March 25, 2008
Coming Home
I am now reading Salvage by Jane F. Kotapish, and I am totally hooked. Her language is mesmerizing, and the story is edge after edge.
And now living amongst gargantuan chaos, as perhaps two thirds of our apartment is packed up, and only a narrow path is cleared to walk from room to room. I keep thinking of new reasons to break into the boxes I sealed two weeks ago, and of new boxes to fill with things I’d forgotten we owned. I keep thinking of new things to own, and other things to shed. Of the light in my new kitchen, which I’ve only ever seen in February, and how they’ll get the sofa out the door.
I think about losing our big storage closet, and where will we store our baseball gloves now? The exposed brick and the fireplace, and the roof beams in our new bedroom. The ugly carpets, for which we’ve traded our hardwood, but then the Mexican tiles in the kitchen, the cupboards in the bathroom, the two decks, and the premise of laundry without coins or going out of doors. The “spare room” and “library” and that they’ll be one and the same doesn’t make me swoon about it any less.
And to be settled down again. This is how I function best, how I write best, and for the past month, we’ve been positively in-between. My brain moved out the day we gave notice, and I hope it’s packed somewhere too, in a box I’ve just forgotten to label. I’m looking forward to being home again, to the day the apartment stops smelling like someone else’s, to the familiar sound of rain on that roof, to the lazy easy light of Sunday morning. And not only to being home, but I’m looking forward to coming home, day after day. Counting the stairs, my key in the lock, somebody’s already put the kettle on to make a cup of tea.
March 21, 2008
The Letter Opener by Kyo Maclear
After nearly a week of reading through short zippy novels in a flash, there was something meditative about settling down with Kyo Maclear’s first novel The Letter Opener. It’s a slower read, rumination more than narration, quiet in its power, and subtly sharp.
With such an intriguing premise: Naiko works for Canada Post at their Undeliverable Mail Office. Her job is to direct items stranded in transit, where this is possible. Incorrectly addressed envelopes containing school photos, love letters, birthday money. And “the rubble”, items sprung loose from their packaging: “Lesser goods… Boy Scout badges, vacation photos, Magic Markers, teeth moulds. A medical X-ray. A book of Sufi poetry. A Leonard Cohen audio cassette. Nothing was too small to matter to someone, somewhere.”
This emphasis on things comes to link the story’s various threads: the strange disappearance of Naiko’s colleague Andrei, a Romanian refugee; Andrei’s own history and that of his mother, a Holocaust survivor; the story of Naiko’s fractured family, particularly her mother who is in the early stages of Alzeimers Disease; Naiko’s own problems with intimacy, as she navigates her relationship with boyfriend Paolo; even the end of the Cold War. Such a wide range of subject matter, some of it heavy and loaded, but Maclear uses these ideas effectively, in new and intriguing ways– her deftness with facts perhaps making clear her creative origins in non-fiction.
The narrative sounds crowded, but Maclear’s expansive prose creates the effect of ample space. The novel is also carefully structured to accommodate all these threads, which through Naiko’s own perspective are tied more tightly than they seem. And it is through this perspective that we come to understand a twist on the problem of materialism: not that our society cares too much about “things”, but rather we don’t care enough. How much we lose spiritually from failing to invest our objects with proper meaning, and how much we take for granted.
Though of course conclusions are not so straightforward as this– this is rumination after all. The Letter Opener is primarily the story of Naiko’s own self-discovery, as she realizes her constructions of others through their objects tells more about her own self than anybody else’s. And this story is fascinatingly beautiful, a satisfying read.
March 21, 2008
Shelf-pruning and undesirables
For spring’s sake, I’ve written about shelf-pruning and undesirables over at the Descant blog.
March 21, 2008
Immediately enthralling
My books are packed, though I’ve kept a few out to sustain me for the next while. One of which was The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing, which was recently cited by Globe Books as an essential read to understanding modern Zimbabwe. It was immediately enthralling. I also like that it’s an old orange Penguin, whose biographical note concludes with the fact Lessing has just finished a new novel called The Golden Notebook.
March 21, 2008
The Postal Phantoms I have known
I’ve just finished reading The Letter Opener by Kyo Maclear, which I have absolutely fallen in love with. I’ll fit in a review during my empty tomorrow, but at the moment I want to write a bit about something I read in the “PS…” section of the book (and may I point out how always interesting is the “PS content” in these books).
Maclear writes about the “postal phantom” at her house, the inspiration for her novel– “Mr. Szabo– a man who, for whatever reason, never got around to having his mail redirected.” And of course I know about postal phantoms, though I’d never considered them in such specific terms, never thought of these people as a collective, and it hadn’t occurred to me that such figures could even be given a name.
My postal phantoms as follows: there was Robin Stephenson, in my university apartment on Dundas Street. I can’t remember if it was her or a roommate that received Scientology paraphernalia, but Robin had forgotten to change her address when she finished university, and was always getting alumni notices from the U of T Geography Department.
No phantom, I believe, will ever be as prolific as Mrs. Sandra M. Spencer from our house in Nottingham. We’d suspected she’d died, as she’d left all her cake tins behind, and death is as good an excuse as any for leaving no forwarding address. She owed a ton of council tax, going back a few years, received regular notices for mammograms, and often was summoned to court to come and testify against her son. Note, we didn’t start opening the mail until about after a year, after we’d called the council to tell them she wasn’t there anymore, and they said they’d keep sending her bills anyway, because it was her last known address (which also goes part way towards explaining why there’s no longer a British Empire).
We received a lot of mail for the Moniz family here at our current address, as well for Amanda Hickman (who is on the list of numerous charities) and Michael Popowich (and in case he googles himself, Michael– McGill University is desperate to get in touch with you.) Each of these are characters, wholly present in their own peculiar contexts, which is their absence. And we practically know them, we do, though the foundation of this knowledge is the fact we never ever will.
Further, what about the bizarre idea that somewhere out there, somebody’s postal phantom is you.
March 21, 2008
Remembering Days
The book I’m reading at the moment, which I’m absolutely in love with, contains that quotation, “We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Which I don’t buy actually, and I never have, because like Albert from Behind the Scenes at the Museum, I “collect good days the way other people collected coins or sets of postcards.” I can remember so many glorious ones, right down to very details, and though today wasn’t exactly glorious, it was definitely very fine.
The finest thing about today being happiness arriving in the post the very week I decide to stop looking for it there. And isn’t there something about a surprise package when you’re expecting nothing? The surprise turned out to be from Sayaka (who has a blog, by the way). She’s our friend from Japan, she stayed with us for a few marvelous days last summer, and now she’s seen fit to surprise me with a gift that blends two of my favourite things: tea and Miffy. Indeed, I do miss living in a land where Miffy kitchenware was so easy to to come by, but it’s nice of Sayaka to ease my yearning. How positively splendid.
In other fortune, another friend gave us our wedding present a few weeks ago, nearly three years late but perfectly on time actually, as it was an HBC giftcard, and I have to buy wares for our new apartment. So I spent the early part of this evening buying new towels and bathroom accessories, and it was fun to spend spend spend (though not so fun to carry the bags home). And then I spent two hours with Rebecca, which is some of the best company I know.
The list goes on: that work has been good of late, but that today I left early, we move in a week and a half and a farmer’s market is starting up in our new neighbourhood, our Easter treats from our English Mum and Dad, going home for the weekend to the Canadian ones, that tomorrow we’re doing nothing at all, the stack of good books to be read, the one that I’m reading, that March sunshine, and that all I want at the moment is a cheese sandwich, and in a matter of moments I will have one.
March 20, 2008
Spring Watch 2008
Spotted this morning: Turdus migratorius, budding green shoots, and precipitation that wasn’t frozen.
March 19, 2008
How to be bad
So let’s begin with the assumption that the purpose of a book is to impart a lesson, though of course this isn’t something of which I am convinced. Children’s books in particular seem to have this expectation foisted upon them, which might be sensible for practical reasons (so much to learn, so little time, so might as well combine some tasks) but this still strikes me as a limited approach to reading (as well as a bit boring).
But what would happen if we approached adult fiction similarly? I believe it would underline the ridiculousness of what we expect kids to be reading, but it’s still interesting to think about. And for the sake of interestingness then, I will consider two books I read this weekend, both of which I enjoyed immensely: Paul Quarrington’s The Ravine, and Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy.
Such is the best thing about avid reading, I think– how one book after another can illuminate connections you mightn’t have thought of. Because otherwise, would I have noticed the similar tones of these novels? The identical aspirations of their protagonists, and the tendency of these protagonists to alienate those around them, to choose less effective means of communication, to be mean and often downright awful?
The last point being important as I consider one of Harriet’s few negative Amazon reviews: “Harriet is a mean-spirited little girl… We spent many sessions discussing what was wrong with Harriets positions and perspectives as we went through the book. She is compulsive and obsessive and is in serious grief over the loss of her nurse. These issues were completely glossed over.” From there this fair comment does descend into a bit of madness (“After reading this book, it is obvious to me why the 60s and 70s became a child-rearing society that created the greed, personal lack of accountability, and negativism in the young adults of the 80s, 90s, and new century”), but we won’t think about that part of the story right now…
Because it’s true, Harriet is mean. I don’t know that I would so pathologize her outbursts, but indeed even in all her spirit, she behaves in inappropriate ways. As does Quarrington’s Phil, whose name could be substituted for Harriet’s in a disapproving review of The Ravine. Now remember that we’re assuming the purpose of books is to impart lessons, so isn’t there still something we can learn from characters like these?
Because ideally we would like books to teach us and our children how to be good. But failing that (and inevitably so, I think) isn’t it actually as effective and more realistic for stories to teach us how to be bad? Or more specifically, to teach us how to be bad in the best way possible? Because for most people, badness is going to happen at some point.
Now Quarrington’s prescription is less clear than Harriet’s, whose nurse informs her: “1) You have to apologize 2) You have to lie”. Of course this statement is qualified, but it still strikes me as quite useful advice. Awkward to deal with in “sessions” discussing “glossed-over issues ” and “wrong perspectives” (gross), but realistic and helpful in so many ways. A lesson Phil McQuigge might have been well served by.
Still, what Harriet and Phil are doing is more complicated than what our amazon reviewer supposes. We’re to imagine being them, though we aren’t required to act on that. (Is it that children can’t be trusted to make this kind of distinction?) and this exercise is pointless if a character is morally unambiguous. To me reading has no lesson but this very act of imagining, but what a lesson is that, worlds colliding and all.
March 19, 2008
The best things
The best things I’ve found online of late are as follows: a link to a fabulous radio interview with Lois Lowry. Spitzer through the prism of fiction (via Kate). Rona Maynard’s considered response to The Sexual Paradox. The Orange Prize longlist. Smut of my youth: My Sweet Audrina reread. Anne Enright profiled.
March 19, 2008
Spring Resolutions
I love making resolutions in the spring– they’re so easy. It was this time last year when I vowed to become less of a miserable, venomous cowy bitch, and the new me caught on so well. But now I realize that I just had spring on my side, because I’ve well lapsed back into cowiness as this winter has progressed. So it had nothing much to do with will after all, though at least I have a forthcoming pleasant disposition to count on. Because my disposition has been quite unpleasant of late, due in part to a small run of disappointments. So small, of course– the kind I’m almost grateful for because I’m otherwise so lucky, and therefore can add to my “not likely to be hit by a bus” karma account. But only almost grateful– lately we’ve been doing melodramatic despair like a dance craze. Enough of that though. My resolution– stop seeking happiness in the postbox. And with spring around the corner, this one is sure to be a success.
