Published: My essay on The Tower of Babble, by Richard Stursberg, in CNQ 86

I was very pleased to come home last night to find the latest issue of Canadian Notes & Queries (CNQ) waiting for me in my mailbox. This issue contains a lengthy essay I wrote reviewing Richard Stursberg's memoir The Tower Of Babble: Sins, Secrets and Successes inside the CBC. While my essay is a thorough critique of Stursburg's text, it is also a cri de coeur for public broadcasting in general, a subject I am (usually quietly) passionate about.

For those of you who don't know, Stursberg was the head of English programming at CBC from 2004 to 2010 and ushered in the network's current era of populism. His memoir recounts his tumultuous years at the Ceeb and his struggle to turn our public broadcaster--which has a long, proud history and has contributed immeasurably to our sense of what it means to be Canadian--into a more business-friendly, ratings-oriented organization. I had read an article about this book in the Globe & Mail last spring and knew I wanted to write an expansive, wide-reaching examination of the Stursberg regime at CBC. Thankfully, CNQ's editor was more than happy to accommodate me.

No surprise, issue #86 also comes packed with lots of other great stuff. This issue's theme appears to be 'libraries' (another public institution worth writing about), with feature articles by Nicole Dixon, Nigel Beale, and Jeet Heer, among others. There's also some fiction by Caroline Adderson, poetry by Evan Jones, and lots of other great stuff I'm looking forward to tucking into. So visit your better literary newsstands (or library!) to check it out.
 

Update on the 2013 Co-habitational Reading Challenge

So I finished part one of Martin Amis' The Information, the book RR and I chose for this year's Co-habitational Reading Challenge, so I thought this would be a good time to provide an update on how it's going. In a word: amazingly. We kicked things off on the weekend, with me reading aloud the opening scene (with that iconic first sentence, "Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say Nothing") and then reading together, silently--she on the couch and me in my reclining wingback. When one of us chortled, the other asked to have the line read aloud. Often, we were on the same paragraph anyway, and this made for a joyous and endearing literary experience.

Seeing how it has been nearly 15 years since I've read this novel, there were lots of things I had forgotten about it. Like how madly, compulsively readable it is. The Information achieves the summit of page turner despite its fragmented narration, loathsome protagonist, 10-dollar vocabulary and risky subject matter. It's about a failed novelist told from the perspective of amorphous "I." It has an elevated diction and is very conscious of its own cliches. And yet it works. Thus far, it all works.

 Rereading The Information has reminded me of a great paradox about Martin Amis: while his style is one of the most inimitable in the business, he continues to breed a class of imitators. I sadly have been guilty of this: many of the stories I wrote as a younger man tried to mimic his approach to prose, and of course they all failed. Rereading this novel has helped me to accept that there can be only one Martin Amis--and really, that's for the best. I wouldn't want 10,000 men trying to write like him. We would all be lesser for it.

Of course, the real joy of this reading challenge is to partake in it with RR. She'll be putting up her own posts about it soon, but I can say that I've really enjoying hearing her insights across the couch and at the dinner table. And as I suspected, it's made me closer to her just as much as it has made me closer to the book itself.

Stay tuned for more updates. They'll be coming soon.

M.    

Recording of me reading from Off Book now on YouTube

Neat - the 49th Shelf has posted to YouTube a recording I did for them about a year and a half ago from Off Book. (It was from this feature article that they did of RR and me shortly after we moved in together.) Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

My Q&Q review of The Lava in My Bones by Barry Webster ...

is now online on the Quill & Quire website. I was really glad to see that my review of this novel got such a prominent spot in Q&Q's December issue. While Webster's was by no means a perfect book (whose is?), I did feel it deserved a more flattering reception than it got in some other reviews. The Lava in My Bones impressed me on a number of levels, and there's so much zeal and joy packed into every paragraph. Definitely a book worth checking out.

The Co-habitational Reading Challenge - 2013 Kickoff

Ah, is there anything more romantic than two lovebirds reading the same book at the same time? Probably, but RR and I have decided to do it again anyway. Yes indeed, we're rekindling our Co-habitational Reading Challenge, where we choose one book (two copies, natch), read it simultaneously, and write about it on our respective blogs.

As you may recall, our choice for the first time we did this, back in 2011, was John Iriving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, a book that we both read when we were younger and thus had an extra copy kicking around after we moved in together. This year we've picked a novel that we don't have two copies of, but RR has generously offered to acquire hers from our public library. We have both read this novel before, years ago, and are looking forward to tucking into it again to see if it's as good as we remember.

And so, without further ado, I'm pleased to announce that the novel we've chosen is The Information, by Martin Amis. This book was published in 1995 to much fanfare that, sadly, had little to do with the actual writing - something about dental surgery, a scorned literary agent, and an obscenely large advance for literary fiction, even for the nineties.

I remember exactly where I was when I first stumbled upon this tome. Picture it: Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1998 - a young recent journalism school graduate is trolling the shelves of the city's fabled Trident Booksellers and Cafe, the air pungent with freshly ground coffee beans and snobbery. There, he purchases a weighty hardcover and takes it back to his lonely one-bedroom apartment on the other side of the harbour. This book blows his little (but growing!) mind with its linguistic dexterity and impressive vocabulary, its humour and cutting-edge social satire. He becomes a Martin Amis fan overnight.

Actually, with the exception of its brilliant opening pages, there are very few specifics I remember about The Information. I know that it is a fantastic examination of avarice (is it just me, or does Amis explore at least one of the seven deadly sins in each novel?) and a wonderful send-up of our misconceptions about the literary life, but other than that I'll be coming back at this book with an open mind. Needless to say, I'm also anxious to read my wife's opinions upon rereading it.

And yes, we absolutely want all of you to play along if you can. Like last time, you and your life partner can either choose to read this book along with us or you and your life partner can choose to read another book together. Either way, make sure to come back here and share your thoughts with us - either with comments below or links pointing back to your own blog. Trust me, this is a lot of fun and a great way to learn even more about someone you already know pretty well.

Stay tuned for further updates as we work our way through this tome over the next couple of weeks.

M.       

2012: My Reading Year in Review

Long-time readers of this series will probably notice a change to my full reading list for the year below: I've started to include issues of the various literary journals I subscribe to. I've always read lots of journals over the years but have done so in a very spotty, piecemeal sort of way. This year I made the decision to take a more focused approach to these journals, to keep them in the sacrosanct queue atop my nightstand and to read them cover to cover as I would any book. Seems fair, considering how much effort goes in to producing them.

As usual, I tried to be as diverse and eclectic in both my top 10 and my top 5 disappointment lists as I could be. Two of the best books I read this year were not reviewed here on the blog but rather in Quill and Quire, a magazine I’ve been freelancing for more and more it seems. I usually include a caveat with the second list about how they’re not necessarily bad books, but just books I had high expectations for. I feel that, with the exception of Wolf Hall, no such qualification is needed this year.

So without further ado, here’s this year’s list. Feel free to drop a comment below and share your thoughts.

My top 10 books this year

• A Book of Great Worth, by Dave Margoshes. From my Quill and Quire review: “What’s remarkable about A Book of Great Worth is the way Margoshes is able to leave his own first-person narration in the background and keep the focus on Morgenstern, even while referring to him almost exclusively as “my father” …The result is a remarkable braiding of literal and literary truth, a Jewish family’s history elevated to the level of lore, and a delightfully envisioned portrait of specific times and places. Full review. 
• Dancing, with Mirrors, by George Amabile. “Dancing, with Mirrors, through the courage of its metaphors and the trust it places in distilled experience, is a book willing to share its quiet wisdom with us. The message could be quaint in lesser hands but here it is siren call to how life itself might be lived: “Love is a mirror/ in which we learn to dance.” Full review. 
• Whirl Away, by Russell Wangersky. “Any critic who posits that Canadian writers don’t focus on the working lives of their characters really needs to read Russell Wangersky’s Whirl Away. With skillful and eerie verisimilitude, Wangersky places most of the protagonists in this new collection of short stories squarely inside the dark hearts of their respective occupations. The breadth of Wangersky’s knowledge of and research into different jobs is truly astounding and worth the price of the book alone.” Full review. 
• Middlesex, by Jeffery Eugenides. “The many complex threads of Middlesex come together in the end to make a deeply satisfying whole. Eugenides has crafted an exquisitely complex novel that serious readers will love losing themselves in. A massive achievement in 21st century American literature.” Full review. 
• Catalysts – Confrontations with the Muse, by Catherine Owen. “[O]ne is left with the sense that Owen is a writer who feels deeply, questions everything, and channels her emotions and experience through a rigorous poetic aesthetic. Catalysts is a testament to a life immersed in poetic forms, a searching for truth through the prismatic (and often cruel) facets of circumstance and self.” Full review. 
• Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson. “Oranges is a powerful and touching portrait of love, family and religious extremity in rural England …This novel impresses on a number of fronts. I love the fact that the title—at first blush a cheeky reference to homosexuality—is not overplayed in the text itself. Indeed, oranges become a central trope throughout the book; but with a skill that belies her age at the time of writing, Winterson is able to work it in subtly, leaving enough gaps around the trope for us as readers to fill them in.” Full review.
• A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan. “Egan’s incredible feat of temporal game-playing really puts to shame any other interconnected short story collection I’ve read … [I]n laying down the lives of these characters, Egan shows an incomprehensible amount of versatility in her writing. She can do young and old; she can do male and female voices; she can do first-, second- and third-person narration to great effect … Indeed, finishing the last page of Goon Squad, you’re left with the impression that this book must have been written by not one writer, but seven or eight writers—all incredibly talented.” Full review. 
• Libra, by Don DeLillo. “DeLillo has written a fierce and highly engaging page turner that is also one of the best structured works of literary fiction I’ve ever read. It was an absolute joy living in this novel’s world and immersing myself in its thoroughly designed characters. Libra is, in the end, a work of fiction, but its effects on the reader are very real.” Full review. 
• Imperfections, by Bradley Somer. From my forthcoming review in Quill and Quire: “As they say in the fashion world, if you’ve got it, flaunt it. Bradley Somer, in this sharp, funny, ribald and surprisingly moving debut novel, has it and definitely flaunts it. Imperfections is a wild send-up of the modeling industry and our obsession with the culture of beauty. With equal parts absurdism and societal critique, this book is a comic romp on par with Mordecai Richler’s Cocksure.”
• The Testament of Mary, by Colm Tóibín. “In this work of fiction, Tóibín is not simply adding a new twist to an age-old bible story. Instead, he is looking to completely rewire one of Christianity’s central figures, making Mary into someone who never believed in her son’s divinity and who is now overcome with rage as others attempt to turn him into an icon for the world … The Testament of Mary is a well-crafted and disturbing addition to [Tóibín’s] growing oeuvre.” Full review. 

Top five disappointments this year

• Opium Dreams, by Margaret Gibson. [This novel] is undone by its obsession with high-minded and overly literary fragmentation, not to mention a protagonist strangling on a brand of solipsism that seems unique to the Baby Boomer generation. (No one else has experienced a dying parent like I have experienced it. No one else has endured sexual abuse like I have endured it.) Is it possible to feel as though a novel is too autobiographical without actually knowing very much about the writer’s life? That’s the sense I got from Gibson, that she was working out a lot of issues in her personal life with this book and often lost control of that gushing hose of sentimentality…” Full review. 
• World Enough, by Lesley Choyce. I have no review of this book to link to because it was so bad I couldn’t even finish it. Choyce is a prolific Atlantic Canadian author whose relentless regional boosterism gets real boring, real fast. As for this “novel”, there isn’t a single living sentence in any of what I managed to finish, not one paragraph with a whiff of authenticity. Thin characters, a paint-by-colours concept, and lots of rah-rah fetishizing of life in the Maritimes were enough to make me quit after about 60 pages.
• The Rise and Fall of Communism, by Archie Brown. “While Brown’s examination of the history of international communism has its obvious model—William Shirer’s far superior The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich—it possesses none of the narrative drive and small details that make the geopolitics in that previous tome come to life. Instead of sharing what the real impacts of communism were (and still are) on real people, Brown mires us in page after page of pointless backroom dealings and back-stabbings that defined various communist regimes. He relies too heavily on the long lens, the bird’s-eye view of history, rather than the nitty gritty.” Full review. 
• More in Anger, by J. Jill Robinson. “In the end, More in Anger makes for a dull and uninspired read. Its trajectory holds no mystery, is never in doubt; its themes are decided for us; its “point” is hermetically sealed and does not allow readers to bring anything of their own to it. It’s almost like we don’t even need to be there. It’s almost like the jacket flap does all our work for us.” Full review. 
• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. “To my eye, Wolf Hall possesses the bloated heft of a dramatic exposition rather than the sinewy nimbleness of a novel alive to its time and place. Too often, this book gets overrun by talking heads devoid of a physical environment and used exclusively for the dissemination of historical data … I wanted Wolf Hall to grip me with the implicit significance of its characters and plot. Instead, I found myself at a lost to understand what makes this novel a novel.” Full review. 

This year’s full reading list:

64. December 26. The Miracles of Ordinary Men, by Amanda Leduc. 319 pps. (For review in Quill and Quire.)
63. December 13. The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin. 104 pps.
62. December 11. The Malahat Review, Autumn 2012. 158 pps.
61. December 6. Open Heart Runner, by Gregory Marchand. 199 pps.
60. December 2. The Puritan Compendium I. 160 pps.
59. November 27. The Street of Crocodiles, by Bruno Schultz. 160 pps.
58. November 21. Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch. 253 pps.
57. November 13. Imperfections, by Bradley Somer. 256 pps. (For review in Quill and Quire.)
56. November 9. The Fiddlehead, Summer 2012. 182 pps.
55. November 4. Prism International, Summer 2012. 72 pps.
54. October 31. Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. 651 pps.
53. October 16. CNQ 85. Fall 2012. 96 pps.
52. October 11. The Lava in My Bones, by Barry Webster. 377 pps. (For review in Quill and Quire.)
51. October 2. In This Thin Rain, by Nelson Ball. 77 pps.
50. October 1. Dear Life, by Alice Munro. 319 pps. (For review in Canadian Notes & Queries.)
49. September 17. Floating Life, by Moez Surani. 96 pps.
48. September 15. The Malahat Review, Summer 2012. 110 pps.
47. September 10. The Beggar's Garden, by Michael Christie. 261 pps.
46. September 4. Braco, by Lesleyanne Ryan. 459 pps. (For review in Quill and Quire.)
45. August 25. A Dark Boat, by Patrick Friesen. 119 pps.
44. August 23. Libra, by Don DeLillo. 463 pps.
43. August 14. Prism International, Spring 2012. 85 pps.
42. August 6. Arc 68. Summer 2012. 137 pps.
41. August 3. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan. 340 pps.
40. July 29. The Fiddlehead. Spring 2012. 118 pps.
39. July 26. The Malahat Review, Spring 2012. 110 pps.
38. July 24. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson. 224 pps.
37. July 19. Cocaine Nights, by J.G. Ballard. 329 pps.
36. July 12. Prism International, Winter 2012. 73 pps.
35. July 9. Catalysts: Confrontations with the Muse, by Catherine Owen. 143 pps.
34. July 5. Spoiled Rotten, by Mary Jackman. 229 pps.
33. June 27. Conversations with Anthony Burgess, edited by Earl G. Ingersoll and Mary C. Ingersoll. 190 pps.
32. June 21. More in Anger, by J. Jill Robinson. 237 pps.
31. June 14. The Rise and Fall of Communism, by Archie Brown (unfinished). 274 pps.
30. June 8. Worm: The First Digital World War, by Mark Bowden. (audio book).
29. May 31. DarkMarket: CyberThieves, CyberCops and You, by Misha Glenny. 296 pps.
28. May 26. PRISM International, Fall 2011. 77 pps.
27.May 23. Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets, edited by Zachariah Wells. 158 pps.
26. May 20. The Tower of Babble: Sins, Secrets and Successes inside the CBC, by Richard Stursberg. 341 pps. For review in CNQ.
25. May 10. You Exist. Details Follow, by Stuart Ross. 116 pps.
24. May 7. Attack of the Copula Spiders and Other Essays on Writing, by Douglas Glover. 212 pps.
23. May 2. No End in Strangeness: New and Selected Poems, by Bruce Taylor. 119 pps.
22. April 29. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. 529 pps.
21. April 16. CNQ 84, Spring 2012. 96 pps.
20. April 11. Whirl Away, by Russell Wangersky. 207 pps.
19. April 3. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander. 207 pps.
18. April 2. Arc 67 (Winter 2012). 133 pps.
17. March 26. Drifting House, by Krys Lee. 210 pps.
16. March 22. Stasiland, by Anna Funder. 288 pps.
15. March 15. The Master, by Colm Toibin.338 pps.
14. March 6. The Stand-In, by David Helwig. 90 pps.
13. March 4. The Fiddlehead No. 250, Winter 2012. 118 pps.
12. February 28. The Warhol Gang, by Peter Darbyshire. 309 pps.
11. February 24. The Malahat Review. No. 177, Winter 2011. 110 pps.
10. February 21. Dancing, with Mirrors, by George Amabile. 185 pps.
9. February 19. Hannus, by Rachel Lebowitz. 170 pps.
8. February 17.Anna Karenin, by Leo Tolstoy. 853 pps.
7. January 24. CNQ - Canadian Notes & Queries No. 83, Summer/Fall 2011. 96 pps.
6. January 21. (unfinished) World Enough, by Lesley Choyce. About 60 pages. Ugh.
5. January 18. Opium Dreams, by Margaret Gibson. 237 pps.
4. January 14. The Fiddlehead No. 249, Autumn 2011. 119 pps.
3. January 10. The Truth About Marie, by Jean-Philippe Toussaint.160 pps.
2.January 6. The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011, edited by Priscila Uppal. 131 pps.
1. January 3. A Book of Great Worth, by Dave Margoshes. 252 pps. (For review in Quill & Quire.)

Annus mirabilis

Okay, so the year is winding down but I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge what an incredible year it has been. Please forgive this brief lapse in my stoic even-keeledness, but holy smokes - I can't recall the last time so many amazing things have happened to me in one 12-month period. I know that I won't find every year to be as fantastic as 2012 has been, and I know that some years inevitably end up at the opposite end of this spectrum. (2006/07, I'm looking at you!) But I think it's important to speak up and recognize when fortune shines a little luck your way.

The best and most important highlight of the year is that this woman and I got married. In your face, bachelorhood! My wedding day was without a doubt the happiest of my life and we got to have exactly the kind of celebration we wanted. So many friends and family were able to come and experience for a few hours what it's like to be on the inside of our lives together--the words, stories, music and carousing that represent the very pulse of our relationship. And I'm happy to report that the high from that day has not worn off, that we are growing happier and closer to each other with every week that passes.

One of the great things about being married to RR is that I have someone there to remind me that it's important to take a break and celebrate successes, as this is not a natural inclination of mine. The biggest success to celebrate in 2012, beyond the wedding, is that my new novel was finally accepted for publication. This came after many years of hard work and anxiety, and there is still more hard work and anxiety to come, but I was able to take a breather and really allow myself to enjoy the moment. It was sweet.

The novel's acceptance was not the only success I had, writing wise. Again, I don't have many years like this, but some of the accomplishments include:

• Getting three poems published in This magazine in the spring/summer.
• Getting two poems accepted in August for publication in The Nashwaak Review. (Publication date TBA.)
• Having some nice words written about me at Open Book Ontario, also in August.
• Winning The Puritan's poetry contest and having my piece subsequently published in their fall issue and Best-of anthology.
• Getting a short story from my current manuscript-in-progress accepted in October by PRISM International, for publication in January.

In other awesome news, I got a new day job, at this place, which I love very much and am so happy I held out for. Oh, and RR and I got a new cat. Her name is Alice and she is extremely affectionate, especially around 3:30 in the morning.

Of course, with any moment of reflection like this, I also think it's fair to acknowledge that for many people, 2012 was in no way a good year. I know that the most recent gun tragedy in the U.S. has left many people with broken hearts and loved ones stolen from them. I saw a friend lose the love of his life to breast cancer back in May. I have a family member who has been struggling with his health all year. To them, and to any of you who may also rank 2012 as a shit year, all I can offer is this trite and wholly unproven maxim: another year, somewhere down the line, may be better for you, if you let it be. I've been in some fairly dark places (again, 2006/07, I'm looking at you!) when I believed that a year like 2012 would never be within my reach. But it was. It was. The winter does end, if you allow it to.

Lastly, I want to leave you with this festive little video I found today. Hey Rosetta! remains one of my favourite bands and this video pretty much captures the atmosphere of my inner world these days. But I also like it because it shows the work and effort that must go into a joyous life: the groggy mornings, the inane repetitions, the sometimes grueling drudgery needed to make good stuff happen. It shows it, and shows why it's worth it. As with life, this video is best played loud and at full screen. Merry Christmas everybody.