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.

February 5, 2009

Babies and reading

A few weeks back I was happy to discover that Kate Christensen has a new novel coming out in early June. I’ll be reading it, naturally, though when, I cannot say. If I do happen to be 41 weeks pregnant in early June, then perhaps a good book will be welcome company, though it’s just as likely I’ll be a brand new mother with just a week’s experience, so I probably won’t be reading much of anything.

There are mothers who read, of course– mothers of babies and mothers of toddlers. I know this mostly because I read their blogs, and these mothers provide me with a great deal of reassurance. That having my baby won’t require handing my brain in (or if it does, at least I get it back in a little while). I’ve been planning my summer rereading project already, as I always do, and it’s mainly consisting of easy, well-loved novels that won’t require a great deal of concentration– I’m thinking Good in Bed, Saturday, Happy All the Time, and, if I’m feeling brave, A Novel About My Wife. It would be nice to read maybe one a week? (At the moment I read about three, but then I also work full time.)

I was going to cancel my subscription to The London Review of Books, but I’ve since decided otherwise. I hope motherhood won’t be an excuse to just give up being challenged, and I certainly won’t have to read the whole of every issue. But the articles that interest me are just so interesting, and I learn so much from them. I will be cutting down on the number of periodicals that come into our house though, which probably would be a good idea anyway.

Anyone who has ever had a baby is probably by now hysterical with laughter at my naivete, but let me tell you that whenever I’m told something isn’t possible, I tend to get it done. My mother says that babies sleep a lot. If I remember correctly, Alice Munro has said something much the same, so I believe it. I am also determined to master nursing and reading, which can’t be impossible as I’ve already taught myself to floss and read, and knit and read, so this is just another challenge. But I will try to keep an open mind and my expectations only moderately high.

If by the end of the summer, I’ve read Kate Christensen’s new novel at all, I’ll consider myself not too far off track.

February 4, 2009

Good Egg

We maintain a list at our house of small businesses unlikely to weather the economic downturn well. Already, the pillow shop on Queen Street has gone out of business, and I don’t have high hopes for organic dog bakeries and fromageries. Though that our local tea boutique is flourishing means that Good Egg might stand a chance. At least, I really, really hope it does, because I liked the place a lot.

Another bookstore in Kensingston Market, and that this one specializes in cookbooks is only half the story. They’ve got display tables crowded with kitchen stuff, all your heart so desires but doesn’t especially need, which does nothing to negate that desire– perhaps I should have that ninth teapot. And though usually I’d think twice about any store that sells books and gifts together, Good Egg has selected their books with such obvious care that I really can’t help but forgive them.

The books take up about half the store, and aren’t just cookbooks, but food books, and all varieties of food books. Their children’s section is lovely, stocked with food-themed books for babies and up (I spotted Green Eggs and Ham, The Carrot Seed, The Giving Tree, though there were plenty more), as well as non-food books that are just delicious. Similarly are non-food books for adults stuck in amongst the other shelves, though I got the feeling that if I thought about them hard enough, I could discern how they might fit in with motif. Fiction fascinatingly scattered in the manner of a treasure trove around cookbooks from all over the world, food essays, chef bios, books on agriculture, and the Omnivore’s Dilemma. Every shelf yielding a surprise– an etiquette section, India Knight’s new book on thrift, a book on the art of letter writing, as well as numerous crafty delights.

The whole effect sounds a bit kitschy, but there was substance to it. (Oh, and aren’t Tessa Kiros’ cookbooks the most beautiful in the world?) Every single book in Good Egg had been selected so deliberately, arranged so artfully, and the entire place was a delight to explore just like every good bookstore should be.

February 3, 2009

A delight to live inside

I’ve got a lot to say, but Monday evenings deliver only the briefest window between pre-natal yoga and Midsomer Murders, and so alas. Let it be known that I’m now reading Revolutionary Road, which was a Zmas gift from my friend Bronwyn, and that I spoiled the ending today through wikipedian ramblings, which I’m a bit annoyed about, but I’m still enjoying the read. And that because the last couple of weeks (and more?) have been wrought with anxiety, tension and stress, this weekend was such a delight to live inside. I’ve been volunteering at the Children’s Book Bank since New Year, and have found it’s more than a pleasure to read stories one after another to eager children who then just want one more. On Saturday night, we hosted a small birthday gathering for the one-of-a-kind e. smith, with a special appearance from our beloved Sk8 who’s been in South America for the past two years. And there were cupcakes, oh yes. Then Sunday morning in Kensington, where cheese curds were had and sunshine was soaked and we held hands without mittens, and ice was melting everywhere. A glimpse of spring, which was the best thing. I arrived home with thousands of things to do, but decided to spend the afternoon asleep in my slanket instead. We had dearest friends over for a roast chicken dinner, and it was delicious, company was lovely. And best of all, that our baby is a kickboxer (sport of the future). The flutters have turned to thumps, and I think they just might be the more amazing sensation I’ve ever experienced. I could get kicked and kicked all day.

February 3, 2009

The latest postal haul

I arrived home today to a mailbox overflowing with literary goodness. The latest issue of The New Quarterly, a brand new Canadian Notes and Queries, as well as The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood by Rachel Power, which should still have been en-route from Australia by sea, but I suspect someone put it on an airplane by mistake– what a treat.

February 1, 2009

Pickle Me This reads Canada Reads: Fruit by Brian Francis

In Brian Francis’s not-yet-coming-of -age story Fruit, Peter Paddington is the hero of his own life. So successfully entrenched within his own perspective, he’s in the league of famed adolescent narrators Huck and Holden, though stylistically is most akin to the great Adrian Mole. Francis casts a spell with Peter’s voice, and not once does the spell ever break.

I want to protest only about how this book was sold to me, even in its quirky subtitle, “a novel about a boy and his nipples”. The first line of the blurb on the back of the book is, “Peter Paddington is a 13-year-old, fat, gay cross-dresser…”, which really didn’t immediately capture my attention, so as I read the book I was relieved to come to see that Peter Paddington is actually quite normal. Or perfectly normal from the point of view of anyone who spent a pretty tortured few (or more) years growing into themselves. Any of us who’ve ever had to work in the school library at recess in lieu of having friends, or who’d read that conditioning one’s hair with Hellman’s was a good idea, only to wind up with a scalp like a grease pit.

Peter Paddington may very well grow up to be a fat, gay cross-dresser, which is all fine and well, but the point is that his adolescent experience is pretty universal. Pretty awful too– he’s bullied at school, he’s longing for friends, he’s embarrassed about his body in general, and puberty is hardly doing him any favours. Where the book gets its humour is in the gap between Peter’s reality and his perception of it– a space so rich and brilliant, allowing the reader ample room between the lines to consider this young boy’s situation from an adult point of view. That Peter does not entirely understand his situation is his saving grace, though of course the book does suggest he is more aware than he lets on, but is working to actively avoid enlightenment.

It is this edge then than allows us to take Peter Paddington a little more seriously than we did the similarly hilarious Adrian Mole. Peter is not a caricature, and neither are the people around him– particularly his loving parents who try to do their best, but are just as helpless to help him as he is. The world around him as realistically rendered– Sarnia, Ontario in 1984, with all the pop-cultural touchstones that ring so familiar, and junior high school clique taxonomy.

But Peter’s voice is Francis’s greatest triumph. Peter taking himself so utterly seriously, prioritizing his own point of view in the way that real people do, and it is obvious that Francis gives Peter much the same consideration. Never breaking away from Peter’s vision to insert a bit of irony, to provide a wider perspective, to ensure readers know he’s writing something more than a YA novel FYI, and in never breaking away, Francis thus has created a voice that’s so extraordinary. Peter Paddington is a train wreck waiting to happen, and of course we can see that because we’re years older than he is and we know how the world works, but he really hasn’t figured it out yet. This gap being from where the novel gets its humour, but also from where it earns its most unsentimental poignancy.

And so here’s the part where, for Canada Reads sake, I argue that Francis’s Fruit is superior to Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes. Which is the strange thing about this whole set-up, apples to oranges and all. I will definitely say that Hill’s book might be more important than Francis’s, that The Book of Negroes is more educational, that it will broaden our perspective in a way that Fruit only takes us inward. But Fruit is a better piece of literature, more successful in its realization. With a scope far more limited, admittedly, but I felt Hill’s too-broad scope was actually his greatest limitation. Whereas everything Fruit sets out to do, it succeeds at absolutely.

Canada Reads Rankings (so far):
1) Fruit by Brian Francis
2) The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill