October 5, 2007

Places to Go

Check out the fabulous promotional videos for Douglas Coupland’s new book The Gum Thief. Read Heather Mallick “perpetuating her own political views”, well according to one reader, though I thought, more importantly, that she’s written a great piece on language, in addition to any perpetuation– oh, but that an article can do two things! Take the Vanity Fair: Know Your Asshole Footprint quiz. Read Rona Maynard on Holden Caulfield. Jennifer Weiner, wonderfully, on talk in the blogosphere, and what woman are permitted to do, and be and look like.The Walrus loves Late Nights on Air as much as I did. (And how I am loving their new vamped-up books section this month).

October 4, 2007

More from Kate Grenville

“In the years after Lilian’s Story was published, our children Tom and Alice were born, and I added another mantra: Don’t wait for time to write. I learned to work in whatever slivers of time the day might give me– one of my favourite scenes in Joan Makes History was written in the car waiting to pick up Tom from a birthday party, on the only paper I could find, the inside of a Panadol packet. I had slivers of time, so I wrote in slivers of words: a page here, a paragraph there. Eventually the slivers would add up to something.” –Kate Grenville, from Search for the Secret River

October 4, 2007

So much history

“Was there so much history in Britain that it could be treated casually? There weren’t enough glass cases to hold it all”. –Kate Grenville, Search for the Secret River

October 3, 2007

An ideal marriage

An ideal marriage I have discovered, as indeed I am longing to get through the nonfiction books in my stack, but I can’t bear to give up lies for too long. So I am reading two books at once now, nonfiction complemented by a collection of short stories: the former being Kate Grenville’s Searching for the Secret River, and the latter is Jack Hodgins’ Damage Done by the Storm. Perfect! Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

Grenville’s book is wonderful so far, though I am approaching it from a strange place having never read The Secret River. It’s asking a lot of the same questions as Bernice Morgan’s novel Cloud of Bone, but from an Australian point of view, about remembering and forgetting, and the price we pay for either. Even some of the scenes are reminiscent, which is strange for two books of nonfiction and fiction respectively. And just getting into the Hodgins (one story before bed, you know). I’ve read his A Passion for Narrative before, and am excited to see his theory in action.

I have also become a compulsive squash buyer. Soon this will have to stop.

October 2, 2007

Alice I Think by Susan Juby

After much pondering, I’ve finally discovered it. Why will Lee Fiora never be Holden Caulfield? She’s got way too broad a perspective, that’s why. She tells her story in retrospect. She is absolutely aware of herself, which makes her story only ordinary. Holden Caulfield, on the other hand, has no idea (or control over) how he is seen by the outside world. He thinks he does– the guy’s got some kind of charisma, which is why you read Catcher in the Rye when you’re fourteen, and fall in love with him. But he’s really clueless, afterall, which is how he manages to break your heart fifteen years later. That he is so sad, and hurt, and young. Holden’s powerlessness is powerful, narratively speaking.

Susan Juby’s novel Alice I Think manages this very same power, which is the reason why this book was successful in its YA incarnation, and why it deserves the same success now that it’s been repackaged for grown-ups. Teenaged Alice has been traumatized by years of homeschooling, and is now about to be unleashed upon the real world. She has to deal with her embarrassing hippie parents, her complete lack of social skills, her counsellor’s demand that she compile life goals, and the fact of her small town of Smithers B.C. Admittedly, the premise sounds a bit formulaic, but it’s not, because nothing gets solved. Alice MacLeod is unforgiveably atrocious, in that horribly odious way only insecure teenagers are capable of. In the way that poor Holden Caulfield was, with a take-no-prisoners attitude that could be interpreted as “cool” only if you were his peer. Also similar to Holden, with a relationship with a younger sibling firmly establishing sympathy.

Alice, a diarist, is also much like Adrian Mole. I adore Adrian Mole, and wouldn’t make such a comparison lightly, which is not to say that what Juby has done here is not original. 25 years after the fact, in Smithers BC instead of Leicester, she wants to be a cultural critic instead of an intellectual, and Alice is most definitely her own person. But she is indeed a tribute to Mole, who, like Holden, changes as we do. (The diary format, with its immediacy and voice particularly lends itself to this solidification of perspective). All three of these characters are teenagers so horrible that their parents can hardly stand them, and that they are written in a way that they are simultaneously so loveable is really quite amazing.

Alice I Think is hilarious and well in tune with the zeitgeist for a novel depicting someone so far outside of it. Younger readers will identify with this “outsiderness” (a staple of young-adult novels after all), and older readers will view it in a clearer light– she’s so sure of herself, but of course she’s not. All ages will be amused though– I laughed out loud throughout. Juby is an excellent writer and her Alice a marvelous creation whose voice is all her own and never fails.

October 1, 2007

So many Penguins

Well, my fears were unwarranted. The Victoria College Books Sale had more than enough books for me and the WOTS crew. And there’s still more, and you can fill a box tomorrow morning for a tenner if you’re interested. But I am finished. From the top left: Forever by Judy Blume, so my future-children can have naughty books around the house appropriate to their age group; Volume Two of Woolf’s Diaries, as I’ve only read the last one so far; Penelope’s Way by Blanche Howard, who I’ve wanted to read since her letters were published last Spring; Larry’s Party by Carol Shields, which, though I can’t believe it, I’ve never read; The Tree of Life by Fredelle Bruser Maynard; Rose Macaulay’s The World my Wilderness; Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat; another Penelope Lively– Cleopatra’s Sister; The Penguin Encyclopedia of Places from 1965, purchased for charm and not currency; At Home in the World by Joyce Maynard, whose sister has already demonstrated that Maynards write good books; Woolf’s last novel Between the Acts; Look at Me by Anita Brookner; Dominick Dunne’s Another City, Not My Own, as we love his books at our house; Lessing’s The Golden Notebook even though Joan Didion doesn’t like it; Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis; two Graham Greenes– The Heart of the Matter, which I’ve read, and Brighton Rock, which I haven’t; Perfect Happiness by Penelope Lively; The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Beach Music by Pat Conroy, which my mom, sister and I love together, and my previous copy I left in Japan.

I am now, quite officially, overbooked.

September 30, 2007

No Nuit Blanche

Here is a photo of Stuart and I experiencing our urban landscape. Alas, we did not get to Nuit Blanche. On the way home from a brilliant night at Rebecca Rosenblum’s (with such good company as Chapati Kid), I shared public transportation with people going to Nuit Blanche, and their company made me want to go home to read. I’m glad I did.

And now we’ve just arrived home from The Word on the Street, which was a brilliant afternoon. I should have paid more attention to the scheduling though, instead of showing up blind, as I’m sure there was a lot of good programming I missed. Such as Elizabeth Hay, whose novel I finished Friday night and was the best book I’ve read this year. I could have heard her read! She could have signed book! I lined up at the author’s signing tent anyway, and told her how much I’d enjoyed her book. Managing not to be too much of a blathering idiot, which is sweet relief. Afterwards I also met the lovely Kim Jernigan of The New Quarterly, which was exciting. And finally to the main event, as Patricia Storms presented and read from her new book 13 Ghosts of Halloween. It was delightful. She was absolutely entertaining, the presentation was fabulous, we got hear her sing!, and after she signed my book. Plus I got to meet her, which was nice. I am an ever-adoring fan.

So a good day, in daylight. I freaked out though, about the proximity of The Vic Book Sale to The Word on the Street Crowd, and wondered if they’d leave anything for the rest of us tomorrow. And then I came to the conclusion, all on my own, that even if they didn’t, I have eight billions books of my own still to read, some of which I bought at the book sale last year, and a whole host of others on reserve at the library. Which I thought was very mature, and I deserved a pat on the back for. Whenever I refrain from childishness, I always feel this proud.

Today I picked up The Beatles Blue Album, which made me fall in love with them years ago, and I want to again. Now reading Alice I Think by Susan Juby, which is out in its own grown-up edition, and, really, it positively should be.

September 30, 2007

Resurrection

On Wednesday I found out that my next-door neighbour died– the man who’d helped us with our garden. I’d heard one of the kids who lived there talking about a hospital, and so I asked one of them what was wrong. “My grandfather is sick,” he told me. I asked him if he was all right, and the kid reported that he’d died this morning. And so I went in my house and cried, and Stuart was also sad, in his mannish-less-emotional way. All I could think of was my neighbour’s beautiful garden going untended, and that I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen him. That I would never see him again, and I kept looking out the window expecting to.

I baked a batch of muffins that night (actually two, as the first didn’t turn out) and took them over to their house, gave them to another grandson. In the morning I saw one of the man’s sons out in the backyard, aimlessly fidding with the garden, and I was thinking that this poor guy had just lost his dad, and I felt terrible. I went to work feeling just as bad, and as I got to feeling better as the day progressed, I felt guilty for my good humour. That life goes on, as it did.

It was strange then, this morning, to see the dead man from next door out working in that garden. Needless to say, we are considerably confused, and I keep dissolving into hysterical laughter. And I am also really quite embarrassed about the fact that I took them over a batch of muffins, and I wonder what they thought that was all about. Or what it truly was all about? I’m also worried that this may warp my conception of life and death, and that every time someone dies from now on I am going to expect this to happen.

Life is weird, particularly in my neighbourhood.

September 30, 2007

Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay

So often, unsurprisingly, we find ourselves employing metaphors of artistry when it comes to a well-crafted book. Writers “weave” narratives, “paint” images, and, yes “craft” at all. Similarly, I recently wrote about a book’s machinery. And all this is high praise, really, to liken a writer to an artisan. But then Elizabeth Hay’s Late Nights on Air manages to surmount such praise– “seamless” is the best crafting metaphor I can think of. This book feels too whole to have been created, too perfect. Late Nights on Air is an entity unto itself, its own world, and a truly magnificent literary achievement.

The story is set among a group of people working at a small Yellowknife radio station in 1975. Indeed this is the True North, but not like we might imagine: “It was north of the sixtieth parallel and shared in the romance of the North, emanating not mystery but uniqueness and not right away. It had no breathtaking scenery. No mountains, no glaciers, in the winter not even that much snow.” Sound, not sight, becomes the salient sense, which is natural with the radio, and Hay creates this effect beautifully. Admirably too, for it is hard to write sound. And not just those voices in the night, but also snow crunching underfoot, paddles in the water, crackling fires and birdsong. Truly, this is the most audible novel I have ever read.

The story, quite simply, tells what happens when a various group of people come together in this strange and isolated place. The enigmatic Dido, whose voice causes some people to fall in love with her, and whose presence does others. Harry Boyd, a washed-up has-been, managing the station as part of his demotion. Gwen, who is too young and arrives in town with a bruise on her throat. Eleanor Dew, the station receptionist, the steadying force. Relationships are entered in and out of, loyalties shift in surprising ways. Each of these characters come with their own unwavering backstories, and point-of-view shifts between them with such fluidity. Similarly the story moves back and forth in time in a way that feels only natural, demonstrating Hay’s remarkable skill without actually making us aware of her at all.

The final third of the book tells of a modified version of our original group heading out on a six week canoe trip through the barrens. Though the travellers are light-hearted in their preprarations, a sense of foreboding pervades and clearly something bad is going to happen. And though what does happen is as devastating as one might expect, I found myself quite impressed with how deftly this event had been established, with a lack of emotional manipulation or gratuitous sensation. Also with how rivetted I remained to the story as the group made way along their journey– I tend to like stories that happen in places, usually urban places, but so attached I was to these characters that my attention never faltered as they portaged and canoed for days, sometimes seeing no other living creature but a single ptarmigan or a caribou.

Such is the story then, though what’s it about? It’s about people, and all that their presence entails. It’s about love and longing, otherness and belonging, bookishness and radio, seasons and change. It’s about Canada, and universality, and goodness, and less-than goodness. It is also an absolutely beautifully designed book, and I’d encouraged you to pick it up in hardback if you could. A nice compact shape and gorgeous cover art. And what’s inside is stupendous. Such a fitting title as the narrative felt weightless, but yet simultaneously substantial. Reading was an absolute pleasure.

September 28, 2007

Packed

This weekend: I plan on checking a number of things off a list I should have done ages ago. In terms of fun, workshop reunion at RR’s. Nuit Blanche. The Victoria College Book Sale starts tonight (though I’m saving myself until Monday morning). You should check out the booksale– it’s right in the neighbourhood of Word on the Street, which I’m going to Sunday. Exciting! I went last year, but spent the day in a booth. This year I’ll get to browse. Will you be there too? Let me know, and I’ll come say hello to you.