CanLit Pomposity: Will We Ever Get Over Ourselves?

Having been involved in the Canadian literature (or CanLit, as it's often called) scene for many years, I have many Canadian writers, editors, publishers, agents, and actors in my list of Facebook friends. It's an easy way to keep caught up on CanLit happenings, new books hitting bookshelves and new challenges the industry faces. Canadian literature has been recognized as some of the best in the world, winning international awards at an ever-increasing pace. But it is also known for its earnestness (a good thing) and its penchant for taking itself too seriously (a bad thing). Rather than revel in the genre's differences, many in the industry still hold their noses at anything they feel is beneath the lofty pillar they set their own work on.

I have had this nasty predisposition brought home to me several times recently. "Contest season" is always a time when CanLit authors mutter under their breath about the base and common books being showcased while more serious literary tomes are being overlooked by clearly unqualified judges and nominators. When tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake in the major prizes, consternation over the quality of the list can be excused. But when it is simply a readers' list of best novels of the year or the decade, the back-stabbing and snark lends a bitter and petty tone to what would otherwise be a fun way to showcase new books.

Two such lists recently held online reader voting to develop short lists. One of the lists was CBC's Canada Reads Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade. Forty novels were chosen as a long list based on nominations and the list is to be whittled down to the Top 10. I had not even been aware of the contest until a Facebook message from a writer asked me (and all of her other fans) if we would vote for her novel. I reviewed the list, having read about three quarters of the books there and having almost half of them on my bookshelf at this moment. I lamented some very notable novels that were absent from the list, grumbled about a few that had made it, and ultimately voted for my Facebook acquaintance's book as it definitely was one of the strongest on the list.

Within the hour, Facebook messages began appearing from other CanLit writers discussing how unfair and crass it was that writers were asking "their friends" to vote for them. Many other writers "liked" the comments. Somehow, this practice had degraded the entire Canadian literature world and turned it into something like -- a business.

Well, guess what? It is a business. Authors have to do more marketing and promotion than ever before and this is no more true that for fiction writers. To be able to build a large reader following on Facebook is a monumental task in itself. To let readers know about contests and ask for their support makes sense. These are contests meant to take the temperature of the reading public and find out what they like. To suggest that fans and readers would vote for books they hate is ridiculous and petty. There is a reason they are fans and readers- they like the book!

Those writers who decry the populist flavor of these contests would prefer to have their work judged by self-identified literature experts in dusty silent library halls with the goal being proclamations of "Intelligent and bold" rather than "An Awesome Read". In the end, these writers will wither and die, unable to emerge from the 1970's and transform into today's fiction writer: part wordsmith, part advocate, and part salesman. It is upon us, whether we vote for it or not.