Abundance by Robert Kroetsch and John Lent
– Reviewed by Angie Abdou for The Fernie Fix’s January 2009 Issue

Abundance is a transcript of a conversation that took place between two influential men in Canadian Literature: Robert Kroetsch and John Lent.  The Mackie Lake House is located just outside of Vernon, BC, and every year it is home to one distinguished Canadian writer. In 2006, Robert Kroetsch occupied this writer-in-residence position and filled his non-writing time doing public readings, meeting with emerging writers, visiting schools, and, as Abundance attests to, chatting with John Lent.

Robert Kroetsch has been called the Father of Canadian Postmodernism and is a Governor General’s award winning poet and novelist as well as an influential literary critic. John Lent is an experimental (or, as he would have it, “explorative”) writer who has taught creative writing and literature for over twenty years at a number of institutions throughout Canada.  On paper, both of these men with their long list of accomplishments are more than a little intimidating; however, I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting them both and was surprised by how quickly they put me at ease with their down-to-earth modesty and their genuine interest in younger writers.  In the introduction to Abundance, Sean Johnston says “This conversation is guided by love—of the word, of stories, of reading, of teaching.”  That love of literature comes across in the nurturing and generous way Kroetsch and Lent approach students of creative writing, and that generosity permeates their conversation in Abundance.

Of course, Kroetsch and Lent talk about their own work—between the two of them they’ve published nearly forty books—but their conversation continually spirals outwards to consider the purpose of fiction, the place of Canadian Literature in World Literature, the role of regionalism, the divide between realist fiction and “experimental” fiction, and the future of writing in this country.  They ponder questions such as: How can realist fiction be said to mirror life when “life doesn’t give us a nice coherent narrative”?  Why is it important for new writers to understand the history of literature and their place within it?  Where will new writers find their original stories and styles?  Kroetsch leaves this question for future writers: “It’s too late for me to have to resolve the question, but a young writer has to: are there new stories?  What form will they take?”

Abundance brims with an energy that derives from the speakers’ true passion for the subject matter.  That energy is strongest in their constant challenges to standard conceptions of what fiction is and where it is going.  They especially speak out against writing as a “commodity” and “the crazy sense that there’s some kind of market out there where certain skills will be rewarded.”  They encourage new writers to place less emphasis on “the manufacturing of literature,” which will only kill what Kroetsch and Lent view as the exciting inventiveness of today’s young writers.

            Abundance has particular relevance for those of us living in, and writing from, the interior of British Columbia.  Too often “BC writer” means “Vancouver Writer” or extends as far as “Coastal Writer.”  Abundance confirms the importance of writing from our own place and giving voice to our own experience.  It battles the insecurity that comes along with not living the typical writing life in a big centre, and it stresses the importance of facing the challenge of writing from the geographical margins in order to capture that life on the page. 

            In Abundance, readers are immersed in an intimate conversation between two greats of Canadian literature—great teachers, great writers, great minds.  Reading this candid dialogue, we feel like we are hanging out with Kroetsch and Lent over a cup of coffee.   I greedily drew out my reading experience, lingering over sentences and savouring just a chapter a night, thus extending my visit with these two legendary me n, managing to make it last nearly a full week.  Their conversation left me inspired, humbled, and sometimes slightly confused – but in that good way that leads to new thoughts and opens up new ways of seeing the world and writing’s place in it.  I highly recommend the company of both Robert Kroetsch and John Lent, in any way you can get it.   With Abundance, you get them both, whenever you want them, for just ten bucks.

For more information or to order, see www.kalwriters.com/abundance

* * *