Ep 5 – Charlotte Gray’s 2018 Harold Innis Lecture and Less

Lin went to the promisingly titled “Telling Stories in the Age of Historical Amnesia” 2018 Harold Innis Lecture at the University of Toronto, and found it did not live up to the expectations. Charlotte Gray, a highly acclaimed author of historical non-fiction, insisted on the need to understand and critique events in their historical context. We found it troubling when Gray used as an illustrative example the removal of the statue of John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, from in front of the city hall in Victoria, British Columbia.

Margrit raves about the Pulitzer-winning novel Less, by Andrew Sean Greer, that rare kind of book that approaches deep issues, but leaves you feeling joyous and hopeful. A book that manages to embed love within its structure, Less deals with all its characters and their idiosyncrasies not with mocking cruelty but with supreme gentleness.

GIVEAWAY: Open from Friday, November 23, to Friday, December 10, 2018. We are giving away a copy of Less by Andrew Sean Greer. To enter, follow us on Twitter @World_ofStories, and answer our question on Twitter or by email at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com. The winner will be drawn randomly and announced on our podcast on December 21, 2018.

Question of the episode: Have you come across a story that involved difficult topics, perhaps controversial, perhaps ugly, yet it was told in a beautiful and uplifting way?

Join the conversation on Twitter at @World_ofStories or email us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com. 

Transcript

Margrit 0:00
Welcome to World of Stories. I’m Margrit and my pronoun is they.

Lin 0:04
I’m Lin and my pronoun is she. We’re here to talk about diversity in storytelling.

Margrit 0:09
And this week we’re going to start off with a listener comment. Nadia has emailed us about the book Lin brought up last episode called Dating You/Hating You.

Lin 0:18
Thank you so much, Nadia, for emailing us with your comment. And it was such a beautiful comment, Nadia talks about how she is aware that in the society, she possesses masculine traits and that sometimes she gets critiques of her personality and sometimes people say that she can navigate through spaces in a way that’s rough or aggressive, and that she’s had to subconsciously tone herself down so that she doesn’t feel like she’s threatening others and, and how she wants to channel her feminine energy more and become a stronger feminine presence. And this idea of being graceful and how it can sometimes cross into insecurities.

And I totally identify with that, Nadia, I feel the same way. A lot of times, when, especially I’ve had this conversation with my mother, I was just telling M. That she sometimes tells me that the reason I’m not married is because I’m not feminine enough and not graceful enough, and I need to, you know, just like tone myself down and be more gentle with other people and be not so quick to be offended and not so quick to give my opinions about things. And so I totally understand what you’re saying, Nadia, and how it’s so difficult to be myself and to allow ourselves to be who we are, and yet try to live up to society’s definition of what it means to be a woman and what it means to be feminine. And those two things don’t always match up very well.

No, and they’re super oppressive, too, right? They’re so narrow. Yeah, thanks so much Nadia for writing in and commenting because these are exactly the kinds of conversations we want to dip into. There are so many cultural products like books or movies or things like that, that depict certain genders in ways that circumscribe our behaviors, like this rom com we chatted about, and I think today we’re going to shift gears a little bit, and what have you been up to Lin?

Yeah, so, I went to see the 2018 Harold Innis lecture at the University of Toronto. And it’s a talk that was given by Charlotte Gray, who is an author who’s written a lot of historical non-fiction books, I think that they’re called. They’re about historical figures told in like a narrative way. So it’s like, it’s non-fiction. But you know, it’s a narrative.

Margrit 3:17
Right? It’s creative non-fiction.

Lin 3:19
Yes, exactly. And her talk was titled, Telling Stories in the Age of Historical Amnesia. And I was so excited about this title, because I was like, oh, my goodness, she’s going to talk about like, history from underrepresented perspectives and marginalized voices and all that. And that was not what she did. Yes, very disappointing. So let me tell you what she did talk about. Her whole point was that historical stories must be told with the right context, right? And her point was that the stories that we tell ourselves today are not going to be the same stories that future generations tell about us. So she tried to illustrate this with two historical figures, who had both written about the origins of Canada. The first one was Susanna Moodie, and the other one was Harold Innis. And both of these people were white, of Christian backgrounds, of British descent, of like super mainstream perspectives. And so

Margrit 4:24
They’re both very much used in the nation building.. what is the word that I’m looking for… project, the nation building project of Canada. They’re both upheld as sort of founding historical figures or whatever.

Lin 4:41
See, I didn’t even know that because my Canadian history is terrible.

Margrit 4:46
And just talking more from the perspective of like, cultural nation building then, I’m not in any way conversant with Canadian history.

Lin 4:57
Well, anyway, I was just like, okay, it’s fine that, you know, these are two historical figures and they wrote about what they wrote and that’s fine but like I didn’t get how that related to her title at all. And then, she made this comment at the very end of her talk about how in the city of Victoria, which is the capital of British Columbia in Canada. They’ve removed the statue of John A. Macdonald from city hall. And John A. Macdonald, for those of you who don’t know, was the first Prime Minister of Canada. And the reason why they removed his statue was because of the way he contributed to the residential school system, which in Canada was this decades long project to basically like, eradicate Indigenous cultures. They would take Indigenous children away from their families, put them into these schools and basically abuse them and–

Margrit 5:53
Strip them of any cultural markers like hair and language.

Lin 5:56
Yeah, all of that. All of their beliefs and so there was a lot of abuse and assault and like malnourishment, and it was just a terrible, terrible system. And it lasted up until like very, very recently. And so Canada has been going through this process of how do we bring reconciliation with people who have had these terrible experiences. Anyway, so John A. Macdonald’s statue was removed. And then Charlotte Gray’s argument was that she did not agree with the removal of the statue, because residential schools had been around since before Macdonald was Prime Minister and for many decades after he was Prime Minister, and he shouldn’t be blamed for the, you know, whatever impact or contribution he had to the residential school system, because they were just a given undisputed part of the society in which he lived. And so it was her argument, you have to understand In the context of the time, and so like–

Margrit 7:02
So, we hear this argument a lot in historical fiction, where it’s like, oh, people were racist at that time, and therefore, it’s okay to have a book that depicts racism in a non-critical way, because that’s just how people talked about that time.

Lin 7:20
Right. Exactly. And, and, you know, her argument’s like we can’t imbue our current day values onto people in history and the decisions that they made at that time, because they had a different set of values that they were operating under, which I’m like, I don’t know about that argument.

Margrit 7:41
I have many feelings about this. But I’m going to shut up and let you tell us more about this.

Lin 7:46
Yes. So then her sort of like, additional to her argument, is that the city of Victoria’s coat of arms is apparently full of these colonial symbols. And I’m not going to go into it because I don’t remember, but she was explaining how like, all these different parts of the coat of arms were from colonialism, which is, okay, fair. But her point was, well, if people really cared about the negative impacts of colonialism, why hasn’t the coat of arms been changed? Which is a good question to ask, and maybe they should consider changing the coat of arms.

Margrit 8:19
But that’s also a little bit of a red herring, too.

Lin 8:24
Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, I understand what she’s saying that it is easy for us to vilify historical figures based off our current understanding of, of history and how events in history have impacted people. But I that’s like, I don’t know, does that mean that oh, you know, I mean, to go to the extreme right, like everyone always goes to World War Two, and Nazis and the Holocaust and the most extreme examples, and so does that mean that we don’t prosecute people like people who are Nazis, because, oh, that was just the culture that they were in.

Margrit 9:03
Right, who were just quote unquote, following orders.

Lin 9:05
Yeah, exactly.

Margrit 9:06
To me, I have–well, I, I did not attend this talk. And this is the first time that I’ve heard about it from you. And to me, it sounds like it’s a very willful, not misunderstanding, but like, oh, let’s look the other way. Because the process of decolonization is imperfect. And obviously, we can’t, you know, it cannot be done all at the same time, right? And so, why are you taking my idols instead of doing this other thing that you could have been doing? Like? I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t critique since I was not there. It’s just sounds to me like, in very strictly looking at the discipline of history and with the tools of a historian, there’s the danger of missing the point of the fact that decolonization is actually not a metaphor, right? Like that very well known paper, essay says, right? It’s just you need to actively remove from the ground that belongs to Indigenous peoples, symbols of an actual colonizer.

Lin 10:09
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s a so like, there’s a lot of debate these days about statues of historical figures who are like, genuinely terrible people. And they’re like, oh, well, if you remove the statue, you’re erasing history, which is ridiculous. That’s like, you don’t erase history just by removing a statue. You remove the idolizing of that figure by removing the statue, which is the whole point, right? Like, the history is still there.

It’s still what happened. It’s still in textbooks, in museums. The statue isn’t the whole story, like you said. Anyway.

Margrit 10:50
I actually said the statue isn’t the repository of the history.

Lin 10:59
I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. Okay, so anyways, moving on. So Margrit, tell us what you’ve been enjoying recently?

Margrit 11:10
Well, I have been delighting in this book that my friend Eli Lang recommended, and I just, I think I had put a hold on it at the library a while ago. The book is called Less by Andrew Sean Greer. And after starting reading it, I started Googling all the things like I loved this book so much. And then as I go, it won the Pulitzer. And I would say very, very well deserved, because it’s that rare kind of book that approaches deep issues, but leaves you feeling joyful. And it leaves you with hope. It’s the kind of book that takes care of you as a reader, because it deals with its characters and their idiosyncrasies, not with mocking cruelty, but with supreme gentleness.

Lin 11:59
Mm hmm. And that’s so hard, isn’t it?

Margrit 12:04
Oh, it’s such a hard balance, right?

Lin 12:06
It’s so hard. Yeah, really appreciate authors and people who can do that with a really balanced hand.

Margrit 12:15
Right? And it’s not that it’s sort of surface. It’s all very, very deep and it goes. The more you read it, the more you discover the layers that this book has to offer. It’s really a gift. And so the premise is that Arthur Less who is a midlist author cobbles together a globe trotting adventure mostly paid for by various events that he’s been invited to, to avoid his ex’s wedding.

And so, it’s really funny because on the surface, it’s sort of a queering parody of Eat, Pray, Love.

Lin 12:52
Okay. All right.

Margrit 12:53
But it’s, it’s so much deeper than just mere parody of anything really. And so he’s put all of this, all of these invitations together and he’s cobbled himself a trip around the world with various stops in various countries. And I want to read, I want to read a little bit of it because I just want to give people a glimpse into the gentleness, the tenderness that Less, this white middle aged gay guy is, who is a little bit bumbling. Things kind of happened to him. He’s lived a big part of his life under the shadow of his first long-term lover who was a Pulitzer winning poet. So it gives, you know, it gives you that, the other side of those relationships that have, you know, genius. He’s asked at some point, you know, what is it like to live with genius? And, you know, there are so many examples of, so immediately it brought to my mind the relationship between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy. Christopher Isherwood, the well-known writer of The Berlin Journals, that ended up being sort of adapted in The Cabaret Broadway show and movies. And Don Bachardy, his longtime partner, who is a famous painter, and they met when I think Isherwood was 39 and Bachardy was maybe 16 or 18. I can’t remember.

Lin 14:39
Yeah, it was a really big age gap. Yeah.

Margrit 14:43
And so this is very similar. But yeah, so the story focuses on Less and his, he’s very sort of committed to this idea of his own mediocrity. But the book–the narration is another whole other story which makes the book so exceptional and wonderful. And but the narrator just describes him with such tenderness really, that it’s you start really liking him and empathizing him in spite of his efforts to make everyone feel otherwise.

Lin 15:22
Hmm. Okay.

Margrit 15:24
Here he is arrived at a hotel in Italy for a prize ceremony. He was nominated for a prize, which he is sure he will never get. They also already know who got the prize. So is this is the part that I want to read, it says:

Less has for years traveled with a set of rubber bands that he thinks of as his portable gym. The set is multicolored with interchangeable handles and he always imagines when he coils them into his luggage, how toned and fit he will be when he returns. The ambitious routine begins in earnest the first night with dozens of special techniques recommended in the manual, lost long ago in Los Angeles, but remembered in parts. Less wrapping the bands around the legs of beds, columns, rafters and performing what the manual called lumberjacks, trophy and action hero. He ends his workout lacquered in sweat feeling he has beat back another day from time to salt. 50 is further than ever. The second night, he advises himself to let his muscles repair. The third, he remembers the set and begins the routine with half a heart. The thin walls of the room might tremble with a neighbour’s television or the dead bathroom light might depress him or the thought of an unfinished article. Less promises himself a better workout in two days in return for his promise a dollhouse whiskey from the rooms dollhouse bar. And then the set is forgotten, abandoned on the hotel side table, a slain dragon.

This is the end of the excerpt that I wanted to read. I just found it so relatable, right? The promises we make ourselves when we get to travel, that we’ll be better people than we actually are. Right?

Lin 17:24
Yeah, that never happens for me.

Margrit 17:25
Right? That we’ll go to all the museums and will visit the gym and the pool in the hotel.

Lin 17:30
Yeah, no.

Margrit 17:31
That’s always the thing. So it’s just there’s this minuteness to the descriptions that this book has that is really, really wonderful. And I found myself thinking about it in ways that I could describe it. And then I realized that I wanted to sort of have a description that is totalizing in a way because but this book refuses to be sort of summed up. And just personally, I find it so much harder to talk persuasively about stuff that I love. I think we have a much more developed critical vocabulary for things that are problematic. Or maybe that’s just me. Oh no.

Lin 18:06
No, I think it’s for everyone. It’s much easier to criticize than it is to lift up.

Margrit 18:10
Right? Okay, yeah.

Lin 18:14
Maybe that’s human nature, I would even venture to say.

Margrit 18:17
I think we have all these disciplines of, you know, that have embraced critical thinking and taken it to really high levels. And that’s good. That’s what makes us see the problems in society. But yeah, this book. I think, for me, it’s the heart. The difficulty in talking about it is an indication of how little we speak of the things we love. I mean, reviewing culture is alive and well, but this, for me, was absolutely the most romantic book I’ve ever read. It’s a book in which love is basically embedded in the very structure, the craft of it, and I won’t say why. Because I don’t want to spoil it.

But one last thing that I will say about it is that this book is as well written as it is edited. The editing is absolutely sublime. And, like, conspicuous by its absence, which is a cliche, but it’s just there’s not a single scene that’s out of place. There’s not a single sentence or even a word that’s out of place and this whole book. So, I would heartily recommend it. And in fact–

Lin 19:25
Yes Margrit, let us know.

Margrit 19:30
We have decided to do a little bit of a giveaway as a thanks to the warm welcome our podcast has received. And so Lin, do you want to tell us what the details are?

Lin 19:45
Yeah. So we are going to give away the book that M was just reading, Less by Andrew… Andrew Sean Greer. Sorry. I lost his name there for a second. So, how this is going to work is the giveaway is going to be open from Friday, November 23, which is when this podcast goes live, Friday, November 23, 2018. And it’s going to be open until Monday, December 10, 2018. And in order to enter into the giveaway, you can follow us on Twitter @World_ofStories, and then answer our question of the week which we will share with you in just a moment. You can answer on Twitter, or you can email it to us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com. And if you do email it to us just include your Twitter handle in that email so we can match up the Twitter stuff and the email stuff.

So again, follow us on Twitter @World_ofStories and answer our question of the episode. You have from Friday, November 23 to Monday, December 10, 2018. Then we will randomly draw the winner and announce the winner on our podcast that releases on December 21. And the giveaway will be a copy of Less by Andrew Sean Greer. And so let’s share the question of the episode. M, would you like to do that?

Margrit 21:19
Yes. Our question is, have you come across a story that involves difficult topics, perhaps controversial, perhaps ugly, yet it was told in a beautiful and uplifting way. So if you have, do let us know on Twitter or on email. The Twitter handle again is @World_ofStories. And email is worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com and we’d love to hear from you. We can feature your answers on our podcast or not, depending on what you tell us, the instructions that you give us.

But either way, subscribe to our podcasts, wherever you get podcasts, whether it’s on Spotify or iTunes or Google Play. And do come and talk to us because we love conversation as you can see.

Lin 22:10
We do. Thanks for listening. Have a great few weeks. Take care. Bye.