ranty rant rant

I'm sick of defending chick lit.

Not because I'm no longer a fan of the genre. Not because I've given up hope that there is anything to defend.

I am just sick of feeling stupid because I like something. It would be like trying to defend my dislike of honey versus my like of strawberries. I don't happen to think I'm stupid for either of these tastes, yet a like or dislike of certain kinds of books can actually make a girl feel like a bloody moron.

I could throw Nick Hornby out there as an author of chick-litty novels. I could ask what makes Giller Prize-winner Elizabeth Hay all that different from chick lit-cousin Alice Hoffman. But I'm sure those who are made sick by the very idea of being in the same room as an adult paperback fairy tale would simply scoff.

Anyway.... on a brief side note, I re-read Hey Nostradamus! this weekend for book club, and have a couple worthy quotes to share:

Hey Nostradamus! Did you predict that once we found the Promised Land we'd all start offing each other? And did you predict that once we found the Promised Land, it would be the final Promised Land, and there'd never be another one again? And if you were such a good clairvoyant, why didn't you just write things straight out? What's with all the stupid rhyming quatrains? Thanks for nothing. (p. 91-92)

We're all born lost, aren't we? We're all born separated from God - over and over life makes sure to inform us of this - and yet we're all real: we have names, we have lives. We mean something. We must. (p. 146)

In the end, I think the relationships that survive in this world are the ones where the two people can finish each other's sentences. Forget drama and torrid sex and the clash of opposites. Give me banter any day of the week. (p. 151)

book-keeping

Just a couple quick notes:

• For book-clubbers, I haven't forgotten to send out an e-mail about our date to discuss Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! Will update y'all this week.
• I've taken a wee break from the Important Male Authors push. Put it to holidaying, put it to my love of Elizabeth Hay. (I love Elizabeth Hay, and despite my possessions purge, I bought another book of hers this weekend. But at the Wee Book Inn, so it was more like I was doing research on how to sell books. Maybe? I also bought Northanger Abbey.) Currently I am reading a book written by a friend, but soon I will get back to men. I'm thinking Atonement....
• I gave away my copy of Anna Karenina. Sorry, friends. But my brother wanted to take a spin at Tolstoy.... And maybe I was never going to finish it. We'll never really know.
• Emily Giffin has a new book on store shelves! I know that liking Emily Giffin is barely half a step up from liking Sophie Kinsella. I accept this about myself.
• I bought Certain Girls while in London. Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but was thrilled to have the UK version, which is in paperback already and surprisingly cheaper than the North American hardcover even after doing the math of converting pounds to dollars.
• Have I already mentioned how much I love how Brits love books? I know that's a weird thing to say, but they have book ads everywhere, on billboards and along Tube station walls. Last month, the big push was on to sell Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. It's so weird to be somewhere other than Canada and see Naomi Klein looking so seriously at you, perhaps judging you for caring so much about whether your jeans are stylish or if you have the right shoes....

annual navel gaze

My favourite books of 2007:




Looks like a short pile, you're thinking. And yes, there are a few missing. Most notably Black Bird, by Michel Basilieres. This is because I send almost all book club books (um, not the one by Judy Blume) to my friend who moves to non-English countries where Canadian literature, in particular, is difficult to find. (Except Atwood, I guess. But I wonder how Atwood translates to Eastern European sensibilities? Or South Korean ones?)

(Um, another interruption. CBC is playing Bridget Jones's Diary again, and they actually SKIP the part at the end when Bridget says, "Nice boys don't kiss like that," and Mark says, "Oh yes they fucking do." Or something like that. My defense on this one is I've not necessarily memorized all the lines so much as the Van Morrison song at the end just skipped rather noticeably.)

Back to my points....

Big surprise of the year? I liked Nick Hornby. Not enough to ever try Fever Pitch again, but certainly enough to try About A Boy, for example.

Other discoveries.... Short stories can be inspiring, rather than boring. (I maintain the problem with Charlotte Gill's book was it felt like a paint-by-numbers, this-is-how-you-win-an-award collection of stories. I'm sure I'm wrong. And I'm probably just jealous.)

.... I can get through a year without reading a single Atwood novel. I feel kind of sad, though.

.... I didn't actually include Carol Off's Bitter Chocolate in my eye-pleasing pile here, but I loved that book. And a year without chocolate wasn't bad at all. Which is good, because I'm now entering Year 2.

No surprises: A soppy romance by an Irish writer was fun to read in about 24 hours. Still looking forward to the movie, even though the Americans will probably ruin it. And, a second soppy romance written by the same writer was even more fun to read in even less than 24 hours.

The author whose next work I'm most looking forward to? Alison Pick's. Read The Sweet Edge, people.

2008

So, I rang in the new year at work. Sad, eh? Feel free to feel sorry for me. But not too sorry. A couple friends visited me with coffee and conversation. And I did get to watch Edmonton's fireworks show -- the city's biggest ever, apparently -- live on Global.

Now I'm sipping Baileys and milk and watching When Harry Met Sally... for the second time in a week. (In my defence, I had a head cold all weekend, so I nursed myself with three Meg Ryan movies, including Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail. As the years pass, it appears Ryan's forehead loses its ability to crinkle. Clearly a case of miraculous de-aging.)

(As I type this, it's the orgasm-in-a-deli scene! Woot!)

Anyway, it's time to set a resolution, but all I can think of is "do not lose my gloves this year" and "come up with better name for blog that doesn't steal directly from Tennyson." By the way, if anyone has help in these areas, for example one half of a set of black gloves or a good idea for a title, feel free to send'em along.



Now, some thoughts on books, since my Christmas break was spent in a zen-like state of relaxation at home, curled up reading.

• Wuthering Heights is quite good. In the end, I really enjoyed it and couldn't put it down. I still don't get why it's billed as one of the most romantic books ever, but there are two very likeable characters in it towards the end, and you do pull for them. Sidenote, one of my favourite lines in Bridget Jones's Diary is: "It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting 'Cathy' and banging your head against a tree." And now I love that line even more.


• When I think Douglas Coupland, the term "Gen X" pops into my head. Not sure if that's a compliment or not, it's just the first thing I think of. (And there's worse things than being associated with Generation X.) Anyway, I picked up my first Coupland novel, Hey Nostradamus! and it was fabulous. Starts out with a high school shooting in a Vancouver-area high school in the 80s, but more specifically it starts from the point of view of a girl stuck somewhere between life and heaven after she's been shot to death. From there, the book moves on to the life moments and narration of three other people connected, somehow, to the shooting. Amazingly, the book starts and ends on notes of hope. But the meat of it is somehow so disturbing and dire. And so well written. I think Coupland's one of my new favourite Canadian authors.


• I got piles and piles of good books from all the people I love in my life, and I'm so thankful to everyone for their kindness. One of the first books I've delved into is The House on Mango Street, courtesy of my brother and his partner. The vignettes are very, very short, and startling in their choppy prose -- absolutely perfect for taking on a plane, by the way. An example of the clear writing: "My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it. And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." (p. 11)

[insert here]

[Complete sidenote: I love Poe's "Not a Virgin," because it has just the right amount of anger in it. Other perfect angry songs? Ani DiFranco's "Untouchable Face," Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," Alanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know," and Bif Naked's "I Love Myself Today." If you're feeling angry and weepy, Jann Arden's "Insensitive." I'm sure men have angry songs too, but none really resonate when I'm truly pissed off.]

I had one of those weeks. Whatever.

The opening line of Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! argues:

I believe that what separates humanity from everything else in this world -- spaghetti, binder paper, deep-sea creatures, edelweiss and Mount McKinley -- is that humanity alone has the capacity at any given moment to commit all possible sins.

This is probably true. But the ability to commit sin, or evil, or whatever, isn't the only thing that separates us from everything else. It's also our obsession with happiness, or sadness, or the pursuit of happiness, or whatever.

Take a spin along the self-help aisle at any bookstore, and Happy! screams at you so bloody obnoxiously. I guess I'm just not cut out for self-help books. Although in high school, when I got really down about things, a quick read through a selection of Chicken Soup for the Soul books could really brighten my day.

Today, I was disturbed to see the franchise has its own entire section. And it's been hi-jacked by causes and name brands. What the hell?