Thursday, November 12, 2009 9:56 AM
A modest proposal
Kudos to Linden MacIntyre for pulling off what was at least a mild upset at Tuesday night's Giller Prize extravaganza. And his acceptance speech was lucid and magnanimous. So magnanimous, in fact, that I'm going to make a suggestion.
MacIntyre as much as said that all five finalists (the others being Annabel Lyon, Colin McAdam, Kim Echlin and Anne Michaels) were equally deserving of the prize. Well, then, how about sharing the largesse? MacIntyre may be nearing retirement age, but he, so far as I can tell, is the only short-listee with a permanent job. That $50,000 might be a nice nest-featherer, but it would be a spectacularly generous gesture to share it with the others, for each of whom $10,000 would be a windfall. (Yes, I know that Colin McAdam found a twonie on the floor Tuesday night, but that's rather a pallid consolation prize.)
Of course, I'm not sure I would do it. Draw what conclusions you may from that admission.
