February 24, 2009
darkness of a child's heart
“You can control and censor a child’s reading, but you can’t control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child’s heart.”– Hilary Mantel in The Guardian
February 24, 2009
Out in the world– a concert and a play
Various events this winter are conspiring to keep me from becoming hermetic, and also providing me with opportunities I won’t see again for a long time once The Baby is born. For example, a concert– Dar Williams, live at the Mod Club this Saturday!! I am very excited, as I’ve not seen her since 2003 (live in Sheffield), being too poor for tickets when she was in Toronto in ’05. And then a play! My very favourite play, no less- Arcadia, performed at Hart House Theatre in March. By Tom Stoppard– have you read it? I’ve done so many times over the past ten years, and can’t wait to delight in it again on stage.
February 23, 2009
Books worth it for their covers
From The Guardian Books Blog on Book Covers, I was referred to the AbeBooks promotion 30 Novels Worth Buying for the Cover Alone. Containing some picks I’d definitely concur with– Pickle Me This faves Skim, The Monsters of Templeton, The Boys in the Trees, and Fruit. And so inspiring me to showcase the most gorgeous book I’ve read in ages (albeit not a novel): the McSweeney’s edition of Michael Chabon’s Maps and Legends. The “dust jacket” actually constructed of three different panels, so that the multiple dimensions aren’t just an illusion. It was almost the whole reason I bought the book, and I wouldn’t even have been disappointed if the content had not been as brilliant as it was. As it turned out, I was just biblio-spoiled.
February 23, 2009
Pickle Me This reads Canada Reads: The Outlander by Gil Adamson
Right there on the back cover of Gil Adamson’s The Outlander, it’s labelled, “Part historical novel, part Gothic tale, and part literary Western”. The sort of hybrid book readers go crazy for, and I’ve certainly never heard a word against it. Adamson’s first novel (though she’s published collections of short stories and poetry before) has at its forefront Mary Boulton, “The Widow”, who we find at the beginning of the story fleeing through the woods with dogs on her trail, being pursued by her enormous red-headed brothers-in-law. It appears that she’s killed her husband, so the brothers are determined to find her and force her to face some kind of justice.
The book refers back to a time when the maps were all empty, though we know that Mary Boulton is in Western Canada. The shape of the novel being her track across that empty place– imagine her as a furiously dotted line. Along the way she encounters several different characters, though some are hallucinations. Never safe, she stays nowhere too long, and passes from one port to another until she ends up in the mining town of Frank, British Columbia.
The book’s strongest feature is its language, I think, which is gorgeous and evocative. Describing a nature which is in turns glorious and brutal, as well as the bare facts of Mary Boulton’s situation– her hunger, her sickness, her madness. She’s an intriguing character, even more so in the flashbacks when we see she comes from a background like nothing you’d expect of a murderess, and that she was a very different kind of girl once upon a time.
Unfortunately, I never felt I got close enough to her, to understand why she killed her husband, to understand why she runs. She was a character distant enough to be called just “The Widow”, and those around her were even more distant, incidental to her flight. The plot seems a loose construction around the language, which dragged down to reveal that not so much was there. The book said to be “gripping” but I was never gripped. With every page, with every new character she encountered, I’d think, “Ok, now it starts…” but it never did for me.
Which I don’t think is the book’s fault, but I was just so far from its ideal reader. “Part historical novel, part Gothic tale, and part literary Western” seems a recipe for the kind of book that puts me to sleep. Which is why my review is a bit lax here, but there really aren’t hours in the day for me to spend thoughtfully reviewing books I don’t like. Particularly when so many others do like this one, and they can’t all be wrong. I’ll be really interested in hearing readers’ arguments for this book, but I think it might all just come down to a matter of taste.
**Check out a more positive take on The Outlander over at the Canada Reads site.
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
4) The Outlander by Gil Adamson
February 19, 2009
Cusp of falling headlong
I’m now reading The Outlander, which I’m not particularly loving, but I feel I may be on the cusp of falling headlong into, particularly if DGR’s assessment is right. Though I do fear I may have set literary standards too high, having spent part of this weekend reading Jools Oliver‘s Diary of an Honest Mum. (You can read the hilariously digested version here). We shall see… Elsewhere, I loved Rona Maynard’s take on the Facebook 25 things meme. To Nigel Beale for the best used book sales in Canada (and I concur, because it includes my favourite). My baby kicks like mad to this song. And there would be more, if I weren’t so tired, or if lately the newspaper had been remotely interesting.
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
