Page "John Lent" Paragraph 12

Monet's Garden is a discontinuous narrative of asymmetrical structure – an interweaving of connected stories with elliptical, interconnected pieces on the narrator of the book.

The injection of a jazzy structure forcefully creates a three-dimensional literary space, perhaps at the expense of character, while in Black Horses, Cobalt Suns and Home ( a poetic broadsheet, 2003 ), the poet opens out to societal concerns.

The reviews are plentiful and consistently positive for Monet's Garden, Lent ’ s major prose achievement prior to the publication of So It Won't Go Away.

For example, Britt Hagarty writes of the “ many descriptive passages worthy of quotation ” ( G6 ).

Hagarty also notes that the book “ succeeds powerfully at first.

But its initial promise is not kept ” ( G6 ).

Allan Brown perceptively parallels Monet ’ s Garden “ both of intention and general effect, to his poetry collection Wood Lake Music ”.

Thematically, Brown observes: " There is some sadness in the new book with its tactful yet poignant descriptions of the ravages of alcoholism and the uncertain emotional relationships of an over-extended family.

But there are moments of secure joy as well: moments, rather, that isolate, emphasize, and partly recreate a repeated joyfulness, often caught up in the perception of things.

" In his review of five new BC books, Brown concludes that, comparatively, “ Lent has probably come closest of all these authors to what Charles Lillard [...] called ‘ a coming-to-terms with the landscape ’— of B. C., or anywhere else .” Dallas Harrison ’ s observations are similar, though high praise of Lent ’ s descriptive power is forthcoming in Harrison ’ s summary of Jane ’ s narrative as “ a crisis of selfhood in London worthy of Antoine Roquentin in Jean-Paul Sartre ’ s Nausea ” ( 113 ).

Harrison misses the point with respect to the Roof sequence when he suggests their deletion, “ abstract meditations that add little to the portrait of the family ” ( 113 ); however, he rightly notes that “ hese autobiographically influenced stories suffer somewhat from John Lent ’ s controlling consciousness, evident in the similarity of characters [...]” ( 113 ).

Valerie Compton ’ s review in The Edmonton Journal displays the inattentiveness of the reviewer, especially to the book ’ s structural experiment.

See McLuckie's review for a contrasting perspective.

Susan Patrick ’ s capsule review emphasises the predominantly “ psychological ” nature of the stories, while also joining the chorus of reviewers who applaud Lent ’ s “ strong sense of place has the ability to put the reader into both the emotional and physical landscapes of his characters ” ( 3123 ).