Great White Serfdom
A Brief Overview of the undead Eliterati's
death grip on Canadian Literature

* originally written for the ULA's Monday Report, November 2004 *

I'm writing the first few sentences of this article as the so-called literary industry of Canada gears up for tonight's big, black-tie event: the Giller Prize. The most 'prestigious' of the literary prizes up here, every year the Giller Prize is a spectacle of industry mutual masturbation and the only time that Canadian 'literature' gets any coverage in the mainstream press. And as much as I would like to say that the Giller Prize and its government sponsored counterpart, the Governor General's Award, are self-indulgent well-to-do socialite parties that have little connection with reality, I cannot. The parade of living-dead authors behind and in front of the podium, sadly, very much reflects the Great White Serfdom of the Canadian literary scene.

But before I get into the prizes, I should probably give a primer on the so-called CanLit scene. Like most Canadian industries, artistic or otherwise, the book industry here is dominated by the cultural machine of our southern neighbours. I cannot think of one Canadian populist or genre writer. There are no Stephen Kings or John Grishams, Dean Koonz's or, praise the lord, Nicholas Sparks'. This doesn't mean, unfortunately, that we don't HAVE all these authors. Indeed, the New York Times' best-seller list (wherein a book is recommended simply because everyone else is reading it) has just as much sway north of the border. A swing through the Chapters or Indigo (the Canadian Borders and Barnes and Nobles) will offer up shelves full of mindless corporate fluff. Our trash market, from fast food to movies to pop-lit, is dominated by the US.

This (in connection with our pompous British roots) has allowed the rest of the 'scene' to fester into a literary serfdom whereby a selection of writers deemed to have the proper credentials and training maintain a death grip on artistic publishing. I can easily reel off a list of these authors: Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Alice Munro, Mordecai Richler, Michael Ondaatje… However, outside of MFA programs and the literature social club, I'm willing to bet that very few Canadians have read these authors for 'fun'. The CanLit industry here is primarily inbred whereby writers and literary aficionados (who are most concerned with placing themselves next to the 'right' artists) control, shape and buoy up the industry.

Large Canadian printing houses, for the most part, go along with this. Since they are owned by US corporate presses (Random House, etc…) they have little interest in creating Canadian competition for the fluff their sister companies are sending over the border. Instead, they set their eyes on the market their companies haven't already saturated. Of the six finalists for this year's Giller, four were printed by divisions of Random House, five from corporate houses and all six presses are headquartered in Toronto (a city that desperately wants to be New York and sees itself as the entirety of Canada). Canadians are generally insecure about they're cultural identity and, desperate to support their culture, fall a little too often for plays at cultural superiority, buying what the Canadian contests and 'Canadian' presses encourage. And what about those who aren't interested in reading books that get their literary merit from being inaccessible, being from Toronto or being in tune with the eliterati's inbred, outdated standards? Well, there's always Nicholas Sparks.

Literary Serfdom: Work on the Masters' land, or Not at All

Followers of the ULA are familiar with the literary funnel, where 'good' or 'refined' work filters through and the bad or raw material is discarded. The Canadian literary machine operates in the same way with a collection of organizations, individuals and systems sifting out anything that confronts or threatens the status quo. As an unpublished, 'untrained' Canadian writer you are a serf and if you want to work you have to work on what the eliterati determine is merit worthy.

I took English Honours throughout high school because I was interested in writing. All throughout it I couldn't wait to graduate and get into University where we could dump all this 'cannon' bullshit and get into literature that was actually interesting and relevant to our lives. A semester into my first year I dropped my English class (we're studying Shakespeare and Sophocles…again!?!) to switch to Communications where study was focused on critically analyzing and dissecting the culture we live in. What a concept!

Interested in applying my cultural learning to my writing I went full steam into the publishing game after graduation only to suffer constant rejection. It didn't take me long to become aware that my work was not being rejected because it was bad, but because publishers just weren't interested in accepting what I was writing. Which was funny, because one of the reasons I was submitting was to inject some fresh air into the toxic gas of contemporary literature. Silly me for thinking they might LIKE their bleak, centuries old stuffiness.

I offer up my experience not as an opportunity to bitch, but as an example which I think is entirely, and sadly, unremarkable. Like a lot of journals in the US, Canadian journals are more concerned with their status amongst the eliterati and as 'predictors' of future talent, rather than pushing limits, breaking moulds and finding new voices. Journals constantly boast of the authors they've published who've gone on to be knighted by the reigning Lords of Lit, or about awards they've received from organizations crafted from like-minded sister publications. To stave off criticisms of elitism these publications often claim to work with new authors, however finding a genuinely 'new' author in these publications is rare. Finding a new author who doesn't resemble all the old authors is impossible. To co-opt a phrase: meet the new wave, same as the old wave.

Canadian journals, due to the aforementioned insecurity, claim to skew towards Canadian artists, however, due to the aforementioned insecurity, Canadians also tend to believe that anything made in Canada can't be all that good unless vetted by 'experts'. These journals tend to whore themselves out to international authors and nothing is so juicy a catch as a big name American author. A very common thing to see in Canadian author bios is the number of other languages their works have been translated into: A call to the international eliterati for support to bolster the status quo. Unfortunately, this tends to also place the Canadian industry in the cult of credentials where being vetted or approved by names and institutions is paramount to quality or originality. In fact, quality does not matter as long as approval is given.

Another way journals try to gain credibility as supporting and encouraging authors is through contests. Aside from being merely money generators for the publications to keep them in operation, contests are claims to impartiality because the entrants are (supposedly) judged blind. However, first off, any name author is unlikely to submit to a contest, but more importantly it shows how little the names matter. Any perusal of a contest issue reveals a series of works entirely undifferentiated from the usual crap. It's all pre-determined in the style. What I find fascinating about this particular setup is that these journals get to claim support for new artists while, basically, surviving off of the artists they reject. In other words, these journals lord over an author's acceptance and can do so because of their 'reputation' but are kept in power by the very entrance fees of those whose interests they squash. Fucked.

There is a rather healthy small press industry in Canada, thanks mostly to cultural grants from the government. These presses are most often the ones who take chances on new authors, who are then picked up by the major publication houses. Unfortunately, they tend to produce the same literary drivel due to the fact that they use journal publication, awards and Fine Arts education as criteria for acceptance. Additionally, due to national navel gazing and the fact that their grants come from the government, it seems a major criteria for publication with a local press is 'Canadianism' where the novel is set in some uniquely Canadian setting, makes endless references to Canadian wildlife or landscapes, and touches upon the essential Canadian experience. Being a Canadian author writing about something interesting is not enough.

All the Queen's Robber Barons

Which brings us to grants. Since the early days of cultural invasion from south of the border, the Canadian government has been dolling out grants to help support the survival and availability of Canadian culture. While I personally believe it is important for the public sector to play a role in supporting cultural endeavours, lest they be usurped by foreign products or sunk in the waters of corporate mass production, the granting agencies have little vision, resting their laurels on standards crafted by the same elitist journals and authors funnelled into Lord positions.

According to the Canada Council for the Arts, they support emerging, mid-career and established artists. To apply you must be a 'professional artist' which the CCA defines as: someone who has specialized training in the field (not necessarily in academic institutions), who is recognized as such by her or his peers (artists working in the same artistic tradition), and who has a history of public presentation or publication. Further in the maze of bureau-babble one discovers exactly what this means. One must be a recognized 'professional' [quotes mine] writer who has had:

In other words, unless something has already been vetted on several occasions by corporate presses or the 'established' literary journals mentioned above, an actual emerging writer or new Canadian talent has no hope of getting financial support from the government. The grants council is just as interested in maintaining appearances of supporting 'real' literature as the social club eliterati. Genuine interest in supporting original Canadian talent, developing a genuine Canadian cultural landscape - rather than just endless references to maple leafs, Canada geese or central Canadian landscapes - is not the real goal.

Next throw in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (a meek version of the UK's BBC) which, when not devoting 90% of its airtime to music crafted seven generations ago, proudly states its support of the literary arts. Besides frequent radio plays, which many people have confessed to me bore them to tears, the CBC runs the annual CBC Literary Awards. Three judges reside over this panel open to 'everyone' and submissions cost a mere $20. Two of the three judges for short fiction last year were from Toronto - both deeply entrenched in the university literary stream - (one of whose books, according to her bio, 'explores the possibility of love and faith after the Holocaust, with language marked by power, elegance, and integrity' - are we STILL talking about WWII?) Credit goes to the CBC for making the third person a First Nations (Native Indian), however Mr. Highway is also heavily ensconced in the university stream and even if he were to disagree, the odds are stacked against him.

I don't have the time to go over all of the judges (and you probably don't have the interest) but a mere cursory attempt at research shows how the cards are stacked. The weight falls heavily on central Canadian artists, particularly those who have been moulded through the 'academic' steamrollers. The steep entry fee alone seems suspect for a national literary award funded by tax dollars - one wonders if it is just a gatekeeper to keep out 'undesirable' entries.

Back to the Giller (And the award goes to…lord and lady whozits)

We have just traveled a much abbreviated version of the English Canadian literary death machine. Once all that hard work has been done by the social clubs, eliterati pet-journals and visionless government programs, we are left with the cream of the crop for awards organizations to lavish their well-to-do (tax deductible) generosity and vision upon. It's a win-win situation, really. Lord and lady whozits get to rub noses with the pre-approved artist elites and the artists get to further the implication that their art is so merit worthy that elite wealth and attention is naturally lavished upon them.

The judges of this year's Giller are Charlotte Gray (an Ontario writer previously nominated for the Governor General's award), Alistair McLeod (a professor of English and Creative writing in Windsor, judge of the CBC Literary Awards in 2002 and another resident of Ontario), and MG. Vassanji (an East-Indian Canadian who has won the Giller twice and lives in…wait for it…Ontario.) In the 11 years that the Giller prize has been around only one prize winner has been younger than 50 (Rohinton Mistry at 43 in the first year of the prize) and the average age of everyone following has been sixty. 9 out of the 10 winners have been from Ontario with the other one from Montreal which is still right in the heart of the central Canadian navel gazing cesspool. The prize? $25,000. Of course, by the time I'm writing this paragraph, this year's winner has been announced: And the winner is Alice Munro, 73, for the second time. Good ol' Alice has also won the Governor General's award 3 times. Have they run out of writers to award already?

Previous Giller winners come from that small, but endlessly mentioned, list of 'great' Canadian writers: Mordecai Richler, Michael Ondaatje and, perhaps the most fawned over of Canadian authors, Margaret Atwood - who received her award with an incredibly pompous statement that in one short phrase typifies all her work: 'Prizes are apples of discord'. My question to you is, do you think she prepared her speech beforehand?

Considering the inbred nature of this circus, can we wonder that the general public's interest in reading is greatly diminishing? The Canadian literature spotlight has been robbed by the most incestuous bunch of self-publishers and self-awarders ever known on this soil. The literary scene more and more resembles a bad Hollywood blockbuster summer where 6 movies about asteroids come out within three weeks of each other.

A few days after I write this final paragraph the Governor General's award winner will be announced. Though the government organization has a longer and better track record of awarding a more diverse group of people, the accessibility of the books don't fare much better. Alice Munro is on the list this year as well and of the five books in the final running, 4 are from central Canadian writers.

This year the Giller Prize ran a contest in Canadian libraries inviting people to 'Guess the Giller'. I'd be interested to see how many people even bothered. The upcoming Governor General's awards ceremonies have already jumped off the Giller buzz for a similar fiesta of literary self-aggrandizement, but I can guarantee you that the average Canadian couldn't give a fuck. By the time you're reading this the 2004 prize has mostly likely been announced. You can go check out the winner if you want, but the whole affair is kind of like a hypothetical political race between the world's favourite fascists. Does it really matter who wins?

Notes & Links:

1) For a great example of how out-of-touch established writers are with the real world, please read the 'writing philosophy' of this famous artist, including great clunkers like: "We are likely to be at best Wordsworthian priests of nature, with all the egotistical sublime that entails." http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/bowering/write.htm.

2) I should point out that this article really only covers the English language literature scene in Canada as I can't speak with much (or any) authority on the French scene.

References:

Info in this piece on the Canadian Council for the Arts comes from here: http://www.canadacouncil.ca/writing/ and here: http://www.canadacouncil.ca/grants/writing/ri127227329682968750.htm

Anyone interested in looking at the CBC awards site can go here: http://www.cbc.ca/literaryawards/