In a pithy 6,500-word essay on the Canadian Notes & Queries website, litblogger Alex Good rips into the 2007 Giller Awards, taking issue with everything from the jury (writers = establishment) to the shortlist (he picks apart all five books for what he sees as their predictable tropes and lazy writing) to the prize itself (which he feels has “failed miserably on all counts”). Throw in some particularly vicious jabs at author M.G. Vassanji (“I don’t see where there’s any room for debating the fact that [Vassanji] can’t write”), and you’ve got all the makings for heated discussion within the CanLit scene… or at least in the blogosphere.
Some highlights:
The Gillers have, in a mere fourteen years, become an institution so incestuous and sclerotic they have their own systemic biases. Of course none of this would matter if the best works of Canadian fiction were being recognized. But they are not. And so one may well question whether the prize is serving any valid purpose at all – indeed, whether it is perhaps now doing more harm than good.
[...]
But for the fact that the [2007] winner was sold to a film production company for development as a television miniseries [...] we would probably have heard the last of any of these books.
For a simple reason: They’re not very good. To briefly re-cap: The winner, Late Nights on Air, is a competently executed addition to the cottage library, but everything about it – from plot, to characters, to the writing itself – is pure formula. Effigy has some of the best writing on the list, but the novel itself is overlong and inert. Ondaatje may only be capable of warm wallows in vague sentimentality like Divisadero now, in which case he should just give up before he embarrasses himself any further. How M. G. Vassanji ever came to be taken seriously as an author is a mystery. A Secret Between Us has its moments, but is a very uneven book without any real focus (the “secret,” and indeed the “us,” are disposed of in the early going). To his credit Poliquin does at least attempt to be funny, though the humour seems to mostly revolve around fart jokes.
Alex Good is great!
The Gillers are run in much the same way that the mating ritual happens on the Bold and the Beautiful: There are nine people. Many of them are related. Each of those nine characters beds down with all of the other eight at some point.
I agree with a lot of Alex Good’s criticisms (with the exception of his assertion that M.G. Vassanji can’t write). Where are the young Canadian writers? Wheres the regional diversity? Why dont they put publishers from some of the smaller presses on the jury? Or how about some librarians? How about some writers from alternative newspapers and magazines? Or some thinkers (not necessarily academics) who have demonstrated some truly interdisciplinary thinking?
My major problem with the Gillers is that its impossible to tell them apart from the GGs, which kind of makes them pointless. The GGs are all about the canon, so why not make the Gillers about writers who arent in the CanLit canon, or at least not yet? Here are some suggestions:
-Dont allow someone to win more than once. If youve won a Giller, you should never be nominated again. It doesnt matter how great your next book is.
-Restrict the prize to lesser-known writers: say, someone who has fewer than five published books, or who has never previously been on the Globe & Mail bestseller list.
-Maybe some affirmative action policies are required, so that at least one or two books on the shortlist have to come from small presses.
-Pick at least one citizen juror who can be chosen from among interested parties who submit some sort of essay describing their experience reading Canadian literature.
-Why not pick a university student rather than an academic? Universities are crammed with English majors who havent yet learned to love pretentious BS over good storytelling.
The Giller, on one level, is a swell party for Jack and his friends. The writers, who rarely say no to acting as props at a rich man’s table, see it as a night to celebrate literature. And so does Jack. Which goes to show you that even fine minds have their limits. Alex Good certainly makes a case against the Giller and its old guard bias. But the Gillers though is not a closed shop. Some misfits do make it into the party. Should it happen more often? You would hope. Good also shows that some editors are not up to the task. How is Vasanji ihelped by the kind of editing he’s received? Clearly some publishers don’t hold themselves to standards of excellence. That’s where Good comes in. It’s the role of critics to hold publishers accountable. We need more of this.
A positive change for the Gillers was the longlist. The best books are inevitably in the longlist…same with the Booker.
Usually I find the Giller choices interesting, but 2008’s list was a letdown.