Redhill on Booker Longlist

18 comments on “Redhill on Booker Longlist”

1. Nathan says:
   August 7th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

   Quick question: what does “too close to home for Canuck readers’ liking” mean?

2. Roy Pepitone says:
   August 7th, 2007 at 10:32 pm

   You know exactly what he means. The sound of the drop of drool that just fell from your chin could shatter continents.

3. Paul says:
   August 8th, 2007 at 6:29 am

   Now you’re in for it, Roy. He was trolling for a flame war.

4. Nathan says:
   August 8th, 2007 at 8:05 am

   Sigh. To quote our host above: “our critical culture is somewhat subdued by our over-sensitive tendency to take everything personally, as well as a general sense of horror at anything that seems like conflict.”

   I repeat: sigh.

5. Paul says:
   August 8th, 2007 at 8:27 am

   Sigh sigh sigh. Do you ever breath in?

   It’s not that I recoil from anything that seems like conflict, I just that can’t understand why your tone (and I know you’re a skilled enough writer to be able to control your tone) in these forums almost always comes across as so antagonizing, why every time you ask a “quick question” it seems like you’re calling someone out for a semantic beat-down.

   George’s meaning was perfectly clear, but you seem to want to rake him over the coals for something. Generalization? Inaccuracy? Christ, you know he writes these things in 10 seconds or less. It’s not Quill & Quire, after all. Why press it?

6. JG says:
   August 8th, 2007 at 8:56 am

   As one of the critics who made George’s A List (thanks for that), and as someone who actually reviewed The Communist’s Daughter, I can say that in my case I panned the novel because I thought the writing was trite, cliched, and overwrought and that the novel’s framing story was inherently flawed, assertions that I backed up (or attempted to) with copious quotations from the text. So far, in spite of the underhanded insinuations of authorial jealousy that I’ve received for daring to not like the novel, no one has had the balls to actually refute my criticisms. No one has taken the time so demonstrate Bock’s supposed masterful prose technique, or explained to me how a sentence like “I suppose your mother left me with so little in that regard because we never really understood how precious the time we had together truly was” is not the kind of writing that a good creative writing teacher should purge from their first-year students’ texts. The defenders of the novel have relied on the Globe-honoured school of criticism/log-rolling that endlessly reiterates, a la Margaret Atwood’s Survival, a text that has retarded Candian criticism for thirty years now, that Important Themes make Important Novels. The Communist’s Daughter explores many important issues, this pseudo-criticism states, therefore it is a very important novel.

   Honestly, I’d love to read a text-based defense of the novel. Maybe I missed something, or maybe I was out of line. In the meantime Paul and Roy, stop the snide high-school insinuation crap. We’re all a little too old for that.

7. Nathan says:
   August 8th, 2007 at 9:20 am

   Paul,

   Not trying to put the boots to George, here. Just trying to figure out what he meant. Obviously, I think I disagree with his “too close to home” premise, but I am honestly, genuinely, not sure what that premise is, exactly. Especially given the fact that the harshest reviews of the two books in question were written by two of the “ballsy” reviewers lauded above. Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, one way or another, though it at least suggests an alternate reason why the books did not do as well as expected here.

   I asked the question in case that critical reception was intended as part of the “bum rap.” If it wasn’t, then fine. If it was, it suggests those reviewers were not ballsy at all, but thuggish and corrupt. Seems like a drive-by, if that’s the case, and therefore in need of clarification.

   The other suggestion is that Canadian readers turned their noses up at the books because they (the books) were “too close to home.” Now that I don’t get at all, thus my question.

   And that’s as much Conflict-Free Conflict (now with rhetorical Nutrasweet!) as I am willing to digest.

8. Paul says:
   August 8th, 2007 at 10:20 am

   Well then, I believe what George was saying, and George can confirm this or not, is that Canadians are bored with themselves and with their own stories, and he supposes Canadian readers are less likely to be interested in Canadian content as subject matter for their fiction than in something more ‘exotic’.

   I’m not sure I agree with that, but I believe that is what George meant by “close to home.”

9. JG says:
   August 8th, 2007 at 10:30 am

   Paul,

   I’m all for CanCon, as my reviews and my fiction demonstrate. Most (though not all) of the fiction and poetry I admire and love is the result of an artist grappling with their particular time and place (as you and George do quite well in your respective poems), so being a North Yorker/Torontonian/Canadian I am particularly fond of texts that explore those places. As far as I’m concerned, there are no boring settings or boring subjects or boring themes, only boring writing. I thought Bock’s book was boring because of the prose and the narrative stumbling, that’s all. That’s as clear as I can make myself.

10. Paul says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 10:45 am

    JG,

    I wasn’t accusing you, I was just restating what George said in his snippet, which I think we have put far more thought into than he did when he wrote it.

11. JG says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 11:07 am

    Paul,

    You’re right: there is a lot of truth in the observation that Canadian readers and reviewers believing that their country is not up to snuff as material for serious literature. That drives me frigging crazy – it’s a kind of reverse provincialism, in which every place but your home town, and every historical era but your own, is sooooo much more interesting. I just didn’t want to get lumped into that group, for the reasons I mentioned.

12. Nathan says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 11:29 am

    One problem is that the seemingly common-sense – or at least non-controversial – idea that there is something inherently interesting about contemporary Canadian (or fill in regional, municipal designation) writers writing about contemporary Canada (Toronto, Red Deer, etc) has long been corrupted by bad memories of the culturally nationalist fervor of the 70s and 80s, as well as the Prairie-angst/love in the time of the fur trade model that still rears its frequently ugly head.

    Corrupted as well by that dastardly Survival book, which, to give it its due, has been taken as more than was intended, I think – an exercise in literary anthropology being mistaken (by both friend and foe) for a manifesto. There’s been a lot of demolished windmills on both sides, and one consequence is that it is now seen as being more “grown up” to write about far-off locales and eras. Reigning in one’s imagination in the service of a national culture is a stupid, anti-art mistake, but so is forcibly packing its bags and sending it off to places it can’t flourish in for the sake of looking “grown up.”

    Paul, there have been a few recent bestsellers here that are arguably much more Canadian-drenched in theme, language, and setting (they may even be more about “survival”) than the two novels mentioned above, which is why I wanted the thing clarified in the first place.

13. sven says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 12:07 pm

    The Communist’s Daughter is an historical novel, yes? Set largely in war-torn China, yes?
    Exotic location. Historical novel. How is that ‘too close to home’? Bock wasn’t exactly writing
    about North York or suburban ennui was he? So I don’t see how you can argue he was ’snubbed’ in Canada for being too close to home for Canadian readers. That doesn’t make any sense. I suspect people are simply shoe-horning these books into pre-existing arguments.

14. Paul says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 1:31 pm

    Yes, but it’s about Norman Bethune, who’s about a sexy as Frederick Banting, China or no China.

    And for what it’s worth, I never said that I thought Canadians didn’t like Canadian stories, I said that that’s what I thought George was saying.

15. sven says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

    Paul, that wasn’t actually addressed to you. I was responding to George’s baffling statement that the
    The Communist’s Daughter getting a ‘bum trap’ because, darn it anyway, it was just too close to home.

    That’s a silly assertion, one that has become a reflex among certain writers: When in doubt, blame the readers, it’s their fault no one bought my book!

16. Fish Fish says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

    It’s kind of like watching a group of overbred hunting dogs working themselves into a frenzy on the other side of a fence from a little rabbit… Sven, watch out, you’re starting to froth.

17. Nathan says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 3:30 pm

    Given all this frothing and confusion, I almost wish someone had thought to ask for clarification at the outset.

    Oh well, live and learn.

18. sven says:
    August 8th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

    Nathan’s right. What exactly did you mean, George? Is James wrong in his assessment of The Communist’s Daughter?
    (above)? Is Paul correct in how he presented your point?

Discuss