September 3, 2008
Delightful Things
This past weekend, because it was long, because it was summery weather, and because my sister-in-law was staying with us, we indulged in delightful things. Chocolate raspberry tarts at Dessert Trends, a sunny afternoon at Riverdale Farm, bbq indulgences (esp. corn on the cob and mmm that grilled peach blue cheese salad was good), a trip out of town to the Twenty Valley where we loaded up on gorgeous produce from a roadside stand, and then to Ward’s Island yesterday, to wade in the warm (!) and gorgeous Lake Ontario and dinner at The Rectory Cafe. All in all a perfect way to kiss goodbye the summer, or perhaps more to give summer a whole lot of temptation to stay. Just a little bit longer?
We’d been discussing Rosie Little earlier this week, my sister-in-law and I, having both fallen in love with Danielle Wood’s tales something fierce. And we were talking about the restaurant in Vancouver where Rosie has tea at the end of the book– The Junction Tea Room? (Which I cannot
verify, as my downstairs neighbour has borrowed my copy for a holiday to Japan). And how we wished the magical tea room was real, but a fruitless Google search suggested it wasn’t. Alas. And then come Sunday afternoon in Jordan Ontario, we find the only parking space in down right out from of the Twenty Valley Tea House.
We had a brilliant afternoon tea there, sun pouring in through the windows. As at The Junction Tea Room, we got to select our own cups and saucers, mismatched and gorgeous. A hat racked mounted with chapeaus and feathers was there for our pleasure, should we choose to
partake. Oh, the tea was delicious, the cakes and triangle sandwiches. Ok, there was no cream (no cream?!) but the scones were so moist and flavourful, none was really required. We ate in tiny bites, morsels, in that afternoon tea way that always has us come out stuffed. Afterwards, a browse in the gift shop, with tea goods for our pleasure. All in all, a superlative teaish experience. Even worthy of fiction…
September 1, 2008
Very Strange
When I realized in June that the colours of my dress coordinated so perfectly with a Miriam Toews novel, I thought it was a marvelous sort of coincidence. But what to make of it now, Toews’ new novel The Flying Troutmans such a perfect match for my other favourite summer dress? Have I failed to notice book designers rummaging through my closet for inspiration?
August 21, 2008
Eleveneses and Scone Rage
Another excuse to drink tea, and I never knew: from Lucky Beans I discover “Elevenses“. I’m totally taking it up, as long as I get to continue to have eightsies, twelvsies and twosies too. Wikipedia even says elevenses are literary: “For Elevenses, Winnie the Pooh preferred honey on bread with condensed milk. In Middle-earth it is a meal eaten by Hobbits in addition to second breakfast. Paddington Bear often took elevenses at the antique shop on Portobello Road run by his friend Mr Gruber and usually received some sound advice about his current thorny problem at the same time.”
In other tea-ish news (and from the same magnificent source), I am fascinated to learn that Liam Gallagher was charged with air rage and banned from Cathay Pacific after an altercation over a scone.
August 10, 2008
As all good fiction should…
Now, I am not one to approach my fiction from a purely aesthetic point of view. I wouldn’t even know how to, but even I was struck by the introduction to Patricia Robertson’s review of The Prairie Bridesmaid in this week’s G&M: “As all good fiction should, Daria Salaman’s debut novel… triggered some happy memories for this reader.” How weird.
First, that the grammar suggests all good fiction should trigger some good memories for Patricia Robertson specifically, which seems a tall order for writers (some of whom mightn’t even have met her!!). More seriously, I love sentimentality as much as the next soppy git, but when reviewing fiction in a national newspaper, shouldn’t one be expected to set their literary standards a bit higher? Which is not to say I have any problem with sentimentality, with nostalgia (because many of my favourite books take on a nostalgic bent, and I also realize that most history happened just minutes ago) but surely neither of these alone are substance enough to seize upon. And that Robertson goes on to write a decent review suggests to me that she knows this, so I’m confused why she chooses to open her piece as she does. Unless it is a subtle reference to “It is a truth universally acknowledged…”, not wholly out of place here, but then surely a more clever sweeping generalization might have been found?
Second– the idea that “all good fiction” could do one single thing, like a chorus. Few things get me more rankled, and I don’t care what that one single thing might be. I just believe believe we have to keep our definitions of fiction, its possibilities, so broad if there is to be any hope of “goodness” at all. That if fiction, good or otherwise, just like “the novel” and the “the story”, ever came to conform to these kind of prescriptions, to any prescriptions, how much we all would lose for it.
If every single book was the book that we wanted, we’d stop knowing how to fall in love.
July 25, 2008
Looking forward
It may have been raining plenty of late, but it is still summer. We’re off on a cottage mini-break this weekend, for which we’re very lucky and excited, and life is never ever better than it is in July. However the following is a list of things for which I’m looking forward to autumn (and they must be good, to make me look past July). Surprise, surprise, they’re mainly bookish:
- Once by Rebecca Rosenblum (Biblioasis, September 15)
- Goldengrove by Francine Prose (Harper Collins Canada, September 3)
- The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews (Knopf Canada, September 2)
- Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing (Harper Collins Canada)
- Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings by M.H. Rubio (Doubleday Canada October)
- When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (Bond Street Books, September 9)
- What It Feels Like For A Girl by Jennica Harper (Anvil Press, September 15)
- Promised Land by Dar Williams (September)
July 24, 2008
Already Elsewhere
Taking offense to a recent article which termed fiction as distraction, and non-fiction as enlightenment, my friend K at The Pop Triad has some wonderful things to say:
“Fiction is a distraction, but all books are. Reading steals you from the sensory world around you and immerses you in the interior world of the pages in front of you. The temperature and sounds of the place where you sit to read, your seat itself, are irrelevant. You could be anywhere because you are already elsewhere.”
And she wonders if “it’s time to reconsider our collective mindset about the kinds of books that are distractingly enlightening and the kinds that are simply distracting.”
July 19, 2008
A return to order
Returning my books to their freshly painted shelves last evening was as satisfying as popping bubble wrap, or tweezing out an ingrown hair. I’d had to resist the urge to get it all done earlier, before the paint was surely dry, exercising my sorely underused sensibility muscle. Telling myself over and over, it is hot and humid, shelves could be sticky, books could get stuck= disaster. But it’s finished now, books are home. The room is fresh and bright, and the built-in shelves are no longer dingy grey. Though we do have a unique problem here of too many shelves, and the collection looks piddly. But still lovely, standing at attention and alphabetized for your pleasure…
July 17, 2008
Everyday I violate some principles
So at the end of June, I vowed not to buy another book until September. (I haven’t announced this officially, hoping to avoid driving book stock further into the toilet). Because I have 27 books on my books unread shelf, I’m rereading all summer, and also because I feared that my book buying had become compulsive, and I wanted to prove that it wasn’t. I couldn’t. I already bought a book on Monday, and then I did it again today. But then how could I not have, for this is not just any book. Sigh, but when is it ever?
I’d never heard of Toronto: A Literary Guide until today, when it appeared in the window of a used bookshop calling my name. Published in 1999 by Greg Gatenby (of the International Festival of Authors), this sweet tome is a perfect catalogue of all the places writers have lived or visited, written or read, or congregated together in Toronto. Broken down by neighbourhood, written in a non-cataloguey convivial tone, with fabulous details, context, historical fact, dealing with writers working in a variety of genres, dating back to the nineteenth century. Page upon page of lives.
Let’s take my neighbourhood, “South Annex”, or a one-block radius of my house, to break it down more. Major Street has been home to writers M.T. Kelly, Janet Hamilton, Howard Engel, Albert E.S. Smythe, Aviva Layton, Leon and Constance Rooke, Michael Ondaatje and Linda Spalding, Charles Tidler and Martyn Burke. Gwendolyn MacEwen lived around the corner on Robert. The marvelous house at 84 Sussex was home of the new press in the early ’70s. Greg Hollingshead and John Bemrose lived there as well. Brunswick Ave. has been home to Janice Kulyk Keefer, Olive Senior, Maggie Helwig, Adele Wiseman, David French, Erika Ritter, and Karen Mulhallen. Do note these details (whose prose is far more charming than I let on here) take up three pages of 622. Which means that my neighbourhood is fabulous, and this book is tremendously rich.
Indeed I am one of those curious (and ubiquitous) creatures partial to the literary pilgrimage. How fun to now have so many now right outside the door, and a whole new book full of fantastic things to know, new connections. Awakening me to the secret history of maps I know by heart.
July 16, 2008
Scream in High Park
Our trip last night to The Scream Literary Festival’s “Scream in High Park” Mainstage was quite well-documented. Off we went, waving good-bye, with a picnic full of carbs in tow. Took the subway to High Park Station and then walked deep deep into the woods, and claimed some prime seating at the venue.
The menu consisted of pasta salad, Rosenblum bread, avocado scones, cheese, and sweet snacks ala Enright. But if you can believe it, such a delicious spread wasn’t even the main event.
First up was the magnificent Mariko Tamaki, writer of Skim, which I’ve been lusting after for a while. (See Tamaki to the right). She opened her set with a poem comprising Facebook statuses of yore, read and excerpt from Skim, and then an essay about ephemerality that was well and truly lovely.
Another delight was seeing Claudia Dey read again from Stunt. As a reader she is as compelling as Tamaki, though in a different way, and I would have run right out and bought her book if I hadn’t done so already.
I also loved Sonnet L’Abbé, Wayde Compton with Jason de Coutu, Ray Robertson and Motion. I would have loved even more too, except I had to work in the morning and so we left before the final set. And it was too dark by then to take a photo of us waving goodbye.
Such a magical evening, assembled there with friends and strangers. Inside a forest in the midst of this big city, a summer night that grew cool as the sun went down. Fireflies stealing the show, those luminous acrobats– I could hardly keep my eyes off them.
And in terms of the human performers, I’m not sure who stole the show most, though the lineups at the booksale provided a very good indication…
