As much as the forthcoming Vintage book (o lord, how completely typical) makes me almost lose my breakfast in despair, I will find a way to rejoice if this means the flow of books will stop soon and then Yann can move on to something slightly more useful–like watching paint dry.

This whole thing smacks of a man completely devoid of any ideas of merit. It’s just a shame that Yann gets this publicity which in turn stops him from developing into an author of note rather than a one-hit wonder who excels at self-promotion.

Who’s inside who’s head now? Yann while you can’t figure it out I’d say the PM has reduced you to a babbling fool. It must amuse Harper to watch you fumble with your flaccid member (by that I mean your brain) in a public forum over the meaning of his actions only to come up empty. The PM’s played you like a character out of Kafka musing at the castle gates on a letter written by an official named S. Russell. Seems Yann has learned nothing from the books he’s read.

Just what Canada needs: another prig author toting the Party Line that says reading is an inherently ennobling activity. What amazes me is that anyone buys the idea that if Stephen Harper would just read a few sensitive novels then flowers would grow out of the Canadian soldiers’ guns and free daycares would spontaneously sprout up around the country. Being well read didn’t help Stalin, an accomplished if rather minor Georgian poet, “cultivate stillness,” and the list of well-read dictators and butchers is too long for a blog posting. “Well-read Butchers and Despots” — now there’s a title I’d like to see on the fall Vintage list.

I guess it’s easier to preach than to write a novel.

Well, at least Martel is supporting the book industry by buying a book every two weeks.

If it worked in the Shawshank redemption, it can obviously work in real life…

I’m not sure why promoting reading is being met with such scorn.

Stephen Harper would have been well served to have sat down with Yann Martel about a year ago for a laugh and a photo-op. This only works because he is so humourless (seeming?).

Why didn’t Stephen Harper get in touch with Yann Martel after he received the first few packages?

Maybe the PM of Canada has something better to do than answer to some crank with WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS. If Martel wants to promote reading why doesn’t he write another novel?

Never thought I’d find myself on Harper’s side on ANY issue.

Yann Martel – a derivative writer with no acumen. Way over-rated in many ways than one. Imagine him having the cajoles to tell Harper what to read. Yann should do some reading himself so that he knows what good writing is. Instead of reporting his inane stabs at publicity, everyone should just ignore him.

I say hooray for Yann Martel. Some writers collect butterflies, others send books to politicians. So what? He’s doing something he feels led to do, which is more than I can say for a lot of us. I just don’t see a down side to what he’s doing (but several up sides)… so why all the personal attacks? If you don’t think it’s a good idea to send books to politicians, that’s fine. Move on and quit your whining.

Okay, call me a whiner, but here is an itemized list comprising a chunk of the down side (others may come up with tidbits that I forget):

* unlike butterfly studies, this alleged hobby is a calculated public spectacle being conducted ad nauseam by a feckless fool who obviously thinks he’s being “clever”

* despite the public nature of the stunt, Martel has never—in 2+ years—shown that he operates outside of his small bubble.

* as if coordinated by a grade 11 student (and not a once-bestselling/acclaimed author), said spectacle is operating haughtily (yet also crudely and pathetically) from a firmly entrenched lefty-literatoor perspective, with the intent to “educate” the big, bad philistine people in the PMO. the lamosity of it knows no bounds (and I say this as a largely centre-left person).

* trees are being felled to make Vintage’s ridiculous book.

* those of us who read newspapers/blogs/magazines for interesting arts stories–and not infinitesimal CanLit squabbles–have been subjected to pieces about this puerile stunt for far too long. and it’s a huge waste of journo resources on something that stopped deserving attention around June of 2007.

* none of this has anything to do with promoting reading–it has everything to do with the personalities involved and, thus, stinks to high heaven.

If anyone wants to send me a free book every two weeks, I’m game.

Promoting reading is a fine idea, but that’s not what this is about.

This is about Yann Martel promoting is Yann Martel.

…and it only works because Harper is a humbug.

Either way, this still about Yann Martel promoting Yann Martel.

I beg to differ. Yann Martel did not start out with the idea of promoting himself, he started out with the desire to show the Prime Minister for what he is, a man who cares not at all about culture. Martel has said he did not think the game would go on this long, and I know for a fact that the idea of a book including his choices and his essays about them was proposed to him by many of the people who have been following What Is Stephen Harper Reading?

I am absolutely amazed at the vitriol the book and Martel’s initiative has elicited. Seems to me that Conservatives read criticism of Harper far more carefully than they read book. Too bad.

Mary

I also find the reaction in some of these comments a bit strong, but …

“I know for a fact that the idea of a book including his choices and his essays about them was proposed to him by many of the people who have been following What Is Stephen Harper Reading?”

Mary, the idea may have been proposed to him by some people but there’s no way it wasn’t part of the plan from the beginning. I remember saying so the week he started doing this, and I wasn’t the only one. This was ALWAYS going to be a book and to suggest otherwise is beyond naive. The guy just came off winning the Booker Prize. You think he started doing this blog thing and said, “Hey, I’m getting this crazy idea from some of the feedback I’ve been getting. What if I . . . what if I . . . decided to turn this into a book!” Come on.

Methinks that the point of being a writer is never to beg–seek inclusion; but always to differ. Maray is doing way too much begging and not enough differing when it comes to an inclusion like Martel.

Just a little note: Harper received the highest grade point average in his graduating class in Etobicoke, scoring an A-plus (over 95) in English. He’s highly literate, like many other soulless technocrats who back his and Bush’s brand of neoliberal economics, and he plays the piano. The real naivety here is the belief that an immersion in the liberal/fine arts will somehow cure him of his ideological biases.

I’ll say it again: partaking in reading, writing, music, visual arts, opera, and drama do not make you a better person. Yann’s pollyanna-esque act of self-promotion is a distraction from the real political/economic issues confronting all of us.

Jimmy says: “I’ll say it again: partaking in reading, writing, music, visual arts, opera, and drama do not make you a better person.”

Perhaps not, depending upon how you define “better”, but it does generally make one a more intelligent, open-minded person. That’s why we have education. Just because Stephen Harper managed to get good grades and still turn out to be a git is hardly convincing evidence of the failure of culture to improve humanity.

Paul, show me one historical example of “culture” creating a society of generally “more intelligent, open-minded persons.” I’m all for culture, and I agree that culture has the potential to educate the mind and the senses for the better, but in practice that’s not what happens. Look at Germany between the wars — remarkably high literacy rates, rich local and international cultures, a thriving film industry. What did they produce? The Third Reich. I could give you a hundred more examples from history (Tsarist Russia, British colonialism, Japan before WWII) of highly cultured nations with a ruling class that would make Harper and his bully boys look like a children’s choir. Culture has never stopped a society from perpetrating crimes against humanity. In fact, as many leftist and feminist scholars have argued, culture is just as likely to support, aestheticize and justify those crimes as speak out against them. Culture didn’t stop Ezra Pound from actively supporting the fascist conquest of Europe (again, there are hundreds of examples of artists whose beliefs and actions would horrify the book club set).

Jimmy says: ‘ Paul, show me one historical example of “culture” creating a society of generally “more intelligent, open-minded persons.” ‘

Charles Dickens, writing fiction about the evils of modern industrial society, and his readers acting to improve those conditions.

It all depends on what sort of culture it is – art that glorifies evil is probably not going to improve the world; art that is a force for good may.

Ah, Paul, if it were only all that simple: good writers vs. evil writers, good cultures vs bad cultures, poets vs politicians, roses vs guns. Of course it’s a good thing when an artist challenges the tyrannies of his or her time and mobilizes people to action (Zola would be another example of art working for good). That was never in dispute. The broad point several people have been trying to make is that Martel is exhibiting a myopic naivety particular to Canadian Cultural Workers, which posits that the work they do isn’t good because it’s good art it’s good because it generates this positive force called culture, making art the equivalent of a vitamin supplement. If Harper would just take more of his cultural vitamins he would be a better person. The fact is, NO HE WOULDN’T. He would be a slightly more sophisticated Stephen Harper, more adept at cloaking his neo-liberal economic agenda in culture-friendly jargon, much like Clinton and the Liberals did in the 90s while further eroding the living standards of 70% of the population while 5% got obscenely rich. Hey, but Clinton loved to read and he loved to play the sax and listen to rock music. Hell, he was a Rhodes scholar! It didn’t stop him from doing Wal Mart’s dirty work and cutting welfare rates and sitting on his ass while genocides were committed.

Maybe he just needed MORE culture, or BETTER culture. Maybe….

It’s okay to argue the merits of high culture, but that’s not the issue here. Being able to use the postal service is not high culture. Telling everyone that you are able use the postal service is not high culture.

Martell is a man who’s time came and went. People are finally beginning to realize this. Good luck to him for milking it for all he’s worth.

I love watching paint dry! I’ve also received some reply letters over the years from L.A. Lavell, as I’ve been writing to the PM since 2001. Never heard from the big guy himself, however.

I’m flummoxed at how many Q&Q readers are camped out in neo-con land with our priggish PM, barking at Yann Martell and all things ejumikated. The nasty whining of the PM’s defenders leads me to wonder if some of this noise is the organized work of the web-savvy right. (yes, I am bit paranoid.)

On the other hand, it’s pretty Canadian to see the knives come out when a Canadian writer dares to do something which puts himself into a spotlight not shared by better, smarter, more deserving Canadians. (i.e. lurpers)

I, for one, lament the fact that we were once a people led by a ‘philosopher king’ and now we appear to be a company mismanaged by a heartless, hapless, and none to bright (in spite of getting 95 in English) ‘economist’ who has never had a real job, understood protocol, or learned much empathy from the ‘many books’ he must have read back in high school. I suspect that Martel has similar sadness to see us slide so easily into the banality of Harperville.