Book from the heart

The Munk Centre at the University of Toronto has been host to many publishing events over the years. But, it seems safe to say, none has been nearer and dearer to the heart of patron benefactor, mining mogul Peter Munk, than Wednesday evening's launch for Kasztner's Train: The True Story of Rezso Kasztner, Unknown Hero of the Holocaust.

The book, by former publisher Anna Porter, is the story of a Budapest Jew who negotiated with Nazi henchman Adolf Eichmann for more than 1,600 Hungarian Jews to receive safe passage to Switzerland in 1944, thereby escaping almost certain death in Hitler's extermination camps.

Munk, 17 at the time, and 13 relatives were on that train. Speaking in praise of Kasztner and Porter's book, Munk speculated that there probably wasn't a bigger group of family members to escape the Holocaust in similar fashion.

Vit Wagner

It's no Million Little Pieces, but still...

Now that Oprah has chosen Virgin Suicides author Jeffrey Eugenides' novel Middlesex for her book club, it's likely the inevitable sales boom will result in another printing of the paperback version.

Here's hoping that Random House, and publishing divisions like Vintage Canada, will take the opportunity to correct errors in the text which, even in though it's fiction, tend to lower credibility for anyone who happens to know a modicum of facts about the history and geography of the subject matter.

Middlesex is one of those sweeping multi-generational family sagas, with some interesting twists (the Greek-American narrator, for one thing, is a hermaphrodite).

The story mostly takes place in the Detroit area, from the Prohibition era through the 1967 riots to the mid-'70s. That's an added interest, of course, for anyone familiar with the area, including Windsor.

But it's a shame when jarring errors of fact jolt even a casual reader out of the pleasant reverie of getting lost in a good yarn.

AP Photo: Jeffrey Eugenides could have benefited with a visit to Windsor's city archives before writing Middlesex, which Oprah just picked for her book club.

For instance, as Middlesex reaches its climax toward the end, there's a car chase on the Ambassador Bridge as one character is persued by another as he attempts to leave Detroit "for the lawless, liberal hideaway to the north."

Lawless and liberal can be chalked up to matters of opinion and poetic licence. And because Canada is mostly north of continental United States, you could overlook the fact that Windsor is due south of Detroit (you can look it up). But less easy to ignore for any of the millions of people who have ever crossed the bridge is a description of the characters leaving the U.S. being stopped by Customs on the U.S. side before heading out onto the span. As anyone who has sweated through an inspection after shopping in the U.S. or driving back from Florida knows, Customs is on the Canadian side of the bridge. The delay at Customs at the bridge entrance is a key part of the plot, but it just wouldn't happen because all you do is pay your toll on the U.S. side.

Once on the bridge, "There were passenger cars heading for the casinos and strip clubs in Windsor."

The time is 1975. Strip clubs, okay. But not casinos. Bingo parlours would be more like it. Casino Windsor wasn't opened until 1994.

Little things, I know. But they raise a question in the reader's mind about how many things are wrong or distorted on the other 527 pages.

It just goes to show you that even an Oprah-approved writer who wins the Pultizer Prize, like Eugenides did for Middlesex, needs a good editor and fact checker.

-Deputy Entertainment Editor Joe Fox

Toasting a president

As part of Monday evening's launch for Václav Havel's memoir To the Castle and Back, the hallway at the U of T's Munk Centre for International Studies was lined with evocative photos of the former Czech president.

Many of the images focused on Havel's earlier life as a dramatist and the country's most celebrated dissident. These included mug shots from the absurdist playwright's numerous incarcerations at the hands of the humourless communist rulers of what was then still Czechoslovakia.

Another photo, from 1989's magical Velvet Revolution, the bloodless revolt that brought the regime to an end and vaulted Havel to the presidency, showed him enjoying at bottle of the beer - worshipping nation's signature brand, Pilsner Urquell. Richard Krpac, the Czech Republic's consul general, joked that the photo counted as "product placement," since the brewery was sponoring the event. It's also true, though, that you would be hard-pressed to find a photo of a celebratory Czech that didn't include a glass of beer somewhere in the frame.

REUTERS

Former Czech president Václav Havel didn't attend his Toronto book launch, but thanks to translator Paul Wilson, and free-flowing Pilsner Urquell, he was there in spirit.

Havel was nowhere to be found, unless you count the greetings he sent by video. But his presence was felt nonetheless, thanks to the presence of translator Paul Wilson, a Canadian and former Czech resident who once played in the notorious Prague avant-garde rock band, the Plastic People of the Universe. It is through Wilson's deft translations that Canadians have been treated to the writings of Havel and other Czech writers, including novelist Josef Skvorecky, who was also in attendance.

Actors Adrian Griffin and Richard Campbell delivered a sympathetic theatrical reading of passages from the memoir, as did "surprise guest" Adrienne Clarkson. The former governor general treated the audience to an amusing anecdote, the gist of which had to do with never managing to cross paths with Havel during his visits to Toronto but then meeting him in Kiev after the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine.

Afterward, everyone gathered for treats provided by the Prague Deli and glasses of the best beer in the world.

-Vit Wagner

To make a LongPen story short

It’s been more than a year since celebrated author Margaret Atwood officially became an inventor with her introduction of the LongPen, a device that enables authors to sign autographs and chat with fans even when situated thousands of miles from the actual book launch. This is not merely a fax machine with a camera attached, but is a complicated-looking tech device that indeed includes a long pen scrawling onto a book what the author is tracing on a computerized contraption miles, or continents, away.

Suzuki: A reasonable facsimile?

It’s being touted as a green device, since it saves on all the usual costs of a book launch — carbon-spewing air travel, hotel stays, etc. Appropriately, Atwood will be on hand to demonstrate LongPen at this weekend’s Green Living Show. There she will “host” enviro guru David Suzuki, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and George Monbiot, who will all answer questions about the environment and remotely sign copies of their latest books.

Problem is, visitors to the fair who didn’t carefully study the brochure may be disappointed to find that Suzuki et al won’t actually be there in person. While the value of a LongPen signature versus an analog scribble is debatable, speaking to a person over a computer screen is no match for seeing them live. At least Al Gore and Daryl Hannah, two of the biggest names on the program, will be at Exhibition Place this weekend in the flesh — they are Hollywood stars, after all.

A signature can be remotely duplicated, but there’s no substitute for a real, live ego.

-Ariel Teplitsky