November 25, 2010
The Difference of Value Persists
My essay “The Difference of Value Persists” is in Canadian Notes & Queries 80, on newsstands now, in which I write about Lisa Moore, Virginia Woolf, Barometer Rising, shipwrecks, placentas, Margaret Atwood, hysterics, and sock matching, and mean everything I say. The article before mine argues all the points I make in my piece, and this is one of the reasons that I love Canadian Notes & Queries. Also because it is the most beautifully designed magazine in the world right now, and I’m not even exaggerating.
October 18, 2010
The Journey Prize Stories 22
In the Canadian literary circles I tune into, everybody bitches about everything. It’s sort of a standard rule. Which makes it notable, I think, that I’ve never heard anybody complain about the dearth of a thriving literary magazine culture in this country. That I’ve never heard a writer tell me that they’d had it with Canadian lit. mags, and now they’re sending everything to some address in New York City or London. That L.A. is where the bucks are. Though no one ever says that here is where the bucks are either, but the bucks are not the point. Though they should be. Why aren’t they? And probably we could all start bitching about that.
We take these magazines for granted, however. These little outfits all over the country, often driven by volunteers, undersubscribed but over submitted to. Whose funding was cut by the Federal Government a while back, remember? These magazines that have provided stellar platforms from which our best writers have launched their careers. Magazines that readers like me have fallen in love with, and thrill to see in my mail box about four times a year.
Of course, I go on about small magazines all the time. I also spend a lot of time celebrating the short story, and the fantastic work being created in the genre by new Canadians writers. And I realize that this all can be a bit overwhelming– what magazine to read? What writers? What stories? How to get a feel for any of this? So I am very happy to answer all these questions with The Journey Prize Stories 22.
Each year, Canadian literary magazines submit their best short fiction for The Journey Prize, which was founded in 1988 when writer James Michener donated the Canadian royalties of his novel Journey. This year’s judges were Pasha Malla, Joan Thomas and Alissa York, and they culled the list down to 12 stories which appear here. The collection was a pleasure to read, an exciting sampling of the diverse forces at work in Canadian short fiction, and an example of the amazing talent being spotted and fostered by our smaller magazines.
The three stories selected for the shortlist were all deserving– Krista Foss’ “The Longitude of Okay” is a gripping story of a school shooting incident and its aftermath, fiercely plotted, and sparsely drawn with perfect detail. Devon Code’s “Uncle Oscar” is told from the perspective of a young boy who is privy to disorder all around him, and orders that disorder in his own way. That young boy’s perspective never falters. And finally, Lynne Katsukake’s “Mating” takes place in Japan, where a husband is reluctantly supporting his wife in a an effort to find a wife for their son, and the narrative is a subtle meditation on family, love and parenthood.
For me, other standouts in the bunch were Laura Boudreau’s “The Dead Dad Game”, which is also a young person’s perspective on a broken world, and that world is realized with such humour, poignancy and quirky charm. Ben Lof’s “When In the Field With Her at His Back” is a disorienting story with all of itself encapsulated within its very first sentence, and yet it manages to be surprising. I loved Andrew McDonald’s “Eat Fist”, in which a young Ukrainian-Canadian math prodigy’s language lessons from a female weight lifter blossoms into her very first love affair. Eliza Robertson’s “Ship’s Log” is the story of a young boy who’s digging a hole to China, perhaps to escape from a home where everything has gone awry, and the gaps in this playful narrative are particularly devastating to great effect. Mike Spry’s “Five Pounds Short With Apologies to Nelsen Algren” begins, “No one ever tells you not to fuck the monkey…” and goes from there, and never falls over its feet with its furious pace.
As I read this collection, I tried to think of a way to link the stories, to find a way to talk about them all together in a review, but they each read so differently, and I never figured out how. But now I see that the small magazine thing was the underlining factor all along anyway– incredible stuff is happening here. And if you want to add your support to a really thriving culture, The Journey Prize Stories is a good place to start.
October 10, 2010
"…never have I seen such generosity, passion and commitment"
September 14, 2010
Live and Learn
Though Chatelaine and I are still on the outs (really, Chatelaine? an excerpt from Mini-Shopaholic? Do you know me at all?), from the feature “Live and Learn” in the October 2010 issue, I got a inkling of what the magazine might be like were it actually good. Jan Wong on losing her job, depression and having her world turned upside down in her 50s, and what that experience taught her; Catherine Gildiner on her 60s (“I realized life should not have to be proved, but lived”); wise words from Lauren Kirshner from her 20s (“be a messy work-in-progress”), and then Lisa Moore’s piece, oh my. I am going to cut it out and hang it on the refrigerator that will become the rest of my life. A tidbit, though you really have to go read the whole thing: “Trust everyone. Everyone behaves better when they feel trusted. Nobody wins a fight; the trick is to behave decently no matter what. The trick is to make love a lot. And think of it as making love.”
July 25, 2010
To pick just one
Last week, I offered up the chance to win my spare copy of CNQ to anyone who’d just tell me their favourite short story. Short stories, of course, being a most underappreciated form, but then what of the responses I received? Which were lists of short stories, because many couldn’t bear to pick just one. And magazines too, aren’t they supposed to be obsolete? But then everybody wants a copy of this one, perhaps for the keepsake inside, or its gorgeous redesign, or the wonderful articles and stories from cover to shining cover. One person emailed me the following a few days after entering: “Take me out of the CNQ draw. I bought the issue today. Couldn’t help myself. I’m hauling 100 lbs of books and magazines across the country, but I still needed to have this issue.”
The bad news: if you’re reading this and haven’t heard from me, you didn’t win.
The good news: CNQ is on sale at your local independent bookshop (and probably elsewhere too…). You won’t be sorry.
Also, favourite short stories include:
- Alice Munro’s “Red Dress”
- (can’t remember title but) from Hilary Sharper’s collection Dream Dresses
- L.M. Montgomery’s “The Quarantine”
- entirety of Olive Kitterage by Elizabeth Strout
- “My Husband’s Jump” by Jessica Grant
- “Coyote Columbus Story” by Thomas King
- Munro’s “Jack Randa Hotel”
- William Trevor’s “Three People”
- Michael Chabon’s “A Model World”
July 19, 2010
Want to get your hands on?
There is no way I can describe to you how much I was enjoying reading CNQ 79 this morning, sipping a splendid cup of tea with the morning breeze drifting in through the window. And not just because it’s the first day in recent memory that nobody local has been operating a sledgehammer or chainsaw outside, nope. It’s because the magazine reads as good as it looks. My favourite kind of writing– critics passionately advocating for the work they love best, and for the short story form in general and particular. Reading the pieces that opened the magazine, I felt so inspired, excited, and lucky to be reading in a time in which, however much the form is maligned, incredible short stories keep getting written. (And celebrated).
Due to clerical error, however, I have ended up with two copies of this magazine. If you live in Canada and would like me to mail you my spare, please email me at klclare AT gmail DOT com and tell me the title of your favourite short story. I’ll pick a response at random this weekend. Good luck!
June 30, 2010
Serious print overload
Honestly, today was an amazing In The Post day. I received the latest issue of Canadian Notes & Queries, whose cover is gorgeous (as you can see) and embossed (which maybe you can’t). It gets even better in-covers, with an interior re-design by Seth. It’s “The Short Story Issue”, which means I can’t wait to read it to pieces. I’m looking forward to everything, and a new story by Rebecca Rosenblum in particular.
In another envelope, I received some textual treats from my friend Alyssa (and I get to call her my friend, because I met her once in real life about ten years ago, and we didn’t become online friends until some years after that). Not only did she send a card with a photo of her beautiful son, but she sent me three little books from The Regional Assembly of Text in Vancouver: “Crust Test”, “Things They Loved” and “Encounters with Jesus”. Love it love it love it.
Seriously, this is print overload.
Further, I’ve been magazining it up like a madwoman lately. The day after my post on magazines a few weeks back, I received LRB, Chatelaine, and an subscription offer from The New Yorker in the mail, which I thought was sort of funny. The Chatelaine was even worse than the last one, incidentally. My biggest problem with it was the passages they’d highlighted so I didn’t have to go to the bother of reading the articles, and I was insulted by the idea that had I ten minutes to spare, I’d spend it spray-painting a hideous piece of crap. I don’t like how everything is so rigidly compartmentalized, and how the backyard depicted for relaxing in had a motor boat in the background.
But maybe it was because I was reading Wolf Hall, which really did call for diversions, that I began motoring through my backlog of periodicals. I read one LRB after another, and revelled in the fascinatingness. I can’t remember much of what got me so excited at the time, but the point was that it left me super-stimulated and inspired (and maybe I was just getting used to sleeping normally again). Perusing the archives, however, I remember that I loved this scathing review of the new translation of The Second Sex; Andrew O’Hagan on the moon; a review of a book called Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England; Will Self’s “On the Common”; review of Ian McEwen’s Solar; and then Andrew O’Hagan again.
I also read the latest issue of Room, which was the best one I’d read yet (even though I thought I wouldn’t like it, because I thought it was all about sports. It wasn’t. But even when it was, it was good).
The best thing about all this being that now my periodical backlog is not so backlogged. I’ve got three LRBS to be read, the Lists issue of The New Quarterly, and then the just-arrived CNQ. There is a distinct possibility that I might get caught up, for the first time in over a year.
And it is a bad thing that I reserve breastfeeding for reading magazines, which is part of the reason I haven’t really thought much about weaning?
June 8, 2010
On magazines
Charlotte’s post about magazines has inspired me to copy her (and has also introduced me to the The Devil’s Artisan, which has very much piqued my interest). I too love magazines, and though the stack of those to-be-read has never recovered from Harriet’s early months, and I fear I will be months behind until the end of my days, I continue to renew my subscriptions and look forward t0 each day that I find one waiting in my mailbox.
Magazines I subscribe to:
The New Quarterly:
I’ll admit it– if you publish my stories, I’ll be loyal to you, but that’s not half the reason why I’m partial to TNQ. As I posted recently, “TNQ is fiction, poetry, features, art, profiles, creative non-fiction and more. TNQ is never the same, but always gorgeously produced, the work is always thoughtful and interesting, containing stories that have absolutely blown my mind. I read Alison Pick for the first time there, and Carrie Snyder, and Terry Griggs, and Amy Jones, and Zsuszi Gartner. I love the “Magazine as Muse” section. The Editor’s letters are always a pleasure to read, and full of treasures themselves. In short, four times a year, TNQ comes into my world and makes it a better place.”
Room:
Room (formerly A Room of One’s Own, which I still think was a fine name and I kind of wish they hadn’t changed it) does a fantastic job with supporting and promoting new writers, and publishing them alongside amazing work by established ones, and for the most part, this balance works well. They’re a feminist magazine run by a volunteer collective whose diversity is reflected in the magazine’s content. Each issue is linked by a theme, however loosely, and I also appreciate range of forms they publish– short stories, poetry, interviews, reviews, and profiles of readers. It makes for a good read, and, like TNQ, they have good editors’ letters as well.
Canadian Notes and Queries:
Oh, the learning at your fingertips in an issue of CNQ. I’ll be honest– the content is a bit hit-and-miss in terms of appealing to me, and I didn’t really read the last issue,but I’ve loved pretty much every other issue of CNQ that’s come to me over the past three years. I enjoy the ongoing MacSkimming series of interviews on the history of Canadian publishing, their focus on the bookselling climate, their issue on translation was incredible, the best articles are challenging and interesting even when I disagree with the point of view. It’s also a really beautifully designed magazine.
ROM Magazine:
We get this one automatically as part of our museum membership, and I don’t read it cover-to-cover, but I still love it. The recent redesign has been absolutely beautiful, I like Mark Kingwell’s columns, and thanks to this magazine I know all kinds of bizarre facts about ladybugs, bats and the dead sea scrolls.
London Review of Books:
I started subscribing to this one through a twofer subscription deal my friend had. A genius idea, because this periodical is a bit addicting, and of course, once I started, I really couldn’t stop. I used to try to read everything, but now only pick out articles that will hold my interest, which means I don’t read as much about economics and Afghanistan as I once did, which is a shame because the articles are amazing. But they’re also loooooong and the print is every small, and if I read everything I wanted to in the LRB, there would be no time for books. There is always time for Andrew O’Hagan, Alan Bennett, Jenny Diski and Anne Enright, however. And scathing reviews that are brilliant rather than bitter.
Chatelaine:
What happened? One minute, I was too cool for Chatelaine, and now I’m way too much of a Mum. The new issue wasn’t even worthy of being a coaster on my coffee table. Tonight I ate a dip that was from that issue, however, and it was good, but I’m still not convinced. I miss Katrina Onstad (who yes, was the best thing they had going), and the recipes (which have become my staples. What will I cook without them?) were lacking, and there was nothing interesting in the entire issue. I’ve been a pretty happy subscriber for the past two years, but I think my Chatelaine days are done.
Magazines I don’t subscribe to:
Walrus: I waited and waited for them to start publishing women writers, not merely on principle, but because a general interest magazine written by only men is not generally interesting. I even sent a letter asking the editor why publishing women writers was not important to him, and I got zero reply, not even a form. I no longer subscribe, and though the contributers seem a but more mixed lately, I still don’t think I’m missing much.
Magazines I would subscibe to were my life a better place:
The New Yorker: If I subscribed to this magazine, my stack of unread issues would grow so high that I would have to jump off the top and kill myself. But I wish it didn’t have to be that way– if only there were more days in the week, and I had nothing else to do but read it. Because The New Yorker is fantastic, I admire the stamina of its subscribers.
The Believer: I love this magazine, and it’s lovely, but very expensive, and so are a lot of other things.
April 13, 2010
Lists
1) The New Quarterly 114 has a stunningly gorgeous cover
2) Issue is guest-edited by Diane Schoemperlan
3) On the theme of lists
4) (like Amy Jones’ blog!)
5) TNQ Blog The Literary Type has been doing list-inspired blogging lately
6) The issue has overflowed out of its covers into some “online exclusives”
7) Including my short story “Anna Lambert Lived and Died” which will go online next week
8) I’ll keep you posted.
November 28, 2009
On James Wood on Byatt, and the Universe
Too many magazines come to my house, and after I had a baby in May, I didn’t get around to reading any of them for ages. So it’s only just now that I’ve read “Bristling With Diligence”, James Wood’s review of A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book (because I’m superstitious about reading my periodicals and their contents out of order).
Like all of James Wood’s reviews, this one was as fascinating to read as the book it pertained to. There was not a single point upon which I really disagreed with him (except for “Byatt is a very ordinary grown-ups’ writer”), he got the book right on, and yet I loved The Children’s Book and James Wood distinctly didn’t. And this is where an objective approach to criticism breaks down, I think, or where I cease to understand it. Wood lets his evidence speak for itself, but what that it says something quite different to me?
I realize that Wood has an agenda of sorts, or rather an “approach” to fiction, and that I’ve not been paying much attention to what that is, so let us not make that the point. Instead, I want to point out the curiousity of Wood taking down Byatt for characters who are “dutiful puppets, always squeezed and shaped for available meaning.” That as author, Byatt “dances, with leaden slippers, around the thought-sleep of her characters… [with] that teacherly, qualifying, authorial judgment.” That “an atmosphere of historical typicality drapes the stories’ individual forms.” That “Whenever a detail could be selected at the expense of another one, Byatt will always prefer to buy both, and include the receipts”. (I love that sentence. Honestly, that every book review could be so vital and engaging, but I digress…)
To all of which, I reply, “Yes, yes, yes! And isn’t it marvelous?” Because it occurs to me that what I like best about fiction is not its realism (sorry, James Wood), but the way that a novel or story can be its own little universe. I confess: I like witnessing Byatt’s manipulations. I like writers that move their characters around like pieces on a boardgame, and I like omniscience, and I like a guiding hand. Ruby Lennox at the beginning of Behind the Scenes at the Museum: “I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight on the clock on the mantelpiece in the room across the hall.” Realism, this isn’t.
I like Margaret Drabble, her novel The Radiant Way, and how “an atmosphere of historical typicality draped… individual forms.” Perhaps fiction is not so informed by history, but I think it works especially well the other way around. Also, I like how in Drabble’s novel The Gates of Ivory, a character from The Needle’s Eye appears out of nowhere, and how these novels are seemingly unconnected otherwise, the character is minor in both novels (which were written nearly two decades apart), but how this connection gives impression of a Drabbleverse, and that I am privy to it.
I think all of this is now old-fashioned, though it was once so modern they made an “-ism” of it. For I think Mrs. Dalloway was that kind of book, and so was To The Lighthouse. Whose characters stood for things, and knew things they didn’t even know they knew (though Mrs. Ramsey did). I think Zadie Smith’s fictional worlds are like this too (though I don’t this has to do with Wood’s “hysterical realism”, but I could well be wrong. I often am about things like that).
By chance (or for some deeper reason as determined by a guiding force, who knows?), I read Wood’s review as I was reading Penelope Lively’s novel Cleopatra’s Sister. Lively (who won the Booker Prize in 1987 for her extraordinary novel Moon Tiger) is a critically-underrated writer (which doesn’t mean she doesn’t get good reviews, but that is something different). Her novels– and this one in particular– deal with ordinary lives intersecting with history, the trajectory of destiny, teleology. Her recent novel Consequences is about what it sounds like; her pseudo-memoir Making It Up is a fictionalized autobiography, supposing different paths she might have taken in her life.
Cleopatra’s Sister is about history as random or inevitable, and Lively shows that it is both or n/either as she brings her two main characters together through a series of events that begins with Gondwana (and rapidly does proceed to the present day, do not fear; Clan of the Cave Bear this book is not). “These events are chronological; they take place in sequence and are in some senses contingent upon one another. Remove one– extract a decade, or a century– and the whole historical ediface will shift on its foundations. But that ediface itself is a chimera, a construct of human intellect. It has no bricks and stones– it is words, words, words. The events are myths and fables distortions and elaborations of something that may or may not have happened; they are the rainbow survivors of some vanished grey moment of reality.”
Which has a double-meaning, of course, in that this is fiction, but reality as we make sense of it is only “words, words, words” too. Which makes the concept of realist fiction sort of absurd to consider.
Achieving reality itself as the goal of fiction is one thing, but I think the construction of a fictional self-contained universe (like the Drabbleverse, the Livelyverse) is just as noble a fictional pursuit. However, not so much in the realm of the fantastic (excuse me, my bias is showing), where in order to be authentic, you just make everyone sound a little bit Welsh. But rather, universes that so resemble this one, but which are consciously constructed. Because what marvelous constructions these are, I always think. The details required in such creation (which is exactly why Byatt would get both, and receipts). It’s like rebuilding the whole world again, brick by brick, and guiding its people up and down the streets. Controlling traffic. And setting in play a chain of circumstances, like say, the New Years Eve during which Archie Jones tries to kill himself, fails, and then meets Clara, the Jamaican daughter of a devout Jehovah’s Witness, and then we’re off! for a few hundred pages.
Of course, all this, like everything, is a matter of taste. I was discussing Amy Jones’ story collection What Boys Like with a friend the other day, and she told me that her least favourite story was “The Church of the Latter-Day Peaches”– which had been one of the ones I liked best. (Note: We agreed our mutual favourite was “All We Will Ever Be”, but I digress. Again.) My friend felt “Church of…” wasn’t as strong as the rest of the collection due to its storiedness–its cuteness, its beginning, middle and end, such a tidy shape, the patterns, how it contained its own lore, how parts of it meant something other than what they were. That it didn’t stand for life itself. And when all of that had been what I’d enjoyed so much about it– there really is no accounting for other people, is there?
What I’m slowly getting around to then is questioning the assumption that fiction has to be real. Which is hardly original, I know, but I wish to point out what a feat still is an excellent novel without realism as its intention. That such a novel
