ideas

When you are in the middle of a story it isn't a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.
-- p. 359,
Alias Grace

Women are taught from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, everything else is needless, for at least twenty years of their lives.
-- p. 9,
Mary Wollstonecraft

another snippet of Alias Grace... and Mr. Darcy isn't real

I haven't really gotten going on Oscar Wao yet, because I've been locked into Alias Grace for weeks now.

(Ok, I admit I took a wee break from Atwood last night to re-read favourite bits of Pride and Prejudice. I couldn't help myself. I had just watched the Keira Knightley version, and was all loving Matthew Macfadyen even though I fell asleep in the middle and then woke up at the end when he's all, "Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy." Sigh. He's imaginary, Trish. Imaginary.)

Anyway, I love how Margaret Atwood manages to weave a murder mystery into 19th century class struggles.

You know from the start Grace will go to prison in connection to the deaths of Nancy Montgomery and Thomas Kinnear. Montgomery being her coworker, if you will, and Kinnear being her boss. But this is the early 1800s, and really Kinnear is everyone's master and they all share a single roof.

"Mr. Kinnear said I was very inquisitive for such a young person, and soon he would have the most learned maidservant in Richmond Hill, and he would have to put me on display, and charge money for me, like the mathematical pig in Toronto." (p. 267)

being Peg

I've been stressing a bit about the future of newspapers.

Not, like, end-of-the-world stressing, or anything. I mean, democracy needs newspapers. (No seriously, stop laughing. You! Go pick up a paper! Get your hands dirty!)

But a friend of mine keeps asking me what my back-up plan is. And I keep making stuff up. Stewardess? That'll include lots of travel. Or, Official Lost Fan? I think that involves spending lots of time in Hawaii and stalking the actors and actresses who comprise Lost's cast. There has to be money in hanging out with Naveen Andrews.

Okay, okay. Time to get serious.

My backup plan is.... *drum roll*.... to become the next Margaret Atwood.

You're laughing again, aren't you?

But I've got it all planned out. See, I have a Canadian history minor. But I'll go back to school and get my Master's and then I'll do lots of fascinating research, and then I'll write a book nearly as good as Alias Grace.

It probably won't be quite as good, because I am not as brilliant as this:

"As one season's crop of girls proceeds into engagement and marriage, younger ones keep sprouting up, like tulips in May. They are now so young in relation to Simon that he has trouble conversing with them; it's like talking to a basketful of kittens.
"But his mother has always confused youth with malleability." (p. 106)

Or, this:

"You may think a bed is a peaceful thing, Sir, and to you it may mean rest and comfort and a good night's sleep. But it isn't so for everyone; and there are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. It is where we are born, and it is our first peril in life; and it is where the women give birth, which is often their last. And it is where the act takes place between men and women that I will not mention to you, Sir, but I suppose you know what it is; and some call it love, and others despair, or else merely an indignity which they must suffer through. And finally beds are what we sleep in, and where we dream, and often where we die." (p. 192)

It's a great plan, no? I just have to work on being brilliant and curling my hair. Ooh, and being witty. I definitely must increase my witty-factor.

ladies in peach (go crazy)

"I entered the relationship world thinking it was all based on how loudly those butterflies were beating their wings in my tummy. I could have used some warning at twenty-one when I met Adam and began my first serious relationship, a relationship that would last ten years and bring me to where I am now, consulting self-help books and consoling myself with cheap Merlot."

And so begins -- more or less -- the tale of The Prairie Bridesmaid.

But where should I begin....

Yeah, I did not really enjoy Daria Salamon's debut. I tried, though. I mean, Chantal Kreviazuk likes it, according to the cover. And I often find myself singing Kreviazuk songs in the shower, so clearly.... Also, Nia Vardalos. Who doesn't love My Big Fat Greek Wedding?

But the thing is, the main character's voice is too much. She's too ironic. She's too punchy with the jokes as she's gazing at her navel. She's too separated from herself as everything falls to pieces around her.

It gets hard to believe she has a single feeling that's real. Especially when she starts talking to a friendly neighbourhood rodent.

Meanwhile, if the storyline of Bridezillas gone pure evil weren't too much, Salamon suddenly got a case of the Days of Our Lives. When things started to slow down, she threw in an adoption storyline. And a childhood abuse storyline. And a scary pregnancy storyline. And a religious cult storyline.

I am actually not ruining the book for you, because none of those storylines have anything of any substance to do with the actual narrative.

Hm. I should stop ranting. You should skim the book. While standing in Chapters. And don't believe Steven Galloway when he says, "Every bit as entertaining as A Complicated Kindness...." This is a falsehood.

Ok. Calming down. Back to Margaret Atwood, who never lets me down.