by Yann Martel
Yours truly,
Yann Martel
CAROL SHIELDS (1935–2003) was an American-Canadian poet, novelist, professor and critic. Her works include ten novels and two collections of short stories. During her literary career, Shields was a professor at the University of Ottawa, the University of British Columbia, the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg, where she also served as chancellor. She is best remembered for her highly acclaimed novel The Stone Diaries, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award. Her biography of Jane Austen won the Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction.
BOOK 51:
JULIUS CAESAR
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
March 16, 2009
To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
S.O.S. (Save Our Shakespeare),
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel
Dear Mr. Harper,
Yesterday was the Ides of March, and so Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. There is nothing sacred in or about Shakespeare, but one can lose and find oneself in his work the way one can lose and find oneself in the Bible. Both are full worlds, one secular, the other religious, and both have spawned generations of readers and scholars who can quote chapter and verse from any given book or play. If one were on a desert island with only the Bible or the complete works of Shakespeare, one would do all right. If one had both, one would do well.
There is everything in Shakespeare (including dullness in the history plays). The English language and the nature of drama were still on the anvil in the smithy when Shakespeare was around, which was between the years 1564 and 1616, and the formative beatings of his hammer mark to this day the English language, theatre, and our view of the world. To give you just two small examples: in Act I, towards the end of Scene II, Cassius asks Casca if Cicero had anything to say about Caesar fainting. Cicero did, but in Greek. Casca deadpans, “It was Greek to me.” Later, in Act III, Scene I, Caesar is making clear that his will is firm and that he is not easily put off his course. He is, he says, “constant as the northern star.” These are but two of the many expressions that Shakespeare brought to the language he was working in. He brought more than that, of course. His plays, besides being vivid and dramatic, overflow with insights into the human condition. The adjective “Shakespearean” is a broad one. If that single man was a spring, we now all live in his delta.
Julius Caesar is a play about politics, more specifically about power. The potential power of one individual, the power of tradition, the power of principles, the power of persuasion, the power of the masses—all these powers clash in the play, to deadly effect. Shakespeare takes no sides. His play is a tragedy, but it is not only Caesar’s tragedy. It is also the tragedy of Brutus and Cassius, of Portia and Calpurnia, of Cinna the Poet, of Rome itself.
Since Julius Caesar is about power and politics, we might as well talk about power and politics. Let me discuss concerns I have with two decisions your government recently announced.
My first concern is about the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. New money allocated to the Council is apparently to be spent exclusively on “business-related degrees.” Don’t you feel that there’s a measure of contradiction between the libertarian, small-government ideals of your party and telling an arm’s-length body how to spend its money? Aren’t you making government bigger and more intrusive by doing so? But that’s an aside. More troubling is the denaturing of SSHRC’s role. I’ve never understood why public universities, funded by the taxpayer, should necessarily have business departments. Is making money really an academic discipline? Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing shameful about money, or the making of it, but we’re losing sight of the purpose of a university if we think it’s the place to churn out MBAs. A university is the repository and crucible of a society, the place where it studies itself. It is the brain of a society. It is not the wallet. Businesses come and go. Shakespeare doesn’t. A university builds minds and souls. A business employs. The world would be a better place if rather than having business types infiltrating universities, we had Shakespeare types infiltrating businesses. I imagine this line of argument is falling on your deaf ear. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood. To paraphrase Antony speaking of Brutus, you are an honourable man and you must know what you’re doing.
My second concern is the announcement by the Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore that funding from the new Canadian Periodical Fund might be restricted to those magazines that have a circulation greater than five thousand. That will pretty well kill off every single arts and literary magazine in Canada. “Good thing,” you might be thinking. “Elitist little rags, who needs them?” Well, we all need them, because good things start small. I’ll give you just one example: my own. I was first published by the Malahat Review, which comes out of Victoria, B.C. Their early support, when I was in my twenties, galvanized me. It made me want to write more and to write better. It’s because I was published in the Malahat that I won my first literary award, that I met my literary agent, that I came to the attention of Toronto publishers. The Malahat is where I was born as a writer. If it goes, so does the next generation of writers and poets. But perhaps I’ve misunderstood. You are an honourable man and you must know what you’re doing.
Turning SSHRC into an MBA funding agency and eliminating arts and literary magazines are incomprehensible measures to me. The sums involved are so small relatively, yet the purposes they serve so important. Is it really your aim to transform Canada into a post-literate society? As it is, many young people are post-historical and post-religious. If literacy is the next pillar to go, what will be left of our identity? But perhaps I’ve misunderstood. You are an honourable man and you must know what you’re doing.
In Act III, Scene 3 of Caesar, you will meet Cinna the Poet. He is torn to pieces by the rabble, who mistake him for another Cinna, one of the conspirators. That is not the Canadian way. Here in Canada, at this time, it is the Canadian government that is attacking Cinna the Poet. But perhaps I’ve misunderstood. You are an honourable man and you must know what you’re doing.
Yours truly,
Yann Martel
REPLY:
May 1, 2009
Dear Mr. Martel,
On behalf of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence regarding the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Periodical Fund. I would also like to thank you for the enclosure of Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare.
Please be assured that your comments have been given careful consideration. I have taken the liberty of forwarding copies of your correspondence to the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, and the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, so that they may be made aware of your concerns.
Once again, thank you for writing the Prime Minister.
Yours sincerely,
S. Russell
Executive Correspondence Officer
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616) wrote plays and poems.
BOOK 52:
BURNING ICE: ART & CLIMATE CHANGE
A COLLABORATION ORGANIZED
BY DAVID BUCKLAND
AND THE CAPE FAREWELL FOUNDATION
March 30, 2009
To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
A book on a hot topic,
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel
Dear Mr. Harper,
I had never heard of Cape Farewell, a British NGO, until an e-mail from them popped into my inbox. They were inviting me, thanks to funding by the Musagetes Foundation here in Canada, on a trip they were organizing to Peru. To explain their organization and its objectives, they offered to send me a book and a DVD. I was intrigued and so accepted. What did I have to lose? A few days later, said book and DVD arrived in the m
ail. I read the book, watched the DVD, checked out their website (www.capefarewell.com) and promptly wrote to Cape Farewell to accept their invitation.
Many people were first introduced to climate change by An Inconvenient Truth, the movie based on the touring presentation by Al Gore. Cape Farewell’s mission is to move beyond that initial awareness and orchestrate a cultural response to climate change. To do that, they organize expeditions to the frontiers of climate change, those hot spots (literally) where the change is most apparent. Scientists are there too, doing their research, and so artists can see both climate change’s theatre and some of its actors. The artists are then invited to respond, to become actors themselves. The DVD Art from a Changing Arctic documents the first three Cape Farewell expeditions to Svalbard, while Burning Ice records some of the responses by the artists.
It’s a varied book, as you’ll see. There is visual art, both photographic, pictorial and sculptural, there are essays, both scientific, giving a good recap about climate change, and personal, relating the reactions of individuals to that change. Burning Ice came out in 2006 and it’s already out of date. In one essay, a scientist states that by 2050 there will be no more summer ice in the Arctic. Scientists are now predicting such a disappearance by 2013. Only three years on and matters have already gotten worse. It’s easy to fall into pessimism when contemplating climate change. “Such a global calamity—what can I do?” The great quality of Burning Ice is that it shows what can be done: one can respond. Of course, a painting, a photograph, a string of words won’t save the planet. But it’s the beginning of coming to grips with the issue. Climate change on its own is an impersonal force, deeply disempowering. Art inspired by climate change, because the making of art is personally involving, a whole-person activity, is empowering, both for the maker and the spectator.
As I flipped through the pages of Burning Ice, gazing at the artwork, reading the essays, I marvelled and I was distressed: an odd mixture, but a step up from simply feeling distress. Whether the art that Cape Farewell generates, to be seen in books and exhibitions, turns out to be elegiac, a farewell to our planet, or the beginning of real change in the way we live, will only be seen in years to come. But one thing is certain: our response to climate change cannot be purely political. Politicians have been dragging their feet—you among them—because of the power of the carbon-fuel industrial complex. It is citizens who must move first, and art is an ideal way to help them do that. Art wrestles with its subject matter on a level that the individual, the man, woman, teenager and child on the street, can engage with and react to. Once citizens are involved in the vital issue of climate change, politicians will have to follow their lead.
You might as well get ahead of the wave. I hope you are both moved and alarmed by Burning Ice.
Yours truly,
Yann Martel
REPLY:
June 24, 2009
Dear Mr. Martel:
On behalf of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence of March 30, which provided a copy of the book Burning Ice: Art & Climate Change.
Thank you for providing this material to the Prime Minister. Your courtesy in bringing this information to his attention is appreciated.
Yours sincerely,
P. Monteith
Executive Correspondence Officer
DAVID BUCKLAND is a British artist specializing in photography, portraiture, and set and costume design for theatrical productions. Many of his works have been exhibited in major galleries around the world, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Buckland is also the founder of the Cape Farewell Project, a community of artists, scientists and communicators committed to raising cultural awareness through artistic response to climate change.
BOOKS 53 AND 54:
LOUIS RIEL
BY CHESTER BROWN
AND
THE SAILOR WHO FELL FROM GRACE
WITH THE SEA
BY YUKIO MISHIMA
Translated from the Japanese by John Nathan
April 13, 2009
for Louis Riel
To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
A graphic novel on a key episode
in Canadian history,
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel
for The Sailor Who Fell from
Grace with the Sea
To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
A graphic novel of a different kind,
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel
Dear Mr. Harper,
When I started sending you books, I said they would be books that would “inspire stillness.” A book is a marvellous tool—in fact, a unique tool—to increase one’s depth of reflection, to help one think and feel. It takes a long time and great effort to write a good book, whether of fiction or non-fiction. It’s not only the preliminary research; there are also the weeks and months of thinking. When asked how long it took them to write a book, I’ve heard writers say, “My whole life.” I know what they mean by that. Their entire being went into the writing of that book, and the few years it actually took to get it down on the page were only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It’s not surprising that such a lengthy process, akin to the maturing of a good wine, should yield a rich product worthy of careful consideration.
But the stillness that books can induce does not mean they are peaceable. Stillness is not the same thing as tranquility. You might have noticed that a few weeks ago with Julius Caesar. There’s hardly any peace and tranquility in that play, yet it is thought-provoking nonetheless, isn’t it?
That stillness out of turmoil continues with the two books I am sending you this week. I’m sure you are familiar with the tragic saga of Louis Riel. The English hated him, the French loved him. Of course, I don’t mean the English and French of Europe when I say that. I mean the people from that nation that materialized north of the United States. The English and Irish and Scottish of Ontario were newly calling themselves Canadians, while the French-speaking Métis of the Red River Settlement were not. In one man, the tensions and resentments of a new nation were symbolized. It was a complicated mess whose effects are felt to this day. Would the Parti Québécois have been elected in 1976 had Louis Riel and the Red River Métis been treated more fairly by Ottawa? Or would that have led Ontarians to elect an “Ontario Party” advocating union with the United States? What is clear—and you must surely know this from your own personal experience in politics—is that once prejudice and bad faith are entrenched among a people, it’s very hard to get them to get along.
Louis Riel, by the Canadian graphic artist Chester Brown, is a serious work that tells a serious story in a thoughtful and evocative manner. The drawings are compelling and the storytelling is both gripping and subtle. Louis Riel comes across as he likely was: a strange and charismatic man, religiously crazy at times but also genuinely concerned about the fate of his Métis people.
The description “strange and charismatic” could also be applied to the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima (1925–1970). If Riel was religiously crazy, then Mishima was aesthetically crazy. You might have heard about how Mishima died. He’s as well known for his death as he is for his writings. The life of an author should not normally be conflated with his work, but a healthy writer who, at the age of forty-five and at the height of his fame, commits suicide by ritual disembowelment and beheading—what is popularly called harakiri—after taking over a military base and exhorting the army of his country to overthrow the government, cannot but attract attention for reasons other than his books. In this case, life and work are intimately linked. Mishima’s end had less to do with politics and restoring Japan to a supposed former glory than with personal notions he had about death and beauty. He was obsessed by death and beauty. The characters in his novel
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea—Fusako, the mother; Noboru, her son; and Ryuji, the sailor—demonstrate this. They are exquisitely realized. One gets a sense of them not only in their physical being but in their inner makeup too. All are, in their different ways, beautiful. And yet their story is riven by violence and death. I won’t say anything more.
I’ll confess that when I first read The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea in my early twenties, I hated it because I loved it. It and Knut Hamsun’s Hunger are the only masterpieces I’ve read with the breathless feeling that I possibly could have written them myself. Those two stories were in me, I felt, but a Japanese writer and a Norwegian writer got to them before I could.
I should explain why I am sending you two books this week. I’m off on a holiday and don’t want to worry about books being lost in the mail. So these are your April books, Louis Riel for April 13 and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea for April 27.
How curious and unrelated they seem. I doubt Mishima had ever heard of Louis Riel, and there’s nothing in Louis Riel to make me think that Chester Brown is an admirer of Mishima. But I’ve always liked that about books, how they can be so different from each other and yet rest together without strife on a bookshelf. The hope of literature, the hope of stillness, is that the peace with which the most varied books can lie side by side will transform their readers, so that they too will be able to live side by side with people very different from themselves.
Yours truly,
Yann Martel
REPLY:
April 29, 2009
Dear Mr. Martel,
On behalf of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, I would like to acknowledge receipt of your correspondence, with which you enclosed a copy of The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima and a copy of Louis Riel, A Comic-Strip Biography by Chester Brown.