January 15, 2006

A brief note on cultural appropriation

This article by Margaret Drabble says some really excellent things about appropriation in relation to “The Red Queen”, not all of which are entirely politically correct. This concept is a fairly new one for me, and I’m still grappling with what I think, but one less controversial aspect of appropriation is factual correctness and how a failure to achieve this can disturb the spell fiction casts.

I read “White Teeth” a few years ago, and really enjoyed it. Now I know nothing about Bengali culture, and really at the time I knew nothing of British culture either, so I didn’t read it with an altogether critical eye. But I know other people did, and Zadie Smith received a lot of negative feedback from her protrayal of Bengali characters specifically. I went to see Smith speak in October, before I read “On Beauty”, and I was curious to know whether she found bridging the American/British culture gap more/less/as difficult as gaps in her previous books. Her response, with trademark self-confidence, was that it was a story, fiction. It didn’t all have to be true, and she wasn’t bovvered if others picked it to pieces. I respected her gumption. But.

I read “On Beauty” recently (and I loved it). But there were bits that were like hooks, that cut into me and pulled me out of my reading experience. Why were the American Belsey family travelling in a “people-carrier”? There were other examples of this. And I wasn’t trying to read this and “pick it to pieces”. Similarly I read the wonderful “Case Histories” by Kate Atkinson this summer. It took place in East Anglia, but there was a character whose daughter had moved to Canada. She lived in the suburbs, but like most Torontians had a cottage on the shores of Lake Ontario, where they hiked through the ancient forests and canoed on the rapids. Torontians, Torontonians and Ontarians alike will see the problem I had with this passage, and “bovvering” about it ruined the book a little bit for me. Maybe this was my fault, but I didn’t want it to happen.

This is important to me, because I have written a novel about English people that takes place in London, and I want it to resonate with truth. As a writer, am I even capable of that? My next big project involves a family living in Iran during the 1979 Revolution, where I’ve never been, when I was barely born. Is it possible? I don’t want to be limited to only writing about brown haired girls called Kerry who are twenty-six and live in Toronto. How do you use facts in fiction? Where does the fault lie when facts let you down- with the reader, the writer, or -perchance- the editor?

January 15, 2006

Virginia was a blogger

I enjoyed making newspapers when I was little, with household or neighbourhood news. It’s a common childhood pastime I think, with often entertaining results. If you’ve ever read “The Golden Road” by LM Montgomery, you might remember the King children’s “Our Magazine”, which was really quite hilarious. Anyway, the Stephen children of Hyde Park Gate (who would become Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell et. al.) were also involved in such endeavours, and The Hyde Park Gate News has now been published in a book I would love to get my mitts on.

More reading, on small bookshops and where they’re going wrong. On why “Hostel” is alarming. On preserving twentieth century ruins. (You can Google these if you want to read them in full text for free). And we’re excited at our house because Globe Style says tea is cool. What validation!

January 12, 2006

Yods

What a day! My academic courses started today, one where we discuss Coetzee and Shakespeare and Thoreau and Dillard and Hughes and Wordsworth altogether and all I can say is that grad school is an enormous amount of fun. In my other class, we are discussing contemporary issues of authorship and so JT Leroy and James Frey got tossed around and we have to collect literary zeitgeist and we’re having current events at the beginning of every class. There were lovely people in all my classes, and they were much less scary than last term. For creative writing, we have to listen to Kiss by Prince loud on repeat and write… something. I am reading a book called Blooming English by Kate Burridge, which is so readable and interesting, and I now know why Stuart says “tyune” and I say “toon”. Yods! Today I walked home and bought a pound of beef I saw was on sale in the butchers and a Christmas present for my father-in-law, and remembered to pick up quarters for the laundry. And the sun was shining shiny and the weather was about five degrees, I was wearing my spring coat and you know it really might have been April, except it wasn’t. Yesterday I was reunited with my friend Katch from Japan, and we spent the afternoon eating Japanese curry and drinking green tea. And Stuart’s career as a volunteer has branched out in some interesting directions, and he doesn’t just feel like he’s spending his days. He is happy. And so am I. Plus many hours of EastEnders arrived in the post yesterday, much thanks to my maw-in-law. And how about Brad and Angelina. I am fascinated…

I have also learned the word “alloloutrophilist” which is “one who is fond of drinking the bathwater of others.”

January 11, 2006

Post Cereal and attack ads

I don’t claim to be a public relations expert, but I do question those who believe attack ads are effective at luring voters. If anything, they’re a sideshow to the actual politicking (which itself is a sideshow but I digress). The Conservative “The Liberal Party is Corrupt” ads are laughable at best, featuring the familliar wooden actors (incidentally where did the Conservatives find these actors anyway? They are terrible), “the liberal party is corrupt” voiceover, looped in a trance/europop styley, and why are all the bad actors fixated on watching the loop on a fake TV show? You could say that perhaps they are hypnotised by the Liberals (which might be sort of interesting) BUT they are clearly disapproving of the Liberals. Their disapproval, of course, is demonstrated with head shakes and rolled eyes. It’s a terrible terrible commerical, and I always cheer when David Dingwall comes on. Just because I think it takes a great amount of strength to get through life with a name like “Dingwall” and for doing just that, perhaps he is entitled to his entitlements. I haven’t seen many of the Liberal attack ads- but I don’t watch much TV so this doesn’t mean anything. The Liberal ads I’ve seen are more polished than the Conservative ads (but then again so is Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod’s Bodybreak) but they are still ridiculous. They attempt a jovial comraderie, and say absolutely nothing. “He might be a Satanist. He might not, but you never *really* know. Do you?” Focus on evil Harper face. It’s stupid! I have only seen one NDP ad, and it was so boring I hardly noticed it. When I was an English teacher, we taught this absolutely idiotic lesson where students had to say “Someone’s got to do something about crime”, or “They’ve got to do something about pollution”. The NDP ad seemed just as specific as my stupid English lesson.

I just do not believe that attack ads are effective. When I was little, I didn’t eat Post Cereals because they attacked General Mills and Kelloggs in their ads, and I thought that just indicated they had nothing of themselves to market. And perhaps this indicates that I was a strange child. But I would vote for the party whose platform was so subtantial that they didn’t have to resort to character assassination and attack ads that insult electors’ intelligence. Unless there was definitely something worth attacking, but trite accusations and tape loops aren’t it.

January 10, 2006

Sleepytime Book of the Week

New feature here at Pickle Me This. We are going to begin keeping track of what the sleeping people in the library were reading as they nodded off. Today’s tome is Plato’s Republic.

January 8, 2006

New hats in the meantime.

I guess it might be obvious that I’ve been despondent of late, and I have no wish to suffer in silence any longer. I’ll give it to you straight then. On the day before New Years Eve, they killed off half of my second-favourite EastEnders couple. The actor who played him talks about his departure here.

Spending the final day of my long long holiday reading “The Year of Magical Thinking” and listening to the new Dar Williams CD- “My Better Self”. Both are wonderful, really. Following the completion of my book, I shall cook my famous spaghetti for our supper, and then my husband and I will watch one hour dramas about forensic science. We don’t care which ones. And I will knit a blanket out of wool that was once my misshapen poncho. It has been the most splendid, carefree month with almost nothing to do except the things we want to do. And I have read so many books (in one sitting many times, which is the best way) and we’ve seen so many friends, and even though it’s January and an era of great impecunity, we’ll ride that wave into springtime. And we’ve got new coats and hats in the meantime.

January 4, 2006

Relish

Yesterday at lunch time, upon reading the final page of Margaret Drabble’s “The Red Queen”, I completed every work of fiction Margaret Drabble had ever written. It felt like there was a hole in soul, even though The Red Queen satisfied in so many ways. I love her works. I love seeing how they have developed over time, the social issues she has dabbled in, the birth of her international interests, the change in her narrative voices, the shapes of her novels. Her early works were best received but I like the later ones better, where it’s clear the novel is beginning to bore her and she is playing with it. Anyway, I was very happy to find out she has a new book due out in March 2006!

In other monumental book news, I am at a point in one’s reading experience that you just want to roll around in forever. I am in the midst of a good Zadie Smith book. Relish.

January 2, 2006

Idiot bias

That Leah McLaren was annoying this week will not come as a massive shock to most of you. That I keep reading her anyway is more surprising, but she just keeps turning up in my newspaper. Anyway, she wrote about debt this week. It reminded me of an article that was in the Globe a few weeks ago, about that poor twenty-four year old who didn’t realise that paying for your psychology degree with a credit card was perhaps not the best life choice and was now blaming all and sundry for her debt problems. And McLaren, who can’t understand why she amasses so much debt with such a modest lifestyle- car, house, cashmere. However it seems that Leah McLaren bought her house in a place where she doesn’t live, and so rents an apartment on top of mortgage payments. I am beginning to see her problems. I also doubt that Ms. McLaren drives a 1989 Honda Civic. So here are these poor twenty-somethings, debt-ridden, symptomatic of a quarter-life crisis.

I’ll give you a life crisis- the threat of death. All else is melodrama. If you are lucky to be 25 or thereabouts, save your crisis for when you’ll really need one. And if you are stupid enough to pay for your psychology degree with your credit card, please own up to your stupidity. Don’t blame your debt on teachers telling you to “follow your dream” or on-line poker. If you find it necessary to live far beyond your means, don’t market this in national newspapers as a fashionable choice. Do these idiotic people have no shame? And why must they keep hanging the “idiot” label upon my entire generation?

December 31, 2005

Year of Great Fortune

My best of the year:
Book: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Single: Jerk It Out by The Caesars
Magazine: Spacing
CD: I’m a Mountain by Sarah Harmer
Holiday Destinations: (tie) Miyajima and Brighton

In Numbers:
Weddings: 2
Residences: 4
Continents: 3
Visas: 6

This time last year: in Tokyo!

This time next year: right here, happily.

December 30, 2005

Pickles at Pickle Me This!

Today was an exciting day at Pickle Me This. My friend Laura came to visit- and she brought pickles! She worked on a farm this last while and from it she brought pickled cucumbers, pickled beans, as well as tomatoes and tomato sauce. Who ever would have thought we’d have pickling news here at Pickle Me This? She also bought us pizza. We’re big fans of Laura, even if her pickles rival ours.

In less exciting news, our dear propriatress is sick with a strangely annoying symptoms, including sore eyes and sore skin. She is feeling better today than yesterday however.

And it was a Merry Christmas. This old world was quite generous to Stuart and I. We received some money, and a DVD player, a spice rack, and gift certificates, hats, a million books, socks and Miffy got a brownie uniform! Stuart gave me “I’m a Mountain” by Sarah Harmer which is the best CD I’ve heard in ever, and “The Red Queen” by Margaret Drabble. He also got me a beautiful pair of earrings. I also received “The Witch of Exmoor” (now reading) by Ms. Drabble, which completes my Drabble Fiction collection! Who would have thought what that innocent purchase of “The Radiant Way” in Kobe one and half years ago would start? Oh and we just got a million and one things, and feel very lucky and it is nice to have such lovely families and friends caring for us. However I think I can live with a little less Christmas for the next 300 or so days.