Totally Deconstructed

One of the chief tensions of contemporary CanLit is the ongoing tug-of-war between the instincts of the typical writer — oddball by temperament, outsider by circumstance — and the conformity that’s crept over the culture. In recent years, our literary community has been flooded with a specific brand of radical politics that has become effectively de rigueur. But, of course, that which is dictated by the fashions of the day is not radical at all. So there’s a paradox at the heart of our national scene that raises thorny questions: Can you be an iconoclast when the cherished beliefs that you’re attacking are the same ones that everyone else is attacking — that everyone is expected, even required to attack? Is a policed status quo any better if it purports to be radical? Perhaps most pressing, how does an emerging talent find their voice — and stand out — in a climate that actively discourages doing so?

Ugh! As If! sees this clash between originality...