April 9, 2007
The perils of mimeograph
I am sure that I too once began essays with sweeping statements like “All societies since the dawn of time have had to struggle for identity, much in the same way that Canada struggles to define itself in Barometre Rising“. Therefore I will not roll my eyes too high. I will, however, take a quick break from marking to direct your attention toward two great pieces on personal expression and the internet.
Brilliant Globe and Mail columnist Ivor Tossell on the illusion of on-line privacy. The just-as-brilliant Heather Mallick takes the point further here. She writes of comments (moderated or otherwise) tacked onto articles in The Guardian (and the Globe has them too), asking: “Why should everyone have a voice? They don’t in daily life. There are some people you wouldn’t sit next to on the bus. Online, clever and perhaps sensitive letter writers with an actual point to make are driven away by the ignorance and sheer hatred displayed by the other posters.”
She’s right, for example check out the comments on Ivor’s article, like that charmer who says “rotten things online” just “to get everything thinking”. Thanks pal. Or the one who uses the term “techno weenie”. Oh my. If you judged our international IQ by the amount of rage expressed in these idiotic comments, I think that we could all be geniuses.
April 8, 2007
Woke up this morning feeling fine
Japan was in the news last week, mostly unfortunately through this murder which has been sensationalized by the red-tops in Britain. I appreciated measured responses to the hype here inThe Times. (Judging from reader comments, clearly not everyone appreciated the first article as much as I did. The venom it unleashed was sort of baffling, but then a lot of people don’t like to call racism by its name). More positively, Top Ten Books Set in Japan by Fiona Campbell who has just published Death of a Salaryman. (Incidentally, I’ve only read number 10 but plan to read Kitchen someday soon.)
Lionel Shriver happily reviews Nora Ephron. I want to read Julie Burchill’s book on Brighton. Rounding up responses to Didion on stage. This review makes me so excited to read the new McEwan. I love this: Sunday Morning Music.
Now rereading The Realms of Gold by Margaret Drabble, for kicks.
I’ve marked thirty essays, and as I’ve only done four and three today and yesterday, the weekend has contained some aspects of nice. Yesterday we partook in lattes over the paper in Kensington, and today we ate our delightful M&S Easter Treats from England. But otherwise, yes, not much has occurred. Life continues on hold. The notable event of the weekend continues to be that I brought a very large object into our home, oh and mustn’t forget the startling revelation (to the sound of Herman’s Hermits) that I dance like my dad.
April 8, 2007
Certainty by Madeleine Thien
I adored Certainty, the beautiful and thoughtful debut novel by Madeleine Thien (new in paperback). There is something masterful about her seamless weaving of ideas and narratives into this remarkable whole. This story is a careful balance between the possibility of certainty and the probability of chaos.
Certainty is constructed upon ideas: page eleven, and already, we’re considering the history of the mind. Further, we find references to genetics and empathy, to fractals, pulmonology. “The snowflake is the perfect example of sensitive dependence on initial conditions”. These facts and ideas inform the novel, and fill it with the world. Certainty borrows from the post-modern in terms of structure, but then an ultimate sense of wholeness places the novel beyond that tradition.
Thien explores the nature of grief, but more often Certainty is concerned with the nature of love. And the nature of time, of course, as history is what ties the various pieces of this narrative together. Told from at least six points of view, spanning more than half a century and four continents, somehow Thien can invest such vastness with careful meaning and gorgeous language. She writes, “Knowing another is a kind of belief, an act of faith.”
Thien’s novel resists convention. Gail, the character most central to her plot, is deceased before the book begins. Her partner Ansel, and her parents Clara and Matthew are dealing with their grief. Chronology is spurned, as the book’s next section (from Matthew’s point of view) takes us to Borneo in 1945. Later we will discover Clara’s story, more from Ansel, the mysterious role of Ani in Matthew’s past, and toward the end of the book Gail is “resurrected” in a sense, to de-cipher her own character and offer some answers.
Though of course none of these parts gives too much away on their own. Each fits together like a puzzle, and ultimately it is the sum of these stories which provides the “certainty” amidst uncertainty: meaning is evident, and beauty abounds.
(I enjoyed this profile of Thien very much.)
April 7, 2007
Yolk
Busy week here at Pickle Me This. 23 essays down, and I am pretty deranged. Life is dullsville at the moment as marking is almost all. This Easter weekend will be a fairly lacklustre affair, unfortunately. And the weather is absolute garbage. Which I guess is not the worst seeing as I have to spend most of it indoors.
I went to see Lionel Shriver and Jacqueline Baker read on Wednesday. I am looking forward to reading Baker’s novel soon, and Lionel Shriver was so terribly nice and thoughtful toward those of us who approached her to get our books signed. She read with such authority, and I think she’s such a fascinating woman. She reported being interested in depictions of contentment, and how such portrayals are received as “boring”. She said she was going to making a point of reading us the “boring bits” of her novel that evening, and they were wonderful.
April 7, 2007
A large item
Stuart is not convinced but I think it’s the best thing ever. We found this vintage wardrobe trunk out on the curb tonight bearing a sign that said “Free- Take Me”. And so we did, and it’s lovely. It came with little keys for the lockable compartments, and is in fine condition. The trunk bears old stickers from passage to Glasgow, and all the latches work. It doesn’t smell, which is always important. I will admit we have no need for it and no place to put it, but it just seemed too perfect to walk past. And I am reasonably sure I won’t come to regret carrying it up the stairs and into our apartment. One day we’ll know we needed it. I do have much pity, however, for whoever had to lug it around when it actually contained things. I will not be taking this piece of luggage abroad anytime soon.
April 4, 2007
Blurb Fun
The Quill and Quire blog puts Rebecca Eckler’s blurbs in their proper contexts with illuminating results. Oh, what a mighty weapon is the truth.
April 4, 2007
Sophisticate
Along the lines of childishness, I continue with my “boys adventure story” Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. I am reading it based upon Hilary Mantel’s recommendation in her top ten favourite books listed in the back of Giving Up the Ghost, and I do like those lists. They’re recommendations from individuals I trust and respect, and I am glad to have my horizons thus broadened.
And so Kidnapped. This wonderful article from November 2005 quotes Mantel on how the book was formative for her as a reader and a writer. She identified with David Balfour as an outsider in a wild country. A great quote: “She dislikes it being said that she “escaped” into books. “When you read a novel or a play, it enlarges your own psychological repertoire. You see more choices that can be made. So it seems to me that by reading when you’re young, you sophisticate yourself.”
April 4, 2007
As it is
3 undergradate essays marked, 72 to go. I expect to spend the next two weeks delirious and snacking. In Pickle Me This update news, I’ve elected to return in May to my summer job from last year, because I decided I would have a better summer working and monied than one spent idle and poor. And I’ll surely have lots of chance to be idle and poor once summer’s over. The only bad thing about this is that I am turning 28 this summer, and getting really old to have a “summer job”. This is, however, the last summer job I’ll ever have. Which is something I’ve said so many times before. Oh adulthood, how you continue to elude me…
April 2, 2007
Now reading
Now reading: Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, my April classic. Next up is Certainty by Madeleine Thien. And I’m looking forward to hearing Jacqueline Baker and Lionel Shriver read at Harbourfront on Wednesday.
April 2, 2007
Carry my desk
Thesis=Submitted. Which feels much less exciting than it is. I have this evening for a breath of fresh air before tomorrow when 75 undergraduate papers to-be-marked enter my life, and then after that I have to find a job. But in the meantime, this evening at least.
I am so grateful to my friends Jennie, Britt and Bronwyn, as well as my husb Stuart, each of whom read through the whole thing during the last two weeks and alerted me to copy errors so numerous I am ashamed of myself. They are acknowledged in my acknowledgments, of course. And the book itself is dedicated to Stuart, naturally, reading, “This story is for Stuart, who carried my desk home on his bicycle.” True story.
Once upon a time Stuart and I lived in a one-roomed box. This was not the first place we’d lived together, of course. Previously we’d spent six months sleeping on an inflatable mattress in a ramshackle house with holes in the roof. The box felt like luxury in comparison, and we were very happy there. Sunshine came through that window absolutely beautifully. And one day I set my sights upon a desk. A desk which we had no room for, but I needed a space to sit and write all the same. Such space doesn’t come easy when you live in a box. And so Stuart agreed, and we bought a little desk at Muji. A little desk that weighed a tonne, and we didn’t have a car. We lived about a half hour walk from the city centre, and my clever husband devised a method wherin the desk was balanced on the seat and handlebars of his bike, which worked perfectly unless we weren’t going straight. But it was certainly better than I could have done, and I admired his might all the home, walking my pink bicycle beside his blue one. And the desk just fit, under the ladder up to our sleeping loft. And it was there where I learned how to sit down and write, which is 75% of everything. And it was then when I realized that here was a boy who would do anything to support me, and that I was tremendously lucky.
