August 1, 2008

On finding math in my book

It’s amazing, rereading, how it takes you back in time. Providing intimate encounters, so unexpected, with the yous you used to be. For example, yesterday I opened my copy of The Stone Angel for the first time since I read it in my grade twelve English class. First, on the first page is written in my (still) best friend’s hand: “I hate this book because I can’t read it because I am illiterate,” ascribed to me, which must have been funny once. (What is funny, of course, is that illiterate was spelled wrong.) And then how about the trigonometry on the inside cover?? At least I think it’s trigonometry, and the most remarkable thing about it is that it’s my handwriting! That once upon a time that gibberish meant anything at all to me, and I struggled over it, slaved over it, vandalized my very own paperbacks with it (and for naught, I think I see now considering I don’t even know what it is. Though did anybody even pretend that trigonometry was going to be useful?). What a strange life I must have lived then, and no wonder I sort of missed the point of the book, and we’ll just add this to the exponentially ever-growing list of reasons why I’m glad I get to be an adult now.

July 29, 2008

Rereading Emily of New Moon

I reread Emily of New Moon this weekend, still riding the wave of recent L.M. Montgomery mania (which Steph at Crooked House rounds up here). I was surprised (but then not overly) to discover that my paperback copy was actually stolen goods, my then-school library’s ownership stamped on the inside cover, and with no evidence of a “discard”.

I don’t remember how old I was when I first encountered Emily, but she never entranced me the way that Anne did. I do remember enjoying the books, but also how difficult I found them, and I could never quite explain why, and Emily-lovers never really understood what I meant, but I see it now. First being that I read all of Montgomery’s books really young, and any of my understanding of Anne of Green Gables was probably due to having watched the Kevin Sullivan film, which came out when I was six. There was never an Emily movie, and so I was unfamiliar with the story. (This is interesting also to consider how the cinematic Anne influenced my impressions of that novel, considering how different it was to read Emily without such pictures in my mind).

That I had no “template” for understanding Emily might read a bit strangely, considering this story of an incorrigible orphan girl in PEI with romantic dreams and literary leanings, who is sent to live with bachelor/spinster strangers and changes their lives, investing a lonely old house with the heart it had lost, and bewitching every single person in town. That the novel is so remarkably like Anne, however, only shows Montgomery’s progression as a novelist between 1908 and 1923 (nine books later). Emily is a longer book, her character drawn with so much more detail, we get inside her head the way we never really did with Anne, her perspective maintained throughout the text. Her own progression is less a series of scrapes and lessons learned. She has not Anne’s fiery temper– her own outbursts are usually in protest to some injustice instead. She has a certain steadiness uncanny for a child. Emily grows up, but she never changes, she never relents.

This depth of character would have been what tripped me up back when I first read this book. The complicated nature of the others too– I remember being confused by Mr. Carpenter, who tormented the students who had potential in order to draw it further from them, and their ambivalent feelings towards him, and how I couldn’t comprehend it. Though I remember finding Dean Priest’s feelings for Emily a bit creepy, and I still do. Class issues– what it meant that Perry came from a place called “Stovepipe Town” and I remembering picturing a village full of men wearing top hats.

This time around, the book was a pleasure, to discover what I’d been missing. I liked the novel’s engagement with the wider world– stories of immigration, with history. As with Anne, I loved Emily’s bookishness, her passion for writing and how she’d have to do it anyway even if she’d never make a penny. The wise advice that she is given:

“If at thirteen you can write ten good lines, at twenty you’ll write ten times ten– if the gods are kind. Stop messing over months, though– and don’t imagine you’re a genius either, if you have written ten decent lines. I think there’s something trying to speak through you– but you’ll have to make yourself a fit instrument for it. You’ve got to work hard and sacrifice– by gad, girl, you’ve chosen a jealous goddess.”

July 22, 2008

So much can slip on by

I’m now rereading Joan Didion’s Where I Was From, which is a very different book from the one I first encountered last May. Partly because I’ve visited California since then, and therefore have a more concrete image of what she describes. Which is not to say Didion’s descriptions are inadequate, but rather now I see something different. In addition, I just finished Sharon Butala’s The Garden of Eden, which has provided Didion’s consideration of California agriculture-culture with a context. I’ve also found that Joan Didion is always worth a trip back to, for she is so subtle that much can slip on by.

Good things on the web of late: I also thought Feist singing “One Two Three Four” on Sesame Street was truly lovely, and will link to Carl Wilson’s post about this because it contains some other vintage Sesame Street counting hits. My new favourite website is Fernham, by Woolf scholar Anne E. Fernald. Writer Margo Rabb’s struggles upon discovering she’d written a YA book, and Laurel Snyder understands.

July 16, 2008

Chaos Continues

Bibliochaos continues– the house is in shambles, and I’m covered in paint. Luckily so are the bookshelves (paint-covered, that is), and they’ll get a second coat tomorrow, and it’s not so unreasonable to assume things will be back to normal by Thursday. Meaning that I will be able to find time to post a rave review of Marilyn Robinson’s Home, among other things. I’ve just finished rereading Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays— I read it wrong the first time, and am glad I came back to find out just how wonderful it is.

July 9, 2008

Rereading Unless

“There you have it: stillness and power, sadness and recognition, contradictions and irrationality. Almost, you might say, the materials of a serious book.” –Carol Shields, Unless (from the last page).

I think this may be the sixth or seventh time I’ve reread Unless, and it was new to me all over again. This time because I read it in light of Carol Shields’ interview “Ideas of Goodness” from Eleanor Wachtel’s book Random Illuminations: Conversations with Carol Shields, which I received for Christmas this year. To gain insight into Shields’ own intentions with her book, her understanding of it. “I like to think of this book of these four little legs: this idea of mothers and children; the idea of writers and readers…; I wanted to talk about goodness; and then I wanted to talk about men and women– this gender issue, which interests me so much and has actually be a part of every book I’ve written. I think I’m always writing about this.”

Four legs indeed– as a result of the interview, I started noticing the chairs scattered throughout the text. The importance of sitting, being seated, rest. I’d never paid enough attention to this. The tricky thing about a book on many legs– just focusing on one of them, and assuming that’s all. And this book is tricky in particular– the story contradicting the themes, encompassing so many ideas. This is not a book that puts everything neatly in place. Which is part of the reason there is so much to discover, and I look forward to doing so year after year.

I was also thinking about the idea of what fiction is supposed to do. To challenge my world view, rather than reflecting it right back at me, and whatnot. When reflection is what Unless does, it does. It is reassurance, the articulation of my strongest feelings, but I’ve decided that I’ve entitled to this. Because, you see, the world itself doesn’t reflect my world view– the very point of Unless (or one of its many very points). And so when fiction can, at the very least, I will take solace where I find it.

July 6, 2008

Rereading Anne of Green Gables

The first time I encountered Anne in print was in an abridged version of the story at the beginning of my Anne of Green Gables colouring book. I first read the novel when I saw seven or eight, my understanding of which was greatly influenced by the film. My Anne was always Megan Follows, Marilla Colleen Dewhurst, etc. Try as I might, these associations refuse to be shed. Which is not such a bad thing.

The last time I read Anne of Green Gables was seven or eight years ago, the first time as an adult, and I read my wonderful annotated edition. I remember finding the annotations interesting, though I can’t remember any of them now. I do remember being struck by the novel’s humour. As a child I’d taken it all as sincerely as Anne did, but now I could see that much of the book was really quite funny.

This time rereading Anne of Green Gables, I went back to my old novel. It has become quite a treasure, though the dust-jacket is gone (I hated dust-jackets when I was little, how they’d get torn and ratty, and I used to throw them away). I wish I could remember what the cover had looked like. My edition is a reprint of the very first edition, old style fonts and textual decos, illustrations by Hilton Hassell with a line of text underneath each on. On the inside cover is inscribed, “To Kerry Lea, From Grandma and Grandpa, Xmas 1986”. Note that from my grandparents, I would go on to receive hardback copies of Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island for my birthday and Christmas 1987. In 1988, the whole rest of the series arrives from them, albeit in paperback. Perhaps the most long-lasting gifts I’ll ever receive. What treasures now…

Kate Sutherland has been rereading Anne, celebrating her centennial (for indeed she turned 100 years in June). She’s been part of the group Blogging Anne of Green Gables, sharing rereadings and providing some fascinating insights.

Certainly Anne is a fine book for revisiting. Rereading is an absolute joy, and like any book worth a trip back to, it’s amazing how much the perspective changes. The mark of any good book, such richness, and multiple layers readers can reveal for themselves as time goes on. As most young readers do, I identified with Anne, in all earnestness I wanted to be her. Because of her triumphs, I think, in the face of all adversity. I think all awkward little girls (which is most little girls) want to believe that triumph is possible. They’re sold on Anne’s version of romance, of her poetry, of the wilds of her imagination, just as her schoolmates are at the Avonlea school. How she casts a spell on the whole world.

Now I see though, rereading, that though Anne is the impetus, her story is about how that very spell changes Marilla Cuthbert. How Marilla realizes her true self through this bewitching orphan girl. “It almost seemed to her that [her] secret, unmuttered, critical thoughts had suddenly taken visible and accusing shape and form in the person of this outspoken morsel of neglected humanity.” How from the moment she encounters Anne, she is biting back smiles, swallowing her “reprehensible desire to laugh”. Until the end of the novel, when we find her in explosive fits of laughter, or when Matthew discovers her having a good cry. She learns to feel, to be, and to love. She is a wonderful, rich character, more than I’d ever thought to give her credit for.

I was also struck by the bookishness of Anne. Literary references scattered throughout the text, Anne’s quoting poetry, but it’s not just Anne. I’d always thought Diana Berry was a bit bland in comparison to her bosom friend, and so I was surprised to first encounter her as follows: “Diana was sitting on the sofa, reading a book which she dropped when the callers entered.” Her mother instructs her, “Diana, you might take Anne out into the garden and show her your flowers. It will be better for you than straining your eyes over that book. She reads entirely too much… and I can’t prevent her… She’s always poring over a book. I’m glad she has the prospect of a playmate– perhaps it will take her more out of doors.”

The little girls of Avonlea read with fervour, exchange novels like I did stickers at their age. They’re all variable types, none of them quite like Anne, but the bookishness is a common denominator I found fascinating.

June 22, 2008

Summer Rereading Project

As usual, I’ll be rereading plenty during July and August, and I’ve written more about that project over at the Descant blog.

June 9, 2008

Expanding the possibilities

I was very interested to read “Women Behaving Boldly”, Sarah Liss’s argument that Sex and the City‘s female archetypes might have as their origin those of Alcott’s Little Women. I’ve not read Little Women for years and years, and I’m not sure that what I did read wasn’t abridged anyway, nevertheless, I’ll be (re?)reading the novel this summer. Liss writes, “Louisa May Alcott ’s proto-feminist tome has been a rite of passage for generations… [T]he March girls were complex and flawed, and they helped shape my understanding of the many facets of femininity.” As I reread, I’ll keep her ideas in mind.

A reader takes issue with Liss, however: “Have you actually read Little Women?” Claiming that Little Women didn’t celebrate feminist ideals, but rather quashed them. That Jo March was never accepted for her independent spirit, and those around her tried to tame her. Which might be right, I don’t remember now. But I suspect otherwise, for when I look back to impressions of Little Women, Jo’s spirit is all that I really remember. All attempts towards taming aside, Jo is Little Women (except for my impressions where Beth stands out, but they are only because she died).

I’d always associated Little Women with another female archetype-dependent television show, however, which was The Facts of Life. When I was seven and watched too much television, I came across an ad for Little Women in the back of another novel, read its plot synopsis, and figured these two quartets featuring girls named Jo must be intrinsically linked. It was only this chance to discover further adventures of a girl called Jo, I think, that led me to Little Women in the first place.

They were indeed a bit interchangeable, these Jo’s, except that one had sold her hair, and the other cultivated hers into an elaborate mullet. Both of them were everybody’s favourites though, and I can’t help but think I’m not the only one who found both of them integral to an understanding of self during these formative years. That there were alternatives to the kinds of girls we were supposed to be, expanding the possibilities to encompass most anything.

April 27, 2008

The Octopus by Jennica Harper

I used to have this sticker with a picture of a boy and a bear standing on the top of Planet Earth, set against a black starry sky and the bear was pointing up. The words coming out of his mouth said, “Look up there.” The image to me is the definition of “wonder”, and it kept occurring to me as I reread Jennica Harper’s book The Octopus yet again.

Wondrous things dominate this collection: prairie skies, cinema, rocket ships, spacemen, music, snowstorm, beaches, breasts, mothers, and extraterrestrial life. Some of these things ordinary but made new through widened eyes. From “Cinema Paradiso”: “Only a true believer/ sits on the edge of her seat at the movies/ like they do in the movies./ I am such a believer.”

In the long poem “The Octopus”, this wonder is questioned, as two former lovers have the same conversations they’ve always had. “Something we could not let go:/ all the time spent, the conversations/ run and rerun, we didn’t think we would/ have the strength to have them/ with another person.” The other love who sees such wonder as self-indulgent, who “can’t condone the reckless hope/ of finding some other life out there.” He points elsewhere instead: “If Sagan and his crew really wanted an alien,/ you say, they would look to the octopus…” He is “afraid all this probing/ will have been a waste.”

But to our narrator, the wonder has been enough, and so too the wondering: “the girl on the beach… but is it a waste that I got to dream her?” Pointing up, and wondering what is out there in the universe, asking where did we come from and where are we going. Questions that apply just as much to outer space as to our own histories; the secret to our origins might lie in the stars, but we seek the same answers in our mothers, our families, in the world all around us. In this context everything is worth examining; indeed a praying mantis is a “tiny robot”, we are made up of our elements. And then we can dare to “admit we’re not the only subject/ and can sometimes be the searcher, the verb”.

Harper writes, “All of this talk is just talk./ The truth is, we will never know/ our own future, not even/our own past”. The talk, however, and all the wondering, and the poetry– all this stand as evidence, as an arsenal against empty claims of nothingness. Making it certain: “We Are Here.”

April 4, 2008

On poetry, and Six Mats and One Year by Alison Smith

Kate Sutherland has put out the challenge— why don’t we talk about poetry this month? And since I’m celebrating with my own Poetic April, I thought I’d take part. First by answering, why don’t we talk about poetry? I know I don’t because I don’t have the confidence. I could talk about it casually as I do fiction, but I’d feel altogether vulnerable. Even accessible poetry– I lack the formal approach to it. But I will forget about that, if you promise to be patient and tolerate my pedestrian meanderings. If you promise to also tolerate my own little poems too, which I’m only writing for my very own self.

All of these provisos, basically because I suspect I’m quite poor at all of this, and it’s my nature to deprecate myself before you do. Though I have another reason for avoiding talk of poetry– a formal approach I say I lack, but I am not sure there is even one. I understand “novel” and I understand “story”, but “poem” seems as broad as days are long, as are ways to read one. I understand that this is true of stories and novels too, but it seems truest of poems most of all. When everything is so contained, absolutely nothing extraneous– including the reading experience– it seems impossible to find a poem the same way twice, rendering generalizations impossible. This becoming all the more evident as I begin to reread collections of poetry I own.

I reread Canadian poet Alison Smith’s book Six Mats and One Year today. Published in 2003 by Gaspereau Press, I must get away from the poetry for a moment to comment on this book’s design. The cover laid out like a Japanese tatami room, six mats of course, grooves in between them. The book is gorgeous. When I read it the first time, the poems were so tied to my own experience as I was living in Japan at the time. It was remarkable then to see the most quotidian details of my own life expressed with poetry– the ticking clock in an English conversation school, purikura shots, “counter girls heralding the public in a caffeinated chorus”, Hello Kitty, the yearning for home (“I left as we do our childhoods: rushing to escape, without souvenirs”) which I knew would soon be my own experience.

To find this book again four years later was quite different. No longer did it resonate so personally, and perhaps it was the schooling I’ve had since then or what a better reader I’ve become, but I read the poems more for themselves than for what of me I found it them– Smith was attempting more than just a scrapbook of my memories after all. I found an odd nostalgia, of course, but now I was able to achieve distance. Also to understand some structures and images that had seemed abstruse before.

Here is the problem– I can’t articulate much about the language. Perhaps with some practice I’ll get better and will revisit this book later in the month? Now I can just say that Smith uses accessible language, though some of it wrapping up strange and curious images. Other bits laid out in ultimate simplicity: “Me too, I realise, I do/ want to be happy.”

The poems are structured cyclically, the “one year” of its title with four sections. The first concerns teaching in an English conversation school, the second written about time spent living at a Buddhist monastery. Home creeps into the third section, as the novelty and exotic wears away. The final section is home again: “where you can finally read/the signs on the wall”.

In each poem and the collection as a whole, Smith blends the material and spiritual in an airy fashion. Accepting Japan’s incongruities, its seamless gaps (the priest’s second son in his Ghostbusters t-shirt), all contained within a perfect package. The literary embodiment of a gaijin‘s Japan.