As a constant reader I find myself drawn to texts which muse on poetry and language — the writerly arts, call them. All in an effort to try and understand why certain works appeal; why one poem or novel “works” and another doesn’t; what makes one writer’s style seem “poetic” or “lyrical”… That kind of thing.

These interests are among the reasons I picked up Don McKay’s Vis à Vis: Fieldnotes on Poetry and Wilderness at Duthie Books’ recent 20% off sale. (Another reason is that this is a beautifully made book: eye-catching and tactile, dressed in a matte-blue dustjacket with cutouts, folded around — it’s called “french binding” — a perfect-bound white stiff-paper cover decorated with a woodcut of a raven…)

It’s a wonderful book in many ways; in most ways: Don McKay has thought deeply on language matters, and has made much sense from his musings. He ponders about such imponderables as “wilderness” and “home”; he considers the subtle differences between naming and envisaging (hence “vis à vis”). Ontology and metaphysics; metaphors and “the rememberance of translation”. He cites writers that I admire (including a lovely consideration of “home” from a particular favorite: John Berger’s And our faces, my heart, brief as photos — and is that not a terrific book title?)

Yet while reading Vis à Vis, hoping (as always with a new book) to be dazzled, intrigued, stirred up, enlightened in some way, I found myself not quite getting there. Why, I wondered, wasn’t I able to make that willing leap into outright enthusiasm? And I think I eventually determined why; at least in part…

In works of this sort — and just what is “this sort” you ask? Small essays on poetry and the various aspects of language; personal, somewhat theoretical, philosophical in tone: a thoughtful writer musing on his craft and trying to shape a personal philosophy about it all (craft and work) — in writings of this sort I want boldness, a sense of certainty. I want sweeping statements, postulations that are willing to go a bit beyond what is safe and provable. I want speculation, I want daring, I want a bit of razzle dazzle.

Instead I found that I was finding tentativity. The word “perhaps” began to stand out from among its sentence-siblings. There were patches of prevarication: “may be”, “I suspect”, and “somewhat”. “But”s were followed by further “but”s. And I started to wonder what a French writer — horror! — might have done with this material (leaving aside the issue, however relevant it might be, of translation).

A French writer would have been more cocky, I decided: he would know that he was right, and he would say so. A kind of national arrogance is found among the French: they were all brought up believing that French culture is a class unto itself. Raised on Voltaire, Valery, Mallarmé, Baudelaire, Proust, Rousseau, Sarte, etc. etc… Raised in the birthplace of Impressionism, Existentialism, Post-modernism, Post-structuralism… Eventually — inevitably — developing an unshakeable conviction that the French are (in short) head and shoulders above the rest of us.

In contrast we Canadians have a tendency to tentativity in our pronouncements. We are raised to value diffidence and self-effacement; we honour modesty. We go for bronze. When a Canadian (as with Don McKay in Vis à Vis) presents us with the fruits of his thoughtful labour, you can bank on there never being a new “ism” post-fixed to it.

That’s my theory, at any rate, and I’m (tentatively) sticking to it.