Steven Langdon's Blog: The Write Stuff - Posts Tagged "giller-prize"
Giller 2012
What is the main message of this year’s Giller Prize list?
English Canadian fiction is vibrantly alive and straddling the globe.
While UK literature seems spellbound by its own insular past, and US literature favours introspective agonizing, Canadian writing is confidently tackling worldwide settings and themes -- and doing so with creative panache and literary skill.
All four of the novels in the 2012 Giller list are set partly abroad and partly in Canada, and all four authors handle the foreign settings powerfully. This is especially true for "Ru," the lyrical memoir of Vietnam childhood and exile by Kim Thuy. But in "419," Will Ferguson also writes superbly about Nigeria; Alix Ohlin has a searing segment in "Inside" that is set in Rwanda; and Nancy Richler in "The Imposter Bride" treats eastern Poland and Israel skillfully as well as Montreal and Thunder Bay.
Compare this with the UK, where Hilary Mantel has just been awarded her second Booker Prize for "Bring Up the Bodies," another historical novel about Thomas Cromwell. Or the US, where recent Pulitzer Prize winners have been "Olive Kitteridge," a wonderful probing of a small-town Maine teacher by Elizabeth Strout(2009,) and "Tinkers," Paul Harding’s death-bed dreams of a New England merchant-farmer(2010.) Neither book notices the wider world.
The contrast with Canada’s global perspective is striking.
It is also exciting to see a new generation emerging of Canadian authors. This is a second novel for Alix Ohlin, for instance, who was born in 1972; "Ru" is Kim Thuy’s first novel; Nancy Richler and Will Ferguson have both written more previous novels, but both their books are very special this time. Russell Wangersky’s short story collection "Whirl Away" is also on the 2012 list.
I am very impressed with all five of this year’s books -- unlike previous years, when two or three books were excellent (in my view,) and others less deserving. This high quality, though, makes it more difficult to argue which single book should win!
The Wangersky volume, for instance, is very powerful in its vivid writing about the marginal and excluded in Canadian society -- even if I find it hard to support short stories as the Giller winner. Richler’s novel, too, I find a probing exploration of rejection and its impact even though there are depths of character than I wish had been more fully analyzed.
The three remaining books have all had a powerful impact on me. The novel that is the most emotionally powerful for me, with the most authentic and original voice, is "Ru;" as one horizon merges into another in the writing, and the poetry traps you, this book in the end overwhelms you. For sheer force of story-telling, though, the most dramatic book is "419;" and there is a deeper reality, related to family, to love, to obligation and to honesty, that this book treats -- even if I have some questions about how the perspectives of some of the Nigerian characters are handled. In terms of character development, finally, my preference goes to "Inside;" this novel is well-written, but what matters most about this book is the depth of character shaped and probed, ranging across genders and generations, with rare sensitivity and insight.
From the perspective of Canadian literature, of course, this diverse quality is excellent. In choosing a single winner, though, it creates a dilemma. In the end, I look, above all, for emotional intensity and authenticity in the fiction that I read -- so, for me, my Giller vote would go to Kim Thuy.
English Canadian fiction is vibrantly alive and straddling the globe.
While UK literature seems spellbound by its own insular past, and US literature favours introspective agonizing, Canadian writing is confidently tackling worldwide settings and themes -- and doing so with creative panache and literary skill.
All four of the novels in the 2012 Giller list are set partly abroad and partly in Canada, and all four authors handle the foreign settings powerfully. This is especially true for "Ru," the lyrical memoir of Vietnam childhood and exile by Kim Thuy. But in "419," Will Ferguson also writes superbly about Nigeria; Alix Ohlin has a searing segment in "Inside" that is set in Rwanda; and Nancy Richler in "The Imposter Bride" treats eastern Poland and Israel skillfully as well as Montreal and Thunder Bay.
Compare this with the UK, where Hilary Mantel has just been awarded her second Booker Prize for "Bring Up the Bodies," another historical novel about Thomas Cromwell. Or the US, where recent Pulitzer Prize winners have been "Olive Kitteridge," a wonderful probing of a small-town Maine teacher by Elizabeth Strout(2009,) and "Tinkers," Paul Harding’s death-bed dreams of a New England merchant-farmer(2010.) Neither book notices the wider world.
The contrast with Canada’s global perspective is striking.
It is also exciting to see a new generation emerging of Canadian authors. This is a second novel for Alix Ohlin, for instance, who was born in 1972; "Ru" is Kim Thuy’s first novel; Nancy Richler and Will Ferguson have both written more previous novels, but both their books are very special this time. Russell Wangersky’s short story collection "Whirl Away" is also on the 2012 list.
I am very impressed with all five of this year’s books -- unlike previous years, when two or three books were excellent (in my view,) and others less deserving. This high quality, though, makes it more difficult to argue which single book should win!
The Wangersky volume, for instance, is very powerful in its vivid writing about the marginal and excluded in Canadian society -- even if I find it hard to support short stories as the Giller winner. Richler’s novel, too, I find a probing exploration of rejection and its impact even though there are depths of character than I wish had been more fully analyzed.
The three remaining books have all had a powerful impact on me. The novel that is the most emotionally powerful for me, with the most authentic and original voice, is "Ru;" as one horizon merges into another in the writing, and the poetry traps you, this book in the end overwhelms you. For sheer force of story-telling, though, the most dramatic book is "419;" and there is a deeper reality, related to family, to love, to obligation and to honesty, that this book treats -- even if I have some questions about how the perspectives of some of the Nigerian characters are handled. In terms of character development, finally, my preference goes to "Inside;" this novel is well-written, but what matters most about this book is the depth of character shaped and probed, ranging across genders and generations, with rare sensitivity and insight.
From the perspective of Canadian literature, of course, this diverse quality is excellent. In choosing a single winner, though, it creates a dilemma. In the end, I look, above all, for emotional intensity and authenticity in the fiction that I read -- so, for me, my Giller vote would go to Kim Thuy.
Giller 2013
Each year's Giller Prize gives a signal about emerging directions in Canada's fiction. The 2013 list says our best writing is exploring darker disquieting spaces.
The 2011 and 2012 Giller nominees showed Canadians exploring the world beyond our borders with deep sensitivity and broad themes -- especially in such novels as Edugyan's "Half Blood Blues," Ondaatje's "Cat's Table," and Ferguson's "419." In 2013, it is not so much different geographic space that is the focus (though "The Crooked Maid" is set in Vienna and "Caught" includes scenes in Latin America;) instead, these books occupy unsettling social/psychological territory where crime, violence, murder and child abuse are found. In each book there are also indelible characters trying to maintain their core of personal integrity as they live in this dark world. There are also complex interpersonal relationships playing out in each of the works -- some are sexual, as in several of Coady's best stories in "Hellgoing," some are between siblings as in Bock and in Vyleta, and some are between friends as in "Caught" and "Cataract City." What makes each of these books memorable is the depth and texturing with which character development is achieved, within the context of compelling story-telling.
For me, two of the novels stand out particularly strongly -- Dennis Bock's "Going Home Again," and Craig Davidson's "Cataract City." Both handle relationships with great sensitivity, provide excellent writing and speak to basic human themes of betrayal, retribution and the meaning of home.
Dan Vyleta's "Crooked Maid" does convey powerfully the grim tragedy of wartime and postwar Vienna, with the suffering that its people endured. But its sprawling scope limits for me the insights into characters that it provides. Lisa Moore's "Caught" is also a fine book with a dramatic plot line. But its main characters do not perhaps ever confront the dilemmas in which they are "caught" -- from destroyed relations with a daughter for the lead policeman to broken trust that hurts the ties between the two drug-running friends. Lynn Coady's refreshing short stories are also striking, but too puzzling in their wide diversity to have as much impact as the Giller novels nominated.
Both Bock and Davidson combine for me the insight into character and the authenticity of emotion that count in a novel's excellence, provide a new window on a distinct time or place, and relate powerfully to broader human concerns.
Dennis Bock's novel is a meditation on what home is, what it means, and how important it is to go back to in fundamental social and philosophic terms. The central character, Charlie Bellerose, is facing the destruction of his domestic world in Madrid, returns to his former home of Toronto, then must face the challenge of distance from his loved 12-year old daughter Ava -- and new connections with his older brother who is dealing with his own marital crisis. Bock provides a subtle and introspective excavation of Charlie's life over 25 years, in the framework of building plot tension -- and in a context of sensitive treatment of changing sexual relationships. The result is a fine emotionally-moving book.
"Cataract City" is more plot-driven, compulsive in its tension and suspense, and shaped by the uncertainty of the changing ties amongst its key figures -- especially the two boyhood friends, one of whom (Owen) becomes a policeman while the other (Duncan) tries to escape failing factory employment through crime. Both of these men emerge, though, as fully realized figures, indelible in their personalities and complex in their thoughts and emotions. What is especially striking about the book, beyond its broad human themes of betrayal and retribution, is the grim portrait it provides of a working class under economic pressure in the recent years of manufacturing crisis in central Canada. The greater insecurity of employment and the uncertainties for young people show in a narrative that also reveals how crime can become attractive and violence increase. It would be dramatic to see this novel win the Giller because it would represent a shout-out for help from those communities now the victims of Canada's de-industrializing bias.
Will this happen? Davidson has written a powerful, driving book, impossible to put down, with a gut energy that reaches out and grabs you. I certainly think this is the book that should win, with a searing authenticity and a shining insight into a working-class world that Canadian literature has too often ignored. But will it prove too raw and unconventional a choice? Can we truly expect dog-racing and bare-knuckle boxing to penetrate the posh setting of 2013 Giller Night? This is not a bottom-up vision from somewhere abroad like Nigeria or Germany -- this is the toughness of life in decline in industrial Ontario. Will the judges underline Duncan's drive to change his world? I certainly hope so.
The 2011 and 2012 Giller nominees showed Canadians exploring the world beyond our borders with deep sensitivity and broad themes -- especially in such novels as Edugyan's "Half Blood Blues," Ondaatje's "Cat's Table," and Ferguson's "419." In 2013, it is not so much different geographic space that is the focus (though "The Crooked Maid" is set in Vienna and "Caught" includes scenes in Latin America;) instead, these books occupy unsettling social/psychological territory where crime, violence, murder and child abuse are found. In each book there are also indelible characters trying to maintain their core of personal integrity as they live in this dark world. There are also complex interpersonal relationships playing out in each of the works -- some are sexual, as in several of Coady's best stories in "Hellgoing," some are between siblings as in Bock and in Vyleta, and some are between friends as in "Caught" and "Cataract City." What makes each of these books memorable is the depth and texturing with which character development is achieved, within the context of compelling story-telling.
For me, two of the novels stand out particularly strongly -- Dennis Bock's "Going Home Again," and Craig Davidson's "Cataract City." Both handle relationships with great sensitivity, provide excellent writing and speak to basic human themes of betrayal, retribution and the meaning of home.
Dan Vyleta's "Crooked Maid" does convey powerfully the grim tragedy of wartime and postwar Vienna, with the suffering that its people endured. But its sprawling scope limits for me the insights into characters that it provides. Lisa Moore's "Caught" is also a fine book with a dramatic plot line. But its main characters do not perhaps ever confront the dilemmas in which they are "caught" -- from destroyed relations with a daughter for the lead policeman to broken trust that hurts the ties between the two drug-running friends. Lynn Coady's refreshing short stories are also striking, but too puzzling in their wide diversity to have as much impact as the Giller novels nominated.
Both Bock and Davidson combine for me the insight into character and the authenticity of emotion that count in a novel's excellence, provide a new window on a distinct time or place, and relate powerfully to broader human concerns.
Dennis Bock's novel is a meditation on what home is, what it means, and how important it is to go back to in fundamental social and philosophic terms. The central character, Charlie Bellerose, is facing the destruction of his domestic world in Madrid, returns to his former home of Toronto, then must face the challenge of distance from his loved 12-year old daughter Ava -- and new connections with his older brother who is dealing with his own marital crisis. Bock provides a subtle and introspective excavation of Charlie's life over 25 years, in the framework of building plot tension -- and in a context of sensitive treatment of changing sexual relationships. The result is a fine emotionally-moving book.
"Cataract City" is more plot-driven, compulsive in its tension and suspense, and shaped by the uncertainty of the changing ties amongst its key figures -- especially the two boyhood friends, one of whom (Owen) becomes a policeman while the other (Duncan) tries to escape failing factory employment through crime. Both of these men emerge, though, as fully realized figures, indelible in their personalities and complex in their thoughts and emotions. What is especially striking about the book, beyond its broad human themes of betrayal and retribution, is the grim portrait it provides of a working class under economic pressure in the recent years of manufacturing crisis in central Canada. The greater insecurity of employment and the uncertainties for young people show in a narrative that also reveals how crime can become attractive and violence increase. It would be dramatic to see this novel win the Giller because it would represent a shout-out for help from those communities now the victims of Canada's de-industrializing bias.
Will this happen? Davidson has written a powerful, driving book, impossible to put down, with a gut energy that reaches out and grabs you. I certainly think this is the book that should win, with a searing authenticity and a shining insight into a working-class world that Canadian literature has too often ignored. But will it prove too raw and unconventional a choice? Can we truly expect dog-racing and bare-knuckle boxing to penetrate the posh setting of 2013 Giller Night? This is not a bottom-up vision from somewhere abroad like Nigeria or Germany -- this is the toughness of life in decline in industrial Ontario. Will the judges underline Duncan's drive to change his world? I certainly hope so.
Giller 2014 -- A Hard Choice!
The jury for Canada's 2014 Giller Prize, given to the country's best English fiction book of the year, has already signalled how difficult it has found its decision. Rather than the usual five books on the short list, six novels have been nominated.
I've now finished all six, and the most striking conclusion I've reached is how excellent all the books are. This seems to me the strongest overall list that I have seen in the past ten years. There is a combination of emotional intensity, deep character probing and skilled writing in all these novels that is remarkable. And the social and political relevance of the books is powerful in every case, with insights into mental illness, the abuse of human rights, the devastations of war and terrorism, and the realities of poverty.
This social relevance of the 2014 Giller list may be its must significant characteristic. Padma Viswanathan's "The Ever After of Ashwin Rao" is a dramatic story of the effects of Canada's worst terrorist attack, the 1985 bombing of Air India's flight from Vancouver. Francis Itani's "Tell" probes beautifully the harsh impact of World War One on Canadian soldiers and their families. David Bezmogis' "The Betrayers" dissects the politics and betrayals of both the Soviet Union and Israel. Sean Michaels' "Us Conductors" finds its music amid the grim oppression of Stalin's labour camps as well as New York speakeasies. Heather O'Neill brings alive the poverty of marginalized Montrealers, and ties this to the 1995 Quebec Referendum. Miriam Toews uses a darker shade of her sharp-edged writing to ponder the failures of our treatment of mental health to counter tragic suicide.
There are at least four of these books that I could see as an easy-to-justify Giller winner. Bezmogis brings alive the obscure corners of Yalta and recreates the compelling pressures facing Jews in the Soviet Union in its final years. The examination of betrayal in the novel is multifaceted and complex, presenting what for me is the most sophisticated and thoughtful set of themes in any of these novels. The relationship between the main protagonist, Baruch Kotler, and his much younger lover, Leora, is also probed with an unsentimental authenticity that is compelling.
"Tell" is also a fine book. The account it presents is much more constrained geographically, confined mostly to the small town of Deseronto just by Lake Ontario. A wounded soldier, Kenan Oak, returns from World War One to face the difficult task of readjusting to his marriage and his family -- but on this small canvass a deeply emotional though fundamentally simple story plays out. The relationships that Itani traces interact with intricate subtlety and an intensity that builds powerfully but slowly for the reader.
The emotional intensity in Miriam Toews is much less subtle. She is a writer who has written with vivid humour and sometimes a biting edge in the past, but this book is driven with a much darker sense of tragedy. Again and again, Toews builds some sense of hope for the survival of a suicidal sister in the book, but there is a constant current of pessimism in the writing that prefigures the book's final outcome. This is a novel as catharsis, it seems to me, with an emotional depth and power that are extraordinary. It will be no surprise if Toews wins this year, as she has already won the Rogers' Writers Trust Prize.
Heather O'Neill's novel stands out for me because of the vivid uniqueness of its main character, Nouschka Tremblay, twin daughter of a failing Quebecois folksinger. Nouschka's humour, emotional intensity and love of life, despite poverty and abandonment by her parents, bring a verve and spirit to a story that could appear destined for tragedy. O'Neill writes with a raw audacity that conveys a sense of youth and energy that reflects the populist politics behind the 1995 Quebec Referendum. Interwoven with this is a sentimental story of reconnecting with family and finding your way to a better future -- and a warning against the destructiveness of popular fame.
"The Girl Who Was Saturday Night" would be a controversial choice for the Giller. This is very much a novel rooted in Francophone working-class Montreal, conveying the social deprivation of parts of the city. Nouschka is a separatist, she sleeps around, her twin brother is a petty crook; at the same time, she is vividly alive, taking charge of her own life, and the voice of a young generation. O'Neill conveys her superbly and she (Nouschka) is a rare figure in mainstream Canadian literature. I hope this novel wins the Giller -- I would love to see Nouschka speak to a wider world!
I've now finished all six, and the most striking conclusion I've reached is how excellent all the books are. This seems to me the strongest overall list that I have seen in the past ten years. There is a combination of emotional intensity, deep character probing and skilled writing in all these novels that is remarkable. And the social and political relevance of the books is powerful in every case, with insights into mental illness, the abuse of human rights, the devastations of war and terrorism, and the realities of poverty.
This social relevance of the 2014 Giller list may be its must significant characteristic. Padma Viswanathan's "The Ever After of Ashwin Rao" is a dramatic story of the effects of Canada's worst terrorist attack, the 1985 bombing of Air India's flight from Vancouver. Francis Itani's "Tell" probes beautifully the harsh impact of World War One on Canadian soldiers and their families. David Bezmogis' "The Betrayers" dissects the politics and betrayals of both the Soviet Union and Israel. Sean Michaels' "Us Conductors" finds its music amid the grim oppression of Stalin's labour camps as well as New York speakeasies. Heather O'Neill brings alive the poverty of marginalized Montrealers, and ties this to the 1995 Quebec Referendum. Miriam Toews uses a darker shade of her sharp-edged writing to ponder the failures of our treatment of mental health to counter tragic suicide.
There are at least four of these books that I could see as an easy-to-justify Giller winner. Bezmogis brings alive the obscure corners of Yalta and recreates the compelling pressures facing Jews in the Soviet Union in its final years. The examination of betrayal in the novel is multifaceted and complex, presenting what for me is the most sophisticated and thoughtful set of themes in any of these novels. The relationship between the main protagonist, Baruch Kotler, and his much younger lover, Leora, is also probed with an unsentimental authenticity that is compelling.
"Tell" is also a fine book. The account it presents is much more constrained geographically, confined mostly to the small town of Deseronto just by Lake Ontario. A wounded soldier, Kenan Oak, returns from World War One to face the difficult task of readjusting to his marriage and his family -- but on this small canvass a deeply emotional though fundamentally simple story plays out. The relationships that Itani traces interact with intricate subtlety and an intensity that builds powerfully but slowly for the reader.
The emotional intensity in Miriam Toews is much less subtle. She is a writer who has written with vivid humour and sometimes a biting edge in the past, but this book is driven with a much darker sense of tragedy. Again and again, Toews builds some sense of hope for the survival of a suicidal sister in the book, but there is a constant current of pessimism in the writing that prefigures the book's final outcome. This is a novel as catharsis, it seems to me, with an emotional depth and power that are extraordinary. It will be no surprise if Toews wins this year, as she has already won the Rogers' Writers Trust Prize.
Heather O'Neill's novel stands out for me because of the vivid uniqueness of its main character, Nouschka Tremblay, twin daughter of a failing Quebecois folksinger. Nouschka's humour, emotional intensity and love of life, despite poverty and abandonment by her parents, bring a verve and spirit to a story that could appear destined for tragedy. O'Neill writes with a raw audacity that conveys a sense of youth and energy that reflects the populist politics behind the 1995 Quebec Referendum. Interwoven with this is a sentimental story of reconnecting with family and finding your way to a better future -- and a warning against the destructiveness of popular fame.
"The Girl Who Was Saturday Night" would be a controversial choice for the Giller. This is very much a novel rooted in Francophone working-class Montreal, conveying the social deprivation of parts of the city. Nouschka is a separatist, she sleeps around, her twin brother is a petty crook; at the same time, she is vividly alive, taking charge of her own life, and the voice of a young generation. O'Neill conveys her superbly and she (Nouschka) is a rare figure in mainstream Canadian literature. I hope this novel wins the Giller -- I would love to see Nouschka speak to a wider world!
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