Post-Giller Hangover Jottings

Posted 9 November, 2007 in Jottings |

• My recent encounter with the Scotiabank Giller shortlist has left me exhausted and slightly depressed, and not really in the mood to talk about literature. Call it the “anti-Giller effect.” While I work to drag myself out of my self-induced funk, here are a few items that caught my eye over the last couple of days.
• Librarians in Hillsborough County, Tampa, scramble to track down copies of the children’s Magic Attic Club series, after a local parent discovered that an 800 number printed in the books connects readers to a phone-sex line.
• Parents in Charleston, West Virginia are upset over the “graphic depictions of violence, suicide and sexual abuse” in two novels by Pat Conroy — Beach Music and The Prince of Tides — that were provided to their children as high school reading material. I’m with the parents on this one: heaven forfend their adolescent offspring should read anything dealing with issues such as violence, suicide, and sexual assault. That might give the young whippersnappers the idea that these things actually exist in the world and that they might be relevant to their own lived experience. Obviously, we can’t have that.
• In an instance of literary piling-on, Robert Fulford and — will wonders never cease? — Conrad Black have joined Knopf Canada publisher Louise Dennys in decrying Peter C. Newman’s negative Globe and Mail review of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s new volume of memoirs. Both Fulford and Black make a couple of valid points, not the least of them being that Newman’s characterization of Chrétien’s years in power as a “baleful interregnum — an extended, listless March break between the reigns of Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper” seems inaccurate: ten years is not exactly an “interregnum,” and if one were to take the long view of Canadian history, it could be argued that the Mulroney years constitute the “interregnum” between long periods of Liberal governments. Having said that, it doesn’t take long for Black to devolve into ad hominem attacks on Newman, whom he describes as “shambling about in his ridiculous sailor’s cap, bilious and at least verbally incontinent … pitiful but not at all sympathetic.” The irony inherent in Black calling someone else verbally incontinent appears to escape him.
• Kerry Clare on reading in the bath.
• The Battle of the Post-Its: Claire Cameron vs. Will Self.

2 comments to “Post-Giller Hangover Jottings”

Finn Harvor, November 9th, 2007 at 10:06 pm:

• re: the issue of reading in the bath, and whether this activity proves anything about the superiority of printed books over e-books. I think this is something of a false dichotomy, since the e-book is not the technology that most writers who post online (that I know of, at least) really have in mind. The computer, after all, is, despite all its frustrations and failings, a machine that has — at least, until ye olde software starts mucking things up — the potential to do a lot more than be a different “platform” for text.

  For what it’s worth, lately I’ve been experimenting with making podcasts. These are simply readings in another form, which is to say, the-words-that-constitute-the-text in different form. It seems to me that until e-books such as the Sony Reader drop in price and the copyright/royalty concerns of writers who post online are more seriously addressed, the likeliest scenario for an alternative to the printed book will be computer-enabled media like podcasts or lo-fi videos that offer samples of authorial work. In other words, people will use the computers screens they already have in order to discover new work or catch up on work by authors they’re already interested in, instead of buying Readers.

  I realize this will sound like anathema to people who self-consciously love books. (I love books, too, by the way.) But the problem for serious writers in the culturally chaotic early days of the 21st Century is how to — and here comes another puke-o-matic buzzword, but I have no choice — “empower” themselves. The internet was *supposed* to do that in an ipso facto sort of way. Remember the excitement that surrounded the blogosphere, back when big media was looking for a new darling and didn’t feel threatened? Ever so briefly, it seemed that the better blog sites would evolve into kinds of electronic magazines or publishing houses. And ironically, this is in fact the case — this blog being an example of what better online writing can be (yep, that’s right, Beattie, I’m impressed).

  Unfortunately, for several reasons, one of the primary ones being the current reactionary attitude of mainstream media toward new media not under their control, blogging currently isn’t taken very seriously by the larger culture, and blogging is trapped in a dynamic of having to stick to shorter online posts because people don’t like reading for long periods off conventional screens. But people *do* like listening to computers, in the same way they like listening to radios. Thus, the potential of the podcast. Now, if only I could get *my* frackin computer to work the way I want….

Steven W. Beattie, November 10th, 2007 at 12:18 pm:

• I take your point, Finn, and I grant you that most online writing does not feature the kind of long-format style envisioned by makers of, say, the Sony Reader. However, there are online magazines such as Slate, Salon, and Nerve that have been successful, and authors such as Cory Doctorow and Elfriede Jelinek have been experimenting with giving away their work online. I don’t think the computer will ever replace books — at least I hope it won’t — but the two “platforms” — to use another odious marketing buzzword — might just be able to co-exist over the long haul.

  For what it’s worth, I’d love for this site to morph into a more magazine-style enterprise, with longer-format articles and more voices (and opinions) than just my own showcased. I’ve been consciously trying to do this by introducing features like author interviews (which we haven’t had in a while: perhaps the time has come for another one?), the Giller coverage, etc. On your own site, the interviews with people such as Nathan Whitlock and Patrick Crean have proven interesting and enlightening, and do fill a niche that I don’t think the mainstream media is covering effectively (if at all). I think this speaks to how the Internet can operate in tandem, rather than in competition, with traditional printed books, magazines, and newspapers.

  As far as podcasts go, I’m all for them, but I’d hesitate to conflate them with books, or even with written material online. The former has more to do with radio broadcasts or streaming audio (as you suggest), while the relationship that a reader has with a written text is very different.

  And, hey, thanks for the compliment.

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