Edward RicheRecensioni

It wasn't until the last few pages that I realized the title was ironic. Through the entire rest of the book I kept wondering why it was called Easy to like, since it was anything but. I couldn't figure out this book. The main character, Elliot, is a pretentious asshole, and there were pages and pages of exposition about wine, which made my eyes glaze over and skip many paragraphs. I found it interesting that thee was a Sideways reference, since the parallel was obvious, though there is something charming about Paul Giamatti's character in that film, maybe the fact that he is so self deprecating, while Elliot is unrelentingly self righteous. The reviews of this book call it "hilarious" and "savagely funny," but I couldn't see it at all. He makes fun of the CBC, and I suppose some of his observations may be wickedly accurate, but mostly they came off as painful. I couldn't tell if the message was pro-Canada or what. All in all there is very little "there" there, and I'm not happy I wasted a week on this thing. First review under 3 stars in a while.

Is it better for the arts to be innovative or popular? It's the eternal question that every person who chooses to work in a creative profession must ask themselves, and this clever satire tackles this same question with unflinching honesty. Riche lambasts both Hollywood brain-dead spectacle and a public broadcaster's blind devotion to quality, socially-relevant television with equal zeal.

The story is told from the perspective of a Canadian-born screenwriter who has spent many years working in Hollywood, but is finding it harder and harder to find work, and the world of Hollywood's back room (and bedroom) games more difficult to negotiate. Then a series of minor personal crises strands him in the very place he doesn't want to be: the country of his birth. Unable to return to California until he has sorted out his affairs, he opts to take a job with the CBC (Canada's public broadcaster) and discovers that those who aspire to create "artistic television" aren't any better off.

We don't expect young wine or inexpensive chocolate to deliver subtlety and nuance, and Edward Riche's novel Easy to Like (the title says it all) is a similar kind of light confection. Elliott Johnson, ex-pat Canadian, has been working in the Southern California entertainment industry for many years. At forty-nine he is divorced and living on his own, and his screenwriting career has pretty much bottomed out. He is no longer young, no longer hip, no longer in demand. His agent can't sell his latest project and producers who are half his age won't even meet with him. Good thing he has his winery to keep him busy, except that the winery is not making money and he's mortgaged to his eyeballs trying to keep it going. Things go from bad to worse when he discovers the US Dept of Agriculture believes his vines were smuggled into the country and planted illegally. When Elliott takes off for France in search of a variety of grape he thinks will improve his wine, through his own stupidity he ends up stranded in Toronto with an expired passport. What happens next is the stuff of the breeziest of situation comedies, and Elliott is quickly installed in the CBC building in downtown Toronto as VP of English Programming. Here he engages in power struggles with those who would challenge his authority, but also proves an effective leader, able to motivate his beleagured crew to produce a new season of quality programming. Riche's flair is for broad satire, and he presents us with a CBC filled mostly with tight-assed overpaid bureaucrats and their sycophants. Throughout, the dialog is crisp and sharp, and often hilarious. Elliott as a pretender in the seat of power is edgily amusing, bumbling from one crisis to the next, and yet surviving to bring his mission as VP to fulfillment. The ending strains credibility even more than what precedes it, but this is not really an issue. As its title suggests, Easy to Like delivers an undemanding couple of hours of entertainment, with a few belly laughs thrown in for good measure.

This is a light, easy read. A funny story about a restaurant owner and his neighbour who is designing a recreational submarine. Together they devise a plot -- a "sighting" of a rare bird -- to boost the restaurant's popularity. Several funny twists, no big moral messages, just a good read.½

On the world stage, Canadian fiction has a reputation for deep themes and dour moods. Austere Atwoods, multi-layered Mistrys, and opaque Ondatjes get all the press, obscuring the marked talent for comedy Canadians possess.

In 2004, some persuasive reminders of our satirical nature have emerged. Miriam Toews provides the gentle humour of a complicated kindness. Paul Quarrington corners the oddball market with Galveston. Trevor Cole delivers the flat-out funniest novel of the year with Norman Bray.

Edward Riche continues this resurgence, albeit in a darker vein. His second novel, The Nine Planets, is a barrage of clever wit and caustic observation, a blackly funny and oftentimes very nasty look at private schools, the “colonial inferiority complex" of Newfoundland, and late-1990s smugness.

Marty Devereaux is a “fully formed" man, a person who “knew exactly who he was, [and] detested people who “discovered" things about themselves late in life." Co-creator of The Red Pines, a private school in St. John’s, Marty enjoys a life of prestige and privilege, and is preparing to take his school beyond provincial borders and into the global market.

However, his partner Hank is deterring investors with a crusade to save the Newfoundland wilderness from development. The science department is painting an increasingly complicated representation of the solar system on the hallway walls. His niece Cathy rebels against everything and everyone.

Making matters worse, one student, a particularly loathsome creature whom teachers have to remind themselves not to strike, has a powerful father determined that he graduate despite obviously failing grades.

As evinced by both his previous novel Rare Birds (recently adapted to film, starring William Hurt) and his work on the CBC television program Made in Canada, Riche knows his way around dark comedy.

Educators will find much to crow about in Riche’s astute observations of private schools, especially in his pointed attacks on parents who use school events to “measure their childrens’ beauty and talent against one another," and their disappointment if they “didn’t get the dog and pony show they wanted."

Riche also crafts bitter zingers at the Canadian stereotyping of Newfoundlanders. “They enjoyed the yokels’ singing and dancing, their antic faux-Irish chimping . . . the island people were at heart still savages, born devils on whose nature nurture never struck – a race born of contempt."

But unlike the more thematically complete Rare Birds, Riche chooses too many targets for his drollness. Cohesiveness is lost as he takes aim at everything in sight, taking a scattershot approach that leaves the story foundering with wonderful set pieces, yet never completely crystallizing into a whole.

Near the end, heavy-handedness sets in, as Riche pounds his themes home. Marty’s unravelling life contrasts with The Red Pines all too obviously. Seemingly important characters are given short shrift. The ultimate point is lost amidst too many comic distractions, sub-plots, and juxtapositions.

Overreaching aside, The Nine Planets is funny, explosively hilarious in parts, which makes it worthwhile reading whatever its flaws may be. Riche has genuine comedic timing, and a canny grasp of linguistics worthy of Martin Amis. If he can learn to control plot as well as language, his next novel could be a classic.½