Mo’ better blue

>> A Blue Metropolis post-mortem

by JULIET WATERS

At the new and improved Blue Metropolis, A.L. Kennedy was asked why Scottish writers are so funny. “We come from a tradition of reading in pubs,” he said, “where if writers read anything sad or poetic, people would kill them.”

We can’t do this at Blue Met. Not with that empty chair at every panel, representing censored writers around the world. But even if we could, there would have been fewer casualties this year than in the past, the mood being significantly less blue than it’s ever been.

Take the panel “Scotland The Brave.” This event, sponsored every year by the St. Andrew’s Society, has always been an interesting, but reserved, tribute. Kennedy immediately ditched that tone, listing the gifts she believes Scotland has bestowed on many Canadians: the urge to sink into a grey depression, to become a hopeless alcoholic, to eat tasteless food, and make movies about curling. No one could really refute this.

The only other Scot present was Douglas Gibson, president of McClelland & Stewart, who’s lived here since 1967. Irish novelist Bernard MacLaverty was invited as an honorary Scot, for having lived there for a while. And the fourth member, Lorne Rubenstein, is a Toronto Jew who writes the golf column for the Globe & Mail. Following Kennedy’s lead, they all chose readings that they felt had something to do with Scotland’s really bad cheese. It was a weird, spontaneous, irreverent event that might have been unique at previous Blue Mets, which always suffered a bit from a bilingual atmosphere of strained diplomacy.

But the next afternoon at “Mordecai de Montréal,” irreverence returned. Though not as totally relaxed as the Scottish panel, there was still a more playful than defensive feeling as four québécois writers and Noah Richler debated the gifts and burdens of Mordecai’s legacy. David Homel was largely responsible for setting the tone when he introduced Noah Richler as “the man responsible for getting us a hotel with better wallpaper” (a dig at Richler’s snotty article last year in the National Post, which nevertheless did result in the festival changing to a much better location). From that moment on, no one felt the need to be too uptight about their feelings pro or con Mordecai. It was a lively and often funny debate about Mordecai’s place in québécois literature, and one that will hopefully be continued in some form in the future. Perhaps next year a book panel on “Le Monde de Barney.”

Most people agree that the change of location to a swankier hotel with a more comfortable and prominent bar was the most obvious improvement in the festival. But the move towards smaller, unilingual panels has probably facilitated the spontaneous communication between writers, making the events much more stimulating for the audience.

This isn’t to say that sadness and poetry didn’t make a welcome appearance. Fortunately, I had a cold and plenty of Kleenex for the panel of three Afghan women writers. It was a rare opportunity to hear Dari, one of the most ancient and beautiful languages in the world. It was also a chance to understand how difficult it is for women to write in Afghan culture, not just because they have been cloistered, covered up and denied education, but because it’s such a radical act for a woman to admit to, let alone express, emotion. When Parween Pazhwak read a children’s poem she’d written in English there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Add to this the revelation that the Blue Met was the first chance for these writers to meet, and it felt like the festival was headed for a Nobel short list.

There were the inevitable, unpredictable disasters, like the CBC strike, which meant some events weren’t as professionally moderated at they might have been. Then there was the opening gala, which turned into a snorefest when Jean-Claude Germain decided to pay tribute to every writer he’s ever read. Could it be we’re ready for a new prize? Perhaps a Jury prize that sends one deserving writer on a trip to Scotland. :