May 23, 2007
During the journey
During the journey Patrick didn’t know if Katrina was asleep, and he didn’t want to ask in case he woke her, and so he sat beside her quietly, looking past her and out the window. Her chest was rising and falling, so Patrick knew that she was still alive. Outside, the city began to fade, and soon he could see the sky again. The buildings got lower, and farther apart, and the road grew wider. The bus picked up speed. It really was a lovely day, warm with a breeze. The sight of the blue sky from his window that morning had given Patrick his first inclination that maybe things would work out fine with all this. Katrina had agreed to go with him after all, which had to mean something. And now with not a single cloud in the sky, at least one thing was going his way, and Patrick glanced down at Katrina’s knees. Any knee was really quite a miraculous construction really, but Katrina’s in particular. Emerging so effortlessly from her thigh, her tanned skin pulled taut with some blonde hairs skimming the surface.
At work Katrina’s skirts usually fell below her knees, or else she wore pants. Patrick had never even imagined Katrina’s knees, either of them, though he’d thought plenty about the rest of her. He was well acquainted with her face, her defined collarbone, the shape of her breasts beneath her blouses and sweaters. With his eyes shut, Patrick knew her narrow shoulders, her arms right down to her slim wrists. He knew her body curved into her hips, and the swell of her backside. Those strong calves, leading tidily to her ankles. Though her feet were as unknown to him as her knees were, but Katrina’s feet, he could see now, were uncharacteristically ordinary. Her knees, on the other hand, were lovely, and he might have found an excuse to touch them. But then Katrina was either asleep or awake, and each state would have called for a different approach, and Patrick didn’t know which to choose.
May 22, 2007
Worrying
I mentioned that I recently unearthed the “novel” I wrote when I was eleven, and a big problem I am having with the novel I am reading at the moment is that it utilizes many of the same plot devices. And I was not a particularly prodigious eleven year old, no matter how hard I tried. Hmm.
May 21, 2007
Turkey Lurkey
We’ve had such a boring long weekend– splendidly boring! The sun shone every day and I finished reading two books, and read the newspaper, and magazines, wrote most of a story, and blogged-a-rama. I spent a lot of time supine, we let the house get filthy, the hours ticked by so slowly. Though I imagine we might have managed as much fun as this away at a cottage up north, at least we never had to sit in traffic. Wonderful Kensington shop on Saturday and empanadas for lunch. Yesterday we went shopping for shoes, purses, wraps, shirts and ties from Bronwyn’s wedding. I also spent $160 on make-up, which I think qualifies me as an officially grown-up woman, or at least a very stupid girl. A kind of strange indulgence, considering how often I wear make-up, but I suppose then it will last a long time. And I won’t ruin Bronwyn’s wedding photos with sallowness. Finally, today we went to Riverdale Farm with Jennie– our inaugural trip of the 2007 season. I do love that place, and we had a very lovely afternoon.
May 21, 2007
Interesting things included
Interesting things I read in newspapers this weekend included: a new anthology about fathers and daughters has this reviewer asking “Why do some writers treat the essay form like a therapy session instead of a piece of prose composed for a wider audience?” Which is the end too many anthologies have led me to, but then flipping through the original Dropped Threads the other day, I got the sense that the quality of essays contained there was much better. I could be wrong, didn’t read it so closely, but I wonder if that these essays were written before the craze of anthologies and creative-nonfiction means that they were less self-conscious, less prescribed. Now so many nonfiction essays appear to be based upon the same template, and so mediochre (remember the anthology that made me want to die?) Anyway.
I really loved Sheema Khan’s column this week, urging Muslim women to stand up against male domination. She closes with “Social injustices should be confronted head-on with spiritual conviction and the resolve to face stiff opposition. An echo from another era by a Canadian woman of faith, Nellie McClung, should inspire us: ‘Never retract, never explain, never apologize – get things done and let them howl.'”
A fascinating piece Post 9/11 Fiction. On gay lit, the biggest ghetto since “women’s fiction”. A blog entry on Zelda Fitzgerald (who I spent my late-teens absolutely obsessed with), but as always don’t bother with the comments (particularly the one in which the writer claims that F. Scott was not successful).
May 21, 2007
Today at College and Borden Streets
Normally I don’t condone graffiti, but I am a little bit sympathetic to the message being conveyed here.
May 21, 2007
Bang
I really should have known. The Girls came recommended by Patricia Storms, Richard and Judy, and everybody else in the whole wide world. If, like me, however, you were put off by all the hype, and by the prospect of a story about craniopagus twins, you really have been cheating yourself. Lori Lansens’ The Girls casts a perfect spell, expresses every lovely notion I’ve ever had about the world, and says so much about perspective, writing, and love. (Those of us who love Kate Atkinson will definitely find something to love here.)
I was under that perfect spell from the very start, probably due to Lansens’ dramatic beginning. A lot gets said about great opening lines, but what about great opening scenes? It’s actually the second chapter of The Girls: “A tornado touched down in Baldoon County on the day Ruby and I were born”. And Lansens’ describes the tornado with such energy, intricacy, and action, I could almost feel the wind. I was hooked from then on. It was the best story opening I’ve read since Arthur Seaton fell down a flight of stairs in the pub and puked all over a woman in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Since the moment of Ruby Lennox’s conception in Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Sometimes it pays to start with a bang.
Bookwise, what’s ahead? Cease to Blush and then The Children of Men (upon the recommendation of my husband!).
May 21, 2007
28 by Stephanie Nolen
The one thing of which I am certain is the power of story, and Stephanie Nolen’s 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa is a testament to this power. I’ve been reading this book for a few weeks now as it was too much to take in all at once. Not that it depressing, or overly bleak, but rather there is just so much here. Unsurprisingly, as each of Nolen’s 28 stories is to represent one million people in Africa with HIV/AIDS, a structure which does something toward making 28 million a comprehendable number– no small task. The subjects of these stories come from a variety of backgrounds, and their situations are different: the young Ethiopian girl whose parents have died of AIDS who supports her younger brother; the Congolese doctor who braves civil war violence to keep her clinic operating so patients can continue to receive their antiretroviral drugs; the South African activist who refused ARV drugs, coming close to death, until they were made widely available for those in his country who needed them; the twelve-year-old who began taking ARV drugs and became healthy for the first time in his life; the Ugandan doctor working toward an HIV vaccine; the HIV-immune prostitute who must work to support her family; she who wears the crown of Botswana’s Miss HIV Stigma-Free.
Stephanie Nolen is a phenomenal writer, as anyone would know who has read her work in The Globe and Mail. She allows her subjects dignity and writes with sympathy, making extraordinary stories out of ordinary lives. Nolen has been reporting on AIDS in Africa since the late 1990s, and is equipped with both knowledge and the skills to impart it. I found her introduction to this book fascinating, as I learned of the origins of AIDS in Africa, and how it spread. Nolen’s insight that, “The problem with HIV is that its transmission, in blood and sexual fluids and breast milk, preys on our most intimate moments,” seemed to me a wonderfully straightforward expression of so many complicated issues, and informed the way that I would read her book. And as much as 28 taught me about AIDS, it also showed me Africa: AIDS is the story, but in the background is political upheaval and Civil War in various countries; ordinary lives amidst all this, and in more peaceful places too; the societal constructs and family units. Nolen gives us many of the notorious stock-characters of the AIDS epidemic: the truckers, prostitutes, cheating husbands, betrayed wives. And these characters are never true to type, perhaps the very point. Their situations are far more complicated (and in some cases sensible, in their own contexts) than they are usually portrayed. And as readers, we come away with an understanding– the proof of stories’ power, and Nolen’s stories in particular.
May 20, 2007
Message to My Girl
In the midst of my recent personal Crowded House mania-reborn, I can’t stop listening to Split Enz “Message To My Girl”. Vid here. Oh, for the love of melody.
May 19, 2007
They know about love
“They know after all this time about love– that it’s dim and unreliable, and little more than a reflection on the wall. It is also capricious, idiotic, sentimental, imperfect, and inconstant, and most often seems to be the exclusive preserve of others. Sitting in a room that was slowly glowing dark, they found themselves wishing they could measure its pure anchoring force or account for its random visitations. Of course they could not– which was why, after a time, they began to talk about other things: the weather, would it snow, would the wind continue its bitter course, would the creek freeze over, would there be another power cut, what would happen during the night.” -Carol Shields, “Others”
May 19, 2007
Extra-Media Report
Though the book is my primary medium, I do branch out a bit from time to time. I try not to watch television, as I find it makes time go by too quickly. I allow myself one show a week, which used to be the gloriously awful CSI Miami, but I’ve quit that. There was something so terribly sadistic about it. And I’d fallen in love with Ugly Betty by then anyway. It’s a wonderful show– I like melodrama (if I wanted realism I’d go outside) but what kills melodrama every time is bad writing (hello CSI Miami). This is not the case with Ugly Betty, however, which is funny and poignant, and has brought tears to my eyes way more than once. And so this Thursday night we watched the season finale, which was so engaging I nearly had a heart attack. And then at the very end they tore my little heart right out, and I was absolutely gutted. I haven’t been this upset by a television death since Dennis died on EastEnders. Even so, I absolutely adore that show, and I can’t wait for the next season.
And now, musically speaking. Yesterday I was listening to BBC 6 Music when I heard the new Crowded House single. And surprised I was, for though I have long considered Crowded House one of my favourite bands, I don’t follow them too closely- particularly since they were broken up. But they are apparently back together, and have an album coming out this summer. Which thrills me. I really liked the single, and imagine the chance to see them live? And so that was all very exciting.
Now back to the bookish life.
