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| Hearsay: |
I’m in the Toronto airport waiting for my plane and for the sun to rise. I can’t wait to be home. One more festival/reading to go in my fall tour and then I can just enjoy the chill and rain in St. John’s. My problem with book parties, particularly of the enormoid variety, is that aside from getting to hang with/see/meet some nice people, I kind of feel like an invisible anthropologist conducting ethnographic research on a culture so different that it’s bordering on a new species. The observations are too painful to record in a field notebook… “Where Koko initially displayed interest, generosity and a propensity for social one-on-one interaction, he grows fawning, reticent and skittish when Zeus lumbers in with his prominent silver back and threatening alpha status…” I fear I’m nearing the very end of my ability to stomach it all. Sigh. It was a good ride. See you in the nursing home. Anyway, here are some links to get you through your morning.
- Compelling arguments for why Carver stories shouldn’t be Frankensteined back together
- Libraries eschewing Google scans
- Dumbledore is gay? Have your say!
- Rankin talks to Ceeb about the end of Buddy Whatshisface
- Kundera wins Czech prize
- Poetry ignored by award shortlist… hm, says I… hmmmm…..
- Following that: why you shouldn’t ignore poetry (from Bookslut)
- War, no peace
- Rage, rage against the dying of the gently dappled light “Setting is everything in Canadian fiction. Plots don’t matter much. There are only a few plots anyway: recovering from historical or familial trauma through the healing power of whatever (most common); uncovering historical or family secrets and thereby achieving redemption (close second); coming of age (distant third place).The characters are mostly the same: The only thing that changes is the location of the massacred grandmother, what kind of booze the alcoholic father drinks himself into fits with, what particular creed is being revealed, in deft and daring ways, as both beautifully transcendent and oppressive.”
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October 23rd, 2007 at 7:49 am
I have sympathy for much of what the well-married Mr. Marche has to say, I don’t like those dreary canlit books either, but in my experience the only people actually buying books any longer are geezers. Are the youngsters put off by Canada’s grey-lit or are they, in fact, post-literate? And imagining Park Slope is representative of much more than the life of entitlement that comes with Mom and Dad’s dough is naive.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:14 am
“If you want success, you’re going to have to find it elsewhere. Wasn’t the whole point of Canadian literary nationalism, begun so long ago, to avoid exactly this situation?”
I think in its most simplistic interpretation CanLit was on that particular project, but I’m not sure it was ever a realistic or worthwhile goal to make books that didn’t have to pass through New York or London for worldwide success. Would any agent, ever, be satisfied selling a book to the Canadian market only? There are certain unavoidable realities to this business, after all, and ‘number of potential buyers’ is one of them.
I like a lot of the challenge in Marche’s essay, especially on plot and character, but there is a pointless tribalism to it that bothers me. My young, highly connected, powerful publishing community is better (more exciting) than your old, highly connected, powerful publishing community. As a member of neither, I have trouble telling the difference. Am I really being asked to choose between my smartest aunt and a 32-year old on a skateboard? Because I gotta say, as stifling as my aunt’s house can seem, that grown-up performing ‘youth culture’ is just embarrassing. Especially when he leans just as heavily on the establishment as he does on those claiming to be tearing it down.
I competely disagree that Canada’s young writers tend to be Brooklynish. The ones with friends and market in Brooklyn tend to be, certainly. And good for them.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:45 am
Margaret Atwood was pretty Park Slope when she was 30 something: she’s never been afraid to play with forms since then either.
But more to the point, last year’s Giller list was quite different: Rawi Hage, Pascale Quivigier and Vincent Lam were on it, and all are youngish. They may not write like Dave Eggers, but that’s okay: none of them are caught up in North American naval gazing either.
And this year there are other prizes which are going to go to younger writers. The three finalists for the QWF Hugh MacLennan prize (named after that icon of the first generation of CanLit writers) are all youngish: Heather O’Neill for Lullabies, Neil Smith for Bang Crunch and Liam Durcan for Garcia’s Heart (the last has lived enough to collect advance medical degrees, but I don’t know how old he is.) O’Neill’s up for the GG as is David Chariandy for Soucouyant and he looks pretty young too.
Who’s on the jury matters a lot. If there’s any question to be raised here, it is who sets up the juries?
BTW who’s Marche married to?
Mary
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:47 am
Make that “navel gazing,” not “naval gazing”–we’re not talking about Herman Melville here. Who, by the way, never won a prize in his life, even though he lived in Brooklyn
M
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:20 am
Despite the validity of some of Marche’s points, it’s a pretty ridiculous piece. Sure, if you’re comparing Rosedale to Brooklyn, the Canadian side looks moribund, but CanLit is more than the 416. If one were to reverse the argument and compare the Vancouver lit scene with that of NYC’s Upper East Side, the argument would move fairly compellingly in the other direction.
And doesn’t the fact that Marche himself has been published by two major Canadian houses undercut his argument that no one north of the ol’49 is taking chances on younger, hipper-than-thou writers?
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:24 am
I actually agree with much of what he says except the assumption that Canadian books are not anything but dour pastorals with steadfast ‘traditional’ storylines. What he should have said is that most large press Canlit is such. The whole Brooklyn thing is stupid, frankly. It isn’t that it isn’t being written, it is more that it isn’t being acknowledged (or in the worst cases, published at larger presses).
The prize mentality here is ridiculous, I agree. For the most part the whole thing seems to pander to the biggest star or the biggest press. What, for instance, is Ondaatje doing on the Gillers AND the GGs this year with his new book. And I actually like the guy’s work but Divisadero, to my mind, is failed experiment. I also agree that it would be nice if, for once, a funny book would win a prize for literature. Trevor Cole’s Norman Bray was sorely overlooked when it came out. Too funny? Too smartypants for a first novel? Aaargh.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:26 am
Also, I hope this essay isn’t just sour grapes on Marche’s part; I don’t think he’s on any lists, is he? Don’t be bitter, just keep writing…
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:36 am
Kathryn, I had the same thoughts. And then my bitter, dark little heart went further, wondering if the piece was an attempt at rationalizing why Shining at the Bottom of the Sea perhaps hasn’t performed up to expectations…
But then I put the rose-coloured glasses back on and dismissed these suspicions out of hand.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:58 am
And Brooklyn belongs to Paul Auster, still — despite his advanced age. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.
Beside Auster’s never-ending and highly sophisticated experiments, Safran Foer looks like a cute but sometimes annoying kid with his grandad’s magnifying glass.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:41 am
David Chariandy looks about twelve. I saw him read last night. Very poised!
October 23rd, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Stephen Marche is married to Sarah Fulford, incidentally.
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
So we can expect Stephen Marche to bow out when he reaches, what, 50? 55? Okay, full disclosure: I am an aunt, I have a sweater, my nieces and nephews, some at least, consider me kind of smart. But I also happen to be interested in innovation.
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Yet another little ragout de spleen. Three different arguments here, simmering together. One about the age of Canadian writers (just plain silly), one about the content of Canadian fiction (just plain wrong), and one about what kind of book gets published by the big presses and wins the big prizes. Only the last is worth considering for more than a moment and is, I suspect, what’s really bothering him anyway.
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I think Stephen Marche and others with suchlike sweeping criticisms – including, at times, myself – have to forget about awards altogether (until we win one).
No one with any brains or taste really looks to the Oscars as a gauge of what’s great in film, why look to the Gillers re:fiction? I have yet to meet someone – old or young – who thinks any given year’s shortlist is really the ‘best of the best.’ I’ve seen wrestling matches with more legitimacy. But it’s fun to play along, all the same – especially when the results are maddening.
Also, if we have to talk about age, I tend to think that novelists hit their stride around 50 anyway. There are some Brooklynites whose stuff gives me the hives right now who may be brilliant in book 5 or 6 or 7.(If they last that long.)
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:09 pm
There seems to be a general consensus that Marche is essentially wrong, and, though it might just be an effect of Ninja readership, it’s nonetheless sort of interesting that everyone who has criticized his piece is an award-winning published author.
John Degen, award-winning novelist.
Mary Soderstrom, published author.
Robert Wiersma, award-winner, published by Random House.
Kathryn Kuitenbrower, award-winning novelist.
Leone Theis, award-winning novelist.
Susan Glickman, award-winning novelist.
Nathan Whitlock, novelist, likely to win awards.
If Marche is criticizing Canadian Literature, I suppose, in a way, he’s criticizing Canadian writers. Maybe that’s the reason that whenever someone raises questions like these – completely valid, important questions – Canadian writers get on the defensive and cry sour grapes (see: Henighan, Stephen). The prevailing counter-argument in this case seems to be, “Yeah, it’s oatmeal…you got a problem with oatmeal, punk!?”
I’d be curious to know the average age of the respondents. I know, in literature, under 40 is generally considered “young,” but, at 31 – and having published his first novel at 28 – doesn’t Marche have a clearer view of how young writers are treated in Canada? Despite the fact that he’s in with the big publishing houses?
You at least have to agree with the statement, “…theirs is the greatest generation in the history of the country at inventing awards to give one other.” You can scribble a sentence composed entirely of adjectives on a folded-up restaurant napkin and probably be awarded some obscure book prize.
And what’s wrong with navel-gazing? Roth is a navel-gazer. Updike is a navel-gazer. Maybe Canadian literature needs a little more navel-gazing, and less gazing back through history to the rocky shores of Port Wherever, where the circling crows are a metaphor for death, and a plucky young settler learns how to ZZZZZZ…
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Wow. Talking about biting the hand. The phrase–his, mind you–”intentional alienation” really stands out. He didn’t leave much untouched.
And not to be glaringly obvious, but wasn’t he just published by one of this country’s big presses? So if what he said is true, he’s either not as hip as he thinks he is or this vitriolic attack on the CanLit establishment is off base. He’s screwed either way, seems to me.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
JY, I think the consensus is that Marche is essentially right, with a few quibbles. However arrogant or self-serving or overgeneralized his argument is, it’s certainly touched a nerve, judging by all of our comments.
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
There was a very sharp, if occasionally shrill, response to the whole “Brooklyn thing” in the American Scholar a little while ago. Check it out here:
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/au07/wonder-bukiet.html
Bukiet is an under-appreciated novelist and child of Holocaust survivors, so his intensity might be a bit overblown. Nevertheless, it puts Marche back in the soup where he belongs.
October 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Another whiner. Those good Brooklyn writers don’t sit around crying about Mailer and Roth. They write good books and get noticed. Prizes should be about the best books, not about nurturing beginners. Let this guy write a prize worthy book. Then he might have something to cry about.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:28 am
JY, a. I’m not a prize-winning novelist and b. I agree with much of what Marche says except the part where it applies to Canadian writers only. The fact is prizes are not always about the best book, by the way. They are just about the winning book. There is no point, as a writer, in thinking too much about such things.
October 24th, 2007 at 6:39 am
JY,
As flattered as I am for your characterization of my future award-potential – should I buy the tux now, just in case? – I think you’re missing the real drift of the comments here, which is mostly that, though some of Marche’s observations are correct, his conclusions are off.
Personally, I think fiction gets better and more interesting when good writers (an important distinction) shuck off notions of “ambition” and burrow into their own idiosyncratic view of the world. I just think that has nothing with age. In fact, in many cases, it’s young authors who try too hard for a seat at the ‘grown-up’ table, consciously writing books with ‘big’ themes and in a style borrowed from the King James Bible so that they will be taken seriously.
I should also say that I’m glad he wrote the thing, and it was nervy thing to do, given CanLit’s tendencies toward Omerta. Anything that actually gets people declaring themselves on the record and gets discussions started is great.
October 24th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Hold on – I won an award? When did that happen? And why wasn’t I told?
October 24th, 2007 at 8:58 am
cfg: “And not to be glaringly obvious, but wasn’t he just published by one of this country’s big presses?”
See Post #5.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Hey, someone remembers that I won best short story in my high school writers’ club competition. Where did you dig up that nugget?
Maybe all us “award winners” are a little miffed that, clearly, Marche did not bother to read our books before he pronounced about all that is being written in Canada. By sheer coincidence I sat down recently and read The Nettle Spinner, by someone in this discussion. No flattery intended or required, but better prose I have not read out of young Brooklyn, and TNS doesn’t fit anywhere into Marche’s formula for CanLit, unless you want to quibble and say there sure are a lot of trees in it. We have a lot of trees. So sue us.
I like that he wrote the essay, and I like that the Star cares enough about literature that it thinks it might start a Guardian style slap-fight by publishing the essay, but Marche sure is dead wrong about a lot of things — let’s start with how many of Foer’s experiments are “new” — and since he signed his name to the essay I’m sure he can stand the backlash, even at the sensitive, vulnerable age of 31. Ah youth. I’m 41, and I remember feeling a hell of a lot older at 31 than I do now.
The age thing is really just the dumbest part of this discussion. In my twenties in Ottawa I bought a book somewhere and it came with a bookmark promoting a lit-prize called the “45-Below.” Nice, cheesy play on how cold it gets up here — cold being a metaphor for death, or something. The idea was the prize would go to the best “young” author under the age of 45. I can remember thinking — you mean I can be 44 as a writer and still be young? Right on.
BTW, I think Ondaatje won the 45-Below.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Okay, thanks, jd. The Nettle Spinner is about a treeplanter who enters a fairytale and ends up in a relationship with a Titanic survivor, who may also be rumpelstiltskin. There is no city in it, at all.
I’m also thinking of other great OLDTIMER books by Canadians. Helen Humphrey’s Wild Dogs is certainly an experiment. Cole’s Norman Bray, as I mentioned earlier. John Terpstra’s The Boys (a memoir but so is Eggers book). Divisadero is an experiment, or at least Ondaatje speaks about it that way. Michael Winter’s new book has qualities of experiment to it, as well, but I am not sure if he quite qualifies as old. Admittedly, I have not read a great deal of fiction in the last few years as I’ve been working on my own. I’ll catch up this year and get back to you.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Oh, I forgot to mention Gil Adamson’s the Outlander.
October 24th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I guess I just don’t understand why more people aren’t more passionate and vocal and eager to defend these arguments. What Marches is essentially saying, regardless of age, is that there’s a lack of support in Canada for books that fall outside his (hilariously accurate, admit it) formula for Canadian Literature. True, Kathryn’s book, along with The Uninvited Guest, are two great books that defy those conventions…two great books that were both recommended to me by a friend…two great books that I actively searched for in bookstores (both McChaptigo and independents)…two books that I couldn’t find, and had to order online…two books that received a miniscule fraction of the attention and recognition heaped upon books like The Birth House and Outlander, and which, if we’re talking about literary merit, probably deserved more.
You’d think, if anyone would rally behind what Marche is saying, it would be the very people most affected by this homogeneity. Instead, it always seems that anyone who broaches these topics is immediately villainized in this weird, semi-polite, passive-aggressive way. There are a lot of claims for support for his argument, but they’re all qualified by comments about “pointless tribalism” and “sour grapes” and “rationalizing why his new book hasn’t performed up to expectations” and calling it “a pretty ridiculous piece” and “just plain silly” and “just plain wrong” and “arrogant, self-serving, overgeneralized”, not to mention the reference to “ragout de spleen”, whatever that might be (Scottish tomato sauce?).
And, yeah, Marche is published by the big houses, his first book came out when he was 28…name one other Canadian writer below the age of thirty who was given that same kind of support (I’m not saying that as a challenge…I’d genuinely like to know…I need an outlet for my bitter misdirected jealousy).
October 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Well, Atwood had early support, and more recently Sheila Heti, Lisa Moore. Oh, what about O’Neill? I’m really not sure how old anyone is, and I find, still, it doesn’t really interest me. Marche has had alot of support, from my POV. What the hell does he expect? The audience here is about 25 people. I heard about a recent GG winner who still has to write reviews. Has to. I know of a couple of strong Canadian writers (youngish) who are getting masters so they can teach. We can’t really do superstars here; there isn’t the market.
I guess I have a very different relationship with my writer colleagues. I mean we don’t open hip stores or whatever. I’m glad for that. It is cool in a way, I admit, but it also seems kind of adolescent. Superheroes? Whatever.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:29 am
JY,
Those two novels you mention were published by small presses far from Toronto. Nuf said about why they don’t get the recognition you feel they deserve. Publicity is paid for; those who can afford it, get it. I’m 31 (I went to University with Steve March, as it happens), have won no awards and write poems. If anyone’s got a cause to be resentful about the state of the CanLit world, it’s me, damnit! And I am, I am! But Steve obscured his best points–or his one good point–with a lot of crazytalk, and he’s being called on it.
Most of Steve’s points are banal, obvious, cliched; the worst of them are barmy. His “hilariously accurate” characterisation of CanFiction is one I’ve read in countless other rants on the subject. It is itself a cliche. Everything else has been addressed above by several people, in a manner that doesn’t seem passive aggressive to me at all. And there are, as Kathryn says, plenty of countervailing examples. Add Neil Smith and David Bezmogis (for short fiction, for crissakes!). I’m sure I could come up with more examples if I actually read Canadian fiction, but I generally don’t. The last novel by a young Canadian writer I started was booooooring. And it was published by a big press. I put it down less than halfway thru. I didn’t try another novel again until Jim Crace’s _Being Dead_. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. He’s not Canadian, and I have no idea how old he is. Don’t care. Dumb reasons to read books. I did read _The Nettle Spinner_ when it came out, ’cause I like Kathryn and really enjoyed her short story collection. I also really enjoyed TNS, read it almost all in one sitting. I betcha Steve hasn’t read it. Hey Steve, read _The Nettle Spinner_, support young Canadian novelists, will ya? If you don’t do it, who will?
October 24th, 2007 at 11:49 am
“I guess I just don’t understand why more people aren’t more passionate and vocal and eager to defend these arguments.”
Because, however funny, they’re not very well argued.
If the gist of the argument is that Canadian publishing doesn’t give a lot of push to the existing, and very good, writing outside the potato-famine and secret-diary formula, it is buried under an awful lot of inaccurate generalization and, yes, pointless tribalism. The narrow spectrum of ‘popular’ writing in this country is something this particular audience feels in their guts and wallets everyday, despite the occasional shortlist appearance, but I’m just not sure how greater youth focus, greater Experimentation, more Brooklyn, or Brooklynish writing is going to solve this very Canadian problem. It sounds to me like he’s calling for a new clique to replace the old one.
The swipe at Atwood is at best unnecessary and morbidly bizarre. Look, her gait has slowed and stiffened — eat her! The grouping of Canada’s young writers into a guest house across the East River is seriously ignorant, and I would even suggest such groupings are part of the problem Marche is scratching around at. Why does all of publishing, not just Canadian, blow in such fickle, trendy winds?
Is it possible what Marche is really raging about is the fact that the funky, hip borough of Brooklyn has about as many serious book-buyers as all of Canada does? If so, well, welcome to Canada. Where have you been?
Again, big money success for a Canadian book, measured on the world standard, does not, can not, happen within the confines of the Canadian market. Success measured by other standards is happening in Canadian writing. We make great books. Getting these great books accepted in a larger market is a complicated problem I don’t think Marche succeeds at defining — but I passively-aggressively challenge him to continue trying to define it.
Thanks for looking for my book.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Oh, also, c’mon Star fact-checkers — O’Neill’s book title is wrong. That’s just embarrassing, given the article.
And Martel, who is 44 right now by my calculations — which is just friggin’ ancient — received tons of popular push for Life of Pi in Canada, pre-Booker. He also won the Hugh MacLennan and was short-listed for the GG, again pre-Booker.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
It’s so cute when Zach and John agree but don’t acknowledge it. And you lot make me well up with tears when you gets all riled up likes a bunch of local toughs. Sniff.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
“I mean we don’t open hip stores or whatever. I’m glad for that. It is cool in a way, I admit, but it also seems kind of adolescent. Superheroes? Whatever.”
Yeah, it’s adolescent. Good. Wonderful. CanLit suffers from an embarrassing lack of adolescence. Maybe, if we want to draw an audience of more than 25 people, hip, adolescent, superhero-related stores are precisely what we need. Poo-pooing all things adolescent is precisely the reason that young people don’t give a rat’s ass about contemporary literature, and why, to sell books, big publishers have to pander to the tales-of-Maritime-woe audience. There is a huge market for fiction out there. An adolescent market. Facebook is a good start in getting their attention; it’s cool to see Canadian publishers on the leading edge of something. I just refuse to resign myself to the fact that book sales for small Toronto presses will max out at 25 because, well, that’s just the way it goes in this country. Call me idealistic.
By the by, in his article, Marche cites Heiti, O’Neill, and Bezmogis as writers who found support in the US to establish their reputations at home. Would Sheila Heiti be the standard-bearer for CanLit youth if she wasn’t riding the Dave Eggers gravy-train? Somehow I don’t think so.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
“Why does all of publishing, not just Canadian, blow in such fickle, trendy winds?”
Because publishing is a business. New and trendy sells, according to the current current business model.
Two more points:
1. Sure, a writer who makes it big in the US is going to reap a lot of money and fame, but there are not many of them. Emerging and midlist writers in Canada, on the other hand, get a lot more official support than similar writers in the US. The Canada Council and provincial arts councils give more money in absolute terms than similar governmental and quasi-government agencies in the US. Herman Melville, that denizen of Brooklyn I mentioned earlier, might receive a grant or two if he were writing here and now, but not if he were south of the border.
2. Nobody knows who is going to be read 100 years from now. A compulsion to tell stories and a belief that maybe we can tell them well is what keeps most of us going. Thank goodness that Melville continued writing even though he didn’t sell well after his initial (rather small) success.
Mary
Never won a prize,BTW, although I was on the shortlist for the 1977 Books in Canada First Novel award along with Carole Shields and Michael Ondaatje. Great company: no cigar.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
JY – if Marche’s “formula” is so accurate, shouldn’t it be reflected in the Giller list which he so scorns? Actually looking at those books, though (I know, I shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a good rant, but I’m weird that way), only one comes anywhere close to this “hilariously accurate” stereotype, and that’s Alissa York’s. It’s in the neighbourhood of conforming (though not really), and she’s the youngest writer on the list. It’s also probably the best book shortlisted. So make of that what you will.
“name one other Canadian writer below the age of thirty who was given that same kind of support” – well, thirty is fairly arbitrary, but in the general chronological neighbourhood, and off the top of my head -
Nathan Sellyn, Craig Davidson, Billie Livingston, Lisa Moore, Anoshi Irani, Nancy Lee, Stephen Galloway, Michael Redhill, Kevin Patterson, Vincent Lam, Esi Edugyan, Lee Henderson, Laisha Rosneau, Ray Robertson, Madeleine Thien, Lynn Coady, Timothy Taylor, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Todd Babiak, Dennis Bock, Joseph Boyden, Karen Connelly, Michael Crummey, Will Ferguson, Anne-Marie MacDonald, Eden Robinson, Miriam Toews, Alissa York, Stephen Marche… so that’s what, a couple of dozen exceptions to the rule, off the top of my head? A couple of dozen writers published (with varying degrees of success) by major Canadian houses in their twenties or early thirties?
So given that Marche’s “accurate” description of Canadian writing isn’t, and the idea that young writers don’t get a break in Canada doesn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny, yeah, I’m pretty comfortable in thinking that this piece is pretty ridiculous. Which is unfortunate — there are some good points lurking on the periphery of his argument, but they’re overshadowed by groundless and sweeping generalizations…
October 24th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
John who?
October 24th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Forgot to mention Douglas Glover as another ancient over 40 (possibly 50) experimenter of words. Try ‘Elle’ and tell me the oldies can’t get it up. I just read Poliquin’s A Secret Between Us. It’s an innovative historical revision and he’s got to be 50. Very funny book.
Also, nice list, Rob in Victoria.
And the rest of you have me blushing.
JY, I love youthful writing, don’t get me wrong and, I think, we are all mostly not dissing the young’uns. I loved Ticknor, for instance (though I don’t really see it as innovative in some way. It is a very interesting narrative voice play and extremely well done). It’s Steinian, to my mind (and she was a frigging old bat). Lisa Moore owes a great deal to Woolf (Also, no spring chicken; 40s when she wrote Mrs Dalloway). One could argue, too, that Marche’s recreation of a world that does not exist is clever not innovative. I have not read it, yet, but I intend to. I have heard that the stories are less successful than the concept; if so, I’ll be less interested in it. I can’t help it. If a book is conceptual and it works, great. If it doesn’t, then it just doesn’t. My latest happy find is Tom McCarthy’s Remainder. It ought not work but it’s one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in a long time. That and Roberto Bolano’s The Savage Detectives. Both innovative (oh, and I think McCarthy is quite young!) both successful.
And that I am not interested in Superheroes does not mean I am not interested in innovation, I’m saying; it’s just that superheroes are not innovation. It is, well, not. I don’t care how cute the youngsters look in the tights.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
One might even say Steve’s concept is Borgesian. And Borges is so old, he’s dead! But has anyone else noticed the CanLit allusion in Steve’s title? It comes from–or at least is uncannily close to–the final lines of AM Klein’s–another old dead dude–”Portrait of the Poet as Landscape”:
To find a new function for the declasse craft
archaic like the fletcher’s; to make a new thing;
to say the word that will become sixth sense;
perhaps by necessity and indirection bring
new forms to life, anonymously, new creeds—
O, somehow pay back the daily larcenies of the lung
These are not mean ambitions. It is already something
merely to entertain them. Meanwhile, he
makes of his status as zero a rich garland,
a halo of his anonymity,
and lives alone, and in his secret shines
like phosphorus. At the bottom of the sea.
***
The whole poem is a great ode to literary neglect. In fact, Klein was the model for Moses Berger’s poet-father in _Solomon Gursky Was Here_. In one pivotal scene, Moses tells his father that not all neglected poets are unjustly neglected. Kind of interesting, in light of all this…
October 24th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Damn. I’ll have to chime in later; I just spent 20 minutes (I’m slow, sue me) typing some reasonably organized thoughts only to find that after that amount of time the security code becomes invalid and my post was lost.
I’ll just make my first point, being that nearly everyone I know who reads Sheila Heti has been doing so since before McSweeney’s picked up the US rights to The Middle Stories, so I feel confident that she’d still be getting a lot of attention and is not, in fact, swinging from Eggers’ n*ts as JY implies.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
JY — you’re idealistic.
As for the embarrassing lack of adolescence in Canadian literature, nothing could be sillier. How the hell is building a “new” literary formula based on demographics going to solve anything essential? What are we, Pepsi?
Adolescence abounds in our literature, and our writers — Russell Smith, Hal Niedsviecki, Camilla Gibb, Emily Shultz, Stacey May Fowles (coming soon) — these are just the latest in my mind, but wasn’t that whole CanLit revolution in the 70’s a hip(py) adolescent, shock-your-parents, reactionary thing? Do we really have to keep repeating the same slightly lame “solutions.” Canada’s good books generally get their percentage-share of worldwide book-attention, which for fiction is woefully slim to begin with. The reasons for the slimness are far more complicated, in my opinion, than the very simplistic we-aren’t-Facebooking-enough. The powerhouse rise of non-fiction sweeping away everything in its path, for instance. And who’s in charge of that fiction-killing brigade? Good Canadian girl name of Naomi Klein, who despite her demographic tends not to write about superheroes.
I hate the current fiction (and poetry) climate as much as you or Marche do, I think. But my hope relies more on perserverence and improving craft than on superheroes and spectacularly dying parents. I don’t choose my reading by formula or geography — love Lethem, can’t stand Foer — why would I pattern my writing that way?
I love the Heti. Would walk into traffic for the Heti. But I don’t believe she’s the standard-bearer for anything right now, despite the hoopla about McSweeney’s. And, unfortunately, I don’t think her books are read nearly enough, not even by those crowds and crowds of kids who don’t give a rat’s ass about OldLit.
My question about fickle winds was rhetorical, btw. Not that I disagree with the answer given.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I’d walk into traffic for Ticknor. Blindfolded and naked. [PS. Note to all posters... Copy your text before you hit post...]
October 24th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Just by the by, I was at the Writers’ Union AGM in Toronto a few years ago (4? 5?)when Denise Bukowski spoke on the business of finding an agent and said firmly that any middle aged writer who had been pubished by a small press would never get representation — that everyone was looking for the next hot edgy young star. There was a silence heavy with dismay following that statement, since nearly everyone in the room was middle-aged, and ublished by a small press.
Make of that what you will.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Whoops! sorry about mis-spellings. I couldn’t see the right margin.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Susan – that’s another good counterpoint: it wasn’t so long ago that the standard complaint was that you had to be under 30 and cute (and have graduated from UBC) to get a book contract.
Another sweeping generalization that was only about 25% true.
There is one thing that is certain, if you are an author who feels underappreciated (a redundancy, I know): you are underappreciated because of X (where X = too old/young, too close to/far from Toronto, too traditional/experimental, too male/female, too ugly/cute, too East Coast/West Coast, too serious/funny etc.).
October 24th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I’ve said it before and been jumped on but … Canadians, on the evidence, are not really that interested in arts and culture.
They don’t care about Canadian Literature. They like “Corner Gas” and “Little Mosque on the Prairie”, but less than they like American
television. I don’t see it getting better. Have you seen their Prime Minister? Most of ‘em are hicks.
October 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
You’re right, ed. Also: rap ain’t music, pants are too baggy these days, movies are too damn long, and kids don’t know the worth of a dollar.
Who cares what Canadians are interested in? Most great artists start from the premise that they live in a society of philistines and pricks – in fact, that tends to be their primary motivation. Anyone who gives up because they won’t be sufficiently fêted would have been useless, anyway.
Writers get to complain about their harsh lot in major daily newspapers. That’s already better than a lot of deserving people get.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Oh Nathan, you’re always trying to make out like writerly whining is different from everyone else’s. Who doesn’t get to complain about their harsh lot in the major dailies?
I had to start disagreeing with you. It was getting uncomfortable.
You know, to gauge the success-factor of formulaic approaches to culture, including the youth-oriented kind, you need look no further than Canadian television. Maybe I’m pie in the sky, but I’d like to see CanLit do better than that. I’d like our break-out successes to not be limited to the Due South variety.
And ed, I’m kind of thinking that more than half our problem is assuming people who watch CSI won’t ever pick up The Nettle Spinner. I don’t think it’s true — I just think we’re marketing our product all wrong. And here’s where I lean in agreement toward JY. If there’s a market for superheroes, feed it superheroes.
But don’t assume it only wants superheroes, or that it’s the only market.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Nathan, Nathan, Nathan … it’s not an old grouse but a new one. The small audience of a few years ago that was unsustainable has
decreased markedly. It is not a small complaint that Canadian literature is irrelevent to the overwhelming, OVERWHELMING majority
of the populace. I’m not blaming the writers.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Someone, I’m too lazy to scroll up and check who, listed young Canadian writers who have the support of major presses. Craig Davidson is an example of a writer whose work is outside the mainstream and whose sales are far from stellar. He took part in one of the most innovative publicity events in recent Canadian literary history. She The Fighter be a Giller winner? Probably not. Should he be selling books and not be passing out resumes this fall? Yes. He tried something different and was blasted by critics for it. The same event was staged in New York and was praised for its innovation. Yet even with all the support he received no one is buying. Does it pay to write outside the norm? Not in Canada.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Which critics blasted Craig for the boxing match (or for the book, for that matter)? And no, cranky bloggers and those who waste time holding forth on their sites don’t count…
The boxing match (and the lead-up, including the weigh-in) got great press coverage, and drew great crowds. The book itself got generally favourable reviews. As to why the book didn’t sell… who knows. I know a lot of people who were disappointed that it didn’t catch fire, but the fact is, most things (books, movies, music, tv shows) simply don’t, despite their inherent quality. To extrapolate from a single disappointment to the idea that it doesn’t pay to write outside the norm in Canada doesn’t necessarily track — there are a number of books outside the norm that do catch fire (to varying degrees), and a lot of books within the norm that don’t…
October 24th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Maybe sales would’ve been better if Davidson hadn’t had his ass handed to him…
October 24th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
RE #49 – Thanks, Craig, for reminding us to talk about your book, and about both your hilarious ass-whippings.
October 24th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
So, jd, we’re in agreement about the marketing thing (maybe). But when we talk about support from publishers, isn’t a large part of that marketing? Not just of a book, but of an author? If books and authors in Canada are poorly marketed — whether due to financial reasons, ineptititude, or ed’s Corner-Gas-loving-mongoloids — isn’t that a lack of necessary support? If, as Nathan points out, every type of Canadian writer — young, old, fringe, mainstream, etc. — all feel somehow unnapreciated and unrepresented, isn’t that proof of some inherent systemic flaw?
Is anyone else embarrassed by that? This is our natural literature, which, relative to the rest of the world, is about eight-thousand times better than our national film and television industries, and, I would argue, even better than our national music industry…a literature that, I would argue further, rivals that of any other national literature on the planet. Canada’s best writers shouldn’t be dropping off resumes at Canadian Tire while waiting for the Body Shop Lotions-of-the-World gift basket they receive each month in lieu of royalties.
On a completely unrelated note, can someone please explain why everyone takes such joy in taking the piss out of Craig? Is it because his attempts to promote his book are somehow beneath the high standards of Canadian literature? Maybe he should have invented some kind of cyborg appendage that arm-wrestles Conrad Black, then everyone would be applauding his genius.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
I was trying to avoid this topic but then just now a new post and mongoloid caught my eye, such a bizarre term and I feel guilty that it still makes me laugh.
Boxing and poetry are such a good mix, we’re all drunk already so it seems an obvious evolution of the evening. Taking the piss is just that, having a bit of fun, but on a more serious note perhaps fiction writers shouldn’t box poets because we’re street steez and we’ll hurt you (because we’re so broke and we have nothing to lose).
The original Star article/argument is such an old argument for old people, it’s like white noise in Canlit, isn’t it? I first heard this anti-stodgy-prairie-narrative case in high school English class and yeah it’s obviously still true, most well known lit stars are boring, it’s like anything else.
It is embarrassing that we can’t get minimum wage jobs in stores that carry our books (or that we’ve tried) it is rather bleak. I think it’s kind of tiresome talking about our writers as young and old, as though they are opposing factions , so many of our young writers start off ‘establishment’ minded and bore their way to the Ben Mulroney hosted galas. Back to the original Star piece: why bring up the great Mr. Layton if you’re not going to discuss what is going on in Canpo?
Does this (the following quote) sound like a fucking nightmare to anyone else?
“The major writers in Brooklyn are young, or if they’re not young they pretend to be (thus the spectacle of 50-year-olds in skeleton hoodies hunched over their MacBooks).”
Apparently all you need to be “preposterously cool” is a lot of yuppie devices and an H&M gift certificate.
Also:
“The writers who volunteer have gone beyond too cool for school. They’re so cool they are school.” –-whaaat? Dad did you write that? I didn’t know you could use your computer.
“It’s not just that young people write in Brooklyn; writing itself is considered a youthful activity. It’s the kind of thing that 32-year-old men who go to work by skateboard do.”
A nightmare.
But of course he’s right about ‘stuff’, the Seligman comment is really sad, awards are to be awarded to the best book, like Katherine’s (I’ve read her and so I believe it takes more than that to make her blush) but of course they rarely are. And a lot of respected Canadian fiction is bland and the real cool kids are going unnoticed (and may not be cool or kids).
This award-talk is so frequent and yet I can think of few of examples of anyone doing anything to change the unfairness–Wells’ awarding Goran Simic with his People’s Award in place of a deserved GG nom. being the most recent and admirable example.
Is it fair to say that Canadian writers are all starry-eyed for New York? Every time a writer goes to New York it ends up taking up eight or so new lines in their bio. We get it, it’s so cool and you were there so by logical conclusion… Maybe if everyone just kept their luggage tags on we would know where each other had been and then we wouldn’t need pieces like these to explain what’s cool.
Don’t bother mixing up angry Molotov paragraphs about my grammar tonight, I am writing this between putting my baby to bed and writing bland ad copy and did not graduate high school and am on a lot of ill prescribed pain associated meds.–3 out of 4 of the statements I make are usually accurate).
ps Congratulations Nathan, the award-prediction-compliment-fairy tells us you may be much more important this time next year.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I’m still waiting for someone to promote their book by challenging the Longpen piloted by Peggy to an arm wrestle. Or a Vietnamese game of Russian roulette, Longpen to closed-circuit monitor, Deer Hunter style.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow
meow meow meow meow meow,
meow meow meow meow
My goodness we’re all so easily baited. Is it really news to find out someone thinks New York is cooler than Toronto? Find me someone who doesn’t. Now that’s an opinion I’d like to hear defended. The poor boy misses his friends, and has expressed this in a foolish and adolescent way. No one on earth has ever claimed that Canlit is young or hip, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Is German literature young and hip? Do they care? How about in France? Are the Dutch obsessed with novels about tulips? Do you think they sit around in Spain wondering whether they’re as cool as Portugal? Do writers in Helsinki complain about what a stodgy bunch of old farts the writers in Stockholm are? Even discussing this is fundamentally uncool. It’s like a bunch of nerds consoling each other– once they’re out of highschool chicks will want to sleep with them, not the jocks on the football team, who may look cool but aren’t, but the nerds, man, because they’re cool on the inside, yeah, the inside.
So relax, everyone, keep doing whatever it is you do and stop worrying about this. Bear in mind that, at 54 posts, a few dozen more people have weighed in on this ridiculous article than did in regards to the book it’s clearly intended to promote, which kind of renders the author’s pronouncements moot. One does not ask Beetle Bailey for his opinion on the state of the armed forces.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:38 am
Slightly topic bending, I know:
I don’t know about anyone else, Jared, but I don’t necessarily think Davidson’s stunts “beneath the hight standards of Canadian literature”… rather that his continuing silliness and lack of dignity knows no geopolitical or social boundaries. The first time he tried to box was a shot in the dark – sure, they conceived it, tried it and it backfired. Too bad. Have a good laugh and shake of the head and say, Doh, I feel like a fool. I’m never going to do THAT again!
But instead he whined like a bitch (and I do mean dog here) and tried to scrape together some dignity by, what? writing another book? working hard on his craft? reading to an audience nowhere near a spit bucket? No, by challenging another opponent to repeat the circus of pain. Given his history of whimpering, this doesn’t look like good sportsmanship, it looks like stupid, deluded narcissism coupled with a vanity bordering on hubris.
And for the record, we just as regularly take the piss out of the old guard as we do whiny kids like Craig. Also for the record, I’d pay to see anyone wrestle the Frankenhand. I bet it comes apart like a Bush-era war plan.
And Roy, your sage legal authority and voice are surely welcome around here. You’re like some sort of wondrous wise unicorn or something…. But don’t dampen the burn. Let them get it out. This is a safe space where everyone is welcome to practice talk therapy and the chucking of shuriken. I’m sure I’ll have a few in my back by the afternoon.
Evie, as we say down at the poetry society: Dactylic hexameter?! I will CUT YOU, esé.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:17 am
An old argument for old people — Evie, exactly. As soon as you start complaining that the establishment is keeping you down, someone younger starts looking at you as the establishment. It’s impossible to avoid, and therefore more than mildly embarrassing to publicly declaim against — especially from an obvious position of privilege. I’ll give Marche the benefit of the doubt that what he’s not REALLY saying is hurry up and die so I can have your stuff — but it sure sounds like it.
JY, I do agree with you. It is embarrassing that a quality product gets short shrift because the marketing just ain’t there in any kind of effective way. I’m not sure public punch-outs are the way to go, but I also don’t care if that’s what some writer wants to do. But I think the problem is too big and too profound to lay only at the doorsteps of our publishers. I think this is a larger philosophical question we all need to address.
I was chatting with a FWD (famous writer dude) at the Coach House launch in Toronto last night, and I congratulated him on the fact that his recent (nonfiction) book had been reviewed in both the New Yorker and the Times Literary Supplement. He told me that, in fact, it wasn’t until there was an American edition of his book, put out by a press with an American address, that it started getting any notice outside Toronto. How the hell did we get in this box?
I’m less interested in figuring out who to blame than I am in just breaking the damn thing apart, for everyone, old and young.
I hope that made sense. I’m too old to be out late on a weeknight, but that was too much fun last night.
October 25th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Who is Roy Pepitone and can I date him? Oh wait, I’m married. Damn.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Roy is not to be trifled with, Susan. I know this from experience. You wouldn’t think a unicorn could (or would) bite so hard and so deep; the sparkle he left did not ease the pain.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Again repeating myself … New York has lately become a lot like Toronto.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Kathryn, people who scream out “bite my juicy calves, unicorn slut” during otherwise tender lovemaking should really have tougher skin, don’t you think? All I’m saying is that blame is a two way street.
George, be careful about dismissing “vanity bordering on hubris.” Some days there’s precious little else in the cupboard.
Susan… you just let me know if things don’t work out with whatshisname. And don’t listen to Kathryn. There’s a lot of context she’s leaving out.
John, we’ve always been in this box, and it’s a two way street. When’s the last time we all sat around raving about a great book that was only published in Australia? Excepting the US and UK, we don’t hear of, know about, or much care about the literature of any other country here in Canada, so why should anyone else be different?
I look at the whole being Canadian thing this way. There may be some disadvantages to writing in a country whose population is so small that there’s not a huge readership to be found here for most of us. But Marche, ass backwardly, is actually making a good point, even if it’s the opposite of his argument’s thesis. In the States and the UK, the focus on books, even literary fiction, is so much more commercial, and your ability to continue to publish is so much more dependent on selling in volume, writers resort to all sorts of poses and stunts and image related goofs to simply stay in the game. This is why CD’s fight went over well in NY, and not here. But is any of this writing? No. Here in Canada, even with the big presses, almost no one tells you what to write. They don’t edit books to sell, they edit them to be good.
This is not always the case in the US and UK. There you must be many things besides a writer to make any headway. Is this a good thing? I don’t think so. I think the best situation is the one we have in Canada. Here you can write what you want to write, and if the Americans and Brits want to buy it they will, because it’s already translated into English. If they don’t, well, your bank account will be smaller, but you’ll still get to publish another book.
Does this system produce some boring, safe, uninteresting books? Sure it does. But it also produces some pretty great books to. If you ask Nathan he’ll be happy to tell you which are which. Perhaps we’re not the sexiest bunch, perhaps our parties are a little boring, and perhaps some of us are old. News flash: we’re Canadian! There is no such thing as a Canadian wax, Canadian waffles, or Canadian kissing. Big deal. Youth is fleeting, old age lasts forever. Most of the young writers I know are sick to death of being classed as young writers.
Actually, I do know someone who got a Canadian wax. Smooth as a seal everywhere but there.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Peppie,
I don’t much disagree, except for one quibble. Excepting the US and UK is an awful huge exception, marketwise. I think you’re probably right about the privilege of small, but I also think there must be a better way to give our writers the option of large. It may be something as simple as no longer refering to our writing as something to be categorized. Why do we always insist on the Can in CanLit?
October 25th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
jd, do you mean like when someone at a hockey game says, “Oh, you’re a writer! What do you write? Oh, fiction! Like what kind of fiction? Mystery? Romance?” and you say, “Well, I write Canlit, actually,” and your new almost friend gets this glazed look on his face and says, “Oh.”
Roy? Hell, I miss you.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
The way I’d write it … Kathryn turns out to be Pepitone. Oh … wait …
October 26th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Clearly I am out of the loop here. As usual.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:02 am
No, ed. Sadly, Roy and I are no longer one.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Roy, I wish I could quit you.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Extra credit reading: Adam Gopnik’s article in the October 22 New Yorker about the new Orion series of “compact classics.” What he writes can be seen as supporting Marche’s contention that original voices should be heard:
“Masterpieces are inherently a little loony. They run on the engine of their own accumulated habits and weirdnesses and self-indulgent excesses. They have to, since originality is, necessarily, something still strange to us, rather than something that we alrleady know about and approve. What makes writing matter is not a story, cleanly told, but a voice, however odd or ordinary, and a point of view, however strange or sentimental.”
But I’d argue that you don’t have to be young to be original, or that formerly young writers should be dismissed out of hand.
Mary
November 3rd, 2007 at 7:05 pm
My problem with Marche isn’t that he’s wrong, it’s that his argument is pre-thematic. As a student of CanLit I can come up with dozens of these things, but take a look at this quote from Robert Weaver:
Our literary and intellectual life is timid and old-fashioned. I don’t believe it is really possible to define what Canadians value in their reading, but I suspect that what they value are books which are solid, informative and responsible. They do not greatly value wit, style and imagination. And to this situation our writers reply with a long series of negatives. There are no Angry Young Men; no existentialists outside Quebec; no novelists responding to the vast social changes in post-War Canada. Our most popular novelists write as though the literature of the twentieth century had never existed.
If you were alive and taking in the 1957 Couchiching Conference, that’s what you would’ve heard.