September 30, 2006

Please insert change

I knew that Every Day is Mother’s Day would cure all that ailed me. It was wonderful and horrifying; Hilary Mantel has such a gloriously sick mind. In this book, Colin is having an affair with Isabel, and, as it’s the mid 1970s, he frequently needs to come up with reasons to nip out to the phonebox and call her. And I couldn’t help thinking about cellphones as a plot device, a topic that has fascinated me, mainly in film actually. There are all kinds of movies, books and television shows that wouldn’t have been remotely plottable before cellphones came into use- CSI would struggle, 24, various ransom stories. However the phonebox is a plot device all its own- I’m thinking Rosemary’s Baby, Superman of course, and obviously Phone Booth. In addition, I can’t help but think of all the old storylines that could have been cleared up in just five minutes, if a cellphone had only fallen from the sky.

September 25, 2006

Monday

I just finished reading City of the Mind by Penelope Lively, who is one of my favourite authors, and every one of her books I like better than the last. City of the Mind is to place, what her Moon Tiger was to history. The city as a symbol, and the very specific history of London. Loved it. I especially love how Lively’s characters always have jobs. A job is vital to good characterization (for example Perowne the neurosurgeon in Saturday, or Reta Winters the writer in Unless) in contemporary work especially. “What do you do?” is so defining. The last Penelope Lively book I read was The Photograph, in which the main character was a garden designer, and in City of the Mind, the character was an architect, and a writer can show so much about a character by showing how he/she performs their job, engages with colleagues, and what led them to their field. It’s fascinating to learn too, about a profession as foreign as another language (neurosurgery anyone?). It just makes that character’s world so much more alive.

And I am back at my part time post at the library, which means I come home with more and more books every day. Today I took out Swing Low: A Life in order to learn a bit more about depression, as a character in my story suffers with it. And also got my hands on new books I was a Child of Holocaust Survivors and Creation by EO Wilson.

Beyond books, ah but not quite. Yesterday was spent at Word on the Street and it was a lot of fun. Echolocation was well-represented I thought and I gave a bookmark to the mayor.

Today’s highlight was an epistle from my epistolary-pal Bronwyn. She has asked me to be her matron of honour, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so honoured. I didn’t even dare to imagine such a thing would happen. I would have been happy just to be there. And now I will be there, but with a dress on. Whoever would have thought, when Bronwyn and I met during the summer of 2001 in Toronto that just a few years later we would be bridesmaiding for each other at our respective English weddings to a wonderful pair of Northern blokes. Life is funny. Hmmmm.

Am obsessed with The Weather Network’s School Days Pages. They tell you what to wear to and from school, which is a service I’ve been longing for forever. Don’t know how practical it really is though. This morning I should have worn snowboots, a parka and gloves, and then wellingtons and a slicker on my home. It’s the winter clothes again tomorrow morn, and then a light spring jacket in the afternoon. I don’t think I own that many clothes. And the winter boots are really quite premature, really. 8 degrees is hardly freezing.

September 22, 2006

The Queue

My admission of the day is that I like Stephanie Klein, the Carrie Bradshaw of the blogosphere. I encountered her while researching my seminar on blooks last spring, and learned about her six-figure deal with Reganbooks. And after checking out her blog, not even that extensively, I realized I really couldn’t hate her because she is so heartbreakingly earnest and sort of lovely. Anyway, the point is that I put her book on hold at the library today. I don’t think this means that I am a bad person. It does mean, however, that I will be reading it before Reading Like a Writer or Special Topics in Calamity Physics. I am 33rd in line for Klein’s book, 90th for Prose’s and 230th for the Popular Ms. Pessl.

September 21, 2006

Interesting

My character, who is speaking in 1970, probably would not have used the verb “upgrade”, and would definitely not have used the adjective “upgraded”. She could have used the noun “upgrade” when talking about a hill, but only if her vocabulary was a little archaic.

September 21, 2006

Saturday

I would sum up Saturday by Ian Mcewan with the word “devastating”. Numerous times, I could not bear the tension and had to flip ahead just to make sure things worked out (and this is not my usual practice). The climax was incredibly awful (in a marvelously written way) and it was not until the book was just about over that I realized I had hardly breathed for most of the end of it. And when I was finished, I felt spent, as though I’d been crying for an hour. Not that I was upset or even sad, but just so swept up in the narrative and it made me want to crawl up onto my rooftop and shout something. And so devastating, but incredible. There is beauty in this text, and as I finished reading this on my front porch under blue skies, I couldn’t help but see it everywhere. I found particularly interesting what a bearing history has had on this book. It takes place in 2003, and it’s sort of amazing to think of how different it would read if the world had gone another way. Which makes me think of how this works with so many works. How history keeps on reworking texts for us, developing new approaches and meanings. The multudinous possibilities.

September 21, 2006

Question

How do people who can’t/don’t finish a certain book feel they have authority to post an amazon review of said book?

September 20, 2006

Wednesday Brunch

Today Stuart and I got to have brunch on a weekday, which felt indulgent but is actually quite practical. Our local brunch spot has 45 minute waits on the weekends, but today we were seated upon arrival, and coffee/tea is free Monday-Friday. And it was wonderful to hang out with Stuart in the afternoon. He’s back to work tomorrow so we’ll have little of that in the future. Exciting plans are on the horizon for him job-wise. He’s doing really well, and I am so proud of him.

The rewrite continues, slow-going but I am happy with the results. It is such a different process than writing the first draft was. It’s a lot easier in many ways, because I’ve got so much to work with, but now I am also getting down to the tedious details of euphony, and it’s not the same creative flourish. I am enjoying it though, and I see how completely necessary a rewrite can be. Some of my first draft was decidedly pukey and objects and ideas disappeared into thin air, but I think it’s getting better now.

Now reading Saturday by Ian McEwan, which, I have been told, might change my life. And I suspect that could be true.

September 19, 2006

How to get your mitts on one

And so everybody’s asking: How do I get a copy of I wish my enemies were Russians, the new release from Pickle Me This Press? Well it’s easy. Either you remind me and I’ll bring along a copy when I see you next for just $5. Or we can send it to you, upon receipt of a cheque for $7 (which includes shipping and handling. Oh handling, it does get expensive). Email me at kerryclare at gmail dot com and I will send you the address of Pickle Me This Press Headquarters, which of course I can’t post online, or there’d just be crowds lined up at the door.

September 19, 2006

In praise of white linen.

I just finished the wonderful Nora Ephron Collected, which provided a take on the 1970s women’s movement I have never found elsewhere- that of the skeptical feminist with a sense of humour. I enjoyed it. It also made clear that nothing ever changes, which was apparent upon reading Ephron’s essay about the very first reality television program. Now reading The Afterlife of George Cartwright (for school), which takes place at that ground upon which I used to stomp- Nottinghamshire. Cartwright’s family’s house was where the Marnham Cooling Station stands now, and we used to go by it on the train! The book is a bit boyish for my liking, but I’m enjoying it.

~Where war and wrack and wonder/ By shifts have sojourned there,/ And bliss by turns with blunder/ In that land’s lot had share.~ I’m sad about violence in Budapest. It comes at a funny time, as the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution is coming up and it would be nice to have a happier ending to that story. I had a fascinating visit to Budapest in 2002 and whilst there, I inadvertantly fell into the middle of a political demonstration, which is one of the stranger things that have ever happened to me. (But not as strange as when a kiosk fell on me. Also in Budapest). I had gone to see the parliament buildings, and a crowd was gathered there, protesting dubious election results, if I remember correctly. Police moved in with riot gear. It was surreal and I couldn’t believe I was standing in the middle of it. Sometimes calm in Europe is so easy to take for granted, and we can forget what a lack of precedent there has been for sixty years of peace(ishness) there. It’s just as complicated as anywhere else in the world. And Thailand too, another place that features heavily in my personal map of the world. Of course, I think about bad things that happen everywhere, but I think that as a North American, one gets so accustomed to bad things happening “over there” that when “over there” is close to home, it makes a difference. Right or wrong.

Margaret Atwood’s new book does well in The Guardian. On mainstream poetry. The CBC Chair resigns for talking about bowel movements and bestiality (we wondered if someone had been evesdropping on us by mistake). And The Long Pen tries again, this weekend at The Word on the Street. How exciting! echolocation is going to be there too. Drop by for a free bookmark!

September 17, 2006

I wish mine enemies

Today was good because it was a Trinity Bellwoods day. And because the newest book from Pickle Me This Press is now on sale for $5 per copy. Today is still good because we are roasting a chicken for dinner, and because that sunshine was not just a rumour.