March 7, 2006

Feminism just won't die

Leah McLaren ought to take a card from Margaret Wente if she really wants to start provoking debate. Today, Wente’s article How the feminists betrayed feminism appears, and though it’s bound to please those who hate women and Muslims, and to annoy the likes of me, I think it’s a very important piece. She writes that Western women have it better than they ever have, and they are avoiding speaking out for women who truly need liberation- those oppressed by “head scarves, face veils, the chador, arranged marriages, polygamy, forced pregnancies, or female genital mutilation”. In a sense, she is absolutely right. Inevitably though, however…

First, look at the news- the latest woman murdered by her estranged husband or the abortion ban in South Dakota. All is not terribly well at home, so let’s not hang up our guns just yet.

Second, she is wrong to say that no one is watching out for women oppressed internationally. What about (off the top of my head) Sally Armstrong or Mavis Leno, both of whom have been speaking out about Afghan women since 1997- when the rest of the world was saying nothing about the brutal Taliban regime? Wente writes “Western values and institutions aren’t the problem. They’re the answer. We should be doing our best to spread them. Capitalism and globalization have done more to empower oppressed women of the world than all the NGOs on Earth. ” She is right, but it’s really easy to put these words in a column. Putting them into action is a different story. The US adventure is Iraq has proven that people don’t take too well to having values and institutions foisted upon them. Women don’t like being told that they are stupid, that their culture, rituals and traditions are archaic. Since reading Wente’s article, I’ve been thinking about “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk, “Sweetness in the Belly” by Camilla Gibb and “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi. I think problems in this world would be more easily solved if people read more fiction. Fiction teaches empathy, understanding, context. From these books, I’ve learned that nothing is simple. Shock and awe doesn’t work. Bringing about positive change takes a long time, it’s about small steps. It comes through education. Though it’s hardly immediately satisfying, this the only route that really yields results. And it’s going on all the time.

March 7, 2006

Good China: One Day I'll make art from our pieces

I broke a plate on Friday night- the first such casualty of our marriage. It wasn’t a dinner plate or a bowl. I’d define it by what it was, but I don’t know the name for larger-than-sideplates plates. I didn’t throw it- it just sort of tumbled onto our ceramic tiles and then splintered into pieces that flew into the living room, down the stairs, and even inside the bedroom door. It was indeed a mighty crash. And I saved the pieces. One day when I am old and we have a wall, I’m going to make a mosaic out of everything we ever broke.

Now reading “The Accidental” by Ali Smith, which is written in a startlingly convincing precocious twelve year-old voice. This character likes to say “typical and ironically” and “substandard” but most of all she says “i.e”. As in, “I was going to the fridge i.e. I was hungry” or “He thinks he is so now i.e. he is completely embarrassing”. I thought it was an interesting figure of speech but then I told Stuart about it, and demonstrated it and now typically and ironically I can’t stop i.e. I am annoying. Mostly due to my substandard personality.

March 5, 2006

Weekend

Our weekend was fun, in that we spent Friday in the wonderful company of Natalie Bay (whose URL I entered incorrectly before), and then Saturday night with the Lui/Doerings and we got to see Walk The Line at the Varsity! It was wonderful, and I’ve spent the hours since lusting after Reese Witherspoon’s hair (not to mention Joaquin).

On cyberlibel. I find it odd how threatened people are by these “unsophisticated publishers”. A more sophisticated publisher urges us to boycott Google. He uses the old, “It’s the authors who will suffer most” line. Ha ha ha. An interview with Leah McLaren in The Star. She says that “she TRIES to provoke debate” which is “her job at a columnist. I fear she is confusing “debate” with “venomous wrath”. This article makes a case for literary imitation. On being a writer in Zimbabwe.

I am still absolutely adoring “Reading Lolita in Tehran” and plan to finish it in a hot bath this evening. I also baked an absolutely perfect lemon almond cake yesterday afternoon. From a different cookbook of course.

March 3, 2006

Oh.

I am far more disappointed than the preceding post would suggest. It is strange to so consciously do something wrong, and be surprised when it turns out badly.

March 3, 2006

Night Falls

It’s strange that the sun goes down behind Ossington Avenue now. When we lived in Northwest England, it used to fall in the sea.

March 2, 2006

All aboard for Utrecht!

Today is exciting, because my new PenPal project begins. Inspired by the new book Between Friends: A Year in Letters, my fabulous friend Bronwyn Enright are going to start exchanging letters regularly. Each letter must be answered within ten days, and contain a print-based treat of some sort. I will write the first one tonight, and mail it tomorrow.

In further excitement, why not let’s go to Utrecht? The Guardian is all Miffy manic of late- naturally. There is a new Dick Bruna museum in Utrecht, and the second tallest building in the city has a seven foot pair of her ears attached to it. And today is something called World Book Day, which means that the Guardian Books section is all abuzzing. And I have received a book in the post today, and yesterday, and tomorrow will be sad when it proves to be bookless. Unless somebody has sent me a present?

I am now reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, and so far it’s wonderful. It’s strange to be learning about two very disconnected ideas (literature and Iranian history) at the same time. And still on Woolf in Ceylon, which is such a weird book. I am enjoying it, as I have been really interested in colonial history lately, but Woolf was Ondaatje’s excuse to write a travelogue. There are so many gaps in Woolf’s interest that Ondaatje tries to contextualise, and this reads awkwardly. As in, “I don’t know why Woolf was so uninterested in the flora and fauna of this particular town, which I will elaborate upon for the remainder of this chapter”. Or some such thing. I am also reading the poetry of PK Page, who is coming to our class on Monday. And further, Camilla Gibb is reading at Massey College next Wednesday. And I only have to wait until October for Margaret Drabble’s new novel!

March 1, 2006

Mardi Gras

Well, all is well with the world because Heather Mallick is back!. And we just returned from a wonderful Pancake Day fiesta chez SH that put the fat back in Fat Tuesday.

February 27, 2006

Cupcake

Isn’t it weird that the very day I vow never to buy The Globe and Mail ever again, Leah McLaren opts out of the blogosphere? She is tired, she writes, of

bitter unpublished writers venomously slagging published ones — their terrible spelling, poorly constructed sentences and outrageous amounts of displaced hatred and envy a testimony to why they became bloggers in the first place.

I am just tired of the worst Saturday paper I’ve ever read (and I used to read The Asahi Shimbun so that’s saying something). I guess it’s The Guardian Online for me then!

Last night I got drunk and ordered Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess off amazon used. It was an act of impetuosity and spendthriftery, but I have wanted this book for many years and I am confident that it will change my entire life. Will keep you posted.

Ottawa was brilliant! And cold. Thursday, we went to the Parliament Buildings and Sparks Street, and had a wonderful dins etc. with Sues and Lo. On Friday, we went out for lunch, went to the Ottawa Nicholas Hoare, spent the whole day at the Art Gallery, ate Beaver Tails, froze our bums, went out for a wonderful dinner and drinks and lived like the rich. Saturday was a blizzard and awful, so we didn’t leave the house but the four of us were quite compatible, and spent a pleasant Saturday listening to music, watching Little Britain, reading, cooking and enjoying excellent company. We came home this morning, and we’re entirely sick of busses. Oh, but for the love mini breaks. It was brilliant.

February 26, 2006

Sweetness in the Belly

I am not proud that I don’t read a lot of international fiction- a sad fact that limits me as a reader, a writer, and a human being. I can think of a few translations I’ve read during the past while, so I am not the uberculprit- however I must admit that sometimes I find books in translation awkward to read, and that the “novel” form can vary so much that novels from other cultures do not always deliver what I look for in a book. I don’t always read the books that I “should” read, because life is little and I read for pleasure. And there is my defense, but in short, I am a bit ashamed of it all.

So there it stands, but today I did finish reading Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb. And whadda book, oh my goodness. I closed it finally with such a surge of teary-eyed joy and sadness. If you have ever wanted to read a book, read this one. Full stop. It is a thing of beauty, an educative tool, a small-world maker and a pleasure to read. Camilla Gibb is a Canadian writer who did extensive field work in Ethiopia during the 1990s. She has created a masterpiece, the story of Lilly, a white Muslim woman living in the Ethiopian city of Harar during the 1970s. The story goes back and forth between her life there, and her “present” in 1980s London. You wouldn’t call Gibb the Bob Geldof of the literary set (less histrionics) but her story made Africa and Ethiopia real to me like nothing else ever has before. Lilly- the inside outsider- made the story so accessible. She was my portal into that world, and I so appreciated the opportunity. What a fascinating literary device- one that must be in amazingly adept hands in order to be fully effective. And oh yes, it is.

None of this means I don’t still suck- I just feel a little more awake than I did before.

February 23, 2006

My brilliant friends

I’m fortunate to have met some incredibly brilliant friends in my time (like say Erin or Mike, not to mention those who don’t maintain weblogs). I would like to introduce another of my amazing comrades, Ms. Natalie Bay. We met about four years ago while both working as tour guides in Ottawa, right before I moved to England. We met up again about two years after that as we were both working in Japan at the same time, though at that point Natalie was finishing up the Nippon life and on her way to live in England. Good news is that we’re getting together next week, but also that her website is wonderful. She is a very talented photographer, as her photos of Ghana and Japan will attest. Plus, the Japanese pictures bring back some beautiful memories.

In other wonderful people news (anyone tell I’ve been into the wine?) we had such a lovely dinner downstairs with Curtis. He’s a great guy, and cooked us a good meal. He and Stuart get along really well (they’re still down there) and I think we’re really lucky to have him for a neighbour. We’ve decided to make our dinner fetes-semi regular.

See you apres Ottawa. My cousin’s boyfriend is French Canadian and I have an appalling tendency to desecrate his language constantly in his presence. Il m’embrasse avec la lange mais je n’ais pas les sentiments pour lui. Indeed.