Editorial

Our unhealthy obsession with the big prize

By Chris Garbutt

By the time this issue gets to you, we will have survived another fall of book launches and literary awards. It really is the silly season for publishers, with many galas among the high-level literati or overly cool events in which young and trendy types pack into the hottest new grotto in the basement of some loft in a former industrial district. I used to be one of those young and trendy types, though I never felt quite trendy enough.

The launches are one thing. Anyone who survives to see a book published deserves a party. These awards events are something else. It's not so much the events as the sheer numbers. As a member of "the media," I get invited to dozens of these events every year. I'm grateful to be kept apprised, but the idea of going to all of them makes me want to run home and hide under the covers.

There's something else, though. The proliferation of literary awards in this country makes me a little uneasy. There are hundreds of prizes for writers out there, some of which are run by magazines as a way of raising money, while others are presented to promote a particular service or product, such as a bookstore or beer. Many of them are altruistic. Witness the oh-so-fabulous Giller Prize, in which the wealthy businessman Jack Rabinovitch put up enough money for an annual $25,000 award in honour of his late wife, who loved and supported Canadian literature. (As lovely a gesture this is, I'm sure Rabinovitch doesn't mind the yearly accolades he gets at the annual black-tie awards ceremony.)

Then there's the latest entry into the "My prize is bigger than your prize" rat race: The Griffin Poetry Prize, introduced at a press conference (to which we were not invited, by the way), by car-parts magnate Scott Griffin and his newly unveiled trustees, who include among their number Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje. A total of $80,000 will be awarded to one or two poets every year, making this the largest single literary prize in the country. Hooray for poetry, my poet friends said when they heard of the announcement.

Hooray indeed. Once a year, one or two poets will actually make what would otherwise be considered a moderate salary for what was probably years of hard work. Hey, I'm not knocking more money for poetry. I'm worried, though, that we're seeing a glut of high-profile prizes for literary achievement, and too few resources going to the development of a strong and diverse literary society.
We're witnessing a burgeoning star system in literary Canada, which is very exciting, but also very shallow. When Atwood and Ondaatje were young writers, they were able to be successful because of generous support and a recognition of the value of literary writing to a national culture. They themselves would not be ashamed to admit that. Today, young writers succeed despite very little assistance, and contracts that, in other professions, would be contrary to slave labour laws. Our stars of today didn't get where they did by winning the big prizes. They got there by being encouraged, financially and politically, to take the time to write. That's the reason they have developed sophisticated voices. Unfortunately, we've come to treat our biggest names in literary fiction like some kind of royalty, bowing before them as if they have a hereditary right to be famous and successful. This was best illustrated when more than a hundred people paid $125 each to hear Atwood read at the home of the president of the University of Toronto. There weren't enough seats, so some people had to kneel at her feet. The photo in the National Post showed Atwood in flowing clothes in a soft padded chair. I could only imagine the earnest desire to touch her robes as she passed.

It makes me feel sorry for her. Her writing is beside the point, now. In literary fiction, it's becoming more and more about image and exclusion. An $80,000 prize does a lot for one poet, but not much for poetry. Give 80 poets $1,000 and I think you'd be amazed at the results. I mean, they usually write poetry for free anyway. Imagine how much more great poetry you would see. We need to stop staring at the stars and put the money where it will do the most: here on the ground. It doesn't make headlines, but it encourages great writing, which is the point of all this. Isn't it?

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