May 24, 2007
Evening classes
Summer has arrived with a slap of heat which has drained me of all energy. Now reading The Children of Men, and really enjoying it. And today from the library I fetched The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and Thieves, which I must read in the next week. The former book will be a good preparation for our upcoming vaca, I think, though we’ll not being visiting London. But indeed in one week’s time we’ll be en-route to the airport. I’m very excited, as we haven’t been abroad in two years, with all our immigration madness and that year in which neither of us earned a living. I’ve still not decided what I am bringing to read on the plane, however– maybe my collected Grace Paley to reread? And I am a little disappointed that I’ll miss out on some good reading time as we’re driving and not taking the train. Nonetheless, I am thrilled that I will be able to hold next weekend’s The Guardian in me own two hands, and that sometime in the week I will pop into a Waterstones and steal some 3 for 2s. Oh England England, get ready to welcome us home (literally and otherwise, respectively).
May 17, 2007
Better Days
And so we post a photo of feet in honour of days better than this one. Tonight has been awfully scabby for a variety of reasons, none of which have to do with the greatness of expensive feta or my wonderful husband. Now reading Poppy Shakespeare and The Girls is coming up next. I am always drowning in the periodicals I subscribe to, all of which arrive in the same day or two. And so the moral of the story is that I’m not about to run of reading material anytime soon, no sir. The other moral is that the day flies by too quickly.
May 10, 2007
Stories in the Air
What a treat was mine this eve, as my fairy godmother had delivered me her ticket to the Kama Readings; she couldn’t attend. And so I went in her place, and saw/listened to Camilla Gibb, David Adams Richards, Thomas King and M.G. Vassanji. The readings were an absolute pleasure. Gibb read from Sweetness in the Belly (my favourite book of 2006); Richards read a beautiful passage from The Friends of Meager Fortune; King and Vassanji both read short stories from recent collections. I do like to sit and listen– it is a test for me, as anyone who has ever been interrupted by me would surely realize. It requires effort, but I always feel wonderful after– like I’ve been working a muscle. And I like the idea of readings, of stories in the air. The ones floating about were certainly wonderful tonight.
Now reading A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor. The man in the elevator today examined my cover (quite forcefully), and said “You’ve got to love the Irish”. I really didn’t know what to tell him. Coming up: Poppy Shakespeare and then The Girls— both popular novels whose premises have kept me shying away, but I’m finally too curious. And I’m still reading Stephanie Nolen’s 28 Stories of Aids of Africa which is amazingly captured, and I’m slowly working through.
David Adams Richards amused everyone tonight with his story of the time he set his hair on fire. Guffaws all around. Though some of you will remember why my laughter was very much in sympathy. He, however, did not set his aflame at karaoke.
May 7, 2007
Park Life
It is hard to reconcile the inherent rubbishness of the world with weekends like this one. Oh weekends, you are the one thing that makes me pleased to be back in the workaday life. Though as a student/housewife every day was the weekend, that sort of took away the very point of it. And this weekend was extremely pointful. We went out for sushi and ice cream Friday night with Erica and Alex, which was splendid. Saturday we did our Kensington shop, which was a sweet summer dream. Saturday afternoon was a bike ride to High Park where we sprawled on our blanket all afternoon, ate strawberries, read books, and later I climbed a tree. The park was fullsville but the wonderful thing about parks is that we all share that wonderful space. It really was splendid, and nice to get the bikes out of the garage for the first time all season. Today Stuart was doing boyish things with other boyish types, and I was writing writing. The marvelous Natalie Bay came for supper, which was great. She’s just come back from Japan and brought us omiyage– pnis shaped cookies. I’d post a picture, but this is not that sort of blog.
I’m adjusting to my new life, and so reading/blogging have been slow of late. Though I’m working on two books at the moment: 28 Stories of Aids in Africa by Stephanie Nolen, and The Ladies Lending Library by Janice Kulyk Keefer (and there ain’t a better book for a summer’s day).
May 2, 2007
Catch
Where I Was From by Joan Didion is the best book by Joan Didion I have ever read. This is no small praise. Yes, The Year of Magical Thinking came with a sentimentality creeping in which humanized Didion and I appreciated that, but reading Where I Was From I realize that she is at her very best when cold and watching. It’s the connections she draws which make her work so powerful, and I love the way she leaves us to do with them what we will. Or at least the way she seems to let us do what we will, for her words are so calculated, her logic so exact, that even when I disagree with what she is saying, I cannot help but see her point of view.
I am now reading The Fifth Child on the advice of Heather Mallick. Intriguing, apparently not typical Lessing, and much akin to We Need To Talk About Kevin, which was my best book of 2005 (and which I’ll be rereading this summer).
Last night I cried upon realizing that my days have suddenly become much shorter, which is the power of an eight hour workday. This was devastating to contemplate, as there I was aiming to finish Where I Was From, write the end to a stubborn short story, post an entry on Divisadero, and bake cupcakes all before bedtime. How I will miss my grad student/housewife days, where all of that was possible, and hours and hours more were open wide, and I was still free to cavort with the postman every morning, and read and write all day long. But then I got to work this morning and remembered that I’ve got a pretty lovely gig for the next few months, my coworkers are wonderful, I can ride my bike to get there, the work is (sometimes) interesting. More good things were underlined as we went outside to play catch at lunch time.
And so all is well, and time enough there will be. I suppose also that eight hours a day of wages will make evenings and weekends a delight.
April 27, 2007
California
My only problem with Joan Didion is that when I think about her too much, I start singing “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” with her name in place of Lydia’s. Otherwise I feel about Joan Didion something just short of worship, on the right side of sane. From that magical day four years ago when I first picked up Slouching Toward Bethlehem, I’ve had her voice in my head. I will reread her forever, but it thrills me that there is new reading still in the meantime.
All of this because I’ve just began Divisadero and I find myself in Didion’s California. And so how can I not read my new copy of Where I Was From next? I love the way one book suggests another.
I am concerned though, as Anna Karenina is lined up to be my May Classic and I have this terrible suspicion that I might not get to it….
April 26, 2007
Rainy Thursday
As I return to the world of work next week, I’ve spent my second-last free weekday properly. I was pleased that it was raining so I could do so. Reworking a short story of mine, and reading two little books. I loved The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald, and After the Quake by Haruki Murakami. I loved watching the rain come down, sipping too many cups of tea to count, and being here to receive my first copy of the London Review of Books. I have such a crush on the postman. And am I ever going to miss this lovely life of mine.
Next up (and aren’t I lucky?): Divisadero, the brand new novel by Michael Ondaatje.
April 25, 2007
Righting wrongs
Like it or not, books aren’t meant in general. Most people are predisposed to disliking some kind of book, which is to say nothing about the people or the books except that the world is large and people are varied. Happily you can always find something else to read. And so then I wonder why so many people don’t. Why do people persist in reading books they are predisposed to disliking? Further, why do people persist in reviewing books they are predisposed to disliking? This is not to say that genre is resolute, that horizons shant be broadened, but I just think that I would be the person least inclined to judge a fantasy novel, for example, or a computer science textbook to take it further. Similarly the writer of this review, who professes to being driven mad by columnists such as Heather Mallick, probably wasn’t the best choice to review Mallick’s new book Cake or Death. Heather Mallick is an altogether devisive character, and so wouldn’t it have been fair to assign her book to a writer who, I don’t know, doesn’t detest her?
(Though of course the G&M does have its axe to grind. How petty.)
I, however, am perfectly qualified to review Heather Mallick’s new book. I adore Heather Mallick, but yet I was objective enough to admit that her previous book had problems. But her new book is absolutely brilliant. I’m about 2/3 through and I just reread the Globe review and the unfairness of it made me so angry I had to stop (see? it’s easy). And so get ready for some great excerpts, and a review tonight or tomorrow. And then we can consider a blatant wrong just a little bit righted.
April 24, 2007
It's hard to find good music
Indeed, I successfully defended my Masters Thesis yesterday, and came home to this beautiful bouquet sent by my family. Lucky I, and luckier still for this Saturday afternoon Stuart and I are going out to celebrate the end of school in the fashion I have chosen, and it is a very special fashion. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
Linkylink:
-Find an update over at my hobby blog Now Doing! Posted are pictures of the blanket I knit this winter, and my current patchwork project.
-I was thrilled to find out that the marvelous Saffrina Welch has started a blog. Saff is a friend of Stu’s from uni, and when she and her boyfriend Ivan came to stay with us in December, we had a brilliant time. So it will be fun to see what she gets up to online.
-Bookwise, I was happy to see that Karen Connelly’s The Lizard Cage has been nominated for the Orange Award for New Writers. As I expressed when I read it last March, The Lizard Cage is an extraordinary novel, and deserves so much recognition.
-I’ve never read Barbara Pym, but I feel like I ought to after having read this wonderful feature on the Barbara Pym Society Conference.
-And on an unrelated note: Kirsten Dunst is credited with saying: “I was brought up on Guns ‘N Roses, the Les Miserables soundtrack and anything my mother listened to. But it’s much harder to find great music these days.” Bless.
Still reading Happenstance very happily, though copy errors make my eyes bleed. I also picked up the new Hart House Review today and it’s absolutely beautiful. The ever-accomplished Rebecca Rosenblum took a top prize for fiction. Congratulations RR! Some poetry as well by other creative writing comrades. What a bunch.
April 22, 2007
April can be so uncruel
We stuck close to home this weekend, which is natural as close to our home is a wonderful place to be on a weekend like this. Lots of indulgences: first ice cream of 2007, first outdoor patio supper with the first pitcher of beer. Today we partook in chicken wings as the street went by. I’ve felt mellow enough to be boneless, which is so nice (and rare).
I read Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto this morn, and I loved it. My problem with Japanese fiction in the past has been its weirdness (I’m a realist to the core) but I rode with it, and I enjoyed it. It’s the first Japanese fiction I’ve read since we lived there, and it was nice to go back for an hour or two. Now reading Happenstance by Carol Shields, who I continue to be obsessed with. And then on to The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald who I’ve never read before, but is much championed over at dovegreyreader scribbles. I’m curious.
Tonight we’re watching Notes on a Scandal (a bookish film!) in order that I can get through the evening without fretting to death about my thesis defense (!) tomorrow morning.
