July 16, 2008
With a brown cover
A google search that sounds like a long shot: i had a short story book when i was little im 23- with a brown cover- any ideas. They probably didn’t find it here.
July 14, 2008
Summer Fiction
One of my favourite events of summer: The Atlantic Fiction Issue is now out and about.
July 14, 2008
Bibliochaos
The scene at right indicates a house in chaos, indeed. The room where the books live is being painted (walls, trim and built-in shelving). It’s a big job, and so the books have sought safe harbour under the stairs (in alphabetized stacks, of course). So far I’ve not had to dig through in search of anything, though something will come up over the next few days, inevitably. The very best thing about the redec being that I’ll be able to post a picture of my library afterwards, which I haven’t done up until now because it was horrible.
This weekend was brilliant. We had four (4!) parties to attend, and were hosted marvelously, had such a wonderful time with friends. Today’s was even in suburbia, and we got to swim in a pool– such a treat. I’m now reading Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Home, about to curl up somewhere comfortable and read the very end. If this book is something you’ve been waiting for, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
July 12, 2008
The house on Jupiter Ave.
The house on Jupiter Ave. had been Wellwood’s, where he’d lived as a boy. Where he’d lived all his life and where he died, in fact, in a terrible plummet from near the top of a gable. Though what he’d been doing on the roof, no one was sure; Wellwood certainly had never climbed a ladder in his life, nor even been inspired to do so.
Afterwards Gardenia had racked her brain trying to figure it out, could she have somehow been responsible? There was no other reason Wellwood might have climbed onto the roof but to satisfy her wishes, for he would have done anything she’d asked him to do– the very point of Wellwood. Could she have mentioned a loose shingle flapping in passing? Or gingerbread trim that needed painting, or the tall tree requiring trimming to stop its limbs slap-slapping the windows at night?
July 9, 2008
Rereading Unless
“There you have it: stillness and power, sadness and recognition, contradictions and irrationality. Almost, you might say, the materials of a serious book.” –Carol Shields, Unless (from the last page).
I think this may be the sixth or seventh time I’ve reread Unless, and it was new to me all over again. This time because I read it in light of Carol Shields’ interview “Ideas of Goodness” from Eleanor Wachtel’s book Random Illuminations: Conversations with Carol Shields, which I received for Christmas this year. To gain insight into Shields’ own intentions with her book, her understanding of it. “I like to think of this book of these four little legs: this idea of mothers and children; the idea of writers and readers…; I wanted to talk about goodness; and then I wanted to talk about men and women– this gender issue, which interests me so much and has actually be a part of every book I’ve written. I think I’m always writing about this.”
Four legs indeed– as a result of the interview, I started noticing the chairs scattered throughout the text. The importance of sitting, being seated, rest. I’d never paid enough attention to this. The tricky thing about a book on many legs– just focusing on one of them, and assuming that’s all. And this book is tricky in particular– the story contradicting the themes, encompassing so many ideas. This is not a book that puts everything neatly in place. Which is part of the reason there is so much to discover, and I look forward to doing so year after year.
I was also thinking about the idea of what fiction is supposed to do. To challenge my world view, rather than reflecting it right back at me, and whatnot. When reflection is what Unless does, it does. It is reassurance, the articulation of my strongest feelings, but I’ve decided that I’ve entitled to this. Because, you see, the world itself doesn’t reflect my world view– the very point of Unless (or one of its many very points). And so when fiction can, at the very least, I will take solace where I find it.
July 8, 2008
Fits and starts
It’s been a strange day, and I’ve got stitches in my mouth. I’m also a bit doped up, and all of it has been sort of fascinating, however awful. That I’ve been bored, all afternoon. And I am never bored. I firmly believe that boredom is the jurisdiction of the lazy (or of those who forget to carry at book at all times). But this afternoon I’ve not been able to concentrate on very much, save the daring feats of squirrels outside my window, crossing and crisscrossing the street via tightrope power lines. That I’ve been unable to read very much at all, can you believe it. I was reading Marilynne Robinson before, but she requires more attention and care from her readers than I have energy to offer her now. I did listen to the podcast of Lorrie Moore reading her story “Paper Losses”, which is sort of wonderful, actually, as I can’t think of any other day in which I would have cleared the space. In fits and starts, I’ve been rereading Justine Picardie’s If the Spirit Moves You, which is just the ticket, I think, for my current state of mind. I also read another story today, which I hated– the danger of linking books and experience– mainly because I was taking out upon it my “mild discomfort”. But I’m also sure it sort of sucked. And the story will therefore remind me of excruciating pain as I long as I shall live.
I am turning my evening over to the benevolent force of the DVD.
July 8, 2008
Good Links
Links of late include “The Cattle-Prod Election” from The LRB: “This endless raft of educated opinion needs to be kept afloat on some data indicating that it matters what informed people say about politics, because it helps the voters to decide which way to jump. If you keep the polling sample sizes small enough, you can create the impression of a public willing to be moved by what other people are saying. That’s why the comment industry pays for this rubbish.”
Rona Maynard writing brilliantly of “The Hillary I’ll Be Watching”: “She has become in defeat the woman she could not be while her victory seemed inevitable, or at least dimly conceivable—a woman freely and fully herself while stretching the bounds of possibility before the assembled cameras of the entire world.”
Luckybeans visits a tea estate. Rebecca Rosenblum encounters a roadside box of mugs. Celebrating The London Review Bookshop (whose success is partly down to cake). Dovegreyreader ponders Canadian Literature (and “A Case of You”) from her Devonshire perch. Fascinatingly, on why you’re probably wrong about probability. Lately I’ve been reading and enjoying Antonia Zerbisias’s Broadsides Blog, and today in particular, her links to comedian Sarah Haskins’s Target Women videos– “Yogurt” is my favourite. Justine Picardie on Henrietta Llewelyn Davies, “a psychic astrologer with a literary client list, and an Oxford degree in English literature” and blood ties to Daphne Du Maurier to boot.
Speaking of yogourt, I just bought three tubs of the stuff. As well as pudding, soups, banana smoothie ingredients, apple sauce, vegetable juice, and ice cream. I’ve got the day off work tomorrow. Any idea what I’ll be getting up to hmmmm?
July 6, 2008
My weekend
…has been full of marvelous things, including bbqs, long walks and long bike rides, lingering mornings, wine and scrabble, hot dogs, Sunnyside Park, a patio lunch with a pint. But it all can be summed up as follows:
- Friday: One roasted marshmallow ice-cream cone from Gregs around the corner.
- Saturday: One lavender-blueberry ice-cream cone from Kensington Market Organics on Queen West.
- Sunday: One raspberry gelato in a cup from Bravo Gelato on Roncesvalles.
July 6, 2008
New Word
Discovered last night during Scrabble, in my ten year-old dictionary: “Internaut: slang. One who uses the internet.” Perhaps it still has to catch on… PS best word of the game was “Eunoia”, many thanks to Christian Bok.
