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 4, 2007

The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson

I write my name in all my books, in pencil these days because sometimes ownership is temporary, but it must be asserted all the same. I don’t know why. But I do, write my name, and the date. I used to write my address and telephone number, but that was many years ago (at least five or six) and now I’m usually always in the same place anyway and so it’s unnecessary.

In my new copy of The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson, I’ve been provided a place to write my name, which I think is brilliant. Inside the front cover, “If lost, please return to ________ “. Which made me vow to never lose this book ever. But I can’t bring myself to write my name, because this book is so absolutely lovely I shant mar it. The only other book that has ever struck such a chord with me is my Snowbooks Edition of Virginia Woolf’s The London Scene. It’s mine, but you’d never know it to look at it. Some books are so absolutely perfect unto themselves that a tiny name in pencil (even mine) would be sacrilege. Even if the space for it comes ready-provided.

CS Richardson is a book designer, and this becomes obvious. But he has also written a beautiful little novel that I read tonight in the bathtub, and small as it is, he’s crammed a whole world inside. I wanted to read it again as soon I was finished. The End of the Alphabet is a lesson in subtlety, love and language. An A to Z in a variety of respects. And I could tell you more, but I think this book deserves reading instead of a summary.

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 23, 2007

Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield tugs all the heartstrings in his memoir Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time. He writes an elegy for the 1990s: “Remember Brittany Murphy, the funny frizzy-haired, Mentos-loving dork in Clueless? By 2002, she was the hood ornament in 8 Mile, just another skinny starlet, an index of everything we’ve in that time”. His subtitular “loss” is the death of his wife Renee, who loved music as much as he does and died of a pulmonary embolism in 1997. And he tells the story of his life through mix tapes, one per chapter with full track listings– and even the shameful tracks.

In spite of the tugging, Sheffield surmounts bathos. He’s a good writer (contributing editor for Rolling Stone says his bio) and his material is appealing for anyone who grew up in and around the same era. More than an elegy for his wife, Sheffield writes a celebration of her life and the time they shared together, and it’s a joy to read. The book’s mix-tape chapter structure is fun, engaging and inspiring. There is a certain High Fidelityness to it all, but without the pretension. Rob Sheffield doesn’t seem to take himself or his music too seriously, in spite of making a career of it.

Because music is music after all. After his wife’s death, Hanson came out with “MmmBop” and Sheffield regretted that she would never know it, because as cool as she was, it was a song they would have loved together. In the chapter “The Comfort Zone”, he uses a “dishes tape” to tell the tales of domesticity. He taped most of it off Casey Kasem’s American Top-40 countdown, including The KLF/Tammy Wynette with “Justified and Ancient”, Kris Kross “Jump’, “I’m Too Sexy” and “Baby Got Back”. Etc. Also featured was Tom Cochrane “Life is a Highway”: “Tom Cochrane had nothing to say, plus a stupid way of saying it, but he helped me get the dishes done.” “A Little Down, A Little Duvet”, a mix Renee made to fall asleep to at night (and the chapter in which they get married) contains Van Morrison’s “Sweet Thing”, which is my favourite song in the world. These guys were cool. Sheffield writes about the grunge and 1993, when “the music we loved had blown up nationwide”. But then his mix from that time also includes Tag Team and and Lucinda Williams. And I like that.

He doesn’t get all up on new technology either, as might be expected. Though the cassette holds nostalgic appeal for Sheffield, he uses the term “mix tape” figuratively (though he’s certainly not the only one who does that). He welcomed the advent of the recordable CD, admits to loving his iPod “carnally”. But it’s the “romance” of the mix tape, and those of us with cardboard box-fulls of the stuff packed down in the basements of our past can certainly understand that. “The rhythm of a mix tape is the rhythm of romance, the analog hum of a physical connection between two sloppy, human bodies… Love is a mix tape” says Rob Sheffield, and his thesis convinced me.

I loved his book like a souvenir of a good time.

January 17, 2007

My Wedding Dress by Whelehan and Carter (eds)

I can provide you with some sort of an idea of what it’s like to read My Wedding Dress: True-life Tales of Lace, Laughter, Tears and Tulle. Read the post below, and the imagine in ten times as long, and multiplied by twenty six. It’s a bit much, but then it also works.

It works because most of the pieces in this anthology are truly excellent. With contributions by such well-known names as Michelle Landsberg, Stevie Cameron, Lorna Crozier, Kerri Sakamoto, Edeet Ravel and Ami McKay, this is unsurprising. The wedding photos included are also a great addition to the text. There are an assortment of happy tales, hard lessons learned, and sadness endured. Jenny Manzer’s story of her wedding, just days after her mother’s death from cancer, had me in tears. When, after all the drama, Ilana Stanger-Ross’s mother stepped on them hem of her dress and it ripped, and Stanger-Ross just laughed. I do wish that Elyse Pomeranz had been a little less earnest about the fact that she knit the clothes she and her husband wore on their wedding day. She’s included a photo. I won’t say any more.

At their very core, anthologies are terribly self-indulgent. My blog post below is an example of this, I know it: my story, and I want you to hear it– no, I want to TELL it– and I won’t consider the likelihood that it’s not so extraordinary to you. Where My Wedding Dress succeeds is when contributers stick to the focus, as most of the strongest pieces do. The few pieces that faltered use the dress motif to springboard over to what they really want to talk about, which could be anything, and I didn’t find these contributions so interesting unless they were in the hands of a very good writer. My other criticism of this book is my first one: it’s a bit much. Naturally, stories like these are inspiring (my blog entry case in point), and everybody wants a turn, but I don’t think this book with its twenty-six pieces really required a forward, and afterword and two introductions. (I have a feeling this book will also inspire a sequel).

Target audience here would be quite specific: recent brides, and mothers of brides, I think. This book will be appreciated. Forthcoming brides, of course, don’t read because they are way too busy with calligraphy and decoupage.

January 17, 2007

This is My Country, What's Yours? by Noah Richler

A literary atlas plots our places with their stories, and the product of this one is Richler’s country (though of course, he invites us to consider our own). His Canada is much more than just the sum of parts, which is a daring stance to take in some circles, but one that is perhaps supported better by stories than any other foundation. He draws out the connections between Canadians. “You can forget about provincial boundaries and think about the singing of work as a calling these writers have in common. Do so, and our sense of the map of Canada as one of a disparate country is eroded and in its place another one appears, in which novels arising out of shared experiences wash over the territory”. And indeed, Richler manages to show this about more than just work, and our stories become what we have in common.

In the sense of a Canadian Literary Guide, this is an updated Survival, but it’s more a literary guide to Canada than a guide to CanLit. Also, (as Richler’s title suggests), this is a very personal guide. Richler comes to his text decisively, taking controversial stances (refusing to equate the novel with oral traditions, for example), but objectivity is never his intention. Which is more interesting to read than tiptoeing anyway, and his perspectives are well argued.

From sea to sea is not good enough for Richler. He believes that Canada would be a more unified nation had our route across it developed as a loop as opposed to a straight line along the Southern border, back and forth. If we could traverse Canada along the south and back around through the north, we’d be able to take in our country in its entirety. The North would not be missed. We’d arrive at the end and it would be where we started. And in a sense, Richler follows such a trajectory throughout his text. He begins with the Inuit, and the Natives further south, and discusses how Native writers are using the novel for their own purposes. Throughout the book, Richler’s ideas are ruminated over, developed and argued in conversations with other writers. His reader is privy to some excellent conversation. It’s akin to being a fly on the wall at a clever party. From the north, to Vancouver, and then the prairies. And finally, he considers what he sees as Canada’s three distinct societies: Newfoundland, Quebec and the City. Along the way, taking into account Multiculturalism (the new guiding force in CanLit, he says), the legacy of colonialism, the experiences of the Metis and the Acadians, and the seminal Canadian idea of “Nowhere”. As you might imagine, it’s quite a tour.

I liked this book because it taught me things I didn’t know, which is rarer in a book than one might think. I also like it for its rendering of a whole Canada, one in which we all share a part of each other’s story. This is not always an easy assertion to make these days, but one I appreciated this vision. And finally, with its emphasis on contemporary Canadian writing, Richler demonstrates the continuation of a rich and vibrant literary tradition in this country. Nowhere is definitively somewhere after all, and the future is full of possibility.

January 12, 2007

Peppermint Love

I’ve just learned that my household has acquired Apples to Apples, which is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve ever played. Though I hate most games so my perspective is limited, and this one is bound to infuriate serious game-lovers, as it has no rules. Though I still lost at it when we played, but I lose at all games. It’s my constitution. And so that’s fun news, and more fun is that I’ve got a date with my husband this eve. We’re having company for dinner tomorrow night and I’m looking forward to that (as well as a chance to break out the game?). And so life continues lamely, but nicely.

I finished rereading Alice Munro’s Who Do You Think you Are? yesterday. What an incredible book. I reread the legendary Lives of Girls and Women last summer, and wasn’t as impressed as I’d wanted to be. I think that Munro was constrained by “A Novel”, and Who Do You Think…, while definitely connected, was obviously composed of short stories and she’s better at that. In fact, she is extraordinary at that. I know I’m certainly not the first one to say so. It’s just nice to be reminded. And I’m now reading Noah Richler’s This Is My Country, What’s Yours?”, which is cool because the only other book on CanLit I’ve ever read was published in 1972, and certainly a lot has happened since then.

Here for an article on Richler’s and a few other unusual Canadian atlases, and their lessons on Canadian identity. 50,000 copies of Andrea Levy’s brilliant Small Island have been distributed through parts of Britain “to encourage reading, and discussion”. (Wonderful connections between Levy’s novel and Kate Atkinson’s work have just dawned on me). Here for Literary Pop Idolatry. Type Books in the press (and the business press to boot).

My new teapot is full of peppermint love, and I shall get down to an afternoon of glorious work.

January 10, 2007

Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson

I really didn’t think it was possible. Kate Atkinson’s second novel Human Croquet might just be better than her brilliant Behind the Scenes at the Museum. There really aren’t words to do Atkinson’s own words justice. From doorstep babies to death by mushrooms, intertextual delights to incest, doppelgangers and the disappeared. The bad guy gets his comeuppance. Everybody wins.

January 8, 2007

Only Connect

Lucky Lori Lansens, whose novel is the first Canadian book selected by Richard and Judy’s book club. Britpop enters its latest golden age. On le history of chapbooks.

I just finished reading the bizarre and wonderful Never Let Me Go, and the imaginary sounds of Judy Bridgewater are playing in my mind. Next up is Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson, who is always a treat.

The basement neighbours’ screaming match is entering its 49th hour. We’ve deciphered that she quit her job, he never shows her affection, he declared her unreliable and she is no longer allowed to eat his bread. Moreover she has outstanding debt on rental cars and owes him a ton of cigarettes. It’s difficult to keep track of because they move between inside and out, and so we have to keep moving between the vent and the window to get the details. It’s all getting a bit tiresome, however. We’re hoping they kill each other before bedtime.

In literary connexions, my mom met a man at a party yesterday who is uncle to Ms. Z. Smith’s own Laird.