Don't take my word for it...

I've been saying it for some time (as have others). But don't take my word for it. Now Man-Booker jurist Michael Prodger is making the argument and he ought to know. He's read something like 130 novels in the last six months, which according to him (and who can argue) makes him an expert on contemporary fiction. I would just add one thought that occurred to me when we were having a minor row over at Bookninja.com. It's not just the university creative writing programs that have standardized literary output to its general detriment, but commensurate with that, the fact that fiction writers have become too narrow. Learning to write means achieving a solid competence in all aspects of the craft. I would argue that a novelist should also be able to write essays, poetry, reportage, non-fiction etc. as well. It's a rather old school notion in our specialized day and age. But if you think about it, many of the greatest novelists (Hemingway immediately comes to mind) also wrote reportage, screenplays, essays, opinion pieces, advertising etc. Having to scrape together a living not only grounded them in the concerns of their readers (as opposed to the disconnection we see today between artists and the general public) but made them more skilled (and perhaps instinctive, and therefore fresher) writers as well.

iPhone Artist

This artist uses the iPhone app Brush to create New Yorker covers.

You can't do THIS with CD containers; Album faces

We had a moderately successful garage sale this weekend. I was not too happy when a customer asked if I had any vinyl LPs. Not wanting to lose a potential sale I reluctantly answered yes, four milk crates full, but he'd have to help me lug them upstairs from the basement if he wanted to have a look. He agreed. I sold five albums for a buck each and then three more for two bucks each ka-ching! And then the real fun started. My daughters were giddy with excitement flicking through the album covers and then they had a eureka moment: Album Faces!

Stirring the Canlit pot

Barb Kay is at it again, declaring exactly what she feels, doing it eloquently (and pissing a lot of people off in the process.) I won't respond to her essay directly, and I certainly won't comment on a book (or a writer) I've never read. But I will add one observation, which I think is germane to her argument about the type of Canadian writing she is referring to. Listening to Shelagh Rogers' CBC show this past week it suddenly occurred to me that the authors (of Canadian fiction) that she was interviewing were incredibly dull. Shelagh is a 'nice' person and she may be partially to blame for making her guests sound uninteresting because of her interviewing technique which tends to gush. But I blame them too. All they did was talk about their books, their techniques, and what inspired their writing etc. What I want to hear about is not what inspires their writing but what inspires their living! Eleanor Wachtel is a much better interviewer in this regard. I've met a few novelists in my day (and some very 'important' ones, Bellow, Doctorow, Richler among them) and my experience was that the last thing they wanted to talk about was their writing. I'm not naive. I know that the context for an author interview is promotional. Yes, I need to know about the novel being promoted, but not ad nauseum, and please no shop-talk. I'm more likely to go out and buy a book if the writer sounds like an exciting person who has insight and something meaningful to say about life. And here is, I think, where the problem lies; 'living' is synonymous with 'writing' in the age of the professionally-trained novelist. Whereas writing used to be a means to an end - the expression of the tensions and struggles between the aspiration to seek out significance in the travails of daily life (while holding down jobs, trying to make ends meet, supporting a family etc.) - it is now a self-sustaining, self-referencing, end in itself. In the age of professionally-trained creative writers, novels are personal flights of fancy, idea-driven, overly-researched entities and therefore disconnected from common experience and concern. I remember listening to author interviews as a young man and being amazed at the wisdom, breadth of interest, depth of engagement and sensitivity of the writers, and thinking that that is what I wanted to aspire to. Not because these were great writers, but because they were great people who were politically and socially aware and active, and who saw themselves as agents of change, consciousness-raisers, and shit-disturbers. It seems that too many now are dull, self-absorbed and syncophantic, the products of the institutionalization of the creative arts, the laziness of the critics and risk-averse publishing houses and their all-powerful marketing departments. Whether you agree or disagree with Barb Kay's taste in fiction, her opinion is absolutely necessary if there is to be a revitalization of the industry and the art in this country.

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Glen) by Sivan Black-Rotchin

An audio feast

Listen to More About Henry by composer/ audio-artist Adam Goddard. The first time I heard it was on CBC's Ideas a while back and it stuck with me as a dream does. My memory was refreshed on a recent drive back from visiting at camp when it re-aired. The Henry of the title is Adam's grandfather who recalls the early days of farming and the hardships of life on the prairies in the early 20th century. Adam turns his grandad's memories into a many-layered, multi-faceted, and loving piece of contemporary music. Best of all it's eminently listenable and at times catchy too. This might sound odd but it most reminds me of The Who's epic rock-opera Tommy.

I've been thinking about...

escapist books. At least, there used to be something, a genre, that we used to call 'escapist'. These days most of what we see on the bestseller lists seems to be 'escapist' which makes the term redundant. I don't mean only in the SF/ fantasy sense. But historical fiction too. Any book designed to carry the reader away to another place, another timezone, an alternate reality. What I'm attempting to bring to light is the dearth of fiction written these days set in the here and now, or at least, the recent past, say the last twenty years. Blame Harry Potter. Blame The DaVinci Code too. It appears that this is what readers want. Books that will take them to other time periods, alternate worlds, or fantastical scenarios of various kinds. It is not, incidentally, what I want, which appears to make me 'old fashioned'. These thoughts dovetail interestingly with a CBC radio piece I heard today on the meaning of GPS, Global Positioning Systems. They have become so ubiquitous, on cellphones and as a standard feature in cars, that articles have started appearing attempting to parse out what it all means. One writer suggested that she had to compete with the GPS for her boyfriend's attention in the car. She called the GPS, 'the other woman'. Dump the shmuck immediately, I say. But I was also thinking that it meant something worthy of further scrutiny. Perhaps it signals that we are becoming less attuned to our immediate surroundings, shunning positioning ourselves in the here and now, locating ourselves by what we experience and notice in the real world, in favour of a kind of virtual existence, being a dot on an electronic map. If technology is to be completely trusted - and increasingly it appears to be the only trustworthy mode of existence - as we are wont to do in this technological age, what happens when a conflict arises with physical experience? It's probably an urban legend, but I've heard of a GPS commanding a driver to turn right on a bridge. He did as he was commanded with tragic results. And even if that's only an urban legend, it bespeaks a paranoia and concern. All to say - connecting books and GPS - we seem to be losing our sense of being in the here and now, noticing landmarks, trusting our senses, and caring about our surroundings. If books are any indication, we don't seem to want to be where we are at the moment, rather, we don't care to know, to seek meaning, to glean understanding from our circumstances, our ordinary daily struggles etc. We'd rather be fantasizing about vampires and demons and magic and farfetched conspiracies. Who can blame people for craving escape in a world that teeters on the edge of political and economic bankruptcy? On the other hand, isn't that what literature's all about? To make sense of a world on the edge? Maybe we need those stories more than ever?!