on book club (briefly)

Myth: If it were not for book club, I would be paging through the last chapters of Stephanie Nolen's 28.

Fact: If it were not for book club, I would have read about three chapters of 28 before the discontinuity between stories made me want to take another break, and I turned to something less brainy. Like a fictionalized biography of Sylvia Plath.

Regardless, I am slowly wading into Saramago's Blindness.

I'm not going to lie to you. It might be over my head. Already, I can tell it's a very important comment on society, and that is what we will discuss at book club next month. I, however, will likely focus on the convoluted (Nobel Prize-winning) writing style.

How do you like this?

To put it simply, this woman could be classed as a prostitute, but the complexity in the web of social relationships, whether by day or night, vertical or horizontal, of the period here described cautions us to avoid a tendency to make hasty and definitive judgments, a mania which, owing to our exaggerated self-confidence, we shall perhaps never be rid of. (p. 21 in Comrade Barbara's hardcover version of the book)

Right. Clearly it's too early to tell whether I will enjoy this work.

to be continued

I have alluded to this before.... I need little breaks from Stephanie Nolen's masterful 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa.

I need these breaks because the stories hurt to read. I know I often talk about pain in reading, but these true stories are more painful and hopeful and truthful, I think, than any piece of journalism I've ever read before.

My need to take these breaks scares me. I'm sure it says something about my own weaknesses that I have to take my eyes away from the stories every so often, that I need to read something else in bed at night after a handful of nights reading Nolen's work.

Could I go to Africa? Could I look and look and look and not take my eyes away?

There is darkness to be seen on Edmonton's streets, in places like tent city or even when I walk to the grocery store. I don't look away then, but this is not the same. Obviously.

I am just eleven chapters into Nolen's book, and I am so impressed with the equal compassion she shows to the truck drivers who could be blamed for spreading HIV as she does the women and children who are so often the victims.

But so far, two stories have struck me. One, just three pages, that I finished this morning. She ends it so:

"Mfanimpela was thirty-four that day we met again -- a few months older than I. And he had outlived his entire family." (p. 149)

Another, of Tigist, a 14-year-old girl in Ethiopia left since 2002 to take care of her orphaned younger brother, 10-year-old Yohannes. Nolen asks them what they would do if they had more money:

"When his sister was out of earshot, he confided, 'I'd use it to take care of her.'

And when Yohannes had gone back out to run with his friends in the street, Tigist watched him from the doorway, her head against one slim-fingered hand, and she said it too. 'If we had more, I would try to take better care of him. I have to take care of him.'" (p. 43)

* source of photo

feelin' hot hot hot

Mm. Glad to get that song stuck in your head, dear reader (Mom, Dad, Granny).

It's been deliciously hot in Edmonton the last couple days. The kind of hot that makes you want to have picnics on the legislature grounds, or really just sit in your air-conditioned apartment sucking on a popsicle and trying to write fiction.

I blame my sudden need to write really bad fiction on Jennifer Crusie, whose light touch makes you want to write stories of your own. Reading a book of hers is kind of like eating a cherry popsicle on a sunny day. Okay, maybe one of those blue, white and red popsicles.

I continue to take a break from Anna Karenina (perhaps until the fall, when it will be cold again and I won't want to leave my apartment and so I'll be stuck with Tolstoy's prose) and even from 28 (a gorgeous book that breaks your heart on every page -- it's actually been a rather rough week, so I needed a breather). And so I am reading a frothy,* fun Crusie novel, Don't Look Down, co-authored by Bob Mayer.

I've never read Mayer before, however I assume he is to blame for the testosterone-charged graphs about military weaponry that I've been skipping. Crusie, of course, is responsible for the witty dialogue and a female heroine who isn't a size six with perfect hair and a penchant for listening to Bruce Springsteen. (Seriously, why must all romance heroines listen to Springsteen? Does anyone in real life listen to Springsteen anymore?)

I'm sure I had a point in this blog entry that had nothing to do with making my family sing the "Hot, hot, hot" song to themselves for the rest of the day.... But it's summertime and I can't focus. So, a few sidenotes:

• HURRAH! How many summer nights did I spend while in university drinking strawberry daqs and watching Sex and the City? Too many to count, really. Perfect summer news.


• Thanks to a friend, I have a new book to add to my Must Read list.... unfortunately, I can't find the relevant CP article online anywhere, and I don't want to pilfer it. So please, dear reader (Granny, Mom, Dad), bear with this article from salon.com
  

*Have you ever noticed "frothy" is a term almost wholly reserved for the work of female writers, most often chick-lit authors? Erm, when not speaking of coffee of course. No matter how ludicrously commercial the work of King or Grisham, one rarely calls it "frothy." Hmph.

we are the world....

I can hardly remember a time when Stephanie Nolen wasn't my favourite reporter in Canada. So needless to say, I am enjoying her latest book, 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa.

But this figure astounds me: $6.6 billion (USD).

That's how much the United Nations believed Africa needed in 1999 to fund a response to AIDS. The continent got $560 million.

But how's this for a figure? $8.9 billion (CDN = 8,323,980,546 USD).

It's so much cash, it's sick. And it's just the surplus in our rich province. Imagine the difference it could make somewhere other than here.