another episode of being wrong

I would like to note my friend Shannon is always right, and I do not mean this in a sarcastic or bitter way at all.

So, as I continue to read Sweetness in the Belly, I will get to understand why my first assumption -- that the main character aids a woman giving birth in a dark London alley in the early 80s, then performs a circumcision on the girl child -- is wrong. But this is the graph in question, which threw me off and set me in the wrong direction altogether:

I cut the umbilical cord with the razor blade I'd packed along with a towel and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I'd feared I might have to use that blade for something else. If the woman had been infibulated the baby might have been in distress, might have even suffocated by the time we'd moved her into an operating theatre. In that case, I would have had to cut through her scar tissue to open up the birth canal, at the risk of injuring the baby, at the risk of the woman hemorrhaging or going into shock. But we were lucky; it was just a minor circumcision: clitoris and labia minora. (p. 14-15)

See where my confusion lies? This graph kind of shocked me last night, but I was too tired to keep reading. So when I shared my shock with Shannon today, she assured me I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I will see why soon enough.

Camilla Gibb's novel has enjoyed heaps of praise and so doesn't need more from me, who has not yet begun Chapter 2.... But suffice to say despite my misunderstanding the paragraph I've highlighted, the tone and prose are things to fall in love with.

for starters

I think I become obsessed with Edmonton's streetscapes when I am working night shifts. If I believed in being lonely, perhaps I would blame loneliness. Instead, I think my curiosity or fascination stems from the quiet of Edmonton's downtown streets at night. Men curl up on the sidewalks to sleep, and taxi cabs slow way down to encourage you to take a lift.

There is really nothing special about my walk home each night. I suppose I could be walking home along any street in any city anywhere in the country. Last night, I was greeted by the sweet scent of the river valley. Tonight, a puddle of orange puke waited half a block from my apartment building. The puddle was actually there this afternoon, too, but in the hours since I last saw it someone placed a plastic bag atop. This does nothing to hide the smell but hopefully the street cleaners will have their way with it.

I know, I know. Not a lovely streetscape. I hope I'm not doing any particular injustice to Edmonton; it really is a lovely city, marked by the same problems as any other place.

So, a totally different subject....

I've been thinking a lot lately about proper starts. Books are not like newspaper articles; they do not have a lede, per se. But there is a certain expectation of having them start off on the right foot. They should draw the reader in with something special, some little curiosity that makes a person keep going.

You're probably thanking me for being Capt. Obvious now.

But I wanted to share some of my favourite starts, pretty randomly pulled from my book shelves. (While pulling, I grabbed a bunch of other books I expected to have bright starts, and was sorely disappointed. Perhaps tomorrow I will share the worst bunch in another blog entry.)

From John Irving's A Widow for One Year:

One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking--it was coming from her parents' bedroom. It was a totally unfamilliar sound to her. Ruth had recently been ill with a stomach flu; when she first heard her mother making love, Ruth thought that her mother was throwing up.

From Amulya Malladi's The Mango Season:

Don't kill yourself if you get pregnant, was my mother's advice to me when I was fifteen years old and a classmate of mine was rumoured to have committed suicide because she was with child.

From Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle:

I planned my death carefully; unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it. My life had a tendency to spread, to get flabby, to scroll and festoon like the frame of a baroque mirror, which came from following the line of least resistance. I wanted my death, by contrast, to be neat and simple, understated, even a little severe, like a Quaker church or the basic black dress with a single strand of pearls much praised by fashion magazines when I was fifteen. No trumpets, no megaphones, no spangles, no loose ends, this time. The trick was to disappear without a trace, leaving behind me the shadow of a corpse, a shadow everyone would mistake for solid reality. At first I thought I'd managed it.

And, perhaps the simplest of them all, from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451:

It was a pleasure to burn.

ah, nature.... the sweet-smelling kind

When I left the office tonight -- well, this morning, as I was on the late shift and didn't leave until half past midnight -- the scent of timber was blowing up from the river valley. I love these nights, when the clean smell of trees sweeps downtown. Such a welcome break from the smell of pee that often penetrates the sidewalks throughout the summer months.

A couple quick notes --

• The Cecilia Ahern novel, for the most part, left me with a big smile. I have three people I wish to suggest it to, and about 10 friends I would caution not to read it. It's probably too soppy for some, and exactly warm and fuzzy enough for others. The premise, for example, is summed up in a letter at the start of the book: My darling Holly, I don't know where you are or when exactly you are reading this. I just hope that my letter has found you safe and healthy. You whispered to me not long ago that you couldn't go on alone. You can, Holly. You are strong and brave and you can get through this. We shared some beautiful times and you made my life . . . you made my life. I have no regrets..... I promised a list, so here it is. (p. 32-33) Yes, kind readers, this is a book written for women by a woman. This is the kind of letter some women, perhaps stupidly, dream of receiving. And really, my biggest beef about this vanilla book is the two capitalized letters at the very close: THE END. I hate the idea of any story just stopping abruptly.


• The idea of this contest has me completely intrigued and sort of excited. To tell a story in 250 words? Easy peasy. To do it right and perhaps even poetically? Hm.


• Okay, I'm not finished with dissecting the vanilla novel, although this barely counts.... How could they have translated a good Irish novel to cast an American in the key role? The reason Holly feels so very alone and out of control is because she and her husband actually grew up together and were never separated. If the movie has Hilary Swank travelling to Ireland for the first time to see where her husband grew up, I'm not sure I get how that works within the story Ahern wrote. And, when I look at the cast list, it seems a whole bunch of characters have been created who were never in the book. While I'm thrilled to see that puts a role in the hands of Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- and hopefully he won't be killed off for once -- I have a lot of question marks.

I'm such an uncool blogger

Oh crap.

fear factor

You know when someone's so late getting to something, it's just kind of ridiculous? Like, say, the soccer mom who only started wearing slouch socks and tights in 1999? Between it being cool in the New Kids on the Block era and then almost cool again in the American Idol era?

Similarly, it's ridiculous when people talk Christmas presents in February, or when someone decides to discuss Halloween on, say, Nov. 4.

But I had a tough week last week, and didn't get around to it. People who did include a friend of a friend in Uganda and a local dad/reporter friend. Can I say how ridiculous I felt when I complained of not having enough time to get a simple costume together for a Halloween party (not even devil's ears or cat's whiskers or princess cape and wand), then saw how Chris wandered around Africa looking for the perfect Mountie uniform? Seriously, people, it's time I got my priorities straight.

On things that are scary, however, I offer the Philippa Gregory novel I just finished. I know, historical romance, etc. Mock me. Stone me. Etc.

But Gregory's latest novel is a reading on King Henry VIII's later years. While her first couple novels on that particularly woman-hating/woman-hungry English king cast the man as a petulant child and spoiled brat with a crown, her latest painted a picture of a yicky old monster with piggy eyes.

Her first novels on the subject of Henry VIII were told through the eyes of Anne Boleyn's sister and Queen Katherine of Aragon. The Other Boleyn Girl is going to be a movie at some point soon, starring Eric Bana as the king.

This last is narrated by Queen Anne of Cleves, Queen Katherine Howard and Jane Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's sister-in-law. Adding to the overall scary factor -- if you're not that familiar with English history, which I'm honestly not, you spend the entire book with your fingers crossed for Anne of Cleves -- it turns out, is actually kind of mad. I didn't catch on until the end of the book, at which point Gregory casts the evil craziness so well.

By this point reading my blog entry, I expect you, kind reader, are bored. If so, I would not suggest reading this particular novel. If you're not, I think you might want to take a spin....

Now I'm onto Cecilia Ahern. I know, romance novel. Mock me more. But I'm giving into my soppy nature this weekend.... The premise of this one is that childhood sweethearts Gerry and Holly are broken up when Gerry dies young. Holly can barely get back on her feet, and then she gets a packet of letters from Gerry, one for each month, with a list of tasks for her to get done. The tasks range from sweet and adventurous to simply sad. One might even say heart-breaking if they hadn't lost their tear ducts in 'Nam.

I promise my next book will be very smart. Sweetness in the Belly is the next book club selection, so I anticipate being smarter for reading it....