Literature

A few days ago I ran across this excellent article at The Valve about a fairly recent book called Theory’s Empire. The book collects a number of essays by intelligent and reasonably well-known folks on the subject of some of capital “T” Theory’s more assinine elements. I have wanted to read the book for some time, and this piece, written by contributor Morris Dickstein, makes me even more eager to pluck it down from the shelves. When an avant garde succeeds it is institutionalized, routinized, and finally trivialized, but this is not where recent theory most fell short. Nor should its major flaw be found in its obtuseness toward earlier theory, which John Ellis establishes so clearly in his essay. Such exuberant claims to novelty are a reflex of any avant garde, though they sit badly in anything that passes for scholarship. Theory respected no foundations but its own, which… Continue Reading →

Never let it be said that I was claiming that Victoria Beckham was some sort of subhuman animal for not reading. I said no such thing (besides, she’s got other things going for her that provide her with status), and I don’t recall reading anyone who did. People were more surprised, I think, than hostile. Hester Lacey has decided to ride to the rescue of the aliterate everywhere. Why, she wonders, do people come down harder on folks like Victoria Beckham for not reading than they would on people who, say, don’t like to cook, or garden, or do math? I will suggest several possible reasons. Despite the ubiquity of radio, television, and the Internet, most Western cultures still grant the book a status and authority apart from and above other media. I have no links to give you, but I have seen reports that indicate adults who continue to… Continue Reading →

Apparently Victoria Beckham doesn’t read. At all. Ever. Except fashion magazines, I guess. I should say that I’m shocked, or appalled, but really I’m not. But I can tell you this: if I had her money, I would not have a maid, or a butler, or a driver. Hell no. I’d have a librarian.

Canadians are quick to boast about the quality of their writers, but perhaps it’s time to talk about the quantity of the country’s readers. A new report, Who Buys Books In Canada?, based on 2001 Statistics Canada survey information, reveals that Canadians spent $1.13-billion on books that year—up 23 per cent from 1997 (or up 15 per cent after adjusting for inflation). An article in today’s Globe and Mail paints an optimistic picture of Canada’s reading public. The extraordinary success of stores like Chapters in recent years reflects, not necessarily an increased interest in literature, but perhaps a movement toward the recognition that book culture has some value, even if right now it’s only value as a commodity. Baby steps, folks, baby steps.

There’s a great article in the New York Sun about poet John Ashbery. Ashbery has never been one of my favourite poets. He nearly always sends me to the dictionary, which I don’t mind, but even after extended meditation and repeated readings I often have no idea how to enter many of his poems. They tend to confuse me in ways that I cannot explain. And that bothers me. But all the same, the poems for which I can find an entry point are exquisite, and I respect him as a strong poet. The article is ostensibly a book review, but it also touches significantly on the poet’s life, and I learned a lot about him that I didn’t know; his age in particular surprised me. I haven’t read any of his later poetry, but after these paragraphs I’m going to make a point of doing so: Mr. Ashbery has… Continue Reading →

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of Margaret Atwood, and tend to be rather hard on her, but her recent Slate review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel, Never Let Me Go is spot on, in the sense that the review is genuinely about Ishiguro and his work, and provides what seems like an honest and fair assessment of the novel. (Those who are not regular readers should know that several months ago I accussed her of being completely unable to meet those criteria in at least one other book review.) Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day was a brilliant novel, and Never Let Me Go also looks quite interesting. Atwood writes: The book is also about our tendency to cannibalize others to make sure we ourselves get a soft ride. Ursula Le Guin has a short story called The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, in… Continue Reading →

Stephen Henighan, in one of his columns for Geist, decided to meditate on “the power cut that paralyzed Ontario in August 2003.” (Actually, geographically speaking it only darkened a little under half of Ontario, but screw accuracy, right Stephen? Nobody cares what goes on outside of Toronto and Ottawa anyway.) He begins by describing a heart-breakingly banal scene in which his snobbish, mostly-immigrant closed community (he expresses contempt for the restrictive nature of condominium life, yet lives in one) is forced to begin the work of basic human communication. Everything is sunshine and puppies until the poor English-deficient Yugoslavian immigrant that most of the residents avoid takes the common sense measure of bringing his kerosene cookstove outside so that, sans-electricity, he can have a hot meal without burning down the condo or suffocating his family from the fumes. Henighan attributes this complete lack of ignorant paralysis to the fact that… Continue Reading →

Note: This piece was written more than a year ago (late February 2004), as a short academic presentation. I posted about it here. Literature does not need this defence. Literature will not disappear if a biography of Britney Spears sells better than the next Salman Rushdie novel. It is not an endangered species, because literary works are more than just commodities to be traded, although they are also that. Literature is art, and like all art, it plays more than one game. It is common sense to suppose that a book will sell in large numbers if it appeals to a wide audience, and in a consumer culture like ours it is no great stretch to suppose that publishers and booksellers will make an effort to produce and sell such books as regularly as possible. Publishers and booksellers would like to make money, and I’m sure that no one begrudges… Continue Reading →