From Tolstoy to Joyce, Giller Prize finalists reveal their reading omissions
Posted November 13, 2019 8:41 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
They say all writers are readers first. But even some of Canada’s most gifted wordsmiths can procrastinate on their to-read lists.
The Canadian Press asked the six finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, which will be awarded Monday, to share the tomes that have been collecting dust on their shelves. Their email responses have been edited for clarity.
David Bezmozgis, author of “Immigrant City”
I’ve found that naming the books I haven’t read does not help me or anyone else to read them so I will answer this question by adapting Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer”:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the books I will not read,
Courage to read the books I want,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
Megan Gail Coles, author of “Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club”
“Das Kapital” by Karl Marx to completion and in succession. I’ve read sections of the various volumes over the last two decades as assigned reading for academic and/or scholarly pursuits. I’ve never had the luxury of time and/or resources to thoughtfully and critically engage with all three in succession. Investigating these foundational texts would further inform my political theory and my creative work, which strongly examines modes of production in relation to our shared humanity. It is an ambitious undertaking, I know, but all my undertakings are ambitious until they’re not. Then they just become something else I undertook.
Michael Crummey, author of “The Innocents”
It’s probably fair to say my knowledge of world literature is marred by a number of gaping holes. To be perfectly honest, what I haven’t read of the classics covers a lot more real estate than what I have. But no omission is as glaring as my ignorance of the Russians. Given their influence on English writers over the last 150 years, it seems indefensible to admit I haven’t read much more than “The Brothers Karamazov” (on a week-long trek across the Gobi Desert by train when I was in my twenties) and a handful of Chekhov’s stories.
The writer I keep meaning to get to is Tolstoy, and the book is “Anna Karenina.” Often pointed to as the world’s greatest novel, a solid four star rating on Good Reads, I mean, what is stopping me? That perfect opening line — “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” — should be enough to convince anyone to keep reading. But the truth is I’m a lazy bastard and the 800-plus page count has always made me hesitate. Unless I somehow find myself trapped on another week-long train trek across the Gobi Desert, I expect I will carry this literary regret to my grave.
Alix Ohlin, author of “Dual Citizens”
A book that’s been on my bedside table for a while is “The Three-Body Problem” by Liu Cixin. It’s a Hugo Award-winning science fiction epic about alien invasion set against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution in China, and I think it sounds so fascinating. I just want to clear a week straight to read it — hopefully that will happen sometime soon!
Steven Price, author of “Lampedusa”
“War and Peace” in the new translation. No question. It’s not the size (or size alone) that’s stopping me. I finished a fine biography of Napoleon last year and promised myself I would read the Tolstoy right after and yet somehow it’s still sitting at the top of my pile of books (or the bottom, rather, as it keeps toppling from the weight). I loved “Anna Karenina.” I’m sure I’ll love “War and Peace,” too … some day.
Ian Williams, author of “Reproduction”
I’ll get to James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake” in my fifties. I read “Dubliners” in my teens, “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” in my twenties, “Ulysses” in my thirties. The plan is to rest up in my forties, stretch a little bit, drink some protein shakes, then tackle “Finnegans Wake.” Why not start it now? I’m reading other things, sure, and some books and music require a particular maturity of a reader, and, well, at the moment I’m working my way through season 2 of “Breaking Bad.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2019.
Adina Bresge, The Canadian Press
