Canada Reads 2010, Day 2

Steven W. Beattie: So, that’s it for Generation X, right?

Man, these guys just can’t get enough of beating up on that book. I almost feel like jumping to its defence simply because it’s such an obvious underdog (almost, mind you, almost …). Today, after Jian Ghomeshi asked the panelists which character from someone else’s book would stick with them the longest, then noted that no one named a character from Coupland’s novel, Samantha Nutt responded by saying that Generation X is not a book that “hangs on its characters.” And is that okay, Perdita Felicien? “No. Yawn. It’s not okay.” Wow. Felicien, who Ghomeshi pointed out is probably the polar opposite of one of Coupland’s slacker characters, wasted no time eviscerating the novel, which she thought was “boring.” Her assessment was met by Nutt, who called the novel’s characters “ungrateful,” and by Michel Vézina, who said that the characters in the book “were little rats that needed a good slap behind the head.” Indeed.

I did have a certain sympathy for Roland Pemberton, who must have felt besieged, but frankly he didn’t marshal much of a defence for his beleaguered title. The best he could do was to say that Generation X employs brand names as a means of critiquing our consumerist society. Ghomeshi tried valiantly to help the book, by calling it aesthetically interesting and commenting on the way it prefigured graphic novels and at one point even comparing it to On the Road.

But in the end, Ghomeshi’s intercession was for naught. When the dust cleared, Generation X was left lying there, bloodied and beaten, showing only the faintest twitches of life. If Coupland’s novel isn’t the first to get voted off tomorrow, it will constitute one of the biggest reversals in the history of Canada Reads.

But Generation X wasn’t the only book to take a pounding today. Felicien (who I never want to go toe-to-toe with) called out Good to a Fault for being “stereotypical” and said that its characters had no flaws. (An evident misapprehension: even Clara, the saint, is shown to be misguided at best, and perhaps even selfish in her reasons for helping the Pell family.) When Vézina said that he will remember Clayton, the Pell family patriarch, Felicien snapped, “You like deadbeat dads? That’s so stereotypical.” (It was unclear whether she was referring to Clayton or to Vézina himself.) She went on to say that she found the book’s moral framework too righteous, in contrast to her assertion yesterday that Fall on Your Knees is, in her opinion, morally complex.

Then, having said all that, she went on to name Mrs. Pell, the grandmother, as the character she’d remember longest from someone else’s book. She did say that she thought that Marina Endicott “could have gone further” with the character, which I take to be another misapprehension; one of Endicott’s strengths is character, and she knows just how far to push things without having her characters slip over into caricature.

Pemberton also criticized the characterizations in Good to a Fault, saying that they were “not developed well” and that the book contained too little detail. This was one of the stranger statements in today’s debate, since most of the criticism around the novel thus far has indicated that people think it contains too much development and detail.

Simi Sara, the book’s defender, also had an odd take on Good to a Fault, positioning it as a post-9/11 novel. In our time, Sara said, “there is a lot of soul-searching,” and people are asking themselves, “how do I make my life better?” However, I’m not convinced that this is any different post-9/11 than it was pre-9/11. One of Good to a Fault’s attributes, its seems to me, is its timelessness; its themes of charity vs. self-interest are universal, and could apply equally to any location and any period in history.

Then again, the whole “contemporary novel vs. historical novel” discussion – which rears its head every year on Canada Reads – was a bit of a non-starter. Ghomeshi kicked it off by suggesting that Good to a Fault and Nikolski were the only contemporary novels on the list this year, perhaps inadvertently putting yet another nail in Generation X’s coffin, then Vézina (faltering a bit after yesterday’s stellar performance) said that historical books have to deal with history while contemporary books have to deal with what’s happening now. Um … yeah … He went on to say, “My interest in a book nowadays is: What is it teaching me about the world?” At which point yr. humble correspondent found himself banging his head repeatedly against the surface of his desk.

Nutt’s assertion that The Jade Peony contains the most “inventive” writing style of the five books prompted another flurry of head banging on my part, as did her earlier claim that historical novels should be admired for the “huge amount of work” their authors put into researching their chosen period in history.

Finally, the one novel to emerge virtually unscathed from today’s debate was Fall on Your Knees. Sara voiced the argument that most of Canada Reads’ critics have already made: that the book is “a classic of Canadian literature” and doesn’t need the additional attention. However, she also said that it was a “great, epic, fantastic story.” That’s a wash, in my eyes.

So, after two days, Generation X appears to be roadkill, and no one seems willing to say anything substantial against Fall on Your Knees. Which, given the scrappy nature of the book’s defender, is perhaps unsurprising. Tune in tomorrow to find out how things play out. (Oh, that clicking sound? That’s Ghomeshi loading the gun that will put Generation X out of its misery.)

Alex Good: Have I said how much I groove to the show’s theme music? I wonder if I can get it as a download.

What I don’t like is the way Jian has to start each show with comments about the program’s influence on bestseller lists. He did the same thing last year. It makes me feel like I’m listening to an infomercial.

Anyway, here are my quick thoughts. (I should say, by the way, that I’m listening to the show on the radio, being on ye olde dyal-uppe at home, so these are immediate impressions written a few minutes after the end of the program.)

I thought today’s show was another good one. The panelists are doing a fine job, at least strategically speaking. Vézina continues to be the most interesting, saying things like “Nikolski is a book about humanity and garbage.” I just wonder if they’re going to explain this fire-breathing stuff. Roland was clearly feeling a bit of despair at the end after listening to Generation X get hammered again (not just the book, but the spoiled and ungrateful demographic) and muffing a critique of Good to a Fault (not enough detail?). It will be interesting to see how Perdita’s strong, unvarnished opinions (she really tore into Generation X and Good to a Fault) play out against Simi Sara’s “ambassadorial” technique of just wanting to see all five books win.

Two big questions came up … and then popped like bubbles. First the subject of contemporary relevance vs. the historical novel was addressed. Sort of. Nobody seemed to take a strong position. Where’s Russell Smith when you need him? Then Jian finally brought up the O-word [No, not that o-word, the other one ... SWB] and the fact that a couple of the books were already huge bestsellers. But everyone agreed this shouldn’t be a consideration. So that was the end of that.

Handicapping the field after two days:

Death row: Perdita, Simi, and Michel hate Generation X. Michel, Roland, and Perdita hate Good to a Fault. (One of the good things about this year’s program is the strength of some of the opinions. They aren’t all just playing nice.) So barring some weird breakdown in the votes, those two seem likely to go first.

Dark horse: Nikolski. Yeah, it got criticized for being “thin” on day one, but it’s still hanging around.

Stealth candidate: The Jade Peony. Did anyone actually read it? Nobody seems to want to talk about it.

Frontrunner: Fall on Your Knees. Perdita might want to take it down a notch for the next couple of days. She’s playing with a lead. No need to hit the others when they’re down.

And what about the new music they play while the panelists are filling out their ballots? It made me want to get up and dance!

Canada Reads 2010, Day 1

Alex Good: Day 1 of Year 9 of the contest and I do believe all of my burning questions received at least a provisional answer. And it was actually a really good discussion, too.

My awards:

“Didn’t See That Coming” Award: Samantha Nutt. Apparently The Jade Peony “teaches us something about ourselves as Canadians.” Uh-huh.

Big Winner: Fall on Your Knees. Perdita is a scrapper! And articulate, with a good radio voice. As far as the book was concerned, when given the chance none of the other panelists laid a glove on it and the Oprah stuff never came up. It’s looking very strong going forward.

Big Loser: Generation X. This is Dead Book Walking. I mean it took a beating. I’m not sure even I would have been that negative on it. Can’t put the blame on Roland (Edmonton has a poet laureate?), but he must have finished today feeling a little shell-shocked.

Best Panelist: Michel Vézina. His introduction to Nikolski was impressive, talking about how it relates to the social web of North American cities becoming more complex (hadn’t thought of that), and the obscure relations among modern “exploded” families. He also scored points (with me) for calling out Good to a Fault for being 50 pages too long.

Worst Panelist: Michel Vézina. Sorry, but this guy’s English is brutal. I don’t know how the Ceeb let him on the show. He was struggling for words and even tried to make a joke (at least I think it was meant to be a joke) that seemed to stump everyone.

Machiavelli Award: Simi Sara. Oh, she’s a pro. Introduces herself by saying her only strategy would be to have no strategy, then uses her intro time to launch into an attack on Fall on Your Knees, The Jade Peony, and Generation X for being books that everyone has already read. That has to be her strategy for beating them. But it’s looking like an uphill battle for Good to a Fault anyway.

Overall I thought it was a good show. I’m a little depressed that Fall on Your Knees came out as the clear frontrunner, but things may change.

Steven  W. Beattie: First off, did I complain last year about the annoying (and ubiquitous) theme music for the program? If not, let me do so now. If so, let me reiterate my objection: Enough with the theme music! Let’s get on with the meat of the program.

To wit:

After the usual general introductions (during which we learned that Perdita Felicien “squatted with books on [her] head” to prepare for the debates and Michel Vézina can apparently breathe fire), the panelists wasted no time getting down to what Samantha Nutt referred to as the “classroom brawl” that is Canada Reads. They brawled about Nikolski, which Nutt found “confusing” and “tricky to follow”; they brawled about Fall on Your Knees, which is “too dark” for Roland Pemberton to recommend; they brawled about Good to a Fault, which Vézina (bless him) said was 50 pages too long. But mostly, they brawled about Generation X. This was the book that took the brunt of the beating today, for both the right reasons and the wrong ones.

I will admit to letting out a little “squee” of joy when Perdita Felicien called the characters in Coupland’s book “annoying” and “too clever for their own good.” Score one for the Olympian. I will also admit to clenching my fists a little when the same panelist complained that the book has “no forward-moving plot.” Minus one for the Olympian (which I guess means she comes out even).

If there was an overarching theme to the debate today it was that plot-driven books, books in which stuff “happens,” are preferable to books that are more interior, or more focused on language than on action. Felicien’s complaint about The Jade Peony was that “not much happens.” Pemberton praised Fall on Your Knees for being “very well-written,” which he equated with being “very visual” and “cinematic.” And Nutt found Nikolski “left [her] feeling as if [she] was still waiting for something to happen.” This came on the heels of her complaint about the book’s opening line – “My name is unimportant” – “To me, the name is important.” Perhaps if she were to stop thinking about how little happens in the book, and start considering things like Dickner’s patterns of metaphor, she might notice the echo in the novel’s first line to that of another, older, equally waterlogged novel: “Call me Ishmael.” The ironic inversion here is completely intentional, and completely in tune with Dickner’s approach, which has precisely nothing to do with making things happen.

Fortunately, Michel Vézina was on hand to reply: “We’re not watching TV here, we’re reading books.” Hear, hear, M. Vézina. To be fair, this comment was in response to an interjection by Jian Ghomeshi: “A reader doesn’t necessarily want to feel like they’re doing work, do they?” (Heaven forbid, Jian.) In response to Nutt’s specific accusation that Nikolski is “thin,” Vézina pulled no punches: “If you read it in a thin way, you’ll find it thin.” Ba-boom! (I admit that here I had to pause the playback on my computer and rewind it. “Did Vézina just call his fellow panelists superficial?”) Nikolski, Vézina continued, is “not a book that tells you everything.” Pemberton agreed, saying that it “gives the reader credit.” Later on, talking about Fall on Your Knees, Vézina (who is quickly emerging as my favourite panelist) pointed out that “action is not the only purpose in a book.”

So, a mixed bag after Day 1. Here’s hoping that Vézina can convince his fellow panelists that there is more to literature than plot. If not, and should Nikolski get voted off at the end of tomorrow’s show, it may prove to be a very long week for yr. humble correspondent.

Canada Reads 2010: Introduction

Once again, yr. humble correspondent has teamed with Alex Good of Good Reports to provide colour commentary for CBC’s Canada Reads debates. (Think of us as a crankier version of Siskel and Ebert, or Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show.) Stay tuned over the coming week for nail-biting, back-stabbing, and assorted other surprises and indignities. We’ll likely say something about the debates, too.

INTRODUCTION

Alex Good: I guess this is the third year we’ve been commenting on the “irresistable, if hugely reprehensible” (Stephen Henighan, naturally) Canada Reads program. But the fact that we’ve kept at it for three years suggests that things maybe aren’t as bad as Henighan makes them out to be. Just criticizing the program serves an important function, I think. And then there have been all of the Canada Reads spin-offs this year, which are also worthwhile. It’s all part of our great national literary conversation, right?

Right?

Still, we have been critical in the past. Probably more so than most other write-ups I’ve seen. Which makes it all the more surprising that the CBC keeps encouraging us. I attribute this mainly to the social connections and general affability of one Steven W. (that’s “W” as in “Where’s the launch party?”) Beattie.

So here we are again. Leading off with some general introductory thoughts.

I’ll start by being nice. Whatever you think of the program, you do have to appreciate the effort CBC puts into it. It’s more than just a radio show. The website is also quite impressive. They’ve got a resident blogger named “Flannery” (who seems to be one of those unfortunate media types with no last name), and a whole lot of interesting extra features, from interviews to readings to book club coverage.

Yeah, most of it is pretty fluffy. But still.

The panel this year consists of the usual C-list of Canadian celebrities. Perdita Felicien was the only name I immediately recognized. Apparently Michel Vézina is big in Quebec literary circles, which only goes to show that the two solitudes are still going strong since I’d never heard of him. I’m wary of the ringers. Last year was particularly egregious with Avi (Mr. CBC) Lewis running the table, his only competition coming from fellow broadcast personality Jen Sookfong Lee. This year we have two people coming from similar backgrounds in Simi Sara and Michel Vézina. Isn’t that kind of like having dancers appear as the celebrities on Dancing with the Stars? I mean, radio isn’t easy. I know the others have all been on television and radio, but it’s not like they’re professionals.

The books have been pretty roundly criticized. In part for being titles that are already very well known (prompting cries of “Canada Re-Reads”), and also for being, in the words of more than one joyless critic, “unbelievably boring.”

Fair? Sort of. Blame The Book of Negroes. Serious, dull stuff has a leg up on the competition when it comes to contests like this. Looking back, King Leary seems more and more like an aberration.

The Jade Peony is boring. Oh my god is it boring. I think Jessa Crispin had a line a few years ago about wanting to use the pages of a dull book to saw through her wrists with paper cuts. That kind of boring. The story of a Depression-era family in Vancouver’s Chinatown, it … zzzzzzzzzzz.

Burning question: Can Samantha Nutt, a prominent social activist (married to another prominent social activist, who also happens to be Ontario’s Minister of Immigration) say anything about this book other than that reading it will be good for us and make us all better Canadians and … zzzzzzzzzz.

Generation X. Coupland’s never made it onto a Canada Reads program before, which is odd. Odder still is that he gets his debut with … his debut. I’m not a big Coupland fan, but I can at least see some rationale for choosing this book, since it meant a lot to some people when it came out. And it’s at least something that is, if not completely, then at least a little different than the the usual run of domestic dramas.

Burning question: Can Roland Pemberton explain why a book about generational angst as expressed in the lives of a gang of SoCal slackers, written before the Internet, before 9/11 and the Bush years (and before their demonic bastard offspring in the form of the Harper regime), before the financial crisis, and before anyone cared about global warming, is still relevant today, even to older Xers?

Nikolski is a book that’s been hanging around my office for a while in various forms. And I have to say I’m really glad that this program finally forced me to read it. It’s a very clever entertainment and the writing is probably the sharpest of any of the books on this year’s list. And it’s a translation! What does that tell you?

Burning question: Can Michel Vézina make a populist case for what is the most self-consciously “literary” book on the list?

There is a lot to admire in Good to a Fault. Too much, perhaps. I thought Endicott really nailed these characters and their world, but this book seemed to me to be nearly twice as long as it should have been. Does the fact that it was a (surprise) Giller nominee disqualify it from this program? I don’t think so, especially since I don’t think it got much of a bounce out of the Giller.

Burning question: Is Simi Sara a ringer?

The poster child for the “Canada Re-Reads” critique is Fall on Your Knees. Yes, this was an Oprah pick. Which translated into sales of something like three million copies. So why bother pimping it here? It’s already won the lottery. But for that, I think it would be a terrific choice. Not my thing (domestic drama again, combined with historical romance), and re-reading it this past week I found the writing on a sentence-by-sentence level weak, but there’s no denying the power it has. And it would be a popular choice. One thing you have to say about Oprah is that she knows her audience. And is her audience all that different from the CBC’s? I imagine there’s quite a bit of overlap.

Burning question: Can Perdita Felicien clear the Oprah hurdle?

All those questions and more to be answered starting Monday.

Steven W. Beattie: “Joyless critic”? Why I oughta …

Okay, I’ll admit that when I called this year’s Canada Reads list “unbelievably boring,” I was exaggerating for comic effect (and in an attempt to contrast this list with The Afterword’s shadow list, which seems to me, if not better, at least more diverse. Then again, I’ve got a selection in The Afterword’s competition, so I’m not exactly an unbiased observer …). Still, you have to admit a certain déjà vu when it comes to this year’s official competition. We have an Oprah pick, a Giller nominee, and a book that’s lent its name to an entire freaking demographic (and even has an entry in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary). These are not exactly choices out of left field. There’s no Fruit on this year’s list; no Icefields; no Rockbound. Even Nikolski, which is the only genuine outsider in the group, was published in English under Knopf Canada’s New Face of Fiction program in 2008 – not exactly underdog material. The smallest publisher represented here is Calgary’s Freehand Press, which scored a home run with Good to a Fault when it was shortlisted for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize. True, it probably didn’t get as big a bounce from that year’s shortlist as did the eventual winner, Joseph Boyden’s Through Black Spruce, but still …

This is not to suggest that Good to a Fault is an unworthy title. It’s a solid story, elegantly written, but, as you suggest, Alex, it’s about 150 pages too long. The theme of where goodness comes from – whether it’s prompted by altruism or by guilt – is intriguing, Endicott is a superior writer of dialogue (likely as a result of her background in the theatre), and Clara Purdy is a genuinely interesting character. But the book wears out its welcome well before the (rather muted) climax. Still, it’s a title with enough popular appeal that I could see it going the distance in this year’s competition.

Good to a Fault could easily end up in the final two alongside Fall on Your Knees, the other populist choice. I haven’t read this one since it first appeared in 1996. My reaction then was decidedly mixed: I liked some of the Gothic stuff at the beginning, and the author’s theatrical background (again) means that she’s got a good handle on things like pace and the modulation of suspense. But the book is way too long, and the final “shocking” revelation is telegraphed way too soon (and in any event won’t surprise anyone who’s ever seen a Judith Thompson play). Still, there are scenes in the book that have stuck with me through all these years (the scene in which Materia performs an ad-hoc caesarean on her daughter Kathleen using the sharpened kitchen scissors is one notable example), and there aren’t too many books I can say that about.

But Fall on Your Knees is a known quantity. It was a New Face of Fiction selection in 1996; the other New Face of Fiction book on this list is much less recognizable, although I hope this year’s competition will rectify that situation. Nikolski, one of my favourite books from 2008, is a strange, surreal novel that manages to be humorous and philosophical at the same time. The writing is seamless (all credit to translator Lazer Lederhendler), the patterns of metaphor are rich and well integrated into the flow of the story, and although the plot (such as it is) meanders, it never feels wayward. Nikolski is absolutely the most “literary” novel on this list, but I hope that this year we might see a repeat of 2003, when Hubert Aquin’s Next Episode came out of nowhere to win. It will all depend, I suspect, on Michel Vézina’s ability to defend his chosen title.

In any event, Nikolski deserves to beat the pants off the remaining two titles. About Generation X, the less said (at least by me) the better. Published in 1991, it launched a flurry of winking, too-clever-by-half, maddeningly self-conscious novels from Douglas Coupland (at the rate of almost one per year ever since), and by a legion of younger acolytes (the influence of Coupland’s first novel is as undeniable as it is lamentable). Generation X created the template for books such as Microserfs and JPod, and all of the elements that made those novels so aggravating are present and accounted for: the obsessive cataloguing of brand names and corporations; the cutesy aphorisms (“At meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, fellow drinksters will get angry with you if you won’t puke for the audience”); characters who are little more than collections of tics and idiosyncrasies and who say things like, “It’s Splittsville for this little Neapolitan waif.” With luck, it’ll be Splittsville for this book early on in the proceedings.

Finally, The Jade Peony is the most obviously ennobling title on the list; the one that, as you say, Alex, you read because it’s good for you. But by this point, the theme of old-world tradition abutting new-world realities (a theme well explored by Henry James over 100 years ago) seems a bit tired, and the novel doesn’t really take us anywhere new or unexpected. Samantha Nutt has her work cut out for her if she wants to repeat last year’s triumph of edification over entertainment.

So, there you have it. Five books, five panelists, one joyless critic. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out over the next five days.