What a strange world serious lit people live in. A genre writer writing Toronto- like Tanya Huff, say- gives you a concrete place one has actually been, including the non-existent condominium in a stretch where no condos are, but very well might be. Michael Ondaatje gives you a few names, and even if you do know them (Albany Ave, a working class neighbourhood, you say?) or The Blue Cellar (supposing it's the same Blue Swelter in 1930-something as it was forty years later), it conveys nothing concrete. But that's because of the dreamy viewpoint of the dreamy protagonist in his dreamy world where all women are calm and accepting and not the least bit afraid of a strange man who breaks into their houses in the middle of the night: and all of them are up for sex with any man they run into who woos them enough. Yeah, sure. I'm as romantic as the next person but Ondaatje couldn't have got away with perfect!gentleman/ avenging angel Michael in a genre book: people would be yelling Marty Stu at once. As for the Heinleinian wish-fulfillment women- well, that's what they are.
OK, maybe not as bad as Heinlein, but of the same mold.
