The Invention of the World is about the process of uninventing narrative worlds. I want to show how that process of uninvention undermines the assumption that the recovery of myth engenders the discovery of identity. Jack Hodgins establishes blatant connections between mythical structure and self awareness in order to purposefully break them down…. [Through parody and burlesque, Hodgins undercuts] a view shared by several Canadian novelists today: that the meaning of the moment is part and parcel of a myth-ridden past, and that, in order to understand personal experience, one must become conversant with, and indeed participant in, the historical traditions, documents, and artifacts which combine to form contemporary consciousness.

Am I alone in suggesting that Hodgins attacks this view through serious narrative play? The novel has been seen as firmly grounded in mythopoeia…. Along different lines, George Woodcock and David L. Jeffrey [see excerpts above] have argued...