December 3, 2006

Remarkable Voices

And so it continues. The papers are slowly getting marked, my essay is slowly getting written, and my creative work too. Everything is on schedule, plus I sent all my Christmas cards yesterday and my shopping is done except for Stuart, which is easy anyway. Today I am taking a lunch break and we’re going out for sushi with two lovely new friends we’re quite excited to see again. History of Love was magnificent, though the ending was not quite what I would have liked but the rest of the book was so amazing, I wasn’t really bothered. Oh, the voices she made. Quite remarkable, I think, and so remark I do. I’m starting The Remains of the Day and I’ve not idea what to expect. I am sorry that all of this is duller than even usual, but this is it at the moment.

November 30, 2006

The Uses of Enchantment

I don’t know what to do with Heidi Julavits’ The Uses of Enchantment. I mean, what a strange book. I’ve not read Julavits’ two previous novels, but the customer reviews I’ve read for them usually mention general weirdness and Julavits biting off more than she can chew. I get the sense that Julavits is chewing better now, but still, it’s quite a mouthful (this metaphor ends here, I say).

So, we’ve got the mysterious disappearence of a teenager, all right. Whose mysterious disappearence is repetitious of another teenager’s disappearence ten years before. Both girls obsessed with a seventeenth century story of a girl abducted by Indians, whose rescuer was subsequently hanged as a witch. And the first girl is apparently descended from a Salem witch. And she returns home fifteen years later after her mother’s funeral, in order to resolve what happened to her. And most of the narrative is played out through the rivalry of two psychotherapists with opposing missions. Incredibly intertextual, though the only text I was familar with was Dora. And that’s about it, I think. All in one book. It really doesn’t make sense until you read it.

And so I’m mystified, but I still enjoyed this book. There is a race to the end, and I think Julavits’ climax is worthy of the suspense she creates, and I found the ending satisfying. The main character (the derivatively disappeared girl, Mary Veal) is impossible to pin down, though this is created more by Julavits narrative than what the characters says or does. In fact, sometimes too much explanation is given and I wished the story had remained a bit more “enchanted”. Which is the problem. Julavits introduces so many fascinating avenues in her story, that of course many remain insufficiently explored. This isn’t completely annoying, because on a whole this book manages to function (I have no idea how though).

My confusion is somewhat akin to enchantment though. Whatever Heidi Julavits did, she did it right. I also like how when you remove the dust jacket of this book, in gold script on the black cover it simply says, “A Novel”. Indeed it is. Sort of.

November 28, 2006

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

I’m not sure if it’s common to race to the end of a short story collection, but last night there I was, way up past bedtime reading Vincent Lam’s Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures (winner of this year’s Giller Prize). I wasn’t expecting to find this book enthralling; it had been pitched like an episode of ER. But Lam’s stories work, they really do, and they are connected in a way that provides this collection with a gripping narrative arc.

I’ve mentioned before that I find literature about science interesting, but the science wasn’t what hooked me here. I think more so, I appreciated a glimpse into the consciousness of a scientist, or more-interestingly, the aspiring scientist– the student desperate to get into med school. I knew people like this in university and Lam has provided good insight into their motivations and mindset with Ming’s character in the story “How to Get Into Medical School Part 1”. Her portrayal is so convincing, and at once sympathetic and awful, but this effectiveness is also the product of a well constructed short story. Similarly, in the story “Winston”, a patient’s mental health problems cast a mesmerizing spell and the twist at the end was shocking, particularly in the context of a dry and measured medical account. Purple birds do appear throughout this book in some of the most surprising places. I loved the SARS story “Contact Tracing”, which was full of action, suspense and human emotion. Not one story here could have been considered a dud, though a few did begin to drag a bit before they ended.

I had a problem with the didacticism of the text, however. Suggested by the book’s title and chapter titles beginning with “How to…”, but I didn’t take these clues all that seriously. Here we have a book of stories, I thought. I can read stories, and I did, and though it was about a world somewhat unfamiliar to me, I trusted my intelligence enough to fill in the blanks and get the gists. And then at the end of the book, I was gutted to find a “Glossary of Terms”. Seemed somehow patronizing, and unnecessary. I wasn’t reading this text as a tool, and I don’t think stories require indices usually. The stories should stand well enough on their own (and they do), but the inclusion of a glossary suggests Lam is second-guessing that they do, or he is second-guessing my own ability to read his stories without assistance.

I suspect, however, that the glossary is provided to emphasise this collection’s unique pigeonhole: from the point of view of an emergency room physician. Though it is notable that such an emphasis had previously led me to dismiss this book pre-reading as gimmicky and perhaps dull. And I was wrong. Here is a work of literature; they could be about the lives of doctors or dustbins, but these are stories and they’re good. Perhaps what was most disappointing about the “Glossary of Terms” was that I had figured I had a whole other story still ahead, and then was unhappy to find the book so suddenly done. Which does say something about the collection Lam has managed to create.

November 22, 2006

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

I think some of I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron is lost on me. I don’t feel bad about my neck, I’ve got four grey hairs, and according to Ephron, I’m still in the heart of my bikini years, and so perhaps I miss what is most wise about her wisdom. I love her writing though, and I liked this book. It’s essential to note that I read it last evening in the bathtub. More essentially, however, I cared if it fell in. It didn’t and I think I’m going to lend it to my mother.

I read Ephron’s Collected Essays early this Fall, after reading her newest book being hyped by Heather Mallick and Jennifer Weiner. The new book is written in the same funny and conversational tone as the essays, with an emphasis on what it is to be a woman in her sixties. Obviously, Ephron feels bad about her neck. But she also reflects on marriage, parenthood, cooking, reading and living in New York. This book had a bit of the appeal of The Year of Magical Thinking, in that it is a glimpse into a pretty brilliant life (because I too want a five bedroom apartment in New York City).

Its lightness is deceptive, however, with an edge most apparent in the final essay “Considering the Alternative” about when your friends start dying and you stop skimping on bath oil. “On Maintenence” is an eye-opening treatise on beauty regimines. Ephron believes she was the only White House Intern JFK never made a pass at, and in fact during her tenure there, nobody even bothered to give her a chair. Oh, she’s funny and she’s got stories to tell. Sometimes I wish she’d tell them in a way that was less flip and throwaway, but such is the essay form we are working with here. I am looking forward to reading her novel and finding out how her voice translates into fiction, and I suspect I’ll come away satisfied.

November 19, 2006

After Words

Da Vinci Code was abandoned after thirty pages because it seemed too long and uncompelling to finish. If it were the last book on earth, however, I’d definitely read to the end. I am tired/hung over as to be incoherent. In this sort of mood, I giggle a lot and Stuart seems like a comedy genius. Because he is. We’ve had a brilliant whirlwind of a weekend and it was wonderful to be a part of it. Wedding was beautiful, bride was stunning, groom handsome, weather was fine, fun was had, company was nice, food was good, husband was danced with, party was excellent and indeed, the whole thing was a sweet dream and I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. There is nothing better than seeing your friend with somebody so perfect for her.

The only fairy tale element absent was the horse and buggy. Katie was forbidden one, because of P. Bernardo’s strictly early 90s wedding.

November 17, 2006

Bewilderment

From the wonderful Interpreter of Maladies: “While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thirty years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”

November 12, 2006

The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

When I said that I read novels cheaply, what I meant was that I am usually more concerned with how it was to read a book than what the book stands up for once it’s done. I don’t mean that the latter is unimportant, or that I haven’t worked through my share of difficult novels in my time, but for me the optimum reading experience is for a book to be a pleasure. And really, The Emperor’s Children was.

I chose to read this book after reading this profile of Messud, whose work I’d never come across before. As I said previously, at 430 pages this book is not insubstantial, and I found it difficult to get into initially. Messud introduces each character and every room with an itemized description, which is disconcerting. If she’d been more brief, I could have filled in the blanks, but the paragraph-long listings of facial composition etc. I tended to gloss over. I said ick initally, or at least yawn. Encountering the main characters: three college friends now age thirty, pulling their lives together in New York City during the Spring of 2001. And I don’t know if Messud’s writing relaxed, or if I did, but I was hooked by page 100 and devastated that page 431 was blank.

What Messud manages to do so skillfully is demonstrate the sheer stupidity that was the summer of 2001. I remember: there was an environmental summit, and Chandra Levy. Messud’s character Danielle is producing a documentary about botched plastic surgery. Like Ian McEwan’s Saturday, Messud creates an incredible suspense from the quotidian, though of course in this book we know exactly which inevitable doom is headed. “Nobody could have foreseen this” someone comments, after September 11th and the twin towers have fallen. But of course as readers, we have foreseen it from the start.

A funny, satirical and intelligent novel that seems an encapsulation of the 1990s and a bit of a love letter to New York. Messud’s characters surprised me with their flaws and complexity, and also identifiability. I wanted to issue them a warning all the way through (“It’s behind you!”). Messud handles the terrorists attacks and their aftermath in a way that is neither overdone nor restrained. This is the first time I’ve encountered 9/11 in fiction, which was an eerie experience, and distanced the events from real life in a sense. Something I watched on real time (albeit on TV) stuck in a novel, which sort of made me feel like I’d just imagined it. But not really, of course, and this is a wonderful novel. Please note that it didn’t surprise me to learn that Messud considers Portrait of a Lady a formative read.

November 3, 2006

Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood

1) In 2006, the prolific Margaret Atwood has released three books: The Penelopiad which reworks the Ulysses myth from Penelope’s point of view; The Tent, a collection of fable-like stories and poems; and Moral Disorder, a collection of connected short stories. I’ve read them all. They were all excellent. Most people are lucky to publish three good books in a lifetime.

2) Last night, as we were lying in bed, I read my husband the story “Moral Disorder” from the book of the same name. My husband and I don’t usually read to one another; we’re just not that way inclined. Originally, I just wanted to read him a passage from the story but I couldn’t stop and he didn’t want me to, and by the end of the story we were laughing so hard, we were crying. The best bit was the haunted peacock. This is Margaret Atwood. Remember Margaret Atwood- the dark, bleak, feminist man-hater (as you no doubt learned when you read Handmaid’s Tale at school?) Margaret Atwood is a first class comedian.

3) At the end of her story “The Entities”, Margaret Atwood writes, “But what else could I do with all that? thinks Nell, wending her way back to her own house. All that anxiety and anger, those dubious good intentions, those tangled lives, that blood. I can tell about it or I can bury it. In the end, we’ll all become stories. Or else we’ll become entities. Maybe it’s the same.” I cite this passage, as Moral Disorder has been remarked on profusely for being quite autobiographical in its content, and herein lies the clue. I don’t see this book as autobiographical, but it is clear thoughout Atwood’s oeuvre that she mines her own life for stuff. Not her own experiences particularly, although they do appear, but more objects and settings. Having just read Cat’s Eye, Moral Disorder, and now rereading Lady Oracle, this is quite apparent. And I think it’s really fascinating to understand the different ways authors use their own lives in their work, and rather than supplying us with the story of Atwood, Moral Disorder provides insight into this process.

4) In addition, I don’t think a story such as “Moral Disorder” could have been written unless it came from some experience, or combination of experience. That sort of story is too absurd to be imagined, and could only be captured by someone who has lived through it. I’m just guessing.

5) I think Moral Disorder is essentially a novel. The stories all could stand alone (and they do– I’d read two in previous Toronto Life Fiction Issues) but the links are essential, a chronology is present. This book is a novel in the way that Lives of Girls and Women is a novel, though I think as a novel Atwood’s book actually works better.

6) I have written this entry as a list, to reflect my confusion about short story collections and how they should be reviewed. I could treat this book like the novel I believe it is, and sum up the narrative trajectory, but somehow that feels cheap. And my automatic response to this work was indeed rent and chaptered, as you can see. So it’s not completely a novel, but I stress its novel-like tendencies so those of you who dislike short story collections will not be put off this most excellent reading experience.

7) I could say this. Some short stories are not meant for collection, and might be happier wandering free. The stories in Moral Disorder, on the other hand, belong together. They centre around a character called Nell, and begin with the story “Bad News” in a present day, which takes a page from The Tent in form and content, I thought. From the second story, we return to Nell’s childhood and the stories continue in first-person until about half-way through when I becomes Nell (and her house is possessed by a lovesick peacock). She grows up, falls in love, struggles with the realities of modern love ala David Bowie (well, no David Bowie but you know, it’s the seventies). The last two stories of the collection beautifully deal with the decline of Nell’s parents and her relationships with them, and contribute to the circular structure of this collection. A fascinating dynamic is apparent, as Nell is caring for the ailing parents and their roles are reversed, and yet she is more a child than she ever was, because this is how they know and remember her.

8) This was a deeply satisfying book.

October 29, 2006

Book Showers!

Goodbye Without Leaving was my favourite Laurie Colwin novel yet. I read it with delight, and it managed to talk about big things in a way that sat easily. Her writing is strong, and she writes narrators that confound me with their utter unclassifiability. You should read Laurie Colwin. I mean you. She’s pretty likeable. Finished Nixon in China, which was a fascinating reading. MacMillan is so clever that she gets to impart gossip and call it scholarship, but of course there is more than that. Apart from Nixon’s trip itself, I learned so many things about the history of Taiwan, Nixon and Kissenger, diplomacy in general (the word “obsequious” kept coming up), and appreciated the Asian lessons, especially considering how much the region has been in the news lately. Now reading Atwood’s Survival to fill that gap in my CanLit knowledge. It’s a delight, actually, and I’m out to embark on an Atwood kick for academic reasons, featuring (for nonacademic reasons) her latest Moral Disorder so stay tuned!

October 23, 2006

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I think some of my insomnia last night could be attributed to the fact that I was on the cusp of finishing The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, which I’ve just got to the bottom of now. Remarkable before anything else is how positively bookish is The Thirteenth Tale. It’s such a pretty book with a pile of books gorgeously illustrated on the dustjacket, and wonderful old-school patterned endpapers. Story starts in an antiquarian bookshop, narrated by a biographer about the life of a famous writer. Numerous 19th century novels are alluded to throughout, which would be especially charming to fans to such novels. And here we’ve also got a good old-fashioned mystery, with something a bit genre about it. So Setterfield is basically appealing to dorks the world over, but the mainstream will also approve, which is probably why she’s has got herself a flying-off-the-shelves bestseller.

Now The Thirteenth Tale is not a flawless novel. It’s Setterfield’s first book, which is sometimes written all over its pages, and the prose was clunky in places. I get the sense that its charm is its greatest appeal; I certainly loved it for its bookishness. Amateur biographer Margaret Lea, raised in a bookshop, is summoned to write the biography of Vita Winter, “this century’s Dickens”. Winter doesn’t get fast to the point, and by her story, we are led round in circles. This is a story of twinship, dilapitated manor houses, incest, madwomen stowed in various parts of houses, ghosts, murderers, wayward governesses and foundlings. Setterfield plays her fairly conventional material in new and surprising ways, with excellent control as the circles begin to tighten and we zero in on all unsaid. With the sort of plot that has been twisted time and time again, Setterfield manages to twist hers in a new way and I admit that I didn’t see it coming.

I am curious to see what Setterfield will do next. How will she fare with a more conventional form of literary fiction? Will she pull off something similar in her next book? In terms of novelty, she will be hardpressed to out-do The Thirteenth Tale, and she could possibly produce something absolutely awful in an effort to do so. Her story is interesting- read her profile in The Guardian. Of course, we judge her by what she’s done, not by what she’s yet to do. Setterfield might just be a flash in the pan, but The Thirteenth Tale is still a pretty entertaining read.