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Email ThisJune 18, 2009: Books, Labour, May-June 2009, Web
Dear CBC: Review more books
Professional book reviewing is dead in this country. The CBC could revive it.
The CBC could be a force for CanLit. Why isn't it? Illustration by Dushan Milic
If Clive Owen were a Canadian author, maybe the CBC would finally review books. Katrina Onstad, a film columnist for CBC.ca, begins a recent review: “The International opens with a long, extended close-up of Clive Owen’s face, following which I jotted in my notebook: Five stars!” As a taxpayer and a citizen who believes in a public arts dialogue, I’m glad that the CBC pays Onstad to write intelligently and entertainingly about Hollywood film. Notably, however, our taxes don’t fund Hollywood film.
Our taxes do fund Canadian literature. Most CanLit gets some level of government subsidy. We pay millions each year to support CanLit through writing and publishing grants, libraries, and literary festivals. That’s a good use of public funds. Unlike our support for the auto industry or Bombardier, we actually get profitable job creation from arts funding. But we subsidize CanLit with one hand and then give the CBC more than a billion dollars a year with the other. Why, why, why does the CBC pay people to review Hollywood films that will cost you $13 to see but refuse to tell you whether the $25-$40 books you subsidize are worth your time and money?
Book reviewing in Canada has never been strong and recently got worse. Last year, several papers, including the Toronto Star, reduced their book coverage by as much as 50 percent. The Globe and Mail’s stand-alone books section ceased to stand alone and was folded into another section of that paper. Last spring, CBC Radio cut the literary debate show Talking Books so Shelagh Rogers could tug her aural smile through some author interviews. Interviews do a good job of showing us which authors interview well. But they don’t tell us what makes novel X better than novel Y. Noah Richler’s book about CanLit, This Is My Country, What’s Yours?, repeatedly mentions that the 2002 Booker Prize shortlist was half-full of Canadians but never once concedes that only two people in Canada—the Toronto Star’s Geoff Pevere and the National Post’s Philip Marchand—make a living reviewing books.
As a nation, as a culture, we have only two salaries devoted to helping us choose where to invest our reading time and money. Two! (Note to bloggers: I said “make a living reviewing books” and “salaries.”)
CanLit has been a big industry since the late ’60s (when government funding created it). That our literature now wins international renown and our private media doesn’t reliably tell us, or the world, what does and does not make for good CanLit is lamentable and, quite simply, immature. That we spend more than a billion dollars a year on the CBC and they don’t review Canadian books is unthinkable.
Oh, wait, right, we’re supposed to think that the annual CBC Radio shouting match Canada Reads counts for book reviewing. After all, it allows Olympic fencers to give sound bites of literary analysis. Each year, a different aging Canadian musician gets a few minutes to champion one book and pooh-pooh four others. Not enough.
The show can be fun and informative. As a judge, comedian Scott Thompson got to say (while speaking of Frances Itani’s Deafening) that describing the contents of a handbag is not literature. Amen. But as a genuine book-reviewing vehicle, the inadequacies of this show versus an Onstad-like book columnist on CBC.ca are many. First and foremost, as radio and a five-sided debate, the format is too unwieldy for a reader who wants to do an informative search about a particular book. Second, we can’t ever forget the show’s Survivor-style elimination gimmick. Lastly, the show is doubly ruined by its (pointless) devotion to celebrity panelists and the flawed CBC celebrity barometer. Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell was a panelist in 2002. If I want advice on how to keep David Milgaard in prison, Kim Campbell’s the source. But for book reviews? Aside from Canada Reads, CBC books coverage consists solely of interviews and reporting, and nowhere tells you what books are good and why.
Qualified, incisive, and accessible critics shape the culture they analyze. Filmmakers as diverse as Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson have expressed their debt to New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael. As director of Britain’s National Theatre, Laurence Olivier brought in influential critic Kenneth Tynan to help run it.
Dear CBC: give me a reliable, regular and intelligent book reviewer. Not more Randy Bachman.
Denise on Thu, 18th Jun 2009 6:19 pm
What about Quill and Quire?
Joe Clark on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 8:23 pm
Careful what you ask for. It might end up being Eleanor Wachtel.
Sina Queyras on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 8:49 pm
I'm just wondering if the statement that Canada has only two salaried book reviewers is hyperbole, or statistic. It is shocking indeed that we don't have more forums for discussing books and for introducing literature and the discussion of it to a larger audience. In truth we might as well pull all literary funding if we aren't also going to support and develop ways of promoting and engaging with it.
August on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 9:09 pm
The Ceeb does still does 'reporting' on books and publishing if by 'reporting' you mean they broadcast Atwood's latest press release or do an in-depth feature on what book goes best with what Ontario wine (not making that one up; it was a feature they replayed on one of their podcasts back in 2007, I think). For industry reporting that actually matters, the Ceeb is generally a waste of time. You're better off with Bookninja.
Matthew Gruman on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 9:38 pm
Canadian Literature (http://www.canlit.ca) has been publishing reviews of CanLit since 1959, when the journal was founded (the first dedicated to Canadian literature). We have been reviewing ~100 books per quarterly issue and, since the the late 90s, put them online as soon as possible for freely accessible reading.
I've recently added some real-time stats (beta) at http://www.canlit.ca/reviews.php which show that more than 1,000 reviews are being read on a daily basis.
Professional CanLit book reviewing is certainly not dead in our opinion. It's turning 50 this year and still going strong.
Sina Queyras on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 9:54 pm
Bookninja is great, but it still doesn't discuss books.
Sina Queyras on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 10:05 pm
P.s. August,
Can we find a new villain, other than Atwood? Yes, it's tiring to keep pace with her publication rate, but at least she actually gets out there and promotes and engages around Can Lit.
August on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 10:15 pm
I just really can't stand her, and I've seen a dozen stories about her this week alone (including her big smiling mug on a National Post piece that was even really f@*!ing about her. I think she's actually quite toxic for CanLit at this point. I'd complain about Ondaatje or some other writer with more celebrity than they deserve, but most of them aren't in the paper every second day.
Bookninja gives us more in the way of industry news (I didn't mean to suggest you go there for reviews). It tends to be a good place to find an aggregate of most of the important stories (granted, not all). I think it's the closest thing we've got to MobyLives. God knows the Globe and Post aren't picking up the CBC's slack in that department. There is no really great venue for frequent reviews in Canada (the places that publish the good long form ones are usually quarterly publications like CNQ).
August on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 10:17 pm
*wasn't even really about her.
Sina Queyras on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 10:27 pm
I hear you about the reliance on Atwood. Very problematic. But I think that of the villains she's not the one I would focus on.
And I think it's the sources that go to her, not the other way around. At least that's what I have seen. She doesn't need *them*. Nor do they need her, I just think it's a lack of imagination.
However, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of industry news in Canada. In fact I think the National Post–not in any way my paper of choice–is the one picking up the every day slack. At least online.
August on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 10:39 pm
There were at least two significant stories recently that, while not happening in Canada, could have a significant impact on the Canadian industry for a variety of reasons. One is the horrible precedent being set with regards to territorial rights in Australia, and the Penguin/W H Smith fiasco. Both of those are more important than the Oxford poetry scandal (which amounted to little more than gossip about gossip), but the reporting on both amounted to the Globe reprinting and awards dinner speech and 58 words total, between the Globe and the Post, on the W H Smith deal.
Press releases or announcing new books is not industry news. What about the layoffs and restructuring, freelancers not getting paid as publishers fold, or when HMH announced a complete acquisitions freeze? Nope. We get speculations about gadgets, award announcements and gossip instead.
August on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 10:42 pm
I will agree that the Post continues to improve its coverage, though. I just think it's more important we know in depth information about funding cuts or industry consolidation than about who sent whom some clandestine emails.
Sina Queyras on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 11:04 pm
I hear you. But I think you're lamenting the loss of investigative journalism and reportage in general, which is another matter entirely, and certainly also a major problem.
Sina Queyras on Wed, 24th Jun 2009 11:06 pm
A very unfortunate link between funding cuts and journalism cuts and so many economic meltdowns and so on. Who indeed is getting the information to the mainstream?
Madeline Coopsammy on Sun, 5th Jul 2009 8:24 pm
The CBC has cut many intellectual and cultural programs, and now CBC Tv is cutting Air Farce. I used to enjoy the nightly episodes of novels dramatised on CBC. radio. The acting was superb and it was just the right time to listen to an episode of a novel while preparing for bed. The daily show Q often has good interviews with writers, but the music is atrocious, and there are too many interviews with rock stars. Why is the CBC trying to attract a younger audience? Aren't there enough commercial stations doing that? And why is CBC tv running Jeopardy which is already available on CTV? Will Writers and Company be next?
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B.Kienapple on Mon, 11th Jan 2010 8:15 pm
CBC online has several very talented arts writers such as Andre Mayer and Greig Dymond who write about books. But yes, it would be nice to have a dedicated book reviewer.