June 14, 2006
Year One
And Pickle Me This will be on holiday for the weekend, on account of our first wedding anniversary. It’s been a good year, with lots of luck and love. We’re hoping for sunshine.
June 14, 2006
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
I just finished If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor. It was a jumping off from The Hours, due to its moment by moment pacing. Stuart bought this book for me in 2003, so goes his message on the inside cover. And I believe I must have read it that April, as there was a bookmark from Paris inside and that was when we were there. I wanted to read it back then, because McGregor lived in Nottingham and it was quite hyped in the city. I liked it, but not as much as I had wanted to. I am a bit disappointed now, because things have been so busy this week, I’ve not had the time to devote this book that I wanted to give it. I think it would be best read in a sitting, because the connectivity in its rich fabric is best understood that way. It is a beautiful book in so many ways, but it has its own problems. McGregor is trying to do too many things, I think, and the result is a bit overwhelming and disquieting. There are about three hundred stories meshed here, which is part of McGregor’s whole point, but the result is less a novel than a sweep of grandiose proportions. Some of the situations were a bit implausible. But the sweep is worth it, and this is so clearly a first novel by somebody whose future novels are going to be even better. There is an amazing image of a man who bungee jumps and as he falls he sees a child hit by a car, and as he bounces back up and down, and hangs, he has to watch this, absolutely powerless but to witness. This book reminded me of Woolf’s “Modern Fiction”, and that McGregor is trying to do something altogether new here, and we have to credit him, problems and all.
June 14, 2006
The Fun Continues
I wish we could keep them. The fun has been non-stop since their arrival, and they’ve been wonderful. Currently, my house is full of the fine smells of dinner being cooked for us ala Nippon. We’ve been taking photos galore, of plates in particular. Last night was fun in Little Italy with Curtis too, amidst the Brazilian revelry and home for a bit of Yukata dress-up.
June 12, 2006
tako-yaki mambo
Life has been unbookish this weekend, though it was decidedly newspaperish when my houseguests missed their plane and I spent all of Saturday afternoon at the airport, waiting for them on the next flight. But when Miyuki and Yumi finally arrived, we came back downtown and had great barbeque and hilarious fun with wonderful friends. Today, we went to Korea Town and they revelled in Asian groceries (after three months living in Regina). I remember how exciting it was to find a can of Campbell’s Soup in Kobe, and it seems they feel the same about tako-yaki in Toronto. Then we went out for their first sushi in months, and it didn’t disappoint. We walked down to Chinatown after, and I took their picture beside the Osaka Hair Salon. We went to the Japanese grocery store on Queen Street, and then went out to St. Lawrence Market, where there was a dog festival and our canine-loving friends found themselves in heaven. Stopped for a drink on a patio and watched inebriation ensue from half a bottle of Corona. By this point, I was terrifically sunburned and redder than the drunk girl. We came home to a wonderful supper of homemade pizza and now we’re tired. And I have to go back to work tomorrow. But they are talking the bus to Niagara Falls! They are the most hilarious houseguests ever ever ever.
June 9, 2006
The Hours
The worst thing about finishing The Hours by Michael Cunningham on a break at work today was that I was expected to return to my desk and function afterwards. How? So yes, my latest reread. First read starting July 2, 2001, which was the summer I worked with Bronwyn and we spent our lunch hours at bookstores on Front Street and King Street and I purchased a motherlode of books. Sadly, nothing was found inside it. I remember enjoying it the first time, but of course there was a lot I didn’t pick up on. This is apparent, days after finishing Mrs. Dalloway of course, which though not essential to enjoy The Hours, does make for a completely different reading experience. Also, having read Woolf’s essay “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown”, which seemed as essential to The Hours as Mrs. Dalloway is, though this wasn’t completely clear to me until the very end. Of course the last line of Mrs. Dalloway is very important, and I had to read the last line of The Hours (“Come in, Mrs, Brown,” she says. “Everything’s ready.”) twice before I got the reference and then the entire book grew exponentially. The Hours is a feat, I think. Something so complicated could have been done very badly. I love how asymmetrical the parallels are between Mrs. Dalloway and this book. Cunningham has reworked Mrs. Dalloway in such intriguing and surprising ways. But he’s also made a book that stands up on its own, and I think that is really fantastic.
June 9, 2006
In the morning
I can’t help but wonder what future generations will think of this “civilization” of ours, in which we so revel in close-ups of corpses plastered to our periodical fronts.
Nevertheless, on schlurpy book dedications, and what happens to the book once the schlurp is no more. Here for the new Guardian Poetry Workshop. From Maud Newton we discover Field Tested Books, celebrating “a certain book in a certain place”.
Now, we’ve got a party to attend, and houseguests in the morning.
June 8, 2006
Mrs. Dalloway
I just finished re-reading Mrs Dalloway. I started it last on May 17 2000 (which I only know because I wrote the date inside the cover) and there were no found objects inside, but on Pg 59 I had written “Your prism grasp” in red ink, which was a piece of a poem I once had. I have a recollection of having read part of this book on Toronto Island, but I could just be making that up. And when I read this book then, six years ago, I found it extremely hard going. I read it because it was Mrs Dalloway, so of course I was supposed to read it, but I must confess to not having enjoyed it. I had read To the Lighthouse previously, in fact I studied it in classes for three of my four years at university, and I appreciated that book, but tackling Mrs. Dalloway on my own was perhaps too ambitious. (This is very embarrassing, but the truth). The text was so dense and wobbly, full of twists and turns and I didn’t concentrate enough to follow. I didn’t really get it, to be frank. So I can say that I had read Mrs. Dalloway, to the extent that I had turned the pages to the end, but I was hardly captured. This time was different. First, in my course “Virginia Woolf: Essays and Short Fiction”, I learned how to read Woolf, for I feel there is a knack required for it. I’ve become more familiar with Woolf’s own concerns, socially and aesthetically, which does have a bearing on this work. And of course, because I am re-reading, I am reading far more carefully than I usually do, already aware of the ending so not needing to charge through to uncover it. Attentive enough to follow all the twists and turns, but oh the prize you get for doing just that! Mrs. Dalloway is a love song to London, a story about being, about getting old and who you love. The entire spectrum of human experience, caught- if that could be thought possible. This, my friends, is a book.
June 7, 2006
Further
My new Taddle Creek arrived yesterday and it’s really wonderful. There is really nothing so delightful as reading material in the post. Here for the top ten passionate women authors. And here for the Toronto Book Awards. Now re-reading Mrs. Dalloway, and it’s enthralling, as I will be reporting here soon.
June 6, 2006
Imagine if..
CSI Miami met Eastenders? If Horatio Caine had a showdown with Phil Mitchell in Albert Square? Oh how positively delicious to fathom. I can now sort of almost understand a bit why one would write fan fiction. Kind of.
June 6, 2006
Orangey Range
The wonderful Zadie Smith wins the Orange Prize for the very wonderful On Beauty.
UPDATE: And they’re making a movie about last year’s winner, the stunning We Need to Talk About Kevin.
