November 12, 2006
Something wonderful
My favourite discovery of late is what happens when a spoonful of sugar lands in a mug of Rooibos Tea.
November 12, 2006
Nearest Thing to Heaven
My New York Minute continues with Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American Dreams by Mark Kingwell.
November 12, 2006
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
When I said that I read novels cheaply, what I meant was that I am usually more concerned with how it was to read a book than what the book stands up for once it’s done. I don’t mean that the latter is unimportant, or that I haven’t worked through my share of difficult novels in my time, but for me the optimum reading experience is for a book to be a pleasure. And really, The Emperor’s Children was.
I chose to read this book after reading this profile of Messud, whose work I’d never come across before. As I said previously, at 430 pages this book is not insubstantial, and I found it difficult to get into initially. Messud introduces each character and every room with an itemized description, which is disconcerting. If she’d been more brief, I could have filled in the blanks, but the paragraph-long listings of facial composition etc. I tended to gloss over. I said ick initally, or at least yawn. Encountering the main characters: three college friends now age thirty, pulling their lives together in New York City during the Spring of 2001. And I don’t know if Messud’s writing relaxed, or if I did, but I was hooked by page 100 and devastated that page 431 was blank.
What Messud manages to do so skillfully is demonstrate the sheer stupidity that was the summer of 2001. I remember: there was an environmental summit, and Chandra Levy. Messud’s character Danielle is producing a documentary about botched plastic surgery. Like Ian McEwan’s Saturday, Messud creates an incredible suspense from the quotidian, though of course in this book we know exactly which inevitable doom is headed. “Nobody could have foreseen this” someone comments, after September 11th and the twin towers have fallen. But of course as readers, we have foreseen it from the start.
A funny, satirical and intelligent novel that seems an encapsulation of the 1990s and a bit of a love letter to New York. Messud’s characters surprised me with their flaws and complexity, and also identifiability. I wanted to issue them a warning all the way through (“It’s behind you!”). Messud handles the terrorists attacks and their aftermath in a way that is neither overdone nor restrained. This is the first time I’ve encountered 9/11 in fiction, which was an eerie experience, and distanced the events from real life in a sense. Something I watched on real time (albeit on TV) stuck in a novel, which sort of made me feel like I’d just imagined it. But not really, of course, and this is a wonderful novel. Please note that it didn’t surprise me to learn that Messud considers Portrait of a Lady a formative read.
November 11, 2006
Lately
What I’ve learned lately includes Noel Gallagher, such a rockstar! Here for Hilary Mantel on Alice Munro’s new one. Though it’s quite last week, Philip Marchand thinks Toronto has no stories, or novels at least. And this wonderful obit of Alexander Graham Bell’s granddaughter, from last week’s Globe. Most significantly, and disturbingly, after four years together, my husband and I have only just learned that we know different versions of “I’m A Little Teapot”.
November 11, 2006
Loy Kratong
It was two years ago right now in Thailand that Stuart and I had the pleasure of befriending Carolyn (and here we are the morning after, at the airport in Chiang Mai). With great pleasure, last night we went out with Carolyn to Thai Basil to celebrate Loy Kratong for the third year in a row. An absolutely perfect meal and company just as good. Loy Kratong celebrations will continue on a more subdued level for the rest of the weekend, however, as I have so much work to do (and a Scrabble tourney tomorrow night!). Today’s exertion will involve a DVD rental at the most, I suppose. Oh, and The Emperor’s Children has of late become unputdownable.
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!
