September 3, 2007
To be read
Just finished Mister Pip, and now on to October. In both books characters are reading Great Expectations. The universe appears to be sending up flares then, and I found a copy of Great Expectations at my mom’s. Officially to be read.
September 3, 2007
Why Dickens
“People sometimes ask ‘Why Dickens?,” which I always take to be a gentle rebuke. I point to the one book that supplied me with a friend at a time when it was desperately needed. It gave me a friend in Pip. It taught me you can slip under the skin of another just as easily as your own, even when that skin is white and belongs to a boy alive in Dickens’ England. Now if that isn’t an act of magic I don’t know what is.” From Lloyd Jones’s Mister Pip
September 3, 2007
Pickle Me This Plea
This upcoming weekend, Pickle Me This goes to Montreal! How exciting! One problem– Pickle Me This has never been to Montreal before. I do know that many of Pickle Me This’s readers are Montreal-aficiondos, however. Any chance you could offer your advice?
Whatever shall we do?
Wherever shall we go?
All suggestions welcome
in the comments box below.
August 31, 2007
The Source
Now reading the Man-Booker longlisted Mister Pip. DGR enjoyed it in July, and reviews have been rave. I am enjoying the story so far, and believe the rest will fulfill. It’s yet another book, however, that I am reading without knowledge of the source material– last, of course, was when I read The Seven Sisters without The Aeneid. Mister Pip, obviously, references Great Expectations, which I’ve never read. And so I suppose that now I have to…
August 30, 2007
If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar
Thrity Umrigar’s second novel If Today Be Sweet is a worthwhile read, in spite of its problems. Some passages are so beautifully written and suggest to me why her previous novel was so acclaimed. “There’s a limitless, undying love that does not confine, that does not imprison or hold back, but that dances ahead of you like a shimmering sprite, that entices, that beckons you until you follow…” I did enjoy reading about Sorab, the now-American son with India far behind him, and the way “he had longed for his life to be seamless”. However ultimately something was facile: the people too polite, the children too precocious, endings tied too neatly. Everything in these characters’ lives serves as a prompt to start them “marvelling about America”, whether it be good or bad, and the nuances of ordinary life go missing. The ending, also, was a bit implausible. But still, there was a bit of magic here. If Today Be Sweet was something of a pleasant read, though its reality was not all convincing.
August 29, 2007
Senseless destruction
Disemboweled remains of a book were spotted on the corner of Harbord and Spadina this morning, torn pages blowing in the breeze. A thorough investigation managed to retrieve the book’s title and copyright page at the scene, identifying said book as The Rise of the Canadian Newspaper by Douglas Fetherling, published in Toronto by Oxford University Press in 1990. Witnesses to the aftermath of this violence reported being “sickened” by the senseless destruction, the book evidently torn to pieces in a fit of rage, page by page stripped from the spine. Front and back covers could not be found. The Rise of the Canadian Newspaper will probably be missed by Neil Reynolds, to whom its dedication page was inscribed.
August 29, 2007
Incendiary vs. harmonic
Now reading If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar, the story of a Parsi woman from Bombay who must decide whether or not she should move to be with her son in America after the death of her husband. And it’s strange reading this, so soon after Digging to America by Anne Tyler, and not so long after Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake too. Of course I realize that a Parsi family, an Iranian family, and a Bengali family are each entirely separate entities, but what is interesting is the way that together these books might suggest otherwise, forming what seems to be a generic perspective of the American immigrant experience.
In each of these books a widowed woman somewhat acclimatized to America must approach it as someplace new following the loss of her husband. She must grapple with the American-ness of her beloved only son, and find her place within his family and his new life. Son must struggle between his mother and his wife, and their differing values. A grandchild will be the subject of misplaced adoration and expectations. The woman and her husband will have been upstanding, as immigrants themselves working hard and succeeding. Their son will live in an even nicer neighbourhood in Ohio, Baltimore or Massachusetts, and have two cars in the garage. He will sometimes question the American dream, and his mother will wonder if it was all worth it in the end.
The same-ness is phenomenal. Each of these stories has its own merit (and the Tyler and Lahiri in particular are amazing books), but it is almost as though American immigrant fiction has fallen into that proverbial melting pot.
Further, to compare it to the similar British literature I can think of off the top of my head– White Teeth and Brick Lane. These novels are so much more gritty and their narratives take such incendiary turns, in great contrast to the bird-chirping harmony almost audible in the American books. What does this tell us about each country then? Are the stories really so different, or is it just in how they’re told? Do these works function in respective British or American literary traditions?
I may have to sleep on this one. Or you could tell me?
August 28, 2007
Nothing on earth can equal
Curtis is moving to Ireland, and he wants us to come visit him. Last night he told us that in the new flat “we’ll have a spare bedroom”. And there was something in his “we”– I had to get down To the Lighthouse and get Virginia Woolf to explain:
“‘We went to look for Minta’s brooch,’ he said, sitting down by her. ‘We’ — that was enough. She knew from the effort, the rise his voice to surmount a difficult word that it was the first time he had said ‘we’. ‘We’ did this, ‘we’ did that. They’ll say that all their lives, she thought…”
It was the second time in the past while that I’ve needed Virginia Woolf to sum up love– in June, you might remember, I read this passage from The Voyage Out at Bronwyn’s wedding, and nothing has ever been more appropriate. And Mrs. Ramsay was able to describe what made Curtis’s “we” so significant, far more succinctly than I ever could have. I love the relevance of VW’s words, not long from a century after they were written. A room full of ordinary people, ordinary conversation on a Sunday night, and that Virginia Woolf mattered there. It surprises people, I think, what she knew about love. What she knew about joy.
What then, for the whole story? How do we reconcile that beautiful passage from The Voyage Out with what happened to Rachel? Paul Rayley’s “we” with what happened to “the Rayleys”? With what happened to Mrs. Ramsay? Should the inevitable darkness in Woolf’s work necessarily obliterate the light? I like to think not. Yes, Woolf is dangerous out of context, but there is nothing wrong with pushing the darkness back sometimes– this is what life is. This is what hope is.
Hope is moving away to Ireland on the trail of a girl, and even knowing what I know, twentieth century aside and all, I look forward to hearing Curtis say “we” all our lives. To Bronwyn and Alex, and the refreshingly solid ordinariness of their love, whose power can bring tears to my eyes. It is seeing the world all around us, and venturing forth anyway, and hope is, surely, as Woolf knew, a most heroic act.
August 28, 2007
Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls by Danielle Wood
It is written, in my rather crazed declaration in the post below, that my love for Danielle Wood’s Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls began at the first line. The first line? “The trouble with f*llatio, in my view, is its lack of onomatopoeia”. By all rights I could end this book review right now, but then that would be cheating.
I would like to take Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls and wave it in the faces of those who claim that fiction by women for women is stupid. I would like to take Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls and throw it in the faces of women who write stupid fiction for women, in an attempt to make them stop. Stop. Rosie Little is “the next Bridget Jones” for which we’ve been longing for ten years. But Danielle Wood is a sucessor to Helen Fielding only in that her writing is startlingly original, intelligent, honest, hilarious, sparkling, raw and full of life. Rosie Little Cautionary Tales for Girls is a successor to Bridget Jones only in that never has there been a book quite like this. If we must draw comparisons, may I suggest, somehow, Helen Fielding meets Sheila Heti?
A collection of short stories, but one which would convert even the short story’s most reluctant reader, Rosie Little is their teller. Sometimes she is the protagonist, elsewhere a bit character. In the stories where she does not appear at all, she interrupts in brief stops entitled “A Word from Rosie Little”, whether to quote “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in Latin, to expound on aqualine noses (see below), or just for a word on, hilariously, p*nises. Rosie is witty, well-read, wary of wolves but only after a fashion. She and her entourage learn the hard way, such is the way learning goes, and their stories are recounted less as a precautionary measure (for it is too late for most of us I think), but rather to put real life on display in all its absurdity.
The relentless drive of a bride on “her day” leads to considerable embarrassment in “Vision in White”. “Elephantiasis” tells the heartbreaking story of a reluctant collector of elephant knickknacks, and ends hilariously (though not for the character) with male strippers dancing to Henry Mancini. “The Anatomy of Wolves” about a woman who goes back to the man who hits her, and she goes back again. “Rosie Little in the Mother Country” about English pervs, and the impossible youngness of being abroad for the first time. Each of these stories stands up on its own, and yet together they make a collection which reads almost seamlessly.
Rosie Little is rare narrative voice: smart, literary, funny, naive. Her confidences win friends, and her cautionary tales underline universal experience. And somehow she doesn’t become confused with her author in the way you might imagine– Rosie remains distinct, vividly real in her fictional realm. In Rosie and her tales, Danielle Wood has created something incredibly important. Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls raises the standard for women’s fiction, establishing the presence of greatness, and so wouldn’t it be nice if readers refused to settle for less anymore?
August 28, 2007
Rosie Little blew my mind
(I will write a composed post in a moment, for now, can hysteria guide my way?)
Love at first line– that was all it took. And then Danielle Wood’s Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls managed to grow more fulfilling with every line that followed. I’ve absolutely fallen in love and so wholeheartedly. I will tell you, as it goes, that I thought I’d known love, but now I realize…. Oh but now…
Yesterday morning I sent out an Emergency Book Recommendation urging friends to obtain this book. When informed yesterday evening that a friend of mine had purchased it that afternoon, that I was responsible for just one copy of Rosie Little being sold was immensely gratifying. And my friend will like it. I can’t think of any youngish woman I know who wouldn’t (except the horrible ones, but even they might). I will become this book’s champion. You may receive it as a gift from me in the future, and you will not receive a gift receipt because I know that you most definitely will not need it.
Oh the perfect book– these come along so rarely. I kept waiting for Rosie Little to let me down, because there is no such thing as a free lunch or life isn’t fair, or other such pathetic reasons, but Rosie never faltered. Would it be way too ridiculous to say that RLCTFG blew my mind? Because after all when you begin with what appears to be the pinnacle of pleasure which only intensifies, isn’t that what happens?
Do you remember that first line to which I fell in love (and I will quote it in my review-to-come). From that to the last line? Particularly if you are me? “In a moment, I would take a bold and good-sized step, out into the woods again. But first, I would finish my tea.” Yes yes yes. I finished this book on my lunch break today and returned to my desk unable to function. Symptoms of this are lingering as this post probably makes clear.
The one problem with Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls is, interestingly, in regards to one of the coolest things about it– design. A little black hardcover with a red spine, polka dots and a red shoe on the cover, black endpapers and flyleaf, fairytale fonts. A bit of whimsy, like Rosie herself– small but fierece in mean red boots. Ingenius, I think, but then when I was at Book City on the weekend, I saw it on display beside the cash register with novelty books. I was aghast. Mean boots indeed, this book is substance incarnate. As its champion I may be forced to complain to store management, and really, at this point, I wouldn’t put it past me.
