From the author of "Life of Pi" comes a literary correspondence — recommendations to Canada’s Prime Minister of great short books that will inspire and delight book lovers and book club readers across our nation.
Every two weeks from April 16th, 2007 to February 28, 2011, Yann Martel mailed Stephen Harper a book along with a letter. These insightful, provocative letters detailed what he hoped the Prime Minister may take from the books — by such writers as Jane Austen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Stephen Galloway — are collected here together. The one-sided correspondence (Mr. Harper’s office only replied seven times) becomes a meditation on reading and writing and the necessity to allow ourselves to expand stillness in our lives, even if we’re not head of government.
Review:
-I found these letters to be presumptive literary snobbery. I believe these letters were not written FOR Stephen Harper even though they were addressed TO Stephen Harper; I believe they were written specifically to be published as a book. This becomes more apparent when Martel sends Harper a copy of the book in which the first 55 letters were published. Martel also published the letters on a now-defunct website (formerly www.whatisstephenharperreading.ca). And Martel wonders why Stephen Harper never replied in person to any of these letters?!
-Almost every letter, I feel, has some sort of slight or subtle insult at the Canadian government. This is more overt in the letters that mention $45 million in cuts to arts funding in 2008. To me, these letters are political whining disguised as literary criticism.
-I enjoyed Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" when I studied it in high school. Of all of the reviews and criticisms I've heard or read about it, Martel's is the first to call it a Christian allegory.
-Sometimes a photograph of a group of people is just a photograph of a group of people and not some intentional representation of a book's title (get over yourself, Martel!)
-Of the 1o7 actual books that were sent to Harper, I have read only 11. Perhaps my reading tastes not aligning with Martel's is also a reason that I did not like the book as much as I was hoping.
-I read this book because I liked Martel's "Life of Pi" and am always looking for interesting reading material. I wanted to finish it because it's a book about books that I may or may not have read. I got 294 pages in (of 426) before I just couldn't take any more of (my perception of?) Martel's tone and I had already been mentally cheering myself on just to keep going. However, I have far too many other books I want to read to bother forcing myself to finish this one.
Read on,
Paula
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