Globe 100

9 comments on “Globe 100”

1. Maggie says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 10:15 am

   Omission of Rawi Hage is TOTALLY MY FAULT. I’m the one who reviewed it for the Globe and wrote a pretty mixed review. Which I stand by — I think it’s a first book with a lot of potential, but seems to have been badly served by insufficient editing. And since the Globe 100 is based mostly on how over-the-top positive the reviews are, well, your chances of getting in are pretty great if you’re reviewed by Terry Rigelhof, and fairly poor if you’re reviewed by mean old me.

2. George says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 10:23 am

   Hey, Maggie. I wouldn’t worry. I’m just pointing out that hype, awards, and reviews don’t always jive. I don’t even remember what I reviewed in the Globe in 06, but I think it’s the first time in a couple of years I didn’t have a review in there. I guess that makes me a softy who’s getting harder.

3. Maggie says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 12:00 pm

   Oh, no worry, just a bit of self-mockery. I’m actually a much nicer reviewer than I used to be; many years ago, Lew Gloin used to pick out books for me that he knew I wouldn’t like, just for the pleasure of watching me tear them apart. I’ve mellowed considerably with age.

4. ZW says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 1:45 pm

   Even so, as you say G, what’s up with Bachinsky not making it in? Not only did her book get nominated for the GG, but it received a rave review and several of the poems were excerpted in the Globe. WTF? Guess they had to make room for a lukewarm review of a lousy book by one of their columnists… Pity truly is the ugliest human sentiment.

5. George says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 2:10 pm

   Don’t beat around the bush, Z. Just say what you mean.

6. ZW says:
   November 27th, 2006 at 9:19 pm

   Um, okay. How about: That’s a cliche, George. Actually, it’s two.

7. another george says:
   December 10th, 2006 at 5:14 pm

   What’s with reviewers in the Globe blaming editors for weaknesses they perceive to exist in a book? It’s both ignorant (meaning, “lacking in understanding of the editorial process”) and lazy (meaning, “allows the reviewer to skip over a description of the supposed weaknesses, avoid grappling with what the author may have been trying to achieve, and also avoid showing where and how the author succeeds and where and how he or she fails”). Unless a reviewer has been privvy to the editorial process, and therefore understands what the editor asked of the author (and vice versa), and what both author and editor accepted or rejected during that conversation, said reviewer can have absolutely no idea about where to lay “blame” for any weaknesses that remain. Furthermore, the reviewer has absolutely no idea how far the manuscript has come during that process — it is possible that the manuscript improved not at all; and also possible that it went from unreadable to brilliant-if-still flawed, despite the best efforts and pleading of the editor, and best efforts of the author. Or it may have gone all the way to brilliant without a hiccup. Of course, it’s a different matter if the reviewer is talking about typos or plain errors. In most publishing houses, the copyediting and proofing (sadly, what most people think of as “editing”) of a book are done by someone entirely different from the primary, or substantive, editor. And of course, those errors can be easily spotted and remarked upon. They’re not what most reviewers are referring to, however, when these reviewers comment upon a supposed lack of editorial work. Which brings me round to that first point: what do you know of the process, and how do you know it? Ultimately the author is responsible for what remains in his or her book — and authors sometimes ignore even the most vociferous pleading by their editors. As is their absolute right.

   Regarding the Globe review of Rawi Hage — I’ve read the book, and I think the review was truly deficient because it displayed insufficient understanding of the complexity and subtlety of the author’s intent (even if there were spots where the author’s reach exceeded his grasp — and I think there were indeed such spots). It’s understandable that this would be so — Hage’s book is a very unusual one in the Canadian Lit world, so the effect of reading it is quite jarring. But it would have been interesting to see the reviewer delve a little further into those places where she felt jarred, rather than simply blame the book’s editor for them.

8. Baba says:
   December 13th, 2006 at 6:14 am

   Maggie,
   I read your review of Rawi Hage’s book; I found it the most Eurocentric, arrogant, analysis I’ve ever come by. What a pity! Here is a new, refreshing voice in Canadian literature, and a change from that old provincial story of the divorced lady in a small town with two cats and a rebellious daughter (a yawn is in order here). DeNiro’s Game is a boldly poetic work (and I condemn your western resistance to the poetic in prose. It is clearly a cultural narrow mindedness…). I heard him on an interview; he talked about eastern cultures and how the poetic is an integral part of the culture. Unlike the Western antagonizing, segregation attitude toward poetry, in the east poetry is a part of the daily.. in the colloquial…
   The repetition of the words “ Ten thousand” that you attacked, were filled with cultural references that flew over your head in ultraviolet colors and sounds!
   Here is the closest thing one can get to an Arabic writing without the loss one expect to see in the translation process, and you, in your simplistic western arrogance and your pride and giddiness of “me tear them apart”, you just couldn’t see the meaning of an incantation, of a repetition with slight variation, and the reoccurrences that one often encounters in that region’s music, prayers, and poetry….
   What a pity, really! Here is a chef d’oeuvre that was sunk in between that provincial Canadian literature of the geriatric and tame hospitals’ stories. Her is a gem thrown into the claws of egotistical reviewers, old guard and archaic judges, wearing the same old parochial, colonial, austere dresses!

9. Donald Ian Sussex says:
   March 4th, 2007 at 12:09 am

   Maggie,

   Your review of Denero’s Game is akin to those of art critics who attacked modern painting viciously at the turn of the century. It is understandable that people like Atwood and Munro would actively fight this novel, as exemplified by Atwood’s crass and mafiosi-like championing of the big publishing house winner at the Giller. The supremacy of their pinched-can’t pull a needle out of your arse Can. literature-is at stake. But for literary critics to champion and promulgate stasis and attack poetics and new voices is simply abhorent and incompetent.

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