What is Stephen Harper Reading?

Dedication: 

To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
A book to remind you of the pleasures of life and of the written word,
From a writer,
With thanks,
Alice Kuipers

Letter:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

Yann came up with the idea to send you a book every two weeks nearly three years ago. I remember the moment it happened. We were walking together along the river in Saskatoon. He’d just got back from his visit to Ottawa and was deeply troubled that the anniversary of the Canada Council had been so unimportant to Canada’s politicians. Yann, like most writers, lives and breathes books—both those he reads and those he writes. He wanted to share that passion with you.

And so we walked along the river, the sun shining as it so often does in Saskatchewan, when Yann came up with the thought that perhaps if he sent you a book every two weeks, you might read one or two of them. He was excited and I was disparaging. I thought it would take up too many hours. Yann decided to choose short books out of respect for your time, and to include a letter with each book explaining why he chose it. He reads, or re-reads, every book he sends you and carefully writes his letters to you.

Along the way, I think Yann has rediscovered the joy of reading widely. As a successful writer, he often only had time to read for research. But now I see him sitting up late at night, turning the pages, kidnapped by Pearl S. Buck or dazzled by Zora Neale Hurston. He sent you my own personal favourite—Property, by Valerie Martin—fairly recently. My own bookshelves have been somewhat depleted by Yann’s ferocious hunt for books.

It took me a while to know what to choose to send you as many of the books under 200 pages that I’d already discussed with Yann have long since left the house and arrived in Ottawa. But I notice that Yann hasn’t given you much children’s literature, and so it seemed to me that Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White would perhaps interest you. I suspect you’ve already read it, but it certainly bears re-reading. I’d say most of E. B. White’s words hold up well to being re-read.

Elwyn Brooks White was born in the final year of the nineteenth century. The son of a piano manufacturer, he went to Cornell University where he took a course with Professor William S. Strunk Jr. Years later, White edited, revised and added to Strunk’s The Elements of Style—an extraordinary book that every writer should have close to hand. It is full of bossy tips on how to write well. I’m lucky enough to have an illustrated edition. It has stood on my bookshelf for years. Writing to you now reminds me that I’d like to read it again. One of the joys of reading books is that, inevitably, they lead you to read other books. They are road maps to onward journeys. Just as Charlotte’s Web leads me to The Elements of Style, so, hopefully, it will lead you to another book.

It’s not entirely clear when White decided he wanted to be a writer, but it’s known that he turned down a teaching job with the University of Minnesota to pursue that goal when he was in his early twenties. By 1927, he was a contributing editor at The New Yorker, the magazine with which he was associated until his death. His wife was an editor there. He wrote many brilliant essays (a collection of which lies next to my bed) and from there went on to write Charlotte’s Web (among other books). All this to say that writing was his life. It permeated White’s family, his work, and his thoughts. Writing does that to some people. He wrote, “All that I ever hope to say in books is that I love the world. I guess you can find it in there, if you dig around.”

I love that he wrote that. I love it because it speaks directly to the pleasure you will get from Charlotte’s Web. White worried that the book would be too low-key for most kids with its simple, delightful evocation of life (and death) on a farm. Yet every carefully placed word (heeding Strunk’s demand in The Elements of Style that we Omit unnecessary words!) hums with White’s pleasure at being alive.

The story is about Wilbur and his friends Fern, Templeton, the goose, the sheep, and above all, Charlotte the spider. Wilbur is a sweet, innocent pig who discovers that he is being fattened up to be killed. He doesn’t want to die. As he says, “I just love it here in the barn…I love everything about this place.” And so Charlotte puts her mind to working out a way to save him. She uses her web to write words to the people in Wilbur’s life. Words such as TERRIFIC or SOME PIG. The image of the farmhand coming to pour the slops, stopping in disbelief as he stares as the dewy web inscribed with the words SOME PIG is etched into my mind, as the words on the web as etched into the consciousness of those who control Wilbur’s destiny.

Don’t be fooled. The simplicity of the language, the bucolic setting, the folksy animals, all build to Charlotte’s swan song—a swan song to her friend the pig which is, at the same time, White’s swan song to a way of life, written in the most elegant language. Charlotte using her strength to write those words in the web reminds me of how essential words can be. Charlotte’s Web is a testimony to the power of language, both in its tale and its telling.

This is why Yann writes to you. Like Charlotte the spider, he believes that the written word can shape lives and save lives. I hope by reading about E. B. White, and more importantly, by reading his books, you’ll be reminded that as we need politicians and prime ministers, so we need books and writers.

And if reading Charlotte’s Web does not do that for you, hopefully it will evoke a time and a place that stays with you. You’ll be there with Wilbur as he tries—ridiculously—to spin a web. With Charlotte as she makes the ultimate sacrifice. With Fern as she tries to pull the axe from her father’s hands. And with E. B. White as he shows us Wilbur for the first time:

There, inside, looking up at her, was the newborn pig. It was a white one. The morning light shone through its ears, turning them pink.

“He’s yours,” said Mr Arable.’

And so now this book is yours.

I hope you enjoy it.

Yours respectfully,

Alice Kuipers

encl: one inscribed paperback

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