Smith and Adderson
In his Globe and Mail column today, Russell Smith has much praise for Caroline Adderson’s short-story collection Pleased to Meet You.
Reading Caroline Adderson’s prose after wading through the leaden, child-pleasing stories of our prize-winners (not mentioning any [Vincent Lam] names) is like being let through the door from the grey Ikea-furnished nursery into a sunlit garden full of adults. One lets out a happy sigh, loosens one’s tie and accepts an intriguing and unusual drink. I could stay in her world all weekend. In fact, I just did.
Adderson, a novelist and storyist from Vancouver, has just published a collection of stories called Pleased to Meet You, and it is my favourite book of the year so far; my favourite Canadian book of the past five.
Now, we at Quillblog like Russell Smith; we’re still waiting for a followup to his last novel, the excellent Muriella Pent. And we know only too well that everyone slips up on the facts once in a while. Furthermore, we agree wholeheartedly with the implicit premise of his latest column, which is that general readers, alas, don’t appreciate well-written short stories.
So when we point out that Pleased to Meet You was not “just published” but actually dates from 2006, we’re not just trying to pull a gotcha. And when we add that Smith moderated Adderson’s appearance at Luminato this week – and therefore discovered this excellent collection, two years after it was released, mainly because of a professional obligation – it’s only to note that this added context would seem to undercut the aforementioned implicit premise of the column. Or maybe support it.
It’s also worth noting that Pleased to Meet You was on the Giller long list that year. Not saying, just saying.
Well said, DM Berry.
I would argue that 2006 is “just published” in the book world. If you can’t ride the (sometimes belated) success of a book for over a year, then you better get on your hamster wheel and churn ‘em out, no?
What’s with the cheap shot at Vincent Lam? A whiff of envy I presume?
SJ: Why is ‘envy’ always the first response one hears when one says that a popular Canadian book isn’t any good (Oryx and Crake, anyone)? I’m envious of Vincent Lam’s success (Iron Maggie’s, too, come to that). Of course I am! That doesn’t mean I have to think it was a good book. It also doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
Yes, except that Mr. Smith is always the first one to assign those motives to others. What was his response to Stephen Henighan? That Henighan “reeks of sour grapes.” The way Mr. Smith does now.
Henighan does reek of sour grapes. He’s also paranoid and more than a little arrogant (the latter assessment comes more from a brief personal correspondence I had with him several years ago than from his published work). Again, not the same as being wrong, and not a valid response to his (or Smith’s) actual arguments. Because Smith is guilty of mistaking a judgement about character for a counter-argument, you’re suddenly excused for the same fault? (Would I be? I’m sure I’ve been guilty of that in past, and it would be nice to be shriven.)
Huh?