August 14, 2006
Secret History
The Booker longlist! (And I have read none of it). I am rereading The Secret History by Donna Tartt at the moment, and loving it. I read it last in November of 2002, right before I met Stuart and while my home was a bunk bed in a youth hostel. I’ve blocked most of that period out. It’s a great book, and I am speeding through it. It’s more about story telling than the story itself- a little bit Heart of Darkness/American Psycho. Definitely worth a reread and the shortest 600 some page book ever.
Oh, and as of tomorrow, the entire Clare-Lawler household will be gainfully employed. That’s right, double income no kids! Conspicuous consumption, here we come. Well, at least until I go back to school. Wonderful news though. It has been a long long road.
August 14, 2006
Tea cups
I’ve recently developed the habit of inheriting tea cups, an odd legacy. Now I love tea as much as the next man (more perhaps), but I drink mine from tremendously cavernous coffee mugs that would horrify The UK Tea Council. These delicate cups with their tiny saucers are from a different world and I am not sure how to fit them into mine. For the time being, they live on the top shelf of my cupboard, but I wonder what they will come to mean eventually.
August 13, 2006
Not the bookshelf that killed Bast
The big news is that we acquired a new bookshelf this weekend, and now the books are stretching out and revelling in their new abundance of space, that is until I fill up this one too. But I think that will take some time. Though the Vic Book Sale is just around the corner, so you never know. The other news is that this weekend was full of funerals, families and birthday cake, and though I am supposed to go to another birthday party today, it’s all just been a bit much and I don’t think I can make it.
I finished reading Howards End this weekend. I read it in 2001 for a university course, and I liked it. I found having read Zadie Smith’s On Beauty has had an enormous impact on the original book, which was surprising. Obviously, Smith borrowed from Forster, but that in the borrowing, she can make a near-100 year old book so much richer was an interesting idea. It’s a very cool relationship, and I believe the subtlety of Smith’s borrowing is what made the exercise so effective. Anyway, I also noticed how much Howards End was far more about property than people, and it made me think about connections also with television shows such as my beloved Location Location Location, because I was reminded of Phil and Kirstie all the way through this book. Oh the connexions abound. Such fun…
August 10, 2006
Every thought is a possibility
In April I was walking down Harbord Street listening to the Indigo Girls sing “Mystery”, and it was a gorgeous sunny day and I heard the lyric “and summer’s beginning to give up her fight” and I laughed, thinking that summer was going to have to go on for a long time before that started to happen. Silly girl I am, not quite ever convinced that time won’t stand still because I want it to. I really am not sure that it will now, because now it’s August, which means summer’s fight is going to have to end sometime. I have noticed the tendency for this to happen. I don’t plan to ever despair getting old, but the end of summer will always break my heart a bit. And so we will savour what is left, and hope it comes around again. It is a gift every single time.
But then the next line of the song is “and every thought’s a possibility”. New seasons do that, just like New Years. Time to take stock, and see what has been accomplished and what still has to be done. Every thought is a possibility, and there are exciting projects on all sides. My Now Doing website has not been updated in ages, because what I’ve been doing lately isn’t very photographic. I am proud of what I have accomplished this summer; I’ve written six short stories that are strong, and my goal to have a first very very sketchy first draft of my thesis project is not an impossible dream. The year ahead will be spent filling out the gaps, and rounding the corners, and I am up to the challenge. In my working life, I have been part of a project that has broadened my horizons and been so very worthwhile, and has an enormous impact upon society, which is as much as one can hope for, even if it has rendered me rather sleepy of late. Stuart and I are at work on our second publication, “I Wish My Enemies Were Russians”, a collection of my poetry which should be available by the end of the month. I am also quite excited to be working on Echolocation this year as prose editor, and I am confident we are going to make something really excellent. And so these are the buzzing thoughts that keep me awake at night. All apologies for being somewhat wanky in this particularly entry, but on some mid-to-late summer nights, this should be tolerated.
August 9, 2006
Unless and The Fire Dwellers
This weekend I read my definitive favourite book, Unless by Carol Shields, as well as The Fire Dwellers, which was always my favourite Margaret Laurence novel. Although written about thirty years apart, these two books are so companionable, which I never would have noticed had I not read one right after the other. Both novels are mired in domesticity, wife and motherhood, and elaborate such clear truths. Though Laurence’s novel isn’t first person, Stacey’s voice is used throughout, and its wry tone is so similar to Reta’s. They both depict a mother’s ambivalence toward her children to a point, and then such a fierce and primal love. Though both are clearly feminist texts, yet there is a certain ambiguity that makes these stories real. I loved both of them. And particularly Unless, as usual. I absolutely adore Carol Shields’ ability to paint a happy marriage, and for that and other reasons, this book gives me faith.
August 7, 2006
the same, and leftover pie
The long long weekend has been spent with ease. I’ve read four books which has brought my total to 100. Also, soppy films, frisbee in the park, ice cream, Kensington afternoon, and we cooperatively baked a strawberry pie. I made the pastry and Stuart made the filling, and just as we were about to put it in the oven, Carolyn and Steve invited us over for a bbq, so we took the pie to their house and partook in a rooftop feast. It was wonderful. The pie was absolutely perfect and I was quite impressed with us. Today is more of the same, and leftover pie.
Germaine Greer on Brick Lane. Kate Atkinson has a new book out! Rogers loses millions due to misplaced comma. On why women read more novels than men do.*
My obsessive compulsive public library borrowing is interfering with my Great Summer Re-Reading Project. I just finished reading Circling the Drain by Amanda Davis. I’d read her Fat Ladies Floated in the Sky Like Balloons already, and I really loved this collection. Though, as it has been said, the parallels between the stories and Davis’s death were impossibly spooky at times. I do wonder sometimes, the extent to which we write our own lives.
As soon as the rereading project is done, I am going to read Laurie Colwin. Sometimes an author’s name just starts appearing so often, it must be taken as a sign from the universe. In a recent column, Heather Mallick mentioned having read one of her novels recently, and when I entered Margaret Drabble into the Literature Map, there was Laurie Colwin again. Until September, however.
In tacky billboard news, it would be fair to suspect that the turnout for “We Don’t Regret Our Abortions” would be way bigger than this crowd.
*Why I believe that novels are more effective than non-fiction to learn about the world (particularly in terms of current events): This is not a well-developed thought. There are gaps in my ideas here, particularly that I detest historical fiction, which makes no sense. (What a start!) I believe in novels for the same reason I disbelieve in the virtues of decisivesness, political alignment, and principles (except principles in theory- these are ok, and necessary). The world is complicated and stupid, and anyone who can sum up anything is leaving something out of the equation. I like novels for their hypothetical-ness, novels test out realities and one’s reaction to that reality. I feel that is a far more educative tool than a non-fiction book, which is primarily instructive and more obviously biased.
August 4, 2006
Behind the scenes
The best part about rereading Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum was a textual treasure unearthed. “Albert collected good days the way other people collected coins, or sets of postcards.” I love that idea, and for ages, I have been trying to remember where it came from. What a surprise when it fell right into my lap! I read this book last May, while we were living in England, more specifically during the week I spent in London. I think Bronwyn had signed it out of the library for me to read. I stayed with her and Alex that week, and Stu came down for the last few days. It was a week most notable because I was shopping for my wedding dress, and I spent all my spare moments scrambling to finish this book. It was a perfect candidate for a reread because I’d read it too quickly the first time, and also because the book has an element of mystery that is not made clear until the end, and so to read it mystery-solved is a completely different experience. It’s a bit spooky really. I loved this book when I first read it, but I think I liked it even better this time. Atkinson’s narrative will absolutely blow your mind.
Today was spent shopping for a black dress, which is much more difficult than one might expect. The sole highlight of that experience was Stuart and I being shouted at and kicked out of The Big and Tall Shop in Sears, after I tried on a golf shirt that reached my mid-calves and Stuart had found a pair of pants that were taller than he is. Laughter was dissolved into, as might be expected.
August 2, 2006
Catching a ride on the coattails of lit
I think that my favourite part of Writing Life was in Elizabeth Hay’s essay- “I live in a house full of books. I pull down one I love and read a page or two and invariably I’m absorbed and stirred and reaching for my pen. What I’m doing is catching a ride on the coattails of literature”. Beautiful. Today I bought The Atlantic Fiction Issue and I plan to enjoy it. Here for books that make you want to flirt with a stranger.
I’ve been thinking a lot about decisiveness. The Prime Minister has also been preoccupied with decisiveness lately. I guess sometimes I am decisive, just like he is. For example, I am decisive about the tragedy of people dying and the futility of war. But mostly, I am wary of decisiveness as a tool for dealing with complicated things, like, you know, people. And the world.
