March 15, 2007
Uneasy
I am somewhat uneasy based on the fact that the story I’ve been working on for a year now must be put away for a week or two. Until I get some feedback on the whole thing, which might just lead me toward defenestration. And I just don’t know what to do with myself. Luckily I’m reading Lullabies for Little Criminals and it’s gripping and surprising.
I am also uneasy by the fact that it looked like spring, it wasn’t, I didn’t wear gloves, and now my hands won’t move properly.
March 14, 2007
Anywhere
In lieu of news about us going without jackets these days, check out a good old fashioned spring post over at Calhounsville. And I have been gobbling books like mad: just finished The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, which was like one big looong story out of her prize-winning collection. This is not a bad thing; it’s just not the most typically-structured novel (ie my thesis advisor would probably hate it). Does that woman wrench hearts though? Also, I’m realizing that final changes to my story are just about done, which is very odd. I’m sending it out to my helpful copy-editors this weekend. And now I’m about to fall into the tub with Ami McKay (haha- she has a cool website though).
March 11, 2007
Chang chang chang
It has been a joy to return to shorter novels. I enjoyed Middlemarch, but it wasn’t constructed for a reader like me. Slipping back into the fiction of my time is like putting on something that fits me perfectly, and maybe that means I just don’t want to work so hard for my reading pleasure, but it’s always nice when it comes easy. Particularly with books as great as those I’ve been reading lately. I am now reading Helpless by Barbara Gowdy, which is the first book by her I’ve ever read. And you’d think I would have read The White Bones considering I’ve got a publically-acknowledged thing for elephants, but the premise of the book has always made me keep my distance. Perhaps this new novel will pave my way toward it?
Note: Afterwards and Radiance reviewed favourably in The Globe this week.
March 9, 2007
Cutting page intake
The last two books I’ve read have been 700 and 900 pages respectively, and though I do like devouring books, these have been awfully big meals. I look forward to some less sprawling novels in the near future; next up is Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert. And we just got Lisey’s Story by Stephen King from the library. Stuart is currently in the midst of it, but he says that I’m going to love it when my time comes.
But I am so glad I read Middlemarch. My monthly classics plan is doing wonders to close up some holes in my reading, and each book I’ve read so far, I would pity having missed forever. The book was extraordinary, and it’s been said before, but all I wish to say is that I agree. The scene that to me demonstrated Eliot’s force as a writer and character creator was when Dorothea calls on Lydgate, and meets Rosamond for the first time. This was a fair way into the book, and by this point I knew both these women intimately. And I could not fathom that they could be ignorant of one another, because they were each so vivid to me. Besides, how could anyone not know Miss Brooke? Each of Eliot’s characters were so persuasively people.
And then the Richard Dawkins vs. Peter Kay affair. Who could beat up whom? We’re Peter Kay fans at our house, and Stuart went off Dawkins with The Ancestors Tale, and so we’re betting on the boy from Bolton.
March 5, 2007
Pages to turn before I sleep
Book-wise (and really, is there any other wise?) March is an exciting month for me, as I’ve got a stack of to-be-reads this high. But at the moment I’m in the midst of Middlemarch— my March Classic. And it’s absolutely huge, so I will be embroiled for a long while. It’s very bookish and pretty wonderful though, which is fortunate for such a big commitment. I will enjoy the ride.
March 2, 2007
The Myth of Justice
A recent overdose of Decca had a detrimental effect on last night’s sleep. I’ve never dreamt in letters before. To do so is rather maddening. I’m starting Middlemarch today; Bronwyn’s reading it too.
The Guardian World Literature Tour in New Zealand: fascinating to read the discussion in comparison to Canada’s which turned in to an all-out internecine CanLit hatefest. Here for literacy initiatives. The usual suspects for Britain’s favourite books. Here for Granta‘s best American novelists.
Our beloved Curtis’s birthday plans were waylaid last night due to a ferocious winter storm. An emergency birthday party was thrown together with some success. Cake was devoured. Excellent. Bonne fête.
February 26, 2007
The Worthwhile Quest
Jacqueline Wilson on her own story. My favourite BBC Radio 1 DJ Edith Bowman profiled. Loved this response to this book hate-on from a couple weeks back. (My response on the blog was: “Hating books and authors is a waste of time. The books I don’t like don’t suit my tastes, but this doesn’t mean those books are crap. I like Zadie Smith and evidently others don’t. I don’t understand why this is a point of contention.” I still don’t.)
And how about The Library at Night. Can I just read you the beginning?
“Outside theology and fantastic literature, few can doubt that the main features of our universe are its dearth in meaning and lack of discernible purpose. And yet, with bewildering optimism, we continue to assemble whatever scraps of information we can gather in scrolls and books and computer chips, on shelf after library shelf, whether material, virtual or otherwise, pathetically intent on lending the world a semblance of sense and order, while knowing perfectly well that, however much we’d like to believe the contrary, our pursuits are sadly doomed to failure.
“Why then do we do it? Though I knew from the start that the question would most likely remain unanswered, the quest seemed worthwhile for its own sake. This book is the story of that quest.”
February 24, 2007
Injurious Reads
Everyone is right. Disgrace is wonderful. And Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford is impossible to take in morsels– I keep binging. Now reading Family Happiness by Laurie Colwin. Upcoming: The Library at Night.
I had a reading-related injury today when I read whilst brushing my teeth, paid too little attention to the latter activity, brushed too hard and and now my poor sweet gums are ailing. Reading is a dangerous business really. Sometimes holding the book makes my elbow ache.
I just came back from a splendid dinner at the beautiful new home of Natalie Bay whose fine company made the evening fly by. We’ve lived in all the same countries and so we spend most of our time talking about things no one else can stand to hear about. Which suits us well. And we’re off to Peterborough for the weekend, and the temperature calls for brass monkeys.
Further, Tide Simple Pleasures has rendered our apartment redolent with something slightly synthetic, but we like it. It smells better than we do. And, all real pleasure this week has been brought to us by crumpets.
February 20, 2007
Decca
Now reading Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford. Though, indeed, it is ever-so-popular to dislike the Mifords (because, really, grumpy people must find it within themselves to hate anything the least bit fabulous lest the universe be disturbed), I’ve been a fan since I read The Mitford Girls in 2003. Though by no means are their stories comfortable, they’re undeniably storied stories and I love them for that reason. Anyway, Decca’s letters run long and of course with my appetite for fiction, I’ll only be able to read them in dribs and drabs by my bedside. Like treats to savour. In celebration I will reshare with you my favourite poem I ever wrote, Mitford-inspired or otherwise.
Extremism was so fashionable that first season
“Why must all my daughters fall for dictators?”
~ Lady Redesdale (Sydney Mitford)
Extremism was so fashionable
that first season.
At the races my daughter won herself a diplomat
and my husband and I my husband and I
concerned with crashing stocks had our veritable sigh
and we folded our hands and nodded then,
as he stood on a box and took up his pen
because she looked on so loving
I couldn’t help but be pleased,
in spite of his wife, in spite of their life
and his radical politics leaning far right.
There was the matter of war in Spain
which (she said) was just a prelude.
This was the littlest daughter, always contrary,
“I will run away, you’ll all be sorry.”
When she finally fled, it was to throes of war
and she didn’t bring a stitch to wear,
to fight for the reds or marry for love
just to be where the action was happening.
She had to deny her former life
to prove her worth as working-class wife,
they came back to fight for the cause from their home
on the slummier side of South London.
The man of the year was a small man
seeking room to grow.
My middle daughter found him on her travels
my sullen, silly girl, by his words became so serious
when she sang them in her own voice
we consented, it was her choice
but he was such a charming gentleman
when he had us all to tea.
(But this is when the trouble starts, as you will see)
Solidarity was demanded on the homefront
but for us, this was impossible.
My golden older daughter and her lover- now her husband-
the coincidence of their ideological proximity
translated to sympathy for the enemy
and this daughter of mine, fond of long days and wine,
spent war years charming the Holloway Prison for Women.
The littlest one fled to America, still wedded to her cause,
kept her affiliations testifiable, and sincerity undeniable-
she had rallies and babies and books to write and
for seventeen years she refused to cross the line,
she fought the fascist front known as The Family
My husband and I- my husband and,
as his opinion of the Germans was established years before
when he’d lost a lung fighting in the First World War
and he could not abide by the company
of the leader with whom I’d had the pleasure of tea.
Especially not while the world was coming apart
at its bursting Versaillesian seams.
And my silly daughter could not abide by bursting seams
to choose between England and the man of her dreams
on September first, nineteen thirty-nine
she put a gun to her temple in an attempt to stop time.
My outspoken daughters had been drawn to men
who could outspeak them.
They dared to defy us with dictators- an original act of rebellion-
typical; no middle men, they loved instead
their moustaches and regalia their marching men with unbending knees
Prussian fortitude, Yugoslavian ingenuity
and all those ideals that had the trains run on time.
I could not raise a shallow woman; my daughters
my twentieth-century casualties, there was a time
behind every powerful man was a good woman
and I had birthed nearly all of them.
February 16, 2007
Don't give me no jazz
What a nice day I’ve had, the sun shining through the windows and the cold shut out by the walls. Since September, I’ve been working on the second draft of the story that will be defended as my Master’s theis come April. I’ve worked with the new draft by starting fresh and retyping each chapter with the first draft as a guide, making changes as I see fit and then going over it again (and again after that upon feedback from my advisor). And I’m getting toward the end of my story, and though the ultimate end has stayed the same, so many details have changed. And so I’ve thrown out (most of) the first draft from this point on. And it’s wonderful really, to work with these characters I’ve come to know so well and put them in fabulous places I’d never before considered. To be template-free, and let my imagination take over. All toward the same destination, of course, but I aim to make the ride more interesting than it was the first time around.
Now rereading To Kill a Mockingbird, which is rumoured to be even better than it was when I read it last in grade eleven. In periodicals news, The Walrus was really wonderful this month, and Vanity Fair arrived today.
And it is now the weekend. The Doering-Lui’s will arrive for dinner at 7:00. Tomorrow’s plans include long-awaited fish and chips, Kensington Market, and a search for a DS game on which I will be a trusty sidekick.
