stuff n' junk

Ever wonder why things happen? It’s funny; tonight at the Fan Force book club meeting we were discussing Fahrenheit 451 and Crystal came up with an excellent point about political correctness and how the society in the book had gone to such lengths not to offend every little minority that all of society had become bland, tasteless, lifeless. Much like our society today in fact where book publishers are afraid to take chances on something that could turn this fucking world on it’s ear, just so they can publish yet another boring ass book about Sally Everygirl who decides to move from Toronto to Vancouver to get away from her ex and start a new life and all the quirky little blah, blah, blah’s she meets on the way bullshit novel that seems to come out every other week.

Why are hundreds of books like this published every year in Canada? Not because they are any good, or particularly poignant, but because for a long time there appeared to be so many books out there written by men. The reason there were so many men getting published is not because they were all masterpieces (they weren’t) but because MORE MEN WROTE BOOKS THAN WOMEN.

Nowadays more women are getting into the writing game. Are there now more women writers than men? No, but the publishers in an attempt to be Politically Correct have decided they are going to publish more books by women to try to “even up” what they perceive as the “oversights of the past” of which there really were none.

So they are in effect, attempting to re-write history to show some sort of disparity where there was none to begin with. I don’t want to go off on a rant here but like I said to Kent; there is a miasma of Canadian Literary Vomit out there that may seem daunting to try to wade though to find that one tiny jewel of a book.

Is it worth it in the end? Well yes and no. Yes because for every ten Sally-Everygirl-PC-bullshit-boring-ass-tripe-wish-you-could-get-that-time-back-waste-of-paper out there on the shelves, there is the a Not Wanted On The Voyage by Timothy Findley, or a Fresh Girls by Evelyn Lau. And no because, well damn I’ve had to read some real garbage over the years and I want that time back!

Ah, well at least Harry Potter got kids reading again, so that’s a start.

Oh, wait Joanne Rowling is British isn’t she?

. . . oh well.