The Salon in the Globe

Russell Smith, one of our Salonists, in the Globe on the Salon. A very balanced treatment.

I think that I should take a moment to clarify a thing or two, however. It is not, as Smith has said below, and that other bloggers and reporters have said, that we think the Salon stories are simply better than Urquhart's picks, or all of Urquhart's picks. That would have been ridiculous. There are many excelent stories in the Penguin anthology. Caroline Adderson, Annabel Lyon, Leon Rooke, Timothy Taylor, to say nothing of Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Alistair MacLeod. And, as Michael Darling pointed out in his review -- the only real review of the anthology in CNQ -- there are many others (Lynn Coady, Thomas King, Carol Shields). Our argument, really, is that there were many others that were left out, and more than a few very questionable choices and decisions (Adrienne Poy/Clarkson's story is highlighted in almost all coverage, but this is not the only one. Just as problematic is the use of biography as a framing device at the cost of excluding some of the salon writers Jane Urquhart evidently admires. (As I ask in my intro., does an Ondaatje memoir tell us, really, more about the short story in Canada than an inclusion by Norman Levine? Or are there other considerations here?) ). And that, as Russell rightly points out, we feel that many -- though by no means all -- of the most stylistically innovative writers in the country were left out.

Anyway, enough. Next up: Russell Smith


PENGUIN ANTHOLOGY: LITERARY BROUHAHA
Short? Yes. Sweet? Not even sort of

August 28, 2008

If you haven't heard of the fun polemic raging around a recent anthology of Canadian short stories - a debate not only about what defines Canadian literature but also about what short stories are; in other words, an important debate - I'm not surprised. These things used to happen on the front pages of major newspapers (Yes, honestly: France's conservative Le Figaro published an avant-garde poetry manifesto on its front page in 1909), but of course they seem trivial and recherché now, like an argument among crochet enthusiasts.

I was bubbling about this the other night to a producer of TV news on the CBC who unabashedly yawned and rolled his eyes until I stopped. (To its great credit, however, the CBC Radio show Q did do a segment about it. You can get it as a podcast on their website; it's the first piece on the Aug. 20 show.) Anyway, now is your chance to go to the largest newsstand you can find and buy two Canadian literary quarterlies, and dig in to a feast of elegant nastiness.

The argument is over whether the massive new Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, published last fall as the definitive anthology of this famously Canadian genre, and edited by the famous novelist Jane Urquhart, is truly representative of our best writers. The two magazines in question are The New Quarterly, a journal specializing in new short fiction and poetry, and Canadian Notes & Queries, a magazine specializing in critical essays and reviews. (I think it was the parodically dusty name of the latter that so turned off my TV friend: The name reflects the journal's former incarnation as a research tool for bibliophiles. It is now much more interesting than it sounds.)

These two organs have published, in tandem, a joint response to the Penguin book. They have combined short stories and critical essays into what they are calling the Salon des refusés: The stories here collected are those that were not considered important or representative enough to make it into Urquhart's collection. The editors of the "salon" think these are simply better than Urquhart's choices.

I am, I admit, connected in one way or another to both these magazines, and one of my stories is included in their alternate anthology. Spearheading the angry response to the Penguin book (and angry it is, full of invective and accusations) is my first editor and literary mentor, John Metcalf; the editor of CNQ is Dan Wells, who published my last book. But I am also friends with Urquhart, someone I like and admire, which makes my reading of the withering attacks on her somewhat unpleasant. This web of connections is of course the plague of Canadian literature; it is precisely what has kept us from engaging in spirited debate of the British or French variety, and - at least I know Metcalf would argue - that has led to a standard of publishing and prize-giving which is undoubtedly mediocre.

Perhaps most woundingly, Metcalf, in his introduction to the CNQ issue (called Thinking About Penguins), calls Urquhart a "popular entertainer." He queries whether she is of the same calibre, as an artist, as the editors of the equivalent Irish and U.S. anthologies (Colm Toibin and Richard Ford, respectively). Metcalf derisively takes issue with every one of Urquhart's criteria for inclusion; questions her competence, as a novelist, for the task; and dismisses her understanding of the genre as "appalling ignorance." It's stomach-curdling stuff if you know everyone involved, and of course thrilling for the worst of reasons.

What is it that has made Metcalf, Wells and Kim Jernigan (the editor of The New Quarterly) so mad? Put very roughly, they see it as a conflict between the apologists of content and those of form. Urquhart has arranged her stories by theme - the immigrant experience, memoir, the family, myth and so on - and those themes do seem to have been chosen to be of interest to those who would try to understand something about Canadian history and identity. The best-known Canadian authors are all in there - Munro, Gallant, Atwood, Ondaatje (a strange inclusion, since his contributions are not short stories) - as well as dozens of other brilliant and varied writers (a total of 69, for almost 700 pages).

The objectors say that the majority seem to be chosen because of their great popularity, not because of their skill or innovation in this particular genre. Metcalf et al. point out that their own favourite short-story writers - linguistic gymnasts such as Mark Jarman, Douglas Glover, Terry Griggs and Diane Schoemperlen - tend to be published by small presses and literary magazines, and yet best represent the stylistic flair that is the hallmark of this, our most sophisticated, genre. And they have not been included. Some of Urquhart's selections, they argue, seem to have been made through not entirely artistic criteria: The story from the former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson is, for example, possibly a feel-good choice because of who the author is.

The only way for you to decide if this makes any sense is to go out and buy, first, the Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, which will give you a year or so of fascinating reading at a steady pace; and, at the same time, both The New Quarterly and Canadian Notes & Queries, which will do the same.

Why is this contretemps important? First, because this particular artistic genre is one in which Canadian artists excel, and is therefore an important Canadian contribution to global culture; and second, because it provides a glimpse into a much larger resentment, common among artists and intellectuals, about the political ways in which our official culture is created. You will find no more fascinating illustrations of subtly differing approaches to literature. And finally, the sheer pleasure of reading so many brilliant and exciting pieces of fiction, along with their analyses, may turn you off the bestseller lists forever.

Refusing the Refuses

As it is in the interest of continuing the debate about short stories in Canada, and will prove, one hopes, that this Salon exercise has not been an orchestrated attempt to discredit both the Penguin and Urquhart brands -- conspiracy-theories in CannedLit, sadly, run rampant -- we turn our attention to Steven Beattie's Shakespherian Rag, a fine blog, one of the best in the country, and his 31 Days of Short Stories. Today, a contribution from fellow blogger and bibliomane Nigel Beale, who argues that Virgil Burnett is, at least by the evidence at hand, a much better writer than Clark Blaise, Norman Levine and Hugh Hood; and that, further, the only story worse than Hood's Williamstown is Clarkson's Ring Around October.

You can read his rather ... interesting post here:

stevenwbeattie.com/2008/08/26/31-days-of-short-stories-on-refusing-the-refuses/

Let's do a taste test, shall we:

First, Burnett.

"As he studied her from his place at the far end of the table, Roscelin felt his resistance to her beauty weaken and crumble, as if some temple in his brain had been exploded to dust by the advent of a new and superior religion. He would not, indeed he could not, restrain himself any longer. To do so, he admitted at last, would be to attempt to deny all the precepts of destiny."

A representative paragraph: there are much worse. I chose it because in a few short lines it pretty much gives you the entirety of Burnett's medieval tale (and tale, here, is the operative word. That or yarn. Nothing exemplifies the difference between a modernist short story and a 19th-century style yarn as does a comparision between Burnett, and, well, just about anyone else in the Salon {and the best of Urquhart's selections}.) Where Beale criticizes, for example, Blaise's use of alliteration (???), we get here crumbling resistance, inability to restrain oneself, and romantic destiny. Hmmm: no, no second-hand Gormenghast here.

Let's go with Hood now, the worst of our Salonists, by Beale's estimation. Finding a representative paragraph is not as easy here, as much of the story progresses via dialogue. But this paragraph, picked from a scan, comes close:

"There are no trees in the Town of Mount Royal; this is a fact. Here and there one finds a stunted shrub or two; but when they lais out the developments during, and just after, the war, they bulldozed down all of the trees, a bad mistake no one seems to regret. Without noticing it, the citizens live on an arid plain where the grass yellows in May. If the land were clear prairie they would see this; but admidst the ranch houses the desert effect is half-obliterated. That you can't sit in your own backyard in July because of the glare seems to be taken for granted by all but me. It takes me an hour and a half to drive two miles to work, because of a bottleneck at a level crossing. In wintertime, it takes much longer."

No fireworks here, admittedly. Just careful observation, and a layering of image, metaphor and dialogue, quiet technique, which adds resonance to a powerful story about, as much as anything, the final journey (to Williamstown or otherwise) we all must take. Certainly, at the very least, when compared to Burnett's medieval posturings, a much, much stronger story.

We won't even get into comparing Hood and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Really, what would be the point? So there's not much more to say. Beale says it all. Take the Constance and Williamstown challenge, and see for yourself

Review of Young's Moonbathers...

... in the Winnipeg Free Press. Are they one of the ONLY metropolitan newspapers which review Canadian poetry with any regularity any more? Certainly they seem to review it MORE than any other paper I know of. Kudos and thanks due to Walker Morley and everyone at the Winnipeg Free Press who are still willing to give that most un-commercial of collections -- the poetry book -- weekly attention.

Here's the part of the review dealing with Young's Moonbathers. As far as I know this is the first review of this collection thus far, which is a bit ridiculous, considering her previous two collections received G-G shortlist nods. But t'is the way of things these days.

Free verse impressive for its rhythmic control

By: Maurice Mierau

Updated: August 24 at 12:10 AM CDT

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Victoria writer Patricia Young's ninth book of poetry, Here Come the Moonbathers (Biblioasis, 80 pages, $18) is beautifully crafted, subtle and emotionally intense.

Young's free verse is impressive for its rhythmic control. Notice the double stress pattern here, the one long line, and then the return to pattern:

Why the bone clock?

Who the bone clock?

What to say about the bone clock

except it stopped when the world was still caterwauling

tooth and claw.

Young doesn't simply produce one kind of rhythmic variation. In Twenty Questions she deploys a casual five stress line: "Dad smells of mulched leaves, something sweetly organic./ Pulverized beach shells spill from his eye sockets."

She also has a rare gift for metaphorical thinking, where a metaphor is initially somewhat mysterious, and then comes into perfectly logical focus:

Your perfect life is not a poem after all.

Which is fine except your blood is full of magnets.

You'd like to smuggle yourself out of the abandoned city

but you're stuck to the fridge... .

Salon des Refuses: The Toronto Launch

Jack, David (ECW), Karen Haughin? (Descant)

Sharon English, Heather Birrell in conversation; Adrian Michael Kelly and Kim Jernigan

Rebecca Rosenblum and fan club.

A blow hard, blowing. Mike Barnes, English and Birrell looking on on stage. Paul Wells from Macleans at the immediate right.

Wells, Barnes, English.

To forestall a lawsuit: that is the TINARS mascot reading the TNQ and not Penguin's ... well... penguin. Unintentional irony: there's been a lot of that going 'round.

Rebecca Rosenblum meets Steven Beattie, whose Shakespherian Rag is a must read: especially this month, with his marathon 31 Days of short stories.

Steven, Rebecca and someone I should recognize, I think, but Can't. Help! (Davidson?)

Wells, Barnes, English.

English, Birrell, Beattie.

Wells, Barnes, Birrell.

Barnes, English, Birrell, Beattie.

Sorry: there are two of these, but damned if I'm taking this one off now.

Wells, Barnes, English, Birrell, looking in Kim's general direction.

Chris Reed, TINARS mastermind, and Kim Jernigan, editor of the New Quarterly.

Kim Jernigan.

The only one who needs introduction at this stage is Adrian Michael Kelly, far right, who's Imprint of Foxes piece in CNQ is worth the cover price on its own.

Thank God that's over.

Photos courtesy of Gabrielle de Montmollin. Alas, put up in reverse order, but what else would you expect from this bibliophilic luddite? Rumour has it that Vancouver and Montreal events are in the works, likely others. We'll keep you posted.

Star Gazing Seth-style

The Star Gazer, according to Seth. From the Idler's Glossary, which hit press this morn. Something I hope to do plenty of this weekend with my trusty binoculars, my $10 garage sale telescope and the all-important tumbler of cheap scotch. That should help keep all of this Salon nonsense in the proper perspective.

Rebecca Rosenblum: A Profile

It's been a month of profiles for Rebecca Rosenblum, who's ONCE should hit the bibliomanse driveway sometime next week. A New Quarterly interview, with three stories; a longer interview/profile in CNQ; and now a profile in the Jewish Canadian News, which hit the newstands today. You can read it by following this link:

www.cjnews.com/images/stories/Heebonics/Aug_21_08.pdf

Rebecca's ONCE was also given a starred review in the September edition of Quill & Quire, though I've not yet seen the review myself. I believe the only other starred fiction title of the issue was Miriam Toews's new novel, so t' is good company to be in. Congrats!

Incidentally, you'll be able to catch Rebecca all over the place next month. She'll be reading September 7th at Eden Mills, where ONCE will be publicly available for the first time. She'll be launching in Toronto at TINARS, at the Gladstone, on September 15th; and she'll be in Winnipeg at Thin Air on the 24th. More Rosenblum events are planned in October and November as well, so stay tuned.

Salon des Refuses on CBC's Q

Adrian Michael Kelly, author of The Imprint of Foxes, an essay in the critical section of the current CNQ half of the Salon des Refuses, was on Q radio with Jian Ghomeshi this aft., and did a fine job representing all Salonists. The discussion is now part of the Q podcast, and can be listened to here:

/www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts.html?42#ref42

Toronto Star Review of Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets

A review of Jailbreaks in the Toronto Star.

"These poems can be read without even being aware that they are sonnets. Their apparent informality, even within a formal structure, is part of their appeal."

Not quite the "Belongs in every school library in the coutry" endorsement of the Winnipeg Free Press a month or so back, but, still, gets the word out.

The review can be found here:

www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/479556

The true story: Charles Foran, Anna Porter and Donald Antrim talk about mixing fact and fabrication in memoirs

Charles Foran talks to Anna Porter and Donald Antrim in a Words at Large Podcast on CBC's website, recorded during Montreal's Blue Metropolis in May. A pretty interesting discussion, on truth, lies and memoir.

I've noticed with a lot of these organizations that they almost never mention a writer's book with a small or independent press, even if it is, as is the case with Charles, their most recent title. Harper Collins looks much more impressive, I suppose, than Biblioasis in the by-line. {Though it is possible that I am just growing paranoid. Alex Good pointed out that with the Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories what unites all of the writers is that they have made the jump from small presses to big presses (with the exception of Virgil Burnett, Adrienne Clarkson and Carol Windley). Even in Mrs. Urquhart's response to Q&Q about the Salon, she singled out three of about 5 writers associated with larger houses, ignoring those who are mainly associated with small, independent ones. Good wrote that small presses should feel truly dissed, and he is right, I think. As usual, more perceptive than the rest of us.

Trolling through the discussions about the Conservative Government's assault on art funding last eve, I came across the suggestion, more than once, that if work is good it is going to get noticed. If it falls beneath the radar, it more than likely deserves it. It's obvious that this is an opinion shared not only by Joe and Jane Canadian, but by editors and copy editors at the Big Houses, national and independent media and others as well. READ: Big=good; small=less-so.

Oh, hell: rant stemmed. Time to close these brackets.}

check out the discussion here:

www.cbc.ca/wordsatlarge/blog/2008/08/the_true_story_charles_foran_a_1.html

The Idler's Glossary: The Cover

A first look at the final Idler's Glossary cover. The glossary should go off to the printer tomorrow. The book was designed by Seth, who did a fabulous job: cover, endpapers, 3 title pages, 30 word definition illustrations. It's a gorgeous production, or will be, with embossing, metallic ink, on a nice uncoated stock. I'm thinking, if I can squeeze in the time, of doing a hand bound edition of 20 copies using a version of the endpapers as the covering paper. More on this later. Let me know if you might be interested in a copy of this edition.

While I'm on all things idle, I've finally got the Royal Order of the Indolent blog going more regularly -- all this blog work is getting in the way of my ability to idle. This week, I've gathered Robert Louis Stevenson's wonderful essay, Apology for Idlers, where he argues "Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself." As well, you'll find "An Invitation to Lubberland," from a 1685 Broadside, the early version of the hobo's heaven popularized by Harry McClintock in "Big Rock Candy Mountains." In Lubberland you'll find that:

The rivers run with claret fine,
The brooks with rich canary,
The ponds with other sorts of wine,
To make your hearts full merry:
Nay, more than this, you may behold,
The fountains flow with brandy,
The rocks are like refined gold,
The hills are sugar candy.

"Rose-water is the rain they have,
Which comes in pleasant showers,
All places are adorned brave,
With sweet and fragrant flowers.
Hot custards grows on ev'ry tree,
Each ditch affords rich jellies;
Now if you will be ruled by me,
Go there and fill your bellies.

"There's nothing there but holy-days
With music out of measure;
Who can forbear to speak the praise
Of such a land of pleasure?
There may you lead a lazy life
Free from all kind of labours:
And he that is without a wife,
May borrow of his neighbour.

Go check both out:

/theroyalorderoftheindolent.blogspot.com/

CNQ/TNQ Salon Newsflash

Adrian Michael Kelly will be on CBC radio's Q talking about the Salon des Refuses and the Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories tomorrow afternoon.

There will also be coverage of the Salon in an upcoming issue of Macleans magazine. Stay tuned for more information.

More to follow...

"One of the sharpest literary debates this country has ever seen..."

Just three days before the official launch of the CNQ/TNQ Salon Des Refuses (don't forget to join us at the Gladstone in Toronto this Wednesday, August 13th, doors at 8:00 p.m.) Alex Good had this to say about our joint venture in the Toronto Star:

Did anyone see this coming?
When The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, edited by Jane Urquhart, came out last fall, it was greeted with the generally deferential reviews expected of such an exercise in cultural authority.
Almost a year later, this 700-page tome has become the flashpoint for one of the sharpest literary debates this country has ever seen.

For the full article, check out www.thestar.com/entertainment/Books/article/475465

Salon des Refuses Photos: Take Two!

There we are!

An article appeared in Quill & Quire about the Salon, Omni edition, last eve. There will also be something in the Sunday's Ideas Section -- we've moved out of the book pages ghetto -- in the Toronto Star.

Salon Des Refuses: Pages Display Photos

Photos courtesy of Chris Reed, TINARS mastermind. Though there's no CNQ in the window. What! Already sold out! As it should be.

CNQ/TNQ Salon Des Refuses

CNQ: Canadian Notes & Queries and TNQ: The New Quarterly
welcome you to our

SALON DES REFUSES
------

A critical and artistic response to The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, edited by Jane Urquhart, in which we tweak the beak of the Canadian Penguin and put forward work by twenty of the best short story writers in the country not included in said anthology:

Mike Barnes, Heather Birrell, Clark Blaise, Sharon English, Cynthia Flood, Keath Fraser, Douglas Glover, Terry Griggs, Mark Anthony Jarman, Elizabeth Harvor, Steven Heighton, Hugh Hood, Norman Levine, John Metcalf, Bharati Mukherjee, Patricia Robertson, Diane Schoemperlen, Ray Smith, Russell Smith and Patricia Young.

* * *

With critical contributions and appreciations by Caroline Adderson, Steven Beattie, Don Coles, Michael Darling, Stephen Henighan, Adrian Michael Kelly, Annabel Lyon, John Metcalf, Eric Ormsby and Michael Winter, among others.

Curated by Daniel Wells and Kim Jernigan

* * *

To be launched at Pages Books and Magazines's 'This is Not a Reading Series' at the Gladstone Hotel in toronto at 8:30 pm, August 13th, 2008, with a panel discussion on the role of criticism, canon-making and the state of the Canadian short story. Panelists include Kim Jernigan (editor of TNQ) as moderator; Salon Refuse-niks Mike Barnes, Heather Birrell and Sharon English; CNQ Salon critical contributors Steven Beattie and Adrian Michael Kelly; and CNQ publisher/editor Dan Wells.

Two Review of Henighan's Report

Two reviews appeared this weekend of Stephen Henighan's A Report on the Afterlife of Culture. The first, in the Globe & Mail, was, err, negative. It can be found here:

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080726.BKHENI26/TPStory/Entertainment/Books

Though it may be poor form to weigh in on this, as Nigel is obviously completely at his liberty to dislike this book, a few of his criticism were, I think, at the very least debatable. I think he misses the point on the discussion of Ian McEwan; it was the British who were responsible the interest in Robert Bolano (beating American publishers to the punch by a few years); it's pretty well documented that American interest in Latin American writing has been rather stagnate for quite some time (this is one of the reasons why a press like Biblioasis can afford to go after some of the best Latin American writers in the world: there's just not that many places, on either side of the Atlantic, interested in bringing Moya and company into english); good fiction may not be produced with foreign rights sales in mind, but a lot of the fiction agented by the big rep houses is; I could go on ... but ...

Thankfully, not all the coverage this weekend was quite so negative: the second review was by Alex Good in the Guelph Mercury. Here's the gist of this short capsule:

Whether in his sweeping, historical "Report" or in his appreciations of international authors, or commentary on the Canadian scene, Henighan is always worth reading. Disagreeing with his many controversial opinions is half the fun.

The whole thing can be found here:

news.guelphmercury.com/Life/article/360092

Good's longer review can be found on his website, here:

/www.goodreports.net/reviews/areportontheafterlifeofculture.htm

The Romance of Thrift

A first lesson in idling over at The Royal Order of the Indolent, with a surprise visit from G. K. Chesterton.

It can be found here:

theroyalorderoftheindolent.blogspot.com/2008/07/romance-of-thrift.html

The Fourth Annual Metcalf-Rooke Award

BIBLIOASIS is pleased to present
The Fourth Annual

Metcalf-Rooke Award

______________________________________________

2005 - Patricia Young, Airstream. (short fiction)
2006 - Kathleen Winter, boYs (short fiction)
2007 - Rebecca Rosenblum, Once (short fiction)

____________________________________________________

This year's winner will receive:

• a publishing contract with BIBLIOASIS
• a leather-bound copy of their book
• a $1,500 cash prize, presented by Steven Temple Books
• a regional book tour, including festival appearances
• a profile in The New Quarterly

and much more...

_______________________________________________________________

• THE OBJECTIVE of the competition is to uphold and celebrate the tradition of small press publishing and independent bookselling in Canada, and to champion the writing of new and up-and-coming Canadian writers.
• THE COMPETITION is open to all Canadian writers with an unpublished book-length manuscript of short or novel-length fiction. Manuscripts must be titled, typed, double-spaced and unstapled. The author’s name should not appear on the manuscript. All entries must be accompanied by a separate page containing the contestant’s full name, mailing address, telephone number, email address (optional), manuscript title, and brief bio (which should include a list of all previously published or forthcoming works). Manuscripts will not be returned.
• SUBMISSIONS must be postmarked no later than September 30, 2008. A shortlist will be announced at the beginning of November. The winning manuscript will be announced November 30 with publication of the work in 2009.

Send your manuscripts to:

The Metcalf-Rooke-Award
c/o Biblioasis
P.O. Box 92
Emeryville, ON N0R 1C0

The Royal Order of the Indolent

In honour and anticipation of Joshua Glenn's and Mark Kingwell's Idler's Glossary -- the Devil's dictionary for the Idling classes -- I've begun a new blog of all things idle which can be found here:

/theroyalorderoftheindolent.blogspot.com/

There will be a good deal of regular action on this blog, so check in at least (ir)regularly. And make sure to do it on your boss's dime. The first post offers a link to a Washington Post article on Karoshi, proof that work will kill you.

There's also a Royal Order of the Indolent Facebook page for those who loaf there regularly.

The Art of Proofing

Over at her blog Rose Coloured, Rebecca Rosenblum has some interesting thoughts on proofing her upcoming collection, ONCE.

I am now in possession of the final page proofs of Once, along with an absurdly lovely Advanced Reading Copy. I was really thrilled to get this stuff, waiting to see what the copy-edit looked like and HOLD A BOUND BOOK IN MY HANDS, and yet as soon as it arrived, I felt a strange sensation of doom.

Why? The pages are gorgeous, the copy-edit thorough and sensitive. As someone who has worked for several years in book production, I not only knew ahead of time what to expect, I have made several resolutions over the years as to how I would behave.

Her whole post can be found here:

rebecca-rosenblum.blogspot.com/2008/07/proof-of-art.html

A Thaw Foretold

Mike Barnes's 2006 collection of poetry A Thaw Foretold has been reviewed on the McNally Robinson blog, as well as on Todd Swift's UK site EYEWEAR. It's a good, thoughtful review, and one of the few, unfortunately, this damn fine book has received. It's also one of our most beautifully produced, the cover letter pressed on a St. Armand handmade stock. And one of our scarcest to boot, as Canada Post destroyed at least half of the print run in transit. But there are still copies available, either on the website, directly, through amazon, indigo, or via special order through your favourite independent.

Here's a brief quote from the review:

The poems in the collection don’t all fit perfectly but most do, engaging and challenging in equal measure, many of the poems demanding a second and further readings, bringing the reader back time and again to flick through the pages and join the poet on his journey through shared emotional seasons.

The full review can be found here:

/toddswift.blogspot.com/2008/07/guest-review-robinson-on-barnes.html

Mike Barnes's latest book, The Lily Pond: A Memoir of Madness, Memory, Myth and Metamorphosis, is in the final stages of production. A memoir of his more than thirty year battle with bi-polar disorder, it's one of the most intelligent, moving, beautiful, and horrifying treatments of mental illness I've read (having a tendency to wallow in the dark waters myself from time to time, I've read a lot of them). You'll be hearing a lot more about The Lily Pond, here and elsewhere, as the launch date approaches.

Two Reviews of Join the Revolution, Comrade

Finally. Two review this week of Join the Revolution, Comrade. The first appearing last Saturday in the Hong Kong Standard (almost certainly our first review in an Asian paper), and begins like this:

Canadian Charles Foran, a one-time resident of Hong Kong, has just had published a collection of essays under the title Join the Revolution, Comrade, covering life on three continents and spanning topics from China to Cervantes.

In a world where "page-turner" is often seen as the ultimate accolade for a book, collections of essays aren't for everyone. Essays don't, by and large, propel the reader from chapter to chapter but instead induce pauses for reflection.

But Join the Revolution, Comrade isn't merely a book for savoring, although it is that. The complaints that Western writers don't make an effort to understand Asia and its cultural subtleties are possibly partly based either in a lack of awareness of those writers like Foran who can move seamlessly from Tariq Ali to Lu Xun to Yeats - or also, perhaps, in a certain unwillingness to read books whose pages don't turn by themselves.

The whole review can be found here:

www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=15&art_id=67920&sid=19595292&con_type=1

The second review appeared in the Globe & Mail Books section this past week. Part of a group review, Foran's section begins like this:

In Join the Revolution, Comrade: Journeys and Essays, novelist Charles Foran leaves Nowhere - Toronto's Willowdale - for Somewhere - China, Thailand, Vietnam - taking us with him on a rich and reflective voyage as he skillfully navigates the clash of languages, cultures and points of view that travelling can trigger if you are wide-eyed, curious and eager to learn.

The whole review, which also includes a review of Bruce Serafin's Stardust (which I might pick up), can be found here:

www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080705.BKESSA05/TPStory/?query=charles+foran

The Little Literary Press That Could (& More Praise for Jailbreaks)

Managing editor Jared Bland has published a short post on the Walrus Blog about Biblioasis, enough to pick up our spirits a touch on a rather sweltering day above the garage. Here's a taste:

Surely Biblioasis, the small independent press run out of Emeryville, Ontario, is among the bravest entities in Canadian literature. This spring, after all, their list contained not one but two books of critical essays. One would be risk enough. Two is sort of admirably crazy.

Also, for Jailbreaks, the second nice bit of praise it has received this week. The Winnipeg Free Press reviewed it last Saturday, saying it belonged in every school library across the land, but thus far they are the only major paper to give it som much as a millimetre of ink.

Jared had this to say:

But what’s most endeared the press to me this year is Jailbreaks, a collection of ninety-nine Canadian sonnets, edited and annotated by Zachariah Wells. (Just how eclectic and broad is Biblioasis’s scope? This fall it will release Wells and Rachel Lebowitz’s children’s book in verse, Anything but Hank!, which has a really awesome cover.) Wells’s collection makes me happy for a number of reasons, but foremost among them is the eccentric range of names contained within ... What Wells offers is a thematic survey on formalist grounds, a sort of sleight of hand that makes the collection immediately familiar and intelligible but also, as his insightful notes on each poem show, rigorous in its aesthetic evaluations and thoughtful in its attention to details of prosody. As an editor and commentator, Wells is incredibly perceptive and mercifully concise. ... It’s perhaps a fine distinction, but this is a collection for those interested more in poetry by Canadians than Canadian poetry.

The whole post can be found here:

www.walrusmagazine.com/blogs/2008/06/26/the-little-literary-press-that-could/

Jailbreaks: Belongs in Every School in the Country

So says Maurice Mierau in a review in the Winnipeg Free Press. We, of course, completely agree with him.

Here's a short excerpt:

Vancouver

poet and critic Zachariah

Wells has edited a collection of

Canadian sonnets that should be in

every school library. Jailbreaks:

99 Canadian Sonnets (Biblioasis,

160 pages, $20) reminds us of our

national involvement in one of

English poetry's most significant

forms.

The entire review, which also has a good review of honourary Biblioasis poet Adam Getty's latest, can be found here:

www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/books/story/4189885p-4780427c.html

Cutting Down our Tall Poppies

An article in the Republic of East Vancouver has just been published about Stephen Henighan and his latest collection, A Report on the Afterlife of Culture. You can read it here:

www.republic-news.org/archive/191-repub/191_sercombe.html

Here's a short excerpt:

A public intellectual on the cutting edge is lauded in most countries, but in Canada many literary types have not read Henighan or they bristle defensively at the name as though he doesn’t quite know how to behave around the Canlit table. Picture your favourite uncle who comes to Christmas dinner and pokes gentle fun at stuffy family habits.

The Idler's Glossary

One of our big books this fall looks like it will be Joshua Glenn and Mark Kingwell's Idler's Glossary. Think of it as a Devil's dictionary for the idling classes, a volume that is destined to open wounds with Calvinists, Timekeepers, clock-watchers, workaholics, uptightniks and punctiliocrats everywhere. It includes an essay by Mark Kingwell -- Idling Toward Heaven: The Last Defence you will Ever Need -- and Glenn's glossary proper, which gathers and closely examines (and in some cases coins) hundreds of idler-specific terms and phrases. Illustrated by Seth, if you can't tell from this first cover mock up. I love the Bertie Wooster-ish feel of it. Wodehouse would have approved, I think.

Josh has just put his glossary in Wordle, a web-based tool that gives you acloud of key words and phrases: that can be found here:

wordle.net/gallery/03059/idler_glossary

This will be the perfect volume for all you idlers, loafers, layabouts, shit-heels, losers, dawdlers, amblers, indolents, flaneurs, epicureans, dodgers, spongers and cadgers: the bulk, I expect, of Thirsty readers.

Steven Beattie interviews Charles Foran

That Steven Beattie guy just might like us. Two posts in one day. This one an absolutely fabulous interview with Charles Foran around this April's Join the Revolution, Comrade. For which I thank him, again, heartily.

You can find the whole interview at That Shakespeherian Rag, here:

stevenwbeattie.com/2008/06/17/tsr-author-interview-charles-foran/

A brief excerpt:

Novelists who do make an attempt to write in a more challenging or idiosyncratic way that might lack mass popular appeal are often castigated for being “elitist,” an epithet that William A. Henry III has suggested “has come to rival if not outstrip ‘racist’ as the foremost catchall pejorative of our times.” How do we counteract the prevailing cultural tendency towards comfortable, staid fictional products and authors?

At this stage, there is likely no escaping charges of elitism. Simply to aspire to write not a “literary’” book or a “real” novel or any such loaded term but to write simply to the tradition, to Cervantes and Sterne, Eliot and Conrad, Virginia Wolf and Keri Hume, is to open yourself up to epithets. As I said before, it seems we don’t really want these books, these writers, any longer. We only accept, begrudgingly, the “difficult” ones that the Nobel committee or, sometimes, the Booker jury, bully onto our media bookshelf. (What a tiny, badly constructed shelf that is, too: can’t hold more than a few titles at any one time, books rated by gaudy covers and sensationalized titles, then still filed upside-down or spines-to-the-wall; all excess releases allowed to topple off the edge and tumble to the ground, there to be not even trampled on; just ignored, until covered in dust, dirt, and returned to the earth.) We no longer have the time or attention span or, possibly, the faith in the form. We’ve moved on.

What to do? Join the Revolution, Comrade, I suppose — or else …

Rebecca Rosenblum and the Future of the Short Story

Steven Beattie, over at That Shakespeherian Rag, has a short post on Rebecca Rosenblum. Seems he's become enchanted this past weekend with the pretty fantastic world which is Rosenblum's ONCE, her first collection of short fiction, set for an early September launch. He attended her Luminato reading on Friday, and it seems he was also at BookExpo and got his hands on one of those cerloxed monstrosities posing as an Uncorrected Galleys I spent much of last week producing when it became apparent the printer would not get them done on time (one of the reasons I needed to rush back from the Jailbreaks launch Wednesday evening, which forced me to postpone finishing my CNQ grant, which meant I spent much of Father's Day working on my computer. I know, I know ... cry me a river.) and that he likes, very much, what he has thus far read.

Steven, in part, writes:

At a Luminato reading on Friday, I had the immense pleasure of meeting Rebecca Rosenblum, a Toronto-based short-story writer whose debut collection, Once, which is set for release in September, is already receiving astounding word of mouth. No less a stalwart figure than John Metcalf has commented that Rosenblum “is among the most talented of the writers I’ve worked with in forty years” — quite a compliment considering that this list includes Michael Winter, Caroline Adderson, Terry Griggs, Sharon English, and Russell Smith, among others.

I picked up an ARC of Once at Book Expo Canada over the weekend, which I’ve been dipping into. From my experience there, and having heard the author read her story “Route 99″ on Friday, I expect that this is a collection you’ll be hearing much more about round these parts in the run-up to September.

Smart guy, that Beattie.

He also pointed me over to Rebecca's own blog, where she has a wonderful post on the short story and its/her imminent demise. You can find that here:

rebecca-rosenblum.blogspot.com/2008/06/rumours-of-my-demise-have-been-greatly.html

You'll also be hearing a lot about Rebecca in the lead up to her September launch 'round these parts, so get used to it...

Smith's Diana,& the Herald's Bestseller LIST: An Update

Russell Smith's pornographic tale of one woman's sexual conquest of an unnamed metropolis a lot like Toronto seems to have struck a chord in Calgary, Alberta, where it is now number 4 on the Herald Bestseller lists, where it sits only behind Elizabeth George, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Salman Rushdie. You can check it out here:

www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/booksandthearts/story.html?id=013fe568-e064-4813-a25b-4dd5a83c2666

Flirt: The Globe Review

A fabulous, smart, funny, moving, convincing, flirtatious review of Jackson's Flirt in the GLOBE this morn. Katia Grubisic: I owe you at least a shot of an (un)reasonable scotch the next time you're either in Emeryville, or I make it back to Montreal! (I know, I know: destined to be the latter.)

Katia-the interviewer-cum-reviewer: "I like the book more each time I read it." Which is what I was saying in yesterday's post. This is a book you read more than once. It keeps drawing me back to it (the last time being yesterday, hence the post), if only for the pleasure of dipping in for a few pages. It's as gratifying, as pleasurable, as a back-rub from Janet Jones Gretzky. Not that I've had one of those. Yet. But an impoverished publisher can dream, can't he?

So, please, go out and buy the damned book before Chapters/Indigo sends them all back.

FICTION

In which I flirt with Lorna

KATIA GRUBISIC

June 14, 2008

FLIRT

The Interviews

By Lorna Jackson

Biblioasis, 93 pages, $16.95

Print Edition - Section Front

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Lorna! Oh. Sorry.

- Mouthful of hair, sorry.

- I'm used to the two-cheek Montreal kiss. Leads to accidental making out when I try it with West-Coasters.

- The West Coast doesn't kiss. Flirting's transgression enough.

- Were you trying to be transgressive with this book, a literary incarnation of flirting?

- Not particularly. Just to show ... Just a coffee for me. This is a great old dive.

- Do you have The Macallan? 15? 21? Thanks.

- This was one of only three that got licences after Prohibition, the other two long gone. Vancouver's reinvented itself 14 times since we played here. "I lived in the city when it meant something, before it meant so little." I say that in the book.

- In Flirt, every short story is a mock-interview - with musicians, athletes, writers - cobbled together from real interviews, research, biographies, but each piece crescendos to reveal the interviewer. Like your first collection and your novel, the primacy of character is what drives the story. The tone is similarly edgy, too; you describe breastfeeding as being stabbed with a chainsaw.

- Alice Munro takes exception to the feasibility of that comparison.

- You've always done violence well, the latent violence of how hard it is to live a hard life well. You strike a risky balance between tenderness and honesty. Your writing revs. Mark Jarman summarized it as Hamlet meets Baywatch.

- Mark's a hoot.

- You wouldn't have wanted to flirt with him in this one? Or Hamlet, for that matter? David Hasselhoff?

- Nah. Flirting with Mark, we'd've ended up eloping to Vegas in robot suits or something. Hamlet's too wordy wordy wordy, and as for the Hass, I don't like men with bigger breasts than mine. Anyway, you're here with Lorna the character. Ask me about the interviews. Lorna the writer is home watching the game.

- Right, yes. The writer is not a tube of toothpaste, sayeth Atwood.

- But I toy with that autobiographical distance.

- Lorna-the-writer's last book was about hockey. In Flirt, we see you cruising around with Bobby Orr in his Cadillac, kayaking with your real-life pretend boyfriend Markus Naslund, getting a backrub from Janet Gretzky. What is it about hockey?

- You know, it's the facing opposition, often against the odds, and then someone at last does something. It's not unlike an interview, with a different set of players.

- Constructing the self by confronting the other. And the self is the story? I was concerned initially about the lack of linear plot in Flirt. I was worried too about keeping track of who's saying what. Like in some unattributed dialogue, when you find yourself counting backward to figure out the speaker. But the voices here are clear, just idiosyncratic enough. And the through line is Lorna-the-character's need to tell her stories, the way everybody has stories, plural.

- Yeah. To quote myself quoting Richard Ford, whose answers to the mock interview are lifted from a real interview I did with him.

- But your questions were different?

- The character I construct, her thoughts on writing, art, fatherhood, daughterhood, teenage love and rebellion, all that is elaborated against those real answers, yes.

- What was your favourite mock-terview? The Janet Gretzky is hilarious; she's so self-helpish, repressed. Has abolished the first-person singular pronoun. Says gosh.

- Totally wanted me.

- Totally. And Alice Munro - "Maybe it's flirting you smell, not manure." Your frustration with how she wrote Dance of the Happy Shades while her girls were napping ...

- ... while my daughter wailed, "Come get me, you slut," as soon as I sat down with a pad of paper.

- You have a little crush on Alice Munro. That's probably the most seductive interview, you coyly reminding her of the end of Floating Bridge ...

- Great story; she dances so much so fast, without her "tights getting saggy."

- You seemed sweet on Benjamin Britten, too. By that last piece, the protagonist-cum-interviewer has told her whole story, in subtle bits that emerge organically, if somewhat megalomaniacally, through each conversation: the older sister who died young, the father who ineptly faked his own death, the string of musician boyfriends, the end of alcoholism. What's Britten like?

- Meticulously attentive, even posthumously, waiting for the world to amaze him, wondering what instrument he'll use to mimic the happy hens cavorting roosterless nearby. He held my hands, you know.

- Yeah, I liked that part. It was sincere; the interview rings true, sketches the subject exactly while touching on your own ars poetica.

- So it works, the character of the interviewer?

- Perfect. I like the book more each time I read it. She's a great character, flawed in all the right places, the kind of hard knocks all women would dare to rub up against, and sympathetic because it is hard, but you live it anyway. No self-pity ...

- Gawd no. Suck it up, snarls my Don Cherry-esque alter ego.

- You get the secondary characters, too -- you explain an absent God and do a full portrait of the dead sister in three sentences. A cutlery-coddling husband. Chelios. Thurber the spaniel.

- The story emerges from those details. Storytelling, like interviewing, is about the ability to lead your audience to a different perspective.

- You ask Britten whether "superficial effects are the will of the material, rather than the ego of the artist." Alluding to writing as well as to his Three Divertimenti?

- A writer has to listen to the writing, to the characters, in order to know the story and how to tell it.

- A good listener, in short. Like a musician, like ... You used to be a bassist, right? Good listeners. And bassists are hot.

- Are you flirting with me?

Katia Grubisic bats her eyelashes and drinks reasonable scotch in Montreal. Her first collection of poems, What If Red Ran Out, was published this spring.