Kathleen Molloy

Last night I began reading Marian Engel’s last published work. After each short story I lept into the next. “This will be the LAST one before lights out” I said at page 83 and then twenty pages later. The Tattooed Woman is a beautiful collection of stories about middle-aged women coming unhinged.

Last night I began reading Marian Engel’s last published work. After each short story I lept into the next. “This will be the LAST one before lights out” I said at page 83 and then twenty pages later. The Tattooed Woman is a beautiful collection of stories about middle-aged women coming unhinged.

For readers that were unable to stomach, er follow the 2009 Canada Reads showdown don’t miss Steven W. Beattie’s annual post-comp wrap-up on his That Shakespeherian Rag blog.

I am now officially hooked on Book Radio. As I cruise around western Quebec and eastern Ontario I set my satellite radio to stations dedicated to talking about books. Books read over the air, author interviews, book club discussions, book to film / film to book, …I can’t get enough of it and I continually flip back and forth between bookish broadcasts.

I love it.

Most of it.

Okay, some of it.

To be frank, I love the idea that people are talking about books more than the actual reading of some of the books.

Sorry to admit it, hateful to suggest it, but a lot of the books read on the air are rarely the type that I would sign out from the library. I find some of them… how should I put this… LAZY.

For example, last week I rolled my eyes when the narrator wasted “languid” in an otherwise perfectly good sentence. When the narrative read “languid” again four lines later I flipped the channel.

                  “His languid gaze…” and then

                  “The languid breeze…”

I try to not be a word snob. Yet,  I do like to read / hear words that are well played.  The “languid Federal Budget” tells me more of a story behind the story than a spiritless gaze or a lackluster breeze. I want to be challenged while listening to a story in the same way I am challenged while reading a story.

But is this a case of Beggers Can’t be Chosers? While I appreciate having access to book radio, I hate having to stomach lazy writing.

Please don’t tell me I am doomed to suffer languid listening every time I turn the radio on. I encourage you to lobby your favourite bookish radio station to slip some CanLit into their play list.

And if I ever use “languid” in a story, please feel free to frown openly. If I use it twice, go ahead and scold my proof readers. Linda Erskine, Kae McColl, and Anne Gros know better than to let me get away with that.

Some time ago I asked readers to tell a good lie. I had asked for a lie that a writer might use to push back a book deadline.

Heather from Ontario admitted that her search for a fancy hot chocolate for her child caused all sorts of real time delays. Moms will walk the earth for their kid.

I agreed to hunt down a book by any Canadian author that the best fib telling reader selected. Heather had read about Saskatchewan crime writers Sharon Butala and Anthony Bidulka on Louise Penny’s blog and is now eager to try her hand at crime – crime stories that is.

I’ve asked Chelsea Books to snatch up the first Butala or Bidulka that arrives in the store and to save it for me for Heather.

It’s CanLit bibliokarma with a dash of Saskatchewan crime.

In the interviews following Nino Ricci’s win of the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Fiction, Ricci spoke about the research he did in preparation of The Origin of Species. Ricci had the opportunity to travel to the Galapagos to devour the region first hand.

I’m a title junkie. Give me a book with a good title and I’m hooked. When Mrs. Cohen at the Wakefield library mentioned Our Lady of the Lost and Found a few years back, I put it on my list of books to hunt down.

I scooped it up last month at the Singing Pebble in Ottawa. I have the Harper Perennial version which has Diane Schoemperlen’s bio, an interview, background on the book, and excerpts of newer works. I read the author interview first.  It was very interesting to read about the hours of research she did squirreled away in libraries uncovering records of Virgin Mary appearances around the world. I should mention here that this is the story of a writer that is visited by the Virgin Mary. Mary is tired of being Mary and decides to take a little break so she picks a no-fuss writer to put her up while she puts up her feet. That’s the whole story.

What makes the story work is the way Diane Schoemperlen describes the boring daily events of an ordinary Canadian writer such as making lunch and checking for dust. The boring writer has an extraordinary visitor and tries to make her feel ‘normal’ in a boring Canadian routine. They scratch lotto tickets. They head off to the mall where it turns out that Mary has her own debt card under the Greek name Mary Theotokos (Mother of God).

Schoemperlen details centuries of Mary appearances from around the world. What I found fascinating is the research she cramped in so that she could make mention of the world-wide appearances. If some people can see the image of Jesus in a plate of spaghetti on a billboard in Georgia why not Mary on their front stoop?

GG winner Diane Schoemperlen’s  Our Lady of the Lost and Found another CanLit title for the Canadian Book Challenge.

Peter at the CanCult.ca blog introduced us to Christian Bok, a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary who is attempting to tackle the culture and politics of Canada’s literary awards system. If you have been following the hullaboloo over Di Brand’s alleged endorsement of a hot young poet, you will agree that this study is well timed.

Bok’s full inteview with Owen Percy is available. Check out this snippet as captured by CanCult:

OP: What do you think of the concept of national prizes or recognition—for example the Governor General’s Awards, which purport to speak for “Canadian Literature.” What do you think of an award which claims to be ‘national.’

CB: Oh, well I think that any prize that aspires to be “national” is probably more concerned with propaganda than aesthetics. All the prizes, of course, claim to pick the most meritorious work. To me, assertions about merit have to address the innovation that a work might have to offer literary history—not simply for one minor nation, but for our whole planet. Nevertheless, nobody creates a prize saying ‘We’re going to pick only the most conservative, most recognizable, work.’ Every panel of judges is going to say that their choices for winners represent the cutting edge of all contenders. But from my perspective as an academic looking at the history of literature on a planetary scale—the shortlists for these prizes often seem very pathological. The jurors are supposed to be selected from among your peers—but when I see the results of their deliberations, I always ask myself:’ What the hell are my peers thinking?’ How is it possible that they can call themselves writers, aspire to greatness, know something presumably about literary history, and yet nevertheless pick mediocre work—work likely to be forgotten within fifty years?  

Now here’s the thing, I still believe there is merit in the Canadian book award system.  Yet at the same time, I also feel like the winners are cursed. Once you get a fancy little gold sticker slapped on the cover of your book you are doomed to continue to write in whatever style you won in, and you can’t deviate because the masses have spoken. You risk loosing your gold sticker edge if you stray. 

Just this weekend I had a conversation with my favourite bookstore maven at Chelsea Books. Frances and I were talking about how some books catch like wild fire (with the help of the book promotion industry and the awards folks striking the matches). Once you get that sticker, you are made. I suggested to Frances that “Toews could now write a grocery list and it would sell.” 

But would Toews take the chance? After her successful Kindness and Troutmans works? Doubtful. Like so many Canadian award winners, she may have written herself into a corner.

The lies writers tell to push back deadlines…

Mark Medley has interviewed Louise Penny at the International Festival of Authors for the National Post. His introduction of Canadian authors has been a treat. I particularly liked the interview with Louise Penny, in part because I love the way Louise communicates with readers via her blog posts and interviews.  She might have the best job in the world – being paid to drink café au lait while killing people with her pen.

Medley asked: Who is your perfect reader?

Penny responded: The wonderful Canadian crime writer, Mary-Jane Maffini and I shared a panel recently and she had the best answer to that question…she said, ‘Intelligent women with colds’.  I agree.

As an intelligent woman with a cold, I agree.To celebrate Canadian crime writers I’m giving away a signed copy of Barbara Fradkin’s Do or Die –an Inspector Green Mystery. The dedication reads: “To Susan, a great mystery lover, enjoy!”

To win it, post your favourite make-believe crime title for a Canadian content mystery here. The more outrageous the better! I offer up:

·         The Missing Moose

·         Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow

·         Parliament Hell

Okay, okay, I’ll leave Penny, Maffini, and Fradkin to do the crime writing. Submit your cancult crime titles before the end of November for your chance to win Do or Die.