August 16, 2006
It is out of necessity that I read excessively
(My frequent ramblings upon reading rendered into a vague coherence)
Bookishness has gone hardcore, if the broadsheets are any indication. John Allemang reads a book a day in The Globe and Mail and Jane Smiley is tackling one hundred novels in The Guardian. This year I also decided to read a little less leisurely, set a goal of 200 books read in 2006, and since then it has occurred to me that these reading marathons might be the literary equivalent of competitive eating. Champion eater Takeru Kobayashi devours fifty hot-dogs in twelve minutes and I wonder if my reading goal is similarly excess for the sake of itself. Six months in, however, I have found something to be said for taking reading this seriously.
Merely tracking my reading habits has been worthwhile, revealing patterns I would not have otherwise noticed. That I am clearly too prone to leaping onto bandwagons of the just-deceased, as indicated by the appearances upon my list by Muriel Spark and Jane Jacobs. I note further, the gender imbalance in my author selection— by May, I had only finished one novel by a man, assigned for a class no less. I realized that my library was saturated with recent works by Canadian women in particular. That it is a miracle that I’ve managed to read anything at all from abroad.
A record of books read has proved practical to have on-hand. (I am not alone in such obsessive documentation. The writer Annie Dillard has kept a list entitled “Books I’ve Read Since 1966”.) My list has distinguished stories and characters, long after I’ve scanned the last line and slammed the book shut. One day I was straining my mind one day to remember who had left her umbrella on an omnibus and upon reference to the list, of course, I realized that Virginia Woolf herself had done so, in the fifth volume of her diary, back in March. From the list, I realised that Grace Paley’s short stories in February were what had made Jane Jacobs’ New York so familiar when I encountered it in May.
The list also serves as a diary, of sorts. Upon reference, I remember reading Zadie Smith’s On Beauty just after New Years, or devouring Camilla Gibb’s Sweetness in the Belly on a bus ride to Ottawa during Reading Week. I recall the rainy day I read The Accidental by Ali Smith in its entirety, while I should have been doing my homework.
And what of the marathon itself? After nearly eight months, its most profound impact has been quite simply that I have read a lot of books. I rarely watch television or movies, and I always carry a book in case a reading opportunity suddenly arises. Admittedly, I’ve become a bit stupider socially and accounts of how I spent my weekend are often concerned with the adventures of fictional people. But I bet I’ve read a book lately that is relevant to any conversation you might wish to engage me in. These days, so attuned to reading, I’ve come to approach the world a bit like it is a book, interspersed with details to be noticed and facts to be learned.
Of course, the problem with any marathon is how fast the scenery flies by. So quantifying books threatens the quality of their readings, which is why I embarked upon The Great Summer Rereading Project. I have devoted my reading this summer to becoming reacquainted with books I read too long ago and have forgotten, books read too quickly and not adequately absorbed, or books I read when I was too young to understand them.
I started with Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, which I first read at fourteen years and probably missed the point of. I’ve since revisited quite a few others, including Mrs. Dalloway, The Great Gatsby and In The Skin of a Lion and each was so different from what I remembered. What was once romantic now seems trite, the dull is illuminated and strange endings make sense. Rereading has been an exercise in self-discovery. I’ve also enjoyed deciphering my marginalia, and finding lost treasures between the pages, like the two dollar bill stuck inside The Robber Bride.
I am aware that there is probably fault to be found with such systematic reading. Is it an affront to its very leisureness to render reading such a chore? Surely a book is to be savoured. As with the competitive eaters, are hardcore readers testing limits that really need not require challenge?
But then again, any media consumption is a serious business, if the exhaustive cataloging of TV guides and the emergence of Personal Video Recorders are any indication. Music lovers obsessively compile playlists from thousands of tracks. Blogs punctiliously link to the corners of the universe. One could spend a lifetime reading magazines produced in a single week and the internet is bigger than the sky. And there is no business more serious than book reading.
In addition to the overwhelming number of wonderful books being published all the time, a reader has to contend with all the books published for thousands of years previously— the classics, the obscure, and the still-to-be-discovered. It is out of necessity that I read excessively. My list of books-to-be-read will always be longer than “Books I’ve Read Since 2006”. The sole problem with my reading marathon is that life is too short. And so however long mine stretches, I shall fill it with books.
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.
