So Misguided

The Book of Stanley by Todd Babiak is one of the funniest books I’ve read all year.

There’s something about books about God that really tickle me. I suppose it’s repressed anxiety from attending the Catholic Church as a kid.

Stanley Moss is an average man. He’s a retired florist, diagnosed with cancer. He’s a putterer and his wife’s the same. They live in Edmonton, across the way from a car dealership, and sometimes in the clear, summer afternoons they can hear the receptionist announcing calls over the PA. It’s the prairies.

So what happens to Stanley Moss? How does he become my hero and favourite character of 2007?

Like this.

Stanley is stricken by ... well, we’re not sure, but afterwards things are different. He’s different.

Stanley can hear what people are thinking. He can convince them of things. He can lift heavy objects. He can throw himself from a cliff.

He’s God.

But he’s also human in a way to which we can relate. Stanley’s nervous about his new self. He’s unsure of what to do. He wants to use his power for good, but he’s surrounded by bad. He makes decision by committee. He gets confused. He starts losing himself.

I think we have these worries whenever we take on new challenges and that’s what is great about Stanley. Stanley’s not a leader. The Book of Stan. Come on. But they do, people come in droves to hear what he has to say, to try to silence him, to try to follow his teachings. It’s a behemoth mess as far as his wife is concerned.

You have to love her for that.

The Book of Stanley is Canadian satire. It’s not British and definitely not American. It’s perfectly Canadian.

I’ve been telling people that The Book of Stanley is “Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets Michael Winter.”

Read the book and let me know if you agree.

Todd also has a smart ass blog at ToddBabiak.com, last I checked he was trying to replace Rabinovitch as president and CEO of CBC. He’s definitely an author to watch out for, I mean, watch.

Posted by Monique at 12:04 PM. Filed under: Book Publisher • McClelland & Stewart • Book Reviews • Books • News •

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Just finished it on the plane. In some ways, it reminded me a lot of Nick Hornby, but without the asshole qualities. I loved how Canadian it was, and how he referred to so many different, familiar locations.

I liked this book, but still preferred “The Garneau block.”

Hi Alexis,
I’m glad that you like The Book of Stanley. I think I liked it because Banff is a familiar place to me, moreso than Edmonton.

The two books are very different. I loved the quirky style of The Garneau Block—the characters, the single setting, the interconnected madness, the mystery elements.

The Book of Stanley perked my interest because I love crazy religious spins.

Anyway, I’m glad you read it.

I read The Book of Stanley recently. The main idea was kind of interesting.

There was a hokey sort of mystique at first. It kept me reading till the tenth chapter or so.

But the underwater Taj Mahal shattered the illusion. It wasn’t satire at all. It was just really bad writing.

I am amazed that people regard Todd Babiak as a satire writer.

I read The Gareau Block AND The Book of Stanley during their initial run in the Edmonton Journal Newspaper. (They printed a chapter a day for about a year.)

Nobody in the local reviews thought these books were satires. They took them as a serious pieces of writing.

The conversations in the books are overblown and embarrassing. The novels are also very tedious and dull.

I read Babiak was relieved when he heard the critics regarded The Gareau Block as a satire. The Book of Stanley, too.

I think he fooled everyone. I think he’s a writer whose writing is SO bad that it SEEMS like satire.

True, Babiak doesn’t use any cliches in his writing. No ordinary cliches, anyway. He uses a whole batch of DIFFERENT cliches.

Strange, odd little comments. Jokes only a theater person would understand.

Actor jokes. BAD actor jokes.

My girlfriend took theater for two years at the University of Alberta (in Edmonton - Babiak’s home town.)

She was surrounded on a daily basis by EXACTLY the kind of people found in the pages of The Gareau Block and The Book of Stanley.

Bad actors to the left. Bad actors to the right.

Within these pages, Bakiak commits virtually every FAUX PAS that a bad actor can make. It causes me to wonder.

I don’t think Babiak intended to write satire at all. I’ve seen enough bad writers in various Edmonton poetry bars to recognize the type.

I think he wrote a typically bad Edmonton novel, like many others I’ve had the misfortune to hear.

It’s just that his novels have received more publicity than most. (Thanks to their being Canada’s first novels to be serialized in a Canadian newspaper.)

You have to laugh to keep from crying, I suppose.

I have met Babiak briefly. He was asked to announce Margaret Atwood when she visited Edmonton’s Grant MacEwan College.

He has a vuglar mouth. He talks like one of his own characters. It was an unpleasant experience.

No doubt Babiak attended an Edmonton theater school. And he was probably a bad actor.

He certainly is a terrible writer.

-Regards.

Hi George,
I’m always slightly disappointed when people don’t like the books that I like, but then it leaves me with a great opportunity to discover new books, the things that other readers enjoy.

I did prefer The Garneau Block to The Book of Stanley, but then I do like the quirkiness and cliches of Babiak’s characters. I also haven’t had to suffer meeting them in person.

Do you have any favourite writers who I should check out?

Kind regards,
Monique