January 14, 2009

When my head was not to be trusted

“A writer, if he is any good, does not describe. He invents or makes out of knowledge personal and impersonal and sometimes he seems to have unexplained knowledge which could come from racial or family experience. Who teaches the homing pigeon to fly as he does; where does a fighting bull get his bravery, or a hunting dog his nose? This is an elaboration or a condensation on that stuff we were talking about in Madrid that time when my head was not to be trusted.” –Ernest Hemingway, The Paris Review Interviews, I

January 13, 2009

On those unsympathethic females

Last week I read Christine Pountney’s novel The Best Way You Know How, which– apart from some ghastly clanking similes– was a pretty good read. Though on a personal level, I’d probably relate to any book about a Canadian girl who runs away to England to find a husband (and thank goodness I had better luck with my pick than Pountney’s poor old Hannah Crowe). But I was surprised to have enjoyed the book as much as I did, considering the mixed reviews. For as engaging and witty as Pountney’s writing is, I found Hannah Crowe to be as obnoxious as promised, but it occurred to me to wonder: do we have to like a heroine to like a book?

I wouldn’t have even though of Alice Munro, except by chance I picked up her selected short stories following Pountney’s book, and as I read the first two pieces (from Who Do You Think You Are?), I realized how much Munro’s Rose is like Hannah. Self-destructive, all her evil cards on the table, manipulative, immature, lacking self-confidence and self-esteem, and fascinated by the power she holds over her boyfriend/husband. Desiring to be dominated, but insisting on remaining indomitable.

I suppose it is Munro’s retrospective approach that casts Rose in a more sympathetic light, though if I remember from my most recent read, even in the later stories in the book, she never becomes wholly agreeable. Whereas the immediacy of Pountney’s narrative makes Hannah quite unbearable, and the third person narrative makes us witnesses to her blunders without the benefit of her perspective to cast the incident differently. Though the point is that Hannah doesn’t have this perspective, lacking as she is in self-awareness.

This all made me remember Kate Christensen’s comments about her novel In the Drink, which became marketed as “chick lit,” Christensen supposing all the while that she’d been, “consciously co-opting a predominantly male genre”. She explains, “I trace Claudia’s lineage through an august tradition of hard-drinking, self-destructive, hilarious anti-heroes beginning with Dostoevsky’s Underground Man and continuing through Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth, Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim, and David Gates’s Jernigan…”

As the chick lit it wasn’t, Christensen’s novel didn’t succeed, and reader responses reminded me of the criticisms of Pountney’s book. Claudia, like Hannah, fails to win our sympathy, and to many readers, that was all she wrote. But now I’m wondering if “loser lit” is an exclusively male domain; is co-opting impossible? Is sympathy required of female characters in a way it isn’t necessarily of males, or does it have to be won differently? Is sympathy a demand female readers make that male readers might not? Are these female characters unsympathetic in a different way than the males, rendering them fundamentally disagreeable as literary characters at all?

No answers of course, as it’s late and I’m tired. But I’m going to be thinking about unsympathetic heroes and heroines this next while, and looking into the different ways they’re constructed. Any of your comments would be most helpful, so do leave some.

January 10, 2009

Me in This

My article on fact, fiction, Jonathan Bennett’s Entitlement and Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife is in the January/February issue of This Magazine, which is on sale now.

Update: Online here.

January 10, 2009

"Someone almost always dies in the end"

I am excited about Roughing It In The Books, a reading project by Melanie Owen and Alexis Kienlen, who are each attempting to read the entire New Canadian Library. It’s easy to take the NCL for granted now, but when the series started 50 years ago, it was unprecedented and it remains important. Certainly Owen and Kienlen will need to blow the dust off some of the texts, and it’s not going to be easy, but they’ll surely find some treasure and some books are guaranteed to be a joy. I’m looking forward to reading along (albeit vicariously), and no doubt they’ll inspire me to pick up a book or two.

January 10, 2009

New (Canada Reads) Books!!

I really believe that Ben McNally couldn’t have picked a better location for his bookshop than right next door to the building where my husband works. And I am very grateful for a husband kind enough to pick up the Canada Reads stack on his lunch break, just because I can’t wait another day for them. Four new books (because I owned Mercy Among the Children already)!! A couple of which I’d never have picked up otherwise, due to a variety of literary prejudices that I’m pleased to be challenging in the coming weeks. And unlike my usual reviews (where I only write about the books I like enough to do so) I’ll be reading with a critical eye, and ranking these five picks to find a winner. Then I’m looking forward to seeing how my opinion compares to the official panelists’, and to opinion at large.

January 10, 2009

Bear With Me: Live!

At year ago I read actor/comedian Diane Flacks‘ book Bear With Me: What They Don’t Tell Your About Pregnancy and New Motherhood, and knew I was ready to have a baby because I’d read the whole book and still wanted one. Flacks’ book was hilarious, entertaining, well written and full of really practical advice that I’ve found useful already. My husband has since read (and enjoyed) the book, and I’ve recommended (and lent) it to friends. So how overjoyed was I to see that Bear With Me is now a play currently being performed (by Flacks) in Toronto? I’m looking forward to seeing it this month. Check out Flacks’ piece on her show in The Toronto Star.

January 9, 2009

Before you were born

“It was around here that I once said, ‘I used to work over there, before you were born.’
‘When I was a baby.’
‘No, before that. Before you were born.’
‘When I was just a teeny-tiny baby?’
‘No, before you were even here. Before you were in my tummy.’
‘I was…. Where.’
‘You were just a twinkle in your Daddy’s eye.’
‘I not a twinkle. I NOT a twinkle!!!’ And she started to kick and squawk. I suppose I did sound a bit smug; a little complacent about the idea that she was once non-existent. Too tough, really, for any age, but especially tough for two.” –Anne Enright, “Being Two” from Making Babies

January 9, 2009

Pickle Me This jumps on the Canada Reads bandwagon

I don’t usually jump on reading bandwagons, mostly because my tastes are so conventional, I’m more or less riding along already. But for some reason I feel the urge to read all the Canada Reads books this year, and the urge has come with enough time for me to actually get to it. So I’ll be buying the books this weekend, and am looking forward to new discoveries. Stay tuned for my reviews.

January 8, 2009

Links and birds

Now reading The Darren Effect by Libby Creelman, which is fabulous, and I’m right in the middle with no idea of what comes next. Maud Newton speculates about why copies of Lush Life (which I reviewed last month) are so hard to come by. Dovegreyreader encounters The Robber Bride. On the history of stenography (subscription required). Jon Evans wonders why he shouldn’t write about Africa, which led me to “How to Write About Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina. A short story by Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie. And more on used books.

I watched The Birds on the weekend, which is based on a short story by Daphne DuMaurier (whose Rebecca I so delighted in last year). I’ve not read the short story but checked out the plot synopsis and it seems as though the screenwriter really only used the premise– and yet… Though this is a full length film, it seemed undeniable that it’s source material was a short story. What we know of the characters and what happens to them is really not the point, rather the point is the moment (which is so incredibly terrifying, tacky special effects aside). So interesting to me how clearly the short storyness remained. I’ll have to read the story and see if it came about itself similarly.

January 7, 2009

The Hieroglyphic Streets

Marvelous blog find of today is The Hieroglyphic Streets, for biblio and actual travellers alike. The site gets points for its gorgeous pictures, thoughtful book selections, and excellent organization. How about Montreal, Budapest, North London, or Japan. Indeed, take me away…