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Today I came across an interesting article by Darryl Whitter “Canada’s an urban nation. Why is our literature still down on the farm?” thanks to my friend Joe Boughner (also the creative mind and tech savvy guy that has made this site and blog possible). I thought to myself “holy cow this is probably why I never read CanLit and why I’m into Da Vinci Code and Twilight!” Here is an excerpt from the article:

Thing is, most Canadians don’t live on, or even near, farms anymore. More than 80 percent of Canadians live in cities, yet the CanLit spotlights continue to shine on rural literature, usually of yesteryear. Why?

He describes one of my book selections As for Me and My House by Sinclair Ross as “a lobotomy between two covers”, among other things. Oh yeah baby now I’m super pumped to read this book! Yup, there was a hint of sarcasm in there. I mean really, can’t we all just get along? Part of the problem why CanLit is unknown to many Canadians is because we treat it like broccoli with no cheese. We know it’s good for us but it just tastes really lame without the extra calcium so instead we put it aside for a nice juicy fat rack of ribs from down South. Listen, all I’m saying is we may not like it but we should still read it. If anything, it just may remind us of what it was like to truly live a simple life in a time when all this technology and need to be stimulated 24/7 wasn’t what we needed to survive and thrive in this life. In fact, what’s so bad about rolling around in the corn field for an afternoon?