We’re richer than we think
Canada’s lit has arrived—you can bank on it
BY John Degen
Illustration by Evan Munday
On a cool, drizzly morning in October, the first of the season that finally hints of autumn, the lobby of the Four Seasons Toronto in Yorkville receives various cab-loads of Canadian publishing apparatchiks. The Scotiabank Giller Prize™ shortlist announcement is to be made in a conference hall hidden away on the third floor, and there is a general gathering of the confused and uncertain between the escalators and the elevators. Lots of foot shuffling, checking and rechecking of the printed invitations. Finally, a tall blond man, exceedingly well-dressed and Gatsby handsome, takes charge. “This way, people,” he commands, holding open an elevator door with the golden handle of his umbrella. Like good Canadians, we defer appreciatively to his obvious wealth and authority, and he leads us to the press conference and continental buffet.
And a nice buffet it is. Canadian publishing has arrived at the point where we can no longer even pretend to be unsophisticated or provincial, which is a bit sad because we really like to pretend we’re unsophisticated and provincial. Well, no more.
The room is stuffed with nervous agents, editors, publishers and the PR staff of every major Canadian literary house. Many of these same will be heading for the airport immediately after this announcement, flying off to the all-important Frankfurt Book Fair to push their Canadian wares at the world. A few ill-fed cultural journalists make preliminary scribbles in their notebooks. A CBC radio intern checks his tape recorder. Camera techs from the major networks are noisily and unselfconsciously banging their equipment together, preparing to get the literary money shot of six static hardcover novels unveiled atop white columns.
Smiling-Jack Rabinovitch, founder of the Giller, tells some delightfully rambly stories about international perceptions of the Canadian book trade—how the Americans, for instance, are fabulously jealous that we have such a thing as BookTelevision while their own networks have yet to create such a broadcast entity. Susanne Boyce, president of creative, content and channels for CTV, talks about the private network’s plans to once again televise the awards ceremony, and then rerun it endlessly on, yes, BookTelevision. Finally, a marketing fellow from Scotiabank uses his moment at the microphone to expertly and charmingly insert his company’s catchphrase—“You’re richer than you think”—into his congratulatory major-sponsor remarks. And it is at this exact moment that I realize, Okay, we’ve made it. Instead of writers or publishers begging bankers for support, the bankers have decided we’re worth mooching from. And when that happens, you know you’ve hit a vein.
Canadian literature has shed the last of its rags and beggary, and literary globalization has been very patient while we get over ourselves. Maybe it’s just the suddenly powerful Canadian dollar going to my head, but I think CanLit can finally drop the Can and just get out there and sell some outstanding books to the planet.
It doesn’t matter whose name appears on the Giller shortlist, or who eventually wins, because the important work of the Giller has already been done. Glammy, oh-so-corporate awards like this, with all their attendant controversy—can you believe Elizabeth Hay made the short list, while Michael Redhill wasn’t even on the long list? etc.—are about little else than marketing, and by slicking up the ceremony around them, we’re finally admitting we want to market. We want bankers making PR points on the backs of our writers. Why should Olympic athletes hog all that sweet, sweet corporate sugar?
Of course, there remain naysayers—the self-appointed literary purists who need to endlessly remind us all that awards are not a true measure of excellence, and that corporate influence neuters literature in the name of accessibility. Strangely, they have much the same to say about our public arts granting systems, suggesting inevitable process flaws somehow damn the entire idea of public money flowing toward the arts. These Old Testament prophets of the true word make much of jury selection processes, and love to worry about potential conflicts of interest between judges and contestants. For them, an unsupported industry is just morally cleaner, and poor writers far sexier. Hippies.
Ironically, there is nothing more pretend-provincial than this endless nattering about the purity of our literary industry and its effect on the quality of our books. We have many a flawed system, just like every other publishing culture, and yet we still make very good—sometimes great—books. Some of them even win the awards they deserve. Since we’ve clearly made it, maybe it’s time we banish all lesser versions of the national literary inferiority complex and concentrate on the only problem area that remains: selling more of our good books to a waiting world.
