SOURCE: “Hugh Hood,” in Canadian Writers and Their Works, edited by Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley, ECW Press, 1985, pp. 93–154.

In the following excerpt, Garebian surveys the critical reaction to Hood's short fiction as well as the defining characteristics of his fiction and nonfiction.

Tradition and Milieu

George Woodcock calls Hood “the great Balzacian.” Some other critics think of him as a Canadian Proust, possibly because of Hood's own comments on his attempt to write a Proustian novel about Canada. But Hood, who invites critics to make comparisons between his work and that of great literary predecessors, says there have been no major literary influences on his work. He does point, however, to certain writers who have helped him articulate his preoccupations. From Dante he has derived a mode of allegory which is both Roman and Catholic and which provides a way of linking visible and invisible...