W. J. Keith 
God’s Plenty 
A Study of Hugh Hood’s Short Fiction

A companion volume to Canadian Odyssey: A Reading of Hugh Hood’s The New Age, God’s Plenty surveys the short fiction of the writer dubbed Canada’s Proust. Hugh Hood, an unparalleled stylist, was equally accomplished in short forms and long: this straight-talking assessment of Hood’s stories is thorough, insightful, readable, and profound. With its story-by-story breakdown and rigorous engagement with Hood’s technique, God’s Plenty offers an excellent introduction not just to an undersung master, but to the art of short fiction full stop.W.J. Keith is a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.

Table des matières

Contents Preface 11Abbreviations 161Biographical 172Critical Considerations 233Starting from the States: 37A Short Walk in the Rain, The Isolation Booth4Displaying His Wares: 51Flying a Red Kite5Anatomy of a City: 77Around the Mountain6Short Stories or Short-Story Collection: 107The Fruit Man, the Meat Man & the Manager7The Morality of Vision: 120Dark Glasses8Signs and Portents: 139None Genuine Without This Signature9Every Piece Different: 160August Nights10Art in Crisis: 178Five New Facts About Giorgione11Miscellany of Tones: 192You’ll Catch Your Death12Late Harvest: 209After All!Check-List of Short Fiction 231Other Works Cited 239Index 245

A propos de l’auteur

W. J. Keith (William John Keith) was born in 1934 in England. After school he was called up for two years National Service (1953-5), where he taught as a Sergeant-Instructor in the Royal Army Education Corps both in Sussex and with the British Army of the Rhine. From 1955-1961 he obtained degrees in English from Cambridge and the University of Toronto, where he then taught for nearly a quarter-century. Now a Professor Emeritus, Keith was editor of the University of Toronto Quarterly from 1976 to 1985, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1979. He is the author of A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada, Epic Fiction: The Art of Rudy Wiebe (1981), Canadian Literature in English (1985), and Introducing Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman (1989).