SOURCE: “What Kroetsch Said: The Problem of Meaning and Language in What the Crow Said,” in Canadian Literature, No. 128, Spring, 1991, pp. 90-105.

In the following essay, Wall examines the meaning of Kroetsch's apparently chaotic approach to criticism in What the Crow Said.

I think criticism is really a version of story, you see; I think we are telling the story to each other of how we get at story. It is the story of our search for story. That’s why criticism is so exciting. Not because it provides answers, but because it is a version of story.

(LV 30) ¹

Were it not for Robert Kroetsch’s generous attitude toward the critic’s role, it would seem an act of hubris to attempt to interpret What the Crow Said, the novel that he wrote as his “own personal struggle with the temptation of meaning.” I think the critic can...