George Woodcock, prolific writer, founding editor of Canadian Literature, and philanthropist, is a promising biographical subject. Not only is he complex, secretive, and full of contradictions but he leaves his autobiographies and rich archival materials to assist his biographer.

Douglas Fetherling is well suited to the task. A prolific poet, journalist, and memoirist, he is an astute analyst of the social texture and political events in the two countries – England and Canada – between which Woodcock divided his life.

Regrettably Fetherling attempts not the full portrait but the lesser task of mediating between the reverential Canadian view of Woodcock and the cooler British one. In limiting his scope he frequently skirts crucial issues.

He allows that Woodcock’s emigration to Canada involved “a tangle of motives” but makes no attempt to untangle them. One factor might have been the jailing of Woodcock’s anarchist colleagues for a document printed on his typewriter. Fetherling asked about this dubious affair, found Woodcock inscrutable and pushed no further. He neither probes Woodcock’s predilection for anarchism, nor weighs his dislike for authority against his habit of positioning himself as an authority figure – editor, teacher, and mentor. Discussing Woodcock’s position as a conscientious objector during the Second World War, Fetherling invokes other famous objectors in other wars, letting his admiration for Woodcock blind him to the distinctions to be made between pacifism in various wars.

References to Woodcock’s wife as “the amazing Ingeborg” and “that remarkable woman” coupled with the complete absence of detail serve to pique curiosity. Why no information about her? “Quite simply she wouldn’t hear of it.”

Woodcock’s disdain for the United States and the groves of academe is perfectly understandable but his readiness to enter and profit from these places requires more commentary than is given here. Similarly, the significance of certain lapses in judgment – dismissing Mordecai Richler in the 70s as “a limited and worked out talent,” referring to Lyndon Johnson as “more horrifying than Hitler” – bears going into.

Fetherling’s less than rigorous treatment does his subject a disservice because it reduces the complexity of his character. It also prepares for a squiffed legacy. A subsequent resolute biographer will have to fill the gaps and take the flack for criticizing a revered Canadian man of letters.