Bookworm, no. 79
Zachary Thompson on Lars Osberg’s “The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada.” Caroline Noël reviews Jacob Wren’s “Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim.” A cover artist Q&A.
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The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada
Lars Osberg
James Lorimer & Company
288 pages, softcover and ebook
Lars Osberg’s The Scandalous Rise of Inequality in Canada provides useful context for the housing and poverty crises. His sympathies align with the concerns of many middle- and lower-class Canadians: “When societies get richer, their legislation also changes to suit the majority, which often makes life more expensive for everyone.”
Housing dominates several chapters. Osberg, an economics professor at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, stresses that while Canadians once treated home ownership as the primary vehicle for a stable retirement, today’s owners are no better off if they “sell this house and buy another similar one, because house prices have gone up everywhere.” This contradicts those economists (Osberg admits he has been one) who “explain to their home-owning friends and relations how rich they now really are” on account of their homes’ market value. These economists fail to acknowledge that houses are not shares or bonds but a necessity. The market harms renters and owners alike: the former can’t afford to buy, and the latter can’t afford to sell.
Meanwhile, “increasingly large expenditures by the elite to influence the political process” have stymied laws that benefit workers and the poor. Lobbyists have succeeded in pushing through such neo-liberal policies as the deregulation and privatization of Crown corporations, including Air Canada and CN Rail. Osberg laments that this thwarts progressive change: “The political influence of the very wealthy finds expression only partly in getting their desired policies implemented—just as important are the policies (like wealth taxation) that are not seriously considered.” The rise in inequality is indeed scandalous, and it appears unlikely to ease up anytime soon.
—Zachary Thompson
Fight for Your Write
Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim
Jacob Wren
Book*hug Press
220 pages, softcover and ebook
A variation on a line by the Nicaraguan poet Daisy Zamora, the title of Jacob Wren’s novel Dry Your Tears to Perfect Your Aim artfully contrasts the despair and resilience of war victims. Through his lethargic protagonist, Wren considers the importance of community in times of political upheaval.
The narrator, an unnamed author from an anonymous country in North America, books a one-way flight to a foreign war zone, desperate to overcome his boredom: “I’m here to experience something first-hand for once in my fucking life. To get something about the world.” When he lands, a local friend he met years ago back home scoffs at his selfish mission and advises him to abandon it. “You still want to walk alone,” she remarks. “Alone you can accomplish nothing. Meaning comes in connection with others.” In hopes of publishing a novel, the depressed writer continues. After he survives an aerial bombing, a kidnapping, and other close calls, he joins an anarchist community. Readers later discover that they’ve been leafing through an unedited manuscript, written after the narrator’s return. In a contemplative interlude, he considers killing off his main character, despite his promise that no one will die: “Do I make an exception for our protagonist? Why is his life worth more than that of the others?”
Wren underscores how Western individualism can foster inaction. Although the author wants to help, he chooses “to daydream, to consider, while moment after moment passed me by.” The most compelling chapters de-centre the writer—his language, culture, and perspective—and emphasize the community and its efforts to build a sustainable future. “We can’t end this war by fighting it,” declares one revolutionary. “We need to end war by proving there’s another way for people to live together.”
—Caroline Noël
Cover Artist Q&A: Paige Stampatori
Where did the idea come from?
The editor and I aimed for a “life goes on” sentiment about the recent election in the United States. The back worked for the date of the president’s inauguration, nestled in an extended interior scene, with the front showing a picturesque winter’s day. The lighthearted approach focuses on a moment with family and friends rather than what may loom ahead.
You compose illustrations with simple shapes and bright colours. What’s your favourite aspect of this style?
Illustrating 2-D images gets ideas across quickly. Most of my work is concept heavy, so I’m not looking to distract viewers with extraneous details. I think of conceptual illustration as a universal language that can be understood without description. Its simplicity makes the message even more accessible.
Is doing a cover for the front and back a challenge or an adventure?
It was daunting at first, since I’ve never created a wraparound cover before, but I was up for the challenge. It was fun to draw a scene that exists as one yet can also be separated. The front cover stands on its own, but the imagery on the back gives the whole concept its depth.
Inside the January/February Issue
“There has been an explosion of material on Canada and the war over the past decade, but the subject of finance, critical as it is, seems to either bore or intimidate most writers and scholars. Roberts, a long-time editor at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, decided to take on this knotty problem as a retirement project, and we’re all the winners for it.” Patrice Dutil reviews David Roberts’s Boosters and Barkers: Financing Canada’s Involvement in the First World War.
Bob Armstrong reviews Guy Vanderhaeghe’s Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Scene.
“The heating planet isn’t a distant abstraction: it’s a catastrophe unfolding right now, with disastrous consequences we’re only beginning to grasp.” Julie McGonegal on David Geselbracht’s Climate Hope: Stories of Action in an Age of Global Crisis.
And much more!