Conversations in the Book Trade: Books, art, art-books, and ... authorial movies.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Brenda Schmidt - poet
Brenda Schmidt of Alone on a Boreal Stage:
CBT: When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.
What is your take on the current depressed state of literary publishing? Is it a passing phase? Or is it an intractable problem -- in other words, it is the new normal? And if the latter, what can be down to counteract it?
BS: I suspect literary publishing has entered a new phase, a downturn well beyond anyone's control. I should state right off that I just started reading Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton, a book that was mentioned in a post on That Shakespearean Rag a while back. I took courses in analytic criticism and critical theory in the 1990s, which I absolutely loved, and now with three books of poetry under my belt and a couple manuscripts in the oven, I thought it might be a timely and enlightening read as I weigh the publishing options. And it is enlightening. I first paused in the chapter titled "The Rise of English." There Eagleton reminds us that "[l]iterature, in the meaning of the word we have inherited, is an ideology. It has the most intimate relations to questions of social power." It, like religion, is a kind of "social "cement"", as he calls it. Well, it looks like the cement is breaking down. While I was considering all this, I happened to read in The Globe and Mail a review of Jaron Lanier's book You Are Not a Gadget and upon learning that Lanier thinks the digital world is a kind of religion, I thought yes, it is the freshly poured social cement in which we're currently sitting. And setting. Needless to say, I promptly ordered the book. It's on its way.
CBT: How much potential do you think the Internet has as a vehicle of publishing? It's clear that there is a place for online criticism; the lit-blogosphere is dominated by it. The blogger Dan Green has even coined a phrase for this form of critical writing: the crit-blogosphere. But the crit-blogosphere's logical partner -- the fic-blogosphere -- is marginalized. Not many people read short stories or novels online.
Will the Internet really become the medium in which serious people both publish and read fiction? Or is this a technological pipe-dream, and is it more a question of using the Internet as an effective means to sell and distribute printed books?
BS: So many serious people are already heavily invested in this digital reality. A solid web presence is necessary to sell books these days. At least that's what we're led to believe. You can learn a lot about what works by watching other authors and publishers. For instance, I've been following Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven journal ahead of the Canadian release. His Wednesday March 17, 2010 entry speaks to all this far better than I ever could.
Things are evolving so quickly. More and more publishers are offering eBooks. It's hard to say where publishing will go. As far as fiction is concerned, it's my understanding that less and less people are reading short stories and novels in general. I hope it's just a temporary situation and that people will learn to better manage their online time, but a big part of me thinks there's no going back.
CBT: It is arguable the Internet isn't effective as a medium for publishing long works of fiction because very few people can stand looking at regular screens for the necessary length of time. But e-ink provides a solution to this. It eliminates eye strain.
How much potential do you think e-ink and e-book technologies have? Do you see e-books catching on with the public? And do they provide a reasonable business model?
BS: Given the hype surrounding the unveiling of the iPad, I think these technologies are the way of the future. People get excited about shiny new gadgets and some of these gadgets make perfect sense. You can pack so many worlds into the digital world. How wonderful it must be to enter The Year of the Flood when you're crowded on a subway platform during rush hour. That's not my reality, but it is for so many.
CBT: In the past few years, articles and blog posts (for example, at LitKicks) have appeared criticizing the pricing of books. Are books too experensive? Has this been a factor in reducing the size of the book-buying audience over the last twenty or so years?
Books certainly aren't cheap, but what is? I suspect it's more a matter of shifting priorities. We've been riding the tail of a nasty recession. Personal debt, as news stories keep reminding us, is at historic highs. After the average person pays their rent or mortgage, pays the daycare, buys groceries, etc, how much is left? Are they willing to spend the remains on a book? Dollar-wise, twenty hardcover literary novels roughly equal a trip to Puerto Plata. Twenty novels equal a root canal. Twenty novels equal a visit to the vet to get the cat fixed. And so on.
CBT: Staying with the same theme. Literary novels were once published in hardcover and then, several months later (and a spot on the best-seller lists willing), they were available as affordable pocket-sized paperbacks. However, in the 1980s this practice ceased and literary paperbacks started being published in North America as pricier trade paperbacks. Only genre fiction retained the pocket-book form. In retrospect, was this a prudent decision by publishers of literary fiction? Or should the literary pocket-book make a return?
I haven't run across any recent articles that speak to this. I imagine digital issues are their primary concern right now. How can't they be? I can just see publishers scratching their heads as they consider the future. Meanwhile they're posting events on Facebook and links on Twitter as the slush pile behind them reaches for the ceiling.
CBT: Agents now have enormous power, effectively controlling which writers get access to acquisition editors at major houses. Furthermore, agents find themselves under enormous pressure, acting as the line of first readers who have to sift through avalanches of submissions. Is this tenable over the long run? Is it good for art? Or should large houses be accepting both agented and unsolicitied submissions?
As a poet published by small presses, I have no experience with this. I read the stories coming out of the book world just like everyone else and wonder where things are going. I often wonder how much art is lost in the slush pile. A fair bit would be my guess.
CBT: Literary prizes have also grown in power. They have arguably replaced the glowing review as a marketing tool. But are they as effective as criticism in building a contemporary canon? After all, critics can express nuance, prizes can't. Do book prizes give the message: this books is worth reading and all these others aren't?
Literary prizes are powerful indeed. A nomination for a major prize means the book will be purchased. It means it will be reviewed. Everyone knows this. That's just the way it is right now. I'd like to think that marketing and canon building are very different animals, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part. After all, both literary prizes and criticism are, for the most part, judgments made by peers. The former comes with big bucks and bling while the latter is buried in the Saturday paper. I wonder how many people actually appreciate nuance in this Gaga age. Less and less, it appears, if one goes by the shrinking space for reviews.
CBT: Thinking of your own site, what sorts of changes do you foresee in it? Are blogs destined to become the new magazines? Will you start using a format (and possibly working with partners) in a magazine-type way? Or is blogging as it's currently defined how you want to keep posting work on the Net?
More and more magazine-style blogs are springing up, and with the funding cuts to literary magazines in Canada I'm sure there will be more. I have no plans to start a blog-based magazine right now, but you never know. And I don't foresee any major changes in the way I blog. I began to blog prior to the publication of my second book with the hope that it would help my work find readers. While I have no way of measuring its success in that regard, I do know that blogging has brought me into closer contact with the larger writing community. Thanks to blogging, I hear helpful gossip. I get the odd heads-up. I have access to a range of opinions. I get the odd gig. Thanks to blogging, I'm confident that I could visit any city in Canada and find a friendly table of writers who would invite me to sit down. That's important to me and no small feat given that I live in a mining town in northern Saskatchewan. But that's what the internet, at its best, can do.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Lilian Nattel - author
Lilian Nattel -- author (The Singing Fire, The River Midnight), and blogger (A Novelist's Mind)
CBT: When I started this interview series it was already clear that publishing -- especially of literary fiction -- was in dire straits. At that time, one explanation that was fashionable was 9/11 was the reason people weren't reading as much literature (or as much anything) as they used to. Now we are living in a time when the long-term repercussions of 9/11 are still with us. But using 9/11 as a primary explanation for what ails literary publishing simply doesn't work. For one thing, we are now in the midst of a particularly serious recession, and for another, it is clear the general decline in reading is a widespread -- and possibly unstoppable -- phenomenon that has roots which go back decades.
However, in the 1980s this practice ceased and literary paperbacks started being published in North America as pricier trade paperbacks. Only genre fiction retained the pocket-book form. In retrospect, was this a prudent decision by publishers of literary fiction? Or should the literary pocket-book make a return?
LN: You're forgetting the demographic bulge. Baby boomers need larger print. One benefit of e-books is being able to change the size of the font (though then there is not as much text on the screen). So I don’t know about the literary pocket-book. Maybe trade paperbacks should use a font size slightly larger than at present instead.
What is your take on the current depressed state of literary publishing? Is it a passing phase? Or is it an intractable problem -- in other words, it is the new normal? And if the latter, what can be down to counteract it?
LN: In Canada, despite the recession, book sales are up, so I'm not sure that literature is in a terrible state. The demise of the novel, for example, was mourned in magazines like Atlantic a hundred years ago, and it's still going strong. The fact is that popular entertainment has always been, well, more popular then literature. That goes back to the days of bread and circuses. But that doesn't mean that art and literature aren't important or don't have an impact beyond their sales. The impact can be felt in many ways, language, social impact, ideas, beauty, and because of that human impulse and need that goes beyond particular distribution methods or profit demands, literature will continue to be made and read.
CBT: How much potential do you think the Internet has as a vehicle of publishing? It's clear that there is a place for online criticism; the lit-blogosphere is dominated by it. The blogger Dan Green has even coined a phrase for this form of critical writing: the crit-blogosphere. But the crit-blogosphere's logical partner -- the fic-blogosphere -- is marginalized. Not many people read short stories or novels online.
Will the Internet really become the medium in which serious people both publish and read fiction? Or is this a technological pipe-dream, and is it more a question of using the Internet as an effective means to sell and distribute printed books?
LN: I don't think anyone can predict the future with any degree of accuracy. That isn't just my opinion. Studies show that experts are actually worse at predictions (probably because of axe-grinding) then people who have no expertise. What I would say is that the problem with the internet is that there is no filtering system and with the mass of material posted online, it is hard going to find anything really good. So the challenge, I see, is not so much with the internet as technology as with finding a way to implement a filtering system.
LN: I don't think anyone can predict the future with any degree of accuracy. That isn't just my opinion. Studies show that experts are actually worse at predictions (probably because of axe-grinding) then people who have no expertise. What I would say is that the problem with the internet is that there is no filtering system and with the mass of material posted online, it is hard going to find anything really good. So the challenge, I see, is not so much with the internet as technology as with finding a way to implement a filtering system.
CBT: It is arguable the Internet isn't effective as a medium for publishing long works of fiction because very few people can stand looking at regular screens for the necessary length of time. But e-ink provides a solution to this. It eliminates eye strain. How much potential do you think e-ink and e-book technologies have? Do you see e-books catching on with the public? And do they provide a reasonable business model?
LN: Ebooks have a place. They're great for holding large volumes (pun intended) of material. They're great for travelling, for example, or for agents reviewing manuscripts. But the problem I see with e-books is two-fold. Firstly, they are expensive devices easily lost or dropped in the tub. Secondly the providers are offering a service, not in fact selling books whatever they call it. Amazon has recalled books from people's devices and has banned people who own a Kindle from purchasing any further books, turning it into an expensive paperweight. But who can say about the future? The printing press was an innovation, too. All I know is that people need and love stories and that they will continue to tell them to each other in various forms.
CBT: In the past few years, articles and blog posts (for example, at LitKicks) have appeared criticizing the pricing of books. Are books too experensive? Has this been a factor in reducing the size of the book-buying audience over the last twenty or so years?
LN: A book costs less than a movie plus popcorn and provides more hours of entertainment and education. So, no, I don't think it's all that pricey. But besides that, writers need to earn a living. How that will happen, how that will look, I don't know. In order to write beautifully, we need to eat well and pay our mortgages. I think that we need to move out of the framework that has been imposed on us, one that focuses on prices, sales, making people consume a product.
LN: Ebooks have a place. They're great for holding large volumes (pun intended) of material. They're great for travelling, for example, or for agents reviewing manuscripts. But the problem I see with e-books is two-fold. Firstly, they are expensive devices easily lost or dropped in the tub. Secondly the providers are offering a service, not in fact selling books whatever they call it. Amazon has recalled books from people's devices and has banned people who own a Kindle from purchasing any further books, turning it into an expensive paperweight. But who can say about the future? The printing press was an innovation, too. All I know is that people need and love stories and that they will continue to tell them to each other in various forms.
CBT: In the past few years, articles and blog posts (for example, at LitKicks) have appeared criticizing the pricing of books. Are books too experensive? Has this been a factor in reducing the size of the book-buying audience over the last twenty or so years?
LN: A book costs less than a movie plus popcorn and provides more hours of entertainment and education. So, no, I don't think it's all that pricey. But besides that, writers need to earn a living. How that will happen, how that will look, I don't know. In order to write beautifully, we need to eat well and pay our mortgages. I think that we need to move out of the framework that has been imposed on us, one that focuses on prices, sales, making people consume a product.
Literature isn’t dyed sugar water that you have to convince people they need because they really don’t, it isn’t any different really than the other guy’s sugar-water, and in fact it rots your teeth and makes you fat. Literature is wonderful. It is art, it is light, it comes out of a desire to make beauty and show truth, it is fun, it is mind blowing, it is educational, it is consoling. I believe that underlying all the talk about making money, agents, publishers, cover designers, and authors really love books and I also believe that readers love books. We need to change how we speak about these things, and let go of the sugar water talk. Let's find the underlying truth that comes about in the magical partnership of a writer who puts words on a page, the people who get those words out, and the readers who read them, in their minds the words coming to life. Research has shown that the brain activates in areas of emotion and action while reading as if the reader is really experiencing it. Isn’t that amazing?
CBT: Staying with the same theme: Literary novels were once published in hardcover and then, several months later (and a spot on the best-seller lists willing), they were available as affordable pocket-sized paperbacks.
However, in the 1980s this practice ceased and literary paperbacks started being published in North America as pricier trade paperbacks. Only genre fiction retained the pocket-book form. In retrospect, was this a prudent decision by publishers of literary fiction? Or should the literary pocket-book make a return?
LN: You're forgetting the demographic bulge. Baby boomers need larger print. One benefit of e-books is being able to change the size of the font (though then there is not as much text on the screen). So I don’t know about the literary pocket-book. Maybe trade paperbacks should use a font size slightly larger than at present instead.
CBT: Agents now have enormous power, effectively controlling which writers get access to acquisition editors at major houses. Furthermore, agents find themselves under enormous pressure, acting as the line of first readers who have to sift through avalanches of submissions. Is this tenable over the long run? Is it good for art? Or should large houses be accepting both agented and unsolicitied submissions?
LN: There is some question as to what publishers actually do, since much of their former role has been passed down to agents and authors themselves. That’s true regardless of the size. With e-books, publishers may need to redefine their roles or agents and authors may at some point simply by-pass publishers altogether.
LN: There is some question as to what publishers actually do, since much of their former role has been passed down to agents and authors themselves. That’s true regardless of the size. With e-books, publishers may need to redefine their roles or agents and authors may at some point simply by-pass publishers altogether.
CBT: Literary prizes have also grown in power. They have arguably replaced the glowing review as a marketing tool. But are they as effective as criticism in building a contemporary canon? After all, critics can express nuance, prizes can't. Do book prizes give the message: this books is worth reading and all these others aren't?
LN: Anything that draws attention to books is good in my view. It’s unfortunate that we are living in a winner-take-all culture, which shows itself in American Idol type reality shows and in the Olympics where a fraction of a second separates “winner” and “loser”. But most readers who pay attention to prizes are interested in the short list, not just the winners, so it widens the field. But I’ll tell you, my reading list is made up just as much from reviews I read in my favourite book blogs. What I think we need is a network of book blogs equivalent to scienceblogs.com. Again, the issue is filtering, and I’ve come across the book blogs I enjoy partly by chance and partly by clicking through the links on those blogs.
LN: Anything that draws attention to books is good in my view. It’s unfortunate that we are living in a winner-take-all culture, which shows itself in American Idol type reality shows and in the Olympics where a fraction of a second separates “winner” and “loser”. But most readers who pay attention to prizes are interested in the short list, not just the winners, so it widens the field. But I’ll tell you, my reading list is made up just as much from reviews I read in my favourite book blogs. What I think we need is a network of book blogs equivalent to scienceblogs.com. Again, the issue is filtering, and I’ve come across the book blogs I enjoy partly by chance and partly by clicking through the links on those blogs.
CBT: Thinking of your own site, what sorts of changes do you foresee in it? Are blogs destined to become the new magazines? Will you start using a format (and possibly working with partners) in a magazine-type way? Or is blogging as it's currently defined how you want to keep posting work on the Net?
LN: I don’t see blogging as a way to post my books because, by their nature, blogs favour short pieces. However it does have a valuable role in communicating with readers. One exciting thing I will get to do is post scenes that I have had to cut from my current novel. They are good scenes in themselves, but slow down the pacing of the novel. Now I have a place to put them and readers who want to know a bit more about the characters or linger with them have a way to do so. I also use a blog to post Q & A and another to write about my interests and thoughts, which are wide ranging, but not cohesive enough for a book of non-fiction. Sometimes it is an immediate response to an immediate situation, politically or environmentally for example. Blogging is perfect for that. And it’s a venue for readers and writers to speak directly to one another, which itself is rewarding.
LN: I don’t see blogging as a way to post my books because, by their nature, blogs favour short pieces. However it does have a valuable role in communicating with readers. One exciting thing I will get to do is post scenes that I have had to cut from my current novel. They are good scenes in themselves, but slow down the pacing of the novel. Now I have a place to put them and readers who want to know a bit more about the characters or linger with them have a way to do so. I also use a blog to post Q & A and another to write about my interests and thoughts, which are wide ranging, but not cohesive enough for a book of non-fiction. Sometimes it is an immediate response to an immediate situation, politically or environmentally for example. Blogging is perfect for that. And it’s a venue for readers and writers to speak directly to one another, which itself is rewarding.
BIO: Lilian Nattel is the author of The Singing Fire and The River Midnight, which have been published in Canada, The United States, across Europe and in the Middle-East in seven languages. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two daughters.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Recently Read
Steven Beattie begins his coverage of Canada Also Reads.
Dan Green on Gilbert Sorrentino's The Abyss of Human Illusion
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, December 21, 2009
Loveography 1: Inside Haemi Fortress
EXT. A SMALL KOREAN VILLAGE. AN EARLY SUMMER EVENING, MID-WEEK.
A WESTERN MAN is walking down the city's main street. To his left is Haemi Fortress, a medieval Korean fort. Its wall is built of unevenly-matched stones, each lightened by age to a gentle ochre, as if the stone itself has softened.
The MAN walking beside this wall has a peaceful expression on his face. But from his body language we can tell he's lonely.
VO: Those were the days before I met you.
SFX: A light breeze.
EXT. THE INNER COURTYARD OF THE FORTRESS. MOMENTS LATER.
The Western man sees a group of CHILDREN. They are giggling and playing with each other. Then one of them spots the man.
CHILD: 의국인! [Foreigner]
SECOND CHILD: [sing-songy] Hello!
MAN: [smiling] Hello.
ALL CHILDREN: [gleefully] Hello! Hello!
MAN: [speaking slowly] Can you speak English?
The CHILDREN suddenly start to giggle uproariously. But their amusement is more a symptom of shyness than a desire to carry the game any further. They run away, still laughing.
The MAN continues walking. He makes his way through small, sad, empty streets.
V.O.: Chris Marker once asked how we can remember thirst. What I want to know is, how can we remember loneliness? It penetrates not just oneself but the world. Reality itself appears changed. The side-streets suck themselves empty, their noise vacuumed behind shuttered store-fronts. The sky pulls itself as taut as a blue drum. The clouds starve themselves and harm themselves, like self-loathing anorexics.
And as the world seems to change, so does the self: feel lonely enough, and that juncture of soul and body that comprises what you think of as you becomes as parched as cracked soil. The lonely individual is ancient, he is dirt.
INT. AN EVANGELICAL CHURCH. TEN MINUTES LATER.
The MAN enters. He is somewhat surprised to see a CROWD OF WORSHIPPERS. They are very involved in their prayers.
The MAN walks cautiously forward.
A MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN spots him.
CUT TO: CLOSE UP of MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN.
MIDDLE-AGED KOREAN MAN: 하느님! 하느님이 자를 사랑하습니다! [God! God loves you!]
The MAN pulls back, alarmed.
EXT. A STREET. MOMENTS LATER.
The MAN is walking by himself again. He looks even sadder than before. A DIFFERENT CHILD spots him.
DIFFERENT CHILD: [especially enthusiastically] Hello!
V.O.: I don't know what it is was about that kid's voice. It went to my heart -- pierced it, like an exquisitely fine spear, the sharp end of sweetness. And it was this strange combination of sensations -- the needle's prick and the blood's sunny melt -- that suddenly transported me (there's no other phrase) to a different time. It was a time in the more recent past, when I still felt the residual parch of loneliness. But it was a time when I started to feel.
I mean, it was a time when I started to feel again.
Judy Stoffman
Judy Stoffman of the books section of the Toronto Star:
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
It's no exaggeration, alas. Books are published by the thousands and some are even being read but they have lost their authority, their central place in the culture. When I interviewed Norman Mailer recently in New York, he told me he was appalled that at dinner parties people are arguing over the latest television show they have seen, not the latest book. Young people have had their attention span damaged by the instant gratification of DVDs and video-games. My own newspaper, the Star, allots way more space to film coverage that to books, in part because publishers rarely advertise and film theatres do.
2. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion. Please comment.
Well, there is some truth to that, although given the deluge of books out there, prizes can clear away the undergrowth and point confused readers towards books worth reading. Book clubs often make their choices based on the short lists for the Booker or the Dublin IMPAC or the Giller prize. Prizes are the new reviews, it has been said. But it's not illegal yet to read a prize winning book and find it deeply flawed.
In Canada, there are way too many prizes; they may have reached a point of diminishing returns, and become less effective as sales boosters.
3. Continuing with the same theme, are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Dangerous? Of course, there are always fine books that are overlooked by juries and it's highly satisfying to discover them for oneself.
4. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The way it works is that agents arrange auctions for books with commercial potential, which drives up the cost of the book to the publisher. The more the publisher shells out for the rights, the more he/she will invest in promotion and advertising to make sure the book sells enough to recoup the investment. That the book will be a bestseller is therefore a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It's hard to generalize about "art" and whether it's being lost--after all Philip Roth, Alice Munro, Ross King, Wayson Choy, William Boyd, Orhan Pamuk do get published.
5. As well, should the Canadian cultural nationalism of the 1970s make a comeback? Do we need a "National Culture Policy" that will put more Canadian books front and center in bookstores?
No, the government is already over-involved. Smart booksellers will feature Canadian books because Canadian readers want them.
6. In Aug. 25, 2006, you wrote an article entitled "CaLit Bonfire in the NY Times" about an commentary piece by Douglas Coupland in which he argues that Canadian fiction possesses a disproportionate amount of writing placed in rural settings and not enough in urban environments.
First, do you agree with Coupland's argument? Are Canadian writers trapped in what Andrew Pyper referred to as the "brand" of CanLit (a brand that presumably emphasizes the rural)? Or, as Patrick Crean puts it in the same article, is Coupland's characterization of CanLit "nonsense", and is he simply stereotyping a period of Canadian writing that no longer exists?
I agree with Patrick Crean. I have interviewed Douglas several times and never had the sense he is a great reader. He has not kept up. He is a visual artist, primarily, well informed about art and popular culture. I love the bee-hive like paper sculptures he made after chewing up his own own books.
7. Returning to the same article: in it, Patrick Crean mentions that Canada has the toughest book market in the English speaking world -- that is, Canadian publishers are constantly locked in competition with their (larger) U.S. and U.K. counterparts. Yet recently, author and culture critic R. M. Vaughan has remarked that Canadian publishers and agents have a conspicuous aversion to genre fiction -- in other words, they avoid commercial fiction that stands a good chance of selling.
Is part of the reason Canadian publishing is constantly in a struggle because of an underlying snobbery? Does CanLit need more GenreLit? Or are there other alternative ways the Canadian publishing industry can carve out a larger, more profitable share of the book market than it does now?
No, in 10 years of covering publishing I've never known a publisher to be a snob. They'll publish anything they think will sell. All kinds of genre lit have been tried and none of it sold as well in Canada as, say, Margaret Atwood. It could be that Canadian readers are more serious than U.S. book buyers. Two of the bestselling books in recent years have been the political expose On the Take by Stevie Cameron and the demographic study, Boom, Bust and Echo. Each sold more than 200,000 copies.
Judy Stoffman is one of the pre-eminent arts journalists in Canada. She regularly writes on book publishing for the Toronto Star.
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
It's no exaggeration, alas. Books are published by the thousands and some are even being read but they have lost their authority, their central place in the culture. When I interviewed Norman Mailer recently in New York, he told me he was appalled that at dinner parties people are arguing over the latest television show they have seen, not the latest book. Young people have had their attention span damaged by the instant gratification of DVDs and video-games. My own newspaper, the Star, allots way more space to film coverage that to books, in part because publishers rarely advertise and film theatres do.
2. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion. Please comment.
Well, there is some truth to that, although given the deluge of books out there, prizes can clear away the undergrowth and point confused readers towards books worth reading. Book clubs often make their choices based on the short lists for the Booker or the Dublin IMPAC or the Giller prize. Prizes are the new reviews, it has been said. But it's not illegal yet to read a prize winning book and find it deeply flawed.
In Canada, there are way too many prizes; they may have reached a point of diminishing returns, and become less effective as sales boosters.
3. Continuing with the same theme, are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message that "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
Dangerous? Of course, there are always fine books that are overlooked by juries and it's highly satisfying to discover them for oneself.
4. The publishing industry has always been a marriage of art and commerce. But in recent years, the Cult of the Deal has become more influential, with agents demanding larger advances and marketing people paying especially close attention to sales figures. Is the "art" side of the business being pushed out?
The way it works is that agents arrange auctions for books with commercial potential, which drives up the cost of the book to the publisher. The more the publisher shells out for the rights, the more he/she will invest in promotion and advertising to make sure the book sells enough to recoup the investment. That the book will be a bestseller is therefore a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It's hard to generalize about "art" and whether it's being lost--after all Philip Roth, Alice Munro, Ross King, Wayson Choy, William Boyd, Orhan Pamuk do get published.
5. As well, should the Canadian cultural nationalism of the 1970s make a comeback? Do we need a "National Culture Policy" that will put more Canadian books front and center in bookstores?
No, the government is already over-involved. Smart booksellers will feature Canadian books because Canadian readers want them.
6. In Aug. 25, 2006, you wrote an article entitled "CaLit Bonfire in the NY Times" about an commentary piece by Douglas Coupland in which he argues that Canadian fiction possesses a disproportionate amount of writing placed in rural settings and not enough in urban environments.
First, do you agree with Coupland's argument? Are Canadian writers trapped in what Andrew Pyper referred to as the "brand" of CanLit (a brand that presumably emphasizes the rural)? Or, as Patrick Crean puts it in the same article, is Coupland's characterization of CanLit "nonsense", and is he simply stereotyping a period of Canadian writing that no longer exists?
I agree with Patrick Crean. I have interviewed Douglas several times and never had the sense he is a great reader. He has not kept up. He is a visual artist, primarily, well informed about art and popular culture. I love the bee-hive like paper sculptures he made after chewing up his own own books.
7. Returning to the same article: in it, Patrick Crean mentions that Canada has the toughest book market in the English speaking world -- that is, Canadian publishers are constantly locked in competition with their (larger) U.S. and U.K. counterparts. Yet recently, author and culture critic R. M. Vaughan has remarked that Canadian publishers and agents have a conspicuous aversion to genre fiction -- in other words, they avoid commercial fiction that stands a good chance of selling.
Is part of the reason Canadian publishing is constantly in a struggle because of an underlying snobbery? Does CanLit need more GenreLit? Or are there other alternative ways the Canadian publishing industry can carve out a larger, more profitable share of the book market than it does now?
No, in 10 years of covering publishing I've never known a publisher to be a snob. They'll publish anything they think will sell. All kinds of genre lit have been tried and none of it sold as well in Canada as, say, Margaret Atwood. It could be that Canadian readers are more serious than U.S. book buyers. Two of the bestselling books in recent years have been the political expose On the Take by Stevie Cameron and the demographic study, Boom, Bust and Echo. Each sold more than 200,000 copies.
Judy Stoffman is one of the pre-eminent arts journalists in Canada. She regularly writes on book publishing for the Toronto Star.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Philip Marchand
Philip Marchand -- writer, critic (The Toronto Star and The National Post)
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
I'm not sure how much "trouble" literature is in. The age of Tennyson was the last period in literature when "serious" literature found a mass market. Ever since, we've had a very small minority of readers for "serious" stuff, and a fairly large audience for thrillers, romance novels, detective novels, and so on. Then there's the Da Vinci Code phenomenon in which everybody, from your dentist to your car mechanic, is reading a certain book - in order to be able to join in discussions about the book on social occasions, if for no other reason.
There is no doubt that electronic media are the dominant entertainment and cultural media in our society. But this was also true of the 1920s, with the development of radio and cinema. Perhaps the only difference between then and now is that television, sometime around 1962, definitely killed the popular short story, as a distinct genre that once flourished in magazines such as Saturday Evening Post, Maclean's, and so on. (Or the Toronto Star Weekly, for that matter.)
Kids certainly have been affected by video games as a component of their entertainment. Yet I'm told that many kids still read - still read a lot, as a matter of fact. The only problem is that what they read are these massive multi-volume fantasy epics, etc. I suppose that's a problem. But literature as such is not going away, any more than stamp collecting, playing acoustic guitars, and so on.
I actually think the biggest threat to literature is not electronic media but a corrosive intellectual climate of "theory" that works against any ambitious piece of literature nowadays.
2. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.
Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
I've been grousing about literary prizes for years and nobody pays attention to me. There are so many problems with them - the foremost problem being to get good jury members. To get three good jurors is quite a feat, and it only takes one unfortunately chosen juror to drive the whole process off the rails. Even with a reasonable jury, Giller Prize winners and their like always turn out to be compromise choices, and sometimes they make your heart sink, thinking of an average literate person reading some of these prize novels, under the impression it's the best our writers can do. There has been a high percentage of mediocre works of fiction that have won the Giller. It's also punishing to authors - prizes being one more way for writers to fail, as one of them put it to me. But the worst effect is the corruption of literary publicity. I just wish we could have more periodicals devoted to accessible but rigorous critical examination of new novels, instead of this hoopla.
3. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
I remember the publisher Jack McClelland once commenting, some time around 1970, when his publishing house, McClelland & Stewart, was the first port of call for unpublished authors with their manuscripts, that it was simply not true that there was a substantial body of good literature out there in the hinterlands that was being unfairly neglected or overlooked. If something was really good, it eventually found a publisher. Nothing has changed in that regard. It is true that agents are now the first gatekeepers of literature, as it were, but that's not an insuperable barrier for a writer who truly has something to say and can say it well.
4. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience?
It's very hard for any author to win an audience. It is also true that it is harder for small press authors to win an audience, since they don't have the publicity machine behind them that larger publishers do - although it's a very creaky machine at best. But a remarkable talent will almost always eventually get broader exposure and make the transition from small press to more mainstream press. It is important to have half a dozen good literary presses going at any time, and unfortunately it does require some assistance from granting agencies, and so on.
5. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?
Canada could use a few more publishers. It wouldn't hurt.
6. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
So far technologies such as the e-book and the audio book have had zero effect on the basic format of the book. That format is just too good and convenient a technology to be replaced or seriously modified. Interesting developments such as print on demand and the whole internet e-bay phenomenon will affect the marketing and distribution of books but the basic product will remain the same.
7. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
Some libraries, anyway, certainly take their mandate seriously, hosting readings, hiring writers-in-residence, and so on. As a writer, I wish they would buy more books than non-book items, such as CDs and so on, but they have a wide community to service and these choices are always difficult. If I were ruler of Canada I would certainly spend more money on public libraries generally. English Departments also have a tricky balancing act - giving English majors a solid grounding in canonical literature - Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, as they used to say - and presenting them with some contemporary literature. Unfortunately, many literary academics proved to be traitors to the cause, subjecting their students to gaseous clouds of "theory" as opposed to helping students pay close attention to actual texts and to analyze them with both clarity and rigour. A student who has learned to examine George Eliot or Nathaniel Hawthorne with almost microscopic attention is more likely to have a discriminating interest in contemporary literary fiction than a student who has mastered theory.
8. Recently you remarked that Toronto lacks a great chronicler -- a great novelist who focuses specifically on Toronto. But again, given the realities of the fiction market and the fact Canadian authors often depend for their financial success on foreign sales, and the fact that contemporary Toronto as a topic does not elicit as much interest as London or New York, is there really an audience to sustain this kind of work these days?
I think American and British readers will give Toronto a chance if a novel set in this city is good enough.
9. In response to the same article, Catherine Bush remarked part of the problem is Canadian critics/academics not paying enough attention to the work that has already been published. Is this true? Do Canadians tend to forget their own literature?
This goes back to the question about literary prizes. If there were more serious and widespread critical discussion about literature in our culture, rather than all the fuss about one day wonders, or television panels about Giller Prize winners, then those books that deserve permanent attention, no matter how long ago they were published, would get their due of attention.
10. Finally, you are a writer yourself. You've written popular history mixed with memoir (Ghost Empire: How The French Almost Conquered North America), cultural studies/biography (Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger), criticism (Ripostes) and a crime novel (Deadly Spirits). But you are probably best known as a critic. Does the hard -- and necessary -- work that a critic does tend to get overlooked, especially given North America's (as opposed to Europe's) sole veneration of the author as the locus of literary achievement? In short, is the critic engaging in a form of literary writing, too?
A serious critic certainly tries to "engage in a form of literary writing" by making his or her writing lucid, intelligent, lively and above all passionate. If these qualities are present in the writing, then some criticism will have a long life. It will also be criticism that will contribute to deeper understanding of literary works in general, which I think authors would be happy about. But there's no doubt that purely imaginative writing - fiction, poetry, and so on - will always be the main focus of readers' attention. Great imaginative literature just burns deeper into the mind. I don't care if critics take a back seat in that respect. But it's always nice to be recognized for contributing to the cause, and there may be some deficient appreciation of that fact in literary circles.
As a critic, the only hope of longevity I have is that remarks I have made about various novels will turn out to be useful for students of those novels years hence. That would make me happy.
Bio: Philip Marchand is one of the best-known and most influential critics in Canada. He is also an author (see question 10, above), his most recent book being Ghost Empire: How The French Almost Conquered North America. For several years, his literary column appeared regularly in the books section of The Toronto Star. He now writes the Open Book column of the National Post.
1. Literature is in trouble -- that is, more trouble than usual. Why do you think this is? The increasing prevalence of TV? The distractions of narcotic subcultures such as video games? Sept. 11? Or is talk of the "death of literature" simple exaggeration?
I'm not sure how much "trouble" literature is in. The age of Tennyson was the last period in literature when "serious" literature found a mass market. Ever since, we've had a very small minority of readers for "serious" stuff, and a fairly large audience for thrillers, romance novels, detective novels, and so on. Then there's the Da Vinci Code phenomenon in which everybody, from your dentist to your car mechanic, is reading a certain book - in order to be able to join in discussions about the book on social occasions, if for no other reason.
There is no doubt that electronic media are the dominant entertainment and cultural media in our society. But this was also true of the 1920s, with the development of radio and cinema. Perhaps the only difference between then and now is that television, sometime around 1962, definitely killed the popular short story, as a distinct genre that once flourished in magazines such as Saturday Evening Post, Maclean's, and so on. (Or the Toronto Star Weekly, for that matter.)
Kids certainly have been affected by video games as a component of their entertainment. Yet I'm told that many kids still read - still read a lot, as a matter of fact. The only problem is that what they read are these massive multi-volume fantasy epics, etc. I suppose that's a problem. But literature as such is not going away, any more than stamp collecting, playing acoustic guitars, and so on.
I actually think the biggest threat to literature is not electronic media but a corrosive intellectual climate of "theory" that works against any ambitious piece of literature nowadays.
2. Prizes and awards are playing an increasing role in determining an author's career-trajectory. In short, winning a major literary prize can win a writer a large audience overnight (not to mention, considerable fame and financial remuneration). But, as British critic Jason Cowley has observed, what is lost is the ability for readers to think in a critically complex fashion.
Are literary prizes dangerous in this regard? Do they convey to the public the message "this book is worth reading and all these others aren't"?
I've been grousing about literary prizes for years and nobody pays attention to me. There are so many problems with them - the foremost problem being to get good jury members. To get three good jurors is quite a feat, and it only takes one unfortunately chosen juror to drive the whole process off the rails. Even with a reasonable jury, Giller Prize winners and their like always turn out to be compromise choices, and sometimes they make your heart sink, thinking of an average literate person reading some of these prize novels, under the impression it's the best our writers can do. There has been a high percentage of mediocre works of fiction that have won the Giller. It's also punishing to authors - prizes being one more way for writers to fail, as one of them put it to me. But the worst effect is the corruption of literary publicity. I just wish we could have more periodicals devoted to accessible but rigorous critical examination of new novels, instead of this hoopla.
3. Many major publishers now refuse to accept "unsolicited" work; that is, they will not even consider work unless it is agented. Is this a sound policy from point of view of finding the best new literary voices? Isn't there a chance good writing will be squeezed out?
I remember the publisher Jack McClelland once commenting, some time around 1970, when his publishing house, McClelland & Stewart, was the first port of call for unpublished authors with their manuscripts, that it was simply not true that there was a substantial body of good literature out there in the hinterlands that was being unfairly neglected or overlooked. If something was really good, it eventually found a publisher. Nothing has changed in that regard. It is true that agents are now the first gatekeepers of literature, as it were, but that's not an insuperable barrier for a writer who truly has something to say and can say it well.
4. Alternatively, for small presses that do accept unsolicited work, is the problem that the majors are squeezing the small houses at the distribution/retail marketing end? In other words, even when good writers get published by small houses, do they have a fair chance of winning an audience?
It's very hard for any author to win an audience. It is also true that it is harder for small press authors to win an audience, since they don't have the publicity machine behind them that larger publishers do - although it's a very creaky machine at best. But a remarkable talent will almost always eventually get broader exposure and make the transition from small press to more mainstream press. It is important to have half a dozen good literary presses going at any time, and unfortunately it does require some assistance from granting agencies, and so on.
5. Does Canada have too many publishers? Or too few?
Canada could use a few more publishers. It wouldn't hurt.
6. In your opinion, how will new technologies such as the e-book or audio books affect the "form" of the book?
So far technologies such as the e-book and the audio book have had zero effect on the basic format of the book. That format is just too good and convenient a technology to be replaced or seriously modified. Interesting developments such as print on demand and the whole internet e-bay phenomenon will affect the marketing and distribution of books but the basic product will remain the same.
7. And what role can traditional, venerable institutions such as libraries and English Departments play in reversing the decline in sales of literary fiction?
Some libraries, anyway, certainly take their mandate seriously, hosting readings, hiring writers-in-residence, and so on. As a writer, I wish they would buy more books than non-book items, such as CDs and so on, but they have a wide community to service and these choices are always difficult. If I were ruler of Canada I would certainly spend more money on public libraries generally. English Departments also have a tricky balancing act - giving English majors a solid grounding in canonical literature - Beowulf to Virginia Woolf, as they used to say - and presenting them with some contemporary literature. Unfortunately, many literary academics proved to be traitors to the cause, subjecting their students to gaseous clouds of "theory" as opposed to helping students pay close attention to actual texts and to analyze them with both clarity and rigour. A student who has learned to examine George Eliot or Nathaniel Hawthorne with almost microscopic attention is more likely to have a discriminating interest in contemporary literary fiction than a student who has mastered theory.
8. Recently you remarked that Toronto lacks a great chronicler -- a great novelist who focuses specifically on Toronto. But again, given the realities of the fiction market and the fact Canadian authors often depend for their financial success on foreign sales, and the fact that contemporary Toronto as a topic does not elicit as much interest as London or New York, is there really an audience to sustain this kind of work these days?
I think American and British readers will give Toronto a chance if a novel set in this city is good enough.
9. In response to the same article, Catherine Bush remarked part of the problem is Canadian critics/academics not paying enough attention to the work that has already been published. Is this true? Do Canadians tend to forget their own literature?
This goes back to the question about literary prizes. If there were more serious and widespread critical discussion about literature in our culture, rather than all the fuss about one day wonders, or television panels about Giller Prize winners, then those books that deserve permanent attention, no matter how long ago they were published, would get their due of attention.
10. Finally, you are a writer yourself. You've written popular history mixed with memoir (Ghost Empire: How The French Almost Conquered North America), cultural studies/biography (Marshall McLuhan: The Medium and the Messenger), criticism (Ripostes) and a crime novel (Deadly Spirits). But you are probably best known as a critic. Does the hard -- and necessary -- work that a critic does tend to get overlooked, especially given North America's (as opposed to Europe's) sole veneration of the author as the locus of literary achievement? In short, is the critic engaging in a form of literary writing, too?
A serious critic certainly tries to "engage in a form of literary writing" by making his or her writing lucid, intelligent, lively and above all passionate. If these qualities are present in the writing, then some criticism will have a long life. It will also be criticism that will contribute to deeper understanding of literary works in general, which I think authors would be happy about. But there's no doubt that purely imaginative writing - fiction, poetry, and so on - will always be the main focus of readers' attention. Great imaginative literature just burns deeper into the mind. I don't care if critics take a back seat in that respect. But it's always nice to be recognized for contributing to the cause, and there may be some deficient appreciation of that fact in literary circles.
As a critic, the only hope of longevity I have is that remarks I have made about various novels will turn out to be useful for students of those novels years hence. That would make me happy.
Bio: Philip Marchand is one of the best-known and most influential critics in Canada. He is also an author (see question 10, above), his most recent book being Ghost Empire: How The French Almost Conquered North America. For several years, his literary column appeared regularly in the books section of The Toronto Star. He now writes the Open Book column of the National Post.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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