George Bowering's Burning Water is an ambitious and largely successful treatment of the nature of imagination. The story of George Vancouver's exploration of the west coast of North America becomes, in Bowering's hands, an exercise in historical reconstruction, an analysis of imagination in life and art, and an essay in postmodern self-consciousness. The novel succeeds because it is interesting and funny, and because its discussion of imagination, which owes much to Coleridge and the other Romantics, avoids easy answers. Bowering is aware of all the things which can interfere with imaginative perception -- personal fears, received ideas, rationalism, our teachers' influence. It is hard enough to see clearly and make a life for ourselves, harder still to create for others as the historian and artist do. Failure is the norm, and success is always imperfect. But the fascination with what is difficult ensures that lovers, explorers, and writers will continue to dream and create.
