Alice Munro -- She Haunts Us Still

Over at That Shakepearean Rag, Steven Beattie asks if there are any world-class Canadian writers. Looks like the answer is no, and this is not entirely surprising. John Metcalf seems to think that our failure to make our mark on the world stage, compared to England and the United States, is due to our refusal to hurl sufficient invective at our more successful writers. But I think a more likely reason is the fundamental conservatism of Canada's literary culture.

In the Descant slush pile, we get a lot of stories, in the realist mode, about one or more people in deteriorating relationships who observe their environments in minute detail before having an subtle revelation about their circumstances. These stories are usually written by young MFA graduates who paid attention during their workshops, and consequently sound very, very similar. Some writersl try to add some authenticity and colour to their stories by exploring the immigrant condition, but these stories only differ from non-immigrant stories by the presence of immigrants and descriptions of exotic food. And when I'm reading these stories, one name comes to mind: Alice Munro. All of these stories are in the Alice Munro style.

Alice Munro is one of the few Canadian writers who might earn our literature a place on the world stage. In fact, she just won the Man Booker International Prize. She is arguably the best story writer in the English language. I have nothing against her. She has undoubtedly earned her acclaim, but she is an old woman, and why are young writers trying to write like an old woman?

World-class writers innovate. They do things with literature that are unexpected. They break rules. They make rules. Their names become adjectives (Kafkaesque, Joycean, Nabokovian). Where is the literary audacity that could put Canada on the proverbial map? I don't expect these new Canadian writers to spring up fully formed and ready to take over the world, but we don't even find their ambitious failures. Are there no magazines or presses devoting themselves to uncovering these writers? Are there no reviewers willing to champion them? Why not? And how can Canadian literature advance, really advance if we do nothing but rewrite what need not be improved?

Writers, critics, publishers: take chances! Produce interesting failures! Embrace the unconventional! You'll find the most valuable things precisely where nobody is looking.

A Blog Falling in the Forest

I'd hate to be have one of those blogs that gets abandoned after the first post, so for the time being, why not take a look at the magazine that I co-edit (that is, that I read the slushpile for): Descant?

The First Post

I have a blog.  I have a new on-line presence.  I have a place where I can express myself, or perhaps embarrass myself.  Perhaps I should have done this years ago.  Perhaps I should never have done this at all.