The Paradox of Meaning

The concerns of this book are cultural. They have to do with literature, especially Canadian, and with narrative form. They have to do with the limitless capacity of being, inseperable from the shape and content of the stories we tell to make ourselves real. They have to do with moral responsibilities of the critic, the writer, and the written. The essays and rhetorical imaginings that Moss calls critical fiction challenge convention, subverting the notions of genre we use to distinguish between prose and poetry, ­fiction and exposition, creative writing and critical commentary. Moss looks at such authors as Atwood, Wiebe, Bowering, Avison, Gunnars, Arnason, Cooley and Kroetsch.