Canada Reads 2009: Day 1

Day 1 of Canada’s literary battle royale has arrived. Hosted by Jian Ghomeshi (radio broadcaster of my heart), it aired at 11:30, and will again at 7:30 on CBC Radio 1. Listening for yourself tonight? Don’t read this until after, for here is JK’s Play-By-Play from the first day of competition.

To start, Jian gives the panelists 1 minute to make a pitch their book in a nutshell, here’s the nutshell of those nutshells:

Sarah Slean: With certainly the heaviest book on the list, it’s no surprise Sarah’s pitch revolved around literature showing us truth. She also threw down some lofty associations, equating Sydney Henderson with Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Nicholas Campbell spends his minute first admitting his “lack of a debating style of any kind,” then mispronounces his author’s name AGAIN (poor, poor Gil), before discussing the necessity of respect for writers (although his CR blog revealed his former entire lack of respect for female writers). Then he rambles a bit about the “economic crisis” and makes some sort of convoluted attempt to relate it to vague elements of the book. Although I initially rued Campbell’s participation in this literary event, I can see that the entertainment he provides is going to be pricelesss.

Anne-Marie Withenshaw offers a mathematical explanation for why Fat Woman is superior, which is fairly unsatisfactory (congratulations on it being written in the year of your birth), and mentions that it was picked as one of the top 10 works of fiction of the century…by the MONTREAL Gazette (Surprise, Surprise).

Avi Lewis flexes his debating muscles with 3 reasons he thinks The Book of Negroes is tops: 1) It’s gripping; 2) It complicates cherished Canadian myths; 3) It reveals new things about a familiar subject. He jokes “Makes you look forward to public transit or the middle seat on an airplane.” Watch out folks, Avi Lewis is a polished, intelligent debating machine programmed to kill.

Jen Sookfong Lee argues for Fruit‘s representation of big issues, its knack for meeting despair with humour and it’s exploration of the core of identity. She claims “an all-consuming romance” with Peter Paddington and the book.

Following these opening statements,  Jian turned the tables, and gave the contestants a chance to gnash their teeth a little and identify their least favourite book.

For Avi Lewis, Mercy Among the Children. He notably says that Atlantic writing is “a much celebrated tradition – just not by me.”

For Sarah Slean, Fruit. An unsuprising choice considering Fruit is perhaps the polar opposite of her pick, she claims that it offers no profound truth about humanity.

For Nicholas Campbell, Mercy Among the Children. Why? “Too much smell.” (One can only hope that his comments in the rest of the debate are as perceptive as this one.)

For Jen Sookfong Lee, The Book of Negroes. She found Aminata to be a too-perfect “Forrest Gump” character, and the narrative too smooth and convenient.

And somehow I missed Anne-Marie Withenshaw’s pick. Perhaps someone could supply it since I can’t re-listen tonight?

The most notable point of the episode emerged out of the rebuttals and comments following these choices, in which Nicholas Campbell, with his emerging knack for self-contradiction, somehow managed to say that people should check their biases at the door, and yet that he wouldn’t recommend Fruit to many of his friends. To which Avi Lewis quickly responded, “Did you just say you can’t recommend it to homophobic friends?”

Although this did raise an interesting issue, in which Jen Sookfong Lee admitted she recommend Fruit to everyone, though she knew some people wouldn’t be as receptive to it. And of course Jian was quick to point out that Canada Reads is, in fact, a program which is SUPPOSED to recommend literature for everyone. I imagine this will be an issue that reemerges with Fruit, although it not really the fault of the book, but of any broadly prescriptive recommendation. I do side with Jen though, and think that everyone SHOULD read it (regardless of their personal views). Certainly Nick Campbell’s homophobic friends would probably benefit more from Fruit than from the heavily moral Mercy.

Lastly, in what was  the least interesting part of the program, each speaker had to pick the character they identified the most with. Not so shockingly, everyone picked their own (except Nicholas Campbell, but then again, he went first, and I think that’s actually a courageous move). Anne-Marie Withenshaw managed to get away with picking all 22 characters in Fat Woman.

And with the dinging of bells and a little calamity, the episode rounded up. Fairly civil on the whole, I can’t wait to see what happens when books are actually on the block.

Some final miscellania:

• Sarah Slean is a poet? I’m a fan of her music, but I had no idea about her poetry (although admittedly, I am fairly oblivious about anything outside of the actual music of my favourite artists). I hunted around for a sample and found one here. She’s an artist too – and her poetry books contain some of her artwork as well.
• Check out the pre-debate video confessional. A great idea. Bringing a little more of reality tv into reality radio. Interesting points? Anne-Marie suggests a Jen/Anne-Marie alliance, Avi Lewis expresses his fear of Jen Sookfong Lee and his desire for Jen to like BofN, right before Jen makes it her mission to destroy it.
• Avi Lewis read the Book of Negroes three times? I enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, but it may be the least re-readable of the bunch. Which leads to an interesting question – how important is re-readability? Pickle Me This praises Fat Woman for its complexity and it is certainly the most in need of a reread, but does that make it the most re-readable? I don’t think I could go resubjet myself to the despair of Mercy a second time, although rereading it would likely be fruitful. Speaking of fruitful, what about Fruit? Certainly it would still provide some laughs and touching moments, but from a literary standpoint I’m not sure whether a second read would yield new insights. But maybe a second read shouldn’t be necessary. And on a second reading does Adamson’s poetic language compensate for knowing how things end? Which book would you be most likely to pick up again?