God's Plenty: A Study of Hugh Hood's Short Fiction

by W. J. Keith

Overview

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 Marcel 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781927428474
Publisher:	Biblioasis
Publication date:	07/14/2015
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

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).

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface 11

Abbreviations 16

1
Biographical 17

2
Critical Considerations 23

3
Starting from the States: 37
A Short Walk in the Rain, The Isolation Booth

4
Displaying His Wares: 51
Flying a Red Kite

5
Anatomy of a City: 77
Around the Mountain

6
Short Stories or Short-Story Collection: 107
The Fruit Man, the Meat Man & the Manager

7
The Morality of Vision: 120
Dark Glasses

8
Signs and Portents: 139
None Genuine Without This Signature

9
Every Piece Different: 160
August Nights

10
Art in Crisis: 178
Five New Facts About Giorgione

11
Miscellany of Tones: 192
You’ll Catch Your Death

12
Late Harvest: 209
After All!

Check-List of Short Fiction 231

Other Works Cited 239

Index 245