February 18, 2009

Life-changing books

Inspired by this post entitled “for the love of reading”, as well as an old episode of This American Life called “The Book That Changed Your Life”, I’ve been thinking a lot about life-changing books. Which are rarer than you think, really, considering the ratio of how many books actually get read to how often life is ever really genuinely changed. I mean, there are books that have been terribly affecting, books that have written themselves into my DNA for how much I’ve come to love them, or books that came my way precisely when I needed them, but I didn’t necessarily start to live differently after reading them.

Top five exceptions as follows:

1) Anne of Green Gables: As I wasn’t so defined before I read this book, I can’t say it changed my life exactly, but I’m confident I would have a different kind of life now had I never read it. For over twenty years, I’ve sought to emulate Anne Shirley’s ambitions, her spirit, her articulateness, her passions, her bookishness, her incorrigibility, and to see the world as she does.

2) “The Grunge Look” by Margaret Atwood: Which isn’t a book, but rather as essay from Writing Away: The PEN Canada Travel Anthology. I encountered the anthology in the Hart House Library during the summer of 2002 when my life was a mess, and it was apparent to me that the only thing I could do to fix it was to run away to England like Atwood had. It was a terribly unwise decision at the time, but in retrospect was the smartest and bravest move of my life.

3) Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin: This book taught me how to cook, as well as provided the means for us live very cheaply during the grad school/unemployment years. Our copy is now falling apart, we still use it all the time, and I hope it’s not too terrible how often I just slip in a little bit of beef…

4) Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver: Last summer’s garden was a bust, and Barbara would be horrified if she knew just how addicted I’ve become to bananas, but even still, my eating and shopping habits have been changed since I read her book almost two years ago. The vegetannual has changed the way I eat. The world tastes much better for it.

5) Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. Without it I might still be waiting for a stork.

Fascinating to see how little novels factor in here, particularly because I read as many as I do. Though I wonder if novels change our lives in more subtle ways. I suspect they’re the stuff we’re constructed of more than the signposts along the road.

February 17, 2009

The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood by Rachel Power

I still don’t know squat about sleep training, for instance, but ever since I got pregnant, I’ve been obsessed with books documenting women’s ambivalence towards motherhood. Anne Enright’s Making Babies and Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work (in addition to the mother who lives on the other side of my garret wall and is screaming at her daughter as I write this) have served to steel my expectations for the imminent adventure ahead. Which is sort of strange because my feelings about motherhood aren’t even ambivalent yet, but from the mother on the other side of the wall in particular, I’ve got a sense of what’s coming, and I want to know how my life will change, if there’s hope of retaining any of it.

It’s a strange, complicated ambivalence (as opposed to, say, the childless Lionel Shriver’s) that strikes women about motherhood when they actually happen to be mothers. Which is why I maintain one has to be a brilliant writer to capture it properly– all the love that’s there, even with the reservations, the powerful urge to protect still accompanying any urges to run the other way. Rachel Power’s title articulating this ambivalence: The Divided Heart; “a split self; the fear that succeed at one means to fail at the other.”

Power’s book The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood is a series of conversations with prominent Australian woman artists about the effect of motherhood upon their art. Part of the book’s appeal in its homeland, I imagine, perhaps being insight into such notable lives, though I lack that context from where I read, as Power’s subjects are unfamiliar to me. But she does such a fine job of depicting their remarkable lives– the actresses, writers, painters, dancers among them–, as well as their back stories and very own voices that to get to know of these figures was one of the book’s decided perqs.

These women’s lives are remarkable, as I said, but their experiences are somewhat universal to all mothers, especially all working mothers– that they’re taken less seriously in their fields because they have children, are hindered from progressing as men (even fathers) can, their balancing “the second shift”, their guilt about being absent from their children’s lives. And yet there is something particular to the experience of the artist-mother, which Power well conveys. That pursuing art is often seen as an indulgence of sorts, and it doesn’t bring home much financial benefit. The blurred borders between the studio and the home-front, which bring forth constant interruptions. That to give up art would be to give up a passion, part of one’s heart, however divided.

The book’s conversational style is delicious, shaped with Rachel Power’s eye for fabulous prose, and the different perspectives enthused by her subjects make for a perfect mosaic of ideas and opinions. Which brings forth balance– none of this is to be taken as dogma, but instead considered, weighed and evaluated. So the bad of artist-mothering– certainly overwhelming at times– is also countered with the good. These women’s lives, however harried, still inspiring in that they get on at all. That artist-mothering is possible, even at a price.

These engaging interviews are also worthwhile for their range and detail– for example, the various effects of pregnancy and childbirth upon the body of a ballerina, upon an opera singer’s vocal range. That motherhood is not a vacuum and the rest of life creeps in as well– Power speaks to women who’ve fought cancer, who are raising children with special needs, caring for elderly parents. Her artists are painters, poets, filmmakers, photographers, writers and and illustrators, and “art” is very much in general, but still such a force in all their lives. Power showing how complicated these lives are, and how various.

The value of book such as this isn’t any “self-help” it offers, though I suspect it could reassure most mothers that they aren’t alone. Inspiring me also with the many ways in which creative pursuits and motherhood are complementary. Which would not be the point though, the use-value hardly Power’s intention, but instead the stories are an end to themselves, just like our lives are. Beautifully told, beautifully set, they deserve to be out in the world– we’re better for them– and they really seem enough to fly by.

February 16, 2009

Reading in a Chorus

I’ve long been fond of the fact that I’m part of a chorus of readers, both on-line and in the actual world. The deceptively unsolitary nature of reading endlessly delights me, though I’ve never really been driven have us all start singing the same song. I am difficult that way. So my Canada Reads challenge is just as much an experiment, but already I’m finding positive outcomes.

On Friday night we attended the Canada Reads event at the Toronto Metro Reference Library, hosted by Matt Galloway, and featuring Gil Adamson (author of The Outlander), Patricia Hamilton (I KNOW!) speaking for The Fat Woman Next Door Is Pregnant, Brian Francis (author of Fruit), Donna Bailey-Nurse championing The Book of Negroes, and Sarah Slean speaking for Mercy Among the Children, along with its author David Adams Richards. We received the familiar joys of listening to authors read from their work, learning about their books’ origins, but also the rarer joy (in public forums, at least) of readers championing beloved books. I do believe there is nothing else like it, the infection of avid readership. I came away from the event with new perspectives on the books I’ve already read, and I am bursting to read the final two.

At home, Canada Reads has become a family affair, and I’m enjoying that experience too. Underlining the fact that my opinions are so not subjective– my husband has adored The Book of Negroes, for instance, and we’ve had so many spirited discussions about our different interpretations of the book. Our differing opinions informing each other, though never managing to change our minds, oh no. But still, that there are no wrong answers here, no clear winners or losers. Each of the books has its own reasons for emerging victorious, and those lucky among us will get a sense of every one.

(Above, Matt Galloway with the fabulous Brian Francis.)

February 16, 2009

Madeleine's Cherry Pie and Ice Cream

Today’s random ramble rather conveniently veered us towards Madeleine’s Cherry Pie and Ice Cream, which I’ve many times passed on the route to somewhere and have long been meaning to make a destination. The shop’s name a literary reference (not this one, but that one), and the space is an emporium of perfect delights. A tea shop, with a back garden (come spring), and pies, and ice cream. We had scones with jam, and a pot each of rooibos, and I really must go back again for more– cupcakes, said madeleines, brownies, where to stop? The cakery was mesmerizing, and the shop shelves bursting with wonderful things– teapots, jam jars, cups, mugs, and the like. (And how lucky are we to live in a neighbourhood with so many corners to discover?)

February 13, 2009

Pickle Me This reads Canada Reads: Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards

Following along with Canada Reads online, I’ve found it a testament to both the book and its author that so many readers have been driven to put down Mercy Among the Children because of its “bleakness”, or because “it’s depressing.” Doesn’t that strike you as a powerful effect for a novel to have? To be abandoned for reasons quite different from being boring, or incomprehensible. Any assemblage of text that can hit one that hard must be something of an marvelous construction.

But I do understand what these readers are saying, because Mercy is certainly not easy. Though it’s not difficult either, being set within the last twenty years, most excellently paced, and written in accessible language that still manages to be exquisite prose. Where I lacked access, however, was in terms of literary allusion, which restricted a whole plane of the novel’s experience. Further, I’m seriously under-read in the kinds of novels from which this one finds its tradition– nineteenth century, Russian, or written by Thomas Hardy.

I think understanding this kind of literary tradition would have provided the bleakness of Mercy Among the Children with some kind of context. But lacking that background as I do, I could only take the Richards’ narrative as I found it. The story of the Henderson family whose bad luck is unrelenting, as narrated by their son Lyle. The father Sydney committing himself to pacifism at a young age to save himself from the world around him, for he believes that whatever ill you inflict upon another will come back to you in ways that are multifold. This stance distinguishing Sydney as somebody different, a threat to the status-quo.

“You are allowed anything in this life,” Sydney’s wife Elly tries to tell him, “except the luxury of being different– this is why you are being tried.” Theirs is a world where success comes only with “deceit and treachery”, and Sydney’s refusal to pay this price means his family remains impoverished out in their tar-shack on the highway, his children are tormented at school, and he is framed for crimes he would never commit. He won’t defend himself against these accusations either, feeling such arguments beneath him. He may be an uneducated man, but he taught himself to read, and he has absorbed enough of the wisdom of books (which as “knowledge” is distinguished from “learning”) to be confident in the direction of his leanings.

As a reader I had to steel myself against the Hendersons’ fate, one horrible plight after after and soon I just became resigned (which is perhaps my version of “putting the book down”). The novel’s devastating conclusion utterly ineffectual then, for I’d become numb to it all– but as Lyle Henderson had to some extent too, I think my experience was analogous. The conclusion also somewhat satisfying in proving that Sydney Henderson was right, that everyone will get what’s coming at the end, though I wonder– at what price?

This is an interesting novel to consider for discussion, because I think most readers will focus on a judgment of the characters rather than a discussion of the book itself. Whether Sydney was right in his stance, did he betray his family, whether Lyle’s deviation from his father’s ways was justified or not. Though there is a certain limitation to this kind of discussion too, for so many of Richards’ characters are written as “types”. He explains them to us: who is weak and who is strong, and though he has sympathy for some of the most unsympathetic types (providing an understanding of the devious Pits, for instance, who are the architects of most of the Hendersons’ destruction), others (particularly those who are more “learned” than “wise”) are presented as utterly ignorant and one dimensional.

I struggled with the female characters too, who were beautiful, stupid and helpless (but with a core of inner strength), and endlessly coveted sexually, or were shrewd, mannish, ugly, and utterly unsexed. In the novel’s afterward, more hopeful scenarios are presented for these characters (or at least for those who haven’t died), but these are more alluded to rather than shown.

Mercy Among the Children read like a great novel to me, in a way that Brian Francis’s Fruit isn’t, but– guess what– I still think Fruit is more worthy of being the novel that Canada Reads. Actually dealing with much the same subject matter too– Peter Paddington would probably be well aware that we’re allowed anything in this life except the luxury of being different. Peter is feared for his differences just as Sydney Henderson is feared, because those who challenge the status-quo threaten to expose the worst about the rest of us. But because Francis doesn’t drive the point all the way home in quite the way that Richards does, and because Francis’s comedy is most engaging (and rare in Canadian lit.), I will leave Fruit at number one.

I still think The Book of Negroes is an amazing book, and worth reading for all of the reasons Avi Lewis outlines here. But I don’t think any of his reasons are good ones for picking up a novel. I really find The Book of Negroes is a kind of nonfiction incognito, and though I enjoyed it more than Mercy Among the Children, and learned much more from it, I can’t help but determine Mercy.. as a more successful work of fiction.

Canada Reads Rankings (so far):
1) Fruit by Brian Francis
2) Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards
3) The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill

February 13, 2009

Table

I can’t quite figure out why I find the first part of the dictionary definition for “table” so delightful, but I really do: “table. 1. a piece of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, providing a level surface for eating, writing, or working at, playing games on, etc…” Laid out like that, has there ever been anything more charming? Must any world with tables in it not be such a terrible place?

February 10, 2009

Those female writers

“I’m a feminist, and God knows I’m loyal to my sex, and you must remember that from my very early days, when this city was scarcely safe from buffaloes, I was in the struggle for equal rights for women. But when we paraded through the catcalls of men and when we chained ourselves to lampposts to try to get our equality– dear child, we didn’t foresee those female writers.” –Dorothy Parker, The Paris Review Interviews Vol. 1

February 8, 2009

The dearth of female names

7 February 2009

Dear ***, Editor, **** Magazine

This letter is not intended for publication, and no doubt it will read as such, being neither particularly witty or erudite, or especially timely. But I do think it is fair to write to you and explain why I will not be renewing my subscription to **** after three years.

It has been nearly a year since I began counting the number of women writers amongst your contributors. Initially the dearth of female names was more peculiar than troubling. I was unsure of how a general interest/current affairs magazine could be very general or current while (very nearly) only publishing pieces written by men. But when each subsequent issue appeared, usually with less women than the one before it (and when the women did appear, it was rarely for any feature of significant length), I began to be disturbed.

Either you’re not interested in commissioning women writers, or you haven’t noticed the imbalance in your issues, and I’m really not sure which of these possibilities is the worst.

Do know that I’m not counting for counting’s sake. I am not convinced that there is such a thing as “women’s writing”, but I am sure that the lack of women’s voices in your pages has made your magazine less interesting. I used to make a point of reading every issue in its entirety, regardless of my interest, because the writing was good, and there was always something for me to learn. But lately this has felt like a chore, and I don’t feel I get the payoff.

Please take a look at even your cover designs over the past year, take a look at your features. I am sure the lack of diversity amongst your contributors is the reason **** has come to resemble a Men’s Magazine proper. And I know this is the reason that I, as a female subscriber, no longer feel like it’s a magazine for me. I must not be the only one.

Thank you for your time,

Kerry Clare

February 8, 2009

Reading in Pickle Colour

Today I finally picked up a copy of the marvelous I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, which might be the closest thing to a holy book those in my religion have– in rhyme no less. (“The more that you read,/ the more you will know./ The more that you learn,/ the more places you’ll go.”) And I like to think the first page (shown here) was a reference to Pickle Me This. I got the book at Circus Books and Music, which is a wonderful store with exceptional children’s books. We were out on the Danforth after a spectacular brunch at The Only Cafe, and then walked westward. At the Danforth Type Books, I bought I Kissed the Baby, but not for me, that one. (Oh no, it’s for the baby’s library.) Outside, we’re enjoying this crazy February Sunday Sun again and it’s wonderful.

February 6, 2009

Tomorrow on the radio

I heard on the radio this morning that Shelagh Rogers’s The Next Chapter tomorrow will be celebrating Carol Shields on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of The Stone Diaries. CBC Radio 1 at 3:00pm. I will be listening.