October 10, 2006
Shore Tweak
Now rereading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (for school), and enjoying it as I always enjoy meeting Atwood’s work again. It changes just as I do. Coming up is Blue Angel by Francine Prose, because I am fond of fictional creative writing workshops (as in Mean Boy and Finishing School).
Fabulous pieces by writers I admire: Lionel Shriver on on the weirdness of Christ-loving teens; Heather Mallick from an atheist’s point of view; and Ms. Mallick again with a kick in the pants for women, feminist and otherwise. Lynn Crosbie on a certain lack of puissance in the pro-choice movement. The Booker Prize is awarded to Kiran Desai. All the nominees digested. On Hungarian cinema. Penelope Lively likes the new Mary Lawson in The Guardian. Jenny Diski has a blog. Apparently, only one of the ten best British novels of the past 25 years were written by women.
October 9, 2006
Autumnally Brazen
We’ve had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Peterborough. We baked three apple pies, ate too much turkey, saw friends oldest and bestest, drank too much wine, felt sick, went for a drive, went for a walk, enjoyed the sunshine, enjoyed my mom, and spent a weekend that isn’t even finished yet.
October 6, 2006
Nigel and the Greatest Canadian Hero
Nigel somersaulted into the world and sniffed. Peering out from under an earlobe, the female body figured below him such a substandard vessel for an imp. For the next thirteen years, Nigel’s abilities were utterly wasted as he grew fat and mired in colonial domesticity, all the while he could have been hanging from the ear of a warrior, whispering the way to victory.
The War of 1812 was no reprieve from drudgery. The woman’s world was far from the battlefield, and after her husband was injured at Queenston Heights, her life became even duller, devoted to his care. When the Americans took Queenston in 1813, Nigel’s impotence breezed up around him like a stink as the woman waited on American soldiers billeted in her home and Nigel, locked to her lobe, was forced to bear witness to every blue coat dragged across the washboard, each pot of enemy sustenance boiling on the stove.
One morning, the woman cooked breakfast, Nigel hammocked in her hair, lulled by her stirring the oatmeal. The soldiers at the table behind her.
“We’ll leave tonight and be at Beaver Dams by morning,” one said.
“Victory will secure our control of the Niagara Peninsula,” said another.
“Fitzgibbon won’t be expecting us,” said the soldier beside him. “The element of surprise should win us advantage.”
Listening, Nigel’s languid heart jolted back to life and he couldn’t help himself. Nigel bit the woman’s neck, and she started. Reached up and rubbed where his teeth had been. But still, she stirred; she didn’t even raise her head. And so Nigel swung up from her lobe and hung from the helix.
“You’ve got to warn the British of the attack,” he said in his loudest voice, which was a murmur in the back of her mind.
The woman stirred on.
Nigel said, “The fate of British North America rests with you.”
The woman showed no sign of hearing. A soldier belched behind her.
Nigel said, “Never has King and Country required your service more.”
The oatmeal came to a boil, and the woman spooned out three bowls for the soldiers and another for her husband, convalescing upstairs. She served the men, and went to her husband, placed the steaming bowl beside him and kissed his sleeping forehead.
“There isn’t time to linger,” said Nigel, who was practicing back flips from the top of her ear, returning strength to his arms. It had been years since he’d felt so limber.
From the pantry, the woman packed five apples and a jar of pickles. The soldiers were shaving at the table with axes and they looked up when she came into the kitchen wearing her shawl.
“You’ve got to quell their suspicions,” said Nigel. “Tell them…”
But the woman needed no prompting. “I’m taking the big cow to sell in town. You’ll have to get your own supper tonight,” she said. She was already out the kitchen door, and toward the barn. She tied a rope around the cow and led it down the path, out the gate.
Pulsing with duty and the swiftness of the woman’s pace, Nigel hung on tight. For 32 kilometers, he travelled, tucked into her ear. Rain came midmorning and Nigel watched the torrent from his shelter, the woman’s hair wet to strings and her shawl soaked through. She walked along the Niagara Escarpment through St. David’s, Homer, St. Catharines and Short Hills, crossing field and bog between the towns. The woman ate pickles and fed apples to the cow. The cow walked with brambles and burrs stuck to its coat. The road stretched long before them and the woman’s boots squelched. Nigel glanced down at her face, freckled with mud. Her hands were raw and bleeding from the cow’s rope on her palms. At any moment, he feared she would turn around for home, which would be agony when, for the first time in this life, Nigel could foresee a finer fate than reincarnation.
Eventually, they blazed upon a group of Native warriors, camped in a clearing. The woman showed no sign of shrinking in their presence.
“Can you take me to Fitzgibbon?” she asked, her strong voice surprising after hours of silence.
The men eyed her carefully. Nigel rubbed his little hands together, hoping the friction would free the electricity compounding in his body.
“I have a message for Fitzgibbon,” said the woman. She touched her ear, and Nigel kissed the tip of her index finger.
When the men were convinced she was serious, they consented to lead her to the Lieutenant.
And so the journey continued. The weather had settled, but the cow was tired and Nigel ached from the bumps in the road. When they reached their destination, the woman tied her cow up, and Lieutenant Fitzgibbon came outside to meet the curious crew.
“I have come to warn you,” said the woman, mud dripping from her eyelashes. “The Americans are planning an attack on Beaver Dams in the morning.”
“Are you certain, Mrs.—?” And the Lieutenant stopped.
“Mrs. Secord, Sir,” said the woman. “Mrs. Laura Secord. In my kitchen back in Queenston, Sir. I heard them with my own ears. I am very certain.”
Fitzgibbon believed her. Nigel turned a back flip and punched the air. They took their leave soon after, leaving the Lieutenant to his preparation. With an attack to counter in just a matter of hours, he would not be sleeping that night. The woman and her cow walked until nightfall, tracing their arduous path toward home, where her husband was waiting, and where the soldiers had vacated, unaware that their battle was already lost.
The Americans were defeated at Beaver Dams in the morning, losing their hold in Upper Canada. Laura Secord lived for another 45 years, before being rewarded a mere one hundred pounds by the Prince of Wales. And Nigel, having inspired enough heroism for one lifetime, was somersaulted somewhere altogether new.
October 6, 2006
The Creation
I suppose my interest in scientific literature had something to do with my husband’s B.Sc., but I mark the start of its development with the story “Miss Ormerod” by Virginia Woolf, from The Common Reader Vol. 1.. “Miss Ormerod” was 19th Century British entomologist Eleanor Ormerod and Woolf’s fictionalized biography demonstrated to me how well a passion for science translates into good literature. Fortuitously, I was signed up for a course called “Literature and the Environment” the next term, and I went on to read such works as Walden, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Servants of the Map, and last summer I read The Selfish Gene and Silent Spring. Last night I finished reading The Creation* by Edward O Wilson and it’s my favourite piece of SciLit yet.
The Creation is written as a letter to Southern Baptist Preacher, pleading not for common ground, but for a common cause: The Stewardship of Creation. The situation is dire, Wilson admits in gorgeous prose, but it is not too late, and he goes on to state his case in chapters including “Ascending to Nature”, “Exploration of a Little-Known Planet”, “How to Learn Biology and How to Teach it”, “How to Raise a Naturalist” and finally, “An Alliance for Life”.
Like Ormerod, Wilson is an entomologist and magnifies the amazing world of insects, this “microwilderness”. All living ants (there may be 10 thousand trillion) weigh as much as the Earth’s population of human beings. That there are more bacteria cells in our bodies than our own cells, and by some perspectives we could be seen as solely their vessals. He writes, “Each species is a small universe in itself, from its genetic code to its anatomy, behaviour, life cycle, and environmental role, and a self-perpetuating system created during an almost unimaginably complicated evolutionary history. Each species merits careers of scientific study and celebration by historians and poets. Nothing of that kind could be said for each proton or hydrogen atom. That, in a nutshell Pastor, is the compelling moral argument from science for saving Creation”. (123)
*Wilson is listed as “E Wilson” on the amazon listing, which means he is not linked to his myriad other works, which appear as authored by “Edward O Wilson”
October 5, 2006
Margaret Atwood
Atwood is a polarizing force. Heather Mallick says that disliking her is an act of misogynism. I’m not sure I agree, but many people dislike her rather senselessly.
When The Guardian Books did a feature on Canadian fiction in which readers submitted their CanLit suggestions, the number of Canadians who responded solely to rubbish Atwood was quite astounding, most of them beginning their comments with “I’ve only read The Handmaid’s Tale, but…”
When The Globe ran a Margaret Atwood interview a few months back, I was fascinated to see the comments readers left (how much I detest readers’ comments on online newspapers is another story), admittedly mostly from men, glibly wanking something like “Yawn, Atwood, stupid b*tch, can’t write sh*te, CanLit is crap, typical of The Globe, wank wank wank, I’ve read Handmaid’s Tale and it wasn’t very good.” Etc.
When I was at the Vic booksale on Monday, two undergraduate-appearing students were sorting through the CanLit table. One held up a copy of Survival to her friend, and said, “How about this one?” The other, sounding like she was repeating something she was very sure of, said, “Oh no, not Atwood. Can’t stand her novels. She just writes the same book over and over again.” Her friend said, “Survival isn’t a novel.” The anti-Atwoodian said “oh” and then rapidly changed the subject.
I don’t understand how people can have such strong feelings for an author they’ve hardly read. (In addition, I must suggest that if you read any book in high school [ie Handmaids Tale, or Stone Angel for that matter], it doesn’t count as actually reading it and if you read it again, it will probably seem quite different). The undergrad’s assertion is so ridiculously off; the spectrum of Margaret Atwood is broad enough that there is probably something there to please everyone. And if one does give Atwood a fair try, and comes up unsatisfied, then why not just go read something else? Why all this time so devoted to badmouthing someone whose work so many other people clearly enjoy? Why not direct that energy toward championing a writer you do like?
A friend of mine maintains that anti-Atwoodism is simply a matter of jealousy, and I’m inclined to agree; the woman is indomitable. And I think Heather Mallick is a little right about the misogyny; it drives some men a little mad to see a woman so successful, a woman who will not be marginalized. The whole thing is typically Canadian in innumerable ways, and absolutely annoying.
October 5, 2006
Shine On
Hooray for productivity! Because I was so good yesterday and did all that had to be done (reading, writing, laundry), I got to go to bed with Shine On Bright and Dangerous Object by Laurie Colwin, which has been an absolute pleasure to read so far. And it’s brilliant to read for pleasure when you’ve earned it.
Learn how to write an ekphrasis. Russell Smith on tenses. Here for Random Acts of Poetry.
October 4, 2006
Magyar
Like most girls, I went through my Hungarian Revolution phase, and though I am less obsessed than I once was, it’s still my favourite Cold Ward Historical Moment. And it’s on my mind lately, as well as all over the news, due to its 50th anniversary this month. (It’s interesting that it’s also 50 years since the Suez Crisis, which so overshadowed the Hungarian Revolution, and yet I’ve heard much less about that). Anyway, I was directed to www.reimaginefreedom.org, by the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York, and it’s a fascinating website. I’ve decided to have a Hungarian Freedom Fighters dinner on the 23rd, with chicken paprikash and the rest of the menu tba.
October 4, 2006
Such is the life
The book people outdid themselves and my copy of The Sea Lady arrived yesterday, but I can’t bring myself to read it. I remember finishing The Red Queen last winter, and the terror of having all the Margaret Drabbles behind me, and I don’t want to face that again. I will savour the prospect of this novel for a while I think, seeing as I am up to my elbows in CanLit and won’t have the time to savour the actual reading anytime soon. But I am so looking forward to reading it, and inevitably adoring it. And don’t think my expectations are set too high; Ms. Drabble has never failed to meet them.
I am writing this entry on a break from writing, which today is devoted to. I have been reasonably successful at resisting the urge to google Tina Yothers and other relevant pop culture figures (this is a lie; this morning I watched Family Ties clips on YouTube, but such acts have been kept to the minimum. Damn wireless internet) and I am being pretty productive. Laundry has just been installed in our basement, so no more trips to the laundrette for me, though there is a rumour that the dryer is broken already we shall see. Am a bit tired, as thunderstorms awoke us and ours at 6:30 this morning for the second day in a row. Now reading Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King, and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve never read anything by him before.
Plenty of book news: The Giller Shortlist is announced. Coverage at CBC. Book City’s founder’s favourite books. Top ten fictional poets. The problem with literary how-to guides.
Must go wash dishes and then investigate dryer situation. Such is the life of a student/housewife.
October 3, 2006
So long Vegreville…
Citizenship and Immigration Canada is pleased to announce that the processing of my husband’s application for permanant residence has been completed! A local immigration office will be in contact with us concerning his permanant resident status. This is good news, as currently he’s on a temporary visa that doesn’t allow him to leave the country and makes it difficult to obtain permanent employment. It all comes together eventually, fabulously.
Now for CSI Miami…
