the bookies

So You Think You Can Talk Bookies? or, the gameshowification of the CBC Books

/ jlevack / 11 Comments

I’m back from New Orleans, and in some ways I wish that I were still there. There’s something so great about vacations — that mindset that allows you to concentrate on vital choices such as “drinking or shopping?” or “garden district or french quarter?” (the correct answer to those questions is “both“, btw).

It was lovely.

And boy did I need it after all of that Canada Reads nonsense. I tell ya, I’m not even sure image lifted from cbc websitethat I want to go to that website any more. I can’t help it though — it lures me, like the brown muddy bayou waters I toured last week — and I keep going back. What do I find there but alligator-infested oily murk more junky pseudo literary stuff like The Bookies? This ill-timed and ill-conceived idea happened while the Canada Reads contest was playing out, and was weirdly complicated. Readers had to make up genres and categories, then they had to offer up suggestions for books to fit in those categories, and then they had to go online and vote…. there was very little real information set out, and it got lost in the shuffle.

That’s too bad, because the books that eventually won were all pretty great, and congratulations to them all, by the way. It’s clear, though, that the whole purpose really is to get people clicking through to the CBC books portal. It has nothing much to do with the books or the authors — I mean, did you see the press release they put out about the winners? Of course you didn’t — there wasn’t one. Did you hear about the prize they sent each author? Of course you didn’t — there wasn’t one.

Readers, however, got the chance to win prizes — prize packs from The King’s Speech, and a Sony Reader. In fact, I clicked a link called “Bookies Contest Winners” thinking I would get to the books that won, and instead found the list of prize pack winners. Sigh.

Hm. Too bad quite a few of those books aren’t even available as e-books. I’m sure, though, that the certificate that the CBC bookclubbers printed off of their MS Word templates will be greatly appreciated by each author.

See, it’s this kind of stuff that I keep coming back to — since when is the author and the book the least important part of this process? It’s just kind of weird to me that they would offer so little to the authors. They thank Penguin for god’s sake, for giving them prizes to give to people who click on their site, but they have nothing for the authors? I don’t mean that each author needs a cheque (though that would be nice), nor do I mean that they have to buy a page of Quill & Quire to advertise (though that would be nice)….  An attempt on their part to even pretend that the works of art were important would be nice. These books’ value does not lie in how well people guess who will win; they represent time and effort and craft. They represent people creating art, right? Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but this tacky approach demeans it all.

Their chirpy-chirp inanity also demeans it. One of the books that won this “prize” was Billie Livingston’s incandescent short story collection Greedy Little Eyes. To announce her win, the bright lights at CBC Bookclub wrote this:

“Billie Livingston’s Greedy Little Eyes should no longer feel greedy for attention! This insightful collection exploring the concepts of normalcy and isolation defeated two Giller-nominated heavyweights to win the Bookie for Best Short Story Collection. What will Billie have her eyes on next?”

Really? What will she have her eyes on next? Do you think they even read the book?

Okay. Maybe I’m nitpicking, but it just feels so… thrown-together. Like an un-thoughtful, buckshee blurb because they needed to write something peppy with the word “eyes” in it. I think I’m going to go read Billie Livingston’s book again, and then I’m going to read a few of her other books, and then I’m going to write about them here in Box 761. She deserves at least that.

However, that’s all sooo last month. Now we have So You Think You Can Talk Books with Shelagh Rogers.

This is, of course, in keeping with the Game-Show-ification of the CBC books portal. This current game show relies on the conceit that a lucky listener will write in and pitch their ability to go on CBC and talk books with Shelagh.

In 200 words you have to make a pitch — a book you love, why you’re the best person to talk about it, and why other Canadians would want to hear about it. A jury goes through the applications, then there’s an audition process, and then they pick the winners. The deadline is 07 March, here’s the link if you’re interested.

I don’t know why, but this depresses me. Maybe they just didn’t sex it up enough — they could have paired each civilian with a writer, and they could compete by talking about books while dancing. Or maybe each writer can be asked to compose a new novel while they’re discussing their work? Do you think they can get the authors to maybe write some more holiday gift guides? Those were great. Maybe they could do a live show online, and the authors of each book being pitched could give their champions piggy back rides while they talk to Shelagh? What do you think?

I really like Shelagh Rogers, and I have always admired her committment to Canadian writing, and her very clearly articulated respect for and love of Canadian writers. I don’t even actually have a problem with the idea of a panel of civilians talking about books. Somehow, though, the marketing campaign for this just smacks of tacky — it feels very much like the same junky game-showy stunt-radio that Canada Reads became.

Ah… is this just post-holiday bitchiness?

Nah. This really looks to me like yet another (albeit slightly classier) attempt to disguise getting the audience to create their own entertainment as some sort of democratic interactivity. I will watch with interest.

761 Words about Canada Reads

/ jlevack / 10 Comments

2011 winner

Hm.

Days Two and Three of Canada Reads have come and gone. Terry Fallis’ book The Best Laid Plans is the winner. That is just about all I’m going to say about that.

I have been heartened in the past days to see so much insightful, funny and honest commentary on Canada Reads… it makes my job that much easier. It felt, for a while, as if were the only one writing about this stuff; I wondered, sometimes, if it wasn’t easier for me to do it because I don’t have a place within the established literary circles, or publishing, or radio… I’m just a blogger, you know? I have no real vested interest except for that which is concerned with being able to live in a culture that respects books and writing, that privileges writers and well… takes this stuff seriously.

I’ll read just about anything and give it a chance. I’m pretty omnivorous when it comes to reading and there’s almost nothing I won’t try to read. Like Debbie Travis, there are some books I just haven’t been able to finish, just couldn’t do it. I only have so much time in

Random shelf in downstairs hallway. No order, definitely no dewey decimal system. They’re arranged whimsically, and I read ’em all. Cherry Ames Dude Ranch Nurse,  please meet Louis Althusser.

my life, and like Nancy Pearl and her Rule of 50, I don’t feel guilty about it. That said, there are very few. Confession: never, ever, was able to finish Old Man and the Sea (10th grade reading assignment). Nor have I managed to finish Eat, Pray, Love (Gah! so bad). I say I’ve read The Brothers Karamazov, but now I can’t actually remember if I finished it. There’s nothing wrong with any of that.

We’re all allowed our personal opinions. That’s cool and I want to keep it that way.

In a contest, though, such as this they have set rules. Criteria that they need to take into account when they judge a piece of writing. Sara Quin said it during the post-game show — that in the end “it’s a job” — they had criteria and she had to work within those rules. I can’t, and won’t, say I agree with her choice, but I like that she worked within the rules of the game and that she took her job seriously. That everyone had a different idea of what those rules were is clear, though, and problematic.

I’ve been getting really caught up in this, so want to take a step back. I don’t want to nit-pick every little bit of this, because (thank god) other people are offering up reportage and play-by-play of what happened yesterday and today. There are some really great blogs out there talking about the competition now, and about the books, and giving their really smart comments and  analysis. Do a tag search, and you’ll find tens of sites, all with interesting fresh things to say about this show.

I’m more interested in a comment that Debbie Travis made in the post-game show, about a conversation she had with Ami McKay. I’m paraphrasing, but she said that Ami told her there’s a “code” of conduct — that authors don’t talk down other author’s books. Jason McBride wrote a great article about this in the December 2010 Quill & Quire. His question was “Is honest criticism possible in the tight-knit world of CanLit, where everybody knows everybody else?” and it’s a good question to ask. It’s pertinent to this space, here, because I know the whole Canada Reads gameplay thing has made it very difficult for people in the literary community. That difficulty trickles down to little wee blogs like Box761 — I can get 300 hits on a posting, and not a single comment. People don’t want to talk about it, not out loud, anyway, and certainly not in public.

Debbie Travis said it herself — that her job was to say what the writers can’t. That said, though, did Debbie or any of the other panelists do that? I think not. It was an exercise in diplomacy, all around. Even when one of the panelists didn’t like a book (or even finish it), their stock phrase was “it didn’t move me” or “it’s not my thing”.  Not a single person there said “the writing wasn’t great, and I wonder how it got into this contest” …. something I’ve wondered about a couple of these books (and no, I’m not going to tell you which ones).

Instead, they latched on to these ridiculous arguments about how x book is better because it will help teenagers read more, or it will encourage more people to go into trades… wtf? Since when is Canada Reads about making teenagers and “semi-illiterates” interested in reading? Since when does that mean we dumb down the entire canon of great literature in Canada? That we privilege “easy reads” over great writing? Argh.

What has bothered me from the very beginning is this sense I get that all of this is just so much filler… something to drive hits to their site.  Someone, somewhere, in the bowels of CBC decided that hits to the site and tweets with the #canadareads hashtag were the indicators of success for this process. The part of this competition that got the least amount of air time was the books themselves. I know what each author thinks is a great gift for christmas, and I know more about what some random Canada Reads “team” thinks of the books than I care to know. I read about the Canada Reads Dinner Party Contest, and what five select bloggers think about Canada Reads blah blah blah. It was incessant, the noise coming from the Canada Reads portal.

What I didn’t see, until day two or three of the actual competition, was anyone really talking about the books. And before you think I’m just snarky for the fun of it, I want to go on record here –it wasn’t all that bad.  On Days 2 and 3 I wasn’t able to listen to it in real time (life intruded), so I was able to have a leisurely stroll through the replays, and it felt almost-kinda-maybe like they were sorta-almost getting to the point where there was some interesting commentary on the books themselves. Jian Ghomeshi was really great (though seems ambitious — is he bucking for a tv show?) and he moderated it ably. He wasn’t great at hiding his biases, but that’s okay. The debaters were — by the end of the competition — doing better at actually discussing the books themselves. In fact, during the post-game show, I found them all to be very appealing and smart. During Day 3’s pre-show live audio feed, they were delightful and real. I liked them by the end of it all.

I am swayed, against my will almost, by the comments in the live chat — people wrote things like “I could barely sleep last night because of anticipation” (weird), and “love the talk about canlit, this is great!” and “I’m going to go out and buy these books”… these are things that I cannot deny. Canada Reads does have a strong influence. All the more reason, though, to take seriously their responsibility toward keeping the tone of it respectful, of not selling out to the lowest common denominator, and of not making a spectacle of themselves just to get hits.

Things like this drive me crazy (from Facebook today):

Just like all 10-year old children, Canada Reads needs to understand that any attention is not good attention.  They could take all of that frenetic social media energy and use it for good. Respectful, author-empowering, calm, informative “edutainment” (shudder. I couldn’t think of another way to say it. Forgive me) that will by its very nature help Canada read more.

This has been a difficult post to write. I despise the frantic, empty,  exclamation mark-happy prattle that they’re serving up. I abhor the Hunger Games-ishness of it all, and find myself wanting to tell the grown ups over at CBC what their kids are doing while they aren’t looking. I find it impossibly frustrating that by all accounts this has been the most “successful” Canada Reads ever — largely because they are gauging that success by counting hits and click-throughs and memberships in the CBC Book Club, etc. I am torn, because while I complain about all of this, I also bought all five books and read them and found myself delighted by a few of them. I saw the chat scrolling down, full of people emailing from all over Canada and beyond… I saw that it was really something that people loved. I don’t really get it, but I’m willing to concede it.

I haven’t been slagging on Canada Reads for all these months for no reason. It’s because I really thought — and still do — that they could be doing it better. That whether they like it or not, the CBC is in the position of great power to shape culture, to further appreciation of writing, and to model respectful behaviour toward those who create that culture that CBC is disseminating.

Next up? The Bookies. Sigh.