June 4, 2006
The Robber Bride
I just reread my first book. I finished The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, which I read in 1994 and liked. Significantly, I found a one dollar and a two dollar bill inside it, as well as a bookmark from Victoria College. And so, when I last read this book I was fifteen, and I suspect just awed by a window into the weird and sordid world of adulthood. This time around, I caught the more subtle details and was able to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of the characters, and that Zenia was one hundred percent pure evil. It’s difficult, when you are younger, to evaluate characters like that. Good or evil, twenty-six or sixty-two, they were all sort of the same. They were Women!. I got more of a sense of the greater themes of the work, the significance of war in particular. The book started off slow for me but once I got into the backstories, I was hooked. An excellently constructed narrative. I enjoyed it very much.
June 4, 2006
The Ideal Occupation
Of note, I made a brilliant salad for dinner with feta, watermelon and pumpkin seeds. We were dubious, but it turned out to be a taste explosion. Oishi desu! Also, I bought a new CD today for the first time in ages. I bought the new Zero 7 album, and it’s wonderful wonderful good. I bought their “Simple Things” back when we lived in England, and it’s one of the few albums we play absolutely regularly. Their new CD “the garden” has met all my expectations and then some. It’s different from “Simple Things”, a little less chilled out, with more a sense of humour. They’re a collective and listening to their stuff is like listening to a variety show, especially with the new album. It got a fairly favourable review in The Globe yesterday, though they didn’t like it as much as I do.
I spent a wonderful day with two of my oldest and dearest friends today, cruising a rainsoaked Queen Street. Consumerism will be the death of me. Lately I’ve been mad about cake stands. And I am obsessed with pickled beetroot.
I’ve enjoyed reading about the Book a Day Challenge in the Globe, and particularly appreciated John Allemang’s reflections of his endeavour at one hundred books. Though no book-a-dayer myself, I did embark upon my own reading marathon this year. Initially, I just wanted to keep a list of my reading, which was inspired by Annie Dillard’s own “Books I’ve Read Since 1966”. However quantifying my reading got me ambitious. I decided to read 200 books this year, though it looks like I will only get to about 160. (Full time work interferes with my leisure time in a way I never thought was possible). I’m currently reading my 71st book, and it’s been a bit of a ride (as much as reading can be considered a ride. I need to get out more). I particularly liked these lines from Allemang’s article:
Now, I have to admit that if you devote yourself wholeheartedly to reading, an occupation that was held up as an ideal when I was at school, you end up losing contact with humanity — but only the living and breathing version. There isn’t a day when I don’t feel immersed in the world, reading about the search for a lost Caravaggio in the wilds of Italy, or the desperate struggles of the Impressionists in Paris, or what it was like to grow up in backwoods Texas, or do battle in Algiers, or be Catherine Deneuve.
and
My interpersonal skills, a bit dubious at the best of times, have certainly not improved. The general verdict around the house is that while the gentle art of reading has calmed the road-rage side of my temper, it’s given me a lot less to say in response to the question, “So how was your day?” Of course we readers find that sort of thing a little too banal anyway. After you’ve read Intuition, Allegra Goodman’s novel about the inner workings of a cancer-research lab, small talk seems even smaller — and not many table companions want to hear about John Daly’s four wives.
Ivor Tossell wrote a great article on MySpace (the ugliest thing to ever happen to The Internet). I enjoyed The Missionary Position in The Nation, by Laila Lalami of Moorish Girl, a Muslim woman on Muslim women. Another marathon reader, Jane Smiley in The Observer.
June 2, 2006
The treasures that they hold
As I mentioned before, I really loved Other People’s Bookmarks, the article from last fall in The Believer about objects found in books. However, one’s own bookmarks are inclined to be just as interesting. And rediscovering them is one of the many perqs of The Great Summer Re-Reading Project, though my found objects aren’t always technically bookmarks, but often things I slip between pages for safekeeping and then forget about. Tonight I found both a one dollar and a two dollar bill inside Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride. Oh books, what troves you really are.
Speaking of books, Stuart is currently reading my copy of This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall. What an absolutely hilarious book. And unbelievably, written by a thirteen year old boy.
June 2, 2006
Corporate Accountability
I’ve developed an alter-ego of late, and I bet you didn’t even know. I’ve become something of a corporate governance warrior, and you can learn a little bit about the sort of work I’ve been doing in yesterday’s Globe article, Missing link: CEO pay and results. Wayne Roberts in Now thinks that moves toward corporate accountability are fundamentally useless but then again he would, and his article does have some interesting bits.
June 1, 2006
The Great Summer Re-Reading Project
First, about Missing Sarah by Maggie de Vries. It was a really wonderful book. It was well written, informative and poignant. I will admit to being one of those who never very much considered the missing women from Vancouver. They were a mass, a rather sordid mass at that. And this book brought one of them very much to life. She was a person, with a family that loved her terribly, and miss her still. And we have to know that, beyond the sensationalist tabloid articles. What a journey it was to, to learn where Sarah de Vries came from and how she ended up where she did. That one of these murdered women was Jean Little’s niece. This book forced me to put aside my gut reactions to these issues and to understand how truly complicated and difficult they are to consider. It was a really sad and wonderful story. Not bad for a book bought just because it had a Penguin on its spine.
And tomorrow is the first day of the The Great Summer Re-Reading Project. I got the idea last fall, when I was contemplating all the books I want to read, and was bowled over by the books I want to re-read on top of that. Which is my priority for the next three months. I am going to re-read all those books I should have read more carefully before, the books that my older self will interpret differently, the books I read for class that I may have missed the point of, books I’ve read but only so long ago that I don’t remember anymore, and books I feel I am in a better place to understand now. This is exciting because it means I am not going to spend any money on books this summer, which is a good thing at the moment, and also because it’s a really interesting way to approach a book. I am only going to read books I the circumstances of having read the first time, and compare those, on top of the actual reading experience. And hopefully the books are going to open up whole new stories I never even considered before.
(In mini break news, we are going away for our first wedding anniversary, which is in three weeks! I am so excited. We’re renting a car and hitting the road, and spending the weekend in Prince Edward County!)
May 31, 2006
Trailer
Lionel Shriver writes, therefore I read. Just what ties McClelland & Stewart and Random House of Canada. Margaret Atwood at the Hay Festival. I, who am ace, scored 9/10 on the cbc.ca music duo quiz.
It’s hot and I have taken to drinking beer on the porch whilst wearing a bathing suit. This doesn’t bode well for my neighbourhood social status. Especially since I live in the house with no lawn.
May 29, 2006
Good morning good morning
This morning, we awoke to jackhammers in the sidewalk outside our house, fragile things we love dearly falling off the wall and smashing into pieces and a city-wide transit strike. How exciting!
May 28, 2006
Weekend was
Weekend is pizza night and wine and celebratory cake on the front porch and getting to bed eventually but not remembering the details as to how and helping Jennie move at 9:00 the next morning and feeling gross and shopping without financial woes and clearing out the herbal tea department because we’re just that wild and crazy and biking to buy new capris which are now just called “cropped pants” and then to St. Lawrence market and asparagus and blackberries and Nicholas Hoare and bbq and finishing the wonderful Two Solitudes and reading newspapers and magazines and sleeping well and brunch with wonderful funny friends and then along Queen to Type Books where we bought Spacings and then biking through Trinity Bellwoods to home and my dad comes for tea with groceries in tow and when he goes we read the paper on the porch and eat more celebratory cake and alas the weekend now is over was but my goodness, it was marvelous.
Here for Coupland in The Guardian. On what prizes and festivals have done to fiction. Go here for some thoughts on the confessional anthology, which is apparently “the new memoir”. Vanessa Redgrave and Joan Didion talk about the stage version of The Year of Magical Thinking.
In personal book news, I am reading nothing at the mo. Tonight I’ll start Missing Sarah by Maggie De Vries, the story of a woman whose sister was one of the sx workers missing in Vancouver. It was nominated for a Governor General’s Award in 2003 and the author’s aunt is Jean Little, which I thought was interesting. It will be my 70th book of the year, and the last book I read before The Grest Summer Re-Reading Project begins on June 1st.
May 25, 2006
First stage of approval
When Stu called immigration this morning to ask a question about getting his Japanese criminal records check, they informed him they already had it. And in fact they had everythng. Because they had found his application and processed it yesterday, granting first stage of approval. The letter was posted to us yesterday. Which is annoying for multiple reasons, but wonderful for way more reasons. Yea! This weekend we’re going to celebrate by throwing frugality out the window in an elaborate ceremony.
May 24, 2006
Ah now; what now?
Sitting here with a cup of tea bigger than my head. There’s an article in The Guardian today, in defense of Nottingham by Jon McGregor. It’s a good piece, and Nottingham is a good place. The crime capital of England it might be, and it’s an outhouse compared to London, but I lived there for almost two years some moons ago, and that city was good to me. I arrived there completely deranged for a variety of reasons, and the time I spent getting over it was so fundamental. I had my first full time job there, and my little terrace house; I made wonderful friends and spent some brilliant days, and heard the songs, read the books, watched the films; passions began, for Mitfords, Miffy, EastEnders, weekend papers, bad europop and tea. And chips and cheese. (I also got really fat there). Where Stuart and I fell in love, and we rode double decker busses for kicks. That spring day three years ago, when as a surprise, Stu bought me the wonderfulIf Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor, Nottingham’s defender. McGregor has a new book coming out this year, and I can’t wait to read it, just to see how far we’ve come.
The latest installment of The Penpal Project arrived yesterday from Bronwyn. I received a postcard of The Queen and a map of Hay-on-Wye, as well as a lovely epistle. Having a penpal is the most wonderful thing. The lack of immediacy provides a real different dimension to communication from what I’m accustomed to. Writing to her last month, not knowing whether she had got her new job, but knowing that she would know by the time she read the letter. There are things you write in that situation that you wouldn’t otherwise. (And she did get the job, by the way). I will have her letter in the post within one week.
And a note of thanks to everyone who has been so wonderful and supportive about immigration. Our fax got a reply and there does appear to be light at the end of the long long tunnel. We’re resubmitting our application tomorrow and it will be bumped to the top of the queue. Oh, and there was “catch” at lunch today, so all is really really well. Especially since The Blue Jays won last night. And we were there, way up in the 500s. It was my first baseball game in years and Stuart’s first ever, and it is indeed a very strange sport. But we had fun, and we had an excellent time with Jennie and Deep, who live across the street from the Skydome.
Now reading Two Solitudes by Hugh McLennan. He’s terribly outdated, but I am a fan. The Watch That Ends the Night has been a favourite of mine for years. First, I love the way writers like McLennan wrote about Canada before we all got cool and accustomed to the idea of our nationhood (ha ha). It’s a good story though; alright, the characters are a wee bit wooden, the men are chauvinists and McLennan is entirely too obsessed with breasts and drippy females. But it’s Canadiana and we people like to eat it with a spoon.
