Yann Martel speaks

November being Jewish Book Month in Montreal I usually wake from my yearlong slumber to participate in a literary event or two. If you happen to be near these parts this week join me at the Jewish Public Library on Thursday, November 18th at 7:30 to hear Yann Martel speak on his new novel. More here.

Enough to be angry about

This review of a recent poetry collection makes a really interesting point: There's just not enough anger in today's writing. Not enough outrage. And with the state of, well of almost everything, the economy, the environment, our families, our streets - the greed, the corruption, the values (or lack of same) - there is so much to be angry about. If the arts are any indication, we are in a blithe period; polite in our art and criticism, form trumping content, attention-grabbing foolishness (Lady Gaga) masquerading as originality, escapist-fantasy eclipsing discourse. I know it's been said before and better (Neil Postman's seminal Amusing Ourselves To Death). But it might be that the reaction to Yann Martel's latest novel, is also in part, a reaction to an author who dares to be 'serious' and who believes that art/literature should be taken seriously in an unserious ironic age, to the point of being 'offended' by such a position. Clearly, the 'offense' expressed by some reviewers was entirely misplaced and overstated, curiously so. Misplaced outrage in a review says more about how culturally misguided we are than reflect on the quality of the work in question. It may bespeak the forlorn state of book reviewing at the moment but also show how inured we have become to outrage as an important motivating emotion in the art we create and experience. Where anger and outrage still find purchase in our culture seems to be with essayists/media commentarists, some witty, articulate and intelligent, (Christopher Hitchens) and others downright insulting and obnoxious (Rush Limbaugh), especially (and maybe only) when it entertains (John Stewart). It's hard to imagine a novel published today that will outrage, say the way, Tropic of Cancer did. Or a painting the way Guernica did? Or a song the way the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen did: Works so powerful and truthful as to become influential.

Saint-Yann the Defender

I may not have been crazy about his novel, but I am definitely a fan of Yann Martel, the person. He strikes me as a thoughtful, caring, earnest individual. One who is trying to rescue his artform from cultural oblivion. Saint-Yann the defender facing off against the dragon of multimedia technology. This is the only reasonable explanation I can come up with for choosing the Holocaust as his subject matter. It was not, as he has said in interview after interview, that he wanted to preserve the legacy and lessons of the Holocaust for future generations through new forms of storytelling. Rather, I believe it was to rescue the literary arts (fiction, allegory, theatre, drama, etc.) as relevant forms of storytelling. It's a laudable gesture, if somewhat misguided. I fear that his misfire has backfired badly; we hear people concluding that he was foolhardy to try (probably true) and that hubris played a role (probably true). Also, they are saying that he is not as good a writer as we all thought (maybe true but only because Pi was overhyped, and one reviewer calling him 'not very bright' is just plain wrong) and finally that his novel is proof that the Holocaust should never be touched in fiction and that the literary arts deserve to be marginal. After writing my review of the novel I was left with the desire to sit down to lunch with Yann. Not to ask him about his book exactly, but about the future of the book in the face of new and exciting ways of telling stories, multimedia technology etc. After the fallout, I would ask him how he felt about the possibility that his novel has backfired so badly as to actually discredit the very artform he was trying to save.

Oh, and while were at it, one more on the cultural marginalization of literature.

My bruised ego

is feeling a little less touch-sensitive today thanks to Richard Helm.

Yann on the reviews

"...the way a work of art is received is part of the dialogue of art." - Martel

"Just as every painting is a response to the history, tradition and nature of art, every story is part of a larger conversation about storytelling." - Rotchin

Could you blame me for thinking that Martel is quoting me. Or perhaps I just have unique insight into the writer. It turns out that my review was gentle in comparison to others. I'm a little offended that my review isn't quoted in the National Post piece, especially since it ran in four CanWest papers including in Martel's hometown of Mtl and his current home of Saskatoon - which also leads me to believe that he's got my review in mind. Martel appears to be taking the drubbing in stride, and why wouldn't he with the deal he got. Cry all the way to the bank brotha!

One more on beatrice & virgil

Steven Beattie over at That Shakesperean Rag writes the most thoughtful, fair-minded and precise review so far.

More beatrice & virgil, reviewing the reviews

I was particularly interested to see how the new Yann Martel would be reviewed by others. Pasha Malla gushes in the influential Globe & Mail calling the novel "ingenious." He is intrigued by the way Martel puts himself, or rather a fictional representation of himself, at the centre of the novel.

"What if Yann Martel were never writing a book called A 20th-Century Shirt? What if his 2007 spoilers were, in fact, an extra-textual prologue to the book he was actually working on all along, the book we now have in our hands? Either way, the potential for such speculations speaks to Beatrice & Virgil's capacity to expand beyond its pages, and to the terrain – the reader's imagination – where its multiple layers unfold."

Surely such questions and convolutions, the layers of 'extra-textual prologue' as Malla calls them, are only interesting for a fellow writer or an academic. Where Malla is captivated by Martel's blurring of the boundary between the 'factual' and the 'imagined' others would likely see the exercise as rather pompous and excessively self-regarding.

Most 'ordinary' readers just want a good story. But here, Houston - even Malla rather sheepishly admits - we have a problem: "If there is a weakness to Beatrice & Virgil, it might be the actual story." Well to my mind a novel that has a weak story is akin to saying that the only problem with a certain model of airplane is that it has a spot of trouble flying.

But Malla's qualifying if indicates that he's not terribly bothered by the lack of story. To ask, "what is the book about," he asserts, misses the point. The novel is too "complex" and "nuanced" for questions like that.

Michiku Kakutani of the New York Times calls the Holocaust-fable on which the novel pivots "botched" and "cringe-making". Referring to Life of Pi Kakutani writes "Mr. Martel’s new book...unfortunately, is every bit as misconceived and offensive as his earlier book was fetching.

The Miami Herald reviewer was even more blunt. A cardinal rule of reviewing is that you have to finish the book, so it's not often that you read a book review where the reviewer openly admits that they couldn't get past page 50. "I realized: I don't care what happens to this guy or his book or why this story was sent to him. Once you reach the 'I don't care' point, it's time to move on. And so I did." The public admission that she threw in the towel a quarter the way in struck me as refreshingly honest. Book reviewers hate feeling or looking stupid. Few will admit that they just didn't get it. Martel's obviously a smart guy and it took him nine years to write this follow-up to his international sensation Pi. The pressure on the reviewer to give him the benefit of the doubt is tremendous. But what if the emperor has no clothes?

Philip Marchand sums it up best writing in the National Post "Reviewers will be puzzled and some will damn with faint praise. Unfortunately, they will have good grounds for this response."

beatrice & virgil by Yann Martel

My review in the Gazette.