![]() ![]() It is Wiebe’s ninth novel and his third to concentrate on his Mennonite family and heritage. Sweeter Than All the World demonstrates all these strengths and weaknesses. ![]() While his great strength lies in meticulous research, passion for his subjects, and a powerful narrative sweep, his weaknesses include a leaden moral earnestness, an inability to create believable characters or dialogue, and a streak of sentimentality that undermines whatever serious fictional goal he might set himself. He has a considerable reputation abroad, particularly in Germany, perhaps because of his concentration on native Canadian stories and his German-speaking Mennonite background.īut when critics look carefully at Wiebe’s writing, as opposed to his subject matter, the adjectives that crop up repeatedly are “difficult” and “challenging.” There is little to love in the pages of a Rudy Wiebe novel. He was a founder of the Writers’ Union of Canada. He has won two Governor General’s Awards (for The Temptations of Big Bear in 1973 and A Discovery of Strangers in 1994). Rudy Wiebe’s status as an important Canadian fiction writer is, to put it politely, puzzling. ![]()
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