Excerpt from the Introduction to Rudy Wiebe: Essays on His Works. By Editor Bianca Lakoseljac

Excerpt from the Introduction to Rudy Wiebe: Essays on His Works

Why the collection, Rudy Wiebe: Essays on His Works? That is the question a number of my colleagues and friends asked when I talked about compiling and editing an anthology on Wiebe’s works.

During my graduate studies at York University, I took a course, “Special Topics: Frog Lake Massacre, 1885.” I read Rudy Wiebe’s novel, The Temptations of Big Bear, and found it transformative. My perspective on history, informed by so much—the Canadian colonial viewpoint; my inherited Eastern European history dominated by wars and continuous ethnic conflicts, which culminated in the breakup of Yugoslavia, the country of my birth and idyllic childhood; my family saga in Serbia which includes relations in Bosnia, Monte Negro, Croatia, among other regions; my personal life path which felt disconnected and discontented—all of that took on a different meaning. I began to look at life through a new lens; no longer did I see myself as a victim of circumstances, or wrong choices made, or unfortunate outcomes of providence. I turned to the “big picture,” to contemplate how other societies fared in this expansive, magnificent, wondrous, yet often astonishingly brutal world.

. . . . .

Rudy Wiebe: Essays on His Works examines Wiebe’s achievements as an author, editor, professor and mentor, who helped shape successful authors, gave rise to new approaches in the art of storytelling, and encouraged a passion for English Canadian Literature. The collection is a mosaic of critical essays, interviews, literary journal articles and reviews. It depicts the life and work of an author deeply involved with his Mennonite literary community, as well as with the English Canadian one, and who is among the most innovative, celebrated, and prolific. The main themes of Wiebe’s writing are bound up with his Mennonite heritage and his interest in Canada’s Indigenous past. The pieces featured in this collection are intended to create a conversation with one another, and to serve as witness to the changing times in English Canadian Literature.

A prelude to the collection is a witty and heartwarming cartoon, “Teaching Rudy to Dance … all true events,” by the iconic Canadian author Margaret Atwood. Rudy Wiebe’s comment that Atwood was trying to teach him to dance—“Classic ironic Peggy [Atwood’s name used by friends and family]. We’ve been friends since 1967”^[i]—attests to this literary giant’s collegiality and good humour.

The collection opens with Miriam Toews’ thought-provoking article, “Peace Shall Destroy Many,” which echoes the theme of Wiebe’s debut novel (with the same title) and, interestingly, his ongoing battle to help bring change to the Mennonites’ ways. Toews, one of the most respected Canadian female writers of her generation, whose drive to expose the injustices of certain Mennonite communities has provided an impetus to her writing, describes the time she spent with Wiebe during a book tour in a Mennonite community in Germany. At the time, Toews was promoting her novel, A Complicated Kindness, an insightful coming-of-age story about a 16-year-old girl’s struggle with the strict dogma of her Mennonite community. After Toews’ reading, a woman from the audience addressed her angrily, in Plautdietsch, or Low German, which Toews does not speak. However, through translation, Toews quickly understood that the woman’s disapproval was her attempt to disgrace the author for daring to expose the wrongs within her community. Wiebe, who fully understood the woman’s criticism, addressed the woman in Low German. He explained that Toews was “advocating for necessary change within the Mennonite culture,” and justifiably holding the community accountable for its actions. In her essay, Toews states that “on that day Rudy Wiebe stood up in front of a Mennonite ‘congregation’ and fought for me.”

The next piece, Hildi Froese Tiessen’s delightful essay, “Between Memory and Longing: Rudy Wiebe’s Sweeter Than All the World,” is a comprehensive discussion of Wiebe’s ninth novel, Sweeter Than All the World. The essay opens a broad view into Wiebe’s Russian Mennonite heritage, which has influenced and permeates his work. It is important to note that although Wiebe has been advocating for change, he has remained devoted to his Mennonite community. The novel is a remarkable odyssey into his heritage, a voyage of self-discovery that follows the story of the Mennonite people from their persecution in the Netherlands of the 16th century to their emigration to Danzig, London, Russia, and the Americas, and eventually to their settlement in Canada.

Another essay that presents a window into Wiebe’s background as an author is “Literary Genealogy: Exploring the Legacy of F. M. Salter,” by George Melnyk. It offers a perspective into the early development in Canadian literature and the work of Dr. Frederick M. Salter who mentored Rudy Wiebe, W. O. Mitchell, and Robert Kroetsch (who would in turn guide another generation of talented authors). Melnyk’s essay also reminds us that in 1939, Professor Salter, who taught English at the University of Alberta, launched a creative writing course—the first in any Canadian University.

I am pleased to present my interview with Aritha van Herk, a renowned author and a professor at the University of Calgary, as it offers a witty and heartwarming glance into her work with Rudy Wiebe, who was her mentor and later her colleague and collaborator on a number of publications. Van Herk’s reflection on her earlier work is also an instructive reminder for aspiring writers that an author’s journey is a bumpy one, often involving much compromise and hard work.

Scot Morison’s informative piece, “The ‘Rudy Wiebe Room,’” leads the reader to get to know Wiebe not only as an author and academic, but also as a friend. The essay includes a photo of Wiebe with Atwood, a tribute to their lifelong friendship. Morison, Wiebe’s former student, defines his relationship with Wiebe as “centred on coffee and conversation every few months in a Second Cup several blocks from Wiebe’s home in the Old Strathcona area of Edmonton.” A staunch admirer of Wiebe’s writing, Morison confesses, “We are friends now but he still intimidates me. Part of it is his talent and output. Wiebe is one of the finest writers this country has ever produced.”

Reading Morison’s account reminded me of how I met Wiebe at Toronto’s Harbourfront. This iconic writer seemed an imposing figure. If he had not mentioned his “lucky shoes” in his talk about the award, most likely I would have walked away quietly after having my book signed. I was about to do just that when I recalled how affably he chuckled as he told his story. And the next moment, I heard myself saying, “As a Master’s student, I wrote an essay on your characterization of Big Bear and got my ‘A’.”

Wiebe had looked up suddenly, his gaze intense. “I’m always glad to hear from students who did well,” he had said.

As an educator, I could totally relate to Wiebe’s sentiments. As for my essay, I am including a revised, updated, version of the same essay in this collection.

Paul Tiessen, who authored “Memoir and the Re-reading of Fiction: Rudy Wiebe’s of this earth and Peace Shall Destroy Many,” has written extensively about Wiebe’s work and is preparing a monograph that investigates in broad terms the nature of the Canadian Mennonite Brethren community out of which Wiebe wrote his first, controversial novel. Paul Tiessen’s in-depth knowledge of Wiebe’s work and the history of the Mennonite community and culture enriches his essays and offers the reader insight into Wiebe’s fiction and nonfiction. And so does Hugh Cook’s comprehensive interview with Wiebe in 2016. First published in Image, a quarterly literary journal, it is a far-reaching discussion of Wiebe’s background and his lifelong commitment to writing.

Midway, I happily tucked in Olga Stein’s insightful essay, “The ‘Wistful, Windy Madness of a Gift’: Rudy Wiebe’s Books for Young Readers,” which focuses on Chinook Christmas (1992) and Hidden Buffalo (2003), Wiebe’s two books for children. Stein, who earned her PhD in English also at York University presents a succinct and vivid depiction of each book’s plot and characters, and entices the reader to examine yet another fascinating side of Wiebe’s storytelling. In addition, Stein delineates some of the literary trajectories these books are part of, thereby offering valuable additional appreciation of Wiebe’s writing.

Wiebe’s innovative vision and his distinctive voice have led to his works being widely studied not only nationally but also internationally. Milena Kaličanin, Professor at the University of Niš,  in Serbia, explores in her eloquent essay, “Fact vs. Fiction in Rudy Wiebe’s Where is the Voice Coming From,” a central theme that runs through and simultaneously binds much of Wiebe’s fiction: that of questioning the accuracy of historical accounts. In Wiebe’s stories, historical elements come into play as a way of troubling conventional historiography and, in Kaličanin’s words, “decoding the past.” Kaličanin reasons that in Wiebe’s fiction, “the narrator uses the reported facts and creates a work of art based on them, [which] testifies to Wiebe’s … desire to go beyond the crude and dubiously objective message of history in order to liberate an indigenous voice, visionary in its origin.” In addition, Uroš Tomić, who teaches Anglophone Literature and Academic Writing in Belgrade, in his essay, “Is Grief Rational? Loss and Pain in Rudy Wiebe’s Come Back,” contemplates the nature of grief. Tomić concludes that “Wiebe has shown us that there is nothing and everything rational about grief…[and] that grief must be lived through and then subsumed into the core of our life force.”

Three book reviews offer valuable perspectives on Wiebe’s writing at different points in his career and in different genres. One is Hugh Cook’s piece, “Salted with Fire”—an examination of Wiebe’s novel, Come Back.” The review expounds on certain vital aspects of this highly complex novel—complex in theme, structure and imagery. The novel, one of Wiebe’s most affecting, is brilliantly composed and not to be overlooked. The second is Myrna Kostash’s 1973 review of The Temptations of Big Bear, which recognizes Wiebe’s novel as a major step in English Canadian literature by depicting the wise Cree chief Big Bear with all his human strengths and weaknesses. In Kostash’s words, “[the novel offers] the People’s point of view, their version of events and their commentary on the experience—perhaps because we have never been instructed in it—which is the single most important accomplishment of the novel.” The third review is Maureen Scott Harris’s “A Gift of Understanding.” This is a perceptive discussion of Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson’s collaboration on Johnson’s biography, Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman. Harris explains that Johnson’s biography “…teaches about humanity.”

Following this section are two articles. One is Katherine Govier’s astute piece, “A Gentle Eye from Afar,” in which Govier fittingly sees Wiebe as “an inspiration and a giver of insights into the shape of the world.” The second is John Longhurst’s intriguing “Peace of Mind,” which offers a window into Wiebe’s perspective on his place as an author within the Mennonite community, and on his books about Indigenous Peoples in Western Canada.

George Melnyk’s second essay featured in this collection, “The Other Wiebe: Decoding a Novelist’s Nonfiction,” offers a cross-discussion of Wiebe’s nonfictional work. This essay is of particular interest, for it makes a connection between Wiebe’s fiction and nonfiction and the creative process that writing in different genres often entails. It also offers a glimpse into Wiebe’s involvement with the writers’ communities. Wiebe served as chair at the Writers Union of Canada doom 1986 to ’87. In 2005, he presented the Margaret Laurence Lecture at the Annual General Conference of the Writers Union, a literary organization of which Melnyk and I are members and served as board members. The Lecture, “A Writer’s Life,” is a reminder that Wiebe’s writing, in Melnyk’s words, “[h]as been framed by the meeting of cultures and peoples.”

Wiebe’s fiction and nonfiction, his essays and lectures, attest to his emphasis on the importance of the milieu that nourishes the creative process. At the Conference on Mennonite/s Writing at Goshen College in Indiana in 2002, Hildi Froese Tiessen, who has been Wiebe’s long-time colleague and friend (and is Professor Emerita at the University of Waterloo) offered valuable insight concerning the importance of a writer’s life to the work created. Froese Tiessen, whose parents, like Wiebe’s, immigrated to Canada from Stalin’s Russia in 1930, spoke to an audience of mostly Mennonites:

… Rudy Wiebe is ours! (And, I would add, Patrick Friesen and David Waltner-Toews and Di Brandt and Armin Wiebe and Sarah Klassen and Sandra Birdsell and Andreas Schroeder and Victor Jerrett Enns and John Weier and Ed Dyck and Jack Thiessen and Al Reimer and David Elias and David Bergen and Barbara Nickel and Miriam Toews and … .) I recognize myself and the people among whom I was nurtured in these authors’ stories and poems. I believe that I share with these writers a greater than usual understanding of certain subtexts. The tastes, smells, sounds of extended family gatherings, the inimitable rhythm of Low German and the tug of certain High German expressions of piety, the powerful force of four-part congregational singing, the paradoxical sense of belonging—while living self-consciously on the margin of the dominant culture, the ambivalence about matters relating to faith and salvation, the memories of fragments of Bible stories, the compelling revelations of Mennonite history from the martyrs to the arrival in Canada of the poor post-World War Two refugees— all of these things, among others, the writers and  most of us hold in common.^[ii]

Froese Tiessen’s compelling account illustrates how the communities impact their writers, and in turn, how the writers and their stories impact the communities. It also affirms Wiebe’s continuous involvement with the cultural and literary societies that shape the nature of his writing.

One of the highpoints of compiling and editing this essay collection was having the honour of interviewing Rudy Wiebe—this Canadian legend whose writing I’ve admired for decades. With the Covid-19 crisis and the distance between us (Wiebe lives in Alberta and I in Ontario), an e-mail interview seemed the best option. A wonderful surprise and a bonus for our readers is Wiebe’s inclusion in our correspondence of four of his poems.

“Everything,” evocatively begins with Wiebe’s friend, Robert Kroetsch’s line, “I’m getting old now.” The second poem, “hands in the time of pandemic,” is a poignant reflection on the crisis caused by Covid-19. In response to my question about his ability to continue writing during the pandemic, Wiebe included two poems: “Departure Level” and “The Question.” Here the author reflects on the current issues and our place in the world. Wiebe’s masterful use of imagery reappears in his verses, as seen in a stanza from “Departure Level”:

And then coyotes were howling. …

Their wild slivers of trickery

bounced off the cliffs, shivered through bending

willows and there came the moon, huge

as a domed wildfire rising out of the trees.

Wiebe, who is 87 years old, explains: “I’m fading into poetry.…These are the first poem[s] I’ve published in over half a century.”^[iii]

In “Bibliography: Through the Eyes of Rudy Wiebe,” I set out to compile a comprehensive Bibliography of works by and about Wiebe, written so far. I assembled just over 270 titles, as the body of writing by Wiebe and about his fiction and nonfiction is extensive, nationally and internationally. For certain essay collections, in addition to books, I also listed the essays by title to make it easier for researchers and scholars to locate them. I hope our readers will find the information helpful in their own work on Wiebe, one of Canada’s most distinguished authors.

Endnotes

^[i]Wiebe, Rudy. Email received by Bianca Lakoseljac, 28 March, 2021.

^[ii]Tiessen, Hildi Froese. Email received by Bianca Lakoseljac, 25 Nov. 2020.

^[iii]Wiebe, Rudy. Email received by Bianca Lakoseljac, Oct. 1, 2020.

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Bianca Lakoseljac, editor, Rudy Wiebe: Essays on His Works (Nov. 2023), is a novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist. Her publications include two novels: Stone Woman (the Book Excellence Award winner), and Summer of the Dancing Bear; a collection of stories, Bridge in the Rain; and a book of poetry, Memoirs of a Praying Mantis. She holds an MA in English from York University, and has taught communications at Humber College and Toronto Metropolitan University. She is the recipient of the Matthew Ahern Memorial Essay Prize from York University. Her work has been anthologised nationally and internationally, including in 50+ Poems for Gordon Lightfoot, (the Stephen Leacock Museum). www.biancalakoseljac.ca

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