July 16, 2009

A Perfectly Adjusted Organism

“Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence. Inside the cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend. There are periods in the most thrilling day during which nothing happens, and though we continue to exclaim, ‘I do enjoy myself’ or ‘I am horrified’ we are insincere. ‘As far as I feel anything, it is enjoyment, horror’– it’s no more than that, really, and a perfectly adjusted organism would be silent.”– from E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India

July 13, 2009

Fiction inspired by fiction

How one book leads to another is something I’ve always found fascinating. I’m now reading A Passage to India, as inspired by Kate Christensen’s Trouble and its Marabar Caves reference. Kate Sutherland asked about this recently (on FB, I think): fiction reading inspired by fiction reading, and she cited reading The Epic of Gilgamesh because of The Girls Who Saw Everything. I know that I watched Vertigo after reading Francine Prose’s Goldengrove, but can’t think of any other fiction I’ve read directly inspired by fiction off the top of my head. I’ve been meaning to get around to reading Great Expectations as inspired by Mister Pip, but as I haven’t yet, I don’t think it counts.

July 9, 2009

Awful Library Books

My friend K. (of the unfortunately now-defunct Pop-Triad) sent me a link to my favourite website of the day, Awful Library Books, which includes texts such as the one whose cover is seen here. The site features books that might be listed as “required weeding” from American public libraries, and I enjoy the bloggers’ commentary as well (“I think the guy in a wheelchair is saying to the woman, “Do I really have to dress like Mr. Rogers?”). You’re also invited to send your own submissions.

June 29, 2009

They had the bedside lamps on

“Helen can bring herself to the point of weeping just thinking about Cal’s yellow rain jacket that came to his thighs and the rubber boots he wore back then and the Norwegian sweater with the elbows out of it and how he rolled his own cigarettes for a time, which was unheard of (he had other pretensions: he made his own yogurt and tofu, grew pot, experimented with tie-dye), and how he wanted a house around the bay for summers, and how the children came by accident, every single one of them. Cal was a reader, of course; he read everything he got his hands on. They both read. Helen had a book in her overnight bag and so did Cal, and after they’d had sex and showered and looked through the TV channels and eaten and drunk some more beer, they each got their books, and they had the bedside lamps on. They fell asleep like that. Cal with a book over his chest.”– Lisa Moore, February

June 21, 2009

A different kind of swim lit

The story is tragic, and I don’t wish to undermine that, but I am so absolutely intrigued by this part: “As her family told The Globe in a lengthy letter responding to an interview request, ‘She even combined her two passions for reading and fitness by figuring out how to read a book while swimming laps.’” I can’t even begin to imagine how this could be accomplished. A book enclosed in plastic wrap? A page skimmed at the end of every lap? An audio book and a waterproof Sony sports walkman? Regardless, I am impressed.

June 19, 2009

Ingesting words with his eyes

“Anthony could talk and read at the same time. But his eyes trumped his ears. He usually remembered what he’d read while talking, but he never remembered conversations he’d had while reading. He was like a sleepwalker who grocery-shopped and paid bills in his sleep and forgot it all the next morning. Most of our conversations were now conducted with a book between us– his book, of course. When I read, I shushed him ferociously, for all the good it did me; he had never accepted the fact that other people didn’t possess his unique facility for ingesting words with his eyes while spewing them from his mouth.” –from Trouble by Kate Christensen

June 17, 2009

Seen Reading

Seated at a table on the patio of Sweet Fantasies Ice Cream at the corner of Bloor Street and Brunswick Avenue, brown-haired woman in non-maternity clothes (but only those purchased around 2003 when she was a bit fat, but non-maternity nonetheless), three weeks post-partum with her baby asleep in the carrier on her chest. She is rereading Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner, which isn’t much of an intellectual pursuit but it’s enjoyable, and she’s eating a cookies and cream ice-cream cone. The sun is shining and has kissed her cheeks, it’s been days upon days since the last time she cried with despair, and we’ve come such a long way since this all started.

June 15, 2009

The Name Game

We got a cat when I was fourteen, and as I was the oldest and precocious, I decided I would name it. I named it Socks first, I think, after the White House cat (naturally). But then seeing as our cat didn’t have socks, I decided to name it Tim Johnson instead, which was the name of the dog in To Kill A Mockingbird, and I liked the idea of pets with surnames. But that was stupid, so I changed the cat’s name to Daisy, and I can’t remember why. Then we found out that Daisy was a Tom, so I decided she would be called Casey (at the bat?). And then when I decided to change the cat’s name next, my family called it off and Casey the cat stayed, though I never called it that. I always called it Cat, because I’d seen Breakfast at Tiffanys, and wanted to go Golightly.

So this was why I was apprehensive about naming my child. Though I’ve always found names fascinating and entrancing, I’m fickle about them. In many ways, cats and children are different creatures (so I’ve found of late), and you can only change a daughter’s name so many times if you must do it at all. How to pick a name that would stick?

The first name I ever loved was “Julie”, after Mackenzie Phillips’ character on One Day at a Time. Julie was also my best friend in grade one, and I adored her and she beautiful, though she was sensitive about her hairy arms. I went through an “Ellen” phase, after the character on Family Ties, I think. I watched far too much television; I would have died to have been named “Jo”. I fell in love with “Bianca”, not from Shakespeare, but from Shelley Long’s character’s sister in the movie Hello Again. I was particularly impressionable, and agreed that “Cordelia” was the most exquisite name imaginable. I loved the name “Zoe” for a while, and after I read Louise Fitzhugh’s The Long Secret, I thought “Zeeney” was similarly cool, though she’d not been the most appetizing of characters. And these name fixations would go on and on, influenced by all kinds of sitcoms, films and pop stars. I kept ever-changing lists of what my future daughters would be called, though it never occurred to me to think much about a son.

Strange that Louise Fitzhugh ultimately did decide my child’s name. Baby was not to be Zeeney after all (which is good) but Harriet, after the book from which The Long Secret was a sequel. And I’d never read Harriet the Spy until last year, actually, after I heard this feature on NPR. But I fell in love with Ms. Welsch, and her name topped my list. I knew immediately that I wanted a little Harriet of my own one day. I couldn’t think of anyone better to be named after– such a feisty, clever, independent, hilarious, and wonderful character. Impossible too, which strikes me now as a somewhat fortunate/unfortunate quality to project upon one’s child. Perhaps I should have thought it through a little bit more, because this baby fits the bill so far. The name itself means “Home Ruler”, which is appropriate, I think. So this is what we’ve got ourselves in for…

But it sticks. It’s belonged to her since the moment we saw her, and I do love that we now know someone with this name– have a Harriet in our family even! It is a ubiquitous name throughout literature, but all too rare in the real world. I think I’ll not stop loving it soon, because it’s Harriet’s name after all.

Though I do wonder whether she’ll thank us for it. If she’ll find Harriet M. Welsch as charming as I did. It is a tremendous power, isn’t it? Naming a person? Even fictionally, the name is such a determinate and the author certainly bestows innumerable qualities by such a fact. Naming a real person requires as much consideration– this is destiny. I find it strange that we were handed so much power. At the hospital they asked us her name, we told them, and it was that simple. I would have expected some kind of seminar, or at the very least a lecture (a stern one) about the seriousness of the decision we were about to make based on a 1960s children’s novel. Is nothing sacred? Apparently not, but we’re three weeks in, and at the very least, I’ve not wanted to change it yet.

June 6, 2009

Clearest, starkest brilliance

“Motherhood is a storm, a seizure: It is like weather. Nights of high wind followed by calm mornings of dense fog or brilliant sunshine that gives way to tropical rain, or blinding snow. Jane Louise and Edie found themselves swept away, cast ashore, washed overboard. It was hard to keep anything straight. The days seemed to congeal like rubber cement, although moments stood out in clearest, starkest brilliance. You might string those together on the charm bracelet of your memory if you could keep your eyes open long enough to remember anything.” –Laurie Colwin, from A Big Storm Knocked It Over

That I’ve read an entire book over the past twelve days means that all is not lost. And indeed, there have been numerous “moments standing out in clearest, starkest brilliance,” though these don’t include the hours we spent in the Sick Kids Emergency when Harriet when just four days old (she was fine, thank goodness, but that experience was like staring straight into hell), her much too-much weight loss that has had both of us struggling to make up for it ever since, that I may have cried as much as she has, and the overwhelming dread at the thought of her Daddy returning to work on Monday. But we’ve enjoyed taking her out for her first walks in her carrier, trying to figure out what she likes (not much, but we suspect being in her carrier is a comfort), getting massages from Daddy, midwife visits where she’s gained an ounce every day, the sun shining through the windows, all the support we’ve had from family, friends and our most excellent neighbours, and that she’s received so good wishes from all over the world. Harriet has also received post every day, though she’s not yet old enough to realize how exciting that is. We’ve also been fortunate that I’ve come through my surgery so well and easily. My crush on the surgeon went into high gear in the days after her birth (which, in spite of the operating room, was as gorgeous as any birth could be, and I don’t feel I’ve missed anything) because he looked like Paul Simon circa 1970s, and because of what a good job he’d done, and what a beautiful baby he’d delivered (though about three nights ago at three o’clock in the morn, I was sorely tempted to go firebomb his house). It’s been a very difficult time for all of us this past while– I’ve never been much inclined to work hard at things I’m not loving, and this isn’t a job I can pass along to anybody else. Though I’m finding, ever-increasingly, those moments standing out in clearest, starkest brilliance when I don’t want to.

May 31, 2009

A fondness for Baskerville

“And Jane, I’d like a beautiful typeface. Devinne or maybe Bembo.”
“We can’t get them,’ said Jane Louise. “I can get you Garamond or Caslon.” She doodled on her pad. Erna was a fountain of little-used or almost extinct typefaces. Jane Louise believed that Erna spent her nights browsing through old type spec books, and Jane Louise was not entirely wrong.
“Oh, these beautiful olds fonts,” Erna said. “What a tragedy.”
“It’s nothing compared to teen pregnancy and wife beating,” Sven said. “I’m sure Janey can get you Bembo for display type.”
A few minutes later Erna withdrew to the editorial floor, leaving Jane Louise with an enormous, untidy manuscript.
“I wonder if old Alfred slaps her around,” Sven said. “Jesus, it’s like having a whole stable of nervous horses in there. I wish she’d shut up about type. It just goes to show that girls are ruined by reading. Even her nasty children have opinions on these subjects. She told me that her oldest had a fondness for Baskerville.”
“All fourteen year olds do,” said Jane Louise.
–from A Big Storm Knocked It Over by Laurie Colwin