Cycle of poems based loosely on the journals of 19th-cen. English pioneer in Canada whose journals are apparently required reading in Canadian Lit. Atwood is excellent as always on the divided inner voice, the accute natural detail and the murky underconsciousness rumbling beneath, the sharp self-hatred with which the entrapped lie to themselves. The poems are good but not excellent; I think the best part may be the movement of the story out of the backcountry into the city and the twentieth century, though I may just feel easiest with the parts least historical.