David Stouck’s Ethel Wilson: A Critical Biography
UTP, 2003
Here is what David Stouck wrote about Mary McAlpine’s book about Ethel Wilson’s life:
“When I read the book I was aware of egregious errors and great gaps in the life. In the opinion of many reviewers, the book was poorly written, and I was disappointed that Ethel Wilson had been served in this way. It was clear that a full-scale biography, to at least set the record straight, was yet to be written.”
Egregious errors? Great gaps? Poorly written? Sounds harsh, doesn’t it.
And in my response to The Other Side of Silence earlier this year, I mentioned that the glimpse of Stouck’s criticisms that I’d caught had made me sympathetic to Mary McAlpine’s less scholarly approach>
But I, too, after having read The Other Side of Silence, felt it was lacking. I definitely wanted more, more of an understanding of Ethel Wilson’s life and work.
It turns out that what I wanted was Stouck’s biography. I can’t judge whether his work has set the record straight or addressed errors but Ethel Wilson: A Critical Biography offers substantive information about the author’s life and writing without sacrificing readability.
It’s not of the Charlotte Gray school (I love her works, the first that I read being Sisters of the Wilderness, which was one of the first non-fiction reads I’d found that gripped me like a good novel): Stouck’s biography is not about narrative style. But it is about Ethel Wilson, start-to-stop, and incorporates anecdotal stories (but unlike Mary McAlpine’s stories, they’re annotated) alongside the nuts-and-bolts you look for in a literary biography.
The anecdotal bits are my favourite parts (well, it’s close: those bits or the focus on her writing, entire chapters devoted to specific works). I love hearing about the intersections with the wider cultural milieu, lke Ethel Wilson’s brush with Arnold Bennett in the neighbourhood in which he set The Old Wives’ Tale, or her debating over taking painting classes with Emily Carr (before she was The Emily Carr).
And I adored the snippets of the relationship between Ethel Wilson and Margaret Laurence, with excerpts from letters on both sides, which clearly revealed the respect that the older writer had for the younger’s talent, and the appreciation that the younger had for the older’s support and encouragement.
But David Stouck’s work is not a collection of haphazard retellings — there are 40 pages of notes following the text and the bibliography and index comprise the following 24 pages — but nor is it a dry, academic work.
If you have read and enjoyed Ethel Wilson’s novels and stories, or if you have an interest in the history of writing in Canada (including the years in which it was hotly debated whether a distinct Canadian flavour characterized the fiction here, the whole question of a nationalist literature), or if you simply enjoy literary biographies, I’m certain you’d find this both an interesting read and a valuable resource.
Have you read a good biography lately?
Thanks for the comments on literary biographies!
Nymeth, I don’t know why I haven’t read more of them either. Even when it’s a writer in whose work I consider myself only remotely interested, I’ve found them quite interesting.
Nathalie, I haven’t read any of Ellman’s biographies but I likely should. I loved the Carol Shields biography of Jane Austen; I appreciated the Jane Urquhart biography of LMM but perhaps because I have a wider familiarity with LMM’s writing, I just wanted a little “more” somehow.
Melwyk, I’m sure you would appreciate this one for many of the same reasons that I did.
I don’t read a huge number of literary biographies, but you know I’m going to have to get this one. I have Claire Tomalin’s Thomas Hardy awaiting me, hope I get to it sometime soon!
Nathalie – for bios of LMM I prefer Mary Rubio’s “The Gift of Wings” although Urquhart’s is a nice brief one.
This sounds wonderful. I teach _Swamp Angel_ and I am often looking for a new angle to the book. One of my favourite biographers is Richard Ellman. I am also really enjoying the Penguin Lives series. Carol Shields on Jane Austen was a lovely read. Apparently, the Jane Urquhart biography of L. M. Montgomery is wonderful too.
I’m more or less new to biography, but I’ve just finished Dorothy Sayers’ and loved it. I don’t know why I didn’t think to read biographies of authors I enjoy before. Especially when they lived in interesting time periods. I think literary biographies and I could become good friends.