Musings on the Book, Literature, Poetry, Literary Criticism, Collecting, Media, Life and the Arts, and Audio Interviews from The Biblio File radio program pertaining to same by a writer, broadcaster, bibliophile.
I bought a copy of Richard Flanagan’s Gould’s Book of Fish off a bargain table at a big box book store several years ago, not for the prose, but for the book’s beautiful design and construction. The illustrations are gorgeous. Each chapter is printed in a different coloured ink. I can’t believe it sells for so little. You rarely see production values of this quality from a big run publisher like Grove. Mary Callahan is the designer. She won a prize for work on Flanagan’s 1997 novel, The Sound of One Hand Clapping. Here’s a bit more on her:
"Callahan and Flanagan collaborated even more closely on Gould’s Book of Fish, starting before he had written a word, the text and design growing out of each other into a gorgeous artefact that was a nightmare for the printers. She worked in the real fish paintings of convict artist William Buelow Gould, used a different colour ink for each chapter and added green marbled endpapers. The black cover with luminous fish and lettering "gives the impression of sunlight penetrating the inky depths of the sea. I wanted the cover to be a bit surreal, not just a facsimile edition of an old book…
… Callahan has produced exquisite covers for Robert Dessaix’s Night Letters, and Robert Drewe’s The Drowner, and spare ones like Don Watson’s Keating book, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart. Flanagan pushed her in a different direction with his demand: "Don’t give me a `beautiful’ book with another luscious, velvety, soft-focus photograph."
Google “Best Canadian Novel” or “list of best Canadian novels” and the first thing up is Wikipedia going on about nationalistic and regional themes, socio-political contexts, categories, traits, notable figures and awards; no ‘bests.’ Next is Amazon with “A Listmania! list by one "mbrannagan"” who identifies 12 novels, complete with one-line justifications such as "a gutsy book — well-crafted and sensitive" “stunning” and "this novel has everything."
Scroll down a bit further and you find reference to the National Conference on the Canadian Novel, organized by the University of Calgary in association with publisher McClelland & Stewart and Dalhousie English professor Malcolm Ross some thirty years ago. Not much info on how this top ten list (below) was arrived at, other than reference to ‘a lot of arguing.’
The Stone Angel (1964) Margaret Laurence.
Fifth Business (1970) Robertson Davies.
As for Me and My House (1941) Sinclair Ross.
The Mountain and the Valley (1952) Ernest Buckler.
The Tin Flute (1947) Gabrielle Roy.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) Mordecai Richler.
The Double Hook (1959) Sheila Watson.
The Watch that Ends the Night (1959) Hugh MacLennan.
Who Has Seen the Wind (1947) W.O. Mitchell.
The Diviners (1974) Margaret Laurence.
About a year ago I came across Read Canadian: a book about Canadian Books (James Lewis & Samuel, 1972). At its end we are treated to a list of ‘the ten best (English) Canadian books’ as chosen by its editors Robert Fulford, David Godfrey and Abraham Rotstein, and thirty odd contributors. No criteria for selection was, of course, provided, only a reassurance that ‘The argument about ‘best’ still rages among the jurors and will continue, we hope, everywhere Canadian books are read.’ Here’s the list:
Morley Callaghan’s Stories, (1959)
Donald Creighton, The Empire of the St. Lawrence (1956)
Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957)
George P. Grant, Lament for a Nation: The defeat of Canadian Nationalism (1965)
Harold Adam Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History (1930)
Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel, (1964)
Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)
Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy: The making of Typographical Man(read my review here)
E.J. Pratt Collected Poems (second edition, 1958)
Mordecai Richler, St. Urbain’s Horseman: A Novel (1971)
(I should say that I like this list, largely because it includes work by Canada’s two best writer/critic/thinkers: Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan).
“All comparisons are odious and lists are by nature comparisons. Therefore all lists are odious, and I for one have a lot of trouble making them up. A list called The LRC 100: Canada’s Most Important Books is a recipe for a brawl, as there will be many disagreements about what should or should not have been included. In fact, the list itself—we’re told—is a product of furious though presumably civil wrangling among its compilers. We hope no tea-cups were thrown.”
Each listing has a short paragraph attached to it, defending its inclusion…
Enough with the parlour games already. While lists may be fun, they mean nothing unless accompanied by the considered, powerfully argued, rationalization of felt value. Such rationalizations are rare. Canadian literature needs more of them.
Daedalus Books was established in 1980. Since then it has been a leading source of ‘quality books at bargain prices’. From the thousands of books offered by publishers as remainders every year, Daedalus selects those which they think ‘have lasting value.’
I spoke with Robin Moody, president and founder of Daedalus Books at Book Expo recently in New York. We talk about the remainder book business, the various types of remainder books: marked books, hurt books, promotional books printed to be bargain books – about the impact of print on demand, about the volatility of the business, sales to bookstores, the failure of advertising, the success of mailing lists, websites and free catalogues. We also talk about the challenges that independent bookstores currently face, and the need for consumers to support them if they are to survive.
Mark your calendar! I’ve just been informed that this year’s Ottawa Antiquarian Book Fair is a go for October, 4th 10.30-5.30 at the Tudor Hall in Ottawa. Stay tuned for more details.
I dropped in on Robert again last weekend. He and his wife were preparing a meal for some guests, so we didn’t have much time to spend together, enough, however to pick up two more Huxley’s (including a lovely copy of the American edition of The Olive Tree, complete with sparkling end papers) and explore his new, at least to me, shop…Shortly after my initial visit he converted a barn on his property into an open store catering to the general reader. While he continues to run the rare book operation, most of his time is now spent doing appraisals, and running The Tamworth Book Shop,
which, I’m happy to report, is doing very well.
The place was ‘packed to the rafters’ – not a free bail to sit on - recently for a reading by Kingston poet Carolyn Smart. Here’s the evidence:
"In looking at evil he sees it, not in terms of sin or a sinner, nor does he attach blame to it, but he views it with concern and pity as a foul and corrupt condition or growth produced by the world order, yet alien to it, as disease is to a body; which, if health is to be attained, must at all costs be expelled. That which he prizes most in life is unselfish love, what he instinctively believes to be the greatest evil is fear; which, far more than money, is, in his view, the root of all evil. Fear drives out love, as loves drives out fear. What most rouses his anger is hyprocrisy and injustic, what he values supremely is kindliness and mercy.
He is indeed himself in may ways in character what one can only describe as Christ-like; that is, gentle, kindly, honest, brave and true, with deep understanding and quick sympathy for all living things. yet he does not seem to have drawn any support from the forms and promises of conventional religion, nor does he show any sign of hope or belief in a future life. But he does show a passionate interest in this life, and a very strong belief in the importance of the way it is lived in relations to our fellows, so that we may gain the utmost from the ripening processes of experience and of love."
This last point Spurgeon sees as the centre of Shakespeare’s life philosophy. One thought recurs throughout his work:
"…that by, in and for ourselves, we are as nothing; we exist only just in so far as we touch our fellows, and receive back from them the warmth or light we have ourselves sent out. To befriend, to support, to help, to cheer and illuminate out fellow-man is the whole objectof our being, and if we fail to do this, we have failed in that object, and are as empty husks, hollow and meaningless. Only thus can we fulfil ourselves and be in truth that which we are intended to be."
Alex Good in a recent article on negative book reviewing in the Globe and Mail quotes Canadian book reviewer Philip Marchand, "one of this nation’s few critics willing to appear negative," as saying: "If I have erred as a critic, I have erred by being too appreciative. I don’t think there’s a single negative word about any author’s book that I would take back, but I seriously wonder about some of the praise I have dispensed."
Good concludes his piece on a depressing though I suppose, realistic note:
Critics in this country are often accused of enviously cutting down our tallest poppies. For the record, I don’t see a lot of this happening, but even if I did, I would be inclined to think it good horticulture rather than conduct motivated by one of the seven deadly sins. The tallest poppies are precisely the ones that need the attention of a critical weed whacker. They suck up all the oxygen and take the most nutrients from the soil, crowding out all of the up-and-coming green. Better to pull such plants out of the ground, shake the dirt from their roots and toss them on the weed pile.
Of course that’s not likely to happen. I don’t think there’s any reason to fear "negative" reviewing taking over. For all the reasons mentioned, the bias runs toward being more polite, restrained and non-judgmental in our judgments. Literature in a modern society is, as George Borrow has one of his characters observe, a drug. It is meant to evoke a passive response – like a political speech (break for applause here) or a commercial on TV. Given such a culture, our reviews can hardly be expected to provide much more. Even if we wanted them to.
Alex has recently been appointed editor at Canadian Notes and Queries; as such he is in a position, despite ‘such a culture’ to provide ‘much more’: to publish unrestrained, judgmental judgments; considered, opinionated evaluation. If the response is passive, so what. By emphasizing criticism that is honest, biased and strongly argued, he will have done Canadian literature a service.
I’m re-visiting John Metcalf’s entertaining memoir Shut Up He Explained. Toward the end he speaks of building his fifth library. "…a library of British and American stylists I enjoy. I’m already beginning to see that my British interests lie more with novelists and my American interests more with story writers."
Among the British he’s acquiring: Peter Ackroyd, Kingsley Amis, Beryl Bainbridge, John Banville, Samuel Beckett, Malcolm Bradbury, Joyce Cary, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Ronald Firbank, Jim Crace, Roddy Doyle, William Golding, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Kelman, Saki, Iam McEwan, V.S. Naipaul, R.K. Narayan, Anthony Powell, Barbara Pym, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Kieth Waterhouse, Evelyn Waugh, A.N. Wilson…
Among the Americans: Eudora Welty, Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Sherwood Anderson, Richard Yates, Caroline Gordon, Peter Taylor, Jayne Anne Philips, Barry Hannah, Rick Bass, Amy Hempel, Laurie Moore, Ethan Canin, James Salter.
This from Thomas Babington Macaulay’s July 1843 review of The Life of Joseph Addison by Lucy Aikin:
Our readers will probably infer from waht we have said that Miss Aiken’s book has disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her subject. No person who is not familiar with the political and literary hsitory of England during the reigns of William the Third, of Anne, and of George the Frist, can possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean no reproach to Miss Aiken, and many will think that we pay her a complilment, when we say that her studies have taken a different direction. She is better acquainted with Shakspeare adn Raleigh, than with Congreve adn Prior; and is far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald’s than among the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surround Queen Anne’s tea table at Hampton. She seems to have written about the Elizabethan age, because she had read much about it; she seems, ont he other hand, to have read a little about the age of Addison, because she had determined to write about it. The consequence is that she has had to describe men and things without having either a correct or a vivid idea of them, and that she has often fallen into errors of a very serious kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin has justly earned stands so high, and the charm of Addison’s letters is so great, that a second edition of this work may probably be required. If so, we hope that every paragraph will be revised, and that every date and fact about which there can to the smallest doubt will be carefully verified.
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Scholar, Dr. Ronan McDonald.
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Novelist Margot Livesey.
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