Many U of T graduates pursue greatness, but few have the luxury of returning to campus after an evening of grandeur with the Governor General.
U of T alumnus and author, Charles Foran, was presented the 75th Governor General’s Literary Award for English language non-fiction for his biography on the Montreal author, Mordecai Richler.
WYATT CLOUGH/THE VARSITY
“It’s strange, it’s like a whole other world,” said Foran, looking out into the peaceful quad of Massey College. “There’s pomp and ceremony and protocol; fanfares, and string quartets, and a very grand hall in this very grand house. It is a slightly fairytale-like setting … it was like we had been whisked away from our lives for a few hours and then brought back.”
Entitled Mordecai: The Life & Times, the biography has earned Foran a total of four awards this year, including the Canadian Jewish Book Award, the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Non-Fiction Prize, and The Charles Taylor Prize.
Despite these successes, Foran remains down-to-earth.
“I don’t take compliments that well, so I think I’ve been unusually ambivalent — but grateful,” he said. “If you publish a lot of books as I have, if one gets very little attention and another gets a great deal of attention, it sort of behooves you to be equally sanguine about both.”
Foran has published ten novels to date, and attributes some of the attraction of Richler’s bio to its literary peculiarity — a novelist documenting the life of another novelist.
However, he confirmed that his subject choice was based on a long-term admiration and curiosity about the popular author of Jacob Two-Two.
“He was a Canadian writer who meant the most to me… his work was singular, and outrageous and compelling and funny,” said Foran, smiling. “I awaited each of [his] books in ways I didn’t for many other Canadian writers.”
“He was a natural subject for me in that regard, and his life and his character were big and full of complexity and contradictions, appetites and inconsistency,” he continued. “The more I thought about it, the more I realized ‘Hey, well that’s a great subject!’”
Foran attributes his stylistic interests to concepts explored as a U of T undergrad. During his first year, he remembers enrolling in PSY100 at Con Hall with 600 other students who shared an interest in human behaviour.
Foran decided instead to explore human nature through literature rather than psychology, and as such wanted to capture Richler’s tribulations.
“The more tidy lives of sweet people probably don’t make for great biographies,” said Foran. “A good subject for a biography, at least for me, perhaps because I also write novels on human nature, are subjects of complexity and shape – that aren’t perfect, and Richler had everything.”
Recalling his PSY100 Con Hall experience sparked other fond memories at U of T; his time as a St. Michael’s College student, studying at various libraries, writing for The Varsity, and attending events at Hart House.
“I have nothing but great memories of going to school here,” said Foran.
“I loved the [Hart House] gym. I used to play a lot of pick-up basketball [there], and I loved the little track. I never went to ‘Fort Jock’ though; it opened when I was an undergrad,” remembers Foran, smiling at the memory of the Athletic Centre’s opening 30 odd years ago.
“What I love most about U of T is that it’s a buffet — I learned as much by going to plays and lectures and musical performances unrelated to my course work. It’s got to be the most vibrant campus in Canada,” he said.
Foran prides himself on maintaining ties with U of T post-graduation. A member of the Quadrangle Society at Massey College since 1995, he views his regular visits to campus as a pleasure. Foran uses the serene of Massey College as a base when in Toronto and affirms that he will always find comfort in the historic buildings of the university, regardless of his successes.
