The Existential Hand Down the Pants: It's Can. Lit. Everyone!

Readers will note the complete and utter distraction I have driven myself toward. Fall 2010 pits me against a stack of Can. lit. titles as I stagger through the long/shortlists of our nation's major book awards (and the Man Booker Prize adds a robust finish to the mix, since we're Commonwealth and all that).

To recap:

• The Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist (13 titles)
• The Man Booker Prize shortlist (6 titles)
• The Rogers Writers' Trust Fund shortlist (5 titles)
• The Toronto Book Award shortlist (5 titles)
• The Governor General's Literary Awards (English-language) shortlists (35 titles)

Granted, repeat titles exist across a number of these lists. So, one book could cancel itself out on three lists. So far, I have worked through seven official titles, and I was sidetracked by Annabel Lyon's The Golden Mean. It's quite the overhaul when compared to last year's void of literature.

Despite that, I find this current reading binge has reinforced certain observances I've made over the years when it comes to Canadian literature in general. We have a series of recurring themes or events that are somehow Canadian-owned at the moment.

Serious.

We are obsessed with some strange shit.

International readers would most likely judge us based on the following oddities:

• Canadians are a depressive lot. Does someone's parent(s) have Alzheimer's? Did a child die in a terrible accident and the family is forced to relive it at each turn? Is the oil apocalypse upon us? Heck yes, give me a book with all of the above and more!
• Canadians love geographical descriptions. I want to know the exact shade of each leaf on the ash tree the main character passes on their lunch break. I want to know how many snowflakes have fallen on those looming mountains in the distance. Just how slowly does the ice melt in the middle of Lake Ontario? I want to know it like an encyclopedia, people. And give me some more of that garrison mentality while you're at it.
• Canadians obsess over the existential. Don't worry, there are jokes in there, too. They make the crying stop!
• Canadians are fascinated with masturbation. I forgot to mention -- it is now mandatory in Canadian literature to write at least one scene where the main character masturbates. This rule is not bound by the sex/gender expression of the protagonist, either. Extra points if the motivation to masturbate relates to one of the aforementioned obsessions in Can. lit.
• Canadians are also fascinated with male genitalia. Case and point: Robert Kroetsch's The Studhorse Man.... and just about every other Canadian title imaginable. While boy bits are given vast detail, lady parts often go neglected. We are still prudish with lady parts as a nation, but we expect our female leads to masturbate just as often as their male counterparts. Authors just need to make sure there's a discussion about some dude's hard on later.

Not an encouraging list. Those last two points still baffle me. In these past few weeks, I have read my fill of masturbation/erection descriptions for, oh, about ten libraries worth of writing. It's so disturbing it's circled back to being hilarious. Maybe we're more liberal-minded than we give ourselves credit for. That, or we're horribly repressed.

I have yet to decide on that one.

Oh, Canadian literature -- do you never cease to amaze and arouse?