February 16, 2007
Fierce
Upon a recommendation, I read A Passion for Narrative by Jack Hodgins and found it so illuminating. I don’t really believe you can learn fiction from a book (except books of fiction, of course), but I’m right in the middle of my big project and reading such a guide at this stage is quite practical. Shines light on what might be wanting, and made me think of a few things I never even considered. And then I can go right to my story and apply what I’ve learned. The book also dealt with matters of structure I’ve been grappling with. My aim is to have my story done by the end of this month so that I can spend March dealing with it as a whole. Though this aim would be more achievable if February were just a bit longer. Though if February were any longer, I would probably lose my mind.
On lending books— most people who know me know me well enough not to even ask. Lending out a book fills me with terrific anxiety and I don’t feel better until it’s back in its home. Because as much as I love books as objects, I love my library as an entity even more. When I prune my shelves, however, I always make sure I give away the discards. I have a moral objection to profiting from books. I feel that karmically I will benefit somehow by spreading that love– whether to a college book sale, or a friend.
Now reading Ladykiller, which I would sum up as “fierce”.
My Valentines Day haul was ace: I got a box of Celestial Seasonings Tea. I gave Stuart a grapefruit. And I also made him a chocolate treat from a recipe in Globe Style (“Triple Chocolate Attack”), though I made plenty and got to enjoy as much as he did.
February 11, 2007
Cheating
I’m totally cheating because I’ve gone on a YA spree. I am justifying this by explaining that I am dealing with a young protagonist at the moment and so it’s good to have some exposure to that kind of voice, but the truth is that I love the Anastasia books. They are so clever. I went to the library yesterday to return one and brought home four more, as well as a couple of other young adult novels. And I say that I am cheating because I read one in an hour, and then mark it on my list of Books Read Since 2006 and now I’m at 199 and I don’t know if that’s quite right. Now reading Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin. I love Laurie Colwin.
February 8, 2007
At 57 Mount Pleasant Street
Bronwyn and I once had the pleasure (or terror) of seeing The Proclaimers live at the T in the Park festival in Scotland, and I must say I’ve never been part of a scarier crowd. We both very nearly cried, but then neither of us thrive in chaos at the best of time. We just thought that we like “500 Miles” sort of, and we could hum along with it, but the experience was like being at a ten-thousand-strong revival when you’re sort of not bothered about Jsus. It was a cultural thing, and I thought of it whilst reading this article about how the English just don’t “get” the point of those bespectacled boys. The Costa Book of the Year has been won, and it’s a book researched entirely in the British library which takes place in Northern Ontario. Ohhh! CanCon (sort of). On movie/book cover tie-ins. Irène Némirovsky. And last night I was lucky enough to attend Trudeau night at The Kama Reading Series which was lovely, except that Stephen Clarkson and Peter C. Newman never showed!
Today I’m starting Jacob’s Room for the first time.
February 7, 2007
Voluble
“A literary portrait of marriage”, so says this profile of Calvin Trillin of About Alice (which I read in December). A different perspective on those streamlined classics. Margaret Atwood once again on arts funding cuts.
Just finishing No Longer at Ease.
My friend Sk8 proposed to her lovely boyfriend in the company of bison on Sunday, and he said yes. Hooray!
And finally, Sunday night I saw a penguin being eaten by a seal on David Attenborough, and I’ve been traumatized ever since.
February 4, 2007
Welcome back to Capeside
We’ve been a regular Angst Central over here at Pickle Me This during the past week. Existential, creative, ancestral, you name it. Every day an early episode of Dawson’s Creek, or a page from a Norma Klein book. And now it’s -28 degrees outside, and just as cold in our uninsulated bedroom and so we’re confined to the kitchen with no intention to go out of doors. Luckily I am reading a Kate Atkinson book, Emotionally Weird and so the world is a good place no matter what else. And Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was legend. I didn’t even see it coming. And we’ve had a nice weekend anyway, with dinner at Erin’s on Thursday, the lovely Erica G for supper Friday (and the spicy squash risotto was a success), and then brunch in Kensington occasioned by the marvelous luck of Kate in town, but all the company was wonderful and we both had an excellent time.
February 1, 2007
Shot to hell
My resolution to read slower has been all shot to hell. I finished Youth this morning, and really enjoyed it. The only book by Coetzee I’d read was Elizabeth Costello, which I enjoyed but I don’t believe it was very demonstrative of his work so far. I’m finishing the last short story in The Portable Chekhov this evening (“In the Ravine”) and I’ve definitely enjoyed my January Classic. I’ve got a head start on February, however, and Huckleberry Finn is wonderful so far.
One thing I’ve noticed is that reading challenges make life appear to go by very quickly.
January 29, 2007
Show and tell
Last week The Robber Bride TV movie was slagged off in the Globe, and I must voice my disagreement. The adaptation wasn’t flawless by any means, and I do wonder how the story was different for a man having joined the triumvirate which told so much about women’s relationships. Nevertheless. For two hours last Sunday night my husband and I sat together and thoroughly enjoyed a made-for-CBC movie and I consider this an unusual mark of great achievement.
Speaking of Ms. Atwood, her fine and illuminating piece in Saturday’s paper is here, regarding the federal government axing the promotion of Canadian arts abroad. Mix-Tape mania at The Observer. Today’s feature on violence in Nottingham (which was my home for a while) turns bookish in its reference to the 1958 novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe, and I’ve decided to read it soon. Q&A with the marvelous Sue Townsend. Canadians write great songs— Joni Mitchell in particular. Katrina Onstad concurs.
Why why why instead of actually governing has our government launched an idiotic attack upon its opposition? Please please please let’s not retaliate. Give Canadians some credit for intelligence, let this crap slide, and win favour with integrity and dignity.
Things Fall Apart was as powerful as they said. Oh my goodness the last chapter. And this book enlightened quite a few bits of the brilliant Half of a Yellow Sun.
Though the amazon link for this book is such a lesson in idiot reviewing. Can you imagine prefacing your review of a book like this with “As a writer myself…”? Some nerve. Virginia Woolf never even did that in her criticism, and unless you are Virginia Woolf, you probably shouldn’t either. (I googled said reviewer, and found a link to some of his “work” which was unsurprisingly a pile of crap.) Further, knocking Achebe for his failure to show instead of tell? Oh go puke on yourself. Really.
I’m beginning to sound irate. However it’s January, which is excuse enough, and I will be nicer tomorrow. Now I am going to read Rosemary’s Baby for a good dose of satnic action. Though if it tells instead of shows, I’m totally asking the public library for a refund.
January 26, 2007
Notes on a Scandal
The Guardian Books Blog on books that make you talk to strangers. Whenever I see someone reading Unless, I want to tell them it’s my favourite book in all the world, though I don’t think I ever have. At my library job, however, I am compelled to let patrons know when I think the book they’ve selected is wonderful. And often lately, it has been Interpreter of Maladies or Small Island.
And books to read on trains. The great train reads of my life have been Slouching Towards Bethlehem on the shinkansen to Hiroshima; Various Miracles on the way to Osaka one afternoon (and I read the story “Scenes” whilst stopped at Amagasaki); when we lived in England, our train rides were usually passed with Sunday papers. And I don’t get to take the train anymore, but last year Sweetness in the Belly sure passed a bus journey from Toronto to Ottawa and back just fine.
An interview with Zoe Heller.
Now reading A Biographer’s Tale by AS Byatt, which was not well-regarded by the amazon reviewers, but I like it much so far. And the Public Library has called, with Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (we watched the movie last weekend; it was an obsession of mine in high school; I’m interested in the novel) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (my February classic). Once again, I suppose I can say I have all I need.
Except hair elastics. All of mine have disappeared.
January 23, 2007
The Third Age
I was interested to see Margaret Drabble cited in the recent Macleans article “The 27 Year Itch” regarding late-life divorce for having coined the phrase “The Third Age” in her The Seven Sisters. On the digitalization of reading. Jenny Diski on compacting the classics, which is horrifyingly awful.
I’m now reading The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches to put a little Canadienne in my CanLit. And it’s wonderful. I came home from the library this morn also bearing Things Fall Apart and Youth.
January 22, 2007
Don't say you'll stay cuz then you'll go away
I am talking about the writer/reader connection. I am thirteen years younger than Rob Sheffield, author of the memoir Love is a Mix Tape, but I think we bookended the same formative years. He gets sentimental for the 1990s, and I knew I’d like his book. But then. He’s waxing nostalgic. He notes, “On 90210, Dylan and Kelly were making out on the beach to ‘Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover”. That’s what I’m talking about, because I was watching. It was the year the 90210 season ran into summertime, and Donna and Brenda went to Paris while Kelly stayed home to steal Brenda’s boyfriend. But not steal, exactly, because they were meant to be. And I was thirteen or fourteen years old, watching that scene to that Sophie B Hawkins soundtrack, and I felt more longing than I’d ever known in my life. All the angst in the world wrapped up in my just-teenage heart, but Dylan and Kelly felt it too, and one day that was going to be my life. Or something like it, and it would involve kissing at the very least.
Rob Sheffield was twenty six at the time, and I doubt that scene for him was also merely a most hopeful crystal ball, but he remembered it for whatever reason, and just for that, his book will mean something infinitely more to me.
