September 26, 2009
Wash the Poodle
“I suspect the real attraction was a large library of fine books, which was left to dust and spiders since Uncle March died. Jo remembered the kind old gentleman, who used to let her build railroads and bridges with his big dictionaries, tell her stories about the queer pictures in his Latin books, and buy her cards of gingerbread whenever he met her in the street. The dim dusty room, with the busts staring down from the tall bookcases, the cozy chairs, the globes, and, best of all, the wilderness of books in which she could wander where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her. The moment Aunt March took her nap, or was busy with company, Jo hurried to this quiet place, and curling herself up in the easy chair, devoured poetry, romance, history, travels and pictures, like a regular bookworm. But, like all happiness, it did not last long; for as sure as she had just reached the heart of the story, the sweetest verse of the song, or the most perilous adventure of her traveler, a shrill voice called, “Josy-phine! Josy-phine!” and she had to leave her paradise to wind yarn, wash the poodle, or read Belsham’s Essays by the hour together.” –from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
September 25, 2009
Happy Friday
I just received a spam email from “me” with the subject heading, “I’m so proud for you”. Totally! We’ve had a very good week this week, mostly due to the fact that I’m no longer exhausted. Harriet is back to getting up just once a night, probably just because she decided it would be so, but we like to think because I’ve started waking her for a feed right before I go to sleep. So we’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
She’s also going bed early, however eventually, which gives me a marvelous break in the evenings. And since I’ve (almost) quit Facebook, I’ve ceased my epic time wasting. I’m getting lots of reading done, working on knitting a little sweater for Harriet, working on a writing assignment that I’m finding absolutely thrilling, as well as a bit of fiction. Little Women is wonderful, actually. I have a short story coming out in December, and I’m very excited about that (with details to come, of course).
I am very grateful to have two good friends also on maternity leave right now, and their company is the best way I’ve found yet to pass the days. And not just to pass the days, but to enjoy them. Today we all finally went to The Children’s Storefront– it was my first visit, finally, and was an absolutely magical place we’ll be returning to. And we’re looking forward to Sunday, when Harriet hosts her very first party.
It is a happy Friday indeed. (And is this where we cue the baby going ballistic, and not sleeping at all tonight? Just in order to make me eat every word I writ. Oh, we’ll see…)
September 25, 2009
On Mem Fox's Reading Magic
I starting this book thinking it was preaching to the choir. I already knew that reading aloud to my child would point her in positive directions. I’ve long delighted in picture books, we live in a house full of books, and those of us already literate are reading all the time. We also both love reading to Harriet, because she’s a baby, and there’s not much else to do with her (because “Pattycakes” gets old quick, and there’s only so many times you can play “The Grand Old Duke of York” without being spat up on from up at the top of the hill). As Harriet’s library was ready before she was, she’s always been well placed to reap the benefits of books, but since reading Mem Fox’s Reading Magic, I feel more confident than ever. Which, as a parent, is really quite novel.
Of course, we were on the right track already, but it’s always nice to have that underlined. And then to learn even more about how to foster not just literacy, but also a love of books— Fox teaches the benefits of reading aloud from birth (and not just at bedtime!), how to read aloud effectively, how to make games out of books to enhance the opportunities for learning, why having the child read aloud might stifle a love for reading, and also the three secrets of reading: an engagement with print, with language, and with the world. I also liked her list of twenty books children will love, which is available on her website.
I came away from this book so absolutely inspired, and excited by the opportunity to have a positive effect on my daughter’s life (and on our relationship– Fox mentions the together time of reading, and cuddling together it requires, which is so important to young kids). It also underlined a hunch I’ve had about being a parent for a while– that however much we fret and feel guilty and unsure, the most essential things that children require are those we give them without even trying.
September 23, 2009
Finally getting around to
Am currently suffering from the plight of every avid book-buyer, that is my unread books shelf getting rather crowded. Certain books have been up there for a year, which you think would be a hint that I’ll never get around to them, but for some reason I can’t give up the ghost. And I keep buying irresistable books that sit on that shelf for just a day or two, so that the others get pushed further and further back in line. The Vic Book Sale next week will do nothing to help matters, and so I’m getting around to one of these volumes. As of later today, I’ll be now reading Little Women. I think I found it for free in a box out on some sidewalk, and though I read the book years and years ago, I scarcely remember it at all (except for Beth’s death and Jo’s hair) so I’ll go back there again. I’m not terribly motivated to do so though, perhaps due to the fustiness of my particular novel, and damn, that book is long. We shall see. I’ll let you know how it goes.
September 23, 2009
Eden Mills in the Sunshine
If you ever want to appreciate being out in the world, do have a baby. Though this means being out in the world requires a remarkable amount of luggage, but no matter. We had a wonderful time at Eden Mills on Sunday on such a gorgeous sunny day. The drive was beautiful, with splendid autumn colours (already!). We saw our good friends the Rosenblum/ Sampsons, which was splendid (though we really only saw them in passing– our readings schedules were quite different). On Publishers’ Way, we checked out The New Quarterly, where I bought a t-shirt that might fit once I stop breastfeeding, and Biblioasis next door, where I bought The English Stories by Cynthia Flood and said hello to the excellent Dan Wells. We listened to readings by Marina Endicott, Ian Brown (who was amazing– pictured here) and Miram Toews (who we knew would be amazing already. She was the reason we were there and she did not disappoint). And then Terry Griggs, and Julie Wilson, and I enjoyed it all thoroughly. Also enjoyed was the organic ice cream, cones of which we each had two. Perfect all around, until we got stuck in traffic out by the airport and the baby screamed until home, but alas. These are the chances we take.
September 22, 2009
Surprising Gillers (with just a bit too much historical fiction. And MARTHA BAILLIE!!)
I was wrong. And come now, this is hardly unprecedented. I tend to be wrong at least five times a day, but I do wish I’d been wrong about something other than Lisa Moore’s chances at this year’s Giller Prize. Because– to the surprise of many– February didn’t make the longlist, and I consider it a fine novel. Also to the surprise of many, ten out of the twelve books nominated this year were written by women, which is surprising because women writers don’t tend to stack up on prize lists, unless it is the Orange Prize, which is why there is an Orange Prize. (Or at least this is the way it looks from my chair. I could be wrong about this too. I probably am, after all, I haven’t slept for more than 2.5 hours in a row in three weeks– have I mentioned this? Have I mentioned that I’m slowly losing my mind, but I digress… as tired people often do.)
The most remarkable thing about this longlist, however, is that it’s interesting. A mix of small and big presses, book names and unknowns (to me), books I know of and will probably never read, and some that seem rather intriguing and I’ve never even heard of. Okay, a bit too much historical fiction for my liking, but then that fiction seems pretty various, and history is anything past five minutes ago. There is a lot of good stuff here.
Including, The Incident Report by Martha Baillie! Honestly, my disappointment at Moore not being included is quelled by Baillie’s spot on the shortlist, because I absolutely adored her book, which was so innovative, surprising, and like nothing else I’ve ever read before. It’s a book that I think more people should know about, not just because they’d probably like it, but because it’s so extraordinarily good. And I never thought about it being a Giller pick, because it’s not that sort of book, but maybe this just isn’t that sort of Gillers? Imagine if Martha Baillie won??
I’m not sure she will. But I sort of think she should. My opinion not meaning so much, of course, as her’s is the only book I’ve read of the list, but I urge you to read it too, and you might just concur.
September 19, 2009
Some things on Saturday
Oh, I wish I could tell you what I’m now reading, but you’ll have to wait for the December issue of Quill & Quire to find out. Alas, but I’m enjoying myself. Birds of America is on its way to me in the post. For the last few days, I’ve been composing a love letter to the Spadina Road branch of the Toronto Public Library (which I’ll put down on paper soon, and copy here). We’ve been listening to Elizabeth Mitchell at our house, and we’re totally obsessed– everyday I have a new favourite, but I like her version of “Three Little Birds” and also The Tremelos’ “Here Comes My Baby”. I’ve been playing guitar myself these days, and Harriet is entranced by the shiny tuning pegs. She also likes strumming the strings. We’re going to England in less than a month, which is exciting, but seemed like a much better idea when the baby was still hypothetical. Now, I am a bit terrified, but pleased that her brilliant sleep patterns are wrecked already so that I don’t have to worry about the time change doing so. (In terms of baby sleep, how about this: ask moxie hypothosizes that sleep is this generation of parents’ “thing” [whereas, it once was potty training] because babies sleep on their backs now, where they do not sleep as well as they did on their fronts. This is also why our parents have little sympathy for the sleeping plight). I continue to be exhausted, much the same way I was when Harriet was born, except I have a life now and do not spend my waking hours sitting in a chair sobbing, and therefore the tiredness feels worse (and yet, I would not, could not, go back there, no). I’ve also quit Facebook, sort of. You see, I was totally addicted, checking it whenever I was feeding the baby and often when I wasn’t, and there are better things I could do with my time. And yet, there are many things I love about Facebook– friends’ photos, event invitations, cool links, finding out about friends’ achievements, that many of my FB friends’ aren’t friends otherwise, and I’d miss them if I went. But there are only so many strangers’ photo albums you can peruse without feeling your life is slipping away, so, I had my husband change my Facebook password, and now I have to be logged in by him. And I really hope this doesn’t happen all that often. So this should free up some time for me to finally read through my stack of London Review of Books that has been accumulating since Harriet was born. And I mean that. I am also going to knit Harriet a sweater from the Debbie Bliss Baby and Toddler Knits book I got from the library today, but I’ll use the 12-24 month sizing, because I’m realistic about how long it takes to get anything done. Today, we had the most wonderful brunch at the Annex Live. And the baby is awake, so I must go lay out the newspaper on the floor so I can read it while I feed her.
September 18, 2009
The Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
The thing about Lorrie Moore, I’ve found, is that everybody loves her. Except me, because I didn’t even read her until I read her story “How to be an Other Woman” in the anthology My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead. Which made clear why everybody loved her, so I read her novel Anagrams next, which might have been a mistake, because while it was good, it didn’t leave me hungry for more. But then something about the buzz from her novel The Gate at the Stairs hooked me– Lisa Moore’s rave review definitely, and the novel’s dealings with children and motherhood, as this is much/entirely my life these days.
Another thing about my life these days, however, is that I’m tired. I am so unbelievably, unrelentingly tired that it’s quite hilarious, and only because when I am this tired, I’ll laugh at absolutely anything. (Baby no longer sleeps for more than three hours at a time, and therefore neither do I.) And for this reason, I think, as I read this novel, I kept thinking I was reading a book by Francine Prose. I am not sure why– it had a bit of Goldengrove AND Blue Angel about it, and was nothing like Anagrams, or something you’d expect from a short story writer, and I was also (as I said) really, really tired. All of which is beside the point. (Yawn. And at least I didn’t get her confused with Francine Pascal.)
I was fortunate, I think, to come to this novel as I did, having not read much of Moore before. Maud Newton posts her own thoughts on the novel and links to others‘, and the consensus seems to be that Lorrie Moore devotees are a bit disappointed. That the novel is brilliant and absorbing in so many ways, but flawed and unsatisfying at the same time. And it’s true that this novel wasn’t perfect, but I was glad to be reading it as one being awed by the power of Lorrie Moore for the very first time. Critics have been unconvinced by Moore’s narrator, Tassie Keltjin, a twenty-year old who seems much more like just a vehicle for Lorrie Moore’s point of view and lingual deftness, but so entranced was I by such a pov and deftness, I wasn’t about to complain.
The novel was so interesting. Which is such a lame way to describe anything, but what I mean by this is that I could think about it forever– about the significance of the title, for example, and the narrative arc which isn’t an arc, and the characters’ stories, and how the narrative was utterly unpredictable, not because it was exciting, but because it was like how life is. How the novel was so accessible, and so challenging at the very same time, and the unending layers you could reveal inside it if you took the time to try.
Yesterday I went into the bookstore to check out Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America. Another shopper saw me reading the back and said, “That book is amazing. Buy it.” I said, “I’m going to. I’m reading her new book right now.” She said, “That’s just what I’m here to get,” and I pointed her towards its spot on the new hardcovers table. “It’s fantastic,” I said, because flawed or not, it is.
And that is the story of how I came to join the legions of those in love with Lorrie Moore.
September 16, 2009
The very best thing
“We all might have burst into hysterical laughter, and we probably would have if a sleeping child weren’t propped in the middle of the dining room table, next to two candlesticks, a Stengal sugar bowl, and some salt and pepper shakers. Adoption, I could see, was a lot like childbirth: Here she is! everyone exclaimed. And you looked and saw a pickled piglet and felt nothing, not realizing it would be the only time you would ever feel nothing again. A baby destroyed a life and thereby became the very best thing in it. Though to sit gloriously and triumphantly in ruins may not be such a big trick.” –from The Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
September 16, 2009
Eden Mills Upcoming!
We’re packing up the (autoshare) car this Sunday and heading out of town for the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival. I went last year, and it was as wonderful in the pouring rain as it was in the late-afternoon sunshine, so this year we really can’t go wrong either way. Although last year I didn’t have a baby in tow, or I did but she was a blastocyst, but I’m bringing a husband this year for moral support, and such a gorgeous outdoor venue is the perfect way to mute squawky baby cries. I think we’re all going to enjoy it. The schedule is up, and I regret that some of my most desired readers are double-booked. So I’m going to have to run like a madwoman to pack it all in. (Decisions, decisions: we’re giving up a lot to catch Miriam Toews, but we have to, because I heard her read once before and I’ve been wanting more ever since; hope it’s possible to zip from Terry Griggs to Julie Wilson, etc.) Yay, Eden Mills!
*And, oh! Less than two weeks until the Vic Book Sale. And also Word on the Street! The only good thing about about the end of summer is a bookish September.
