Writing
Watson is best known for her modernist novel The Double Hook (1959), which is considered "a seminal work in the development of contemporary Canadian literature." "The Double Hook presents in concise, symbolic terms a drama of social disintegration and redemption, set in an isolated BC community.... These themes are presented in a style which itself balances on a "double hook": it is simultaneously local and universal, realistic and symbolic."
Watson has said the "double hook" of her title refers to the idea “that when you fish for the glory you catch the darkness too. That if you hook twice the glory you hook twice the fear.” She explained that her novel is "about how people are driven, how if they have no art, how if they have no tradition, how if they have no ritual, they are driven in one of 2 ways, either towards violence or towards insensibility - if they have no mediating rituals which manifest themselves in what I suppose we call art forms."
In 1992 Watson published a novel, Deep Hollow Creek, which she had written in the 1930s. It was shortlisted that year for the Governor General's Award. "Deep Hollow Creek treats many of the same themes" as The Double Hook "in a manner which is more direct and conventional, but no less elliptical and challenging. It is fascinating to imagine the ways in which Canadian fiction might have been transformed if this startling and brilliant novel had been published at the time of its first composition."
In the 1950s Watson published three interlinked stories, and a fourth in 1970, dealing with the family of Sophocles' Oedipus in a contemporary, realistic setting. The most critically discussed of these is "Antigone", a setting of the story of Creon and Antigone in the wilds of British Columbia.
Read more about this topic: Sheila Watson (writer)
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