November 19, 2009

On Longing: Bugs and the Victorians

After reading this review in the LRB, I am dying to read Bugs and the Victorians. My own interest in literary entomology (because believe it or not, I’ve got one!) arose via Virginia Woolf, who wrote about bugs a lot, and also wrote a wonderful fictionalized biographical sketch of Eleanor Ormerod in The First Common Reader. Ormerod was Britain’s foremost entomologist during the late 19th century, which was a very important kind of scientist to be at that time, and that she was a woman is only one of the many remarkable things about her. She’s mentioned in the LRB review, along with various surprising ways the study of insects influenced Victorian society.

Anyway, the book also happens to be $55, so I don’t imagine I’ll be reading it anytime soon.

November 19, 2009

Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the Experts

I suppose it’s not so different to those mothers that wish to see themselves in their children’s books, that I’ve been looking for me in my own reading. Or rather seeking representations of my experience since becoming a mother, not because I’m so entirely self-interested, but because the politics of motherhood are hard to understand. And motherhood is politicized, the whole of it, which is natural in the case of any group of people lacking power enough to properly go around.

Mothers are also a group of people desperately trying to tame chaos, which makes them perfect targets for authority of all kinds. And these authorities, I’ve noticed, do tend to be men and childless women, which is probably because these are the only people unlearned enough to think that babies could be a science. In Mother Knows Best: Talking Back To The “Experts” (published by York University’s Demeter Press, which also published Motherhood and Blogging: The Radical Art of the Mommy Blog), writers address this notion of “expertness”, and discuss the impact of these authorities on modern mothering.

And it is “mothering”, which the carefully benign “parenting” is usually an euphemism for anyway. Mothering a baby is scientific like the tide is, natural as anything, tied to the moon, but much more difficult to time by a clock. So that an expert will tell you that your breastfeeding pain is impossible, because Baby’s latch is fine, but feeding makes you want to die. Another will tell you that babies don’t get fevers whilst teething, even though you’ve had three children and it was the case for all of them. I read a book by a breastfeeding champion who said that babies do not require burping, that gulping does not cause gas, but he’s obviously never met my daughter. A baby’s poo (oh, of course I was going to talk about poo! Can you believe I waited until the third paragraph!), says the baby books, will always be yellow, but I’ve met mothers of the healthiest of babes with veritable rainbows. (And even worse, even the “experts” don’t agree with one another. This is very confusing. In making any major decisions about my child’s wellbeing, I’ve found the best solution so far is to throw the baby books out the window. They make a mighty thunk. What fun!)

All of this expertism serves to undermine a mother’s instinct and confidence, and the idea that there is just one way to be a baby or a mom is what pits women against one another so mercilessly. The conflict is apparent even in the anthology– in “Deconstructing Discourse: Breastfeeding, Intensive Mothering and the Moral Construction of Choice”, Stephanie Knaak questions studies that find any difference between breastfed and formula-fed babies. In the next article, Catherine Ma begins “If the Breast is Best, Why Are Breastfeeding Rates So Low?” with “The consensus on the benefits of breast milk is undisputed on both institutional and individual levels.”

So which is it? But in this anthology, that is not the point, which is instead to examine the politics of these ideas, which it does so effectively. And novelly as well, which is novel itself with arguments that have been rehashed over and over again. In “Making Decisions About Vaccines”, Rachel Casiday writes about those parents who “know” that the MMR vaccine was behind their child’s autism, just as that mother I mentioned before “knew” that fevers came with teething. Whether or not these parents are right is not the point either, and Casiday’s thesis is that this kind of parental “knowledge” has to be taken into account by authorities regardless. These parents have their own particular brand of expert knowledge, and the dismissal of their concerns by authorities is what leaves other parents torn between experts (for it was a scientific study, however now debunked, that made the autism/MMR link) and wary of having their own children vaccinated.

Mother Knows Best also examines breastfeeding and attachment parenting, and how these inform ideas of “the good mother”. How many feminists have embraced these practices, though they run so contrary to feminist politics. The fetisization of “the natural”, to justify breastfeeding and attachment parenting, though these ideas are out of place in the society in which we live (and in America, in particular, where maternity leave is pitiful). I have become quite accustomed, in the liberal circles in which I run, to turning my nose up at sleep training and Nestle, but it was interesting to interrogate these ideas, and question where they come from. To consider whether it might be egocentric to forego a career to be there for your child, and assume your presence will make up for whatever material goods the child will lack. How ultrasound imagery renders the fetus subject rather than object. How pregnancy guide advice compares to actual women’s experiences.

Though academic theorizing is odd to those of us outside the academy, I’ve found it quite useful to examine the politics of motherhood within this construct. Because discussions of motherhood get so personal, otherwise, and then defensive, mean and ridiculous. And all the experts who claim to come without agenda, but nobody is, so to take a step back is really worthwhile. An anthology like this is the closest thing to “the big picture” that I’ve been able to grasp yet of the big, big picture that motherhood is, and for that reason among many, I’m glad I read it.

November 17, 2009

Harriet enjoying

Here is Harriet enjoying brunch in Kensington Market this past Sunday. Photo by the incomparable Erin Smith.

November 16, 2009

On Hilary Mantel and Fludd etc.

I’m currently reading Fludd by Hilary Mantel, as an experiment in reading books by Hilary Mantel I have no desire to read. Fludd, at 186 pages, you see, is much less an investment than Wolf Hall‘s terrifying 650. I still have no desire to read Wolf Hall either, but for various reasons have been possessed to buy it. And now I’m enjoying Fludd so immensely, that I feel enjoying Wolf Hall could be less unlikely than I previously thought.

All this leading to two points.

1) Hilary Mantel is absolutely scathing in this book. And I’m reminded of a writing teacher who once criticized a story of mine for lack of sympathy toward the idiots within it, and so I rewrote these idiots with a more human touch. With hearts in their depths. But now I kind of wish I hadn’t. Though Hilary Mantel is a far better writer than I could ever hope to be, I think that some meanness is delicious, and not all fictional characters need hearts in their depths. I just need to learn to be mean more intelligently.

2) Her range! Fludd is more like Beyond Black than any of her others I’ve read (and I’d term these “supernatural realism). Could these possibly be by the same writer who wrote historical epics Wolf Hall and A Place of Greater Safety? The brutally black comedy Every Day is Mother’s Day? The more conventional (but no less brilliant) novels Eight Months of Ghazzah Street, A Change of Climate and An Experiment in Love? I am becoming more and more unafraid to read Wolf Hall, because I’ve never met a Hilary Mantel novel that wasn’t amazing.

Which makes me think of Margaret Atwood, and Doris Lessing too– writers who’ve branched out in unimaginable ways. Challenging their readers’ sensibilities, exploring the limits of genre, breaking the mold again and again. Seems like these are writers to whom “the novel” is a brand new blank white page, every time they sit down to write one.

November 16, 2009

What Boys Like by Amy Jones

I’d previously read Amy Jones’ “The Church of the Latter-Day Peaches” in The New Quarterly, and as I read the story again in Jones’ new collection, I was hoping that this time the story might be different. This time, could it possiby have an ending that wouldn’t break my heart? It didn’t, though I was so hopeful that a little trick with italics caught me once again, and I dared to be tripped up by the same trick that caught me before.

And how engaging is that, I ask? To read so far into a story, that it wraps itself around me, and then I get all wrapped up in it too, and the whole thing is an untenable knot?

What Boys Like is a lot like its cover. Though its tone is not upbeat, the colours are so vivid that you’d never find these stories bleak. And yes, the girls are often steeley-eyed, dangerous, tough as nails. The comic-strip touch suggesting a pop-cultural bent, and indeed, Jones’ characters listen to pop music, they play video games, sports is playing on TV, and references are tied up in zeitgeist.

Jones displays impressive range, writing in first, third and an impressively-executed second-person. Her characters are male and female, young and older than young, on the cusp, over the edge, or past the point of no return. They lead such desperate lives, and then there are these moments of grace– the pregnant lady who shares her peanut butter sandwich, the man who dares a young girl to be something, that Jenny goes home at all, Marty looking for bats in the garden, and all that love. The baby inside her. And when those who really get it had it coming anyway.

These are stories mostly of Halifax, in and around. In “The Church of the Latter-Day Peaches”, the first sentence tells the story: “There is nothing more unseemly than a pregnant widow at a funeral”. “Places to Drink Outside in Halifax” is the story of the first party of high school, drinking on Alexander Keith’s grave. In “An Army of One”, a woman attends the wedding of her male best friend (who she’s been sleeping with for years). “All We Will Ever Be” is two sides of a woman from the perspective of the man she’s just about to throw away and the other she’s just sinking her teeth into.

In each of these stories, premise is realized into someting vivid and whole. Amy Jones’ stories are easy to fall into, but complex enough that there is something new upon returning to them again and again.

November 13, 2009

Virginia Wolf on Louise Fitzhugh (seriously)

A very exciting parcel came to our house today! Finally, my long-awaited copy of Louise Fitzhugh— a biography by the carefully named Virginia L. Wolf– has arrived from BetterWorldBooks. There are not a lot of resources on Fitzhugh around, though the Purple Socks Tribute Site is pretty cool. But I was eager to learn more about this author (who wrote Harriet the Spy, for those of you not in the know), and this book had been lost in the depths of Robarts library, and the one copy in the Public Library system was not for circulation. So, obviously, another book purchase was necessary. I can’t wait to read it.

November 13, 2009

Sloppy Shorthand

This article in The Guardian was a bit weird. Now, usually I’m all down with not maligning women’s fiction, but popular fiction is popular fiction and Melissa Bank is not George Eliot, and I felt as though Harriet Evans was trying to tell me otherwise. But what Evans was trying to tell me is not the point here, rather that in her piece, she practices what I’ve come to call the sloppy shorthand of literary referencing.

She includes Dave Eggers in league with a number of other male writers who write “about how many women the protagonists have slept with, how many drugs they’ve done, what a crazy nihilistic time they’re having in London / New York.” Now, I’ve not read the other writers she mentions, but then I don’t think Harriet Evans has read much Dave Eggers either.

Eggers does get tarred as something of a postmodern show-off by readers put off by his 2000 memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. To his credit, however, he wrote that book nearly a decade ago, and in the years since has created some terribly creative fiction and nonfiction (and has blurred boundaries between the two, and become a philanthropist, and written a movie I loved, and another that people are obsessed with, and countless other really amazing things, and he’s done them well and with genuine class). Also, I thought A Heartbreaking Work… was remarkable for numerous reasons.

All this to say that Dave Eggers is sloppy shorthand for a male writer with flimsy chops who appeals to an idiot public.

Similarly, Zadie Smith. In fact, one of the commenters on Evans’ pieces mentioned Smith, but that post has since been removed for being offensive. And there really is something about Zadie Smith that brings out offensive comments like no other writer since Margaret Atwood. Which is strange. Perhaps I can understand how a reader might not like White Teeth, for example, but I’m at a loss to explain how one wouldn’t be somewhat impressed by its construction. I thought it was a fantastic novel, and was similarly moved by On Beauty, and I’ve found Smith’s literary criticism to be the most compelling and fascinating I’ve read.

But it seems that Zadie Smith is sloppy shorthand for a girl writer who people like because she’s pretty.

Then, there’s Margaret Atwood, but I’ve talked about that before. Definitely Margaret Lawrence, who is unfairly derided by readers who weren’t old enough when they read The Stone Angel or The Diviners. I suppose we could even include Shakespeare on this list, as people who’ve read just one or two of his plays can hold the strongest opinions on his oeuvre.

And poor John Irving, of course, perpetually accused of an obsession with wrestling, weird sex and bears.

Anyone else?

November 13, 2009

Horizontal Parenting

I am very excited about the Parenting Method I have devised, and subsequent book I am going to self-publish about my Parenting Method (via lulu.com). My method is called Horizontal Parenting, and I’ve been practicing it for about six months now. Its core tenets are the five Ls– 1) Lie down to breastfeed, 2) Lie down to soothe your crying babe by gently rocking your hips, 3) Lie down to have your baby sleep on your chest (contrary to everything the Back to Sleep people will tell you), 4) Lie down to play with your baby– a popular game is lying on one’s back and throwing a soft ball up to the ceiling again and again. The fun never stops. 5) Take time every day for yoga practice– but only the savasana pose. (This last tenet doesn’t start with L, but that’s because it’s the exception that proves the rule.)

The jury’s still out on the advantages of horizontal parenting on child development, but my child seems to be developing fairly normally (save for her new, disturbing penchant for pinching the fat on my upper arms). For me, however, the advantages are multifold– I never have a sore back, I get to sleep at night (albeit sometimes uncomfortably on my side), I get to lie on the couch and read or nap frequently throughout the day, and I get many opportunities to breathe in the sweet smell of my baby daughter’s head.

As soon as I figure out how to cook dinner from a hammock, then I will really claim to have it all figured out.

November 12, 2009

There is no excuse

There is no excuse for the accompanying photo, except that my baby is adorable. Alright then, bookishly. I thumbed through the new Pierre Trudeau biography the other day, and now I am afraid I’m the only woman in Canada who never slept with him. He didn’t even want me to live with him and have his child, like Liona Boyd (who is Liona Boyd?) on the cover of Hello. This may or may not be unfortunate. I just finished reading What Boys Like by Amy Jones (review forthcoming!) and have just started Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the “Experts”. Patricia has directed my attention to what seems to be the worst picture book ever: The Mischievous Mom at the Art Gallery by “high-octane duo” Rebecca Eckler and Erica Ehm. A new level of narcissism— we have to be reflected in our kids’ books now? “Finally — a picture book for the Starbucks-armed, BlackBerry-checking, gym-going working mother.” Perhaps you’re meant to read it on the treadmill. Chapters/Indigo includes a “Green Matters” option on its online catalogue, narrowing searches to books printed on FSC/Recycled Content. On the best Sesame Street songs (in honour of the show’s fortieth birthday). They forgot ladybug picnic. Charlotte on The Children’s Storefront, a neighbourhood institution that was lost in a fire last week. Rona Maynard’s secrets to decades upon decades of marriage. I’ve been enjoying books/music site Sasquatch Radio. WriterGuy directed me towards the interesting “How Waterstones killed bookselling” (in light of my recent post about how Waterstones killed book buying, for me, at least). And I’m wondering if I’m the only one who starts carrying around my next book to be read once the current read is down to the last fifty pages or so. Indeed, if I don’t have something fabulous to read within arm’s length at all times, I do start to get a little nervous.

November 10, 2009

All the processes of change

“All the processes of change, imagination, and learning ultimately depend on love. Human caregivers love their babies in a particularly intense and significant way. That love is one of the engines of human change. Parental love isn’t just a primitive and primordial instinct, continuous with the nurturing behaviour of other animals (though certainly there are such continuities). Instead, our extended life as parents also plays a deep role in the emergence of the most sophisticated and characteristically human capacities. Our protracted immaturity is possible only because we can rely on the love of the people who take care of us. We can learn from the discoveries of earlier generations because those same loving caregivers invest in teaching us. It isn’t just that without mothering humans would lack nurturance, warmth, and emotional security, They would also lack culture, history, morality, science and literature”. –from The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik