April 18, 2011

Mired in the fat books

Since I had a baby two years ago, my pile of books to-be-read has never been less than 50 books long. And the books that tend to have lingered have been long, non-fiction, or Great Expectations. This past week, I’ve made a point of picking up some of these (but not Great Expectations), so that’s what I’ve been doing. First, I read Irene Gammel’s book Looking for Anne of Green Gables, which I had trouble with, but ultimately enjoyed. I don’t have much truck with the idea of decoding fiction from clues in the author’s personal life. I mean, understanding an author’s background can provide a fictional work with new dimensions, but it’s not like the solution to a mathematical problem, and sometimes Gammel wrote like it was. (Sometimes she even knew how flimsy was the ground beneath her feet, so revelations would come with a caveat like, “Or maybe Maud never ate tofurkey, but it’s certainly something we can think about”). The best part of the book was the sense it provided of the literary world Anne of Green Gables was born into– what books and magazines had LM Montgomery been reading in the years before she wrote the novel? What with the proliferation of fictional orphans called Ann in the late nineteenth century? I also loved that Montgomery’s kitchen was also the Cavendish post office, and how handy that would have been for keeping private the arrival of rejection letters.

Next, I read Joan Didion’s After Henry, which hadn’t been lingering on my shelf but rather was too tall for the shelf, had been resting on top of the books, then had fallen behind them. So I’d forgotten I’d even had it, and picked it up without hesitation when I found it because it was her third collection of essays (after Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The White Album). It lacked the magic of the other two, perhaps because it was not nostalgic and I think nostalgia is what Didion writes best. But it’s smart, and its treatment of the 1988 Democratic and Republican conventions was incredibly timely as we are in the midst of our own federal election. The essay “Insider Baseball” said it all. I loved her criticism of Patty Hearst’s memoir. And the final piece “Sentimental Journeys” kept me up well into the night on Friday, wrapt by her brilliance and challenged by so many ideas that made me uncomfortable. Didion is such an extraordinary writer.

And I decided to follow that with a collection of her late husband’s work, Regards: The Collection Non-Fiction of John Gregory Dunne, which is American-sized, but I love it, and is exactly what you’d expect from somebody who was Dominick Dunne’s brother and Joan Didion’s spouse. I spent this afternoon enjoying his essays about baseball, which is saying something. Now onto a bunch of book reviews. And when I finish this book, I’m going to move onto one that is going to take me ages, but if I don’t get around to it now, I never will. The Collected Stories of John Cheever for the love of the short story, and for its Mad Men-ishness. I am looking forward. Bear with me.

November 9, 2010

Soap and Water

CBC Metro Morning was so delightfully bookish this morning, with pieces including an interview with Giller juror Michael Enright who had nearly read himself to death these last few months. And an interview with Dr. Alison McGeer about the decision to take magazines out of waiting rooms at Women’s College Hospital. Which was shocking for a few reasons, including 1) They still have waiting rooms at Women’s College Hospital? 2) But who will subscribe to Highlights for Children? 3) Who cares!? Doesn’t everybody have a novel in their purse already??

Since Harriet was born (which was nearly 1.5 years ago!), waiting rooms have offered me more uninterrupted reading opportunity than anywhere else. When she was about two months old, I waited for over two hours at a Passport Canada office while she slept in her stroller and I read (oddly enough), Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood (which was about thirty times more truth than I needed at that moment, by the way. Reading it was totally exhausting).

I had to go to the dermatologists early this summer and Harriet stayed home with my Aunt, while I got an entire subway journey there and back AND an extended waiting room round with Sarah Selecky’s marvelous This Cake is For the Party. There was a large screen TV in the waiting room too, which was blasting an episode of The View which made me very depressed about the state of the world, but Selecky’s stories really helped.

And then the legendary night this summer after Harriet poked me in the eye, and I waited in the walk-in clinic for six amazing hours reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem. It was also the middle of a heat wave, and the clinic was far more air-conditioned than my house was. I was almost disappointed when the doctor could see me then, though relieved to discover that I would not go blind.

All of this to say that I will not miss the old copies of Macleans then, or Shape, or Women’s Day, but then maybe I should have read them more, if only to absorb the diseases they’re apparently crawling with, so I’d get sick, go back to the doctor’s, then get to read some more.

July 5, 2010

Reading like a pirate

Harriet has learned to point, so now she’s the master of her index finger, and this afternoon she mastered it directly into my left eye. Which means that I’m just now back from the walk-in clinic, after four hours of being last in the queue because everyone else was hemorrhaging. It was the longest uninterrupted stretch of reading I’ve had for as long as I can remember, even better than the two hours I spent waiting for a passport last summer. Someone reading a Nora Roberts novel kept trying to talk to me, but I was hardly going to waste such a precious opportunity on small talk, particularly not with someone reading a Nora Roberts novel. No wonder she was distracted, but I wasn’t, which was wonderful. To read for hours, without stopping, without the compulsion to check my email, lacking the means to do so. Seated in a comfortable chair just made for ophthalmology, never minding the fluorescent lights, or that I periodically had to cover up one eye and read my book like a pirate. I read the second half of Katha Pollitt’s book, and reread (for the fifth time) the first third of Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I was actually disappointed when the doctor finally arrived, but not so much when he told me that I was fine. Just a tiny scrape on my cornea, and nothing a little over-the-counter wouldn’t fix, and then it was out of the air-conditioning and and into the heat, and onto the subway to read my way home.

March 17, 2010

Summer Summer Summer!

There are crocuses up in the garden across the street, and the sun was shining bright today. So bright so that I’ve got summer on the brain, even though it isn’t even spring until next weekend. But we’ve just booked our summer vacation, a cottage week away with a  lovely lake almost at our doorstep, and I’m so excited for that.

I’m also excited about my summer rereading project. Every summer (except for last summer, during which a newborn was all the reading restriction I needed) I make a point of spending most of my time rereading all kinds of books, each for varying reasons. I’m already compiling this year’s stack– I want to revisit February by Lisa Moore (because of all the negative reviews I’ve read since, and I’m confused as to where they were coming from), Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner (to ensure it still stands up two years later), Small Ceremonies by Carol Shields (because because because), Anne of Windy Poplers by LM Montgomery (because of Kate), something early by Margaret Drabble (because I love her), Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (because I always do), and Still Life With Woodpecker (as part of the retro reading challenge).

February 24, 2010

Enough shameful author appearances for one lifetime

This one author appearance was so remarkable for being shame-free that we had to take a picture

Prologue: Once upon a simpler time, the authors came to you. And though there was probably still queuing, you hardly noticed, because everything was about queuring then. This was elementary school, where the queues were usually single file, and you had to use bring your indoor shoes, and your indoor voices too. Your class would line up in the hall to make the trip down to the library where the author would be waiting. The most wonderful authors– Phoebe Gilman, Robert Munsch, Dennis Lee. There was nothing better than this, except perhaps Book Fairs, and Scholastic orders.

And because you were the bookish kid (it was written in ink, big block letters on your forehead), you were often chosen to stand up in front of the room to be the opening act, to make the author’s introduction. Reading from a mimeographed sheet in your helium-high pitched, impedimented speech, you lisped something about him coming all this way to see you, to read you all some of his stories. How wonderful! Stories with pictures, stories that were guaranteed to be funny because this was author an with an audience to impress, a task was usually accomplished with a joke about burping. And no literary event has ever been less pretentious, more joyful, and so absolutely for the love of story ever since.

Chapter 1 (in a series of shameful author appearances, which are enough for one lifetime): You are seventeen and you are going to meet Margaret Atwood. She is appearing at the Peterborough Public Library as part of an author’s festival, and you want her to sign your copy of The Robber Bride. Unfortunately, this event is taking place on a Saturday and you work on Saturdays. Fortunately, the library is close enough that you can pop over on your break. And so you do. Waiting in the obligatory lineup to have Margaret Atwood sign your book, and you slip her a note in your idiotic handwriting in which you’ve told her that you want to be her when you grow up, because you presume she cares. (And she does enough to mail you a postcard in response not long after, wishing you luck with your writing– points for Margaret Atwood!) . What is shameful about all of this is that at the time, you’re wearing a fuschia McDonalds uniform. Maybe you thought that it would be okay because of how Margaret Atwood once worked at Swiss Chalet and this was solidarity, but as the years go by, you start to think that it probably wasn’t…

Chapter 2: You are twenty three, and Douglas Coupland will be appearing at your local Waterstones reading from Hey Nostradamus. Because you are Canadian and he is too, you look upon this as an old friend coming to visit, and you feel much more familiar with Coupland than you would have otherwise. You count your blessings that you’re not wearing a fast food uniform as you line up for the book signing after his reading (but it must be noted that you’ve moved past McJobs and are now contemplating a vague career under the umbrella of “admin”, which will only be interrupted by a spell abroad teaching ESL in the obligatory fashion). Douglas Coupland is yet another writer who is terribly gracious, or at least well masks his scorn, as you let him know that indeed, you are Canadian, just like he is. Douglas Coupland pretends that this is remarkable, and inscribes the title page with, “To a fellow traveller”, and you feel like a person of substance for being a fellow anything.

Chapter 3: You are lining up to meet Ann-Marie MacDonald at the Lakefield Literary Festival. Though you’ve never managed to get past page 4 of Fall on Your Knees, you found her second novel The Way the Crow Flies absolutely mesmerizing. And you’re dressed properly, no longer suffering from expatriate longings, you think you’re pretty much set for a shame-free author appearance. Until you hand Ann-Marie MacDonald your copy of The Way the Crow Flies, she opens it and you remember that stamped in red in on the inside cover is the message, “THIS BOOK WAS SLIGHTLY DAMAGED IN TRANSIT AND IS NOW BEING SOLD AT A SPECIAL BARGAIN PRICE.”

Chapter 4: Now you’re at Harbourfront, lining up meet the wondrous Zadie Smith, who as given a wonderful reading and just metaphorically sucker-punched some idiots in the Q&A that followed. Funny how all this time waiting in queues for author signings should theoretically give one time to prepare, but it never really does, and you’re always struck dumb when you come face-to-face. Zadie Smith opens up your copy of White Teeth (which, thankfully, wasn’t damaged or sold at a bargain price special or otherwise),  reads your name in the top left corner, and tells you she likes it. Zadie Smith likes your name. Unfortunately, the cleverest thing you can think of to say in response is that you like her name too, which is true, but does nothing to push your conversation forward. In fact, it ends just about there.

Chapter 5: You should have learned your lesson, but you haven’t. You’re back at Harbourfront and you’re lining up to get your copy of Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem signed by its author who is currently promoting The Year of Magical Thinking. Once again, all that time waiting does not make you remotely ready when you finally get to the head of the line. You approach Joan Didion who somehow manages to be the smallest person you have ever encountered, the most terrified looking person you’ve ever seen, and the most intimidating. She stares at you without expression. You stare back, probably with an expression, and it’s probably a regrettable one. Neither of you say anything. You hand her your book, and she signs it with a scrawl. You muster the courage to tell her how much you enjoy her work, and she responds with a new expression that can only be described as pained.

Chapter 6: You’ve kept your distance from authors ever since then. Though from afar, you’ve witnessed the most horrifying experiences of all, at literary festivals when authors are seated at the signing tables, patiently waiting and pen in hand, stack of books beside them. And there is no queue. Authors trying to look casual about the whole thing, like they’re not anticipating anything, really. They’re just hanging out, welcoming the break. And you’re almost tempted to jump in line and stop the agony, but you know better now. No amount of authorial suffering will drive you to it, for you’ve had enough shameful author appearances for one lifetime.

(Point of view has been changed from first to second person in order to protect the idiotic).

August 15, 2008

Whatever I write reflects

“…But since I am neither a camera nor much given to writing pieces which do not interest me, whatever I write reflects, sometimes gratuitously, how I feel.” –Joan Didion, “A Preface” to Slouching Towards Bethlehem

January 9, 2008

We all prefer the magical explanation

Have been reading/catching up. Penelope’s Way by Blanche Howard. Am just about to start What is the What by Dave Eggers, which I’ve been putting off for too long. Put off by prospect of the headiness, perhaps. Though Dave Eggers has never let me down before, and certainly the book has been buzzed about by many people I respect. I suspect I will be incredibly impressed.

And speaking of fictional autobiographies, I’ve just finished reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion. “Speaking of…” I say, for Joan Didion’s fiction similarly seems to challenge the fic/non-fic divide. Now I am such a fan of Joan Didion, and partly because she’s a bit preposterous. I don’t enjoy preposterousity universally, but I adore any woman who can embody the trait and still come off as brilliant. (This caveat thus explaining why I don’t love that Coulter person). I love Didion’s migraines, and that she went to the supermarket in a bikini and wanted a baby, and cried in Chinese laundries. And if one more person tells me that although they like her non-fiction, her fiction is disappointing, I will yawn.

Not because they’re entirely wrong– I’m not sure about that. Certainly I’ve never read a Joan Didion novel that stirred in me anything like what I felt for Slouching Towards Bethlehem, but that to me is beside the point. Which it might not be. It is distinctly possible instead that I am just feeling awfully protective of Didion, but still, I think, to dismiss her fiction is tiresome.

Whether or not her fiction is enjoyable (and it can be, but in a slightly uncomfortable way) something fascinating is going on with it. Joan Didion is the one writer who completely defies my theories of fiction’s truth having more bearing on reality than that of non-fiction. I am not sure I fully understand it, but it’s something in her coldness, her acuity. In her non-fiction Joan Didion assembles the world and lets it speak for itself and it’s in this speaking that the life creeps in. Whereas in her fiction when she attempts the very same thing (for this is what she does), the made-upness is pervasive. When she assembles these made-up things, whatever speaks is more an echo than a voice. An echo of what, I don’t know. All of which is really odd. And doesn’t necessarily mean that her fiction is unsuccessful; Didion is too smart for that. Rather I think of her as treating fiction as a project I’ve still not got my head around.

September 5, 2007

New Season

My second summer of rereading proved as fulfilling as the first, though it was not as concentrated. But it was a joy to revisit classics: The Portrait of a Lady and To the Lighthouse, which I’d previously just read as a student, but it was something different to approach them on my own terms. My regular rereads: Slouching Toward Bethlehem and Unless were better than they’d ever been. Books I’d read but forgotten, and certainly not because they were forgettable: The Summer Book, and The Blind Assassin. I have a theory that you’ve never really been anywhere until you’ve been there at least twice, and I think this might very well be the case with books.

But now it is September, and new books are blooming. I’ve been binge reading lately– what else are holiday Mondays for if not a book in a day? Looking forward to the long train journey this weekend to get some more books under my belt. Oh, there are some wonderful books coming out this Fall, so stay tuned here and I’ll recommend the best ones. Watch for my review of Richard B. Wright’s October very soon. I am now reading Turtle Valley by Gail Anderson-Dargatz, who I’ve never read before.

After reading under restrictions for the last two months, being able to read so freely feels deliciously licentious.

July 23, 2007

Things fall apart

Joan Didion is not best read, I find, when one’s recent grasp of good sense has been tenuous. Or perhaps she is best read in such a state, but then the reader is not so great to be around after. As I should know, having spent the last day with me. Neuroticism is contagious, but then Didion’s writing is so absolutely fine-picked and lovely, it seems a shame to let it go to waste. And so I’ve been rereading Slouching Toward Bethlehem, and have been immersed in that world of thirty years ago where “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” It seems it’s same as it ever was, and I don’t know if such a constant should be reassuring or otherwise. And I am thinking differently about “On Keeping a Notebook” than I did, and “remembering the me that used to be” seems less important that it used to. And all the California bits, which seem more pressing having read Where I was From.

(“You see I still have the scenes, but I could no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.”)

Next up I will reread A Big Storm Knocked It Over, which, hopefully, will put me back in my mind.

July 20, 2007

Alluding to my rubbisness

Now rereading Margaret Drabble’s The Seven Sisters, which is a rather curious book. I read it first two years ago in England, around the time I got married. It reads differently now, but I notice different things since I went to grad school. I’m enjoying it, though missing the point of innumerable allusions, because I’ve never read The Aeneid. I am rubbish. Where my project this year is brushing up on the classics of the 19th century, perhaps for the next year I ought to get caught up on antiquity. I do fully intend to read The Odyssey though, which is a start. But even in my ignorance, The Seven Sisters remains a good story. There is always something a bit aloof about Drabble’s characters, but this is made up for in the world she creates around them with such acuity.

Next up, one of my annual rereads. Oh, I can’t wait. Slouching Towards Bethlehem.