January 29, 2007
Woolf at Pratt
The EJ Pratt Library at Victoria College, University of Toronto (the library I like to call my own) is home to the renowned Bloomsbury & Hogarth Press Collection, which comprises (in part) The Virginia Woolf Collection. In honour of the 125th anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s birth, the library is currently featuring a mini-exhibition of some materials from the Woolf collection, from first editions to finger puppets, and there is some really great stuff to see if you’re in the neighbourhood.
January 29, 2007
Cell One
Speaking of Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “Cell One” is in the New Yorker this week and you can read it here. It’s wonderful.
January 29, 2007
Show and tell
Last week The Robber Bride TV movie was slagged off in the Globe, and I must voice my disagreement. The adaptation wasn’t flawless by any means, and I do wonder how the story was different for a man having joined the triumvirate which told so much about women’s relationships. Nevertheless. For two hours last Sunday night my husband and I sat together and thoroughly enjoyed a made-for-CBC movie and I consider this an unusual mark of great achievement.
Speaking of Ms. Atwood, her fine and illuminating piece in Saturday’s paper is here, regarding the federal government axing the promotion of Canadian arts abroad. Mix-Tape mania at The Observer. Today’s feature on violence in Nottingham (which was my home for a while) turns bookish in its reference to the 1958 novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe, and I’ve decided to read it soon. Q&A with the marvelous Sue Townsend. Canadians write great songs— Joni Mitchell in particular. Katrina Onstad concurs.
Why why why instead of actually governing has our government launched an idiotic attack upon its opposition? Please please please let’s not retaliate. Give Canadians some credit for intelligence, let this crap slide, and win favour with integrity and dignity.
Things Fall Apart was as powerful as they said. Oh my goodness the last chapter. And this book enlightened quite a few bits of the brilliant Half of a Yellow Sun.
Though the amazon link for this book is such a lesson in idiot reviewing. Can you imagine prefacing your review of a book like this with “As a writer myself…”? Some nerve. Virginia Woolf never even did that in her criticism, and unless you are Virginia Woolf, you probably shouldn’t either. (I googled said reviewer, and found a link to some of his “work” which was unsurprisingly a pile of crap.) Further, knocking Achebe for his failure to show instead of tell? Oh go puke on yourself. Really.
I’m beginning to sound irate. However it’s January, which is excuse enough, and I will be nicer tomorrow. Now I am going to read Rosemary’s Baby for a good dose of satnic action. Though if it tells instead of shows, I’m totally asking the public library for a refund.
January 28, 2007
Glimpses
There had to be something more than this, Gail knew. All around her, she was permitted glimpses of the most marvelous things— the tops of blooming gardens behind tall walls, a sudden pagoda in the midst of a residential block, orange fish swimming far below a layer of ice in the castle moat. A tall blue building the next street over, windowless and featureless, except for its shimmering neon sign. It was a pachinko parlour, Joe said, which was a gambling game, and if Gail ever walked by when someone was going in or out, she got a sense of the overwhelming light and sound inside until the doors shut again and that whole universe disappeared.
January 27, 2007
Dust…
Not just for fat fighting anymore.
Did you know that dust can now be used to fight global warming?
January 26, 2007
Notes on a Scandal
The Guardian Books Blog on books that make you talk to strangers. Whenever I see someone reading Unless, I want to tell them it’s my favourite book in all the world, though I don’t think I ever have. At my library job, however, I am compelled to let patrons know when I think the book they’ve selected is wonderful. And often lately, it has been Interpreter of Maladies or Small Island.
And books to read on trains. The great train reads of my life have been Slouching Towards Bethlehem on the shinkansen to Hiroshima; Various Miracles on the way to Osaka one afternoon (and I read the story “Scenes” whilst stopped at Amagasaki); when we lived in England, our train rides were usually passed with Sunday papers. And I don’t get to take the train anymore, but last year Sweetness in the Belly sure passed a bus journey from Toronto to Ottawa and back just fine.
An interview with Zoe Heller.
Now reading A Biographer’s Tale by AS Byatt, which was not well-regarded by the amazon reviewers, but I like it much so far. And the Public Library has called, with Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (we watched the movie last weekend; it was an obsession of mine in high school; I’m interested in the novel) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (my February classic). Once again, I suppose I can say I have all I need.
Except hair elastics. All of mine have disappeared.
January 26, 2007
Mmmm she says
President’s Choice Moroccan-Style Mint Green is the tea of choice of late.
January 25, 2007
I'm scared.
On my way through the Canadian Oxford Dictionary whilst searching for the exact definition of “eaves”, I note that in the entry under “Cummings”, Burton gets precedent over Edward Estlin (e.e.), which is very oh canada. And then I start to think about the Burton Cummings poetry I could recite in near-entirety (ie These Eyes, Share the Land, I’m Scared and Stand Tall etc.) vs what I know by e.e. (ie none) and I feel very very subeducated.
Upon investigation, I discover that Burton’s precedent is thanks to alphabetical order, and that biographical entries in the COD are not actually in order of greatness. Though perhaps the alphabet could be considered an order of greatness. I still like that Burton gets top billing though. And I wonder if he appears in any ODs outside of the C?
January 23, 2007
The Third Age
I was interested to see Margaret Drabble cited in the recent Macleans article “The 27 Year Itch” regarding late-life divorce for having coined the phrase “The Third Age” in her The Seven Sisters. On the digitalization of reading. Jenny Diski on compacting the classics, which is horrifyingly awful.
I’m now reading The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches to put a little Canadienne in my CanLit. And it’s wonderful. I came home from the library this morn also bearing Things Fall Apart and Youth.
January 23, 2007
In lieu of sensationalism.
Rather than religiously following Canada’s largest murder trial in all its grisly detail, may I suggest you instead read Missing Sarah by Maggie de Vries. I read this book last May, and it’s stayed with me since, and changed the way I think of both prostitution in general, and this court case. Maggie de Vries tells the story of her sister Sarah with such compassion and love, and instills her with the humanity she was so denied at the end of her life.
