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ALWAYS SOMEONE TO KILL THE DOVES
Sheila the obscure
Sheila Watson was a writers' writer, with an academic rather popular appeal. The extent of her published work-two slender novels and a few short stories-is small but significant. bp Nichol credited her novel The Double Hook (1959) with his decision to become a writer, Michael Ondaatje called it a "beacon for all young writers"; and critic David Staines sees it as the beginning of modern fiction in Canada. Other admirers of her work are George Bowering, Frank Davey, Stephen Scobie and Angela Bowering who produced a critical study Figures Cut in Sacred Ground: Illuminati in The Double Hook (NeWest Press, 1988).
Watson's work had a protracted development and late publication. Prompted by her experiences as a teacher in the community of Dog Creek near Ashcroft, her 116-page novella The Double Hook was published at age 50. She had just finished her Ph.D at the University of Toronto, writing a dissertation on Wyndham Lewis under the supervision of Marshall McLuhan. Subsequently she taught English at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her other novel of alienation in a Cariboo valley, Deep Hollow Creek (1992), was actually written prior to The Double Hook, and finally published when she was 83.
Fred Flahiff, a retired professor of English at St Michael's College, University of Toronto, has now produced Always Someone To Kill The Doves: A Life of Sheila Watson (NeWest, $34.95), the first book-length attempt to put Sheila Watson's life and her allusive, highly literary work into perspective. He cautions that he was a close friend and admirer of his subject and that his sources were incomplete because many personal papers were destroyed or lost, yet neither fact detracts from this compelling portrait of the artist.
Born in 1909, Sheila Watson spent her first eleven years at the Provincial Mental Hospital in New Westminster, where her father Dr. Charles Doherty was superintendent. This unusual childhood yielded rich material for her short stories, but it was her later experiences in the Cariboo, where she taught for two years, that provided the material for the novels.
Complicating Watson's life and her biographer's task (the book might be subtitled 'a portrait of a marriage') was her tormented relationship with Wilfred Watson, whom she met during a teaching stint in Duncan, on Vancouver Island, where he was a sawmill worker. She persuaded him to attend UBC with her and they married in 1941. He became a poet and playwright, with a series of awards that included the 1955 Governor General's medal for poetry. Added to the difficulty of their competing literary careers-his early success eclipsed hers but had waned by the time she achieved success-was his habit of engaging in a series of affairs with his students.
In 1955, because his current "young friend"; was unable or unwilling to go along, Sheila Watson accompanied her husband on a fellowship to Paris, where she kept a journal. Flahiff, with some reservations, makes the calculated decision to withdraw from the role of biographer, assume the role of editor and let his subject speak for herself by including 70 pages of the journal. His reservations are unfounded, for the inclusion of Watson's own voice at the midpoint of the book and of her adult life is an innovative and effective addition to this highly readable biography.
Although Wilfred Watson's extra-marital relationships inflicted a great deal of pain on Sheila Watson, leading to prolonged periods of separation, they never led her to terminate the marriage, or diminished her enthusiasm for his work. Having long taught at the University of Alberta, the Watsons collaborated in founding the literary magazine The White Pelican (1971-8). By his wish rather than hers, the couple spent their last eight years Nanaimo where Sheila Watson died at age 88. He died two months later.
-- Joan Givner's latest books are a novel, Playing Sarah Bernhardt, and a children's novel. Ellen Fremedon. Her next book, Ellen Fremedon, Journalist, will appear in September.
Sheila Watson was a writers' writer, with an academic rather popular appeal. The extent of her published work-two slender novels and a few short stories-is small but significant. bp Nichol credited her novel The Double Hook (1959) with his decision to become a writer, Michael Ondaatje called it a "beacon for all young writers"; and critic David Staines sees it as the beginning of modern fiction in Canada. Other admirers of her work are George Bowering, Frank Davey, Stephen Scobie and Angela Bowering who produced a critical study Figures Cut in Sacred Ground: Illuminati in The Double Hook (NeWest Press, 1988).
Watson's work had a protracted development and late publication. Prompted by her experiences as a teacher in the community of Dog Creek near Ashcroft, her 116-page novella The Double Hook was published at age 50. She had just finished her Ph.D at the University of Toronto, writing a dissertation on Wyndham Lewis under the supervision of Marshall McLuhan. Subsequently she taught English at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Her other novel of alienation in a Cariboo valley, Deep Hollow Creek (1992), was actually written prior to The Double Hook, and finally published when she was 83.
Fred Flahiff, a retired professor of English at St Michael's College, University of Toronto, has now produced Always Someone To Kill The Doves: A Life of Sheila Watson (NeWest, $34.95), the first book-length attempt to put Sheila Watson's life and her allusive, highly literary work into perspective. He cautions that he was a close friend and admirer of his subject and that his sources were incomplete because many personal papers were destroyed or lost, yet neither fact detracts from this compelling portrait of the artist.
Born in 1909, Sheila Watson spent her first eleven years at the Provincial Mental Hospital in New Westminster, where her father Dr. Charles Doherty was superintendent. This unusual childhood yielded rich material for her short stories, but it was her later experiences in the Cariboo, where she taught for two years, that provided the material for the novels.
Complicating Watson's life and her biographer's task (the book might be subtitled 'a portrait of a marriage') was her tormented relationship with Wilfred Watson, whom she met during a teaching stint in Duncan, on Vancouver Island, where he was a sawmill worker. She persuaded him to attend UBC with her and they married in 1941. He became a poet and playwright, with a series of awards that included the 1955 Governor General's medal for poetry. Added to the difficulty of their competing literary careers-his early success eclipsed hers but had waned by the time she achieved success-was his habit of engaging in a series of affairs with his students.
In 1955, because his current "young friend"; was unable or unwilling to go along, Sheila Watson accompanied her husband on a fellowship to Paris, where she kept a journal. Flahiff, with some reservations, makes the calculated decision to withdraw from the role of biographer, assume the role of editor and let his subject speak for herself by including 70 pages of the journal. His reservations are unfounded, for the inclusion of Watson's own voice at the midpoint of the book and of her adult life is an innovative and effective addition to this highly readable biography.
Although Wilfred Watson's extra-marital relationships inflicted a great deal of pain on Sheila Watson, leading to prolonged periods of separation, they never led her to terminate the marriage, or diminished her enthusiasm for his work. Having long taught at the University of Alberta, the Watsons collaborated in founding the literary magazine The White Pelican (1971-8). By his wish rather than hers, the couple spent their last eight years Nanaimo where Sheila Watson died at age 88. He died two months later.
-- Joan Givner's latest books are a novel, Playing Sarah Bernhardt, and a children's novel. Ellen Fremedon. Her next book, Ellen Fremedon, Journalist, will appear in September.
Submitted on November 9, 2005 in By David.
