What is Stephen Harper Reading?

Dedication:

To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
A short novel on a healthy addiction,
From a Canadian writer,
With best wishes,
Yann Martel

Letter:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

I can’t think of a more delightful introduction to the republic of letters than Alan Bennett’s short novel The Uncommon Reader. One day at the bottom of the Palace garden, parked next to the kitchen garbage bins, alerted by her corgis, the Queen discovers the City of Westminster’s travelling library. She pops in to apologize for the barking dogs and, once there, impelled by a sense of duty rather than any real interest, she takes out a book. This simple act marks the beginning of Her Majesty’s downfall, in a way. The irony in the story is as light as whipped cream, the humour as appealing as candy, the characterization as crisp as potato chips, but at the heart of it there’s something highly nutritious to be digested: the effect that books can have on a life.

Upon finishing the book, you will think you know HM better, you will feel closer to her, you will like her. This is in part because of Bennett’s skill in bringing his royal character to life. But it also has to do with the nature of books. In the republic of letters, all readers are equal. Unlike other retail outlets, bookstores don’t really come in categories, be it luxury or low-end. A bookstore is a bookstore. Some specialize, but the restriction there has only to do with kinds of books—say modern languages or art—and not with classes of readers. Everyone is welcome in bookstores and all types rub shoulders in them, the wealthy and the poor, the highly educated and the self-taught, the old and the young, the adventurous and the conventional, and others still. You might even bump into the Queen.

Before I forget, one of our very own great Canadian writers, Alice Munro, makes a cameo appearance in The Uncommon Reader, on page 67.

Since I’m on the topic of bookstores, I thought I’d include a few snapshots of some that I’ve visited recently.

The Bookseller Crow on the Hill is in Crystal Palace, a neighbourhood in the south of London where I’ve been staying recently. I’m standing next to John, the genial owner, and I’m holding in my hand the very book you now own, which I bought from John. The next two photos I took inside the Crow. It’s not a very big place in terms of square footage, but stand in front on any shelf—New Titles, Fiction, History, Philosophy, Poetry, Travel—and the mental space represented is as vast as the universe.

The fourth photo is of a small, venerable used bookstore on Milton Street in Montreal called The Word. It has served generations of students. I popped in to buy a novel by the English writer Ivy Compton-Burnett, whom Bennett mentions in his book and whom I’d never read. I found A Family and a Fortune, published in 1939. It cost me $3.95.

The last photo is of La Librairie du Square, a French bookstore also in Montreal. It was my father who taped the red poster you see on the glass door. It announces an event organized by PEN, Amnesty International and l’UNEQ to do with freedom of expression and imprisoned writers.

Independent bookstores are a vanishing breed, especially in North America. The ones who suffer the most from this disappearance are not necessarily readers, but neighbourhoods. After all, a large Chapters or Indigo or Barnes & Noble will hold more books than any reader could possibly read in a lifetime. But large chain stores tend to be fewer in number and are often accessible only by car. The Bookseller Crow, on the other hand, is in a row of small stores that includes a clothes stores, a cafe, a pet store that specializes in fish, a shoe store, a real estate agent, a hairdresser, a newsagent, a bakery, a betting agency, a number of restaurants, and so on. The Word and La Librairie du Square are on streets along which thousands of people walk every day. Whenever an independent bookstore disappears, shareholders somewhere may be richer, but a neighbourhood is for sure poorer.

I’m sorry for writing such a busy letter, but there’s one last matter I’d like to mention. A few weeks ago, on October 20th to be exact, I came upon an article in the New York Times on a man in Colombia who for the last decade has been travelling around his war-ravaged corner of the country with two donkeys—named Alfa and Beto—loaded with books. He stops in every remote pueblo to read to children and to lend books out. He started his Biblioburro, as he calls it, after “he witnessed the transformative power of reading among his pupils, who were born into conflict even more intense than when he was a child.” Ten years on, Luis Soriano says of his enterprise, “This began as a necessity; then it became an obligation; and after that a custom. Now it is an institution.”

The City of Westminster’s travelling library and the Biblioburro, the Bookseller Crow on the Hill and The Word—the rich life of the mind that these institutions offer makes joyful equals of us all, from monarchs to poor peasant children.

Yours truly,

Yann Martel

encl: one inscribed paperback, five colour photographs, and one print-out of a New York Times article.

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