What's Next from Yann Martel, and What's Next for Stephen Harper?

By Tom

On April 13, over seven years after he came out of nowhere to win the Booker Prize for what has remained one of the most popular novels of the last decade, Life of Pi, Yann Martel will release his next novel, Beatrice and Virgil. In the meantime, he's put his plans for the new novel through many versions (which you can get a hint of from what seems a very autobiographical opening to the new book, which tells the story of how a bestselling author named Harry had to abandon his great plans for a flip-book version of his new book, one half a novel and the other a nonfiction essay, a plan that Martel himself described to me, and no doubt to many others, for Beatrice and Virgil a couple of years ago). I've just had the chance to begin reading Beatrice and Virgil, and I can report that it is fully in the Martel style: graceful, funny, and provocative, as he embarks on a fictional experiment whose outcome you can't come close to guessing (50 pages in and I still haven't seen any sign of the donkey and monkey I know are coming at some point).

But in the past few years, he's also been fully immersed in another experiment in fiction, a two-person (and apparently one-way) book club he started called What Is Stephen Harper Reading? Starting in April 2007, inspired by the prime minister of Canada's indifference toward the arts and by what Martel sees as the shortage of "stillness" in his busy administrative life, Martel has sent a book to Prime Minister Harper every two weeks, along with a letter explaining his choice (which he also posts to his blog of the same name). He has only received a few replies, all of them form letters sent by Harper's office, and as far as I know no other public acknowledgment from the PM. (The first two years of letters were collected last fall in a book published in Canada under, yes, the same name.)

But now that he's about to embark on a lengthy book tour for Beatrice and Virgil, Martel's going to take a break from his biweekly correspondence. On Monday he posts his last letter for a few months, and he's allowed us to post a sneak peek at it over the weekend. His book choice is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and you can read the full text of his letter here. And as you will see below, Harper's reading schedule will not be neglected while Martel is on the road: he's asked a series of fellow Canadian authors to make their own selections, and write their own letters, while he's gone. Their names, and their choices, will be surprises, beginning on March 15.

Maybe one of them will send Harper a copy of Beatrice and Virgil...

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March 1, 2010

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

The coolest thing happened to me last week. There was a stiff, mid-size envelope in my mailbox. I don't get as much mail as you do, but I do get my fair share (and I don't have any staff to help me with it). So what was this, what request, what demand? I noted that it came from the US. I opened it. Between two pieces of cardboard, a smaller envelope slipped out. On the front, top left, was the return address: The White House, Washington, DC 20500. I was intrigued. Not The White House. I opened the envelope, and there it was, on White House letterhead, a handwritten note from President Obama. I do believe my heart skipped a beat. A week later I'm still gingerly taking the note out to marvel at it. The President of the United States wrote to me"”to me! For sure I'm going to have the note framed. If there was a way of tattooing it on my back, I would. What amazes me is the gratuity of it. As you would know, there is a large measure of calculation in what public figures do. But here, what does he gain? I'm not a US citizen. In no way can I be of help to President Obama. Clearly he did it for personal reasons, as a reader and as a father. And in two lines, what an insightful analysis of Life of Pi. Bless him, bless him.

Not all heads of government are as good. For proof, the book I'm sending you this week, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Joseph Stalin made his people miserable for all of his reign as leader of the Soviet Union, from 1922 to 1953. Or to put it more accurately, whatever good he did was obliterated by the nearly immeasurable evil that came with it. The title of most heinous dictator of the 20th century of course goes to Adolf Hitler, but Hitler burned out quickly, in twelve years, and was atypical of German leadership. Stalin, on the other hand, he lasted, he died an old man while still in power, he was a beacon of steady and stable evil. And while his crimes"”social upheaval, economic catastrophe, massive and systematic human rights violations, widespread famine and poverty"”were worse than those of his predecessors or successors, Russia didn't fare well before him under the Tsars, didn't fare well after him under the Soviet leaders that followed, and isn't faring well under the authoritarian regime now in place. I am reminded of that adage, "Man's inhumanity to Man", but with a variation for this case: "Russians' inhumanity to Russians". It has always puzzled me how the Russians, despite the blazing individual geniuses they have produced in the arts and sciences, have otherwise been such a calamity to themselves (and to the Europeans who had the misfortune of living in the shadow of their empire). What other country has produced a Nobel Peace Prize winner"”Mikhail Gorbachev"”who sought only to liberate his people from themselves? And this, in a country that has never been colonized and whose ills cannot be blamed on others.

There's a paragraph on page 104 of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich that summarises the attitude I'm talking about:

He could barely stand any longer. But he kept on somehow. Shukhov [that is, Ivan Denisovich] had once had a horse like that. He had thought highly of the horse, but had driven it to death. And then they had skinned the hide off him.

He had thought highly of the horse, but had driven it to death"”and with no explanation as to why. It's just what you do. And the "he" mentioned at the start is not another horse but a human being, a fellow prisoner, one whom Ivan Denisovich also thinks highly of and will just as blithely see worked to death. One feels like crying out, Where's the humanity, the benevolence, the compassion? Well, there's precious little of that in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. This short novel tells the story of an ordinary day in the life of an ordinary prisoner in the Gulag, the massive forced labour camp system that was nearly a parallel society in Communist Russia. At most, the roughest of fraternity is fleetingly expressed during moments when fear and want have momentarily abated. At all other times, each prisoner strictly looks out for himself. It makes for appalling living, lucidly documented by Solzhenitsyn, and a searing indictment of what Stalin did to his own people.

I sent you, nearly three years ago now, Animal Farm, by the English writer George Orwell. It's interesting to compare that novel and Ivan Denisovich. Both works cover the same ground, but very differently. The first portrays the evil of Stalinism by means of allegory, the second by means of realism. Which do you prefer?

I need to inform you of a temporary change in our little book club. Up till now, it's just been you and me. But I'm leaving on a four month trip soon, in part to promote my next novel, and I was worried that the logistics of getting a book and a letter to you every two weeks while on tour would be too much of a strain. So I've decided to invite other Canadian writers to join our literary journey. I'm glad about the decision. This is certainly a case of making a virtue of necessity. After all, why should I be alone in making reading suggestions to you? My knowledge of the book world is very limited. Why not plumb the literary depths of other writers?

So your next book and letter, to be delivered to your office in exactly two weeks, on Monday, March 15th, will come from a different Canadian writer. I won't tell you who"”let it be a surprise"”nor do I have any idea what the next book will be. That too will be a surprise.

Yours truly,

Yann Martel

encl: one inscribed paperback

Comments

[Aditya Mookerjee]

I do not read novels, if I do, I read them rarely. I believe, that one need not live in a life of make believe. Those who think a lot, already live in a life of make believe. Why is it, that the average novel reader, finds the experiences of life tedious, and reads the make believe lives of others? Perhaps, this is a sign, that people do not like the lives that they live, if they are interested in other peoples lives.
I prefer to read non fiction, relevant to my ideas, and what I like to think about. I would not like to waste my time in make believe of imaginary lives.

[Caitlin Woodcock]

When I first began reading I loved fantasy. Anything that took me as far away from what I could see out my window as possible. Yet even then there was always something familiar and relatable in what I read.
Since then my tastes have led me to explore literature in its broadest sense. Unless I'm reading fantasy or science fiction I have never encountered a novel that is 'make believe' (and even then nothing is ever entirely make believe). There are countless novels that are perfect snap shots into everyday life, that reveal truths otherwise hidden in the hum-drum of daily routine. In fact sometimes it takes an unfamiliar setting to fully appreciate or understand an important truth about life, real life.
From my experience reading, I have gained a greater understand of the world around me and of myself.
My life is richer for the written word, especially the story. Not to knock non fiction. I have read my fair share and have thoroughly enjoyed myself every time. However variety and diversity is the spice of life and I would not count myself at all well read if I only stuck to one genre or style or author.
Truth can be found in surprising places, sometimes where we least expect it. I would suggest - in an attempt to change your mind - to read The Life of Pi. You may find yourself sitting in a life boat with Richard Parker, completely satisfied with your life, but enjoying yourself immensely.