Audio Interview with author Yann Martel conducted by Nigel Beale: Are you now, or have you ever been…
Block head?
Listen here as famed author of Life of Pi and self proclaimed political gadfly Yann Martel 1) Absorbs a barrage of punishing jabs I throw at him over his latest book What is Stephen Harper Reading? and 2) Punches back at a Canadian Prime Minister whom he considers to be a visionless, ‘fact’-mired, fiction-eschewing ideologue.
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November 18th, 2009 at 12:27 AM
Wow! I’d long thought Martel’s long-running stunt was all about a book set-up, as well as an excuse to flog his own political views, but this interview underlines and amplifies those suspicions. The arrogance was also multiplied. Good questions, Nigel!
The additional head-shakers from Martel were also illuminating. He cares about our political leader being literate or not, but doesn’t care if the rest of the population watches TV 24/7? Really? I must have been deluded. I’d thought that a strong and engaged political and cultural society was possible here because of the … 33 million or so that make up our country, not the figurehead of an institution that no one looks to for literary revelations.
His tone, especially, surprised me, only in that it exactly mirrored how I’d imagined it playing out through the stunt. Even though it was the same, I say it surprised me because I thought Martel would at least put up a veneer of humility or lightheartedness on the matter. No: strident, self-important in the name of (said with a spooky hush) literature, bizarrely exasperated and unbelieving (though I believe there’s a large part of salesmanship there), Martel not only confirms but heightens my feelings that Harper did/is doing the right thing by ignoring this pest.
Imagine yourself (and Harper, for all his power, decision-making importance, etc., is first a human) receiving in the mail a novel every week, and being asked to read it because it’s good for you. The first thought is to laugh at the entire endeavour and dismiss it outright, and that’s that. But then it’s worth thinking about in greater detail. A novel takes (for me, at least– I’m a fairly slow reader) between 8 hours and 20 hours to read (depending on length and complexity and readability). We’re to entertain the notion that one should set aside, say, 12 hours every week to engage in an activity simply because a complete stranger tells us to– because it’s “good for us”. The disconnect between Martel’s idealism and his lack of understanding for another’s rhythms and realities is wider than one of the great oceans.
And what, exactly, does Martel really think would come of it if Harper, teeth gritted and reading out of a chastened duty-bound decision, somehow knocked off two or three of Martel’s fave titles? Would Harper then have a revelation, and initiate decisions more in tune with those of Martel? Or would he immediately cut his hockey watching from constant to that of perusing one or two playoff games only, all the while sneaking peeks at the latest Ondaatje release on the toilet between conference calls? Is the Pope pro-abortion? What gall and naivety. Or, more likely, what a creepy way to engender a few sales of the suggestions-as-book, all while patting himself on the back for his “political engagement”. (Oh, wait, that’s something only important in our Prime Minister.)
The arrogance and condescension of his artistic stance, in isolation, is also nauseous. To be a supporter of art, and to familiar with it, means that one must read novels? What, painters and sculptors who largely shun the printed word are to be belittled?
I hope someone starts a campaign to send Martel a book a week on the fine arts of diplomacy and individuation.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:49 PM
I don’t think Yann is being arrogant at all. He’s simply suggesting that reading is one of the most effective ways of exploring different perspectives and developing a greater understanding and empathy for the “other.”
And I’d agree with his basic point that everyone should read – or not- exactly as they wish, but that we need to be concerned and aware when those in power are willfully ignorant about our country’s culture.
Just as a Canadian Prime Minister who didn’t know anything about Hockey would be suspect, a Prime Minister who doesn’t know our history, our stories or our culture should be equally suspect.
And it’s hard to argue with the idea that our Prime Minister should congratulate Alice Munro for winning a major international award just as he should congratulate an Olympic athlete for doing Canada proud on the world stage.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:04 PM
I think we should recognize that Yann is playing the gadfly here…mightily well too I’d say.
January 7th, 2010 at 11:08 PM
Lots of bile here… no thanks.