October 15, 2006
Go your own way
Britt slept over Friday night, and Saturday morning we awoke bright an early to be in the audience at the live-taping of Go at the CBC, which was enormously fun and also means I’ve now said the word “sex” on national radio (not my choice; it was the question they gave me!). I spent the afternoon reading the newspaper, napping and devouring an enthralling novel (see below) that got me into such a state of Britishness after reading an account of afternoon tea at the Orchard Tea Rooms in Granchester, I ended up baking scones at 8:00 on Saturday night (and they were good!). Today’s highlight was a trip to Riverdale Farm (with a looong walk there and back), and it was excellent as usual and the lambs have become large.
October 15, 2006
One Good Turn
I’ve raved about Kate Atkinson before, when I read Case Histories last summer and when I reread Behind The Scenes at the Museum in August. She writes with the social and historical awareness of Margaret Drabble, but with the dark edge of Hilary Mantel, though of course her works are also startlingly original (and challenge genres). Kate Atkinson has yet to fail me, and in her new novel One Good Turn, she has truly crafted what her subtitle suggests: “a jolly good mystery”.
Yes, indeed, a mystery. I have spoken to fans of early-Atkinson who’ve gone off her a bit since her characters took up sleuthing, but none of them had actually read the books in question (Case Histories, and now its companion One Good Turn [though the two books both stand up alone]). I am no mystery fan (my interest sort of waned with Nate the Great) but I’ll read anything by Kate Atkinson, and moreover Behind the Scenes… really had a mystery at its heart. The genre suits Atkinson well, and she writes with her signature wit and brilliance.
In One Good Turn, Atkinson expects her readers to hang on tight, because the ride goes so fast. Jackson Brodie from Case Histories has stumbled onto a whole new batch of mystery at the Edinburgh Festival, but he is just one character in an excellent ensemble which includes a suburban housewife with a trick up her sleeve, a ruthless Russian call-girl, a fourteen year-old shoplifter and has-been comedian. Atkinson’s tongue-in-cheek depiction of the publishing world is particularly humourous, as seen by a writer of a particularly bad mystery series, and the book’s subtle CSI references indicate that Atkinson is very aware of the world she’s writing in. The story itself is so tight, admirable considering how many pieces had to be tied together in the end. The pace is quick, twists are so surprising, the end was a stunner. One Good Turn was simply a delight.
October 13, 2006
Freaky
Got a terrible case of the lurgy; we’ve had snowstorms already and last night the power was out for six hours, so we went out to Mexitaco at Bloor and Shaw, which was fun, and then we came home and I had to read by candlelight, re-rereading actually- Away by Jane Urquhart (pour l’ecole).
Ne pas pour l’ecole, I just finished reading Blue Angel by Francine Prose, and it was incredible. Written in third-person, Prose gives an illusion of objectivity that duped me at times, and once I realized I’d been taken in, I felt sort of dirty. The narrative voice was an absolute feat, but moreover the book was funny, smart and twisted, and the writing workshop was priceless. The satire was complicated and many-edged, and left me feeling uneasy, which, coming from a bundle of paper, is a powerful impact.
October 13, 2006
Nigel
I never mentioned that the story below was my submission to the McSweeneys Thirteen Writing Prompts Contest. A losing submission, obviously, but I still wanted to share it because I had fun with it.
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”
