SOURCE: “John Metcalf,” in Canadian Writers and Their Works, edited by Robert Lecker, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley, ECW Press, 1985, pp. 155–207.

In the following excerpt, Rollins surveys the critical reception to Metcalf's fiction and the defining characteristics of his work.

Tradition and Milieu

Metcalf has expressed annoyance at attempts to artificially ascribe Canadian influences to his work:

Writing is an international business. There is no such thing as a national literature. … The influences are from whoever is good and whoever is being innovative anywhere. No culture is indigenous. The English language is not bound by national frontiers. I think that most Canadian criticism is just an unfounded and nonsensical extension of Canadian nationalism.¹

Metcalf and Clark Blaise, in an introduction clearly designed in anticipation of some hostile responses to their editorial choices for a collection of short stories entitled Here and Now (1977), stated:

There is no intrinsic reason...