Sometimes it can be an advantage for a Canadian to be presumed American.
Take this weekend, for example, when the airwaves and front pages here were screaming about Goldman Sachs and the allegedly devious part the financial institution played in the financial meltdown.
If those people muttering into their newspapers at the coffee shop knew I was not one of them, they might want to know what their northern neighbour had to compare to such outrage.
And I’d be forced to confess that the Leader of the Loyal Opposition in my country has just been accused of … fudging his blurbs.
The government benches are supposedly in high dudgeon over Michael Ignatieff’s most recent book appearing in paperback with promos and endorsements on the back that aren’t exactly accurate.
“Plenty of scope for a rich story,” the National Post is recorded as saying about his family memoir, True Patriot Love. “Well-written.”
True enough, it turns out, but the Post apparently didn’t think the “rich story” had been delivered. The newspaper also said there is “little that is new,” that the book “offers up clichés” and, in the end, stands as “a well-written disappointment.”
“Dishonest!” came the cries from the government benches. “Deceitful!”
As for the “comments” section of one of the websites that carried the story, some Canadians think he should resign, some are blaming the Tories for a lame attempt to divert attention from their own scandal (remember Helena Guergis?) and one even forgives him, saying you can hardly expect someone who aspires to be Prime Minister of Canada to admit “I wrote a book that sucks.”
The fact is, book blurbs have been fudged since the first blurb appeared back in 1907: it was actually an illustration of a comely young woman named Belinda Blurb claiming a humorous book was a terrific read. No one recalls the book, but the word “blurb” stuck and eventually even morphed into a verb, “to blurb.”
It is not only Michael Ignatieff paying the price for bad blurbs, most of us do every time we rent a movie that claims “Two thumbs up!” or “Profoundly moving” – when, in fact, the movie never even appeared in theatres.
Movie blurbs, in fact, are considered so suspect that the best ones are spoofs – Monty Python and the Holy Grail claiming it “Makes Ben Hur look like an epic.”
Book blurbs, on the other hand, are supposed to be a little more controlled and, as often as not, come not from any review but from an open solicitation by either the publisher or the author to another author, invariably with a more recognizable name, to give the book a ringing endorsement.
Publishers believe this works; authors aren’t so sure. Some published authors with recognizable names grow so wary of this tactic that they either refuse to answer such requests or else ensure that whatever they respond cannot possibly be used in any matter.
Benjamin Disraeli, who was a novelist as well as prime minister of Great Britain, had a standard reply to manuscripts that came through the mail. “Dear Sir,” he would write back, “I thank you for sending me a copy of your book, which I shall waste no time in reading.”
Groucho Marx somewhat improved on this when he wrote an aspiring author: “From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter – some day I intend reading it.”
They were laughing at Michael Ignatieff over his blurbs this weekend, but I have to confess to a little sympathy for him – even if only as a fellow scribbler.
If I go back 30 years and 40 books – (hmmm, isn’t 1.33 books a year just a bit too much scribbling?) – I come to the first book I ever wrote, a novel on the life and times of painter Tom Thomson. I can still remember vividly the day the first copy arrived in the mail and can still even recall the smell and sound when it was cracked open.
On the jacket was a blurb that the publisher had begged from a name in the business that was just then finding the international fame and fortune that is hers today.
“A fascinating puzzle” – Margaret Atwood.
I recall, just as clearly as the smell of the new book, the sense of wonder as I read that over and over and over.
The book was sort of a mystery, so in a way it was a perfect fit. Highly complimentary, even.
But I always wondered if perhaps the publisher had done some judicial editing on whatever response the famous novelist – who no longer does blurbs, by the way – had sent back.
“That you would think I would have the slightest interest in such a book is a fascinating puzzle.”
“It is nothing short of a fascinating puzzle how this found its way to print.”
“Tom Thomson’s death is indeed a fascinating puzzle – perhaps some day someone will write a good book about it.”
So cut Michael Ignatieff a little slack.
He may, in this instance, be entirely without blame.
