Brilliant title to go here

One Day soon

2011-07-28T02:41:00.003-06:00

Have you read David Nicholls's One Day yet? I raved about it last fall, and so as always I approach the release of a film based on the novel with both suspicion and excitement. Perhaps a titch more excitement given Nicholls penned the script, but then a titch more suspicion when I hear Anne Hathaway's British accent. (Even if hers is better than my attempts to sound like Eliza Doolittle-meets Cher Lloyd-meets a Dickensian-era newspaper boy.)

Anyway, if you don't want to have anything about the story of Dexter and Emma ruined for you (and you've missed the trailer, which reveals much -- though not all -- of the tale), then don't follow these links.

If, however, you have read the book, or have already seen the trailer and have long lost any faith in Hollywood's ability to produce two minutes of film clips without simply compressing the storyline, then I urge you to read this snarky, perfect review of the trailer. That's right. Review of the trailer. It's what we've come to in a society obsessed with brevity.

And then, if you're leaning more towards excitement than suspicion for this movie, and again you're not too worried about spoilers, check out this featurette with still more clips.

"famous for the wrong book"?

2011-07-19T06:58:00.003-06:00

I love this discussion of how authors are often famous for the wrong book -- Guardian writer John Self points to such classics as Remains of the Day or Catch-22 as not-bests.

What would you add to his list?

I'm hesitant. I feel like often enough, the famous books are most famous for their ability to transcend elitist or snobby particularities. For example, my favourite Atwood novels are The Edible Woman or Cat's Eye, but I'm well aware their experimental feminism and blending of the unrealistic with the everyday appeal to a certain narrow crowd. The Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake would generally have wider appeal.

On the other hand, this sort of brings to mind a book club discussion once had in Edmonton, where one member pointed out that, failing to get his points across in books like Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell essentially parades a bunch of farm animals before the reader in Animal Farm, finally entertaining a wider crowd and allowing the political messages he wished to get across to shine through....

tactile versus tactical...

2011-06-12T08:25:00.002-06:00

Full disclosure: When I last packed my bags for a RyanAir flight... and by "bags" I mean "bag," and when I mention it's RyanAir, I wish to note specifically that one has to jam their purse into their carry-along and hope for the best while trying desperately to look as though the weight of one's bag is not an issue... I have to admit I kind of wished I had a Kindle rather than four paperbacks stuffed in my bag. I've heard great things about the Kindle -- specifically that it doesn't hurt your eyes, and you don't have to carry around books anymore -- and yet I'm fairly unwilling to dive so headlong into such technology. Won't I miss dog-earing pages? And the tactile enjoyment of turning pages? And, admittedly, the look of a full-to-overflowing bookshelf. Am I right or am I being pretentious and a little silly about emerging technology?

For the image: h/t Bookshelf blog.

summer reads

2011-06-05T02:39:00.007-06:00

So, having wrapped up posting to another blog -- and finally having had some time to sit down and read! -- I thought it was time to come back here. If you'll have me?

Although done most of my school work for the year, I'm still researching and only now just starting to write bits of my dissertation. But not only do I promise this space will not become a meditation on Barthes's take on mythology or Couldry's position on "effective voice," I promise to try harder to return here more often.

So, time for a round-up of great and not-so-great summer reads!

Great: Tina Fey's Bossypants

I bought a paperback coffee of Fey's "memoir" at Stansted Airport last week and, 24 hours later, I had gobbled it up. In between, I laughed while reading in the airport, on an airplane, in my hotel room, and on a beach. I loved this book for its straight-up jokes (erm, straight-up if you watched 30 Rock's first two seasons and loved them, perhaps not so straight-up if you watch, for example, Two and a Half Men or expect people to introduce sarcasm by saying, "Could I be more..."), for teeny tiny insights into Fey's relationship with coworkers like Amy Poehler (I like to imagine they are best friends and have super awesome lunches together), and for huge insights into being a woman in a position of power. From time to time she plays down her power, but mostly she takes full opportunity to give useful and relevant workplace advice. I maybe dog-eared a couple pages to review in future. As "Trees" say, it's "totally worth it."

Not so great: Anatomies of adultery

Sometimes a person needs to read complete and utter brain candy. And so, passing under the Waterloo Bridge a few weeks ago, I bought a cheap (£3.50) copy of Madeleine Wickham's Sleeping Arrangements, originally published in 2001 under the author's name and later republished under the author's more popular nom de plume, Sophie Kinsella. The book is about two families who find themselves in the same vacation rental for a week but -- spoiler alert -- Chloe (the mother from the struggling middle-class family) and Hugh (the father from the thriving-on-paper upper-middle-class family) used to be a couple. Spoiler: They broke up long ago for stupid reasons (Hugh was a douche). Spoiler: Now they're going to cheat on their current spouses. Not a spoiler: Life decisions will have to be made.

I suppose the "moral" of cheating-on-spouses stories is that no one can ever really know what's going on in someone else's head. Hell, one barely knows what's going on in one's own head most of the time, so I suppose there is no point in imagining you understand the inner workings of your husband's or wife's heart or mind. I cannot, however, say this makes books about cheating spouses all that fun to read. Even ambivalence on the part of the cheated-on spouses does not really allow one to side with the cheaters, and certainly if the author goes in with an even hand (no one is married to an evil, overbearing partner, shit just happens) it's pretty hard to sympathize with any character as you read about all the uncomfortable sneaking around. Really, it's an exercise in feeling uncomfortable for other people, which is something I excel at already....

Which brings us to Heart of the Matter, Emily Giffin's last outing. I have to give Wickham credit for, at least, writing a few twists into her tale and certainly making it funny at points. Giffin's anatomy of the cheat, on the other hand, drives forward harshly and without any twists, so that, from the first few pages, you know what will happen, how it will probably go down, and how things will likely end. Ironically, given the novel's title, the book lacks the heart that made Something Borrowed (another book about cheating) fun to read even when you were raising your eyebrows at Rachel's decision to sleep with her best friend's fiance. Despite Giffin's best efforts, one can't help just feeling sad for both Tessa (the wife) and Valerie (the other woman). As to Nick (the husband), he gets to be two different men, depending on whether the chapter is being narrated by Tessa or Val. This does make sense -- obviously the two women will have completely different takes on what he does, what he says, how he says it -- but makes Nick little more than a shadow of a man who one can't imagine fighting for....

Amazing: A Visit from the Goon Squad

READ THIS BOOK.

Ahem. Sorry about that.

Ok, putting my thoughts together.... Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the passage of time. That means you will get to read about the future (slightly dystopic, definitely scary and seriously we all need to drive less, ok?), the past (campfires in Kenya, packed punk clubs in 1970s California, New York in the early 1990s), and the present. Nominally the book circles two main characters -- music producers Sasha and Bennie -- but Egan manages to dot the i's on virtually every character mentioned in connection to Sasha or Bennie. A brief mention of a friend who drowned in university in the first chapter guarantees that friend will have his chance to tell his story later in the book. In this way the book comes across partly as a fantastic vanity project (how wide can Egan cast her net?), partly as short story collection anchored by a handful of characters, and partly as a puzzle that demands a re-read as soon as you're done.

READ THIS BOOK.

Middling: The Understudy

Of David Nicholls's three novels, The Understudy is the only one not made into a movie. This is slightly ironic since I imagine the main character, struggling actor Stephen C. McQueen, would love to be in a movie. Even if that movie was painful to watch and made you cringe, like the book does from time to time.

I've only discovered Nicholls since moving to London, and I think I will forever associate his writing with this city -- terribly funny, uncomfortably truthful, sweetly romantic, and never easy to step away from. Think Nick Hornby, but sweeter and possibly more engaged with his characters. In my humble opinion, The Understudy is not Nicholls's best book (I'd say that title stays with One Day, although there is something so endearing about both Brian and Rebecca in Starter for Ten you have to love them). Nonetheless, there's enough here to read enjoyably, even if you can't help wondering how on earth Nicholls came up with a flimsy character like Nora....

So what are you reading now?

So what are you guys reading now? I'm back on the dissertation train, but in the meantime I'm picking through Zadie Smith's collection of non-fiction essays, entitled Changing My Mind. I have to admit with some embarrassment I've not read Smith's novels -- they don't quite draw me in from the first pages, which is probably something I need to work on -- but I'm digging her writing on writing. At the moment I'm reading her collection of film reviews, which are so pitch-perfect it could make a person cry for wanting to write like her!

Something Borrowed

2011-03-20T17:51:00.003-06:00

I can't wait for this movie -- or the sequel I really really hope is in the works. Because yes, I technically like Something Blue even better than Something Borrowed.... possibly because of the London-based storyline....

Also, I promise to be a better blogger once school is done.... In the meantime, I've barely been keeping up with day-to-day stuff over here.

wager

2011-02-11T13:02:00.005-07:00

Is it a spoiler to guess at the ending of a book you have no intention of reading?

Bear with me momentarily: Here is S. Krishna's review of the young adult book Choker.

And here is my wager the book concludes with the childhood friend being a figment of the protagonist's imagination, sort of like Fight Club for teenage girls.

That's a second spoiler, isn't it? Huh.... But Fight Club (the movie) came out more than 10 years ago, peeps, so don't hate me. Prove me wrong.

Back to essay-writing.... Oh! And strong recommendations you read this book. I haven't read more than a chapter yet (for a class on media representation), but it's on my list.

baby apps

2011-02-05T06:32:00.004-07:00

For academic reasons, I'm reading a lot about the iPad today.... (I'm taking a course called ICTs and Everyday Life, which I think of as Awesome Science I Can Use When I'm Back At Work In Newspapers.... even though we study mostly the history of information and communications technologies as opposed to, well, science)

Anyway, I came upon this story, mom friends: Baby books gone digital. Weird? Cool? Perfect way to occupy baby on the Tube/in the car/in the grocery store? I really don't know enough about kids to know whether this is workable.... I feel like the mechanics would be problematic, as it's not like you could just leave them to be occupied, you would have to hold the hardware for them and ensure they don't gnaw through your iPhone.... Yeah, I really, clearly don't know enough about babies. But look! A bonus picture of Cute Baby K!

memoirs 2011

2011-01-14T07:20:00.006-07:00

I've never skipped a whole month of blogging on this site before. And I don't know whether to apologize -- because, really, I'm sure your lives were perfectly complete without my thoughts on books -- or haphazardly list the novels I've had a chance to read since last posting (Garbo Laughs; Starter for Ten; The Fire-Dwellers; Story House; A Bird in the House).

So, instead, let's move forward. Let's call it 2011 and talk about one of my book obsessions: Memoirs written by people who live with one toe in the "modern" world and one toe in an "orthodox" world. (Is this a terrible way of describing the central conflict in books like The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance?) So, adding to my '11 wish list: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress.

Other memoirs on the reading list? Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses. Even if The Telegraph didn't like it and dragged poor Jennifer Aniston into the mix.

things that are pretty

2010-11-29T12:49:00.006-07:00

I currently live in a country that has never seen a modern comfort it couldn't wrinkle its nose at.

And so, I'm really missing central heating this week as London enters a "deep freeze" (highs of 2C) that makes for vaguely chilly days outside but seriously freaking cold evenings inside.

What does this have to do with books?

Well, since I'm already whining about my humble abode, thought I'd throw in a random "I miss the ability to properly decorate" complaint. Which brings me to this link.

Other book news.... on the weekend I went to Greenwich Market, where I found super cheap used copies of David Nicholls's Starter for Ten (bound to be a good read, if One Day is anything to go by) and Andrea Levy's Small Island (anyone heard of it? is it good? it was a two-fer).

Why yes I am stocking up on Christmas break reading as I write my final essay of the term.

when did Travel Writing become boys-only?

2010-11-15T13:47:00.006-07:00

I was perusing the Travel Writing section of Foyles today (because, of course, I should have been at home doing readings and preparing for a presentation) when I was struck by all the male authors. Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, lots of dudes named David.... and I started wondering why this genre of writing -- the adventure -- is dominated by men almost to the exclusion of women.

Worse, I started thinking about the travel books I've read or encountered that have been written by women, and it donned on me they fit into a handful of Harlequin-inspired sub-categories within the travel genre. Where men's stories are all raw adventure, hiking boots in-hand, jump-on-a-boat, ride-a-motorcycle, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants deals, women's travel stories can be.... well, I was going to say "girly," but then thought better of it. Let's say, intensely focused on the self, the home, and sex.

For example, Around the World in 80 Dates? Let's call that the Sex and the City sub-category. Under the Tuscan Sun -- if the movie is anything to go by -- is a "find yourself away from it all and, cross your fingers, love too!" book. Eat, Pray, Love straddles the "find yourself" and the "find your taste buds" categories. Then you have something like Out of Africa, which rounds things out a little, but dwells less on adventure and more on the contrived and not-so-contrived differences between the writer/European audience and the "other"/African residents, tribespeople and servants.

You can see I got myself a titch worked up. Then I came home and searched through the Chapters database for "travel" and "adventure and literary travel." Things got better from there, actually. There's more of a diversity of women's writing on travel, and it isn't all of the Sand in My Bra/humour fold or the "Paris! Men! Shopping!" genre.

Still, some questions carrying forward:

Do women who write about travel slip into the natural style of women's magazine writing because that's what women want to read about? Would we prefer to read about "a woman alone in (insert country here) overcomes cultural differences" than "a woman startlingly begins hitch-hiking through the Middle East, then hops onto a train across much of Asia, a boat across the Pacific, and a motorcycle through the Canadian west coast"?

Do popular women's travel titles simply reflect a high interest in the memoirs of those who have lived "happily ever after" in our Oprah-inspired age of "buy shit, live the dream?" And what is the male counterpart to "buy shit, live the dream" if they are busy reading travel stories about guys retracing the steps of Genghis Khan?

Finally, am I being terribly humorless about all this, and should I really set my mind to school work?

descriptions that work, and descriptions that don't

2010-11-15T04:00:00.003-07:00

"His expression is keenly alive with self-interest, which makes him appear blind and alert at the same time."

I'm sorry, but isn't that line kind of awesome? It's from Tessa Hadley's "The Trojan Prince," in the November 15th issue of The New Yorker. It's actually quite a simple tale of a young man who thinks he knows everything about what he wants, but would have a hard time putting any of those wants into proper words. He's easily angry and yet internalizes his frustrations, and he finds himself in the middle of a bizarre (cousinly) love triangle.

But that's the line that sticks with you. Here is some of the rest of Hadley's description of James McIlvanney:

"He's only sixteen, despite the man's overcoat and the new tweed cap. His hair is jet-black and very straight, and his face is composed of strong fine lines, clean and clear and exquisite like his pink-and-white skin; his eyebrows are as well-shaped as a woman's, his curved lips pressed shut as if he were holding in important news. The jut of his cheekbones and jaw is masculine enough -- strained and resilient. His expression...."

I marvel at writers with such ability to describe what a person actually looks like. I would think the challenge is to translate enough of your imagination to the page so readers are on your train of thought, without literally being like, "Think of Ben Affleck, right? Like, ok, I'm thinking of a guy who looks like him, but maybe with closer-knit eyebrows and a slightly less pronounced chin? Ok, ok, ok -- now we have our hero. Now, the heroine... Well, you know Barbra Streisand in "The Way We Were?" Ok, this girl looks the opposite of that!"

from the Twittersphere

2010-11-09T16:35:00.004-07:00

Because 140 characters is pretty much the perfect quantity of non-academic information I can currently comprehend....

Margaret Atwood is on Twitter!
In Los Angeles, a story of part-library, part-used bookstore... part comment on American politics.
It's NaNoMo... or time to pick up your pens, those of you who want to write novels or exercise your imaginations or blog or just be awesome. At Lifehacker, tips on writing, clarity and being more awesome than you already are.

"The Dinner Party"

2010-11-06T17:10:00.003-06:00

After listening to Monica Ali read this story for the New Yorker, I really feel like I need to read Joshua Ferris's work.

As Ali discusses after her reading, it is actually kind of difficult to make out whether the hero of the short story is, in fact, a hero. Really, one of the nagging elements is the feeling you're missing something. It's kind of like the feeling you have when you're talking to a couple and have accidentally stumbled upon an issue that causes them to fight. You didn't know it was coming, but there it is. And it's awkward. In fiction form, this is tantalizing. (In real life, you wish you could find the right words to make a polite exit.)

Has anyone read The Unnamed?

claustrophobic

2010-11-03T03:47:00.003-06:00

The way Lorrie Moore opens her short story "Debarking" -- originally published in The New Yorker in 2003 -- actually makes my fingers itch. The idea of not being able to escape a tiny golden band literally makes me a little sick. That probably says something about me. Nonetheless, thought I'd share:

"Ira had been divorced for six months and still couldn't get his wedding ring off. His finger had swelled doughily -- a combination of frustrated desire, unmitigated remorse, and misdirected ambition was how he explained it. 'I'm going to have my entire finger surgically removed,' he told his friends. The ring (supposedly gold, though now that everything he had received from Marilyn had been thrown in doubt, who knew?) clinched the blowsy fat of his finger, which had grown twistedly around it like a fucking happy challah. 'Maybe I should cut the whole hand off and send it to her,' he said on the phone to his friend Mike...."
(p. 35 from the 2008 Faber and Faber Ltd. edition of Moore's Collected Short Stories)

open for interpretation: from Laurence to Lawrence

2010-10-29T17:19:00.004-06:00

I've been doing more "fun" reading this week -- like taking a night off to re-read Margaret Laurence's The Diviners, and standing in line at Starbucks today reading The Guardian.

(I brought few novels with me to London, but I had to bring one Laurence. I love The Diviners because, frankly, I find something new in it every time I pick it up. This time, because in my classes we talk so much about how the very nature of sharing information transforms it, I was particularly struck by this line of Morag's musing: "Will Morag tell Pique all she knows of Lazarus, or of Christie, for that matter? How will the tales change in the telling?" Or, much later in the novel, ".... was she interpreting him, as usual, only through her own eyes? How else could you interpret anyone?")

So, I have a few items to share:

There are lots of stories to read today about when Lady Chatterley's Lover went to trial as a banned book, and got un-banned. But I would suggest this tale, of a North England mining town's interaction with the novel, is a must-must-must-read. If only for the author's horrified response to his own mother....
Also from The Guardian, this story by Lorrie Moore. "Foes" is included in a 665-page short-story collection I bought earlier this fall, which I also turn to every once in awhile when I need a little more fiction in my life. What strikes me about this particular story, however, is Moore's unyielding push. She pushes the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, then rips away whatever helped them come to that conclusion. Does that make sense? What I mean to say is she ensures you, the reader, can not take the moral high ground, no matter how firm you think that ground is.
This is actually a shared link from TSS. Having, at times, the maturity level of a Cosmo-reading 19-year-old, I find this title particularly funny.....

autumn poetry

2010-10-21T16:54:00.003-06:00

With school readings, I haven't tons and tons of time to read novels at the moment. I've been experimenting with the New Yorker's fiction podcast.... But, to be honest, when I put it on I tend to fall asleep. I'm not a great listener of stories.

Says the reporter.

Anyway, today I meant to find some welcome-autumn poetry to share here. It was so gorgeous in London -- all blue skies and sunshine and falling leaves.

Instead, my flip through my treasured Oxford anthology of English poetry found this poem, by Anne Sexton. It is nothing if not arresting and thought-provoking. Not quite what I aimed for initially, but something to share nonetheless:

End, Middle, Beginning

There was an unwanted child,
Aborted by three modern methods
she hung on to the womb,
hooked onto it
building her house into it
and it was to no avail,
to black her out.

At her birth
she did not cry,
spanked indeed,
but did not yell --
instead snow fell out of her mouth.

As she grew, year by year,
her hair turned like a rose in a vase,
and bled down her face.
Rocks were placed on her to keep
the growing silent,
and though they bruised,
they did not kill,
though kill was tangled into her beginning.

They locked her in a football
but she merely curled up
and pretended it was a warm doll's house.

They pushed insects in to bite her off
and she let them crawl into her eyes
pretending they were a puppet show.

Later, later,
grown fully, as they say,
they gave her a ring,
and she wore it like a root
and said to herself,
"To be not loved is the human condition,"
and lay like a statue in her bed.

Then once,
by terrible chance,
love took her in his big boat
and she shoveled the ocean
in a scalding joy.

Then,
slowly,
love seeped away,
the boat turned into paper
and she knew her fate,
at last.
Turn where you belong,
into a deaf mute
that metal house,
let him drill you into no one.

Goodnight Tweetheart

2010-10-16T15:20:00.003-06:00

What's the cheapest way to tell a story?

I might argue it's by telling the story in letters or e-mails. Back-and-forth, flip-and-flop, he-said-she-said.

Sorry, I might have argued that yesterday. Today I'd have to guess the weakest way to tell a story is likely via "Tweets" and "direct messages" on Twitter.

In fairness, I've not yet read Goodnight Tweetheart. Nor have I ever personally written a book -- something I am sure takes so much personal sacrifice and self-motivation.

Still, I'm pretty comfortable with rushing to judgment on this one....

meet Emma and Dexter

2010-10-03T04:53:00.004-06:00

Well, I broke my own school-year rule -- no fun, fictional books when there are readings to be done -- and took One Day home on Friday afternoon.

Then, I literally spent two nights in a row reading until about 4 a.m. And I was not reading about the Christian-moral roots of our notions of communication. I was reading about Dexter and Emma, two people who share a (sort of) one-night stand in 1988, and the 20 years that follow this night.

I'm still sort of reeling from the book, to be honest. It's funny, it's disturbing.... It's epic -- yes, epic -- and I don't really know where to start without ruining anything for you. I should say, this is not When Harry Met Sally. This is.... two people you feel you know. Maybe two people you feel you've been.

Dexter, through much of the book, is literally like the douchiest person you've ever met. Take a moment, and think of that person -- someone you dated, shared a meal with, hated from across the classroom or office. Now, try to imagine that person does actually have the same misgivings and moments of self-doubt you do. Maybe he or she wants the same things you do, too, but manages to fall short because of some uncontrollable urge to be a douchebag. In a nutshell, this shrugging self-awareness is what allows you to love Dexter throughout the book.

Emma, meanwhile, is painfully funny and gracious and lovely. She's vulnerable and makes mistakes, and you just want to shake her at times, as though that would help her gain the confidence Dexter wants for her too. (A piece of writing from a note to Emma from Dexter: "You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle.") Other times, you want to hug her, straight-up.

I can't really say enough wonderful things about David Nicholls, and his beautiful suck-you-in-and-spit-you-out writing. It's a funny, funny book -- something of a love story, but really more the story of two lives, of perceptions that change and friendships that drift but stay the same as well. It's enough to make me want to read his other work, which includes Starter for Ten. But I won't today. Because I have to do school work today, and for many days ahead.

One Day?

2010-09-30T10:40:00.003-06:00

Has anyone heard anything about this book?

Aside, of course, from the fact Anne Hathaway has been cast to play the lead in the film, drawing random British ire?

One Day, written by David Nicholls, just kind of sounds like a book I'd love to read -- all drawn-out love story, years of banter and worrying and wondering?

To be continued, at some point....

where are you reading in South London?

2010-09-26T12:11:00.005-06:00

Around the corner from here. Relaxing.

Room?

2010-09-25T04:15:00.004-06:00

I'll admit, when I read the jacket on a copy of Room, by Emma Donoghue, I had that pit-of-the-stomach, I-don't-feel-up-to-reading-this-at-the-moment feeling. (Especially since the UK hardback looks like this, which is far more haunting than the North American cover.)

So, coming to Jennifer Weiner's interview with Donoghue on the same note, I'm moving towards picking this one up.... Who's read it? Thoughts? Did the Giller folks overlook it?

changed my mind

2010-09-23T12:41:00.004-06:00

I've decided I don't want to be Edith Wharton when I grow up.

I know. Big announcement. Ms. Wharton would probably be very disappointed.

But as I was sitting in a coffee shop today, literally drinking a cup of coffee, I started to fall asleep while reading In Morocco.

I do realize this makes me sound like an absolute moron -- what kind of person lays out "I started to fall asleep" as part of a critical review? Not a person who should be taken at all seriously in the world of criticism. Especially since I also haven't read Wharton's fictional work.

Nonetheless, I think I'm going to part ways with this book, and its colourful descriptions of landscapes and rooftops.

Going into this work, I was aware Wharton's observations would run to the kind of colonial stuff of early-20th century missionary/Christian women. But where Karen Blixen shared snippets of conversation and told stories of people's lives and adventures, Wharton's book only lays the groundwork for what Morocco is or was.

That said, that is quite an accomplishment. As Wharton points out from the start, at the time she was writing this book, Morocco was relatively unknown beyond its coastline to "western" readers. She is more or less writing the blueprint for future travel guides, albeit with a great deal more talent and poetry.

Examples of what is lovely about this book:

"It is a good thing to begin with... a mishap, not only because it develops the fatalism necessary to the enjoyment of Africa, but because it lets one at once into the mysterious heart of the country: a country so deeply conditioned by its miles and miles of uncitied wilderness that until one has known the wilderness one cannot begin to understand the cities." (p. 14)

And:

"Buildings, people, customs, seem all about to crumble and fall of their own weight: the present is a perpetually prolonged past. To touch the past with one's hands is realized only in dreams; and in Morocco the dream-feeling envelopes one at every step." (p. 85)

small confession

2010-09-17T00:40:00.002-06:00

As I read In Morocco, I think I want to be Edith Wharton when I grow up?

Juliet, Naked

2010-09-16T14:20:00.003-06:00

I think I was too invested in the outcome of Juliet, Naked.

Yes, friends, consider this a short note of caution after two previous blog posts urging you to read Nick Hornby's latest novel.

The thing is, the rock star at the centre of the novel -- Tucker Crowe -- is irredeemable. His really, really bad qualities are what make him, his story, his interactions with his children, and his correspondence with the novel's heroine, hilarious.

About 60 pages from the end of the book, though, I wanted something to change. And, again and again, I thought Hornby was throwing me a bone. I can't really expand on this because, honestly, I really really think you should read the book. It made me laugh out loud an embarrassing number of times.... Perhaps I was actually too much of a fan of the book, and just didn't want it to end.

quick round-up of reads....

2010-09-14T10:39:00.002-06:00

Well, even away from Edmonton I find this profile of the University of Alberta's president fascinating -- particularly the question raised about selling out.

In lighter fare, I can't put down Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked. I literally started laughing out loud on a train the other day. Man, I love Hornby.

Finally, saw this in a bookstore the other day -- haven't picked it up, but it looks fascinating, yes?

in Paris

2010-09-11T15:52:00.001-06:00

"Thou art alive still while thy booke doth live and we have wits to read and praise to give."

updates from the road, and you must read Larry's Party

2010-09-10T15:37:00.005-06:00

Aw, have you read the end of Larry's Party? The party part?

I promise I won't ruin it here -- like real life, it's best not to know how things find their conclusion. But if you haven't read this Carol Shields tale, you have to. Yes, Larry is selfish. And sometimes not a great person. And a little too warmed by his own charm and his own place in life. But maybe we all are from time to time.

In other news, I finally found a paperback version of Juliet, Naked and so I have train reading for this weekend.

where are you reading Larry's Party?

2010-09-04T17:37:00.003-06:00

(In my mom's backyard, Friday afternoon.)

I heart several things about Larry's Party, including the cover art, which was provided by Carol Shields and perfectly illustrates the main character's endless self-study and perpetual, selfish childishness.

One of the things I like very much is how Larry as a character is something of a roving target, a person whose likes and dislikes and bits and pieces move with time. So the decision to lock into his life about once a year, and tell a story about where he's at at any given time seems to reflect the fluidity of living.

Take, for example, Larry on his 30th birthday:

"....he's supposed to be sunk in gloom at the thought of turning thirty, but he isn't. He's unique and mortal, he knows that...." (p. 42)

Versus, his 40th birthday:

"Beth believes that 'it' is like a novel with its ups and downs of plot.... What Larry's going through is a natural phase. A chapter. A passing condition, this inflation of sadness....

"He doesn't want 'it' to blow away, that's the catch.

"When he wakes in the middle of the night, three o'clock, four o'clock, he is immediately alert to the presence of 'it' in the room, so close he could reach out and take it in his hand and marvel at the faithfulness and constancy of an 'it' that has chosen him and now resolutely hangs on...." (p. 168)

Perhaps my take on Larry's uneasy selfishness will change as I finish this novel, but at the moment, I have to admit it's sort of a treat to climb inside this ridiculous man's head. He is so unlike Daisy Goodwill, the main character in The Stone Diaries. While her voice often seems overwritten by the thoughts, feelings and interpretations of all those around her, Larry is light and easy. He is a man who accidentally steals a jacket, then justifies it, then tosses the coat altogether -- effectively losing two coats in one day -- and just moves on. At the same time, he constantly allows himself to sink into the teeniest crevices of the smallest problems. Ultimately, I suppose the very first tale, of Larry's stealing the jacket, is the perfect template for how he handles life in general.... But maybe I'll find myself wrong once I actually get to Larry's Party, the final chapter of the book.

on The Edible Woman and other bits....

2010-09-02T13:53:00.003-06:00

Given the mountain of scholarly work out there discussing Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman, I'd have to be ... well, ridiculous to believe "Marian McAlpin reminds me of Peggy Olson" and "I feel like baking a cake now" are serious reflections on this lovely novel.

So, in fear of sounding pretentious or silly, I'm going to keep this pretty light.

Written in 1969, The Edible Woman may well be a blueprint for all the fantastic Atwood symbolism and feminism one expects from her work; she has a way of belittling and magnifying a woman's worries and workings. This work falls in with Cat's Eye or Lady Oracle versus the dystopic Oryx and Crake or The Handmaid's Tale. And so, the "climax" of the novel isn't necessarily anything out of the ordinary -- it just is the point where Marian's so far outside herself, so unable to control herself, that her story becomes both comical and fearsomely edgy.

I have a hard time imagining how this story must have been received in the late 1960s, but that's just because I was born well after its publication, and we all like to think our own times are the most innovative and accepting and modern-thinking.

I also won't presume to isolate what makes The Edible Woman different from Atwood's later works.... but I would argue the use of characters other than Marian to explain what is happening to Marian is very interesting.

For example, one man in her life tells her, "'you're probably representative of modern youth, rebelling against the system; though it isn't considered orthodox to begin with the digestive system.'" (p. 212)

Meanwhile another man, later in the novel, says this about his own wife: "'I think it's harder for any woman who's been to university. She gets the idea she has a mind, her professors pay attention to what she has to say, they treat her like a thinking human being; when she gets married, her core gets invaded.... The centre of her personality, the thing she's built up; her image of herself, if you like....

"'Her feminine role and her core are really in opposition, her feminine role demands passivity from her...'" (p. 261)

In other readings:

There's a fun little brief in this month's issue of The Walrus about a law firm in the States trying to sex up divorce. You'll find it here, if you scroll down to the boxed-in brief called "Splitsville." I haven't a clue why it stood out at me as I was reading, but thought I might share :)

It's finally occurred to me only a truly ridiculous person would pack 22 books -- mostly novels -- along with her to Europe for just one year. Especially when the same person is trying to decide what clothes and shoes and jackets to bring. So, I'm rushing through Beyond the Echo Chamber, highlighting the interesting bits. (For the journos in the crowd, it's a little disappointing so far -- a little more about being "progressive" than embracing social media. But maybe I've not fully grasped the thesis yet. Unsurprisingly, a "working definition" of what it means to be progressive takes about five and a half pages. Academia!)

Not academia!

(h/t Laura and this site)

a Bookshelf moment

2010-09-01T12:38:00.002-06:00

Either I miss my own furniture -- now locked away in storage -- or this is awesome.

where Atwood meets Mad Men

2010-08-29T17:14:00.003-06:00

I'm reading The Edible Woman -- Margaret Atwood's first novel, published in 1969 -- and I'm utterly struck by her main character, Marian McAlpin. Specifically, how Marian, in her struggle to be feminine and not be feminine, to be a career girl and not to be a career girl, is something of a blueprint for Peggy Olson.

I know, it's a terribly shallow comparison. But just 100 pages into the first part of Atwood's novel, there's such an obvious disconnect between who Marian is and who she thinks she should be, that a person who is obsessed with Mad Men can't help but draw a parallel.

If you haven't read this book at all, or not in a few years, please do pick it up and let me know if I've drawn a horrifying or appropriate conclusion.

Meanwhile, the last bit of millennium poetry I'll offer from Chasing Shakespeares:

"History is a point of view, over the same city, perhaps, but from a thousand eyes, not one. Wait five minutes, the light has changed, a wall has been demolished, a new window set in place, and from the top of the wheel another set of eyes are looking out over a different city. There's no one map, one story, one way to get to one truth; there is no single London and no single Shakespeare, no fact as sure as a story." (p. 329)

where are you reading in Creston?

2010-08-26T17:47:00.003-06:00

You'll find this picture's sister image here.

And you'll find great coffee in this small town here.

a sense of place

2010-08-11T17:30:00.002-06:00

"London is a manuscript, a square mile scribbled over by two thousand years of Londoners; it is parchment scraped clean and used again. But around London Wall the streets still curve, and the Tower and Westminster Abbey still stand. And Shakespeare is as big as the London Wall. Shakespeare left traces." (p. 78)

A coworker once told me reading Dickens and other fictional works informed his mental map of London; he needed nothing at hand to know the city's streets or the way to the Thames.

I, on the other hand, very much need detailed, indexed maps. In fact, when reading a novel, I tend to skip over detailed descriptions of land and streets. At least, until I've been to the places being written about -- Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air never made so much sense as after I had returned from Yellowknife. Now, on a second read of Chasing Shakespeares, I know all the places Sarah Smith writes of, and I appreciate how the main character, Joe Roper, wants so badly to see the the history of the city come to life.

surf's up

2010-08-05T22:56:00.002-06:00

Dream!

"how Elizabeth Gilbert ruined Bali"

2010-08-04T22:12:00.003-06:00

This Jezebel article is kind of a must-read -- I find the idea of Bali falling victim to an international obsession with Elizabeth Gilbert herself, a fictionalized version of her courtesy Eat, Pray, Love the book and movie, and Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert absolutely fascinating.

Which is weird, since I've not yet read the book and I am fairly certain I won't be able to find anyone to join me for the movie....

But one community getting sort of rich lady cougarized (pardon the sexist and inappropriate categorization) is interesting. And the idea the characters in Gilbert's book would become caricatures of themselves is all the more interesting -- could the same happen to any of us? And, as the author of the Jezebel post rightly points out, if you're following someone else's path to enlightenment -- or love or self-understanding or whatever it is Gilbert found -- can you really find anything at all?

Excerpt: With its Pilates classes and plentiful shops selling overpriced flowing clothing, Ubud has catered to women seeking spiritual harmony since long before Gilbert, but the book was a tipping point for the temple-strewn town. Gilbert's haunts here have become destinations of their own, stop-offs on an Eat, Pray, Love pilgrimage. Many of these places now have waitlists and, in some cases, have begun charging exorbitant prices. The prices are paid with due reverence by Gilbert's devotees, women wearing stylish resort wear and similar Buddha-like smiles.

(Image from this site.)

under the sun

2010-08-01T11:58:00.003-06:00

I'm in full-out summer-read mode. You know? The kind of reading where you have options -- you could invest an entire afternoon in a story about hot summer nights in Florida, or you could read like two pages of a story before falling asleep.... The point is, this is the kind of reading where your brain is just not working too hard. I think of it as resting before all the reading I'll be doing this fall.

So on that note, I've just finished reading Alice Hoffman's Turtle Moon. First published in 1992, it's a classic Hoffman outing -- lots of passion, hitting the road, crime and crime-fighting, ghosts, mixed up kid logic, anthropomorphism.

I have a half-theory about Hoffman's writing in the 1990s versus the last decade. Frankly, her early works are a little more adventurous, a little more fun. Around the time she published The Blackbird House, it feels like she inserted a distance between herself and her characters. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if it's because her more recent books tend to break into shorter stories that are loosely connected versus following a string of characters through a plotted story. There's a chance this is merely a reflection of Hoffman's development, and I'm so shallow I can't fully embrace that.... For example, The Ice Queen and Turtle Moon both follow a small number of characters through stories with strong plots. But where Turtle Moon has characters you can believe in -- young, divorced mothers, lost children -- The Ice Queen was wonderfully fantastical and fairy tale-like, but the main characters are inherently unlikable.

In other notes....

You should read "Comic Sans," a short story in The Incongruous Quarterly. I admit to being particularly fond of this story because of my own time on a university student newspaper. But it's a really fun read.

I wouldn't say Jennifer Weiner's new book about the female members of a politician's family (after the politician publicly and grossly cheats on his wife) is getting the best reviews.... I fully plan to read Fly Away Home. While at the same time wondering why American writers are so obsessed with philandering politicos. (See: The success of The Good Wife.)

I'm re-reading Chasing Shakespeares. I first read this one while still at university, and I remember it being this adventurous romp through modern-day London in search of Shakespeare's true identity.... So you can see why I'd pick it up again. So far? I forgot how bogged down by neuroses the main character is. I mean, he's a master's student obsessed with writing a new and interesting biography of Shakespeare. But at the start of the book he's sort of disappointingly and depressingly combing through Elizabethan-era letters and transcripts, all of which are actually fake.

The startling thing I had forgotten about this book is that it reads like a story written by an academic. Which is not necessarily a bad thing (see: A.S. Byatt), except the novel is first set in the United States. And the main character, Joe, is a working-class sort of guy. In keeping with her idea of how such a person might speak, Smith sometimes assigns really weird style to his conversation. For example, describing his vehicle as a "pile-o'-shit truck." Or, one summer while working for a window-installing company, his coworkers apparently said, "Some book you got, Joe, ain't even got tits and ass on it, what's it good for?"

It strikes me as so odd, to be honest.

But then there's the good (if equally unbelievable) parts. Joe had the measles when he first read Macbeth. The part where Lady Macbeth has died, and Macbeth is grieving her, apparently elicited this response:

"That speech took me somewhere a nine-year-old kid had no business going. It was a place that could swallow me up and not even notice. Like the woods beyond where the roads go, where grownups get lost. I put my head down on my arms and cried, and it wasn't just I had the measles, I knew that place was out there. But I knew, when I got there, I'd recognize the place and I'd know a man who had been there too." (p. 4)

the bomb party

2010-07-25T21:27:00.004-06:00

Last book club today before I leave for London, and we discussed Graham Greene's Dr. Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party.

Greene emphasizes, throughout, that this is a story of human greed. He argues, again and again, that rich people can be greedier than poor.

Leaving that book -- and I'm warning you now, I will spoil the ending, so stop reading this post if this is a book you want to read -- I feel like I forgot to ask why Fischer killed himself?

Can it have been so simple as loneliness? Or having seen proof of the power of human greed? I feel like there was no specific reason for Fischer to have ended his life, at least no specific reason that set apart that particular night from any other. Am I missing something?

In other book news, I also wrapped up The Third Angel this week. It's a lovely read, though not nearly as straight-forward as Greene's. Alice Hoffman's stories are like dreams -- ephemeral and, somehow, just out of reach.

One of the character's in the book is an author, who mentions again and again that her children's story can be read backwards to make for a happy ending. (Read straight-forward, it has a sad ending.) Similarly, one might consider taking a second stab at The Third Angel back-to-front, in the name of continuity and, indeed, a happier conclusion.

In other news:

If I were to look forward to one Fringe show, I think it might be "The Survival of Pigeons As Observed By Human Lovers" from Surreal SoReal Theatre. Or "Death: Live!" (Yes, there were previews of both Saturday night at the Roxy.)

Mad Men is back! I literally couldn't wait all day to watch tonight's episode and see the new set. Detailed recaps of Episode 1 here and here.

where are you reading?

2010-07-25T00:52:00.001-06:00

Edmonton's river valley, near the Shaw Conference Centre.

but what happened to Lila?

2010-07-18T19:12:00.002-06:00

From Trashionista: Francine Pascal is expected to release an adult Sweet Valley next spring.

Description:

Now with this striking new adult novel from author and creator Francine Pascal, millions of devoted fans can finally return to the idyllic Sweet Valley, home of the phenomenally successful book series and franchise. Iconic and beloved identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are back and all grown up, dealing with the complicated adult world of love, careers, betrayal, and sisterhood.

third rock from the

2010-07-17T12:35:00.003-06:00

Ok, so today's link is not brought to you by "books," per se.

Or, you know, at all.

And this is because -- like you, I imagine -- I have a bunch of things on my plate today. Like shopping and yoga and Street Performers' Festival. And, at some point this weekend, Much Ado About Nothing. Not to mention, I need to finish The Third Angel (it's bad that so far I love the drug-addicted rock star character more than the other characters, right? like another example of my bad taste in men? right...) so I can read Graham Greene ahead of next weekend's book club meeting.

So, the link: Choose-Your-Own Geek. I pick Joseph Gordon-Levitt, obviously. And, of course, got the link from the Fug Girls.

summer Sunday

2010-07-11T13:48:00.002-06:00

Cups of coffee this morning: 2

Minutes into the Spain-Netherlands World Cup game: 86

Goals: Zero all.

Sense of stress even though I don't really care that much about soccer? 9/10

In other news, Hamish Bowles at Vogue offers a highly entertaining, entirely persnickety account of surfing. Having surfed only once in my entire life (if, in fact, one can have claimed to surf when one did not ever quite stand up on the board without falling down), I love, love, love the novelty with which Bowles treats the whole experience.

(Yes, I was already on about this on Twitter.)

Another summer read you just have to love, courtesy the great L.M. Montgomery:

'A tall, slim girl, "half-past sixteen," with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil.
'But an August afternoon, with blue hazes scarfing the harvest slopes, little winds whispering elfishly in the poplars, and a dancing splendor of red poppies outflaming against the dark coppice of young firs in a corner of the cherry orchard, was fitter for dreams than dead languages. The Virgil soon slipped unheeded to the ground, and Anne, her chin propped on her clasped hands, and her eyes on the splendid mass of fluffy clouds that were heaping up just over Mr. J. A. Harrison's house like a great white mountain, was far away in a delicious world where a certain schoolteacher was doing a wonderful work, shaping the destinies of future statesmen, and inspiring youthful minds and hearts with high and lofty ambitions.
'To be sure, if you came down to harsh facts ... which, it must be confessed, Anne seldom did until she had to ... it did not seem likely that there was much promising material for celebrities in Avonlea school; but you could never tell what might happen if a teacher used her influence for good. Anne had certain rosetinted ideals of what a teacher might accomplish if she only went the right way about it; and she was in the midst of a delightful scene, forty years hence, with a famous personage ... just exactly what he was to be famous for was left in convenient haziness, but Anne thought it would be rather nice to have him a college president or a Canadian premier ... bowing low over her wrinkled hand and assuring her that it was she who had first kindled his ambition, and that all his success in life was due to the lessons she had instilled so long ago in Avonlea school. This pleasant vision was shattered by a most unpleasant interruption.
'A demure little Jersey cow came scuttling down the lane and five seconds later Mr. Harrison arrived ... if "arrived" be not too mild a term to describe the manner of his irruption into the yard.
'He bounced over the fence without waiting to open the gate, and angrily confronted astonished Anne, who had risen to her feet and stood looking at him in some bewilderment....'

three down, like a million to go?

2010-07-10T12:24:00.004-06:00

If I were to tell you about books today, here's what you would absolutely need to know:

1. It's summer, so I am reading an Alice Hoffman novel called The Third Angel. Some authors write characters you come to feel close to -- people you feel like you are actually getting to know. Others describe characters so steeped in mystery, so ultimately distant, you are only an observer. Hoffman happens to fall into the second category, and so the stories she weaves are fascinating and otherworldly, but nonetheless addictive. Here's a review.

2. Speaking of reviews, you have to read Michael Hingston's piece on Elliot Allagash here. He manages to bring the word "analogue" and a comparison of F. Scott Fitzgerald to the paper.

3. Also on reviews, Jennifer Weiner has another book out this summer. Which ushers in the necessary, well, whining about how serious book reviewers don't take chick lit seriously. What I think might be more interesting about this blog post, though, is the question about how much is too much self-promotion via Twitter and Facebook and social media. Is it gross that I think this is kind of a major dilemma for writers?

4. I managed to pack three boxes of books last night! Yeah, baby, I'm going to fight so hard to ensure packing up my life by mid-August is not a total freaking nightmare....

But to be totally honest, I did not start this blog post because I wanted to talk about books.

I started this particular post because I wanted to discuss how much I continue to love Ewan McGregor after all these years. Sigh.

recent birthday wishes

2010-07-07T00:15:00.005-06:00

I've mentioned this before, but I really do think of TSS and Erin as sort of co-bloggers -- they regularly offer insightful comments at Brilliant title to go here, and frankly they make the experience of writing a blog about books very rewarding.

In honour of their very recent birthdays, I offer nods to two fantastic (male) authors.

For TSS, Haruki Murakami -- a lovely author TSS and A introduced me to when it was my birthday a few moons ago. I've never read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, but I've heard it's very very good.

For Erin, Timothy Findley -- one of the great authors of 20th century Canadian literature. Obviously, I am in love with his fiction. But, I absolutely recommend his travel collection, Journeyman, for a snapshot of a very Canadian sort of life.

this post has nothing to do with Canada Day

2010-07-01T11:37:00.003-06:00

Ok, this blog post, by memoir writer Jen Lancaster, cracks me up.
For a woman whose most recent memoir is about being lazy, she is dedicated to your entertainment. In fact, if you only read one thing about the movie Eclipse (which, frankly, I don't think is possible, since there is So Much Out There), you should read her summary blog post.

The woman uses dolls to explain!

Brilliant. Hilarious.

catching up on magazine world....

2010-06-29T00:32:00.003-06:00

You may -- just may -- be aware that I pretty much idolize Joseph Boyden.

Is idolize even the right word?

Like, I want to write like him and hang out with him and... yeah, idolize is probably the right word.

Anyway, last week in Maclean's he and his wife Amanda Boyden wrote about life on the Gulf Coast in the midst of the oil spill. You can read that story here.

I was struck by how the story is written; overall, fairly straight-forward and sort of journalistic. But, every once in awhile, there is an image described in such a simple way that it sticks with you. This is the graph that left me with shivers:

The crated birds, both oiled and newly cleaned, object with grunts closer to moose than to what one might expect from birds, their cries guttural and low-registered. It’s the chorus effect that proves so haunting.

In other news, if you haven't read this Rolling Stone story, where have you been? I love it. And wish I could use "shit" and "fuck" more often in my writing. Without blushing.

Last of all, also from magazine world, The Walrus tells us tawdry tales of sexiness in the publishing business. Well, actually, Stacey May Fowles is riffing off this Globe and Mail column. I'm not sure any of this makes publishing different from (insert industry or career path here), though it does sound sort of Mad Men-ish, no?

Arguing With Idiots

2010-06-22T00:09:00.002-06:00

I realize this book has been around for awhile.
I still feel it needs additional notice.
Actually, it probably deserves way less notice.

Android Karenina

2010-06-20T19:22:00.002-06:00

I spotted Android Karenina at Chapters today and I don't even know how to weigh in.... I really disliked Anna Karenina (sorry Heather, Adam). And although I never read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I became less patient with the idea of the mashup novel once Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters was released (followed by other horror-y novels sprinkled throughout bookstores featuring puns on Pride and Prejudice/Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth Bennett).

All that said, perhaps I would actually love Android Karenina? Since it would inject much-needed levity in a book I found ... stuffy?

Assuming I can get past the gag-inducing first line: "Functioning robots are all alike; every malfunctioning robot malfunctions in its own way."

on home

2010-06-20T19:06:00.003-06:00

For a man who's chosen to live in New Orleans, Joseph Boyden puts considerable weight in the salvation of returning home.

I'm still reading Born With A Tooth, and loving his short stories. But as I work through the seasons of a year -- each season gets three or four stories -- I'm struck by how "going home," often going back to reserves in northern Ontario, is seen as something of a happy ending.

This does not mean the collection is actually full of happy endings. Indeed, there's enough stark violence in some stories (and sweet childhood innocence in others) to make for tales that will surprise you. As usual, Boyden's way with language is beautiful, and something so very necessary in Canadian literature.

But like in his award-winning novels (and here's something of a spoiler alert), the stories he tells reach for home. Perhaps a romantic ideal of what home could be, or a remote reality many Canadians don't realize. He doesn't write the return as the answer to all problems, but for his characters, he seems to believe that going back to one's roots, culture and family is a start down a solid road.

It's an interesting idea to reflect on.

Something else to reflect on, from his story "Bearwalker:"

"Reporters and TV crews swarm around the reserve, eating up the tidbits about black magic, interviewing anyone they can.
One of the first is Old Lady Koostachin.... Her English isn't that good so her granddaughter stands beside her and translates. The reporter's a pretty, serious blonde woman who comes off as talking down to Mrs. Koostachin.
'So the belief,' the reporter says, 'among your people, among your tribe, is that Francis Killomonsett is a bearwalker, somebody who can physically transform himself into an animal of his choosing?'"
(p. 101)

A link to share -- Boyden answering questions from a high school class in Saskatchewan.

spoon fed!

2010-06-12T18:03:00.003-06:00

Cara The Fabulous Girl sent me a book this week called Spoon Fed.

And here's what she told me about it -- I have yet to start it:

"I got you Spoon Fed more because it's an interesting read than a good read.... I won't say anything else until you've read it and we can dissect it together. Except for I don't think it's compelling in the same way that In Defense of Food is."

She adds the book offers a who's-who of influential people in the food world.

a woman's life

2010-06-07T22:37:00.010-06:00

So... I'm all into self-reflection mode.

Apologies if you're already bored by this particular phase, which is most notably marked by a new blog I've created to chronicle the months ahead.

In keeping with this theme, however, I thought I'd share my brief thoughts on Carol Shields's exquisite book, The Stone Diaries. Really, these thoughts boil down to a fervent recommendation -- once you start this novel, you can't stop reading.

Meant to be written as though it were a woman's autobiography, the book settles into the quiet moments of her life. Chapters are sketched out as "birth," "childhood," "marriage," "love," "motherhood," "work," "sorrow," "ease," "illness and decline," and "death." In some ways, this boils a life down to the highlights, not the drama. If I could compare it to anything, the idea is something similar to a Canadian history text book, full of general summaries highlighted by key moments.

Does that make it sound boring? It really isn't. The point I'm really trying to make is that Shields had this absolutely magical way of telling stories about life the way life can actually be. Which is impressive and inspirational.

As for Daisy Goodwill, the subject of this book.... Well, there are few sadder lines than one of her last in the novel. I'd compare it, honestly, to the confusion of the main character in Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel. (SPOILER ALERT) The line is, well, sort of chilling in its simplicity: "'I am not at peace.' -- Daisy Goodwill's final (unspoken) words."

An excerpt to consider:

"Life is an endless recruiting of witnesses. It seems we need to be observed in our postures of extravagance or shame, we need attention paid to us. Our own memory is altogether too cherishing, which is the kindest thing I can say for it. Other accounts are required, other perspectives, but even so our most important ceremonies -- birth, love, and death -- are secured by whomever and whatever is available." (p. 36-37)

Next up?

Well, what are you guys reading?

I'm reading Joseph Boyden's Born With A Tooth, which continues to highlight -- for me, at least -- Boyden's amazing style.

I'm also reading book blogs here and here, which I think you might enjoy. Too Many Books in the Kitchen is starkly analytical and challenging, while Is Well Read tells the stories of keen readers, some we know, some in war zones, some just witty and, um, well read?

despite the cheese....

2010-05-05T00:31:00.003-06:00

Ok, has anyone noticed how much blatant cheese has found its way onto prime time lately?

And I'm not talking about Glee (eee!). Rather, tonight Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was on. And I maybe sort of got pulled in. Pulled into a movie that stars the Bee Gees, and the only speaking part belongs to George Burns.

So bizarre.

I also watched Some Kind of Wonderful the other night. Sometimes, Gilmore Girls episodes make you think a movie (written by John Hughes) is a must-see cultural touchstone. And sometimes that's completely wrong.

(Even though my heart totally melted on this closing line: "You look good wearing my future.")

Anyway.... You probably came here to read about books.

And so I offer you something you might think would be cheesy, like Sex and the City but in Riyadh (not Abu Dhabi).

But Girls of Riyadh is more than chick lit fare. It pushes the edges of your expectations on several levels -- to read it is to learn about a completely different culture, and to re-evaluate romance and fairy tales.

On its surface, it's not well written. I blame this in part on the translation -- in fact, the author notes before the start of the novel that the original text incorporated classic Arabic with so-called "mongrel Arabic," language that would encompass Saudi turns of phrase, Lebanese-Arabic and English-Arabic. I can't imagine that's easy to translate to English, and so I can see why some of the phrasing is not only awkward, but actually reaching to sound cool and modern.

I also blame it on the mix of styles; Rajaa Alsanea asks you to imagine each chapter is an e-mail being sent out to young Saudis by an anonymous writer each week. So the bulk of the chapter is told in a traditional story-telling manner -- and this is the part that draws you in. But the start of each chapter is a message from the writer, mildly taunting, sometimes including excerpts from the Koran. I see the magic of what Alsanea is doing; she is setting the scene, signalling how closed and secret a society she is discussing. (But getting what she's doing doesn't mean I like the way these intros are written.)

But seriously, I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to learn something new and also enjoy a book like you'd enjoy a fairly good dessert.

the beardless bard

2010-04-17T20:24:00.004-06:00

I was thinking today that Ann-Marie MacDonald is really due to write another book, right? It's been forever -- forever! -- since The Way The Crow Flies was released.

But some Googling yields this novel, The Belle Moral, which appears to have been released two years ago. Has anyone read it? How did it slip past my radar? It appears, as well, to be a reworking of MacDonald's earlier play, The Arab's Mouth.

However, I am writing to you today on behalf of a different MacDonald play, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). Really, we should all start organizing a campaign to get this work onto the screen.

How can I count the ways this slim little play is awesome?

To start, it's really well written. Example:

"No one may remain forever young.
We change our swaddling clothes for funeral shrouds,
and in between is one brief shining space,
where love may strike by chance, but only death is sure." (p. 64)

Just as important, it's wickedly smart. Indeed, what would happen if Othello and Romeo and Juliet were comedies? What if you could incorporate the gender bender story lines Shakespeare injected in other works, like Twelfth Night? What if neither Desdemona nor Juliet were victims? And they actually got what they deserved?

What if your heroine were a modern-day woman, an academic? And if, by the end of the work, the wordplay and ridiculousness that drags the likes of Mercutio and Tybalt and Othello under could drag her under too?

I think we all know the answers to these questions are: You'd have a really great, quick read on your hands. And stage directions to stoke your imagination.

Another monologue to love:

"Regina. I hate the prairies. They're flat. It's an absolute nightmare landscape of absolutes and I'm a relativist, I'll go mad. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Diamonds are harder than a bed of nails. I can't feel anything. I'm perfectly fine. I'll call the Dean and resign. I'll go back to my apartment and watch the plants die and let the cats copulate freely. I'll order in groceries. Eventually I'll be evicted. I'll smell really bad and swear at people on the subway. Five years later I run into Professor Night and Ramona: they don't recognize me. I'm selling pencils. They buy one. Suddenly, I drop dead. They discover my true identity. I'm awarded my doctorate posthumously...." (p. 20)

spin....

2010-04-07T20:15:00.003-06:00

I've been holding my breath.

Like, literally, holding my breath while reading the last 10 pages of "Fear of Love," a chapter in Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin.

The man's a beautiful writer; it's easy to see why some argue his tangential spin on 9/11 is the best kind of post-Sept. 11 lit out there.

I'm just about halfway through the novel, selected by T for book club. And I just can't say enough nice things to capture the book's beauty. Here he has created characters I want to touch. I want to reach through the pages and hug or shake or pinch....

Honestly, I would add McCann to my list of crushes, if that list hadn't gotten so unwieldy lately.

But here's T's take on McCann, if not directly the book (I'm hoping he won't mind my stealing a line from his recent e-mail):

His books are full of harrowing, breathtaking prose, able to conjure up astonishing images at a whim, create entire histories within a few sentences, and wrench your gut before you even feel a twist.

food!

2010-03-28T19:17:00.005-06:00

"What the Soviet Union was to the ideology of Marxism, the Low-Fat Campaign is to the ideology of nutritionism -- its supreme test and as now is coming clear, its most abject failure. You can argue, as some diehards will do, that the problem was one of faulty execution or you can accept that the underlying tenets of the ideology contained the seeds of the eventual disaster." (p. 41)

Ok, yes, just yesterday I was all "whine, bleh, me-me-me, I can't find a good book to read, bleh bleh."

But today I am reading Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food.

It may be changing my life. I mean, we can't be sure yet, since it's been just about 24 hours. But you know how I'm not at all prone to being over dramatic, so chances are my life is in fact changing.

Ok, let's get serious here.

Pollan's a great writer; within the introduction of his book, he manages to whisk the reader through the last 50 years of eating food in North America. He explains the ideology of "nutritionism," and -- frankly -- makes you a bit queasy about all the crap you've been ignoring on the ingredients list of virtually anything you'd find in a grocery store freezer. Actually, if the lists of things you can't pronounce don't make you queasy enough, he walks you through all the things fed to pigs, cows and chickens to nutrient-up your pork, beef and eggs.

Now, the manifesto part is summed up in the first line of the book and on the cover of the paperback: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." But these simple words of advice do not actually signal the start of a book that is going to talk down to you. This is a work of journalism written for wide public access, and if anything it's an order not to reorganize your diet (necessarily) but to rethink how and what you eat.

Fascinating stuff.

By the way, other reads to consider if you're with me on this track?

In Edmonton, We eat together, by Julianna Mimande and Gabe Wong -- a book not just about eating locally, but about Alberta growers and producers.

And, in general, I'm pretty excited about Sophie Dahl's Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights, though have yet to pick it up.

something... else...

2010-03-27T15:16:00.002-06:00

I'm in a wanting sort of mood these days.

I'm not sure how to best explain that, actually.

But let's take the smallest possible example: I want new jeans. I need new jeans. I cannot find a pair of new jeans to fit me if my bloody life depended on it. Everything is too loose in the waist, too tight in the thighs, or simply impossible to drag past my knees. I think I cranked my back trying on pairs of pants today, actually.

And so now I'm woefully depressed and feel like failure to purchase new jeans is the rough equivalent to failure in life in general.

Not that I'm being remotely over dramatic.

So, to books.

Where, unusually, I am also left wanting.

Books and I just aren't really getting along. It's like everything I read is falling flat, or is sort of out of tune. It's not unlike how I can't seem to enjoy any romantic comedies released in theatres in the last three months -- on paper, every single movie appears to be exactly what I would like, and yet they suck. I'm looking at you, Leap Year.

Maybe it's a reflection, too, of what I've been trying to put to the page lately. It's like I can't stand the distance between writer and subject. Now I know I'm not making sense (but kudos to you for getting this far, friend). I just want... I want to be whisked along on a fantastic journey by a really great writer. I want poetry and awesomeness. I want a story I can believe in. I want... something other than what I've been reading or writing or thinking lately.

Bleh. Maybe I just need more sunshine.

I will tell you what has been a delightful break from my "I want, I want, I want"-ness lately, though. Vancouver, by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths. As I think I mentioned before, it's so formulaic I can't in good conscience recommend it.

Except, of course, that it's a really fun read. There's adventure. And deceit. And mystery. Characters you can't quite care about, but which have enough of a connection to the earth that you want them to make their way forward.

Vancouver is less a tale of a city, and more a story of an assumed mindset. If you assume those who find their way to the Lower Mainland seek new lives, fresh starts and something more for themselves, then you can go for the ride, from the story's start thousands of years ago with one man crossing the Bering Strait, to its end in modern-day Stanley Park and East Hastings. If you need a break from real life, it's not a bad ride at all.

in-between reads: good and bad, bad, bad

2010-03-23T19:42:00.003-06:00

Just back from a (warm, amazing, lovely, awesome) weekend away, and got to some really great reads.

Including this article about Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama making nice. (I know, I'm obsessed.)

Also, this profile of Barack Obama's chief of staff.

I even picked up a book about social media I'm super keen to get into. (And then, yes, I got my reading list for next year. *exciting!*)

And... Yeah, that's about it.

See, I was also reading Elizabeth Hay's collection of short stories, Small Change. And I fricking hated it. In fact, I still have one last short story to read, and I can barely work up the energy....

I know what you might be thinking. "Doesn't she always complain about short story collections because she's not really deep enough to get them?"

Yeah, I see your point. Except I loved Birds of America. And my problem here isn't a lack of depth. At least, I don't think it is. (Although I imagine no one ever really thinks they lack depth...)

Anyway.

All the stories are connected, and I understand how they're connected, since they deal with the same characters again and again.

So why not just link the stories as "chapters" and then tell a single story in a clear, straightforward manner?

I don't know.

Instead, Hay opted to write all the stories in first-person, so the reader can keep trying to guess who is talking. Each new story is like a puzzle. And you spend so much time trying to figure out what the person is saying, whether they are male or female, whether you've already kind of read this story but from a different perspective, that you don't actually get to enjoy any of the stories for what they are.

Of course, without the guessing game, the stories would just be repetitive tales of how one woman (and possibly a second woman with the same name) breaks friendships again and again.

Highlights? Only one:

"This is the tragedy of love. We are most serious with the people we most admire, and the people we most admire love to laugh." p. 128

I know. Barely a highlight. I was in transit when I thought those lines were particularly noteworthy. I'm not so sure now.

Ugh, so negative. If you've not yet read Late Nights on Air, do not let this review stop you. Seriously.

on being shallow and having role models

2010-03-10T23:35:00.005-07:00

I've been working on some academic stuff, but it hasn't stopped me from reading a super shallow book just for fun.

And that shallow book is Vancouver, a novel by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths.

This one's been on my bookshelf for years -- probably since its 2003 publication. (Which, incidentally, also means I've dragged it across the country at least once. Interesting.) At 914 pages, though, I just didn't get around to reading it.

Now, I can't really put it down. As this reviewer argues well, the book is super formulaic. Kinda sexy. Kinda silly. Not a bad read if you're in the mood for something you don't really have to invest much thought in.

Kinda like eating Lucky Charms for dinner.

Not that I've done that more than once in the last seven days.

Speaking of food, the most recent issue of Vogue has a fantastic piece by Sophie Dahl called "Secrets of the Flesh." Dahl, who has a new cookbook out, has an amazing take on food and body image.

Frankly, her article is like having a really awesome talk with your super self-confident friend who actually likes eating and doesn't really care what size she is.

It's a little ridiculous how refreshing that is and how much I actually want to hug a former model.

Last offering of the evening: A couple weeks ago, Jian Gomeshi talked to Elizabeth Gilbert on Q. Even if you don't buy into the whole Eat, Pray, Love/Committed thing (I don't either), it's totally worth listening to Gomeshi's take on romance....

By the way, did everyone already know Eat, Pray, Love was set to be a movie with Julia Roberts?

I have concerns. Mostly because of Julie&Julia, which was exactly half a good movie. As in, loved Meryl Streep and Julia Child. Hated Julie Powell. I am not sure I have much patience with movies about women who write all about themselves all the time. (Says a woman who writes a lot about herself.)

On the other hand, Eat, Pray, Love is directed by the dude who brought us Glee. So he's already earned a place in my heart.

<3

Quimby alert

2010-03-08T01:04:00.002-07:00

In the spirit of Oscar night -- and no, I don't want to talk about Sandra Bullock or her win for a movie that looks like it should have debuted on the Hallmark channel -- I offer some book-to-movie updates.

Big news: Ramona Quimby is going to the big screen! With none other than Aidan Shaw as her dad. I mean John Corbett. No, I mean Aidan Shaw.

We remember Ramona Quimby, Age 8, yes? Yes!

No new news on Diablo Cody's Sweet Valley High project. But, it looks like we'll see the twins in their 30s next year?

Meanwhile, this movie appears to have nothing to do with Christopher Pike. Harrumph.

of werewolves, fairy tales and confusing acrobatics

2010-02-21T21:57:00.005-07:00

We had book club this afternoon (I made frittata from this recipe, except with Gouda instead of Fontina), and discussed A Student of Weather. Now, I'm still stuck on the idea Elizabeth Hay was trying to tell her story in fairy-tale fashion.... And these lines from a Walrus profile of Michael Ignatieff gave me pause:

French Canadians grow up on the fable of the dark, handsome stranger who comes from the faraway city and woos the innocent farm girl with his honeyed words. Beware, goes the moral, for he is the loup-garou.

I've also been thinking lots lately about what it would be like to be a writer. This is in part because I've been reading (loving) Timothy Findley's Journeyman. Also, I was a titch inspired by Shelf Discovery (should I own to that?).

But, this afternoon, our little book club absolutely ripped apart a sex scene in A Student of Weather. (I'm not excerpting it here. But you can find it on p. 155 of the 2001 McLelland and Stewart paperback, should you happen upon it. Some readers might question whether the acrobatics described are physically possible.) And so, I can't help but wonder how scary it would be to put a sex scene out into the universe. Imagine a living room of individuals you don't know trying to figure out what you meant to say, or what image you were trying to draw? Intimidating....

the long and winding road -- of books

2010-02-16T23:43:00.004-07:00

I've fallen in love with Calvin O'Keefe.

Again.

Of course, depending on how you look at it, he's a little young for me. Fourteen on the page. But, the page was first published in 1962, which was 19 years before I was born. So... gross no matter how you cut it...

(Sidenote: Shouldn't 1962 be way more years before I was born? Honestly? Gah.)

Ok, back to the books.

I was up late last night re-reading A Wrinkle in Time, quietly applauding Madeleine L'Engle's bullet-proof awesomeness. Chuckling at Calvin O'Keefe, who managed to hit on the "just as you are" line long before Mark Darcy.

Of course, being a teenage boy, the lines run more like this:

'"I wish I were a different person,' Meg said shakily. 'I hate myself.'
"Calvin reached over and took off her glasses. Then he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped her tears. This gesture of tenderness undid her completely, and she put her head down on her knees and sobbed. Calvin sat quietly beside her, every once in a while patting her head. 'I'm sorry,' she sobbed finally. 'I'm terribly sorry. Now you'll hate me.'
"'Oh, Meg, you are a moron,' Calvin said. 'Don't you know you're the nicest thing that's happened to me in a long time?'" (p. 53)

C'mon. Let out that chorus of "awwws" you're holding back. As if you wouldn't have loved to hear that when you were, I don't know, 12? Or, as if you wouldn't have loved to have had the guts to say that when you were a teen.

As Lizzie Skurnick puts it, "Loving. Him. LOVING HIM."

See, it's Skurnick's Shelf Discovery that has me wandering down memory lane, remembering books once loved and (thankfully!) not lost.

That said, I'm not wholly certain I would recommend this one. Skurnick's book's third sub-title identifies it as "A Reading Memoir," and I have to tell you, it's not quite that. In fact, I'm not quite sure what it is.

While it is certainly entertaining, it's not terribly personal. Nor is it academic, although Skurnick manages to contextualize many of the books we loved within the times they were written, and within a feminist (or not feminist) off-the-page balance.

"If you ask me, it is truly a symbol of the great injustice of life as we know it today that the only girl heroine's name that can truly be said to have entered the vernacular is 'Pollyanna.'.... It's an even greater injustice that the appelative, of course, is a pejorative. It's not only that, out of the 9,000 exciting heroines you could mention, our language reflects only one. It's that the one character elected for immortality, the linguistic ambassador for young women in the world, is a prating goody-goody who spreads her good cheer with the relentless force of a Caterpillar." (p. 7)

By dealing with the friendships, loves and family relationships of youth, Skurnick does remind the reader of the promise and curiosity and confusion with which all these great books were first approached.

The problem, however, is many of the book descriptions run to summary.

Now, for those of us who have read many of the books summarized, this is sort of a treat -- for example I now finally remember the Judy Blume book I wanted to take to book club years ago because it dealt with divorce, not periods. (Sorry Andy. I meant to choose It's Not the End of the World.) Also, suddenly you remember goofy details, or lovable lead characters. Or you discover the books you read for fun were actually thinly-veiled lessons in women's equality.

On the other hand, the summaries get a titch tiresome. Which, perhaps, is why two of the best essays are not written by Skurnick, but by Jennifer Weiner and Meg Cabot.

Cabot launches her thoughts on Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret from Africa, where young women a school she is visiting are well aware of Margaret's trials and tribulations. It's oddly comforting and sort of surprising to realize Blume's international reach.

Weiner, meanwhile, explains how Blubber is not, in fact, about the bullied girl known as Blubber at all. And so, it is left to a new generation of writers to figure out how a chubby, dislikable girl might be the heroine of her own life.

one more thing --

2010-02-15T13:09:00.003-07:00

For anyone who wants to write, do listen to this clip of Margaret Laurence explaining her work in the early 1970s.

"Writing, like any of the creative arts, is a kind of form of divining. I think that any artist tries to sort of catch the vibrations, as it were, of the characters...."

desperately seeking....

2010-02-15T12:38:00.004-07:00

OK, I've been trying to read Atonement, and I think it's a no-go for me at the moment.

To be clear, it's a lovely read. Ian McEwan, no surprise, is a beautiful writer. But in part, I'm suffering from having James McAvoy and Keira Knightley in my head, and so I long to skip forward and around to all the key parts from the movie. Now, it appears the film is a really good reflection of the novel. And so, the second problem I'm having is the darkness of the novel is a bit too much for me.

I had initially selected Atonement as follow-up to A Student of Weather in hopes I might find parallels between McEwan's young Briony and Hay's young Norma Joyce. And there are similarities -- a careful, obsessive attention to details, for example. But where Briony allows her imagination to get the better of her, Norma Joyce is decidedly manipulative and purposeful in orchestrating the small tragedies all around her.

So what to read instead? I'm considering Margaret Laurence's The Fire-Dwellers. Not sure it's a pick-me-up though.... Apparently all I want lately is froth, but I've filled my bookshelves with anti-froth.

(Shush, you who judge Jane Austen. She wrote novels that reflected the socio-economics of her time. She challenged our ideas of male-female relationships. Sort of.)

It is, nonetheless, my week off. So, I've had the chance to pick up on some of my favourite blogs, like The Keepin' It Real Book Club.

And, to evaluate deep thoughts:

Is Garfield funny?

If Carrie Bradshaw has always had poor taste in men, why -- oh why? -- wouldn't she ever grow out of that?

The Wooden Sky is pretty awesome.

Who would marry someone named Gooch?

Is this the beach of my dreams?

to warm us up

2010-01-31T19:36:00.004-07:00

You almost have to appreciate the way cold hangs in the air in this part of the country, so that beyond blowing snow and low clouds, you feel as though you can see the crisp air. Over the icy North Saskatchewan River, swimming around the Hotel Macdonald, sinking into Jasper Avenue.

January. (Yes, I took the picture above in December. Believe me, it still looks like this. I imagine it will stay this way until about... March? April?)

As we wait for spring, I offer excerpts of love letters from Ursula Doyle's collection.

Robert Browning to his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, on their wedding day in 1846:
".... When the heart is full it may run over; but the real fullness stays within... Words can never tell you... how perfectly dear you are to me -- perfectly dear to my heart and soul. I look back and in every one point, every word and gesture, every letter, every silence -- you have been entirely perfect to me -- I would not change one word, one look. My hope and aim are to preserve this love, not to fall from it --" (p. 106)

Lord Byron to his married lover (1813?):
".... if all I have said and done, and am still but too ready to say and do, have not sufficiently proved what my feelings are, and must ever be, towards you, my love, I have no other proof to offer....
"I care not who knows this, what use is made of it -- it is to you and to you only, yourself. I was, and am yours, freely and entirely, to obey, to honour, love and fly with you, when, where, and how, yourself might and may determine." (p. 65)

Oscar Wilde to his lover, 1891:
".... What wisdom is to the philosopher, what God is to his saint, you are to me. To keep you in my soul, such is the goal of his pain which men call life. O my love, you whom I cherish above all things, white narcissus in an unknown field, think of the burden which falls to you, a burden which love alone can make light. But be not saddened by that, rather be happy to have filled with an immortal love the soul of a man who now weeps in hell, yet carries heaven in his heart. I love you, I love you, my heart is a rose which your love has brought to bloom...." (p. 128)

Yes, yes, yes, saccharine, saccharine, saccharine.

But what better day to contemplate love and loss and beautiful prose than one so cold and blowy that you don't wish to leave your house?

circa 1987

2010-01-28T20:45:00.003-07:00

So, I have to admit to really, really liking 1987 Michael Ignatieff.

When I first started reading The Russian Album, a friend asked if it made me like the federal Liberal leader more, and I said no, not particularly. Really, early on in the book, I had little more than passing admiration for the way the author managed to distance himself from his own family history. Here he was, telling tales of princesses and counts and nation-building and rank-climbing with an eye to the details of history. That didn't make it any less entertaining, or any less challenging, to read. But it carried a whiff of academia in its first pages, as Ignatieff wrote about what the family photograph could mean.

Borrowing from an 1877 article in Macmillan's Magazine, he quotes: "... the sixpenny photograph is doing more for the poor than all the philanthropists in the world..." Further, he argues, "In democratizing the privilege of a family portrait gallery, the sixpenny photograph deserves a place in the social history of modern individualism." (p. 3)

Moving further along, however, the book captures the emotions of adventure, bravery and family history. As Ignatieff gets closer to his own roots in Canada -- through his father's ascent in Nicholas II's court, the passing details of family jealousies and betrayals, through the family's escape from Communism -- The Russian Album becomes a definitively engrossing read.

Perhaps, when one gets to the concluding chapter, and follows Ignatieff's own travels to revisit the past with his elderly uncles, one might find tears in one's eyes.

If one were to have tear ducts, of course.

"I have learned that you can inherit loyalties, indignation, a temperament, the line of your cheekbones," Ignatieff writes, "but you cannot inherit yourself." (p. 220)

The writing, in all, is just gorgeous. I can't help but envy Ignatieff's pre-politics career. His 2009 True Patriot Love is supposed to be a companion to The Russian Album, in that it follows his mother's Canadian roots. In a brief forward, Ignatieff says he began writing the book before he became a politician. Pardon my raised eyebrows on this count.

"stick to your ribs"

2010-01-21T08:23:00.003-07:00

So, I wasn't actually a big fan of Little House on the Prairie.

Weird, right?

I was all over Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables and Little Women, so you would think Laura Ingalls Wilder would have been right up my alley. Totally wasn't, though.

Anywho, I nonetheless find the idea of this cookbook intriguing.

(More nerdery?) I just love how books are snapshots of how lives were lived. For example, the clothes Jessica and Elizabeth wore in the original Sweet Valley High series tell us a lot about what was cool in the 1980s. Or, Judy Blume's adult novels highlight times when hippie-chic was chic....

to 2010

2010-01-18T22:48:00.005-07:00

1. Shannon's right. This is smile-inducing. I heart Pacey.

2. I probably heart Joseph Boyden more, though. I'm late telling you all I finished Through Black Spruce -- it was seriously drop-dead gorgeous. It's Boyden's way with dialogue that gets me, his ability to craft separate and complete characters through first-person narrative. Frankly, his voices of Canada's First Nations people are voices I never had the chance to read when I was a child, and I really hope his books are in Canadian classrooms today.

3. Speaking of first-person narrative, Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn is a tough slog at first. At first, Lionel Essrog's Tourretic speech is grating, difficult to get into. But pages into the detective novel, it gets really, really good. Admittedly, where other book club members are big on plot, I tend to be big on character development. (Could I read Carol Shields if not?) I found both in this one, and am excited to read another Lethem novel soon.

4. Yes, as Erin pointed out the other night, Motherless Brooklyn will work its way to the big screen later this year, written, directed and starring Edward Norton.

5. On the themes of movies and men I heart, The Young Victoria. I have nothing else to say, really. Oh, yes, I have to marry Prince Albert.

6. Princes.... Michael Ignatieff could have been a prince. In that his grandmother was a princess. Weird, eh? I'm reading The Russian Album. It's absolutely fascinating -- he manages to hit this very academic understanding of his own family history, yet write in such a way that entertains (he did win the Governor General's Award, after all). And, had world history taken a different turn, he would be a Russian count. I know, I know -- like Tory researchers don't have enough to work with.

7. Although I've been big on memoirs lately, I decided to go with a novel for the next book club. We're reading Elizabeth Hay's A Student of Weather.

8. I have a good feeling about this year. I may actually get my own new year's resolutions done for once. More yoga, for example....

Cheers,
T.

speaking of being out of time...

2009-12-25T23:23:00.004-07:00

So, my Christmas break ends Saturday. And, efforts to read no less than 10 books in 11 days.... failed. I haven't even started the book club book yet.

Bright side? Excellent times with family and friends in the coffee shops of my hometown, in the town across the lake, and in gorgeous Vancouver.

Now, I have started Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce.

Confession: I have a massive crush on Boyden's writing. I love the weight he gives to speech and conversation in his novels, the way he captures the rhythm of language.

Example: "I healed over time. We all do. Your mother, she came to visit me in the hospital after the beating. She would bring a book with her and try to read it to me so that I was forced to pretend sleep. She's a good woman, your mother, but she's been weakened by Oprah." (p. 16)

out of time

2009-12-24T14:53:00.003-07:00

To read Out of Africa is to, at first, keep images of Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in your mind.

And then, it is an uncomfortable journey through a kind of colonialist ideal few people of European origin truly want to own up to. In her descriptions of the people native to Kenya's Ngong Hills, Karen Blixen leans heavily on Christian imagery, animal imagery and a "white man's burden" brand of condescension. Like all pioneers, I suppose, Blixen tells tales of amazing and intriguing adventure while she sees herself as something of a parent to the farmers and servants who people her plot of land.

I don't want to undersell the book -- I really enjoyed it, despite a kind of unease that comes with reading a selection of non-fiction stories nearly 80 years after publication. My time is different from her time; what she would have seen as a modern treatment of everything around her, I see as patronizing and, at times, racist.

Nonetheless, this is the story of Blixen's love for Africa, her farm, and to small degree, the man she planned to be buried with. Her tales bring to mind an Africa that no longer exists; a romantic continent of mystery consistently undermined by the Europeans who took it through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Towards the end, as Blixen watches the Kikuyu dance, she writes, "It was not I who was going away. I did not have it in my power to leave Africa, but it was the country that was slowly and gravely withdrawing from me, like the sea in ebb-tide." (p. 324)

character

2009-12-19T19:30:00.002-07:00

Weird admission: I grew up around every kind of Mormon kid you can think of, and yet I have rarely thought about how sex and Mormonism (don't) mix.

And when I say "every kind of Mormon kid you can think of," I am indeed talking about, well, Bountiful.

So, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance -- as a memoir -- could not possibly be more of a departure from my idea of what it means to be Mormon than you could get. Here we have a young woman -- a year younger than me, actually, and I'm trying not to think about what that says about what I've accomplished so far in my life -- struggling to be a good Christian and a modern woman. Perhaps, on the surface, that leads one to imagine a story of 1. a series of bad dates, 2. leaving her religion behind altogether or 3. finding the man of her dreams and living happily ever after.

But memoirs are real life, and Elna Baker brings so much more than you might imagine to the page. Here is a Mormon girl with great (often hilarious) parents, who wants desperately to lose weight, who corners herself into "happily ever after" and then has to figure out what that might actually mean.

It's brilliant. Laugh-out-loud, close-your-eyes-because-it's-too-awkward, learn-about-Mormon-underwear, remember-your-first-kiss, remember-your-first-heartbreak, remember-who-you-are brilliant.

Bizarre example -- perhaps not the best, other parts of her story are so much better, but I don't want to ruin them for you, and this illustrates Baker's unique neuroses --

"As I sat across from Jeff, I could think only of the things that would happen to me if I did something impure like let a man touch my boobs. My body was a temple and I needed to respect it as such and not defile it. The things I did with other people before I was married would limit my ability to completely love my partner because it introduced an element of comparison. Sexual acts were supposed to make me feel unholy in the presence of God, like my light had been diminished. I thought about what Mormons call the 'eternal consequences' of your actions: Sexual immorality is the second worst sin, the first being murder...." (p. 63)

You might -- if it doesn't make you throw up in your mouth -- call it a "coming of age" memoir.

And on that note, I'm going to mention I finished reading The Stone Angel a couple days ago.

I kind of can't believe I only discovered Margaret Laurence this year. Like, can I really have called myself a book snob before 2009 if I hadn't read Laurence? I love her. I love that reading her work makes me feel more connected to Canadian history, and specifically a younger kind of Canadian history that starts west of southern Ontario. I am charmed and made uncomfortable by her characters, their loves, their mistakes, and their never-resting unhappiness with their lives. I loved The Diviners, I liked A Jest of God, and I fricking can't believe I lived before meeting Hagar Shipley. Could there be a character more self-aware, regretful and watchful, who also manages to know absolutely nothing of herself? I actually laughed out loud in one spot of the book, when she is drinking with a stranger in an abandoned fish warehouse; he tells her of his wife, she says, "Well, the poor thing.... Fancy spending your whole life worrying what people were thinking. She must have had a rather weak character." (p. 227)

Ah, Margaret Laurence -- how you winked at your readers.

remember who you are

2009-12-16T14:57:00.003-07:00

Ok, this might be my favourite book dedication ever:

Mom and Dad,

I could never have done this without your faith, support, and constant encouragement. Thank you for teaching me to believe in myself, in God, and in my dreams.

This book...aside from the nine F-words, thirteen Sh-words, four A-holes, page 257, and the entire Warren Beatty chapter...is dedicated to you.

You might want to avoid chapters twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, anything I quote Mom saying, and most of the end as well.

Sorry. Am I still as cute as a button?

Love,

Elna

Cute, right? It's from The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. So far, hilarious.

I'm in the mountains for a few days, and have a pile of books to read. Literally, a pile. Think Cameron Diaz in The Holiday. Yes, I watched that movie. What of it?

My get-relaxed-quick readings include:

Margaret Laurence's The Fire-Dwellers (a companion, it appears, to Laurence's A Jest of God);

Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman;

Michael Ignatieff's The Russian Album;

Rajaa Alsanea's Girls of Riyadh;

Lizzie Skurnick's Shelf Discovery;

Karen Blixen's Out of Africa;

Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce;

and Elizabeth Hay's Garbo Laughs.

Yes, lugging this many books through an airport does land you in a conversation with security folks who have novel suggestions. (Apparently I should read Cormac McCarthy.)

quiet meditations

2009-12-12T20:56:00.003-07:00

Years ago I read Edeet Ravel's Look for Me; it was memorable for the quiet feeling the main character was distant from her own society and the neighbouring society she couldn't quite access.

Beyond that sense of loneliness and fear, I have to admit I don't remember much of the book.

Ten Thousand Lovers is a different story. Again, the main character -- Lily -- is distant, almost untouchable despite the first-person narrative. But this time, it is her love affair with Ami, an Israeli interrogator, that is somehow untouchable, deceptive, not quite what it appears and yet naggingly familiar. Lily and Ami are a tale without a happy ending, not unlike Israel and Palestine.

Sorry, that's terribly simplistic and depressing. Ravel's book is not, not at all. It is somehow adventure and love story and a piece of history.

essential?

2009-11-22T18:39:00.001-07:00

Essential journalism books -- thoughts?

unaccustomed/earth/zen

2009-11-22T12:57:00.002-07:00

I'm in full-out zen mode at the moment. So zen that I'm not actually doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Instead, my attention keeps wandering outside, where snow is falling in the mountains (Fernie, B.C.) and everything in the world seems peaceful and lovely, and it smells nice, and it is quiet.

It's kind of a wonderful world today. And I have coffee.

So, before I get on to what I'm supposed to be doing, a quick share: Read Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth.

Lahiri writes simply, efficiently and sadly. Her stories would be tales of love if they weren't actually examinations of loss and even, to some degree, emptiness. What looks like a happy ending is always overshadowed by something that's missing, something that's out of reach. In some instances (the last three short stories in this collection), what's missing smacks the reader in the face in a way that's painfully startling even as you see it hurtling toward you. Meanwhile, her prose is overlaid with a sense of place and perhaps home (if we can accept that "home" doesn't quite exist), and certainly with food. Food -- traditional Indian or Americanized -- is weaved in to a degree that I think it stands as testament to a constantly changing sense of diaspora. Lahiri's stories could easily lend to historical study in the future, because they illustrate where a community has come from and where it's going.

Yes, I'm a nerd.

Quick question for you, though -- Lahiri's latest collection of short stories opens with a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne:

"Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."

Now, I read this as, to put it way too simply, so true. But indeed, as it's been pointed out to me, the comment does carry a certain imperialist tone -- perhaps not surprising coming from the dude who wrote The Scarlet Letter.

Ok, back to what I'm supposed to be doing....

how to be...try to be...forget about...

2009-11-01T23:01:00.005-07:00

So, admittedly, I turned to Nick Hornby in hopes of laughter.

Or at least good humour.

Perhaps a moment with a romantic hero reminiscent of John Cusack's character in High Fidelity. (Although, obviously, if you take the Cusack out of the Rob, you end up with, well, kind of an asshole ex-boyfriend.)

How To Be Good is something else. Something I can't quite put my finger on. Something at times repetitive and perhaps unbelievable.... something that strikes terribly close to one's most cynical thoughts and feelings.

I love Hornby's unashamed first-person narrative, warts and all. His characters are, at times, so awful it's hard to believe they are the protagonists. And I suppose there's a bit of humour to that. And I love when an author drops names mid-story. Say, makes passing reference to a character from a previous book. It makes me feel like I'm joining in on an inside joke.

But did I love the book? Well, to put it mildly, it isn't a tale to be certain about. In some ways it makes you wonder about love, and in other ways I suppose it comes off as a titch contrived.

By way of brief summary, How To Be Good is primarily about Katie, an unhappily married woman, and her life with her unhappy children and unhappy husband. Her husband, early on, chooses to change his life; this is hard to explain -- it's not quite a religious experience, but it isn't not a religious experience. It also isn't not crazy.

The thing is, you have to read it. It's actually kind of full of adventure, which isn't really expected. It's also sort of discomforting to watch Katie's husband and his spiritual guru endeavour to save the world, and the effect it has on Katie and her children.

Next up?

Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth.

Challenge?

NaNoWriMo. (Why yes, there are Edmonton NaNoWriMo events, too.)

In other news....

Since Thanksgiving I've been contemplating ways to find the joy in cooking. Yes, I was inspired last week by my dear friend and former roommate in Ottawa, who recently embarked on a lengthy experiment in cooking everything from scratch.

(Hint: Cooking everything from scratch is a time-consuming endeavour that is worthwhile in terms of better understanding your food. I am seriously impressed anyone would ever try such a thing, but after three hours watching a tiny little chicken roast, I could never find such patience within.)

I'm also, to be honest, driven by my long-standing and uncomfortable relationship with food in general. I know that sounds oddly personal, and I think I'll leave it at that for tonight; suffice to say I will not be using this blog to bore you with the details of my adventures in the kitchen. But tonight, I am proud of this roasted chicken, and wish to share with you my first Joy-Luck experiment: roast chicken stuffed with onion, apple, orange and nutmeg, alongside garlic mashed potatoes.

in defense of consumption?

2009-10-29T23:12:00.004-06:00

Things I miss about Ottawa:

1. Perfect bagels.

2. Perfect candy.

3. Perfect jewellery.

4. Perfect Books.

So, needless to say.... I'm a titch broke at the moment. And this blog post is brought to you by, erm, consumerism.

But you're dying to know what I bought on Elgin Street, aren't you?

Well, to start, the book I'm least excited about -- Benny and Shrimp. I can't decide if this one's going to be a sweet romance novel or a funny journey to another world (Sweden!) or, well, sucky. I'll report back.

The book I'm most excited about is a memoir. I know, I said I was going to stop with the memoirs. But how can a person not be intrigued by the title, The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance. Yeah, that's right. No one doesn't want to read this book.

Also on the memoir front, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. Judy Blume! A Wrinkle in Time! Jennifer Weiner! I can't believe Winter Dreams, Christmas Love is not included in the contents.

For -- what I hope will be -- a good laugh, I veered into boy world with I Love You, Beth Cooper. Larry Doyle is a Simpsons writer. I have high expectations.

Off the shopping list, I was the benefactor of a series of suggestions from friends and family. And so, I have two more books waiting for me -- Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude and Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food. The second, I hope, will aid in some real-life research I'm doing. The first, I believe, will help me become as smart as my brilliant brother, the PhD candidate and recent M.A. graduate.

On the topic of recommendations, by the way, some new music (to me): She&Him, Big Mama Thornton, Monsters of Folk and the Whip It soundtrack.

gherkin alert

2009-10-29T00:18:00.002-06:00

Ok, this Bookshelf cartoon reminds me of London's Gherkin.

There's a joke to be made, surely, but I'll leave it to your imaginations.

love: fading to grey?

2009-10-28T23:54:00.002-06:00

When does love fade away?

At what point does it simply blend into a gentle fondness?

Forgive my open-ended questions; I spent way too much of the last week with Atlantic's fiction issue -- particularly this tale from Alexi Zentner, I guess, but also Paul Theroux's snapshots of passion -- and still more time contemplating the passage of hours, days and years.

(Note: I love spending time contemplating. And shopping. And drinking coffee.)

Which, I guess, brings me to Nick Hornby's How To Be Good, a story that has nothing at all to do with fading or blending or softening or rounding.

Certainly, Katie's and David's marriage has lost its.... Novelty? Charm? Kindness?

To be honest, it's a fascinating read on what happens when actors in a relationship change frantically mid-marriage. Is there room to grow? To escape? How can you re-bond with your husband once he becomes unrecognizable?

Clearly I don't have the answers to any of these questions. But, halfway through the story, I can assure you Hornby offers just the right mix of funny and bizarre. His characters are the right amount of cartoon and realistic. And, you may be wondering whether Hornby can write a realistic female narrator -- so far, I'd say yes.

the end.

2009-10-20T23:45:00.002-06:00

First: This is a spoiler alert. I am going to talk about the final two chapters of The Commitment, and how those final chapters ruined my opinion of the book.

I can't fully explain it -- the end is, literally, supposed to be the happy ending. Well, sort of, if you can ignore the fact Savage and his partner are married in Canada and not married as soon as the cross the border back home to Seattle.

But that's not what got me.

I got.... bored.

Tired of the Savage-Miller-Pierce family.

I got sick of Savage's back-and-forth, will-we-won't-we debate on whether he, personally, wished to get married.

And I started to feel just a little bad for his boyfriend and son, whose lives are also collected in this story. (Although I have to imagine successful relationships are built on sharing the manuscript before it goes to print.)

Look, none of these complaints should be taken as recommendations you shouldn't read this book. This book is great. Savage is a great writer. I really want to read more of his work. And I can't help but agree with Ira Glass's (unrealistic) review on the back: "I think America would be a better place if everyone on every side of the gay marriage debate would read this book."

I think I might take minor issue with the memoir as a genre -- and yes, I realize this directly contradicts my "I want to read more Savage lit" comment.

But hear me out: Real lives don't have happy endings. (Yes, this is a concept I struggle with constantly, as I try to wrap everything in my life up in neat little envelopes.) There is no natural stop-point in a personal narrative. No final story that says, "This is the end of that chapter of my life."

Yet the personal memoir, the autobiographical tale, expects just that. Conclusion. Happily-ever-after. The end.

Hrmph.

Meanwhile, I'm going to be away for a few days. I realize this is nothing new these days, but I have -- believe it or not -- been making an effort to get back into personal blogging.

So, during my off time, I offer a few readings....

Prepare for November -- and the challenge of writing your own novel.

Diablo Cody is going to Sweet Valley. Or rendering Sweet Valley on film. Or ruining Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. Depending on who you ask.

Nick Hornby has a new book! Woot!

on Keats

2009-10-18T18:19:00.001-06:00

Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast As Thou Art
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
-- John Keats, 1819-20

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
-- Keats, 1818

suck it, snow

2009-10-14T23:14:00.003-06:00

Ok, friends.

Brace yourself for a Dan Savage factoid.

Yes, the Dan Savage of the hilarious, scary, frank, sometimes ew-inducing Savage Love column. The one you know and love and maybe shouldn't read when you're at work.

Ok, ready for the factoid?

His book, The Commitment, is super mellow. In this really great, memoir-ish way.

Yes, a book all about negotiating the politics of marriage and raising a kid would be seriously weird if it were scary or ew-inducing or heavy on the sex talk. I realize that. I'm still a titch surprised.

And I can't put it down -- it makes me laugh, it's, well, super great, and it is still edgy.

For example, on his relationship with the family dog: "Oh, I may get jealous sometimes. Terry drags Stinker around on a leash, takes him to obedience classes, and sometimes makes him wear a collar that administers a little shock whenever he barks. Terry's never done any of those things for me." (p. 8.)

Or, on how he and his partner incidentally slip into the roles one might expect of an old-school heterosexual couple: "We lead a far more traditional lifestyle than a certain unmarried, childless, withered, aging right-wing attack hag that I could name if I weren't so damn polite. (Oh, fuck it: Ann Coulter.)" (p. 23)

Clearly this is a book written by the charming Dan Savage you've heard, too, on This American Life.

By the way, if you're looking for a quick hit of Thank-God-that-day-is-over-let's-watch-something-that-will-make-me-laugh, look no further:

hurtling to the end of a road trip

2009-10-13T21:42:00.004-06:00

Well, I finished The Flying Troutmans.

I guess.

If, indeed, Miriam Toews actually finished The Flying Troutmans.

Coming to the end of the tale of Hattie -- a woman who loves her family but is not a star when it comes to making good decisions -- and her road trip with her sister's children, I was struck by how Toews seemed to be hurtling to an end-point. The last hundred pages seemed hurried and disorganized and not thick on character development. Which is really too bad, because I actually think there are some real gems when it comes to character in this tale. It just, unfortunately, falls flat.

I feel like I need to qualify all these criticisms -- I love, love, love A Complicated Kindness. I think A Complicated Kindness should be taught in school, if it isn't already. And, from that, I still believe Toews has a magic touch when it comes to writing about children in a way adults can relate to. But her aim with the Troutman family is off.

In other news....

The BBC offers a sneak peak of their Emma project.

Bookshelves! These are pretty. And this site is meant to inspire. C'mon. Give into your book nerd.

What would you say to you when you were 16?

And.... Ok, I'm not sure I trust myself to read Audrey Niffenegger without a box of Kleenex nearby. Nonetheless, I'm willing to take a gamble on her new book....

gobble gobble

2009-10-12T00:31:00.005-06:00

On "carving foul:"
"If the bird is to be carved at table, be sure the
heated serving platter is large enough, and garnish it lightly with parsley or watercress. There is a subtle art to carving...."
-- p. 421 of Joy of Cooking, 1975
edition

My mother's copy of Joy of Cooking is an utter mystery to me; I have a difficult time picturing an earlier version of my mother who doesn't know how to cook. I can't imagine this mom flipping pages and flirting with the idea of making "sour cream apple cake souffle cockaigne" or "fresh cod a la Portugaise."

In my world, my mother already knows her ingredients. And they definitely do not include squirrel: "Gray squirrels are the preferred ones; red squirrels are small and quite gamy in flavor.... Stuff and roast squirrels as for pigeons...." (p. 515)

How fascinatingly preposterous, right?

So yes, I am spending part of my Thanksgiving weekend flipping through very old cookbooks. And wondering if I could ever style myself after Julie Powell. (Answer: No. It's been done, a movie's been made, the jig is up. Plus I don't have a husband to feed and one woman cannot ingest the amount of butter Joy of Cooking circa 1975 suggests.)

I am also spending much time contemplating the past, and wondering about the future. Blame Audrey Niffenegger, perhaps, and the fact that my second reading of The Time Traveler's Wife ended with me sobbing at 3 a.m. (Poor Clare! Always, always waiting for Henry! What is Niffenegger trying to say? That even in love, we are alone? Always?)

In the meantime, my unabashed begging for pointers to books that won't make me cry did not go unanswered -- if you flip to this blog's previous post, you'll find thoughtful suggestions from both TSS and Erin (my unofficial co-bloggers/generally awesome Edmontonians). However, before they weighed in, I made a therapeutic shopping trip to a local bookstore. And decided it was time to get to know Dan Savage a little better.

So, I've got The Commitment on my nightstand, waiting for me to finish The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews.

Yes, I realize neither of these books are guaranteed to make me laugh. Neither are as vapid as Fame (which I enjoyed, because there's lots of singing and dancing and very little character development or plot).

No matter how well written, Savage's book ties in with the ongoing battle in the United States to legalize gay marriage. And so by definition can't really be a laugh riot. And The F'ing Troutmans (as the title reads on the outside of the hardcover copy) begins with a psychotic mother left all but comatose by her illness. Her sister, the main character, is left with the shambles of piecing together family life. Parts are freaking hilarious because Toews understands children so well and puts them on the page in this utterly believable, uniquely beautiful way. But there's a sad, longing undertone to the whole thing.

Yikes.

I worry I just can't stop being serious.

Ok, folks -- back to the books, and other weekend adventures. Happy Canadian (and therefore awesome and understated) Thanksgiving.

help!

2009-10-08T23:09:00.003-06:00

Ok, here it is: A long-awaited blog post (ahem).

However, I'm copping out.

I feel like I have nothing terribly good to say at the moment. It's all.... swimming in the sad end of The Time Traveler's Wife (brilliant on the second read, by the way).

And so, I need your help. I need book recommendations. What have you read lately that's hilarious? Inspiring? Really, really good? And not depressing. Because I totally can't handle depressing at the moment.

Love, thanks,
T.

a short meditation on Birds of America

2009-09-16T19:18:00.002-06:00

I don't hate short stories at all.

In fact, Lorrie Moore's collection, Birds of America, is pretty much a perfect collection of tales that range from stories of forgiveness to experimentation to, simply, life.

My problem with short stories, however, is that I don't necessarily get what binds them.

I know, that sounds dreadfully stupid. But without, for example, a single character or place or time popping in and out of the separate stories, I don't necessarily get what connects them. Now, I see that in Moore's book, birds appear again and again. But I don't get what that's supposed to mean.

Sigh.

Perhaps age is killing my brain. Or, "As a vacuum cleaner can start to pull up the actual thread of a carpet, her brains had been sucked dry by too much yoga." (p. 81)

September 1st round-up

2009-09-01T20:51:00.003-06:00

It's been gorgeous the last few days in Edmonton, almost completely unlike the rest of the summer.

Still, there's something about knowing it's September that makes me uneasy. I wonder if people were happier before calendars.

Anyway. Books.

From my friend T. and his coworkers, suggestions of other new ways to pillage Jane Austen's work:

"Given the runaway success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters will arrive shortly, the inevitable, ahem, modification of Austen' much-loved (definitely by you) canon is at hand. My co-workers and I started throwing around titles. What do you think?

The Vampire of Mansfield Park (thematic too!)
Emma and Mr. Hyde
Northanger Abbey's Alien Invasion (sort of thematic?)
Haunting Persuasion"

I personally love the idea of vampires overtaking Mansfield Park. Especially if that means Fanny becomes some sort of Buffy-esque vampire slayer, which would mean she has a personality and new toughness. But T.'s suggestion Capt. Wentworth get the chance to exorcise a ghost-like Anne Elliot.... why, that's just blasphemy for a girl whose favourite Austen is Persuasion.

This, on the other hand -- Darcy gone vampire -- is not?

On another note, what are you reading these days?

If you're in book club, hopefully you've started reading Lorrie Moore's collection, Birds of America.

I'm really digging it so far -- I know this is a strange line to pull out of the story, "Which is More Than I Can Say About Some People," but here goes nonetheless:

"It was really the world that was one's brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was only your sibling in that world." p. 46

I'm also half-reading Vanity Fair. And have decided to give my first child the middle name Makepeace. No matter gender.

Becky Sharp is, obviously, hateful in a Scarlett O'Hara kind of way. But you kind of have to appreciate a 19th century girl who realizes she has to get married to net income to survive. And so she goes about making it happen.... or trying to make it happen.... without romantic aspirations. (I'm less than 100 pages in, I realize that.)

This is kind of funny:

"If a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he must sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma to settle matters with the young man, she must do it for herself. And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did." (p. 40)

My my, what power I must have at my fingertips....

Last of all, how gorgeous is this bookshelf?

intrigued, charmed, bored

2009-08-23T23:01:00.004-06:00

I've never really had an interest in reading Eat, Pray, Love. Aside from the time my friend was reading it outside in a park and somehow its very zenny presence drew a hot firefighter to her. Seriously. Although likely because my friend is awesome, not because of what she was reading.... Nonetheless, no real interest in the story. But apparently there's a happy ending to be read out there. And somehow that appeals to me.

Also of note, did you read this story in Sunday's Journal? I know the charming tale of what oddities can be found in used books is, perhaps, the kind of story only a book nerd would like. But you're here, so you're exactly the kind of book nerd who will understand just how those quirky finds might reflect on real humanity.

Now, for something of a book review.... I think I've told you before about Beginner's Greek, a romance novel written by James Collins.

To be frank, it's a bit much. Basic story: Peter, like many of us, gets on airplanes and hopes to find himself sitting beside the love of his life. Like many of us, when the potential love-of-his-life does sit beside him, he's frozen. Impotent. Unable to follow through.

And that, really, is the best possible description of everything about Peter. The man is incapable of putting anything to action. He gets mad, he's frozen. Hurt, frozen. In love, frozen.

In fact, all the tragedy that follows from Peter and Holly's first meeting on the plane -- he loses her number, when he finds her again he is incapable of doing anything to be with her, etc. -- is a result of his total and complete impotence.

The book gets to be a pain in the ass, frankly. It's 441 pages with way too many characters, twisty stupid story lines, words you have to look up in the dictionary (and not in a good way that makes the story better, but in a pretentious tiresome way) and... blerg. I just didn't like it.

And I was offended by the Library Journal's review, "Jane Austen fans will feel right at home."

Sure. They will feel right at home. If they just finished reading Mansfield Park and wanted to irritated by the male version of Fanny Price.

(Question: If I really dislike the book, might I like the movie? For one, it'll be put on screen by the guys who wrote (500) Days of Summer. And I really, really loved that film.)

hint: this level of neediness might be a bad omen

2009-08-17T22:09:00.003-06:00

My Mistress and my Friend:

My heart and I surrender themselves into your hands, and we supplicate to be commended to your good graces, and that by absence your affections may not be diminished to us, for that would be to augment our pain, which would be a great pity, since absence gives enough, and more than I ever thought could be felt. This brings to my mind a fact in astronomy, which is, that the further the poles are from the sun, notwithstanding, the more scorching is the heat. Thus is it with our love; absence has placed distance between us, nevertheless fervor increases -- at least on my part. I hope the same from you, assuring you that in my case the anguish of absence is so great that it would be intolerable were it not for the firm hope I have of your indissoluble affection towards me. In order to remind you of it, and because I cannot in person be in your presence, I send you the thing which comes nearest that is possible, that is to say, my picture, and the whole device, which you already know of, set in bracelets, wishing myself in their place when it pleases you....

Yeah. That's a letter from King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn.

Watch out, Anne. Watch out. This guy may be a bit too into you.

Facebook alert

2009-08-17T20:19:00.005-06:00

My friends -- and, I suppose, friends of friends, etc. -- have begun a chain letter-esque "15 books" list.

The point is to list 15 books that your mind wanders back to again and again. Not necessarily the best books you've ever read, or your favourite books of all time. Just the ones that immediately come to mind, that perhaps you talk about a lot, the ones that have nested so far in your head they are part of who you are.

Briefly, my friend TSS's list begins with these five:

No Country For Old Men
Palestine
The English Patient
What Is The What
Go Jump In The Pool

While my friend R's list starts:

The Sword of Shannara
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The English Patient
Infinite Jest (Also, Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again)
Granta 33: What Went Wrong?

And here is my complete list with -- bonus! -- explanations:

Persuasion
At the end of the day, I have to say Austen's last novel is my favourite. Yes, the plight of Anne Elliot -- she of disappeared bloom and waiting around for Capt. Wentworth -- can read a little slow. And Austen goes into overdrive to wrap it all up in happily ever after. But under all that, under the boy-meets-girl, away from the fairy tale, lies layers of character development and painful, cringe-worthy, gut-wrenching human interaction.

Cat's Eye
Speaking of gut-wrenching. Teen and pre-teen girl drama haunt a woman's whole life in this Atwood classic.

Message from Nam
Yes. This was written by Danielle Steele. This is where we judge me freely for liking a Danielle Steele novel. But my defense? I was about 12 when I read this. And when you're a 12-year-old girl who dreams of becoming a reporter, the story of a war correspondent in Vietnam is something like a super hero comic book.

Fighting for Canada
This Diane Francis book about Quebec's separation movement was probably the first piece of non-fiction I read without a teacher breathing down my neck. I was fascinated by all things related to the 1995 referendum for years -- including all the newspapers my dad sent me from Montreal, English and French -- and as far as I'm concerned this book pushed me in the direction of political reporting years down the road.

The Vagina Monologues
Cunt! That's right. I said it. Out loud. Kind of. Eve Ensler's collection is a must-read for empowered women everywhere.

Bitter Chocolate
I successfully gave up chocolate for a year thanks to this Carol Off investigation.

Late Nights on Air
How awesome is Elizabeth Hay? In this book, she actually captures Yellowknife and puts it on the page for everyone in the world to enjoy. Granted, I have only ever been in Yellowknife for about five days altogether. So maybe I'm not the best expert. But when I was there, I couldn't stop thinking about the world Hay created.

Gone With The Wind
"Fiddle dee-dee. Tomorrow is another day." Actually a thing I say, more than a decade after discovering an author can have enough guts not to give her hero and heroine a happy ending.

The Queen's Fool
Philippa Gregory + history of the United Kingdom + romance = Unforgettable.

Tom Jones
Fact: Henry Fielding is the only man to sneak onto this list. Also, his is one of the first English novels that looks like the kind of novel you'd read today. Tom Jones is the perfect haphazard, accidental lady's man. He's a 17th century hero, yes. But you know who else he might be? Rob Lowe in St. Elmo's Fire. Bret in Flight of the Conchords. Matthew McConnaughey in everything.

Pride and Prejudice
Wanted: Mr. Darcy. Nuff said.

The Diary of Anne Frank
The ultimate proof, I think, that the mundane details are what pull you into a book. So, I was 10 years old, and here was this girl who talked about boys and crushes. And then, this girl I totally got was in the middle of a tragedy I could barely wrap my head around. To this day.

Anne of Green Gables
I learned about Tennyson -- my favourite author -- from this book. When Anne floats down the river in a boat? And nearly dies? Classic.

Rilla of Ingleside
This is L.M. Montgomery's ode to Canada, to pacifism, to Harlequin-esque romance.

Summer Sisters
Ok, this is weird. But every sex scene in this Judy Blume book -- for adults, obviously -- is super memorable. I know, it's weird. But it sticks with you. Read the book, and you'll find yourself thinking about how one might lay down towels in a hotel bathtub. Or best ways to do it in the front seat of a truck.

What I missed.... The Bell Jar. The Diviners. The Wars. The Piano Man's Daughter. (Ha! Two Timothy Findley books! I do like male authors!)

two totally different tales, connected by nothing more than sand and camels

2009-08-02T06:12:00.006-06:00

It's 6 a.m. I can't sleep. Stupid jet lag.

Anyway, books! Lovely beach friends.... I can't say enough nice things about Jennifer Weiner's latest novel. But I can say one nasty thing.

The title really sucks, no?

Yes, in fairness, Best Friends Forever conjures memories of a good Judy Blume book, and in mimicking Blume's story-telling style -- title aside -- Weiner's struck gold again. But more gold than usual.

Her key characters, Val and Addie -- best friends who didn't grow apart so much as fell into a void -- are so well drawn. But so is every character in this story, a novel I would describe as Weiner's best so far.

We have the girls' parents -- the mousy mom, the PTSD dad, the house-wrecking party mom, the absentee dad -- shaded in through Addie's memories. We have Addie's brother, whose life undergoes massive change with tragedy, but whose love for Addie merely morphs. We have a villain forced to repent, changing the very idea of what a villain might be and whether a person who is bad at 17 is still bad at 32. We have loneliness as a character, an ever-changing enemy and friend.

And we have Jordan Novick.

Throughout the book, Weiner departs periodically from the first-person narrative style in order to set foot inside the love interest's thoughts and feelings. And, unlike most men in chick lit -- barring Nick Hornby's, of course -- Jordan has thoughts! And weaknesses! A heart-breaking history of his own!

Sorry. I don't mean to sound so gleeful about heartbreak. In fact, I read this book in one day and found tears literally welling in my eyes at points. But let's be honest. In most romantic-murder mystery-coming of age novels, only one character -- and maybe a sidekick -- get to have dark pasts or deep neuroses. Unless, of course, the love interest has some sort of mentioned-in-passing issue the hero/heroine can sort out quickly by merely existing and probably making out.

In all her characters, Weiner digs a little deeper. What might drive one to drink too much? To eat too much? To flirt too much? To stop working?

And how far should one go to change his or her life?

It's on this note that I am going to -- quite bizarrely -- start talking about Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger.

I know. These books have no real connection, other than that I read both on a beach in Tunisia.

Where changing one's life is merely one of the themes Weiner grapples with, I might argue it is the sole stomping ground of Adiga's morally-stretched, "half-baked" Balram (Munna) Halwai.

Early in this tale, we are keenly aware of all that Balram's father wants for him -- escape from the "Darkness" of a small Indian village, a better life than service to the rich. "My whole life, I have been treated like a donkey," he tells his son. "All I want is that one son of mine -- at least one -- should live like a man." (p. 30)

What, perhaps, is supposed to set Balram apart from those around him is his cunning, his calculation. This is not, after all, the tale of some nice little Victorian servant who somehow gets his due.

Rather, this is a tale of violence, revenge, and greed in an angry world. If Balram disobeys the laws of the land, he does so no more than any and all around him....

I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of this one. It's on the agenda for our next book club, and really, I wouldn't want to rob anyone of the opportunity to be surprised by Adiga's narrative twists and turns.

On a side note, this was Adiga's first published book. A brilliant work set loose upon the world when he was 34 (yes, I am jealous), that won the Booker and is told in a long and unwieldy letter format. Except, of course, that even at its most unwieldy and off-topic, the story is being told for a reason, driving at a point or detail the reader needs to know to understand the whole picture.

And, of course, one can't help but wonder whether Balram's story is supposed to be India's story. And whether there is such a thing as a happy ending.

"I won't be saying anything new if I say that the history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles.... but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years." (p. 254)

"stop my mouth"

2009-07-24T09:24:00.005-06:00

See, we fools!

Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us,

When we are so unsecret to ourselves?

But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not;

And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man,

Or that we women had men's privilege

Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,

For in this rapture I shall surely speak

The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,

Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws

My very soul of counsel! stop my mouth.

Well, friends, this should be my last post from London. On Saturday, I fly to Tunis, then back home next week.

I can't believe my time here's come to an end! *tears* But, like a good tourist, Wednesday night I got to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to see Troilus and Cressida -- five pounds to stand for about three hours. With a break in the middle to drink Pimm's of course. Sort of an odd play, to be honest -- up to the break, it was freaking hilarious. Raunchy. Quite possibly way more hints at homosexuality than the play itself (or quite possibly not). I fell absolutely in love with Achilles as lover to Patroclus. The second part.... wraps up quite differently. Isn't quite so funny (it is supposed to be a tragedy, after all), and essentially leaves you wondering what kind of women-are-evil frame of mind Shakespeare may have been in when writing.... Anyway, the ambiance is pretty amazing. Yes, tourist trap. But one of those tourist traps that you can't help but love. And likely return to, given the execution of the play on-stage.

Aside from the lines above -- spoken by Cressida -- I would have to say my favourites are these:

TROILUS: What offends you, lady?

CRESSIDA: Sir, mine own company.

TROILUS: You cannot shun Yourself.

CRESSIDA: Let me go and try:

I have a kind of self resides with you;

But an unkind self, that itself will leave,

To be another's fool. I would be gone:

Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.

So been there. So felt that.

ranty rant rant

2009-07-18T16:41:00.005-06:00

I accidentally spent a couple hours at the British Museum today.

(By the way, if you happen to be concerned I'm not actually working while here, I finished my essay, for the most part, Friday, and am now just revising it. If you happen to work with me, I'll even show you the paper after I hand it in.)

If you've heard me rant about this before, I apologize, but I struggle with the British Museum. I think it's gorgeous, and fascinating, and I'm trying to work out some ideas, which is why I spent so much time there today, a second visit in a week and a half. I feel like not everyone in the world will have access to mummies' tombs and ancient Roman ruins, not everyone will travel to all the places where they were found. And so the British Museum stands as a central place for everyone to learn -- especially as curators move to put virtually everything online.

But the museum is not just an homage to the Enlightenment, it's an homage to imperialism. And there's no pretending around that. They have pieces of the Parthenon because Brits two hundred years ago didn't think locals could handle it. And that's just scraping the surface of all the stuff taken from lands far and wide from people deemed unworthy to maintain their own history. In little explanatory notes all over the place, there's hints that "issues" have come up, but no real responsibility taken for what amounts, in some cases, to simply looting. Similarly, in the North American room, there are hints and references to the deaths of thousands of aboriginal people after European conquest, but only a passing note that disease seemed to overtake them. It's shockingly understated compared to the monuments found all over this city to the victories of imperialism, not least of which includes the Albert Memorial. Queen Victoria's love is surrounded by statues of men from all over the world, Africa, North America, Asia and Europe. But these men's faces are European, no matter what manner of loincloth or other local attire they've been assigned.

Ok. Rant over. Pretty pictures from the library (top right is a Roman statue of Zeus -- pretty hot god, eh?):

(A totally unrelated note: I realize few of you are super interested in my chick lit leanings -- and by chick lit, by the way, I mean literature most often written by and for women. Not a demeaning value judgement. Anyway, Jennifer Weiner has a new book out -- I'm excited -- and you can hear her hilariously inappropriate commentary via podcast here.)

Les Mis

2009-07-18T16:32:00.002-06:00

I know, not the best shot of London's theatre district or Chinatown ever.

But I went to Les Miserables! (Based on a book -- therefore loosely relevant to this here blog space.) It was amazing. I know it's the tourist thing to do, I know that might mean many of you would avoid it. But sometimes, things become tourist traps because they're fantastic.

(Other times, I imagine they attract tourists because people have watched the video so many times at home they feel the need to take their own singing out on the town instead of quietly watching the damn stage production.)

the Susan Boyle factor

2009-07-17T06:20:00.003-06:00

Have you guys heard about Kari Callin? America's Susan Boyle? I'm late, blame it on the time difference....

Anyway, I'm flagging this right now as having nothing to do at all with books. But:

1. Susan Boyle was sort of a shocking anomaly. All around the world we watched an initially disgusted audience learn ugly people can be talented. By now, people should have learned that lesson, and so the shock of a woman being able to sing while also having a cleft palate and thinning hair should have worn off.

2. Just me, or was paragon of talent David Hasselhoff really quick to cheer her on? Like he had watched the Susan Boyle tape many times and knew he didn't want to look like he was going to fall off his chair. He decided that, if a similar incident arose, he was going to be the first judge to recognize her talents?

3. Ok, seriously, is there something wrong with us as a society? I don't want to moan too much, and I realize I'm just rehashing the comments of virtually every popular culture critic in the universe. But seriously. When we're little kids we're told you can't judge a book by its cover. We're told what you look like shouldn't be relevant to how you think or how you feel or how you connect with people. And we've lost that. We've lost it so much, in fact, that we need reality TV -- where people eat bugs to net a million dollars or subject their families to 24-hour camera crews to net fame -- to teach us. And even then, a not-traditionally-attractive person better be super, super talented. Because if they're just mildly talented, unable to hit the soaring notes set by Celine Dion or whomever, then really they deserve our initial horrified assessment.

Blerg.

hello, self:

2009-07-16T17:56:00.005-06:00

Yeah, it's embarrassing and ridiculous, but sometimes (always?) Stuff White People Like is, well, completely and totally right.

It is a guarantee that whenever it is announced that a popular book is being turned into a movie, white people will get upset. This is partly due to their fear that something they love will be made accessible to more people and thus enjoyed by more people which immediately decreases the amount of joy a white person can feel towards the original property. Yes, it’s complicated....

In other news, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Nope, kid you not. Yes, I'll try not to judge a book by its cover (TSS). Although I can maybe judge a little for just blatantly rehashing the same idea later in the same year, no? It would be like someone riffing on brilliant title to go here by creating pretty good title to go here.

Or not, since my blog has yet to net millions of dollars.

(I must admit this is a rather fitting end for Willoughby, no?)

(still) geeking out in the UK

2009-07-13T15:38:00.007-06:00

Have I mentioned this city seems to inspire me at every turn?

I'm really, really sorry if I'm boring you with my London updates. Quickly, on books:

Cassandra and Jane is really good if you happen to be an Austen fan. Say, if you spent a portion of your Saturday afternoon at the London Literature Festival listening to how difficult and wonderful it is to work with Austen's texts to make movies and other books.

Okay, well maybe you don't have to be that big a fan.

But you should probably like Austen and be sort of familiar with her history (may I suggest Carol Shields' brief biography?). Because for all that Jill Pitkeathley is clearly riffing her own take on Austen and the relationship she shared with her sister, her take isn't really all that different from the official history. Which is kind of a surprise if you take a skim through other books on offer from Harper's historical fiction titles:

Revenge of the Rose -- "In a court of the Holy Roman Emperor, not even a knight is safe from gossip, schemes, and secrets."

The Fool's Tale -- "Travel back to Wales, 1198, a time of treachery, political unrest...and passion."

The Scroll of Seduction -- "A dual narrative of love, obsession madness, and betrayal surrounding one of history's most controversial monarchs, Juana the Mad."

See? So it's kind of shocking how tame Cassandra and Jane is. However, given the depth of love so many fans have of their Jane, Pitkeathley probably played it pretty close to facts for her own safety. Rather than a love story that would throw question on whether Miss Austen did in fact die a virgin, Pitkeathley opts to tell a tale of sisterly love in a first-person narrative from Cassandra's point of view.

My other travel companion in the last couple weeks has been Novel Destinations, a birthday gift from a dear friend. I can't possibly get to even half the places the book notes in London and England alone, but it's really just the start of a life journey.

Bought? Well, so far I've been really good about keeping my wallet in my purse.... Knowledge the pound continues to outstrip the Canadian dollar by nearly 2:1 helps. But I couldn't resist Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, an inspired collection of break-up tales I found at the South Bank Book Market that's perfect for reading before I go to sleep after I've toiled through hours of studying....

Yes. Yes I am supposed to be toiling right now.

But quickly: The London Literature Festival. My new favourite thing. Even though it wasn't exactly packed with people on the weekend. And the Austen industry talk featured at least two women sitting in the front row who gasped, giggled and sighed whenever they agreed with or were shocked by presenters' words. They were particularly agog by the idea someone might mash up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (Which, by the way, has now been published in 22 languages and 37 countries, leading to a spike, too, in sales of the original book. Still, harrumph on principle.)

A Wuthering Heights seminar saw more people in attendance, but mostly because there is a new British mini-series expected out in the fall, and members of the press were invited out to see clips of the film and hear from the screenplay writer.

What was so interesting, to me, was how writers can work towards taking apart the original manuscripts and rebuilding them. Wuthering Heights, particularly, presents a problem because of the style of narrative, the two characters who tell the story but aren't really part of it. The screenwriter said he literally had three copies of the book, one of which he took a knife to in order to break apart the story and reorganize chronologically in order to navigate the tale.

Not initially a fan of Wuthering Heights -- I still think it presents a hero only infatuated teenage girls could truly love -- the evening discussion had me reconsidering. I never thought of Cathy and Heathcliff's children as the rays of hope, as the real hero and heroine of the novel....

I do wonder about the idea every generation needs its own Pride and Prejudice, or its own Wuthering Heights. Perhaps this is the line of thinking born of having a broadcast community almost wholly funded by the government?

Meanwhile, I should really get my hands on an old text to manipulate and reform as my own....

(Yes, Gurinder Chadha was at the lit fest -- she seemed really cool! And apparently she's sort of kind of maybe trying to work out a way for Bride and Prejudice to become a stage production....)

along the Thames

2009-07-08T15:23:00.004-06:00

Yeah, I'm pretty smitten with this city -- as you can see, here on the south bank of the Thames lies a daily book market -- pictures taken Sunday night, when it was lovely. It has since been, well, raining. Which has prompted me to spend some browsing time -- confusing umbrella in tow -- in more typical book-buying shelters, like Waterstone's or Foyles.

(Nope, no books bought. I'm spending way too much time with school books and spending carefully. On tickets to the stage production of Dirty Dancing. Which, no, isn't very good. Although the final three or four scenes and fantastic live band make up for many of the failures of an unsurprisingly poor script.)

(But yes, I really want A.S. Byatt's new tome. And Sophie Kinsella's. But I'm working through my chick lit craving by very painfully slowly, reading the French version of Shopaholic. Henceforth, whenever in a dicey situation, I think I will always say, "Je jette un coup d'oeil soupconneux autour de moi." Partly because I had to read it three times before I understood it and have now decided that's vocabulary I need.)

By the way, you'll note a picture of a monument to my.... right? Hopefully? I'm such a dunce when it comes to website layout. Even though blogspot makes it as easy as humanly possible.... Anyway, that's a monument to journalism!

On the north bank of the Thames, to a man by the name of Stead, who apparently was devoted to the fourth estate. I specifically like a few things about this monument: 1. to his right, the word "fortitude"; 2. to his left, "sympathy"; 3. jammed in beside the fortitude statuette is an empty beer can. Now.... I don't know if a "spiritualist" who died aboard the Titanic at the start of the 20th century would have been a big drinker. But in general, drinking is not looked down upon in media circles, so I applaud someone's very quick thinking on this one....

The last pictures -- and really, I don't know where or how they'll land -- are pictures after the rain on Carnaby Street, Monday night. And, the last last one is of a 45-year-old woman atop Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth Monday night. For some reason I love love love this exercise -- I know it's supposed to be art, but I think of it more as a symbol of our society's painful over-reaching self-confidence.

I know, that evaluation makes me a bad person. But really, we're not all Susan Boyle. Sorry. The Guardian's been much more charitable.

(You're wondering right now whether you can not only watch the Plinth live from home, but also Twitter monitor, right? Why yes. You can.)

of UK, books and India

2009-07-05T09:06:00.007-06:00

Some pics from the UK....

If the layout on your computer looks anything like the layout on mine, the first three are images from the rowing regatta at Henley-on-the-Thames. The next handful are from the Portobello Road Market, at Notting Hill. And the last speaks for itself....

By the way, on books: 1. I was really all set to encourage everyone I know to read Such a Pretty Fat. And then, in the last five pages, the author is mean to a homeless person. No, this will not ruin the end of the book for you -- it's a well-written memoir about a woman struggling with her weight and body image -- unless, of course, you can't stomach people who are mean to the homeless and disadvantaged. 2. I packed along Cassandra and Jane, thanks to a friend, and plan to update you soon on how this "Jane Austen story" reads -- Hint: it's been an excellent travel companion! 3. I am continuing my love affair with all things Lonely Planet. And, it turns out, all things Moleskine.

Oh, and 4. There's a new book club book! It looks as though this meet will take place sans moi, however the hosts have an excellent invite I just have to share (hopefully they don't mind):

Hello friends,

See, when you come to Bangalore, and stop at a traffic light, some boy will run up to your car and knock on your window, while holding up a bootlegged copy of an American business book, wrapped carefully in cellophane and with a title like:TEN SECRETS OF BUSINESS SUCCESS! or BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR IN SEVEN EASY DAYS!

Don’t waste your money on those American books. They’re so yesterday.

I am tomorrow.

(from White Tiger by Arvind Adiga)

So begins, pretty much, last year’s Booker Prize winner, and your next selection for The Little Book Club That Could, the date for which is Yet To Be Set.

I know what you’re thinking. Another Indian won another Booker Prize? What hold does the sub-continent have on Booker Prize committees? I’ll note that last year’s panel had a British-Sikh comedian (aside: WTF?), and my people are not known for their reasoning or diplomatic skills (“Choose White Tiger, or I will slit your throat…”).

And while I am as befuddled by the appeal of The God of Small Things as the next reader, I will say that India, with its rocketing economy, teeming population, ancient, varied, strange, vibrant, and gorgeous cultures, its place in the Information Age, its new global stature, to go along with its old global stature, is an ideal place to incubate and produce compelling pieces of art. We may add Arvind Adiga’s White Tiger to the list.

The story of Balram, the servant driver from the Darkness of India, and his ascent and adventures as a “social entrepreneur” left me conflicted. The book is written in a charming, sardonic, underdog voice, which is greatly appealing. Adiga says he’s inspired by the Black American 20th century novel, epitomised by Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and the voice of those in the lower places, those that know the score, the reason for their Hell, and are enraged by it.

Adiga is no Ellison, but he captures, or imagines the reality of one foot soldier in the Army of the India’s Servant Underclass. Scores of men, women and children from the “Dark”-er states of India drive the cars, serve the tea, and till the fields of those in the Light. This book is an antidote to the elephants and ashrams and spices we’ve come to expect from the sub-continent. It casts a light on the side we never see.

Or, at least, I think it does. We really have no way of knowing. The book’s authenticity rings true, but that might have more to do with my overeducated, liberal ear than whatever might be the case. Does the poverty described in the book fall into the same exoticism trap the rest of country seems to fall into? Can we survey the country without seeing saris and dance numbers, without hearing strains of the sitar and thumps of the tabla? My fear is that I’m trumpeting a book that might be adding a brick to the edifice it professes to break down.

I hope you read the book and bring your thoughts. To confuse you further, A. and I will serve a selection of delicious Punjabi dishes and their accompaniments. Please let us know if you’ll join us.

reserved countdown

2009-06-27T19:50:00.003-06:00

Ok, I have been waiting years for this movie. Which, we can all agree, is always a bad thing. For example, last year I couldn't wait to see Sex and the City and.... a year later, I'm still not over how bad it was, what they did to Carrie, what they did to Big, and the fact they'd even consider a sequel.

Last week, I couldn't wait to see Year One. Which, less surprisingly, was not awesome. (But who doesn't love love love Michael Cera? Seriously.)

And movies based on books? Sigh. Especially movies based on books starring Eric Bana -- I still haven't forgiven him, Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman for that whole Other Boleyn Girl ordeal. (Sidenote irony: I always pictured Henry, the time traveler at the centre of The Time Traveler's Wife, as Jonathan Rhys Meyers.) It seems like the general rule is, if you've read the book first, you will be disappointed. Unless the folks behind the movie redirect its purpose and retool the storyline to make it more of a movie....

Anyway, The Time Traveler's Wife -- the movie -- has some promise. One: Rachel McAdams. Two: Audrey Niffenegger's book was absolutely fabulous, and written in this colourful style of story-telling that may very well lend itself to a great movie. Three: From the preview, at least, it looks like the film itself is shot through with colour and light, which will be key given, well, what could be considered a rather depressing premise....

Biggest drawback? I've never met a woman who's read the book who didn't love it. Like, want all her friends to read it love it. Like, no drawbacks, unabashed love it-love it.

Which may very well lead to disappointment for all....

(p.s. quick chick lit query)

2009-06-17T00:33:00.001-06:00

If it looks like chick lit, and reads like chick lit, is it chick lit?

Even if it's written by a man?

Stay tuned, friends. Stay tuned....

on loving books, pure and simple

2009-06-16T23:19:00.007-06:00

"From both Obasan and Uncle I have learned that speech often hides like an animal in a storm." (p. 3)

Okay, how simple is that sentence? How beautiful?

We in the book club are racing through Joy Kogawa's Obasan. A friend asked me tonight if it's a fast read and I gave it a qualified yes.... Yes, it is just 271 pages. Yes it is on school curricula. But the prose is lovely, and you can't help but linger over the words....

Meanwhile, a much faster read is Jen Lancaster's book, Such a Pretty Fat.

I heart it, though not quite done. I know people had a few questions about the memoir, also titled, One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, also titled, Why Pie is Not the Answer.

Here's how Lancaster herself pitched it, and perhaps this is why I find it sort of inspiring:

"I'm so tired of books where a self-loathing heroine is teased to the point where she starves herself skinny in hopes of a fabulous new life. And I hate the message that women can't possibly be happy until we're all size fours. I don't find these stories uplifting; rather, I want to hug these women and taken them out for fizzy champagne drinks and cheesecake and explain to them that until they figure out their insides, their outsides don't matter.

"Unfortunately, being overweight isn't simply a societal issue that can be solved by positive self-esteem. Rather, it's a health matter, and here on the eve of my fortieth year, I've learned I have to make changes so I don't, you know, die. Because what good is finally being able to afford a pedicure if I lose a foot to adult-onset diabetes?" (p. 135)

To start, yes, she does have to lose weight for health reasons. Technically, on a theoretical -- she could get diabetes, she could get heart disease. For her, it's time to get serious. She calls her doctor Dr. Awesome though, so she's not getting mean pressure, she's getting a reality check.

This is not a book about how a woman lived happily ever after after she lost 100 pounds, and that's what I love. She isn't doomed to frumpiness or wallowing in self-pity. It is not an episode of The Biggest Loser (have I complained to you lately about how I believe this reality show is a 21st century throw-back to the carnivals people used to go to in the 19th century? like, 'step right up, kids, and check out the unfortunate freaks of society! watch us manipulate them and make them cry!').*

Lancaster is happy, and she lives a very good life. Her husband is supportive and funny. Her friends are supportive and funny. And she actually has awesome self-image. For example: "I'm a hundred pounds heavier than I was in high school, my veins are full of creme fraiche, and yet I look in the mirror, take in the hair and makeup, and think, Damn baby, you fiiine." (p. 14)

Come on, how awesome is that? That, by the way, is an excerpt from a conversation with her husband, who asks, "If you're fiiine, then what's the problem?"

Her husband's name is Fletch. He's kind of my hero. For example, at one point she starts to freak about what she's eating, and about how the weight isn't coming off, and about how she may have to buy a second seat on an airplane (purely a theoretical, by the way).

"Fletch switches off the burner, covers the saute pan, and sits down across the table from me. He takes my hand and gazes lovingly into my eyes. 'I'm just curious,' he says. 'At what point did you lose your fucking mind?.... Up until recently, you were the most confident person I knew. You're the one who says everyone else is too thin and you're just right. Now that you're actually losing weight, you're completely fixated on body image, and you never were before. Doesn't make any sense.... If you keep obsessing, you're ultimately going to fail because no matter how much weight you lose, you will never think you're thin enough. That's a recipe for unhappiness right there....'" (p. 107)

See? I love him! I've never been married before, but I imagine that's a good kind of husband to have, all straight-talking and stuff.

(I also imagine, however, that that is merely the gist of what he said, as Lancaster is unlikely to have hidden recorders all over her house for the moments when her husband was particularly great. Although maybe she kept a diary and wrote down all their conversations? I've done that.... though nowhere near that amount of detail....)

Did I mention the footnotes, by the way? They are totally irrelevant/hilarious little breaks in the writing. For example, she will write about going to the gym too much in one week, then when you follow the footnote you discover "too much" is actually twice or three times.

I'm not really that big on memoirs. Or stories about losing weight, actually. As I've mentioned before, I get pretty squeamish when the "F" word is thrown around. But this is a pretty darn good read.

Anyway, I should get back to Obasan....