Books Issue: Library

Puns and pathos from Winnipeg’s Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber.

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The wizard of weird metaphor, Richard Brautigan, once wrote a novella about a most wondrous place – a library of unpublishable books. It was where losers, misfits and the generally misunderstood could bring their manuscripts to be registered and shelved. Amongst the library’s listings: A History of Nebraska, by Clinton York, age 47 (York had never been to Nebraska); My Trike, by Chuck, age five; Growing Flowers By Candlelight in Hotel Rooms, by Mrs. Charles Fine Adams, age 80. 

Brautigan’s fictional library was quintessentially old fashioned with yellow brick, electric lamps and a heavy wooden door with a “religious affectation.” But know what is even more satisfyingly bibliophilic? Library, a book by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber published this year by Drawn & Quarterly Press in Montreal. With hundreds of their paintings of books dating from 2013 to 2021, it is a book of books.  

Unlike Brautigan, this library is not fictional. But it is conceptual. And while there is no old-book smell, it will absolutely delight literary types. The paintings are small and simple (the biggest is six inches by six inches) as it’s the titles that are meant to deliver the punch. 

“The images serve as the basis for our writing and so the painting itself has become secondary these days,” Dumontier said in a 2019 interview with inbtwn blog. “The small scale seems to help for generating ideas quickly without worrying about the preciousness of a large canvas.”  

Nude Math Equations and Slippers Advocate are wonderfully absurd titles (the author of the latter must have cold feet). Some titles have the tone of sardonically quippy affirmations: You are my Favourite Person, So Far. So many of Library’s book titles, though, give me a quick flare of intellectual excitement; something akin to lit sparklers in the brain. Making People Who Don’t Want to Dance, Dance is one, along with The Revolution Has Gone Pear Shaped.  

Farber and Dumontier’s library is odd in other ways too. For example, it has no organized sections for Reference, Periodicals or Children’s Literature. Rather, they allow for serendipitous browsing. If I worked at their library, I’d be tempted to file each book under Puns & Pathos, Badinage, Word-Play, Sweet & Sentimental, Tragicomedy or So-Dumb-It’s-Funny. 

Dumontier and Farber were founding members of Winnipeg’s famed artist collective the Royal Art Lodge, which was active from 1996 to 2008. But when the group dissolved, they kept collaborating. The Library collection is just one of their ongoing projects. Their book paintings actually number in the thousands. 

They post their work at @m_d_n_f on Instagram, but it’s fantastic to see these paintings bound together in a book. When read in a sitting or two, the hilarity compounds, as does the sense that, despite the presence of sweetness and light in the world, everything will not, in fact, be alright.  

Incidentally, my kids and I regularly try making our own book paintings. My 10-year-old came up with “Food that should be envented (sic)” and my 12-year-old, “Peeing for Dummies.” I want to submit them to Brautigan’s library.  

Although Dumontier and Farber have been painting and writing this way for a long time, their work feels fresh. The pandemic is weighing on everyone and, lately, much laden political art is being made. These paintings are truly enjoyable, and thankfully, only sort of profound. 

Libraries are worlds of words. We read, the popular adage goes, to know we’re not alone. But reading is also such a lonely pleasure, isn’t it? One of my favourite titles in the Dumontier and Farber library is Hey, That’s the Same Sadness I Have.  

Library is only $22. Buy it for all your friends. ■  

Library by Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber. Drawn & Quarterly Press, 2021. 

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