Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 13, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba 20 Winnipeg free january it u be just another cheap Quick fix by Scott Van Wynsberghe one her face covered with glistening beads of sweat and pockmarked with acne sat alone propped up against a Wall in a Dan smelling she was in a staring blankly at the Ceil her eyes looked a rubber band Hung loosely from her right Arm and a syringe Lay by her the bloodstained Needle had snagged a Grey dust the woman in question is a Mon Treal heroin and this is but a single example of the pathetic imag Ery to be found in merchants of a Survey of the Canadian narcotics world by investigative journalist Victor unquestionably the Book is also ultimately leaving concerned readers in a position Simi Lar to that of the above woman getting a fix of drug related Hor ror but nothing the drug problem will not be writes Malarek in his by building More prisons and filling them with drug it will Only be resolved by a serious and concerted Effort in the areas of education and treat acknowledging the failure of police efforts and the need for alter Antidrug programs is of but Mer chants of misery is not about those with few exit simply focuses on the intimidating scope of the narcotics the author recreates such drug inspired outrages As the massacre of the Kirton family in Winnipeg just before Christmas in he also sketches out the underground markets of and reveals the extent of the Home grown marijuana cottage Indus try of British none of this is less than in one none of it is with variation in size and such details have been the stuff of Antidrug literature for much too in the procession of Rev merchants of misery inside Canadas illegal drug scene by Victor 270 relations distorts Malarek Contention that police action is fun at one he begins to Cham Pion the confiscation of the property of accused by allowing himself to Drift Over to the enforcement end of the the author additionally entangles him self in the unavoidable Thicket of racism so much so that he issues a declaration of no bigotry at the Start of the the chapter on the spread of crack cocaine in Toron to uneasily discusses the predominance of jamaican immigrants in that while the Section on asian heroin urges that Hong Kong businessmen entering the country be screened for affiliation with triad in All the latter Point is worthy of at least some consideration even Hong Kong police estimate that about of the colons million residents Are triad and they will be among those most eager to flee before China takes Over in As if he were not satisfied that he had sabotaged merchants of misery Malarek worsens his problems by dismissing the concept of legalization in an intuitive fashion that ignores the Gravity of the almost with out the pro legalization forces will grow stronger Over the next decade they now include at least one Federal judge in the and thus their arguments have to be treated with great the author merely offers his personal fears of what will be the result of legalization if we legalize illicit we will see More marriage child abuse and child More babies born addicted and with congenital de More High school kids drop Ping and so without any merchants of misery constr literary Shock therapy wont help drug tubes by default a notable addition to the very thin Library of volumes devoted exclusively to narcotics in but this is a nation Alist on the larger Western if not global society needs new types of not More of the consider the following lines i Point out these dangers As a warning not a prophecy of i believe we can Ward them off with alertness and firm a firm a compassion ate heart Wisdom in the application of both the Victor Malarek Harry ans the former commissioner of in a Book entitled the it was published in gee Whiz school of journalism by Andrew Allentuck the coauthors named on the cover of this Book and their Collano Ann who is mentioned in the have common roots and a common each works for Mac leans Maga in that association Are the strengths and the weaknesses of Hong Kong the strength of the Book and its value for readers unacquainted with the phenomenon of the great for tunes of Hong Kong is the breadth of the authors they cover the great entrepreneurs of the Crown the rothschilds of the and what they have built with their the Book provides some de tails of How the great fortunes of Hong Kong Are coming to Canada in order to survive what Many expect to be the demise of the capitalist free Orall when China takes control in the weaknesses of the Book lie in the Mac leans which is Fine for a Quick read at the end of the but hardly the Way financial journalists Are supposed to unravel Complex financial the Book is filled with trivia where there should be one at has a wrist watch they Are filling Cana Dian vaults with everything from bearer Bonds to Platinum watches others Are filling Bank vaults with hard from bearer Bonds to Platinum watches Over a six course seafood lunch in an immaculate restaurant in the cites financial a Hong Kong billionaire told the authors that he has moved Mil Lions of dollars in bearer Bonds into Canadian Bank i have even moved my collection of Platinum watches to he said of another they he eschews Hong Kongs Standard Issue Diamond studded to Hong Kong Money by John Demont and Thomas 217 key Lexes for his simple enough already beyond trivia is purple prose in the Early when the 40 degree heat and a mauve Haze shrouds the the signs then seem to grow in blur into a surrealistic devils Tattoo that draws the eyes of everyone on the crowded streets to a heaven filled with pulsing corporate the authors appear to have operated in the belief that the facts of their Story would not be enough to keep readers glued to the at Page 12 is a digression into a Cess Pool of poverty near the Hong Kong Airport which amazingly into what is literally sewer considering that this Book is supposed to be a financial its fancy writing and sheer Lack of editing in the Rush to publish mar what could have been a far better hard questions Are not nowhere do the authors explore pos sible connections of Hong Kong Money to chinese gangs operating in do any of the million Aires have drug connections there is no answer because the question is not most of the authors never Tell us How the Rich men and women mentioned actually made their All the fortunes discus sed have real estate and each of the people is praised As very smart and terribly that not financial its a society Page gloss on someone in the in the Hong Kong Money seems to be constructed using the characteristically Canadian journalistic trick that goes something like so and so is widely reputed to be the Nastiest hit Man since Frank Hong Kongs millionaires remain a but i spent a weekend with him let me Tell Hes one hell of a this is Public relations More than it is had the authors made use of exist ing print sources of information material in the asian Wall Street the far Eastern economic perhaps chatted up More old China and checked out the Bona fides of the millionaires beyond just asking each Guy if Hes really so a better Book would have for Hong Kong Money is As Good As any introduction to the sub but that not really very Good at writers get a g Ood ribbing by Joan Thomas the Booker Book is the Story of Geraldine a Young writer whose sense of destiny soars beyond her her first novel has done nothing so vulgar As Selling in Large so Geraldine seems poised to become a minor literary but she Longs for something some objective measure of her when Newby wins the first Booker prize in Geral Dine sets out to imitate his determined to give the judges what they Are looking for in the 1979 Geraldine As writers apparently that it is easier to Start a Book than to finish she is after a and dogged with writers and then theres All those writ Erly the Booker Book by Simon 154 like novelists association and speaking to writers when Bernice Rubens wins the 1979 Booker prize for the elected Geraldine is Only Halfway through her she shelves it and begins the unwanted in imitation of Bernice if Geraldine style is not entirely at least she can Comfort herself that the plot is her its the Story of a Beautiful Young woman who has to live with two stepsisters a blended i guess youd Call it and ends up working As a Domestic in their until one night when a handsome Man arrives of All a Glass Slipper Simon Brett has had a lot of fun sending up the commonwealths Best writers in the Booker following Geraldine Byers dogged Effort through the he gives us 23 Page excerpts of the the Spray in the style of Iris the life and walks of Sindy a la reminiscent of Penelope Lively Moon Tiger 20 excerpts of Geraldine 20 Lovely Paro the Best parodies Are those of the writers with really characteristic styles Salman John Ken in Between we follow Geraldine tribulations the in chapters that could have been titled Geraldine hires an or Geraldine sits on an awards a device that allows Simon Brett to move systematically through the publishing taking shots at the vanities and pretentious of under he dedicates this Book to my friends in publishing while i still have but with 20 prize winners since the inception of the Booker this is a Long and the parodies Are by far the Best part of the Booker in style the Story of Geraldine Byers herself is like a watered Down Fay Weldon Call it 10 fairly still it was a great a one off for Simon who May have burned a few Bridges behind him in the As Geral Dine Byers always its hell being a bold poets keep surprising readers by Maurice Mierau its an unfortunate truth that writ ers like Assembly line workers can easily turn themselves into a endlessly repeating their most characteristic this is a truth that emphatically does not apply to Kristjana Gunnars or Kath Arine whose most recent publications represent bold and not always successful swerves from their own writ Erly Gunnars is a prolific fiction and translator whose work is frequently concerned with her icelandic what is most striking about carnival of her new collection of to is the new works obsessive and even excessive Gunnars began publishing poetry in the Early and much of her work was a kind of Loving recreation of the world of icelandic my Folk and North american Pioneer heroism and her intense immersion in the history of Early icelandic settlement of the Interlake Region allowed her to carve out her own literary Niche she was the poet of icelandic Canadian hav ing grown up speaking ice and English in a family that was peripatetic enough to make her Long for spiritual and physical books of poetry such As settlement in two on eyed Moon Wake pick and the Short Story collection the axes Edge established her not Only As the primary chronicler and Archi vist of her ethnic but also As an increasingly important voice in Canadian it is really with her two most recent carnival of longing and the an experimental that Gunnars has gone Way beyond recreating her ethnic carnival of longing especially is a riveting examination of gun Nars whole and ultimately of the poetics of truth and vision for any Here the great Hydro electric Plant that is my language is turned in on and the writer discovers that the past is a history is a beloved for a writer like whose Early work put so much Stock in the Power of naming a disappear ing this is a painfully enlightening the words she finds for it Are also painful and deeply revealing words Are ironic they speak of themselves i do not want the words to give communion in ordained blessings words Are powerless for that but on the other there is nothing poetic about and yet u is love i am As the carnival noise and the glaring lights go the movement toward the person Al and reflexive voice in these poems is a startling contrast to gun Nars earlier multiple voices and elaborate catalogues of Pioneer exits As if the real Beauty and depth of her own project could Only be gotten at through Selfe Ami through shelving her immense Library of the yield is uneven and tedious at As with most confessional but this is still a turning Point in the career of a major Canadian Katharine Bitnes heart and Stone also takes Large risks in terms Kristjana Gunnars carnival of longing by Kristjana 85 heart and Stone by Katharine 61 of subject matter and Bitnes first while you were out was much More centred around the Type of you lyrics that Margaret Atwood helped to popularize in the while you were outs Shock tactics and constricted subject matter make this a much less mature collection than heart and Many of the poems in Bitnes new Book take parts of the Tarot deck for their subject in itself this might seem to be the kind of recycled mysticism one expects in the Wake of gods death and Eliot but fortunately Bitney has Many other As her combination of new age metaphysics and physics is particularly intriguing atoms Are conventions of quarks Neu trons and on and she writes in sounding like a be mused but highly intelligent there Are Many Beautiful and Subtle moments in the in for she writes this planet is a Rococo overlooking and in the same poem Bitney shows herself As a Fine poet of both intellectual and sensual pleasures the body if you love it moves with Grace and pleasure those Are the hips that launched a thousand orgasms the language of much of the col Lection is remarkably fresh and in Bitney achieves a unique syncretism of science and Tarot mythology in poems like laser and the family dreams in a scented the poems on Sakharov and music Are also open Ings into subject matter that is often of limits to the self censors of can the Only piece that seemed to this Reader it could have been omit Ted was love whose open but Here we Are Only a Man and woman in love is reminiscent of the worst harlequin but in the any poet who describes a purple Iris As a six pack of vegetable sex has still got my unqualified a Book for Wolf snout by John Parr some years Back Clarence Days comic life with father and life with enjoyed a wide and affectionate one would expect then that Eric krafts comic Herb v will gain a similar response this Book could easily be retitled life with Grandfather and this latest work by bostonian Eric Kraft features Peter Leroy who re counts the life stories of his mater Nal Herb and Herb Piper was Bora in 1899 and grew up in Lorna Huber was born in 1901 and grew up in the town of new Herb comes from a Long line of salesmen who Are quite successful at convincing others but even More so at convincing themselves that the Piper men tend to follow pipe squandering their Money on foolish invest Lomas the Are a More solidly rooted having been steadily engaged in manufacturing for Lomas Home environment seems to be comically off As is indicated by the towns Cha which is Short for what you the name Given by the original who pronounce the Mohawk term for the there Are unpleasant aspects to her background As one being Uncle who attempts to seduce Lorna during her As is to be Prince in the form of Herb turns up one Day to Rescue Herb n Lorna by Eric 310 Canadian Manda Lorna from All having been plans to continue his Selling career among his fellow and the item he wishes to carry erotic in order to ensure an ample Herb tracks Down a major Uncle whose chief designer happens to be after their Herb and Lorna Settle in new where he becomes a Stude Baker but augmenting his income with love trinkets during the eventually they retire to Punta where they give classes in the creating of coarse of this lifelong preoccupation with Chandise does suggest and Piper Are a bit on the seedy not for Herb and Lorna have a certain innocent Charm also an idealistic belief that their libidinous artwork can magically transform the lives of others As it Herb n Lorna a sexier version of Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegon tales abounds in delightful he for theres an erotic Art protester whose shirt states in proud to say in ashamed of my and theres even a joke for local concerning a Dis graced embezzler who flees to Wolf Wolf snout that the sort of name Paul Hiebert used to foist upon Rural if they can tolerate such of no doubt we can ;