GILLER GREEN ROOM, 2006

Preliminaries:

Alex: Now in its thirteenth year, the Scotiabank (I hate the way they make that all one word) Giller Prize has established itself as Canada's highest-profile literary award. And this year the media really had a lot to buzz about. To wit:

(1) For the first time there was a long list of 15 titles announced a few weeks before the cut to the Final Five.

(2) Of the five finalists, only one was from a large press. And none was a high profile release.

(3) The short list contained two English translations of French-language novels.

Before we move on to the Green Room, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on all of this. Is there anything here to get exercised about? I suppose the thing that's drawn the most attention is the "who dat?" short list. Quill & Quire reported an "audible gasp" when it was announced. The next day the CBC labeled the authors as "The Great Unknowns." "What a strange list," George Murray over at Bookninja remarked. "I just wonder what went down to get to this point. Truly bizarre." Philip Marchand called it a "really stunning development."

I don't think this reaction was entirely unwarranted. As a freelance reviewer, I usually have at least a hazy idea of what's new and what's out there. And I will be honest: I had never heard of any of these books. Not only that, but I was hard-pressed to find anyone who had.

Please note that I'm not saying I couldn't find anyone who had read any of the books on the short list. I'm saying I couldn't find anyone who had heard of them. Ouch.

Of course coming from a small press shouldn't be any disqualification. I know that last year all the best new Canadian fiction I read came from the small press. And the fact is literary prizes are mainly a way of boosting recognition and (hopefully) sales. "Advertising" is too strong a word, but I wouldn't shy away from labeling all such awards a form of "promotion." So, in general, I think it's a good thing when books that haven't received a lot of attention grab the spotlight for a few weeks. Which is why I think the long list was a good idea too (though I also agree with Marchand that "for an author with serious Giller aspirations who doesn't even make the long list, the disappointment is all the more crushing").

I guess I'm most uneasy with the English translation issue. I'm really not sure translations should be included. I don't know how you can evaluate what counts - that is, the writing - when you're experiencing that writing through a filter. And how can you compare translations to books you're reading in the original language? It seems impossible to me. Comparing novels to short story collections is challenging enough.

Anyway, that's my take on the situation. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Also: Any votes for what should have made the long list/short list?

Michael: It's wonderful, isn't it, how journalists can find drama in the most mundane of facts. "The Great Unknowns" is a true archetype: David and Goliath. It's also a blunt cliché.

Myself, I'm wary of reading any narrative into this list, or any literary prize list. The esteemed jury, one supposes, was asked to pick the five best books, according to their own tastes. I prefer to remain naïve and believe that this is what they have done. I would prefer to focus on textual analysis of the shortlisted books: What makes them "good"?

That said, since this is the "preliminary round," I'll say that there is at least the suggestion in this list of a reckoning with the Ghost of Gillers Past.  Established in 1994, the Giller soon got a reputation of being a "lifetime achievement award." Writers of a certain (i.e., older) age tended to be nominated. The great grey figureheads of CanLit seemed to be always on the shortlist, if they didn't walk away with the prize. The award was diminished further when the eminent jury refused to pick between David Adams Richards and Michael Ondaatje in 2000, when neither of their books was picked above the other in a quaky photo finish.

As recent as this past August, Douglas Coupland was satirizing the award in The New York Times (August 22, 2006):

Last year I was flipping TV channels and, on channel 821, watched a live broadcast of CanLit's annual award ceremony, the Gillers, piped in from a Toronto ballroom. It was as if I'd tuned into the Monster Mash, not a soul under 60, and I could practically smell the mummy dust in the room. This accidental peephole into that world really pinpointed just how lost in time and space CanLit has become, how its scope has narrowed, and how stingy it has been with the grooming of successors.

I quoted the above in an editorial I wrote for the September 2006 fiction issue of The Danforth Review. Coupland's phrase "the grooming of successors" jumps out, doesn't it?

The domination of the tried and true was also the theme of a October 17, 2005, column by Rachel Giese on the CBC website titled "How To Win a CanLit Award". Giese suggested the best way to win a prize was "to be Alice Munro." Her other suggestions included "be a man" and "get published by a big company":

While books from smaller houses usually get a token nod on shortlists and even make for the occasional winner, the Gillers and GGs have been owned by three publishers: McClelland & Stewart with 11 awards, Random House/Knopf/Doubleday with 10 and HarperCollins with four.

Here what I see is potentially at stake at this year's Giller Monster Mash. This year's shortlist is not David against Goliath (that is a plausible but shallow reading of the facts). The deeper reading is this year's short list is a story of the prize against its own history. And the grandest narrative may yet turn out to be that this year's shortlist is one of the early warning sparks that CanLit is finally entering the 21st century. Has the true grooming of successors begun?

I have some thoughts about the translation issue and my own missed picks, but I'll leave it at that for now. Interested to hear the thoughts of others.

Alex: I think journalists go for this kind of background narrative because they're trying to come up with an angle for a story they can write without actually having to read any of the books. Which is something they have no intention of doing.

David: Every year it seems, commentators throw up their hands at the outcome of these awards and wonder where their favourites are. While this list reads more like a Governor General's, no one can say the choices aren't boldly bucking the Giller's history. On that score, perhaps the grooming of the successors has begun. It's an intriguing prospect. 

Having said that, I'm full of questions around these choices, certainly as a reader but especially as a bookseller. I try especially to keep up with the small presses. That's where the braver writing is, but I'm damn sure not going to ignore Phillip Roth either. Conversely, I'm fairly sure my mortgage is paid by the "mummy dust" that Douglas Coupland refers to. If they are content to read the new books by their ten favourite authors, and a few newbies that catch their interest, I need to be at least partially aware of thing like that. If there is a revolution afoot, I'm not as confident that "son of mummy dust" is going to be ready to embrace the new bosses as fervently.

I'm still optimistic enough to view all this from afar and find it all fascinating. But a few proven winners on Canadian prize lists should mean that someone's third novel/story collection is almost inevitably more polished than their first. At bottom this is a brave list, and frankly the more paperback originals that get onto shortlists, the better. It's damnably hard to champion a $34.00 hardcover and constantly be asked when it comes out in paperback!

Alex: Dave, just what is the response to the announcement of the shortlist like on the retail level? Did you see much of a bounce this year?

Dave: Not right away. There's no impetus for anyone who's heard of the book(s) previously to act on their familiarity with them. Every year that I can remember there was at least one title that was crawling a bit before the Giller effect prompted a run. That isn't the case here. It's too bad really, because a short-story Giller-winner may help a bit to let some air into a pretty conservative state of affairs.

Nathan: As far as the "narrative" goes, it sometimes helps to be reminded how much this all looks, to people outside of the book industry, like the nominations for the year’s best model airplane, or best Renaissance fair, or best yoga instructor - or best Canadian film, for that matter. I did a short interview for CBC TV the day the shortlist was announced, for which I was told in advance (and repeatedly during the interview itself) that the focus would be on Vincent Lam - specifically, the idea that a doctor could be a successful fiction writer. (Chekhov, Walker Percy, W.S. Maugham, Robin Cook, Michael Chrichton, and about four dozen others notwithstanding.) When I tried to introduce the idea that the shortlist was also interesting because of all the small press (a label, by the way, Anansi rejects) and translated titles on it, it was as though I were launching into an impassioned monologue on the various options available in regard to balsa wood and modeling glue.

Obviously, a CBC editor looked at the shortlist when it came out and said, "How the hell do we make a story about this?" To be honest, it’s a reaction I am sympathetic to: short of having Roy MacSkimming or Robert Lecker or someone come on to explain to puzzled viewers the peculiar history of small presses in Canadian Literature over the last forty-odd years, it’s hard to make anyone care. To most people outside of the industry, they’re all small presses (except for, maybe, Penguin, which has actual name-recognition, though interestingly, has never had a book nominated for a Giller).

As for the "who dat" factor, I will admit I had a moment of panic when I saw the list over whether Quill & Quire had actually reviewed them all. (We had, though the Carol Windley review won’t appear until our December issue.) I like the romantic idea of a jury taking its duty so seriously as to dig past all the encrusted hype and engorged reputations - not to mention the oversized thematic pretensions of some of the books themselves - also known as "Giller bait" - to find what they believe to be the "best" books of the year. I don’t think it ever happens, but I like the idea.

In the past, the shortlists seemed to be split between books that everyone knew were going to be there, and unexpected left-fielders like Lisa Moore, John Gould (who dat?), or Fred Stenson. This year, the entire list is from out of left field, which can’t help but feel a bit willful on the part of the jury. I freely admit that I had not read any of the books on the list before the announcement, but I found it difficult to believe that this jury honestly thought a twelve-year-old French novel translated into English was really among the best of the year.

But then, that calls into question the very definition of "best," doesn’t  it? There is no litmus test for literary juries to employ, so I wouldn’t consider it particularly scandalous to discover that this jury made the decision that, whatever the literary merits of their respective books, David Adams Richards and Wayne Johnston really don’t need the extra attention (or sales), and that maybe it was a better use of their power to pick lesser-known - okay, virtually unknown - authors for the list, even if that meant passing on books they thought were "better."

I’ll come back later to the idea of whether this is evidence of an imminent takeover by the Young Turks of CanLit - for now, let me just say that such a notion is a little hard to believe when you actually look at this shortlist. All of the books, at least from the investigations I’ve made of their actual style, tone, content, etc., could have easily been written by one of the old guard, a point I made in my own response to Coupland’s New York Times piece. I’m not saying that the books are bad or boring, only that no one would mistake them for a New Wave of Canadian writing.

Michael: Did everyone see the comment piece in The Globe and Mail (October 14, 2006) by André Alexis: "Since when can the 'best' English novel be written in French?" The headline says it all, really. By nominating two novels-in-translation
for this year's Scotiabank Giller Prize, he argues, the jury "has tacitly suggested that the original language of a novel is less then essential to the novel itself."

I'm not sure I follow his line of thought. Because I'm never going to read Madame Bovary in the original French, have I missed something essential to it? Seems very hair-splitting to me. Yes, I've missed something. But is my experience of the novel merely a mutant of the original?

Also, I resist holding the jury accountable for the question: Is it fair to consider novels-in-translation for this sort of prize? I
would think that the jury is asked to judge the books that are provided to it. Publishers need to submit their books by a deadline and then the prize organizers draw up a final list, put the books in a box and ship them to the jury members. I would expect the jury to treat every book in the box equally. Whether the novels-in-translation should be in the box or not
is up to the prize organizers, not the jury.

Do I think novels-in-translation should be in the box? Well, I should come clean on something before I begin to answer that question. Earlier this year, I was on the novel jury for the ReLit Awards and we the jury picked a short list of four novels that
included Gaétan Soucy's The Immaculate Conception. At the time, I was more bothered by the fact that the book had been first published in 1994 than by the fact that it was a novel-in-translation. But I also followed the theory I've laid out above that it wasn't my job to question whether it ought to be considered or not. I thought my job was to consider every book in the box equally.

Does anyone know what they do in Quebec about the reverse situation? Has Atwood ever won a French-language prize?

Alex: Well, I wouldn't hold the jury accountable for the French-language question either. But as a jury member I think I'd just be throwing up my hands at the thought of comparing a translation to a work I'm reading in the original. In my opinion the prize organizers should make it clear that English-language means written in English. I would keep translations out of the box. Madame Bovary in English is just a different book than Madame Bovary in French. I mean, I'm guessing there isn't a big difference if you're reading someone like Zola in translation, but Quiviger, to take an example from this shortlist, is obviously an interesting stylist. And I'm just not sure what I'm missing in terms of her use of language, what's been added and what's been lost in translation. So how can I fairly compare her book to the ones written in English? Which is, after all, what I'm being asked to do.

As far as this being a New Wave or grooming of the successors, at least there are some younger names on the list. And in fact three of the books - including Soucy's - are first novels, and Lam's book is his first work of fiction. But let's wait for the Green Room to get into a more detailed analysis.

Nathan: For now, I think we should get to some early predictions. I’m curious to know what people are betting on using outside factors - book description, relative buzz, past Giller behaviour, etc. - as a guide. It’s got nothing at all to do with the "words on the page," but I wonder how accurate it can be.

Alex: OK, using a totally "outside factors" checklist I'll play. Last year the prize went to the only male author on the list, so this year it will go to a woman. And, in any event, Lam and Hage are both too new and Soucy's book is too old. Quiviger won't win because she won the G-G already for that book. And if Geise's theory is right that your best bet to win is to "be Alice Munro," then Windley has to be the favourite. She'll win.

I'll also throw out a title that I thought should have made the list: Kenneth Harvey's Inside. But at least it made the long list. I'd like to hear your picks for that too.

David: I suppose I should care about eligibility around translated material, but I don't. I've no idea if Atwood ever won a French prize, and it hardly matters. 

I'll second much of Nathan's points insofar as my initial panic/disbelief at the announcement largely vanished as I looked a bit closer at the books, and the "Giller bait" factor is entirely absent here. If Lisa Moore was ever a left field choice, she certainly is on her way now, and if that's the fate of a couple or three of this year's list, what's the harm? Most of the Random House authors who are perennially published in cloth are going to be fine, all things being equal.

It's funny Alex, I had the same thoughts on Windley being the early favourite as well, particularly as this is her third effort. As for who should have gotten through, I would have liked to have seen Caroline Adderson.

Michael: I went back to the prize website to look at the long list of 15 titles and pondered what I might have expected the short list to look like. As a result, I am prepared now to say I am shocked by the jury's selected final five. At the same time, I take Nathan's point about the broader public's point of view. I dare say the majority of the population wouldn't even be able to name a single title by any of the author's on the long list.

Case in point: When The Globe and Mail reviewed Kenneth J. Harvey's Inside earlier this year, the review began with the reviewer explaining in shocked tones how she'd never heard of him. How could this be? I, for one, was surprised the Globe assigned the book to someone with so little perspective. Harvey's only been publishing since 1990 and might well be one of the most publicity-friendly authors Canada has ever known. If the Globe doesn't expect its reviewers to have at least a passing knowledge of authors like Harvey, it's certain that the public's imagination hasn't been engaged by them.

Which is part of the reason why prizes like the Scotiabank Giller exist. To help create an atmosphere that enables the publicity machines of publishers to sell their books. I'm all for that. Pull a couple of titles out of near obscurity every year and perpetuate the idea that literature is a contemporary enterprise.

Who's my "outside factors" winner? I'll take a shot at it. Rawi Hage's book, De Niro's Game, followed by Vincent Lam's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures seem on the face of it to be the most daring of the lot. However, I've seen Lam's book more prominently displayed in book stores than the others. And it has a great cover. So, Lam is my quick pick winner.

Finally, I agree that Harvey's Inside should have made the list. I would have even made it the front runner to win.

Alex: I like the Lam cover too, but I don't think the cover can be that influential. At least I hope not. However, as Nathan's experience with the CBC interview demonstrates, Lam is an early media darling. He also has a huge X-factor going for him. Michael Winter, one of the three Giller jurors, is one of a small group of names mentioned in his Acknowledgements. Personally I've always thought that indicated a conflict of interest. Several years ago I objected to Alistair MacLeod being on the jury that gave the prize to David Adams Richards (the year of the shared award). Richards's previous novel had been dedicated to MacLeod, and I really thought MacLeod should have recused himself from the jury for appearance's sake. You can say what you want about the Canadian literary community being a small pond, but it's not that small.

Michael: Another book that deserved the recognition of a Giller nomination is Paul Glennon's The Dodecahedron. The Governor General's short list prompted this thought. Glennon's book seems to me to be a significant achievement and I was surprised not to see more notice of it since it came out. It's nice to see it getting some belated attention from the GG's. In honesty, though, it isn't a book that could remotely be classified as Giller-bait. The GG list, perhaps we should note, only has one title overlapping with the Giller short list: Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game. Has any book ever won both the GG and the Giller? I don't think so. Maybe this year it's time for a first. The GG list is also all male writers. Very non-PC. Some surprises there, too.

Alex: I agree about the Glennon. I picked it as one of my Books of the Year for 2005. The only reason I didn't mention it earlier is I didn't think of it as a 2006 book. I'm not sure when the cut-off date is for these awards, but I guess it snuck in under the wire for the GG's.

Nathan: It came out in September 2005, according to my records. Maybe October. Either way, an awfully long time ago in
publishing terms.

I think, based on buzz alone, we can fairly confidently eliminate the two translated titles right out of the gate. (In fact, I think we already have.) I'm not sure even this Giller jury is capable of that kind of a shocker. I agree with André Alexis - possibly the only time I ever will - that you simply can't make the comparison between a translated work and a work in its author's native language. I would split the hair a little further and say that the Giller needs to have a separate category for short fiction. After all, you could have a collection with a few stories that outshine all the novels under consideration combined, but that also contains a bunch of duds and also-rans. How do you judge - for mere consistency?

To go even further, the original publication date of the book should be a factor. Or else, why shouldn't a bold new translation of Madame Bovary or Anna Karenin net their long-dead authors a "best book of the year" prize? If 12 years is ok, why not 112?

As for the other three: The Lam, Hage, and Windley seem to be running about neck-and-neck-and-neck in terms of vaguely positive feelings amongst readers and critics.

The Hage book has the "advantage" of being set outside of Canada, in one of those really interesting places where really interesting things happen. Lam has the doctor-as-writer hook (and some influential friends), and the Windley book appears the most, mmm, gentle of the three, the book that could best be sold to readers of, say, Alice Munro. This is also her third book, so the Giller would really only be stretching its previous "career achievement award" reputation to become a "mid-career award." (Three books is often considered "mid-career" in this country, as opposed to "just getting warm.")

I'd say it's between Hage and Windley, with Windley having the slight edge.

Alex: OK then, it looks like that does it for the preliminary "book chat" part of our roundtable. When we meet again, which will be after the winner is announced, we will discuss our own rankings of the five finalists. This discussion will be quite unlike most of the other Giller features out there because we will have actually read all the books on the short list. Unfortunately none of us will be attending the gala this year, but we will make up for it by taking over the Green Room. See you there!

Next: Green Room