November 10, 2006
When you're lost you can look
The Emperor’s Children is managing to absolutely delight me in places, however. When Julius goes temping, and also Danielle’s description of Eva Cassidy: “the posthumously celebrated folk-singing woman from Washington DC who had died of a melanoma in her early thirties, and whose tragic tale attracted Danielle more than her soft covers of familiar songs.”
November 10, 2006
The Great (fill in the blank) Novel
A novel is not just a novel, but rather the product of a nation. I’m no scholar, and I realize this idea is by no means original, but it fascinates me. After living abroad for three years, I lost the ability to read Canadian fiction, even though it was my home and native book. I couldn’t touch the stuff. I’d been reading nothing but British fiction for ages, and the CanLit seemed to miss the point of what I’d come to think a novel was supposed to do. I was missing the wit, the erudition. There were too many spirits in the trees. Etc. And even though I’ve got back into the CanLit groove, BritFic is still where I’m most at home. I require a dictionary by my side to read British fiction properly, and I’ve always got a stack of new words learned once I’m done.
I don’t read much American fiction, however. Not contemporary stuff at least, but when I do read it, the words I end up looking up always have to do with literary theory and are never quite as interesting to learn as the British words. So now I’m reading The Emperor’s Children, which I knew was American from the second I saw its size. I’m enjoying it, but it fits me awkwardly. Not just because it’s heavy. I think I’ll like it in the end, but I have to shift my brain around to make it work.
Novels from Australia or New Zealand read quite Britishly to me, but then turn out to be hung from their toes in certain places. You think you’re in London and then a wallaby darts across the road. It’s unnerving. And I struggle with novels in translation, as I think each writer approaches their work with their own culture’s understanding of what a novel is, and when I pick up that novel, I’m looking for something different. Japanese fiction absolutely mystifies me. Orhan Pamuk didn’t thrill me. Part of this is because I’m not that clever, and I read novels a bit cheaply. I find a novel is not really a novel unless its a novel to me.
November 10, 2006
Defeat
In which, after consulting the marvelous resource that is the UofT Graduate English ListServe, we conclude that there are no really good synonyms for “poisoner” in the English Language.
Update: I’ve got a tip (and it checks out at the source). “Venefica” is Latin for a female who poisons. It’s a bit too obscure for my uses, however.
November 9, 2006
echolocation at the Toronto Small Press Book Fair
echolocation will be at the Toronto Small Press Book Fair Saturday, November 11, 2006 at the Victory Café, 581 Markham St. with copies of issue 5, back issues and free bookmarks. The Fair runs on Saturday, November 11 and Sunday, November 12 (11am-5pm both days). There will also be readings Saturday evening, from 6 to 9 pm, at The Victory Café. For more information visit the Toronto Small Press Book Fair site.
November 9, 2006
Away away away
I just booked our tickets to England for June. We’re staying just a week and our trip is confined to The North (we’ll get to London next time I suppose) but I am thrilled and so excited. It promises to be an absolutely wonderful week of friends and family (and Bronwyn’s wedding). After a year and a half of immigration limbo and Stu being unable to leave the country, it feels awfully good to be free!
November 9, 2006
Book Spine P*rn
The Guardian Books Blog asks how do you organize your library? Mine is alphabetical, by author’s last name with no consideration to genre, save for my children’s books which have their own little shelf. And A begins at the bottom of my shelf, to make it less clear that my books are alphabetical and that I am obsessive compulsive regarding my library is not so immediately apparent. I like the patchwork that develops from alphabetical cataloguing, different sizes and colours blending together, and I could just stare at the spines. Actually, often I do. Rows of books might be one my favourite sights to see. Awhile back the Calhoun Tribune displayed photos of her library, and by the way I gazed at them, you woulda thought they were p*rn. Oh, book spine p*rn. Orange penguins are my favourites.
Life continues dully, as I spend whole days at my desk. I did, however, bake a loaf of whole wheat bread today and it was absolutely delicious. Monkey Beach was wonderful. Now rereading The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery, because I remember once reading that it was uncannily similar to Lady Oracle (recently read). And next up: The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud.
November 8, 2006
Ephemeron
I learned the word “ephemeron” today (plural “ephemera”), which I had assumed was a noun applied to something ephemeral, and though that is the case, it can specifically pertain to printed matter “of passing interest” like brochures and pamphlets. At our library, however, where I learned this word, ephemera are not so ephemeral as we’ve got them catalogued in our permanent collections. Which is sort of strange. Also important to note, ephemera are a kind of short-lived mayfly. Oh, the things that occupy my mind.
November 8, 2006
List Mongering
Now reading Monkey Beach, which I am just starting to get into. I also took Tristram Shandy out of the library, as I’ve never read it and from all accounts this has been a grave error on my part. I am going to try to read more classics, as I’m quite deficient in that department. I used the spreadsheet from this site to find out how many of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die I’ve read. 116 in case you wondered. My total would be shorter if the list was called 1001 Books You Didn’t Have to Read for Your BA, or 1001 Books You Read When You Didn’t Have Amnesia (hello The Body Artist by Don DeLillo which was bought and read at an airport in 2002 but disappeared into that black hole that was my life then). Lists are lame, but I like them. And what I’ve learned from this one is that I’ve got gaps to fill, and so classics it is. (thanks to this site for the link to the spreadsheet.)
November 8, 2006
Kicking legs and stop the presses!
I have developed an uncontrollable urge to go see The Radio City Christmas Spectacular at The Hummingbird Centre. To be confirmed, but still, how exciting! I haven’t seen a Christmas show since the Nottingham Panto in 2003 (starring Leslie Grantham, but I didn’t know who he was then).
The Gillers tonight! I still think I have a chance of winning this year. Controversy surrounding proofreading has been interesting. The Digested Read of Posh Spice’s latest book is funny. A new publisher at Walrus.
And Holy Shit! Stop the presses because Britney has filed for divorce!
November 5, 2006
Listening
I have no set opinions about the teaching of creative writing, but it is a debate that interests me and is worthwhile even without conclusions. Personally, I know it’s worked for me in some ways. I am definitely a better writer than I was a year ago, in terms of what I produce and how efficiently I do it, but I also find myself confused by so much feedback from all sides, and different advice that goes around telling us how it’s done. I think when one is reading about writing, it has to be kept in mind that no advice is surefire and that different things work for different people. It is helpful to read contradictory advice and figure out what works, picking and choosing from the pile. I have managed this pretty well, though it took awhile, but I am getting the hang of who I am as a writing creature.
What I am less sure of, however, is my relationship to my work. I still find myself following prescriptions about what fiction is and what I am permitted to do with it. I realize I am still early on in my apprenticeship, but still it bothers me that I don’t own my work yet. I write what I write, hoping that when I put it out to the world, someone will say “yes, that’s right” more than anything else. Which is crap. And that this is crap never occured to me until today. I realize I am never going to write anything terribly experimental and I think my speciality is stories rather than language, but I want those stories to be mine. I want someone to give me feedback and for me to be able to dismiss it, and not just out of fatigue or insult. I want everything in my work to function because I made it that way, and because it has to function that way. I want my work not to be eager to please, but still to please. I want to remain receptive to feedback, but I also want my work to be my own.
I was listening to that Creative Writing podcast a few weeks back, a writer saying she never showed anyone her work until she was ready to publish it, and I thought how much I could never do that because I don’t know anything, and my instincts are all wrong. This is a big problem with creative writing classes, and something I need to get over. My work suffered in the past, not because my instincts were so wrong but because I was not sufficiently engaged with what I was doing. I need to get inside my work more, take it back and get to know it so well. I need to be engaged with my work on a level I have never been before, on a level that is so demanding it’s nearly painful. Every single bit of my story and its entire container have to be so deliberate and meaningful. But the important thing I realized today is that if I have done these things, I can throw all the writing advice in the world out the window.
This is a revelation. It came upon me today as I was flipping through Francine Prose’s Mrs. Dalloway Reader. An essayist (I can’t remember which) wrote about how in Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf turned fiction on its head. She told rather than showed, and the pace was slow, and the story was cluttered etc etc but her book was magnificent. She wasn’t listening to anyone but herself, oh but she was listening to herself so intently. Do this.
This might not sound revelatory on a grand scale, but I suspect anyone who has been mired in the questions surrounding how to write a novel will understand the significance of the line I crossed today.
Note: I find it interesting that searching for “how to write a novel” on amazon comes up with a 1994 book called How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey! James N Frey, that is.
