Canada Reads, Day 2

Posted 26 February, 2008 in Canada Reads |

Steven: After what Alex described as yesterday’s “love-fest” among the Canada Reads panel, the gloves came off today, with a number of panelists engaging in some fairly fierce back-and-forth about the titles on display. In particular, Lisa Moore and Zaib Shaikh got into it over Shaikh’s choice, Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage.

Things started out relatively calmly, with Moore employing the velvet hammer critical technique of praising the book and its author, before summarily cutting the knees out from under both. In her opening remarks she said the book displays “the author as divine creator,” and praised its descriptive powers: “I knew absolutely what it would feel like to be a cat in heat.” (This we might categorize as the “too much information” school of criticism.) And then … she attacked. Taking Shaikh to task for calling the book a feminist novel, she said that she found the feminism in the book “simplistic”: “The guys are bad, they’re thugs or they’re patriarchs; the girls are good. It feels a little bit simplistic in that way.”

Pressed by Jian Ghomeshi to expand on her feelings about the book, Moore, who is quickly becoming my favourite of the five panelists, suggested that the characters in the book are too unidimensional to be believable. “For a character to be believable there have to be inconsistencies.” Noah, for Moore, was the antithesis of this, presented always as the bad guy, while Mrs. Noyes is “the total wife.” When Shaikh protested that she leads the revolt at the book’s end, Moore responded that “to me, that is a very simplistic notion of feminism.” Shaikh: “But I think that’s the point.” Moore: “But it’s too easy a point.”

Score: Moore 3, Shaikh, nil.

Shaikh then followed up with some odd comments about Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring. He responded favourably to the book himself, but suggested that it might be too “culturally specific” to recommend for all of Canada to read. Following on his comment yesterday about being offended by “The Moslem Wife,” Shaikh, the self-described “brown boy in the ring,” is rapidly becoming the one member of the panel to consistently engage in identity politics when discussing these titles. What was most bothersome for me — a white boy — was Shaikh’s apparent feeling that Hopkinson’s book would have nothing to say to someone from my demographic. “Ultimately,” said Shaikh, “you have to think about all these books as a book you want the nation to read, and I as a reader wanted to read it, but when I think, Does this apply to all of Canada? I’m not convinced.”

Bidini took aim at the book as a work of literature, saying that it “angled too much toward the comic book side,” and although it was a fun read, it wasn’t as substantial as some of the other books on the list, and the fact that it is culturally significant isn’t in itself enough to recommend it.

And then Ghomeshi gave the floor to Lisa Moore: “You know, all of the universal is in the particular. I’m shocked by this argument that there’s a problem with it being culturally specific. That’s what I loved about it, and I found that that specificity was what was great about it — the language, the patois, the way the dialogue worked — and that that was placed on top of a Toronto that I’ve kinda walked around in, except not, because it’s sci-fi. I thought, wow, this is really weird, this is a weird book, and that’s what I want to read. I want to read stuff that I couldn’t have imagined myself.”

Score: Moore 4, Shaikh & Bidini nil.

A few final notes:

I did a bit of a double-take when Ghomeshi asked the each of the panelists to choose a character that will stick with them from a book other than their own, and Dave Bidini chose the title character from “His Mother” by Mavis Gallant. Despite the “precious” and “impenetrable” prose, it appears at least one story from the collection got under his skin.

Ghomeshi closed the show by asking the panel about “Canadianness” in the books, and whether this will influence the final choice. This, I admit, is one of the questions I was roundly hoping we could avoid this year, and I’ll have a good deal more to say about it when Alex and I do our wrap-up at the end of the week. For now, suffice it to say: bollocks.

When asked to choose her favourite character, Jemeni picked King Leary, and read a passage from the book. Her voice is absolutely mellifluous, and my only thought at that point was that if I could have listened to her reading the novel rather than having to read it myself, I would have liked it a hell of a lot more.

Alex: An odd day, I thought. Impressions:

(1) I agree that Moore came out strong today. Let’s face it, after yesterday’s bloodletting in the fifteenth district she had to. She was very good, but I thought Shaikh still came out as the most articulate. He did a good job introducing Not Wanted on the Voyage. In the follow-up debates, however, he is taking some hits. The arguing over feminism was just a place he didn’t need to go (and in fairness, he wasn’t the one who put it on the table today).

(2) Is MacLean really as literal-minded as he’s letting on? He apparently has trouble with talking cats and zombies in novels.

(3) I’m surprised that even though it came in for some criticism, nobody took on the violence in Brown Girl in the Ring. Am I the only one who found it over the top? Bidini even gave a great opening when he said he wished the characters had more blood in them. I did think Bidini’s critique was on target though: It does read like a comic book, and the multi-culti angle isn’t enough to make it worth selection. I don’t think he was (initially) attacking it for its cultural specificity, and it’s too bad the conversation got dragged in that direction later.

(4) The discussion is getting pretty shallow. The identity politics, which seems to be all over the place now, is only the most obvious manifestation (and admittedly the worst of it). But what about Moore complaining of the unbelievable characters in Not Wanted on the Voyage? Come on. It’s a fable. Findley’s playing with archetypes. I think they’re quite nicely realized and brought to life, but the point is you can’t compare characterization in Gallant with what Findley is doing, or for that matter what Quarrington does.

(5) I did a double-take of my own when Bidini chose the title character from Gallant’s “His Mother” as the character most likely to stick with him. OK, here’s my confession: I finished reading Gallant’s book two weeks ago. I pulled a complete blank on “His Mother.” I thought I remembered the story but when I went back to check I found I’d confused it with another. At this rate I won’t be able to remember if I ever read the book at all in another couple of months. I’m wondering if this is something I should see a doctor about. I’ve heard doing Sudoku helps.

(6) Three different characters from King Leary were picked as the most memorable. This book is still looking strong. I think we’d have to call it the front-runner going into the actual voting rounds. I think the “Canadianness” issue was a fair one to bring up. But perhaps typical of this day’s discussion, where things kept going off in wrong directions. People seemed to keep misinterpreting each other. Perhaps wilfully, for strategic reasons. I had a sense there was a lot of strategy going on today.

One other interesting bit of Canada Reads news today worth mentioning was the story in the Globe and Mail that talked a bit about the sales effect. I think Jian was adverting to it when he mentioned how the program brought King Leary back from the dead.

2 comments to “Canada Reads, Day 2”

Panic, February 27th, 2008 at 12:33 pm:

• “Ultimately,” said Shaikh, “you have to think about all these books as a book you want the nation to read, and I as a reader wanted to read it, but when I think, Does this apply to all of Canada? I’m not convinced.”
  Yeah, I balked at that too. That crack about “Will people in Medicine Hat want to read it?” Well, here’s the thing. Canada Reads is ostensibly about what books Canada should read, and lemme tell ya, Alberta can definitely use a little cultural diversity in their outlook. So yes, I think people in Medicine Hat should read it. It’s the whole point! Jemeni, I believe, also made a great point that hockey isn’t her cultural mileu either, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying King Leary.

  Moore is kicking ass and taking names.

  David Bowie count: 0. ;)

B., February 27th, 2008 at 3:13 pm:

• I’m not sure that the thoughts going through my brain are going to come out the way I want them to, but Shaikh’s comment rankled with me also. It seems like such a lame-ass, cheesedog, easy reason to eliminate a title. For a nation that supposedly prizes itself on multiculturalism, do many of us still see hockey as a unifying force? Really? I’m starting to wonder if Canada Reads is anything more than the CBC television’s usual Wind-at-my-Pit-Pony’s-Back-in-Avonlea-with-Hockey-Wives in literary form. Sheesh.

  And don’t get me started on that “Brown boy in the ring” comment…

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