I do wish that all those who put so much energy into deriding mainstays of Canadian Literature would devote their time to celebrating the work they feel deserves celebrating. Instead of writing paragraph after paragraph about how Margaret Laurence and Michael Ondaatje are boring and terrible, tacking on at the end “…when there are so many young and exciting writers like…” and leaving it at that. Would it not be so much more positive and productive to focus on the exciting instead? For these critics to do what they so despair readers refuse to? It could catch on…

Also, Naomi Lakritz is unbelievable.

I believe that Lakritz’ annoyance with CanLit is simply a delayed reaction from her school days. She wants to read books that don’t make her work hard or think about things that are discomfiting. She wants books that are reassuring and have a warm, homespun flavour, like Stuart Mclean or Garrison Keillor. Reading Alice Munro or Carol Shields is more difficult, because these writers look at problematic relationship and women having to start their lives over. Lakritz still resents the high school teachers and English profs from her school days who made her read more difficult things that were supposedly superior, but which she didn’t care for. Having a column in a local newspaper, she has a ready-made platform to vent her pique and display her disregard for literary culture, an attitude which has plenty of supporters in Calgary, a city which one writer (I don’t remember who) commented has trouble appreciating visual art that doesn’t include horses. I’m a Calgarian myself, and I lament this sort of gleeful, Big Rock beer-belching philistinism.

48 percent of adult Canadians can’t read at the grade 10 level (Stats Can).

The poll, if you read the actual details (350+ pages), shows that the ability to name a Canadian author is strongly correlated with age and with completion of post-secondary education.

The poll shows, then, that Canadians who actually read can name Canadian authors. The problem here is not that Canlit is boring, it’s that half the population barely reads at all.

But this hasn’t stopped critics from seizing on the superficial reports of this poll as a hobby horse on which to charge their favourite windmill. How unfortunate that so many critics can’t think critically.

I agree with Lakritz’ comments and I would like to add a few more. A great author (Isaac Bashevis Singer, I believe) said that if publishers don’t publish good fiction, people will stop reading. It’s like seeing a bad movie; you don’t want to waste your time on another dud for a long time. A book is a bigger time commitment. So his comment applies doubly for books. There was the old myth that Canadians don’t read, so we have to pick a few comers and ply them with Canada Council grants and prizes; and, lo and behold, we will have a public that reads. Didn’t happen, did it? People are reading, all right, but are they reading Canadian lit?