SOURCE: "Munchmeyer and the Marys," in Room of One's Own, Vol. 10, Nos. 3 & 4, March, 1986, pp. 86-98.

A leading Canadian experimental writer, Bowering devises inventive literary forms and techniques to explore themes related to art, language, and identity. His preoccupation with art and language is tempered by irreverent humor, sensuality, and an abiding concern with Canadian society and culture. In the following essay, Bowering studies the structures of the interrelated novellas Munchmeyer and Prospero on the Island, which he perceives as commentaries on writing as a source of pleasure and a means of escape from reality.

I have always been more interested in Audrey Thomas' long fictions than in her short stories. Like Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood, she is a master of the modern short story, and like them she leaves a reader satisfied that the craft was watertight and the trip both enjoyable and enlightening. By contrast her...