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115 pages

English

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What can we learn about authorship through a reading of a writer’s archive?

Collections of authors’ manuscripts and correspondence have traditionally been used in ways that further illuminate the published text. JoAnn McCaig sets out to show how archival materials can also provide fascinating insights into the business of culture, reveal the individuals, institutions, and ideologies that shape the author and her work, and describe the negotiations that occur between an author and the cultural marketplace. Using a feminist cultural studies approach, JoAnn McCaig “reads in” to the archives of acclaimed Canadian short story writer Alice Munro in order to explore precisely how the terms “Canadian,” “woman,” “short story,” and “writer” are constructed in her writing career. Munro’s correspondence with mentor Robert Weaver, agent Virginia Barber, publishers Doug Gibson and Ann Close, and writer John Metcalf tell a fascinating story of how one very determined and gifted writer made her way through the pitfalls of the culture business to achieve the enviable authority she now claims.

McCaig’s discussion of her own difficulties with obtaining copyright permission for the book raises important questions about freedom of scholarly inquiry and about the unforeseen difficulties and limitations of archival research. Despite these difficulties, McCaig’s reading of the Munro archives succeeds in examining the business of culture, the construction of the aesthetic, and the impact of gender, genre, nationality, and class on authorship. While on one level telling the story of one author’s career — the progress of Alice Munro, so to speak — the book also illustrates how cultural studies analysis suggests ways of opening up the rich but underutilized literary resource of authorial archives to all researchers.

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Literary criticism

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Publié par	Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Date de parution	21 octobre 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781554587438
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0087€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Reading In Alice Munro s Archives
Reading In Alice Munro s Archives
JoAnn McCaig
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
McCaig, JoAnn, 1953- Reading in: Alice Munro s archives
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88920-336-9
1. Munro, Alice, 1931-. 2. Munro, Alice, 1931- -Archives. I. Title.
PS8576.U57Z76 2002 C813 .54 C99-932372-5
PR9199.3.M8Z73 2002
2002 JoAnn McCaig
Cover art: Between the Lines (Party Series), mixed media on paper by Gloria Kagawa, reproduced courtesy of the artist. (View this and other works at http://www.gloriakagawa.com .)
Cover design by Leslie Macredie

All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means-graphic, electronic, or mechanical-without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S6.
Dedicated with affection and gratitude to Helen Buss and to the Wednesday Circle: Audrey Andrews Donna Coates Roberta Jackson Elaine Park
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter I
Introduction
Wrestling with a Fine Woman
Chapter II
Canadian
Creating the Creator
Chapter III
Woman
Useful Recognitions and Misrecognitions
Chapter IV
Short Story
Remaking Genre
Chapter V
Writer
Implications of Authority
Chapter VI
Conclusion
What Is a Canadian Woman Short Story Author?
Appendixes
Appendix 1
An Overview of Fair Use
Appendix 2
Short Story Anthologies Edited by Robert Weaver or John Metcalf
Notes
Works Cited
Index
PREFACE
This is not the book I wanted to publish. This is not the book I originally wrote. The work before you is a drastically edited version of a manuscript (based on my doctoral research) which I submitted to Wilfrid Laurier University Press in the autumn of 1997. These changes became necessary when Alice Munro, along with her literary agent, Virginia Barber, and her editor at Knopf, Ann Close, declined to give me permission to quote from their correspondence, which is collected at the University of Calgary.
In the fall of 1997, Barber and Munro reluctantly granted me permission, through an intermediary, to quote their correspondence for an article in Essays on Canadian Writing. Ann Close queried a few items, but willingly gave her permission for the article, titled Alice Munro s Agency: The Virginia Barber Correspondence. However, I ran into difficulty when I approached these three women directly in the spring of 1999 for permission to quote their letters in this book. In the cases of Close and Barber, there has been no direct refusal-simply no response. And initially, Munro only refused me permission to quote from her letters to John Metcalf, which are collected in his archive. At the time I thought, well, fair enough. These are personal letters sent to a friend and deposited, without Munro s knowledge, in her friend s archive, which was then sold to a repository. Munro never intended these letters to become public. The Salinger case, detailed in appendix 1, provides a guidepost in this situation.
However, when John Metcalf quoted liberally from my ECW article in a National Post essay in June of 2000 ( Canada s Successful Writers Must Rely on Blessings from U.S. First 17 June 2000: E4-5), his ideas (and mine) generated a strong reaction, including defensive responses from Robert Weaver s son David, as well as writer Timothy Findley, editor Ellen Seligman, publisher Douglas Gibson, and Alice Munro herself, who wrote a letter to the Post speaking generously of Weaver and Metcalf, but describing my article (the one extensively quoted by Metcalf) as riddled with bizarre assumptions and...written with blatant disregard for fact (Letters to the Editor, National Post 29 June 2000). Shortly after this series of letters and articles in the Post- including my own response on 1 July, titled Obscure Canadian Essayist Responds -I received a letter from a lawyer writing on Munro s behalf, warning me that I did not have permission to quote from Munro s unpublished letters or her archive at all, either directly or in paraphrase form. Since the book is a study of Munro s literary archive, this presented me with a significant problem.
In order to obtain access to the Munro collection, I had indeed signed forms in which I agreed not to publish material from the archive without the consent of the copyright owner, namely the author. But my thinking was, first, that the short excerpts I intended to quote fell under the rubric of fair dealing or fair use. Second, I reasoned that if permission were required for longer excerpts, it would be granted. Munro and Barber had, after all, given permission to quote for the ECW article, stating in a letter to Robert Thacker, the editor of the issue, that though they grant permission, In doing so, we neither endorse nor dispute the opinions or analysis of Ms. McCaig (see note 10 , chapter 1 ). I therefore had reason to expect that a similar allowance would be made when I published my research in a book. Third, I believed (as did my publishers and academic advisors) that the availability of these documents to researchers implied that scholarly inquiry and publication were not only anticipated but welcomed.
A lengthy and rather confusing flurry of phone calls, faxes, and letters ensued, culminating in a comical interlude in which a scruffy academic like me finds herself in a lawyer s conference room in a splendiferous downtown office tower-the scruffy academic is dazzled by walls bedecked with the most glamorous contemporary Canadian art, and nearly blinded by the sheen of glass block, brass, and mahogany-while consulting with lawyers whose suits doubtless cost more than her monthly take as a postdoctoral research fellow.
The upshot was that, in the absence of permission to quote, I was forced to remove many pages of detailed discussion on the literary correspondence of Barber, Close, and Munro. In order to stay within the bounds of copyright law, large sections of my research are now given in summary form.
As I prepared this summary version for publication, a friend brought me galley proofs of a new book on Munro, Lives of Mothers and Daughters, written by the author s eldest child, Sheila Munro. Reading the reviews of this book has been intriguing for me. While opinions have ranged from positive to merely polite to derogatory, what nearly every review of Sheila Munro s memoir has in common is its listing of the things the critic has learned about Munro as a person. Charles Mandel at the Calgary Herald mentions the revelations that Munro loathed Vancouver, had frequent panic attacks and had to see every movie Elizabeth Taylor was in (7 April 2001: E7). Quill and Quire notes the following interesting trivia: Alice s varicose veins and her few literary friendships (April 2001: 26). In the Globe and Mail, Catherine Bush says that some of the book s most revealing moments come not from its relatively uncomplicated emotional analysis but from small details: Alice, digging in the garden with a silver spoon, careless of decor and household furnishings, which mattered so much to Jim [Alice s husband] and Sheila; Alice, notable for her lack of physical dexterity, lifting her sunglasses from her eyes before crossing the street, as if she did not quite trust herself in the physical world (21 April 2001: D6). Bush also sensibly notes that if...[the book] reads a little like an authorized biography, that s because it is. Sam Solecki comments, however, that the book s few interesting parts deal with Alice Munro, though it doesn t reveal much we didn t already know from interviews, Catherine Sheldrick Ross s short 1992 biography Alice Munro: A Double Life , or the autobiographical stories ( Still Growing Up, National Post 21 April 2001: B7). I must confess that I too was pleased to uncover certain bits of information that filled in an already fairly detailed picture for me. For example, I knew that, in the sixties, a University of Victoria professor s dismissive critique of Munro s stories nearly derailed her as a writer (see chapter 5 ), but I was intrigued when Sheila mentioned the man by name. He was one of my first creative writing professors, and a legendary curmudgeon. But what is the utility of this type of information, beyond personal interest, beyond gossip, beyond the cult of personality? What really intrigues me about Sheila Munro s authorized biography/memoir is that its existence indicates that Alice Munro is not averse to the publication of personal revelations, within limits, but that she appears to be averse to certain intellectual approaches to her life and work.
In the Oxford English Dictionary , authority is defined under two headings, both having to do with power. The first definition relates to the power to enforce obedience. This type of authority, for my purposes, takes the form of the judges and institutions that enforce my obedience to the laws of copyright. It is the second aspect of the word authorit