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The Box George Bowering Vancouver: New Star Books, 2009. 169 pp. $19.00 paper.
FOLLOWING THE reissue of George Bowering's Burning Water in 2007 and Shoot! in 2008, New Star continues its dedication to local authors with the publication of Bowering's The Box in 2009. Promoted as a "series often stories" that break "with the conventional short story" to weave "together biography, autobiography, parable, and drama" (back cover), The Box works to place the reader into various "boxes" while often simultaneously breaking them down. The ubiquitous Bowering narrator is constantly setting-up, manipulating, and pushing against the assumptions, prejudices, and perceptions of his reader, all the while interjecting the narratives with wit, humour, and sarcasm.
"A Night Downtown" centres around the narrator's encounter, years earlier, with a Japanese woman named Eiko. Highlighting the assumptions that are built into language and communication are Eiko's first words to the narrator. In response to her "I am sorry if I disturb you," said in the stereotypical clipped-English expected by a native English-speaking, white Canadian, the narrator states: "Not a disturb ... no, you don't ... don't sorry, it's perfectly." This exchange indicates the narrator's struggle to...