Canadian literature has evolved, author says

 
In the 1970s, most Canadians couldn’t name more than a handful of home-bred authors, but things have changed, said novelist Nino Ricci.

Ricci, in town on Thursday for a series of lectures and a meet-and-greet at the Brodie Street Public Library, said the country’s self-consciousness about its own literary identity has evolved since the days when Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, Robertson Davies, Morley Callaghan and Mordecai Richeler collectively dominated the Canadian landscape.

"It has changed," said Ricci, 50. "I think probably most people who read with regularity could easily cite 50 Canadian authors of renown.

"I could easily cite two or three hundred off the top of my head who are out there making a name for themselves, writing in very different ways, from very different perspectives, often bringing in backgrounds from countries and really enriching our sense of what it means to be Canadian."

Ricci said the change began in earnest in 1972, when Margaret Atwood published Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, which looked back at 200 years of works produced across the country, beginning a century before Canada officially became a nation.

Ricci said at the time most Canadians weren’t even aware most of the works existed. Atwood’s unearthing sparked a surge within the country, and convinced budding writers they could make it a career and their stories should be told.

"The point that she was making in that book is that a people that is ignorant of itself, and that has no mirror in which to see itself, cannot know itself. And literature really provides that mirror, it really allows us to see ourselves.

"And I think we are at a point now where we have that culture and we have that mirror and we have people and we have that mirror really giving us a vision of really what it means to live in this country and to be formed by this country," Ricci said.

In his latest novel, the Governor General’s Award-wining Origin of Species, Ricci, who also won a Governor General’s Award for his 1990 best-seller Lives of the Saints, presents his version of 1980s Canada, the so-called Me Decade.

At the core of the book is a story of a relationship between the main character, Alex, and a woman named Esther, who suffers from multiple sclerosis. Esther becomes a catalyst for Alex to change his life, as he attempts to overcome a past trauma with no clear view past it.

Behind that the book is an explanation of the ways in which people think of themselves as human beings.

"That’s where Darwin comes in and the theory of evolution. It’s a kind of explanation of how things might look if we shift the lens by which we normally view the human experience and look at ourselves more in terms of evolutionary theory, more as animals living among other animals; or as part of an eco-system in which we are not necessarily the rulers and the dominant force, but just one other force amongst many others," Ricci said.

The acclaim was enough to convince a local book club to include it as one of 10 or so books they’ll discuss in 2010, and to donate 10 copies of the novel to the library’s Book Club in a Bag program. That program has a list of about 85 novels and lends them out one title at a time to members. Those members then have six weeks to read, discuss and return the book.

Patricia Jesseau, a member of the Text in the City book club, said the Origin of Species met all their criteria. First and foremost it was written by a Canadian, it had won a major literary award and word-of-mouth feedback had nothing but good things to say about Ricci’s sixth novel.

After 20 years as a published author, Ricci said it’s still a great feeling to know someone is interested in what you have to say.

"It’s really quite gratifying. It’s what we hope for as writers, that people will respond to our work in that way. As a writer I rely on anonymous support. I rely on people I’ve never met, to pick up a book and feel it speaks to them in some way. And every time that happens and every individual that happens with, it really gives me the boost to carry on as a writer," he said.

Ricci, a Leamington, Ont. native who now lives in Toronto, will deliver his speech, Identity in a Post Identity Era, on Thursday night at the Da Vinci Centre at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.