| Winter Five Windows on the Season |
|
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Adam Gopnik |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Non-Fiction |
| Publisher | House of Anansi Press |
| Publication date | October 2011 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback), Audio |
| Pages | 256 pp. |
| ISBN | ISBN 0887849741 & ISBN 9780887849749 |
| OCLC Number | 732948892 |
| Preceded by | Player One: What Is to Become of Us |
Winter: Five Windows on the Season is a book written by Adam Gopnik for the 2011 Massey Lectures. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city: Montreal on October 12, Halifax on October 14, Edmonton on October 21, Vancouver on October 23 and ending in Toronto on October 26. The book was published by House of Anansi Press while the lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One's Ideas between November 7–11.
Contents |
Adam Gopnik was selected to deliver the 2011 Massey Lectures by a panel of representatives from Massey College, House of Anansi Press and the CBC. This would be the 50th anniversary of the Massey Lectures and coincide with the 75th anniversary of the CBC.[1] Ideas executive producer Bernie Lucht contacted Gopnik by email to inform him of the panel's decision and to ask if he would accept.[2] At the time Gopnik was living in New York City, working as a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He had previously authored several books on different topics, the most successful being Paris to the Moon, a collection of essays published in 2000. Gopnik read Lucht's email while waiting for a bus on Madison Avenue. By the end of a 20-minute bus ride, Gopnik claims that he had already selected a topic and had a good idea of the issues he would address.[2] He understood the Massey Lectures were part of the Canadian culture and Gopnik, who was born in Philadelphia but lived in Montreal for 15 years, between the ages of 10 to 25, wanted a topic that would be relevant to Canadians but also have universal appeal: winter. Winter had appeared as a theme or setting in many of his previous writings,[3] and he especially looked forward to talking about ice hockey. Gopnik spent the next year researching and writing the book, along side another non-fiction book he was working on at the time: The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food. This other book was released shortly after Winter, and purposefully contained one identical sentence.[2]
There are five chapters, each of which consider a different aspect of winter. The first chapter, "Romantic Winter", describes how winter has been portrayed throughout history from the point-of-view of artists and writers. The second "Radical Winter" recounts the history of polar expeditions. "Recuperative Winter" goes over the cultural and social history of winter festivals and holidays, like Christmas. "Recreational Winter" is about winter sports, like ice hockey. The final chapter, "Remembering Winter", discusses the memory or perception of winter and its future in the age of climate change.
The chapters are written so that they could be read as a lecture. Though several reviewers referred to them as essays, Gopnik made the distinction between an essay which is written to be read silently while a lecture is meant to be spoken and keeps some of the rhythm of speech.[4] Gopnik purposefully tried "to keep them as conversational as possible [and so] they lack the polish of his New Yorker essays".[2] The lecture's conversational tone, with both common and arcane references, was meant to appeal to a "middlebrow" audience; they were designed to be "profound and significant" but not academic.[2]
The book was called an "elegy for a season".[1] Encyclopedist James Harley Marsh believes that the central theme was, as Gopnik himself writes, that "winter started as this thing we had to get through; it has ended as this time to hold on to".[5] The Edmonton Journal reviewer identified Gopnik's guiding metaphor for his approach to winter as "ice wine: sweetness made from stress", that the perceived benefits of winter come directly from the hardships it brings.[6] Ian McGillis in the Montreal Review of Books identifies "two simple ideas that govern and unite the five lectures": first that the view from inside can provide a better developed idea of what is outside and that winter continues to defy the human need to consistently name and organize the world.[4]
The book was published by House of Anansi Press and released on September 26, 2011. The five chapters/lectures were delivered by Gopnik in five locations across Canada: the first chapter was delivered in Montreal on October 12, the second in Halifax (Dalhousie Arts Centre) on October 14, the third in Edmonton (University of Alberta) on October 21, the fourth in Vancouver (Chan Centre for the Performing Arts) on October 23, and the final chapter in The Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto on October 26. Gopnik was in Guelph on October 25 where he recited passages and promoted the book.[7] An excerpt was published in the October 3 edition of Maclean's magazine.[8]
Reviewers variously described the book as "interesting",[9] "charming"[10] and "fascinating"[6] and the prose as "eloquent",[1] "thoughtful",[11] but sometimes slow.[12] The Publishers Weekly review noted that "Gopnik leavens dense material with humor, and makes unwieldy concepts accessible through modern-day comparisons".[12] Bill Rambo in the Winnipeg Free Press said that it "reads smoothly and effectively [and demonstrates] encyclopedic knowledge and incisive research into a subject", concluding that the chapter Recreational Winter about sports was the most passionate.[13] Charles Wilkins in The Globe and Mail found Remembering Winter, the chapter about cultural and social memories of winter to be the "most personal and poignant" and entertaining.[14] Helen Gallagher in the New York Journal of Books "highly recommended" the book.[11]