November 16, 2009

On Hilary Mantel and Fludd etc.

I’m currently reading Fludd by Hilary Mantel, as an experiment in reading books by Hilary Mantel I have no desire to read. Fludd, at 186 pages, you see, is much less an investment than Wolf Hall‘s terrifying 650. I still have no desire to read Wolf Hall either, but for various reasons have been possessed to buy it. And now I’m enjoying Fludd so immensely, that I feel enjoying Wolf Hall could be less unlikely than I previously thought.

All this leading to two points.

1) Hilary Mantel is absolutely scathing in this book. And I’m reminded of a writing teacher who once criticized a story of mine for lack of sympathy toward the idiots within it, and so I rewrote these idiots with a more human touch. With hearts in their depths. But now I kind of wish I hadn’t. Though Hilary Mantel is a far better writer than I could ever hope to be, I think that some meanness is delicious, and not all fictional characters need hearts in their depths. I just need to learn to be mean more intelligently.

2) Her range! Fludd is more like Beyond Black than any of her others I’ve read (and I’d term these “supernatural realism). Could these possibly be by the same writer who wrote historical epics Wolf Hall and A Place of Greater Safety? The brutally black comedy Every Day is Mother’s Day? The more conventional (but no less brilliant) novels Eight Months of Ghazzah Street, A Change of Climate and An Experiment in Love? I am becoming more and more unafraid to read Wolf Hall, because I’ve never met a Hilary Mantel novel that wasn’t amazing.

Which makes me think of Margaret Atwood, and Doris Lessing too– writers who’ve branched out in unimaginable ways. Challenging their readers’ sensibilities, exploring the limits of genre, breaking the mold again and again. Seems like these are writers to whom “the novel” is a brand new blank white page, every time they sit down to write one.

November 16, 2009

What Boys Like by Amy Jones

I’d previously read Amy Jones’ “The Church of the Latter-Day Peaches” in The New Quarterly, and as I read the story again in Jones’ new collection, I was hoping that this time the story might be different. This time, could it possiby have an ending that wouldn’t break my heart? It didn’t, though I was so hopeful that a little trick with italics caught me once again, and I dared to be tripped up by the same trick that caught me before.

And how engaging is that, I ask? To read so far into a story, that it wraps itself around me, and then I get all wrapped up in it too, and the whole thing is an untenable knot?

What Boys Like is a lot like its cover. Though its tone is not upbeat, the colours are so vivid that you’d never find these stories bleak. And yes, the girls are often steeley-eyed, dangerous, tough as nails. The comic-strip touch suggesting a pop-cultural bent, and indeed, Jones’ characters listen to pop music, they play video games, sports is playing on TV, and references are tied up in zeitgeist.

Jones displays impressive range, writing in first, third and an impressively-executed second-person. Her characters are male and female, young and older than young, on the cusp, over the edge, or past the point of no return. They lead such desperate lives, and then there are these moments of grace– the pregnant lady who shares her peanut butter sandwich, the man who dares a young girl to be something, that Jenny goes home at all, Marty looking for bats in the garden, and all that love. The baby inside her. And when those who really get it had it coming anyway.

These are stories mostly of Halifax, in and around. In “The Church of the Latter-Day Peaches”, the first sentence tells the story: “There is nothing more unseemly than a pregnant widow at a funeral”. “Places to Drink Outside in Halifax” is the story of the first party of high school, drinking on Alexander Keith’s grave. In “An Army of One”, a woman attends the wedding of her male best friend (who she’s been sleeping with for years). “All We Will Ever Be” is two sides of a woman from the perspective of the man she’s just about to throw away and the other she’s just sinking her teeth into.

In each of these stories, premise is realized into someting vivid and whole. Amy Jones’ stories are easy to fall into, but complex enough that there is something new upon returning to them again and again.

November 13, 2009

Virginia Wolf on Louise Fitzhugh (seriously)

A very exciting parcel came to our house today! Finally, my long-awaited copy of Louise Fitzhugh— a biography by the carefully named Virginia L. Wolf– has arrived from BetterWorldBooks. There are not a lot of resources on Fitzhugh around, though the Purple Socks Tribute Site is pretty cool. But I was eager to learn more about this author (who wrote Harriet the Spy, for those of you not in the know), and this book had been lost in the depths of Robarts library, and the one copy in the Public Library system was not for circulation. So, obviously, another book purchase was necessary. I can’t wait to read it.

November 13, 2009

Sloppy Shorthand

This article in The Guardian was a bit weird. Now, usually I’m all down with not maligning women’s fiction, but popular fiction is popular fiction and Melissa Bank is not George Eliot, and I felt as though Harriet Evans was trying to tell me otherwise. But what Evans was trying to tell me is not the point here, rather that in her piece, she practices what I’ve come to call the sloppy shorthand of literary referencing.

She includes Dave Eggers in league with a number of other male writers who write “about how many women the protagonists have slept with, how many drugs they’ve done, what a crazy nihilistic time they’re having in London / New York.” Now, I’ve not read the other writers she mentions, but then I don’t think Harriet Evans has read much Dave Eggers either.

Eggers does get tarred as something of a postmodern show-off by readers put off by his 2000 memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. To his credit, however, he wrote that book nearly a decade ago, and in the years since has created some terribly creative fiction and nonfiction (and has blurred boundaries between the two, and become a philanthropist, and written a movie I loved, and another that people are obsessed with, and countless other really amazing things, and he’s done them well and with genuine class). Also, I thought A Heartbreaking Work… was remarkable for numerous reasons.

All this to say that Dave Eggers is sloppy shorthand for a male writer with flimsy chops who appeals to an idiot public.

Similarly, Zadie Smith. In fact, one of the commenters on Evans’ pieces mentioned Smith, but that post has since been removed for being offensive. And there really is something about Zadie Smith that brings out offensive comments like no other writer since Margaret Atwood. Which is strange. Perhaps I can understand how a reader might not like White Teeth, for example, but I’m at a loss to explain how one wouldn’t be somewhat impressed by its construction. I thought it was a fantastic novel, and was similarly moved by On Beauty, and I’ve found Smith’s literary criticism to be the most compelling and fascinating I’ve read.

But it seems that Zadie Smith is sloppy shorthand for a girl writer who people like because she’s pretty.

Then, there’s Margaret Atwood, but I’ve talked about that before. Definitely Margaret Lawrence, who is unfairly derided by readers who weren’t old enough when they read The Stone Angel or The Diviners. I suppose we could even include Shakespeare on this list, as people who’ve read just one or two of his plays can hold the strongest opinions on his oeuvre.

And poor John Irving, of course, perpetually accused of an obsession with wrestling, weird sex and bears.

Anyone else?

November 13, 2009

Horizontal Parenting

I am very excited about the Parenting Method I have devised, and subsequent book I am going to self-publish about my Parenting Method (via lulu.com). My method is called Horizontal Parenting, and I’ve been practicing it for about six months now. Its core tenets are the five Ls– 1) Lie down to breastfeed, 2) Lie down to soothe your crying babe by gently rocking your hips, 3) Lie down to have your baby sleep on your chest (contrary to everything the Back to Sleep people will tell you), 4) Lie down to play with your baby– a popular game is lying on one’s back and throwing a soft ball up to the ceiling again and again. The fun never stops. 5) Take time every day for yoga practice– but only the savasana pose. (This last tenet doesn’t start with L, but that’s because it’s the exception that proves the rule.)

The jury’s still out on the advantages of horizontal parenting on child development, but my child seems to be developing fairly normally (save for her new, disturbing penchant for pinching the fat on my upper arms). For me, however, the advantages are multifold– I never have a sore back, I get to sleep at night (albeit sometimes uncomfortably on my side), I get to lie on the couch and read or nap frequently throughout the day, and I get many opportunities to breathe in the sweet smell of my baby daughter’s head.

As soon as I figure out how to cook dinner from a hammock, then I will really claim to have it all figured out.

November 12, 2009

There is no excuse

There is no excuse for the accompanying photo, except that my baby is adorable. Alright then, bookishly. I thumbed through the new Pierre Trudeau biography the other day, and now I am afraid I’m the only woman in Canada who never slept with him. He didn’t even want me to live with him and have his child, like Liona Boyd (who is Liona Boyd?) on the cover of Hello. This may or may not be unfortunate. I just finished reading What Boys Like by Amy Jones (review forthcoming!) and have just started Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the “Experts”. Patricia has directed my attention to what seems to be the worst picture book ever: The Mischievous Mom at the Art Gallery by “high-octane duo” Rebecca Eckler and Erica Ehm. A new level of narcissism— we have to be reflected in our kids’ books now? “Finally — a picture book for the Starbucks-armed, BlackBerry-checking, gym-going working mother.” Perhaps you’re meant to read it on the treadmill. Chapters/Indigo includes a “Green Matters” option on its online catalogue, narrowing searches to books printed on FSC/Recycled Content. On the best Sesame Street songs (in honour of the show’s fortieth birthday). They forgot ladybug picnic. Charlotte on The Children’s Storefront, a neighbourhood institution that was lost in a fire last week. Rona Maynard’s secrets to decades upon decades of marriage. I’ve been enjoying books/music site Sasquatch Radio. WriterGuy directed me towards the interesting “How Waterstones killed bookselling” (in light of my recent post about how Waterstones killed book buying, for me, at least). And I’m wondering if I’m the only one who starts carrying around my next book to be read once the current read is down to the last fifty pages or so. Indeed, if I don’t have something fabulous to read within arm’s length at all times, I do start to get a little nervous.

November 10, 2009

All the processes of change

“All the processes of change, imagination, and learning ultimately depend on love. Human caregivers love their babies in a particularly intense and significant way. That love is one of the engines of human change. Parental love isn’t just a primitive and primordial instinct, continuous with the nurturing behaviour of other animals (though certainly there are such continuities). Instead, our extended life as parents also plays a deep role in the emergence of the most sophisticated and characteristically human capacities. Our protracted immaturity is possible only because we can rely on the love of the people who take care of us. We can learn from the discoveries of earlier generations because those same loving caregivers invest in teaching us. It isn’t just that without mothering humans would lack nurturance, warmth, and emotional security, They would also lack culture, history, morality, science and literature”. –from The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik

November 10, 2009

Dick Bruna and Miffy

I’ve been a fan of Dick Bruna ever since a trip home from England in 2003, where I was up early mornings due to time change and watched Miffy and Friends on Treehouse. As Miffy is quite popular in England, upon my return I was able to indulge in what has since become a pasttime: purchasing Miffy-branded commercial goods of all kinds. This hobby became very well-practised after I moved to Japan, and consequently, my house is full of glimpses of “that fucking rabbit” (as a friend of a friend once referred to Our Miff). Our recent trip to England yielded more opportunities to Miffy-shop, as we had a layover in Amsterdam (the Land of Miffy). Certainly, I voted with my Euros, and Miffy-Chan won. My friend Paul just sent me a link to this “Dutch Profiles: Dick Bruna” video, presuming I’d like it, and he was correct. And indeed, there is more to Miffy than the shopping, and I think this video makes that quite clear.

November 9, 2009

Do we really need a cup of tea?

“Perhaps there can be too much making cups of tea, I thought, as I watched Miss Statham filling the heavy teapot. We had all had our supper, or were supposed to have had it, and were met together to discuss the arrangements for the Christmas bazaar. Did we really need a cup of tea? I even said as much to Miss Statham and she looked at me with a hurt, almost angry look. ‘Do we need tea?’ she echoed. ‘But Miss Lathbury…’ She sounded puzzled and distressed and I began to realize that my question had struck at something deep and fundamental. It was the kind of question that starts a landslide in the mind.” –from Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

I am so glad to have finally read Barbara Pym, having been thinking about doing so since I read this piece on the Barbara Pym Society way back in 2007. Though when the book began, I wasn’t sure– it seemed dated, a little too concerned with high and low churches (between which I can’t distinguish) and the sexual life of curates and vicars, and then perhaps about two chapters in, it became clear that Pym had a wicked sense of humour. And yes, her Englishness is quite delightful, for those of us who delight in English novels as we do, and that someone is putting the kettle on to boil every other page, and when the tea is too weak or too strong– the agony of it all! Throughout the book, I adored her acuity and her awareness, even when her narrator had less of the same (or did she?).

And how wonderful to know that now I’ve got a wealth of unread Pym novels before me. Better still– she is unfashionable and therefore the books will be readily available used (and I’ll purchase them as such without compunction, for as Barbara Pym is dead, she’s doesn’t need the royalties).

November 7, 2009

Lizzie Skurnick for President

In “Same Old Story“, Skurnick writes: “But that’s the problem with sexism. It doesn’t happen because people — male or female — think women suck. It happens for the same reason a sommelier always pours a little more in a man’s wine glass (check it!), or that that big, hearty man in the suit seems like he’d be a better manager. It’s not that women shouldn’t be up for the big awards. It’s just that when it comes down to the wire, we just kinda feel like men . . . I don’t know . . . deserve them.

The conservatives are right: affirmative action is huge blemish on the face of our nation. And until we stop giving awards to men who don’t deserve them over women who do, we’re sunk. Because our default is to somehow feel like Philip Roth’s output is impressive while Joyce Carol Oates’ is a punchline. Our default is to call John Updike a genius on the basis of four very wonderful books and many truly weird ones, while Margaret Atwood, with the same track record, is simply beloved. Our default is to title Ayelet Waldman’s book, “Bad Mother,” while her husband’s is “Manhood for Amateurs.” Our default is that women are small, men are universal. Well, I know men get sensitive if you call them small. But gentlemen, sometimes you are.”