I can’t remember exactly how I came across Stephen Henighan’s Kingmaker’s column in Geist 63. But it’s certainly stirring up the pot in terms the Canadian literary world. I’m probably late to the party (it’s a bad habit I have, of never being on time, but I digress), but I read the article this week and thought, “what Mel Gibson-inspired bee’s up his bonnet?”
Although Henighan does have a point with this idiotic decision by Chapters / Indigo:
But the real future of Canadian writing lay on the banquet tables of the 2006 Giller dinner, where each guest was invited to take home an individually wrapped party favour provided by Chapters- Indigo. When the guests opened their favours, they found that all the packages contained the same remaindered Stephen King novel.
Oh. My.
There’s probably a good reason why there were all those Stephen King books remaindered anyway. But should they be on the tables of one of the most prestigious literary events in Canada of all places? Perhaps not. Smarten up people!
But I really don’t think that Giller prize is “the most conspicuous example of corporate suffocation of the public institutions that built our literary culture.” If anything, it’s a symbol of the random and relentlessly confusing individuality of the jurors chosen to pick the winners. And I still think that Three Day Road should have won last year; I’ll viciously tell anyone who’ll listen that Consumption is a far better book than Bloodletting, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be just as excited this year to see what the Giller comes up with.
If anything, the Giller, like Canada Reads (yay! Heather O’Neill), is an opportunity for Canadians to not only read books written by and for Canadians, books that will, inevitably contribute to our culture, but also to then debate and discuss the choices made by the judges. I mean, if this year’s Oscars are any indication (how many times was Scorsese denied before now?), it sometimes takes awards a long time to get something right. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s wrong, or by extension, bad. But perhaps that’s not what Henighan means. I know he’s making the point that the awards are serving the giant conglomerate steamroller of Canadian publishing but does that necessarily equate that Lam didn’t deserve to win?
But in a day and age where people are reading less, and choosing the Giller winner simply because it’s an easy pick when it’s all over the media, maybe I kind of see his point. Or maybe I’m just too naive because I think that these kinds of prizes are done with a level of honesty and integrity, that those three jurors truly felt that of the books they read last year, Vincent Lam’s debut short story collection was the best. Obviously, Henighan doesn’t share my rosy outlook.
