Each time I read The Swing in the Garden I become more convinced that the novel marks an innovative high point in Canadian fiction. But in what sense is it innovative? Certainly, it does not share the features associated with many of the so-called "experimental" Canadian works: there is no celebration of chaos in thought or style, no suggestion that the world is an absurd place which can never be known, no indication that the narrator calls himself into question or doubts the validity of his perceptions, no parody of the conventionally "worn-out" fictional forms. The syntax is well-ordered; the mental connections are extremely rational. In an era of fictional anti-heroes, angst, and discontinuous prose, Hood has had the courage to search for a stable view of time, concrete understanding of place, and a firmly grounded means to knowledge. He is concerned with establishing a moral vision, or...