Ryerson, Book Publishing, Libido and Plucked Chickens
Literary Tourist in TorontoLet's just say $120 a night doesn't get you much in the way of a hotel room in downtown Toronto these days. Crack-houses - that's what the customer comments make them sound like. So I dialed up Airbnb to find a place - near Ryerson University - and got a lovely one-bedroom apartment for the same money. Clean, quiet, central, just what I needed. Turns out it was less than a block away from the old Maple Leaf Gardens
where my eldest daughter was scheduled to cross the stage the next day, a graduate of this program. This is why I was here; but naturally I'd lined up a few Biblio File interviews to wile away the spare time.The first was at the home of award-winning investigative journalist Elaine Dewar. We talked about her book The Handover (Biblioasis, 2017).
It concerns the increasing concentration in and foreign ownership of Canadian book publishing and how this has choked off writers' options and advances, and readers' choices. More precisely it explores in detail the convoluted and disingenuous sale by Avi Bennett of McClelland & Stewart to Penguin Random House via the University of Toronto, and how millions in government grants and tax credits were purloined along the way. Reads like a detective story and reveals much about how the Canadian establishment works.Listen here to our conversation:After the interview, and a quick perusal of Elaine's artwork, I jumped in a taxi and headed for Le Paradis
where author David Gilmour and I were to dine that evening. It's weird. I was in the taxi, and although I didn't know exactly where I was, at one point the street suddenly seemed familiar. Contact Editions bookshop is located along here somewhere I said to myself. And damned if we didn't pass it about 10 seconds later (on Davenport). Here, some years past, I'd bought a first edition of the first book ever published by Coach House Press, Man in a Window by Wayne Clifford.***David is famous among Biblio File listeners for being the only guest ever to have told the podcast's august host to Fuck Off on-air. His blast was delivered after bridling at my nervy criticism of several of his well-turned similes. It happened during one of the early episodes of the program. You can listen to the fireworks here if you like:We ate outdoors. The evening was warm and pleasant. Save for water, we didn't drink anything. The pepper-steaks arrived as the subject of concentrated ownership surfaced again. More and more award-winning authors, I remarked, are resorting, out of necessity it seems, to working with smaller independent publishers, pretty well all of whom have shallow pockets. Despite caring deeply about giving voice to Canadian-told stories, the advances they can muster are pretty pathetic. This isn't to say however that Canadian authors can't make money with them. It's just that it's not as easy and upfront as it once was with the big boys.Talk turned to literature. I raved about the class of young students I've encountered at Concordia University's Liberal Arts College while sitting in on some Great Books courses (stay tuned for Biblio File interviews with the profs). They, the students, are filled not only with enthusiasm, but also smart questions and answers. It's clear they've actually done the readings. Close readings. I mentioned how lucky I felt to be able to participate (thanks to Director Mark Russell). Then I remembered that David does me one better. He gets paid to teach this stuff every week at the U of T.After some discussion of Plato's contention that it's a blessing not to be cursed with a ravenous libido in older age, we turned-in early, two Autumn chickens. Plucked alouettes.
Actually, it's Sophocles who's credited with the libido remarks in Plato's Republic via Cephalus, who in turn tells Socrates. When asked about love, and if he was still capable of it, Sophocles replies, ‘Hush! if you please: to my great delight I have escaped from it, and it feel as if I have escaped from a frantic and savage master.’ This has also been translated as 'like escaping from bondage to a raging madman;’ and my favourite, 'like being unchained from a lunatic;’ there's also from 'an idiot,' 'a demon.'To be continued...For more information on literary things to do in Toronto click here.