It's Just a List

Fri May 7 16:06:25 EDT 1999

Forgive me going waaaaay off topic for a moment.

This may be where I differ from many of you. I have read six or so of
Oprah's books, and I very much liked them. (She's Come Undone, Angela's
Ashes, Beloved and Black and Blue still stick in my head).

And, one of the reasons I do read something on a best-seller list from time
to time is because I very much want to be (particularly as a journalist) on
top of what people are thinking, reading, talking about and...dreaming. When
I writer a review, I use these touchstones to communicate with my readers.

This is not to say I dive into mass culture; but I certainly don't shy away
from it.

Gaetan

----------
>From: Eric Woolfe <ewoolfe at CMRRA.CA>
>To: CANDRAMA at LISTSERV.UNB.CA
>Subject: Re: It's Just a List
>Date: Fri, May 7, 1999, 3:27 PM
>

> Dear Denis,
> Other than calling me condescending, I'm not sure where we disagree?
> I too steer away from Oprah's Picks when I'm browsing through a bookstore. So
> what? I agree that individual tastes and aesthetic choices are based on many
> diverse factors. Who said otherwise?
> All I'm saying is that the public at large is unaware of it's national
theatre.
> I agree that something is not necessarily good because it is Canadian.
However,
> as some one who makes a living in Canadian theatre, I would like to see more
> bums in the seats. It seems only logical that higher public awareness will
lead
> to higher public interest. I think Gaetan's much maligned list is a fine tool
> towards that end. Period.
>                          -E
>
>
>
>
> Denis Salter <CYWS at MUSICA.MCGILL.CA> on 07.05.99 02:06:16 Sigh
>
> To:   Eric Woolfe/CMRRA at CMRRA
> cc:   candrama at listserv.unb.ca
> Subject:  Re: It's Just a List
>
>
>
>
> Dear Eric and others,
>
> I think that you are (condescendingly, if only unwitting) under-
> estimating the public. The public regularly makes choices about
> which plays, operas, ballets, museums, galleries they will take
> in.  I refuse to think these are uninformed choices. I refuse to
> believe, since I see no evidence for it, that the public has so
> naturalised its aesthetic values -- or had its aesthetic values
> so naturalised -- that it isn't aware, at some level of self-
> recognition, why they like something, why they like only part
> of something, why they don't like something and so on and so on.
>
> You suggest someone might stumble across a volume of Canuck plays or
> a Canuck novel or a collection of Canuck stories. No doubt this
> is how things happen. I am a book addict.  When I go to bookstores,
> I look for specific books, I browse, I have a coffee and read
> parts of several books, and, often, I find new books that I didn't
> even known had been published which, as it turns out, I really want
> to read. Nationalism, Ten Top Forties Lists--yes, probably,
> maybe, though I am not entirely sure about this, they 'influence'
> my 'naturalised' tastes; sometimes, on the contrary, I won't even
> LOOK at books because they are on somebody's IMPORTANT list.
> In brief, what I am saying, is that reading books, seeing plays,
> and so on and so on, are a function of multifactorial issues,
> all them from acquired/innate, recently learned, and non-essentialised
> aesthetic values, to whether or not I can afford the time, afford
> the ticket, and book a babysitter.
>
> Final point: why should a play be deemed important because it's
> a Canadian play?  That is not the way or why I read a play, see
> a play, or direct a play. "Canadian," as Richard Plant suggests,
> is a category, a box, a boundary.  If you want that particular
> boundary or whatever, enjoy it.   If you don't want that articular
> boundary to dictate your choices, become aware of the whys and
> wherefores of autre ways to choose.
>
> I think that Ten Best Lists are a good idea. If you are a curmudgeonly
> type, as I am, you will probably do anything, short of building
> a pipe bomb, not to see, read, glance at even one of the books
> listed. You've made a choice and you know why: you are a curmudgeon.
> And you go elsewhere. These lists, however,do much to expose the values
> that a given community shares.  One of the, perhaps only, interesting
> parts of the Gazette is its Saturday list of the favourite non-fiction
> and non-fiction.  The choice and ranking are based on a survey of
> various Mtl. bookstores and how many of each title has been sold.
> The English list and the French list, side by side, are indeed two
> solitudes (as McLennan really meant the term, taken from Rilke). That
> is, there is the possibility of difference and of crossovers.
> Maybe the crossovers have become 'natural' to those who read both
> languages with facility. What, I wonder, are the *non-arbitrary*
> values that form the English list and that form the French list?
> Maybe a gifted, smart, articulate, and impassioned critic like
> Mark Abley would be able to tell us.
>
> A la prochaine,
>
> Denis.
>
>
> Denis Salter
> Department of English
> McGill University
> 853 Sherbrooke Street West
> Montreal, Quebec
> H3A 2T6
> (514) 487 7309
> E-Mail  CYWS at MUSICA.MCGILL.CA
>