THE MAIN COMPLAINT among academics and book reviewers about this engrossing collaboration between Christina McCall and her husband, Stephen Clarkson, is that it is too, well, nonjudgemental. In the view of the critics - and the debate between the authors and the columnist Jeffrey Simpson spread to the editorial pages of the Globe and Mad Clarkson and McCall are not tough enough. They are too quick to defend their subject, too slow to condemn him. This reaction was not unexpected. The intellectual establishment, -after all, was the first constituency to fall head over heels for Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1967-68. Foolishly, they saw him as one of their own, a philosopher-politician - an egghead who not only could quote, but who had actually read, Plato and Mill (and Burke, Marx, and Keynes, not to mention his favourite, de Tocqueville) and a practitioner who believed in the shimmering ideal of a just Society. It was love at first shrug. Trudeaumania wasn`t confined to the young; he dazzled their professors, too. The disillusioning of the Magi is an interesting subtext of contemporary Canadian politics. In their eyes, Trudeau changed from being, as the wags put it, a philosopher king into Mackenzie King. In fact, of course, Trudeau himself hadn`t changed. He was the same arrogant, brilliant, aloof, articulate, insecure, contemptuous - and often disagreeable - human being that he had always been. All that had changed was that the intelligentsia discovered (to their horror) that the country had fallen into the hands of an uncommon politician who was brighter, shrewder, and knew more about many things than they did. What made it all so unforgivable was that Trudeau was perfectly aware of his superiority and didn`t care who knew that he knew. In Trudeau and Our Times Volume 1: The Magnificent Obsession, Clarkson and McCall are dealing with the most fascinating public figure of the generation, perhaps of all Canadian history. If he seems at times to slip away from them, that`s not necessarily a disgrace. He`s slipped away from all of us, especially journalists, many, many times. Trudeau and Our Times is a very good book. It falls short of being die definitive book on Trudeau only because it is too early to be definitive. For example, more than half of Volume I is given over to the patriation of the Constitution (Trudeau`s "magnificent obsession," as the authors would have it). But we don`t know yet whether it was magnificent or simply an obsession. Patriation begat (because it excluded Quebec) Meech Lake. Meech failed and, because it failed, Brian Mulroney takes the blame. But some of the responsibility must rest with Trudeau for giving the nation a constitution minus Quebec. We don`t know what is going to happen now. We don`t know whether Trudeau`s crowning accomplishment of the early 1980s will endure, or whether it will dissolve in the post-Meech manoeuvring of the early 1990s. There is little that Clarkson and McCall can reveal about the constitutional negotiations of 1981-82 that hasn`t been reported in loving detail elsewhere. Only Canadians, perhaps, could lavish such intimate attention on so dreary a process. To my mind, the major interest of Tn&au and Our Times lies in the examination of his early years, which have been poorly explored to date. The way he was raised and the way he was taught to think had a profound influence on the way he governed. Trudeau`s closeness to his quiet Scottish French mother, Grace Elliott, has been documented many times. Clarkson and McCall, however, bring out the extent to which the young Trudeau was influenced, even intimidated, by his gregarious, party-loving father, Charlie Trudeau, an entrepreneur and sportsman who died when Trudeau was young. When Trudeau finally married in 1971 (he was 51 by then), he chose a woman, Margaret Sinclair, who may superficially have seemed to be a reflection of his beloved mother, but who actually embodied more of the qualities of his loud and difficult father: "Far from marrying a reincarnation of his mother, Trudeau had taken as his bride a woman whose extroverted temperament was more like Charlie Trudeau`s," the authors report. I suspect they are right. As one who covered Ottawa in the Trudeau years (and had the occasional run-in with Margaret Trudeau), I believe they are also right in their assessment of the debilitating effect that the disintegration of his marriage had on Trudeau`s performance as prime minister and Liberal Party leader. Clarkson and McCall catch Trudeau, the cuckolded husband, perfectly when they describe how he would retreat into himself, detaching himself from day-to-day events and problems, "re-engaging abruptly when issues could not be ignored" Clarkson and McCall may not be as hard on Trudeau as others would wish them to be. The strength of Trudeau and Our Times lies in its analysis and explanation of the forces that shaped this remarkable Canadian. Given a choice between toughness and explanation, most days I`ll take explanation, particularly when it comes with the sort of understanding that these authors impart. If Volume 2 - due in late 1991 - sheds as much light, no one will have cause for complaint.