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.
March 23, 2007
My non-response and my endorsement
I’m not going to respond to Orange Prize hoopla again, because I still feel the same way I felt last year and the year before. This year let me just say that I like anything that promotes good books, and as good books by women tend to be my favourite kinds, this list is usually the one I like best. The longlist is a brilliant selection of books to be read and three I’ve read already that wholly deserve to be included.
I’ve read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngochie Adichie, Alligator by Lisa Moore, and Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert. Each was extraordinary in its own way, I loved the first and third the best, and I am totally putting my bets on Adichie. If the right people her book, I think it could change the world.
March 20, 2007
Painting a map with stories
I’ve been looking forward to reading The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly ever since I heard her read last year at the Kama Reading Series. Never have I hung so close to the edge of my seat just by listening to a story; the tension in that room was palpable. And so I’ve started the novel, and I’m enjoying it. And I am also looking forward to learning more about Burma. I love the way that fiction paints a map with stories, and that when I’m finished with this book, Burma will no longer be just space to me.
Karen Connelly has a beautiful website here.
March 20, 2007
Reality is Ralph
From Lisey’s Story by Stephen King:
~He didn’t even plan his books, as complex as some of them were. Plotting them, he said, would take out all the fun. He claimed that for him, writing a book was like finding a brilliantly coloured string in the grass and following it to see where it might lead. Sometimes the string broke and left you with nothing. But sometimes– if you were lucky, if you were brave, if you perservered– it brought you to a treasure. And the treasure was never the money you got for the book; the treasure was the book.~
March 19, 2007
Soporific Reads returns!
Pickle Me This devotees will be glad to see the return of an old favourite feature. Last year I worked at the library in the afternoons and kept track of books clutched by snoring undergraduates. This year I work the morning shift and there are far fewer sleepers (I suspect they stay in bed instead) but today I spotted one!
The first soporific read in ages: a young girl dreaming away to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
March 19, 2007
Living Properly
The more I think about About Alice by Calvin Trillin, I realize this tiny memoir is actually a guide to living properly. Seriously, lately I’ve found myself thinking, “What would Alice do?” in a variety of situations. I have a hunch I may be better for it.
