeyondFair Comment I ACCEPT and respect your reviewer Donald Swainson`s thorough dislike of my book, On Stormy Seas (November),and any fair comment he and Booksin Canada can make to kill it istheir right and privilege. If thecritique goes beyond the book, however, and makes unsubstantiated, damagingstatements or insinuations about me and my publisher, then such comment is notonly unfair, but libellous. I contend that two points of Swainson`sreview go beyond fair comment: (1) Swainson says that I "makeup," "invent," and "manufacture" a private life andpersonality for George Vancouver, without any evidence, and that I do so quiteopenly. In fact, what I do is present a number of quite openspeculations, stated in the fictional voice of John Vancouver, principally ascontentions and questions, based on a great deal of evidence, both explicitand, more rarely, implicit. I have devoted more than a decade toresearching and writing about George Vancouver and his world. Dr. W Kaye Lamb,the world`s foremost Vancouver scholar and pre-eminent Canadian historian, readmy manuscript and found only minor inaccuracies in my evidence; he also namedmy book. I acknowledge his contributions in my preface. Swainson decries my lack of evidencewithout giving the reader any basis for his reasons or any notion of howwidespread and deep my "lies" go. Further, by saying that GeorgeVancouver is "eminently worth writing about" and "did amazingthings, and [his story is] rife with crisis, excitement, and passion,"Swainson implies that my baldfaced "lies" are unnecessary. (2) Swainson questions the ethics ofdoing what he says I have done, because 11 presumablyeven dead people should retain some rights." Canadian law states that"The dead have no rights and can suffer no wrongs," except if livingrelatives are harmed. George Vancouver had no recorded issue, and descendentsof John Vancouver have cooperated with me and complimented my efforts. Further,since I`ve based my open speculations on all manner of evidence, to questionthe ethics of my book - that is, to wonder about the ethics of those whoproduced it - is unwarranted and unjust. In summary, Swainson insinuates that I dosloppy, lazy research and tell lies, even when uncalled for, hence amuntrustworthy; he further implies that both my publisher and I are unethical.His review, therefore, goes well beyond my book and has the very real potentialof damaging my reputation and career. As the offended party, the onus is not onme to justify my work or to defend my methodology and morality. The onus is on BooksinCanada and Donald Swainson to substantiate their claims and to retract theirintroduction of a bogus ethics debate. Brenda Guild Gillespie Coquitlam, B.C. I WISH To comment on your review of On Stormy Seas: The Triumphsand Torments of Captain George Vancouver, by Brenda Guild Gillespie. As thepublisher of this book, I am perfectly happy to acknowledge that any reader mayobject to biography as told in a new and non-academic form. However, yourreviewer is wrong when he sweepingly asserts, of the authors of such books,"they make it up." There is absolutely nothing about Vancouver`s life"made up" by Ms Gillespie in her book. Everything she presents as fact isexactly that - objective, historical fact. I come from an academic backgroundmyself (and in fact worked with Vancouver`s journals at one time) and I wouldnot have accepted a manuscript that passed off speculation as fact. Where MsGillespie does speculate -on the silent conspiracy of lords against Vancouveron his return to London, for example - she makes it very clear that hers is apossible interpretation of certain undeniable facts. Vancouver was indeedshunned by the same aristocrats who had lionized his predecessor, Captain Cook;many of his papers have indeed mysteriously disappeared from the officialrecords. This is not "fake non-fiction."It is a true story, told in the imagined words of an historical person. JohnVancouver did exist, did help with his brother`s journals, and did write booksof his own, in the same tone as On Stormy Seas. Your reviewer may disapprove ofnontraditional approaches to biography, but it is improper of him to suggestthat Ms Gillespie, after many years of meticulous research, invented any detailabout George Vancouver`s life. Marlyn Horsdal Horsdal & SchubartPublishers Ltd. Victoria, B.C. THE TACTICS used by Donald Swainson in his review of thebiography On Stormy Seas are somewhat similar to the tactics used by the rulingclass of England to unjustly defame and discredit George Vancouver almost 200years ago. The first half of Mr. Swainson`s review, describing Vancouver`saccomplishments, is reasonably accurate; but when he turns his attention to B.Guild Gillespie`s book, he sounds like a man with a problem someone whobelieves that he, and other people of his class, are the only people authorizedto write and interpret history. Swainson implies that everything inGillespie`s book is "fake non-fiction" and suffers from a "lackof evidence," is made up and not even "potentially interesting,"when all the evidence indicates that the exact opposite is the case. Theworld`s foremost authority on George Vancouver, Dr. Kaye Lamb, the formerDominion archivist and national librarian of Canada, read this book inmanuscript form and found only insignificant inaccuracies. He also chose thetitle for the book. Nothing in this book is "invented,"other than the unique approach of having George`s older brother, JohnVancouver, narrate the story. The story itself is consistent with the sourcedocuments. Where the author speculates, this is stated, and the evidence behindthe speculation is presented candidly, for the reader to judge the facts of thematter for himself. It is true that Gillespie has written anonconventional biography and this might be why Swainson had so much troublewith it. This is an emotional book; but it is also history with passion,history that comes alive, history as it should be written: an exciting storythat is accurate, truthful to the source documents, and exceptionally welltold. A review like Mr. Swainson`s patheticeffort raises an important question of ethics. Book reviewers should make at leastsome effort to substantiate their opinions, or attempts to malign, withcredible evidence. Bill Wolferstan Victoria, B.C. I REALLY THINK your reviewer,Donald Swainson, has rather missed the point of On Stormy Seas. Although therehave been several previous biographies of Captain Vancouver, none has succeededin making him out to be anything like a human being. It is not that writershave not tried, but unless you deal with the question of his sexuality, you neverface up to reality. The last person who tried, George Bowering, made Vancouverout to be a homosexual - and earned the Governor General`s Award for doing so. Brenda Gillespie does better. Sheproduces evidence that George Vancouver possibly had a son by a Hawaiian girl,and although she admits that this is only a remote possibility, yet theevidence still exists. By writing through the eyes of hisbrother, John, Gillespie has been somewhat lavish with her praise, but Ipersonally found On Stormy Seas to be an eminently readable book. For the firsttime the bits and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle seemed to come together. Here inthis city named after him people are woefully ignorant as to who CaptainVancouver was. Spurious portraits and statues abound. A doddering old idiot wholooks nothing like him at all impersonates him each year at city functions. Gillespie`s book may not be perfect, butit is a hell of a lot better than anyone else has been able to produce. Shedeserves praise rather than condemnation. John Crosse Vancouver, B.C. Editors` Note: Books in Canada receivedmany other letters objecting to our review of On Stormy Seas - far too many, indeed, for usto be able to print all of them. We will be running further correspondence onthis matter in subsequent issues. Letters may be edited for length or to deletepotentially libellous statements. Except in extraordinary circumstances,letters of more than 500 words will not be acceptedf or publication.