Canada Reads (In English)

My hate-on for Jian Ghomeshi and this year's CBC Canada Reads panel has abated in the last few months. I didn't listen to the round-table debates this year, for the first time since I became a pretentious, CBC-listening literati so many years ago. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Nikolski had taken the tournament's top honors this weekend.

I discovered this by reading an electronic billboard in the Chapters at Granville and Robson. When I got over my initial reaction ("Oohhhh pretty colours!") I was doubly pleased to notice that the winner was indeed the only book in contention that wasn't a typical piece of Can-Lit canon fodder.

"Excellent!" I thought to myself. "So the competition wasn't a complete waste of time this year, and may even have met its supposed goal to bring the average Canadian's attention to a novel that would otherwise disappear into obscurity!"

Unfortunately, once I managed to find a copy of Nikolski in the store, I saw it had been marked down to ten dollars (a bargain-bin price if there ever was one in the world of Indigo-Chapters). Worse yet, the Canada Reads sticker was squarely covering the translator's information on the novel's cover.

The Canada Reads website, thankfully, has translator Lazer Lederhendler's name all over it. I don't mean to undermine the work of the novel's original French author, Nicolas Dickner, but rather to point out that the Can-Lit Powers That Be have a bad habit of down-playing the role of quality translation in the final production of an English language novel. As anyone who has ever had to struggle through the early translations of Pierre "Class Classifies the Classifier" Bordieu's works on communication theory knows, no matter how good the original work is, a shoddy translation can render it virtually unreadable. There exist a wealth of examples of well-publicized botched translations of non-fiction (Simone de Beauvior, anyone?), but when it comes to fiction the role of the translator is often treated as though it is a lesser occupation than the original author's, or somehow less creative.

While I still disagree with the majority of the selections in this year's head-to-head, the trumpeting of Lazer Lederhendler's creative role in the creation of the English version of Nikolski is one of the things Canada Reads 2010 has done right.


I may have allowed my ire to get the best of me when the competition debuted a dew months back, but the championing of Nikolski provides a small glimmer of hope that Canada Reads can regain its relevance with the cultural debate on what Canada should be reading, instead of just re-hashing what it already has stacked on the back of the toilet.

Until then, we can all thank god for the Tournament of Books. What it lacks in Canadian content, it makes up for in, oh I don't know, relevance? Intrigue? Innovation?

Canada Reads

Am I the only one who finds the list of contenders for CBC Canada Reads 2010 particularly uninspired?

I was pretty jazzed this morning when I was not only awake, but also semi-conscious as Jian Ghomeshi introduced this year's novels and their defenders. For those who may be unfamiliar with the contest, here's the jist: Five Canadian personalities of relative degrees of notariety pick the novel they think every Canadian should read, and debate head-to head until a winner is crowned. The novel that outlasts all others is the Canada reads winner, and is rewarded with a shiney pink sticker on its cover and a sudden spike in sales.

Now, I'm not debating the fact that the novels selected this year are good. In fact, some of them are downright amazing. But as I was listening to Jian introduce the competition this morning, I noticed that he kept mentioning how the competition in the past has served to bolster the popularity of the novel, causing unprecendented pickups in sales. For some reason, the fact that he was emphasizing this aspect of the competition made me think there would be a focus on new talent this year.

I was wrong.

I think the only nomination that is the least bit unexpected is Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, as defended by Michel Vezina. The CBC usually likes to leave the franco stuff to Radio Canada, so the inclusion of a French-Canadian work in translation this year is refreshing.

The rest of the list reads like a Can Lit 101 syllabus.

Okay, that might be an overstatement. A Can Lit 101 syllabus would probably be too stuffed full of the usual Atwood/Munro/Ondatje/Ricci that was nominated for last years (and every years) Giller and Governor Generals. The Canada Reads 2010 list is more like the syllabus for a Can Lit 101 class taught by an overeager grad student during the summer semester. Except, wait! Marina Endicott has been nominated for the Giller before.

I'm not gonna lie: I've read a lot of Douglas Coupland. I've even seen him read live, and he was pretty entertaining. But Generation X was published NINETEEN years ago, and shows its age. Cadence Weapon is going to have to fight an uphill battle.

Anne Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees was published in 1996. Not only has it been a Giller nominee, it Was an OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION for God's sake.

And I don't know about Jian Ghomeshi, but anybody who went to high school in BC has had their fill of Wayson Choy.

My point is this: if Canada hasn't already read these books, they've had their chance. There are no first time novelists on this list, so how is the competition supposed to be even a little bit exciting? There's no point of even pretending that its about promoting Canadian fiction when clearly, its just reinforcing the value of the canon.