June 10, 2010
Hot Summer Books!
Okay, these are called hot only because I’m looking forward to reading them this summer, but that’s hot enough, right?
The Lovers by Vendela Vida: Truthfully, I know nothing about this book except that it’s Vida’s new one, but her last novel Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name was so stunning, surprising, and subtly brutal that I’ve been hungry for its follow-up ever since.
Far to Go by Alison Pick: I read an excerpt in The New Quarterly a few issues ago, and have been looking foward to it ever since. I read Pick’s first novel The Sweet Edge last summer, she’s a poet as well, and this story is something completely different, set in Czechoslovakia in 1939 and based on the experiences of her family. (I can’t find a link, but it’s published by Anansi).
The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn: I read her novel What Was Lost last summer, and am looking forward to this follow-up. Though British old-lady novelists are my favourite, I’ve got a thing for the young ones too.
I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman: Once again, I know nothing about this except that it’s Laura Lippman’s latest stand-alone, and we do love Laura Lippman here at Pickle Me This. Sadly, my life is no longer as such that I can curl up in a Muskoka chair with a beer, and give my weekend over to it, but I’ll make do and no doubt be enthralled.
June 9, 2010
On The Orange Prize
So pleased that The Lacuna took The Orange Prize.
I gave up talking about The Orange Prize a few years ago, because the conversation was always annoying (“No one puts Baby in the ghetto”), but this year having read 3.5 of the six books on the shortlist, I felt somewhat invested in the whole thing. I also felt as though the shortlist itself was an excellent example of how the prize is doing exactly what it should be doing: celebrating the very best in women’s fiction.
Because this shortlist is living proof of two things: first, that “women’s literary fiction” is often distinct from literary fiction in general, either because it reads as such (and it can, and it does! and is often wonderful for it), or because it’s come into the world via a woman’s hand and is therefore received differently than literary fiction in general. Sometimes both these things are true, sometimes one is, and sometimes neither, which brings me to my next point:
That women’s literary fiction contains multitudes! Of course, each book on the shortlist actully shows the incredible range of excellent books written by anybody these days, gender notwithstanding, but that these are written by women is just another reason to celebrate them. Oh, and yes please, ho hum, a men’s literary award would indeed be sexist and the Orange Prize isn’t, because a) of the million reasons why being a man and being a woman are not immediately parallel experiences, b) the world is a bit more complicated that these stupid lobs of logic back and forth over the net, c) there already is a men’s literary award and it’s called the canon, thank you very much.
Anyway, this is the boring conversation I vowed that I’d avoid, so I’ll just say that I adored Attica Locke’s novel Black Water Rising, but its inclusion on the shortlist was a bit curious because the novel was so unabashedly commerical fiction. But it was such a good book, so ultimately realized in what it had set out to be, and I think it was included on the shortlist to show that women are writing some of the most unlikely women’s fiction these days. Similar with Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, which I’m slowly working my way through. I historically hate historical fiction, without shame, which might be more than a bit discriminatory on my part, because though Wolf Hall‘s heft is dragging me down a bit, it’s a pretty fascinating read. It’s all politics and executions, and even the women portrayed within it are as far from women’s fictiony as women can get. And with The Lacuna too– yet another book with a man at its centre. I adored this book, had previously decided not to pick it up because of bad reviews, then it was shortlisted and I decided to give it a try. And it was amazing– I want to shake the people who didn’t like it and tell them they read it wrong, but that wouldn’t be polite. Anyway, The Lacuna only had about three women in it, and it took on most of the twentieth century, and that’s what women’s fiction is doing now, amazing stuff. As is Lorrie Moore’s The Gate at the Stairs, which does tackle more feminine topics, but with dazzling techical mastery of language, because it’s Lorrie Moore, after all. (And oh my, all these four books were so wonderful, I really will have to read the other two.)
The one problem here, however, is that now I’ve caught myself saying, “Look at women’s fiction, everybody! Doesn’t even read like a woman wrote it!” Which is not what I mean exactly, because there are certain books that only a woman could ever hae written, and their womenishness is the best thing about them. I think women write the best books going. BUT the Orange Prize gets knocked around so often for institutionalizing/ghetto-ising women’s fiction as ala grim, drunken-father-beating, rape in a hayloft, botched abortion, killed in a car-crash whilst getting thee to a nunnery THE END that I am pleased to see the shortlist doing anything but.
And I am pleased to see that the best of women’s fiction is amongst the best of ficton period.
June 9, 2010
Dear Carrie Bradshaw
My post “Dear Carrie Bradshaw” is up on the BlogHer site today. Head over and take a look if you haven’t read it yet.
June 8, 2010
On magazines
Charlotte’s post about magazines has inspired me to copy her (and has also introduced me to the The Devil’s Artisan, which has very much piqued my interest). I too love magazines, and though the stack of those to-be-read has never recovered from Harriet’s early months, and I fear I will be months behind until the end of my days, I continue to renew my subscriptions and look forward t0 each day that I find one waiting in my mailbox.
Magazines I subscribe to:
The New Quarterly:
I’ll admit it– if you publish my stories, I’ll be loyal to you, but that’s not half the reason why I’m partial to TNQ. As I posted recently, “TNQ is fiction, poetry, features, art, profiles, creative non-fiction and more. TNQ is never the same, but always gorgeously produced, the work is always thoughtful and interesting, containing stories that have absolutely blown my mind. I read Alison Pick for the first time there, and Carrie Snyder, and Terry Griggs, and Amy Jones, and Zsuszi Gartner. I love the “Magazine as Muse” section. The Editor’s letters are always a pleasure to read, and full of treasures themselves. In short, four times a year, TNQ comes into my world and makes it a better place.”
Room:
Room (formerly A Room of One’s Own, which I still think was a fine name and I kind of wish they hadn’t changed it) does a fantastic job with supporting and promoting new writers, and publishing them alongside amazing work by established ones, and for the most part, this balance works well. They’re a feminist magazine run by a volunteer collective whose diversity is reflected in the magazine’s content. Each issue is linked by a theme, however loosely, and I also appreciate range of forms they publish– short stories, poetry, interviews, reviews, and profiles of readers. It makes for a good read, and, like TNQ, they have good editors’ letters as well.
Canadian Notes and Queries:
Oh, the learning at your fingertips in an issue of CNQ. I’ll be honest– the content is a bit hit-and-miss in terms of appealing to me, and I didn’t really read the last issue,but I’ve loved pretty much every other issue of CNQ that’s come to me over the past three years. I enjoy the ongoing MacSkimming series of interviews on the history of Canadian publishing, their focus on the bookselling climate, their issue on translation was incredible, the best articles are challenging and interesting even when I disagree with the point of view. It’s also a really beautifully designed magazine.
ROM Magazine:
We get this one automatically as part of our museum membership, and I don’t read it cover-to-cover, but I still love it. The recent redesign has been absolutely beautiful, I like Mark Kingwell’s columns, and thanks to this magazine I know all kinds of bizarre facts about ladybugs, bats and the dead sea scrolls.
London Review of Books:
I started subscribing to this one through a twofer subscription deal my friend had. A genius idea, because this periodical is a bit addicting, and of course, once I started, I really couldn’t stop. I used to try to read everything, but now only pick out articles that will hold my interest, which means I don’t read as much about economics and Afghanistan as I once did, which is a shame because the articles are amazing. But they’re also loooooong and the print is every small, and if I read everything I wanted to in the LRB, there would be no time for books. There is always time for Andrew O’Hagan, Alan Bennett, Jenny Diski and Anne Enright, however. And scathing reviews that are brilliant rather than bitter.
Chatelaine:
What happened? One minute, I was too cool for Chatelaine, and now I’m way too much of a Mum. The new issue wasn’t even worthy of being a coaster on my coffee table. Tonight I ate a dip that was from that issue, however, and it was good, but I’m still not convinced. I miss Katrina Onstad (who yes, was the best thing they had going), and the recipes (which have become my staples. What will I cook without them?) were lacking, and there was nothing interesting in the entire issue. I’ve been a pretty happy subscriber for the past two years, but I think my Chatelaine days are done.
Magazines I don’t subscribe to:
Walrus: I waited and waited for them to start publishing women writers, not merely on principle, but because a general interest magazine written by only men is not generally interesting. I even sent a letter asking the editor why publishing women writers was not important to him, and I got zero reply, not even a form. I no longer subscribe, and though the contributers seem a but more mixed lately, I still don’t think I’m missing much.
Magazines I would subscibe to were my life a better place:
The New Yorker: If I subscribed to this magazine, my stack of unread issues would grow so high that I would have to jump off the top and kill myself. But I wish it didn’t have to be that way– if only there were more days in the week, and I had nothing else to do but read it. Because The New Yorker is fantastic, I admire the stamina of its subscribers.
The Believer: I love this magazine, and it’s lovely, but very expensive, and so are a lot of other things.
June 6, 2010
Does one seek escape in children's classics because one is miserable?
One year I received Swallows and Amazons for Christmas, and I was furious, because I’d wanted Goodbye, Stacey. Goodbye. I grew up reading Archie comics and The Sleepover Friends and This Can’t Be Happening at MacDonald Hall. Apart from an obligatory obsession with L.M. Montgomery and a passing fancy with Frances Hodgson Burnett, I didn’t read much in the line of classics. Or rather, though I did read classic books, they weren’t the ones that captured me. I think I was also too busy watching one sitcom after another during the hours after school.
When I read Joan Bodger’s wonderful book How the Heather Looks, I became conscious of how much I’d missed. I’ve only read A.A. Milne during the past year, Lewis Carroll has also come late to me, my Beatrix Potter was pretty rudimentary, I turned my nose up a Arthur Ransome, I only read Peter Pan as an adult, I preferred The Littles to The Borrowers, and I wouldn’t know The Wind in the Willows if it knocked me over. Part of this, of course, is that I’m not British, but I still couldn’t help but think I’d missed something. Reading about how real the worlds of these books were to Bodger’s children filled me with a kind of longing for a storybook childhood of my own, and then a compulsion to pass one onto my child instead to make up for all that I’d lacked.
I’ve since learned more about Joan Bodger’s children though, and the tragedy their family endured. I wonder how much of Ian’s encyclopedic knowledge of stories, and history, and imagined lands had to do with his own troubles, and the particular quirks of his brain that would so challenge him as he grew older. I read Bodger’s second memoir The Crack in the Teacup, and learned of the solace she found in children’s stories during lonely times in her own youth. About how she wanted friends to go play Swallows and Amazons with, but the other girls her age were obsessed with boys and lipstick. And of course all this made me want to reference the great Nick Hornby– does one seek escape into children’s classics because one is miserable, or is one miserable because one seeks escape in children’s classics?
What I’m really asking, of course, is that if I come home with a copy of The Wind in the Willows, will Harriet grow up to have no friends? Could my idiotic literary preoccupations in youth be symptomatic of my fairly happy childhood?
June 6, 2010
My mind is a toy basket
“A mother’s brain is an ort pile where the cultural guano of the ages of each of her children surives. A composted yellow slice on the bottom of Big Bird feathers and Barbie hair cut with Crayola scissors and old plastic market tubes and Tweety card decks, tiny little shoes, purses, belts, shimmery underwear and skates for Barbie, and the more politically correct stuff made of wood, the popsicle stick dolls and the blocks in every shape, painted, the wooden horses and the sets of foot-piercing dangerous jacks and red rubber balls and the miniature horses and the coveted big plastic horses and the Playmobil and Lego figures and math toys and sets of mazes and puzzles from about twelve dozen sets and the stuffed things– tigersnakelephantarantulapepigiraffeturleagle– and the marvelous tea sets that come in every china pattern and the little furniture and mirrors, the detritus of Vintage Star ponies and Wild Things and Seuss figurines and every McDonalds Happy Meal toy and then, well, all of this compacted together with old Halloween candy mortise into a solid-earthen basement floor of kid knowledge.
My mind is a toy basket filled with tiny, cheap, broken stuff.” –from Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich
June 6, 2010
Literary Bananas
The most recent object of my fruit obsession was the wondrous pomegranate, and before that I was nuts about avocados. For the past six hours, however, I can’t stop thinking about bananas. It’s not the first time– when I was pregnant, I ate bananas all the time, and obsessive-compulsively baked with them. Yum, those trimesters were banana pancakes, banana bread, banana cake, banana SPLITS, and my daily snack of a banana stuffed with chocolate chips melted for thirty seconds in the microwave.
This latest banana fixation is a bit different. It all started a few weeks back when we visited the Royal Botanical Gardens, checked out their banana biodiversity display, and learned that there actually exist thousands of varieties of banana, that sometime in the middle of the last century the “Cavendish” was decided as the banana of choice for exporters, and these days it’s the only banana around. Which means that bananas in general are threatened, because biodiversity has been completely undermined and as the Cavendish is under threat by a menacing fungus, we may be on the fast track toward the banana version of Silent Spring.
And then today I ate a plantain for the first time in my life. I fried the pieces, using this recipe, and topping it with sheep’s milk feta from Monforte Dairy, and it was the most extraordinary treat I’ve had in ages. I was so busy marvelling at the flavour that I scarcely noticed my husband polishing off the whole plate of them, and he’s just lucky I like him a lot or I really might have considered divorcing him. Instead, we decided to go out and find another plantain, and so tonight’s after-dinner walk was devoted to seeking out banana biodiversity in The Annex neighbourhood.
Results were poor. We went to five grocery stores and found nothing but Cavendish varieties. Finally, at an Asian grocery store at 
Bloor and Palmerston, we found another plantain. (The first one had come from Augusta Fruit Market in Kensington. I wonder if we’d sought banana biodiversity in Kensington, perhaps we’d have better luck? But I doubt it). We both do remember seeing red bananas at our local grocery store once years ago, and we bought them, but either red bananas are terrible or we didn’t let them ripen, because neither of us remembers this experience positively.
Plantains though, oh wow. And bananas in general– like anyone with a baby, I bow down to these. We had a fun snack of black beans and bananas a few weeks back, that suggested to me that the lovey fruit is more versatile than I ever imagined.
Anyway, now I am going to read the book Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. (And you can bemoan these hyperbolic titles all you want– heaven knows that I have–, but it’s sort of nice that when one becomes obsessed with any object, one can rest assured that a recent book has been written devoted to it. These are not such terrible times in which we live, save for the banana biodiversity threat, but I digress).
Have been thinking about other literary bananas too– did you know that the term “banana republic” comes from an O Henry short story (though I do, only thanks to Wikipedia)? The first one I could think of off-hand was the bananafish, from “A Perfect Day for…”, which (allegedly) had six bananas in its mouth, tragic being that it was. I think literary banana peels are quite ubiquitous, but I’m not sure they count. It’s the flesh that I’m talking about. And there’s Banana Yoshimoto, who is probably the most literary banana going. But I can’t help thinking there must be a whole bunch more out there (ha ha).
Um, this post is also certifiable proof that I lead a life much unencumbered.
June 2, 2010
No kids
I was never brave enough to read this book before, particularly not in the past year during which I could have written this book myself 300 times over, but now that I’m pretty sure I could think of reasons to counter each of Corinne Maier’s 40 reasons not to have children, I feel ready to take it on. Certainly, Maier knows what she’s talking about, being a mother herself, and it will be interesting to reflect upon whether or not her reasons are valid. And why, even with there being at least 40 reasons not to have children, people keep having them anyway.
Don’t worry, this was a library book. But I did stop into Ten Editions to buy We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, because The Vicious Circle is going to be reading it at some point. And then I also had to get Victoria Glendinning’s biography of Elizabeth Bowen, as I loved her The House in Paris when I read it last autumn (upon the recommendation of Susan Hill). I wasn’t planning on the second book, but there it was on display, and I just couldn’t help myself. Of course. And I actually saved money, when you consider all the books in the store I didn’t buy.
It was basically the same as a paycheque.
June 2, 2010
If I weren't the one who could nurse the kids
From the site, No Country For Young Women, writer Laurel Snyder on how being a woman has helped her career:
“So I’ll just offer this: I went to school, and got the right degree. I did summer conferences, and had a nice fellowship, spent some years adjuncting, and all that. But none of it really led me to a career. So then I got myself a day job working for a non-profit, because I needed health care. But then I got pregnant, and realized (to my horror) that I made less than a full-time babysitter. I could not afford to keep my job, and I couldn’t think of any way to make much more money, so I quit work to stay home with the baby and freelance on the side.
And it was then that I started thinking of my writing as a career—seriously sending out my children’s books to editors and pitching freelance stories to magazines. Because I made so little money and had a baby, it made sense for me to stay home, and that led to the time to take my work seriously, so that I could eventually make more money. I know it sounds a little crazy, but it feels very true. I don’t think it would have been likely to happen that way if I weren’t the one who could nurse the kids.”
June 1, 2010
Track and Trace by Zachariah Wells
The one problem with having defined tastes and a bookish reputation is that nobody ever gives you books (and when they do, you usually don’t like them). So it was a wonderful surprise to receive Zachariah Wells’ collection Track & Trace as a gift from my mother, since it’s a book I’ve had my eye on for quite awhile. Just to receive such a thing was a kind of gift, but then the book itself was also an incredible package– small and beautiful, its cover embossed with footprints, with the “decorations” by Seth (which are plain and wonderful landscapes, horizons as broad as Wells’ poetry).
Reading this collection was a series of such unpackings. The poems themselves in general are about man’s relationship to the natural environment, the marks he leaves upon it, but each poem is also very distinct in how it relates to these ideas. Within each poem, the words fit together in surprising ways, with subtle rhyme, rhythm and alliteration. Within each word, the syllables, the vowels and consonants on and around my tongue. I read these poems aloud, lying on the carpet while my daughter threw blocks in the mornings, and the poems were a pleasure to put my mouth around, the starts and stops and open spaces.
Of particular interest to me were the poems about fatherhood (read “Going Forward” and “There Is Something Intractable In Me”). “Slugs” is as vulgar and wonderful as slugs themselves. Nature is not idealized here– from “Heron, False Creek”, “Heron, stand there/ in my shadow, stare/ up at the seawall/ skronk, and awkwardly/ flop up into the air”. In “Cormorant”, the bird is shot repeatedly– “It puked mustard stuff, guano/ streamed from its anus. Bile rose/ in my throat, I choked– and I swallowed”. I think my favourite line in the whole book, for its sheer beauty, is “Finicky fuckin thing that old silver Ford…”
The unpacking wasn’t finished with just one read, however. There are layers to these poems, unexpected things beneath the surface. A present I’ll have the pleasure of opening time and time again.
