March 26, 2007
Straight back into the arms of a stranger
“Reading is usually thought of as a solitary act, although a reader in the act of reading is the opposite of self-absorbed. A reader journeys infinitely further from self than can be achieved in travelling across the globe or into space. A reader interrupted can be vague, disoriented; she has been returned abruptly, without benefit of decompression or debriefing, to one specific point in geography and time, from somewhere else altogehter. To admit to having been lost inside a book is not to resort to metaphor but to admit the turth. A reader reads blindly (even books that have been read before hold new directions and dimensions) and so must have confidence in the writer. Reading is like a game of trust in which one person falls straight back into the arms of a stranger whose job it is to catch the faller and hold her fast”. Anne Giardini, “Double Happiness”
March 26, 2007
Gleaned
A wonderful interview with Joan Didion as her book goes on stage. On that difficult first novel. An extract from the new Ian McEwan. Jane Austen gets a makeover— and reaction.
March 25, 2007
Tealish
Today we finally made it to Tealish. I’ve been interested in going for ages, but I never knew where it was. And then today we were down on Queen Street and there was a sign pointing toward it (on Walnut Avenue, just around the corner from Type Books). It was a superior tea experience, really, and the man behind the counter was so nice, helpful and full of tea saavy. We got a small bag of “Kiwi-licious Green”, as well as a tea ball (finally). We’ll definitely be going back again, to try their ice teas, and esp. chai lattes. Mmmm. Another good reason to trek down through Trinity Bellwoods Park.
March 25, 2007
My mom's literary hijinks (part II)
A new feature here at Pickle Me This. You might remember my mom met Z. Smith’s uncle a few months back. Well, she’s up to her old tricks again, stalking literary superstars and their kin. Though this time not kin. My mom went to see Ami McKay today (recently read), and she met a woman in the washroom who was holding a copy of The Birth House. My mom asked if she could sneak a peak at the book’s author photo because Ms. McKay was soon due to arrive and my mom wanted to know which one she was. To which the woman replied that it was perhaps too late for that, as she was Ami McKay. And she was!
(My mom reported that Ami McKay was beautiful, and that the rest of the event proceeded wonderfully, without further embarrassment).
March 25, 2007
Prairie Fiction should come with a warning label
I had book trauma this weekend. I don’t mean this lightly. As I have mentioned before, reading prairie fiction sends me into despair. Which I always forget about until I’ve nearly finished the book and am filled with deep sadness for the human condition. And I never stopped to think that Obasan is actually prairie fiction too, as well being, well, Obasan. Which, when read following my recent Burmese prison tale rendered the world pretty bleak. And the sky was the colour of paper, and I kept staring out the window pondering the meaning of it all. So in other words I was in dire need of a good slap, and around people far too kind to administer one. Luckily life got better.
First, I’m now reading Orphan Island by Rose Macaulay which is a delightful and interesting romp. You can read the 1925 review from Time Magazine here (ain’t the tinternet grand?) I’ve not read Macaulay’s novels before, though her Pleasure of Ruins is the most beautiful book I own, and I loved her essay on English “Catchwords and Claptrap” (which you can read here). I am reading this novel on the recommendation of Decca who acknowledged it in one of her letters as a favourite. It’s simply lovely.
And next up is The Post Birthday World by Lionel Shriver (who I hope to go see read at Harbourfront next week).
Second, I watched Stranger Than Fiction last night, and I can’t think of the last time I enjoyed a movie so much. And it’s a bookish film, but I watched it with two boys who are a little less bookish than I, and they liked it as much as I did. I found it purely enjoyable from start to finish, I didn’t get bored once, and part of the reason I was so engaged was I had no idea how the plot would sort itself out. But it did perfectly, and all of us were so engrossed in the story that when we feared one character would meet an untimely (or timely, in this case, I do suppose) demise, we were out of our minds with agony. And I like a movie that allows you to care so much. Lately we’ve renting movies last minute with little selection, and then yelling at the screen begging the characters to off themselves so we wouldn’t have to watch them any longer. So it was very nice to feel differently, and of course the bookishness was ace. Six thumbs up.
The sky is still the colour of paper, but my outlook has greatly improved.
March 25, 2007
The Robin Hood Archive
The project I mentioned in this post has nearly come to fruition, thanks to Stuart’s graphic design prowess.
March 24, 2007
Karma
The only problem with being fiction editor at echolocation is that sending out thirty rejections in an afternoon has got to bring you back some bad karma.
March 23, 2007
The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly
Like the books noted in the quotation below, Karen Connelly’s first novel The Lizard Cage is truly “full of the world.” Yet the story takes place in isolation from the world, within The Cage– a Burmese Prison where Teza (the Songbird) has been sentenced twenty years in solitary confinement for singing his protest songs. And it is Karen Connelly’s spectacular prose, empathy and descriptive eye which allow this story to contain the world. An award-winning writer of poetry and non-fiction, Connelly’s novel (new in paperback) incorporates her extraordinary use of language and her politics as she brings the plight of the Burmese people to life.
Much of this novel takes place within Teza’s cell, and after seven years in The Cage, he dreams of sky, of colour. He unwraps his cheroots so he can read the words printed on the scraps of the paper used to make the filters. Teza craves conversations, and thinks about his family, his girlfriend, and the life he had before. He meditates. He refuses to be broken. Teza sees the world as a poet sees it, as Karen Connelly must be able to see it in order to write it. Connelly’s descriptions find beauty in the most desolate places, rendering a cell a rich and vivid setting. And that Teza’s spirit cannot be harnessed threatens the authorities– at the prison, and in the wider world– but makes him an inspiration to those around him.
Much of Connelly’s writing has been concerned with her experiences in Asia, and she has plans to publish a non-fiction book about Burmese political prisoners (the most famous of whom is Aung San Suu Kyi). In The Lizard Cage as The Cage itself stands for Burma, Burma can stand for all countries in the world embroiled in civil war– the impossibility of the situation. Connelly displays an incredible empathy for all her characters, even those most atrocious. Which is not to say the bad guys don’t get their due (because she gives them their comeuppances marvelously) but as readers we are given an understanding of the “bad guys” too, which is essential. Multiple points of view are put to excellent use here. Connelly’s story is more complex than good and bad; of Teza and his prison guard it is acknowledged that “They are both caught and struggling”.
Connelly is writing about an intensely complicated situation with no easy solutions. In her acknowledgements she writes, “Someday the government of Burma will change…” and this simple hope can seem futile against reality. In the novel, this hope is symbolized by the character of the boy Nyi Lay (who is the subject of the post below). Connelly is not naive; her plot is often representative of actual injustice, but that Nyi Lay persists and triumphs seems to override all other hopelessness. Much as Teza could find the things of beauty within his solitary cell, so too do we seize the beauty and the hope Connelly so marvelously expresses against the brutality and corruption of capital-R Reality.
This novel is such a stunning achievement of fiction on its very own that we need not dwell on the feat Karen Connelly (a Canadian, and obviously a woman) achieves in inhabiting the character of a Burmese male political prisoner. Remarkable, no doubt, but her achievement is remarkable even without the backstory, and her truest achievement is creating a novel so truly beautiful out of some of the ugliest stuff the world has on offer.
If I had to say it in one word, I’d choose “exquisite”. This novel is one of my first Picks of the Year.
March 23, 2007
Full of the World
From The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly.
~His hard little hands hold a book– but never, ever upside down. Once he held a book upside down while reading and the warders made such fun of him that he retreated into his house in rage and didn’t go out to piss for hours. Now, by carefully examining the cover of the book and the first pages, he knows if the letters are right side up. On the threshold between his shack and the prison compound, the boy’s eyes maneuver over the page slowly, laboriously, like two ants carrying a piece of food many times their own size.
The candle gutters again on another draft of air, but the boy ignores it. He has a very important job to do now: reading. Letters make words and words tell stories. Books are full of silent stories. Chit Naing explained that to him too. It was the one thing he really understood, because the cage is full of storytellers, men talking all the time, telling their lives large and small about the time before the prison so they remember that world and the people Outside. That’s why prisoners and warders alike are hungry for books, these very ones, this wobbly altar of musty paperbacks. Without making a sound, they are full of the world.
The boy holds the book and believes it: I am reading I am reading~
March 23, 2007
Dreams
I implore you to read The Lizard Cage but you’d best not finish it right before bedtime, or your dreams will be strange. Mine certainly were. Otherwise, I have to cram some CanLit into my weekend as my TA office hours start next week and I’ll be marking the week after. I shall be reading Obasan and Elle. And now it’s totally spring, so we’ll spending this weekend throwing open the windows and roaming outdoors.
