on home

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.

to 2010

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...

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)

remember who you are

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.)

goop

Let's say you are not reading this fantastic book now. You are not drawn into Xavier's wandering history, into Joseph Boyden's unlinked narrative that reads like a spoken aboriginal tale, into the exciting revelation this is but one of three books apparently tied together. You are not sort of snickering at the idea of Boyden as a young Canadian literary voice for our time, then realizing 42 isn't really that old and you have nothing to snicker about after all Miss Not 30.

Anyway, let's just say none of these thoughts fill your mind or day.

Are you left with this? I sincerely hope not.

Yann Martel, Yann Martel, Yann Martel

Inexplicably, this song is still stuck in my head....



Yes, I know the federal election has passed. Perhaps it's the coming and going of a rather important arts gala?