Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The Canadian Short Story: Status, Criticism, Historical Survey
- 1 Canadian Animal Stories: Charles G. D. Roberts, “Do Seek Their Meat from God” (1892)
- 2 Tory Humanism, Ironic Humor, and Satire: Stephen Leacock, “The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias” (1912)
- 3 The Beginnings of Canadian Modernism: Raymond Knister, “The First Day of Spring” (written 1924/25)
- 4 From Old World Aestheticist Immoralist to Prairie Moral Realist: Frederick Philip Grove, “Snow” (1926/1932)
- 5 Psychological Realism, Immigration, and City Fiction: Morley Callaghan, “Last Spring They Came Over” (1927)
- 6 Modernism, Prairie Fiction, and Gender: Sinclair Ross, “The Lamp at Noon” (1938)
- 7 “An Artful Artlessness”: Ethel Wilson, “We Have to Sit Opposite“ (1945)
- 8 Social Realism and Compassion for the Underdog: Hugh Garner, “One-Two-Three Little Indians” (1950)
- 9 The Perils of Human Relationships: Joyce Marshall, “The Old Woman” (1952)
- 10 The Social Critic at Work: Mordecai Richler, “Benny, the War in Europe, and Myerson's Daughter Bella” (1956)
- Myth and the Postmodernist Turn in Canadian Short Fiction: Sheila Watson, “Antigone” (1959)
- 12 The Modernist Aesthetic: Hugh Hood, “Flying a Red Kite” (1962)
- Doing Well in the International Thing?: Mavis Gallant, “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street” (1963)
- 14 (Un-)Doing Gender: Alice Munro, “Boys and Girls” (1964)
- 15 Collective Memory and Personal Identity in the Prairie Town of Manawaka: Margaret Laurence, “The Loons” (1966)
- 16 “Out of Place”: Clark Blaise, “A Class of New Canadians” (1970)
- 17 Realism and Parodic Postmodernism: Audrey Thomas, “Aquarius” (1971)
- 18 “The Problem Is to Make the Story”: Rudy Wiebe, “Where Is the Voice Coming from?” (1971)
- 19 The Canadian Writer as Expatriate: Norman Levine, “We All Begin in a Little Magazine” (1972)
- 20 Canadian Artist Stories: John Metcalf, “The Strange Aberration of Mr. Ken Smythe” (1973)
- 21 “A Literature of a Whole World and of a Real World”: Jane Rule, “Lilian” (1977)
- 22 Failure as Liberation: Jack Hodgins, “The Concert Stages of Europe” (1978)
- 23 Figures in a Landscape: William Dempsey Valgardson, “A Matter of Balance” (1982)
- 24 “The Translation of the World into Words” and the Female Tradition: Margaret Atwood, “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother” (1983)
- 25 “Southern Preacher”: Leon Rooke, “The Woman Who Talked to Horses” (1984)
- 26 Nativeness as Third Space: Thomas King, “Borders” (1991)
- 27 Digressing to Inner Worlds: Carol Shields, “Our Men and Women” (1999)
- 28 A Sentimental Journey: Janice Kulyk Keefer, “Dreams:Storms:Dogs” (1999)
- Further Reading on the Canadian Short Story
- Time Chart: The Short Story in the USA, Canada, and Great Britain
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
18 - “The Problem Is to Make the Story”: Rudy Wiebe, “Where Is the Voice Coming from?” (1971)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The Canadian Short Story: Status, Criticism, Historical Survey
- 1 Canadian Animal Stories: Charles G. D. Roberts, “Do Seek Their Meat from God” (1892)
- 2 Tory Humanism, Ironic Humor, and Satire: Stephen Leacock, “The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias” (1912)
- 3 The Beginnings of Canadian Modernism: Raymond Knister, “The First Day of Spring” (written 1924/25)
- 4 From Old World Aestheticist Immoralist to Prairie Moral Realist: Frederick Philip Grove, “Snow” (1926/1932)
- 5 Psychological Realism, Immigration, and City Fiction: Morley Callaghan, “Last Spring They Came Over” (1927)
- 6 Modernism, Prairie Fiction, and Gender: Sinclair Ross, “The Lamp at Noon” (1938)
- 7 “An Artful Artlessness”: Ethel Wilson, “We Have to Sit Opposite“ (1945)
- 8 Social Realism and Compassion for the Underdog: Hugh Garner, “One-Two-Three Little Indians” (1950)
- 9 The Perils of Human Relationships: Joyce Marshall, “The Old Woman” (1952)
- 10 The Social Critic at Work: Mordecai Richler, “Benny, the War in Europe, and Myerson's Daughter Bella” (1956)
- Myth and the Postmodernist Turn in Canadian Short Fiction: Sheila Watson, “Antigone” (1959)
- 12 The Modernist Aesthetic: Hugh Hood, “Flying a Red Kite” (1962)
- Doing Well in the International Thing?: Mavis Gallant, “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street” (1963)
- 14 (Un-)Doing Gender: Alice Munro, “Boys and Girls” (1964)
- 15 Collective Memory and Personal Identity in the Prairie Town of Manawaka: Margaret Laurence, “The Loons” (1966)
- 16 “Out of Place”: Clark Blaise, “A Class of New Canadians” (1970)
- 17 Realism and Parodic Postmodernism: Audrey Thomas, “Aquarius” (1971)
- 18 “The Problem Is to Make the Story”: Rudy Wiebe, “Where Is the Voice Coming from?” (1971)
- 19 The Canadian Writer as Expatriate: Norman Levine, “We All Begin in a Little Magazine” (1972)
- 20 Canadian Artist Stories: John Metcalf, “The Strange Aberration of Mr. Ken Smythe” (1973)
- 21 “A Literature of a Whole World and of a Real World”: Jane Rule, “Lilian” (1977)
- 22 Failure as Liberation: Jack Hodgins, “The Concert Stages of Europe” (1978)
- 23 Figures in a Landscape: William Dempsey Valgardson, “A Matter of Balance” (1982)
- 24 “The Translation of the World into Words” and the Female Tradition: Margaret Atwood, “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother” (1983)
- 25 “Southern Preacher”: Leon Rooke, “The Woman Who Talked to Horses” (1984)
- 26 Nativeness as Third Space: Thomas King, “Borders” (1991)
- 27 Digressing to Inner Worlds: Carol Shields, “Our Men and Women” (1999)
- 28 A Sentimental Journey: Janice Kulyk Keefer, “Dreams:Storms:Dogs” (1999)
- Further Reading on the Canadian Short Story
- Time Chart: The Short Story in the USA, Canada, and Great Britain
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
Rudy Wiebe's national and international reputation is largely based on his novels, but short stories have formed a substantial part of his literary production from the very beginning. Although he often used them as an experimental ground for his longer narratives — those “great black steel lines of fiction” required “to touch this land with words” (Wiebe 1995, 4) — he also “touched” his country's history and physical enormity in the shorter genre. As the Canadian short story boomed in the 1960s and afterwards, Wiebe came to represent a distinctly regional voice (that of Alberta and its northern frontier) within a national literary tradition that has characteristically defined itself in regional terms. Wiebe's stories — like those of Frederick Philip Grove, one of his acknowledged influences — deal with the immensity of the western prairies, but also with the sublime vastness of the Arctic North, whose forbidding grandeur of ice, snow, and solitude has been a constant object of fascination for Wiebe.
Born to Mennonite immigrants in Northern Saskatchewan in 1934, Wiebe's mother tongue was Low German, and a religiously anchored social consciousness became a crucial part of his cultural heritage. The family had left the Soviet Union in the early 1930s in order to find a safer home in Canada. In his early novels Peace Shall Destroy Many (1962), First and Vital Candle (1966), and The Blue Mountains of China (1970) as well as in his first short stories, Wiebe dealt critically with the life of his brethren in faith and with their diasporic communities in Canada and South America.
His early story “Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” first published in 1971, may usefully be considered alongside his two novels,The Temptations of Big Bear (1974) and The Scorched-Wood People (1978), that went beyond the experiential horizon of the author's Mennonite upbringing and, during the 1970s, brought him the reputation of a regional writer of national importance. In these novels as well as in the story, he deals with the life and beliefs of other marginalized groups — the repressed or forgotten history and culture of the Prairie Cree and the Métis — whose mythological bond to nature and to the land as “a gift from God” may have seemed familiar to him from the cultural tradition of his own religious community (Wiebe in Keith 1981, 207).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Canadian Short StoryInterpretations, pp. 261 - 270Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007