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| 0385510365
| 9780385510363
| 0385510365
| 3.72
| 10,534
| 2005
| Sep 20, 2005
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liked it
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We have become an army of multiply chemically sensitive, high-maintenance princesses trying to make our way through a world full of irksome peas. All o We have become an army of multiply chemically sensitive, high-maintenance princesses trying to make our way through a world full of irksome peas. All of the nice things I have to say about listening to David Rakoff narrating one of his audiobooks was said in my review of Half Empty and I would reiterate that it is a very enjoyable experience. The writing here in Don't Get Too Comfortable The Indignities of Coach Class The Torments of Low Thread Count The Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil and Other First World Problems is just as smart and insightful and beautifully crafted. The biggest difference I would say there is between these two books, however, is that while in Half Empty I found Rakoff to be piercing but never cruel, I found many instances of over-the-line cruelty in Don't Get Too Comfortable. I couldn't quite pinpoint what was turning me off about this book until I read someone else's review wherein he complained that the lack of connection Rakoff makes with his material is because he is sent off on adventures that are sure to bring out his snarky side-- I hadn't considered this and of course that's the problem, and also the reason why I can't quite classify him as a memoirist. Of course the gay Rakoff is going to have a dull time at a Playboy photoshoot. As the Director of the Log Cabin Republicans ( a gay Republican group) says to the incredulous Rakoff, "You had this story written before you even got here". It seems apparent that Rakoff exclusively sought experiences that would confirm his worldview, confirm that he's on the smart side of history. And in this book, about excess and avarice, he can be downright cruel about some easy targets: At Paris Fashion Week All of the designers I have met up to this point have been very nice, although upon being introduced to Karl Lagerfeld, he looks me up and down and dismisses me with the not super-kind, 'What can you write that hasn't been written already?' He's absolutely right, I have no idea. I can but try. The only thing I can come up with at that moment is that Lagerfeld's powdered white ponytail has dusted the shoulders of his suit with what looks like dandruff but isn't. Also, not yet having undergone his alarming weight loss, and seated on a tiny velvet chair, with his large doughy rump dominating the miniature piece of furniture like a loose, flabby, ass-flavored muffin overrisen from its pan, he resembles a Daumier caricature of some corpulent, inhumane oligarch drawn sitting on a commode, stuffing his greedy throat with the corpses of dead children, while from his other end he shits out huge, malodorous piles of tainted money. How's that for new and groundbreaking, Mr. L? On post 9/11 distrust: If for example, it came to light that the dangerously thin, affectless, value-deficient, higher aspiration-free, amateur porn auteuse Paris Hilton was actually a covert agent from some secret Taliban madrassa whose mission was to portray the ultimate capiltalist-whore puppet of a doomed society with nothing more on its mind than servitude to Mammon and celebrity at any cost, I wouldn't be surprised. And he takes several potshots at Republicans in general and the Bush family in particular: While we're on the subject of the horrors of war, and humanity's most poisonous and least charitable attributes, let me not forget to mention Barbara Bush (that would be former First Lady and presidential mother as opposed to W's liquor-swilling, Girl Gone Wild, human ashtray of a daughter. I'm sorry, that's not fair. I've no idea if she smokes.) When the administration censored images of the flag-draped coffins of the young men and women being killed in Iraq - purportedly to respect "the privacy of the families" and not to minimize and cover up the true nature and consequences of the war - the family matriarch expressed her support for what was ultimately her son's decision by saying on Good Morning America on March 18, 2003, "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? I mean it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" Mrs. Bush is not getting any younger. When she eventually ceases to walk among us we will undoubtedly see photographs of her flag-draped coffin. Whatever obituaries that run will admiringly mention those wizened, dynastic loins of hers and praise her staunch refusal to color her hair or glamorize her image. But will they remember this particular statement of hers, this "Let them eat cake" for the twenty-first century? Unlikely, since it received far too little play and definitely insufficient outrage when she said it. So let us promise herewith to never forget her callous disregard for other parents' children while her own son was sending them to make the ultimate sacrifice, while asking of the rest of us little more than to promise to go shopping. Commit the quote to memory and say it whenever her name comes up. Remind others how she lacked even the bare minimum of human integrity, the most basic requirement of decency that says if you support a war, you should be willing, if not to join those nineteen-year-olds yourself, then at least, at the very least, to acknowledge that said war was actually going on. Stupid f-ing cow. I'd imagine a reader's enjoyment of this book would be related to how closely one's own worldview is confirmed by the smart and articulate David Rakoff's expression of it. Just as only a very rich person could recognise the ironically retro high value of rough handmade bars of soap, only a person with access to unlimited food could find it a spiritual quest to commit himself to a strict fast-- an experience so self-indulgent that Rakoff spent many hours every day preparing the broths and teas that sustained the fast, prompting the question,"Who outside of a person of high means could afford that kind of time to artificially keep himself above starvation level?" I will stipulate to having both French sea salt and a big bottle of extra virgin in my kitchen. And while the presence of both might go some small distance in pigeonholing me demographically, neither one of them makes me a good person. They are mute and useless indicators of the content of my character. I wonder if that notion is backwards? That perhaps the indicators aren't so mute? On cryogenics, he says: In my brief glimpse of what is to come I realize how little I care to witness it. I have seen the future and I'm fairly relieved to say, it looks nothing like me. It is still poignant to hear Rakoff dismiss immortality from beyond the grave, and even if his politics seemed to enter this volume more than in the last one, he passed too soon. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Apr 06, 2013
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Apr 09, 2013
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Apr 06, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 0385525249
| 9780385525244
| 0385525249
| 3.82
| 6,350
| 2010
| Sep 21, 2010
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liked it
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I am venal and glib and too clever by half. My daughter was just involved in the Sears Festival, an adjudicated presentation of youth plays from area h I am venal and glib and too clever by half. My daughter was just involved in the Sears Festival, an adjudicated presentation of youth plays from area high schools, and we showed up on the night that the awards were to be presented. When my husband and I entered, we saw her with some friends and asked how the plays went that evening. Her boyfriend told us that the first play of the night was really strange: A person would come out and start telling a monologue about how he was feeling and then a dancer would appear and start interpreting what he was saying. The lights would go down and then up again, and then there would be another monologue, and another dance, and so on and so on. Zach and the other kids were trying to be respectful and not laugh, but the whole thing was overly serious and melodramatic, and they were especially put off by the fact that it was written by the performers-- it seemed manipulative and self-important. When the last monologue started, the music became even more ethereal and bordering on the satirical, and just when Zach could hardly stop himself from laughing, something happened that made him "feel like a total douchebag": a girl in a wheelchair came out to do the final dance, spinning and turning, and the entire audience was on their feet by the end, a mix of tears and smiles. When the awards were then presented, the Adjudicator announced a special award of merit for the brave young lady who inspired such a moving work, and when she rolled onto the stage to accept the award we could see she was not some pretty teen who had been in a tragic accident as I had been imagining: this was a small and twisted girl, obviously someone who has spent her entire life in the high tech wheelchair in which she now proudly received her certificate. I understood what Zach meant by feeling like a douchebag…and yet, if the play wasn't all that good, does the presence of tragedy mean you're a bad person if you didn't like it? Was that award even appropriate, or was it a bit condescending? Was that certificate the highlight of the young lady's high school career, or is she bombarded with a constant stream of people acknowledging her bravery for dealing with the crappy hand she had been dealt? I really do hope that the play and her participation in it and her dance and its recognition were pure and meaningful experiences for her, just like I hope my own daughter benefitted from her experience with the Sears Festival. And that brings me to David Rakoff: Does it make me a bad person that I didn't love Half Empty, even though I know that he died last summer? I appreciated that it was read by the author-- he was obviously a wonderful storyteller and I am not surprised to learn that he had a presence on public radio. And that's the thing about his voice-- it sounded more like a performance than a friend confiding in me. Rakoff is funny and intelligent, urbane I guess, exactly like a gay Jewish New Yorker who was born an Anglo-Montrealer might sound; measured and slightly bored, his voice cracking on cue at the wriest bits. As for the writing, it's wonderful, really; not quite memoir, but first person essays nonetheless. In “Isn’t it Romantic�, Rakoff explains why he didn't like the musical Rent: For a bunch of would-be artists, the characters in the musical are never shown making art. Unlike Rakoff himself, and even the playwright who created Rent, they are also never shown paying their dues or working at crummy minimum wage jobs in order to support their dreams, and indeed, they decide to stick it to the suits by refusing to pay their rent from then on. As Rakoff notes, ". ..hanging out does not make one an artist. A secondhand wardrobe does not make one an artist. Neither do a hair-trigger temper, melancholic nature, propensity for tears, hating your parents, nor even HIV - I hate to say it - none of these make one an artist. They can help, but just as being gay does not make one witty� the only thing that makes one an artist is making art. And that requires the precise opposite of hanging out; a deeply lonely and unglamorous task of tolerating oneself long enough to push something out.� I believe that Rakoff paid his dues and suffered for his craft and in the end pushed out art-- and Half Empty is so well-crafted that I admired the words and the sentences and each essay, but I didn't love them. In another essay, Rakoff is introduced to a socialite-type at a party and the hostess mentions that the two guests could have a lively conversation at some point. Looking him up and down, the socialite purrs, "Oh yes, I'm sure we could have all sorts of bitchy fun." Rakoff smiled at the time, a polite Canadian at heart after all, but in his essay explains that he is never intentionally bitchy or catty or gossipy-- and was that what I was expecting, just like the shallow socialite? Was I disappointed that his observations were piercing and smart but never cruel? I heard the quote I started this with while walking along, and it struck me as my chief complaint-- Rakoff comes off as venal and glib and too clever by half-- and I hurried home to type it so I wouldn't forget it. It wasn't until I was looking at the impressions of others here that I saw someone had the entire quote: “I am the furthest thing from a do-gooder. I am venal and glib and too clever by half, I know, but the thrill of the most brilliantly quicksilver aperҫu is no match for the self-interested high I get from having done someone a good turn. You'd think I'd do more good turns as a result, but there you go.� It seems uncharitable of me to have remembered that quote out of context. I'm sure that if I had met Rakoff while he was alive, I would have liked him, and the world is certainly diminished by his absence. The final essay, “Another Shoe�, is an account of Rakoff's second cancer scare and its treatment, and of course that was a poignant experience, listening as I was to him tell the tale from beyond the grave. The title, Half Empty, refers to his philosophy of the positive power of negative thinking : one should hope for the best but prepare for the worst; don't be afraid to leave the house but know where the fire escapes are in the movie theater; expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed. After serving him well in the variety of experiences described in this book, it proves no match for a recurrence of cancer: “The best-laid plans, one's most fastidious contingency strategies have revealed themselves in the cold light of day to be laughably inadequate, no match for the happenstance that seems of late only to promise death, mayhem, poverty, flood. And here you are, having spent all that time protecting your home from the oncoming elements only to find that it has been shored up with crackers." Poignancy aside, I'm going to take a chance and assume that David Rakoff is not perched in the heaven that he didn't believe in, hoping that I'm going to award him a special certificate of merit just because his personal tragedy is attendant to my experience of his art. I hope that doesn't make me a douchebag� This is a very good book in my opinion, although a 3 star experience, and I am looking forward to listening to another collection of his essays that I have cued up next. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 31, 2013
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Apr 06, 2013
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Mar 31, 2013
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0385663145
| 9780385663144
| 0385663145
| 3.75
| 5,701
| Aug 11, 2009
| Aug 11, 2009
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liked it
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They spoke of the days of plenty with a wistful exaggeration, as if it was an ancient time they knew only through stories generations old. My Jesus, t
They spoke of the days of plenty with a wistful exaggeration, as if it was an ancient time they knew only through stories generations old. My Jesus, the cod, the cod, the cod, that Crusade army of the North Atlantic, that irresistible undersea current of flesh, there was fish in galore one time. Boats run aground on a school swarming so thick beneath them a man could walk upon the very water but for fear of losing his shoes to the indiscriminate appetite of the fish. ²µ²¹â€¢l´Ç°ù±ð [guh-lawr, -lohr] adverb in abundance; in plentiful amounts: food and drink galore. Origin: 1660â€�70; < Irish go leor enough, plenty> If the wistful nostalgia for the days of plenty, of fish galore, speaks of a real time, it's no wonder that the poor fishermen and their families, as well as the shrewd and shifty businessmen who would build whole communities from their labour, would have been lured from Europe to settle the barren and inhospitable coasts of Newfoundland. The novel Galore follows the intertwining of two such families, the Sellers and the Devines, the one rich and the other barely surviving, over six generations and two hundred years. When Devine's Widow (her actual name seems to have been lost to history) rejected the marriage proposal of King-me Sellers, they went on to found the two families that would make up the majority of the characters in this book. Portentously, Devine's Widow left King-me with a curse: May the sea take you and all the issue of your loins. If ashes to ashes and dust to dust is the biblical way of the world, it follows naturally that in Newfoundland that which comes from the water will be returned to the water. The Widow is accused of being a witch, a perfectly reasonable assumption to the people of Paradise Deep, and takes her place alongside other fantastical creatures, such as mermaids, the Little People of the woods, a mute albino delivered live from the belly of a whale, and more than one tangible ghost. A doctor who joins the community on a two year contract, and ends up staying forever, seems equally intrigued and repulsed by what he initially finds: He felt at times he'd been transported to a medieval world that was still half fairy tale. In many ways, the day to day lives of the locals was medieval, little changed from a subsistence life from centuries before. Michael Crummey shows great affection for the inhabitants of this lost world, and if I have a complaint, it might be that he's a bit too gentle with them. Certainly there are unlikeable characters in this book, murderers and philanderers and misers and fools, but none of them really came off the page for me. A true story: I have a friend who married a Newfoundlander, whose own father was a fisherman in a coastal community of less than two hundred people, fifty and more years after Galore concludes. This man was away on the fishing boats most of the time but when he was home, he was a mean and abusive drunk who forced himself on his long-suffering wife, eventually siring fourteen children by her. The woman was so overwhelmed, barely able to care for and feed the ever growing brood, essentially all alone, and she went to the parish priest for advice. The priest called down all the wrath of God upon her head for daring to complain about her lot in life and impressed on her that her only duty as a wife was to submit to her husband. And this was in the mid to late twentieth century. Yet, in Galore, not one character seems as real to me as my friend's father-in-law, whom she never met, and about whom she has only broadly sketched. Even the clergy in Galore, while gently ridiculed, are presented as benign-- they may behave unclergylike, especially the Catholic priest, but all of them are ultimately interested in the salvation of their parishioners. I did like this bit about the doctor's experiences, and what it says about the Newfies: The patients he saw were virtually incapable of articulating their troubles, offering only the broadest, most childish descriptions of what ailed them. I finds me sides, they told him. I finds me legs. I got a pain up tru me, they said. Bad head, bad back. Bad stomach, which sometimes meant trouble breathing. Even under questioning they had difficulty presenting specific symptoms, which made them sound like a crowd of hypochondriacs, but it was rare to root out a malingerer. People on the shore were unable to distinguish illness or injury from the ordinary strain and torment of their days until they were crippled and it was only the desperate who braved the clinic, and only after they'd exhausted every quack potion and home remedy available. After the bleakness and hard labour of generations of fishermen, Crummey offers rescue in the form of a union organizer: He had the rhythm and demeanor of a preacher, the same bluff assurance. He began with an overview of the sad facts of a fisherman's life, the deplorable conditions they lived and worked in, the parasites in St. John's who bled them dry. A sycophantic tone to the presentation that made the men restless, the grievances so familiar they could have rhymed them off in their sleep. But Croaker paused at the end of the list, breeding anticipation with his silence, and they all leaned slightly forward in their pews. --You people, he said finally. He pointed with his sausage fingers. Grovellers, he called them. They were living the same miserable lives their fathers lived and their fathers' fathers before them. The wealth of the nation made on their backs and every one of them content to beg at Levi Sellers' door. They were backward and illiterate and happy to leave their children no hope of a better life. What I found most illuminating about this speech is how it contrasts with the experience that Susanna Moodie describes in Roughing It In The Bush. To Moodie, emigrating and homesteading in Upper Canada was a very hard and rough life, but after years of work, one could survey the cleared land, the improved soil, the comfortable living one has eked out and then pass it all on to one's children, who would not have to labour as hard themselves. There seems a point to the sacrifices. But in coastal Newfoundland, the point for generations was to merely survive. And the bit that seems to summarise the whole plot, when the doctor hints at euthanasia to his wife who lies dying of cancer: Bride offering the slightest nod. --Now the once, she said. It was the oddest expression he'd learned on the shore. Now the once. The present twined with the past to mean soon, a bit later, some unspecified point in the future. As if it was all the same finally, as if time was a single moment endlessly circling on itself. Bride forever absent and always with him. And so the generations were come to an end: those descendants of Devine's Widow and King-me Sellers who are not dead by the end of the book are never heard from again after leaving for the States, taken by the sea as surely as if they had drowned in it. I didn't love this book, and for a poet, Michael Crummey rarely wowed me with poetical language, so it's a solid three stars for me. I have a thing for Newfie stories, and a preference for those told by Newfies themselves (*cough* sorry Annie Proulx *cough*) and will happily continue to mine the genre. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Mar 30, 2013
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Apr 11, 2013
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Mar 30, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 0771099878
| 9780771099878
| 0771099878
| 3.91
| 1,599
| 1969
| Jan 01, 1991
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really liked it
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Ladybird, ladybird, Fly away home; Your house is on fire, Your children are gone. So begins The Fire-Dwellers, with Stacey MacAindra, formerly of Manawaka Ladybird, ladybird, Fly away home; Your house is on fire, Your children are gone. So begins The Fire-Dwellers, with Stacey MacAindra, formerly of Manawaka, Manitoba, now a suburban Vancouver housewife and mother of four, nearly 40, torn between flying away and flying home; dwelling in the fires there until her children need her no more. I read this book for the first time when my eldest daughter was first born, and although I didn't feel trapped in suburban ennui, I could recognise the truth of Stacey's situation, so beautifully portrayed here with internal monologues, halting arguments with her husband, Mac, and fretful attempts to raise her children without "ruining" them in the ways predicted by magazine articles and quizzes. I am now older than Stacey, and happily still don't feel trapped in the ways she is, but the truths in this book are still eternal. This is the scene that has stayed with me over the years and I'll put it all here so I can revisit it at will: Tommy Dorsey Boogie. The clear beat announces itself. Stacey finishes her drink, fixes another one, drinks half of it quickly and sets the glass down on top of the TV. She looks at her gold sandals, her green-velvet tights. She puts her arms out, stretching them in front of her, her fingers moving slightly, feeling the music as though it were tangibly there to be touched in the air. Slowly, she begins to dance. Then faster and faster.
� Once it seemed almost violent, this music. Now it seems incredibly gentle. Sentimental, self-indulgent? Yeh, probably. But I love it. It's my beat. I can still do it. I can still move without knowing where, beforehand. Yes. Yes. Yes. Like this. Like this. I can. My hips may not be so hot but my ankles are pretty good, and my legs. Damn good in fact. My feet still know what to do without being told. I love to dance. I love it. It can't be over. I can still do it. I don't do it badly, see? Like this. Like this. � I love it. The hell with what the kids say. In fifteen years their music will be just as corny. Naturally they don't know that. I love this music. It's mine. Buzz off, you little buggers, you don't understand. No —I didn't mean that. I meant it. I was myself before any of you were born. (Don't listen in, God � this is none of your business.) The music crests, subsides, crests again, blue-green sound, saltwater with the incoming tide, the blues of the night freight trains across snow deserts, the green beckoning voices, the men still unheld and the children yet unborn, the voices cautioning no caution no caution only dance what happens to come along until The record player switches off. � Was I hearing what was there, or what? How many times have I played it? God it's three thirty in the afternoon and I'm stoned. The kids will be home in one hour. Okay, pick up the pieces. Why did I do it? Yours not to reason why, Stacey baby, yours but to go and make nineteen cups of Nescafe before the kids get home. Quickly. Jen? Lord, she must've been awake for hours. Oh Stacey. Interestingly, I had forgotten the following scene, which is just as important: Katie has put on one of her own records. Something with a strong and simple beat, slow, almost languid, and yet with an excitement underneath, the lyrics deliberately ambiguous. Katie is dancing. In a green dress Katie MacAindra simple and intricate as grass is dancing by herself. Her auburn hair, long and straight, touches her shoulders and sways a little when she moves. She wears no make-up. Her bones and flesh are thin, plain-moving, unfrenetic, knowing their idiom.
Stacey turns and goes very quietly up the basement steps and into the living room. � You won't be dancing alone for long, Katie. It's all going for you. I'm glad. Don't you think I'm glad? Don't you think I know how beautiful you are? Oh Katie love. I'm glad. I swear it. Strike me dead, God, if I don't mean it. I recently listened to The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, and in it the author asks a psychologist why mothers and their teenage daughters butt heads as they do. The doctor replies that it has to do with the passing of the reproductive torch � the mother is reluctant to be put out to pasture and the daughter feels the weight of the responsibility, along with a surge of the power of her new position in the family. I raised an eyebrow at this Freudian slant � I don't think it really applies to my relationships with my own teenage daughters (in my mind we're not even butting heads), or the relationship I had with my own mother for that matter, but it seems somewhat applicable to Stacey. What's interesting is how it plays out in the shadows: Stacey dances alone, wanting her children to know, without her telling them, I was myself before any of you were born; Stacey watches Katie dancing alone and wants her to know, without telling her, that she's glad for her daughter and the future ahead of her; Stacey even wonders if her mother ever danced, but knows it's a question she'll never ask. The Fire-Dawellers really is from a different time. I am also a housewife, a stay-at-home-mom, and while I don't experience life the way that Stacey does (I don't know if anyone does, anymore), she is a real and breathing character, someone whose truth I can't help but identify with, at any age it seems. Another stellar book from the Manawaka Series. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 07, 2013
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May 08, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0771099851
| 9780771099854
| 0771099851
| 3.95
| 2,839
| 1974
| Jan 01, 1989
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really liked it
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I like reading short stories even though the form confounds me a bit. I've heard it said that short stories are harder to write than novels, so I ofte
I like reading short stories even though the form confounds me a bit. I've heard it said that short stories are harder to write than novels, so I often wonder why an author like Alice Munro chooses the format, and as a reader, as much as I love her collections, I feel a bit deflated as each story ends and I am compelled to pause and decide if I want to immediately start the process of meeting and understanding a whole new cast of characters on the next page. With A Bird In The House, Margaret Laurence blends the two formats with eight short stories about the same family, all from the perspective of Vanessa MacLeod, jumping back and forth between the ages of eight and fortyish. This felt like a bit of a cheat to me: even though I understand that each story appeared on its own in some magazine or other over the years, it was hard to consider each a complete work, knowing that the narrative would continue, that the characters and setting would be familiar, right there on the next page. This isn't a complaint, it just read like a novel instead of a collection of short stories, and it was a satisfying way of jumping through time to watch Vanessa mature and find her place in her family and the wider world. The title of A Bird in the House has two meanings. In the first, Vanessa's gentle grandmother Connor has a pet canary: She would try to coax the canary into its crystal trilling, but it was a surly creature and obliged only occasionally…When I asked my grandmother if the bird minded being there, she shook her head and said no, it had been there always and wouldn't know what to do with itself outside, and I thought this must surely be so, for it was a family saying that she couldn’t tell a lie if her life depended on it. In grandmother Connor's view, the world is a scary place and staying in the safe and familiar (even remaining married to an abusive bully of a man) is preferable to venturing into the unknown. I am routinely astounded by the strength of the women in Margaret Laurence's books. While the people of grandmother Connor's generation might have valued respectability and the good opinions of neighbours above all (and submitting to this can take its own form of courage), their granddaughters, the Hagars and Morags and Vanessas, are given the self-awareness to rebel against these stifling restrictions and seek a selfish fulfillment, that by today's standards, is every person's birthright. I can be a bit impatient with strident feminism, but I do appreciate how far women have come in a relatively short period, thanks to the brave social pioneers who came before. Although grandmother Connor wasn't lying when she said that she didn't think the canary minded the cage, Maya Angelou, of the brave social pioneering generation, got it truer: The free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky. But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with fearful trill of the things unknown but longed for still and its tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom In the second sense of the title, a hired girl remarks, upon freeing a sparrow that had found its way through a storm window, that a bird in the house means a death in the house. Vanessa's father dies soon after and the girl realises that death was always there, waiting to strike. Whether sitting beside him at church or later finding an old love letter that had been hidden away, Vanessa realised that she never really knew her father, not his inner thoughts anyway, and this theme is repeated throughout the book. When grandmother Connor dies, the family is shocked by how hard grandfather Connor takes it, and wonder if she ever knew the depths of his feelings. When the old man himself finally dies at 96, his daughters wonder if they had been too hard on him, not understanding enough. My favourite story in the collection is Horses of the Night. Vanessa meets Chris, an older cousin who comes to live in Manawaka to attend high school. He has a free spirit that matches her own and they become good friends. When the circumstances of the Depression prevent him from attending university, when every plan he had to travel or make something of himself fails, he ends up back at the dirt poor farm he started out from. When Vanessa goes to visit him, he is the first person to ever freely share his innermost thoughts with her: "People usually say there must be a God," Chris went on, "because otherwise how did the universe get here? But that's ridiculous. If the stars and planets go on to infinity, they could have existed forever, for no reason at all. Maybe they weren't ever created. Look-- what's the alternative? To believe in a God who is brutal. What else could He be? You've only got to look anywhere around you. It would be an insult to Him to believe in a God like that." (I also like this quote because it reminded me of one of my all-time favourite quotes by John Banville in The Sea: Given the world that he created, it would be an impiety against God to believe in him.) Vanessa is so embarrassed by Chris' naked frankness that she pretends to be asleep until he stops talking. This felt the most relatable-- there are people I can regret not knowing better, but I can also be embarrassed by the idea of closeness. One of the reasons I decided to challenge myself to write reviews here is in an effort to leave some sort of record of myself behind; this is a fairly low risk venue for putting down some memories and impressions, perhaps my kids will be interested someday in reading what I thought of some book or other, maybe a grandchild? (If I were to insert a hello, would it be from the grave?) Although this is my challenge, and one that I wish I had taken up sooner -- oh, the lovely books I have read and not reviewed! -- I can't see my sharing anything terribly personal here, or anywhere. Like Vanessa, I don't know if I would even want to know the innermost thoughts of the people around me-- I don't want to know those of my parents. I wouldn't want to know dark secrets of my grandparents. How far back would I need to go before the blood is thinned enough that I could dispassionately hear the secrets of my ancestors? How far forward would I go through the generations before I could comfortably choose a descendant to learn mine? I might be closer to grandmother Connor than Maya Angelou after all; the bird in my house doesn't long to be freed. A couple of nice lines to end on: In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry. No human word could be applied. The lake was not lonely or untamed. These words relate to people, and there was nothing of people here. There was no feeling about the place. It existed in some world in which man was not yet born. I looked at the grey reaches of it and felt threatened. It was like the view of God which I had held since my father's death. Distant, indestructible, totally indifferent. As a final note, I am sorry that this is the last of the Manawaka Series that I had to read. Over the course of five books, Margaret Laurence created a lovely little time capsule, a true treasure. ...more |
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May 23, 2013
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May 24, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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Paperback
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| 077104707X
| 9780771047077
| 077104707X
| 3.77
| 13,105
| Jun 15, 1964
| Apr 04, 1998
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it was amazing
| Mr. Troy has chosen a bad day to call. The rib pain is not so intrusive this afternoon, but my belly growls and snarls like a separate beast. My bo Mr. Troy has chosen a bad day to call. The rib pain is not so intrusive this afternoon, but my belly growls and snarls like a separate beast. My bowels are locked today. I am Job in reverse, and neither cascara nor syrup of figs nor milk of magnesia will prevail against my unspeakable affliction. I sit uncomfortably. I am bloated, full, weighted down, and I fear I may pass wind. I remember my mother telling me, with great delight, that my younger brother was reading The Stone Angel in high school and that he was disgusted by all of the references to the old woman's bowels. I suppose I joined in on the laugh at the time, since it was always good fun in our home to laugh at the things that made my humourless little brother uncomfortable. I know I didn't study this book in school, and although I thought I had read it before now, the only thing that stuck out in my memory as I devoured it this time is poor old Hagar's bowels. And this time, I am left feeling protective of the old woman, insisting that she not be an object of disgust or pity or ridicule. This book is remarkable, not least of all because the main character is just so unlikeable. Ruled by pride passed down from her Scotsman father, Hagar (Currie) Shipley withholds the little kindnesses throughout her life that could have smoothed the way both for herself and for the family that she keeps at arm's length, leading to disasters of varying degrees. At the end of her life, she realises too late what this pride had wrought: Pride was my wilderness and the demon that lead me there was fear. After a visiting pastor sings the old hymn that Hagar has impulsively (perhaps mischievously) asked of him, she has a further insight. As he sings of rejoicing, Hagar is overwhelmed with tears and thinks: I would have wished it. This knowing comes upon me so forcefully, so shatteringly, and with such a bitterness as I have never felt before. I must always, always, have wanted that- simply to rejoice. How is it I never could? I know, I know. How long have I known? Or have I always known, in some far crevice of my heart, some cave too deeply buried, too concealed? Every good joy I might have held, in my man or any child of mine or even in the plain light of morning, of walking the earth, all were forced to a standstill by some break of proper appearances- oh, proper to whom? When did I ever speak my heart’s truth? Even so, this is not a redemptive deathbed epiphany; Hagar is not remorseful about the kind words that she has withheld, but full of regrets that she had not allowed herself to feel joy. This book is also remarkable for the gorgeous prose, and though it was written in 1964, it feels fresh and modern. A favourite passage, while Hagar is on the lam: If I cry out, who will hear me? Unless there is another in this house, no one. Some gill-netter passing the point might catch an echo, perhaps, and wonder if he'd imagined it or if it could be the plaintive voices of the drowned, calling through brown kelp that's stopped their mouths, in the deep and barnacled places where their green hair ripples out and snags on the green deep rocks. Now I could fancy myself there among them, tiaraed with starfish thorny and purple, braceleted with shells linked on limp chains of weed, waiting until my encumbrance of flesh floated clean away and I was free and skeletal and could journey with tides and fishes. In Survival A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Margaret Atwood quotes the following as the moment that Hagar transcends the CanLit tradition of characters as victims: I lie here and try to recall something truly free that I've done in ninety years. I can think of only two acts that might be so, both recent. One was a joke - yet a joke only as all victories are, the paraphernalia being unequal to the event's reach. The other was a lie - yet not a lie, for it was spoken at least and at last with what may perhaps be a kind of love. I found it interesting that what appear to be acts of freewill in the novel (view spoiler)[ marrying Bram and then leaving him or running away to Shadow Point (hide spoiler)], must in Hagar's evaluation have been forced upon her by her pride. At the end of her life, Hagar finally overcomes the victimhood that pride has forced onto her, and through the joke and the lie, finally acts in the best interest of others. Speaking of Hagar for the last time, is her son Marvin: "She's a holy terror," he says. When I think of Hagar, and her blocked bowels and her lack of joy and her failing memory and her nightly incontinence and her miserable treatment of the long-suffering daughter-in-law, Doris, it is entirely possible to think of her with a blend of anger and tenderness. Reading through some of the negative reviews here, I need to wonder at the inclusion the The Stone Angel on high school reading lists; perhaps readers need to be a little more connected with the failings of the body and the mind before they can appreciate the honesty of this book; perhaps it takes some degree of life experience to appreciate that you can like a book without liking the people in it. How it irks me to have to take her hand, allow her to pull my dress over my head, undo my corsets and strip them off me, and have her see my blue veined swollen flesh and the hairy triangle that still proclaims with lunatic insistence a non-existent womanhood. Of course my little brother was embarrassed to have read that in high school, and somehow, I am embarrassed on Hagar's behalf that those lines can be read unsympathetically by anyone. ...more |
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Mar 26, 2013
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Mar 27, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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Hardcover
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| B0DLT97GY7
| 4.18
| 7,876
| 1974
| 1989
|
really liked it
|
This is really more like 3.5 stars for me, but I suppose it does belong a notch above my other 3 star ratings, so it will have to be a 4. After readin
This is really more like 3.5 stars for me, but I suppose it does belong a notch above my other 3 star ratings, so it will have to be a 4. After reading and loving The Stone Angel, I decided to try and read all of the Manawaka series of books and, although The Diviners is the last in the series, it was the next I was able to get, so it was the next I read. I think that it is mainly in comparison to The Stone Angel that this book left me a little cold. I've been trying to figure out why I wasn't as impressed by this book, especially since it has a feeling of the epic, of a long and complicated journey, and I think in the end my complaint is that I didn't connect to the narrative on a personal or deeper level. This is especially odd since the character of Morag Gunn is a novelist and spends time explaining the complicated craft of writing literature, of trying to write a story on more than one level, so there must be something here I'm just not getting, because I'm certain the author took pains to put it in. I don't know much of Margaret Laurence's personal history, but even the author blurb shows that she has inserted much of her personal history into the character of Morag: born in a prairie town; orphaned young; wrote for the local newspaper; escaped to the University of Winnipeg; got married; moved away (Morag to Toronto, Laurence to Africa); got divorced; moved to the west coast; finally settled on a small farm in rural Ontario; enjoying success as an author along the way. Every time Morag mirrored what I knew about Margaret Laurence's history, I felt a bit taken out of the story, as though I had seen a little flag that said: these parts are true. As writing a novel is a bit of alchemy I don't really understand, I liked these self-reflective bits on the process: I used to think that words could do anything. Magic. Sorcery. Even miracle. But no, only occasionally. And: Probably no one could catch the river's colour, even with paints, much less words. A daft profession. Wordsmith. Liar, more likely. Weaving fabrications. Yet, with typical ambiguity, convinced that fiction was truer than fact. Or that fact was in fact fiction. I also liked the introspective bits about who we are and what little we show of our true selves. It's true that we can no more imagine, or really want to know, the inner-workings of anyone else's mind, any more than we can help being shocked by seeing a teacher at the grocery store when we're little kids: Whatever is happening to Pique is not what I think is happening, whatever that may be. What happened to me wasn't what anyone else thought was happening, and maybe not even what I thought was happening at the time. A popular misconception is that we can't change the past - everyone is constantly changing their own past, recalling it, revising it. What really happened? A meaningless question. But one I keep trying to answer, knowing there is no answer. And: The hurts unwittingly inflicted upon Pique by her mother, by circumstances - Morag had agonised over these often enough, almost as though, if she imagined them sufficiently, they would prove to have been unreal after all. But they were not unreal. Yet Pique was not assigning any blame - that was not what it was all about. And Pique's journey, although at this point it may feel to her unique, was not unique. Morag reached out and took Pique's hand, holding it lightly. And I like this bit because not only did I also for some reason switch from calling my mother "Mum" to "Ma" when I was teen, but so has one of my own girls. Like my own Ma, I find it more amusing than distancing: This Ma bit is new. It is as though Pique, at fifteen, has now decided that Mum sounds too childish and Mother possibly, too formal. The word in some way is a proclamation of independence, a statement of the fact that the distance between them, in terms of equality, is diminishing, and the relationship must soon become that of two adults. On balance, Morag is glad. But it will take some inner adjustment. I liked the bits where Margaret Laurence references Susannah Moodie and Roughing It In The Bush because it's good to get the references. I still don't know if it makes me want to read the books of Moodie's sister, Catherine Parr Traill, though. I appreciated how The Diviners took ideas from The Stone Angel full circle-- especially how it was discovered that the plaid pin from John Shipley was traded to Lazarus Tonnerre for a knife, then traded to Christie Logan for a pack of cigarettes, the knife given to Morag. Knowing that Pique would eventually be in possession of both the pin and the knife closes the circle on all of the families, uniting the Scots with the Métis and mocking the last of the small town's prejudices. I can also imagine how brave it was for Laurence to write about a strong woman who decided to have a baby without a husband, at a time when even the maternity nurses in the hospital told her she was lucky to be allowed to have her baby there. I understand Margaret Laurence received death threats over this fact and I salute her grit and honesty for writing it. Perhaps it was the experience of watching someone fighting a battle long won that prevented me from becoming fully invested. Perhaps, like old Royland, I had simply lost the powers to divine on this one. ...more |
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1
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Mar 27, 2013
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Mar 29, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
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| 0887841953
| 9780887841958
| 0887841953
| 3.31
| 1,732
| Sep 01, 2005
| Jan 01, 2005
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liked it
|
Since I cried and snuffled my way through February, I was really looking forward to reading Alligator, and perhaps I was expecting too much, especiall
Since I cried and snuffled my way through February, I was really looking forward to reading Alligator, and perhaps I was expecting too much, especially since this book was Lisa Moore's first novel. I didn't find the multiple first person narratives and time jumping particularly confusing (which seems to be the chief complaint from other readers), in fact the time shifting in February and Open was a definite stylistic point in their favour, but here the complicated structure came off as masking more sizzle than steak. Even in this early work, Moore writes some lovely bits I enjoyed rereading, such as: The anticipation of the hurling mass of the next wave, which is cold and mounting triumphantly and about crotch high, is huge, and if this wave hits her she's getting all the way in. Like the world exhaling. A hammering home of the truth. A refusal to be a wave any longer. The wave accepts the absurdity of being a wave, but also recognises the beach for what it is: a reckoning. Who said it would go on forever? Nobody said. They said quite the opposite. There is no cold on earth as unequivocal as this wave that is higher than her head and about to smash itself against her skull. It is as cold as cold can be. Because how can matter be so blasted with sunlight, so sparkle-riven, and curve with such blood lust and be so soul numbing? A wave is the bone around the marrow of light. "A wave is the bone around the marrow of light." That took some figuring out, but I enjoyed rolling it on my tongue. I think what's nagging at me is the bleakness of everyone's situation in this book, that everyone will eventually be hit by the bone around the marrow of light, be attacked by the alligator that is lurking for each of us. And in the imagery, this notion felt a little heavy-handed. Did anyone not lose at least one parent at some point? Illustrative of this: She had come to think of life not as a progression of days full of minor dramas, some tragedies, small joys, and carefully won accomplishments, as she figures most people think of life -- but rather a stillness that would occasionally be interrupted by blasts of chaos. And more so: The water was deep and I screamed and I could feel weeds clinging to my jeans and he hauled the boat in and I tried to get onto the little island of mud he was on but the land kept giving way under me and he jumped onto the boat and I saw an alligator slide off the shore. I had not seen it before and then I saw it. I thought I saw it. A shape that sank almost below the surface, just the ridge of its back visible, gliding quickly toward me. It moved with the same slow-fastness that things in dreams move with, it dipped under the surface but the wake, a soft V in the water, plaiting itself behind some invisible thing coming my way. And then he had me in the boat. He reached over the side and hauled me up, which, how he lifted me I don't know. I lost a shoe and he was screaming how stupid I was how crazy and stupid and he stopped and he got me a blanket and he was crying with his face all screwed up with rage, tears rolling down his cheeks, and then he just stood over me patting the blanket and he stared for thirty seconds or so and I said his name and he didn't hear me and then he started shouting at me again. How stupid I was. I said but there weren't any alligators around. There weren't any around, I screamed back at him and I was crying too, and when I said that there weren't any alligators around, there was a whack against the side of the boat. Ah, so the teenage girl has been behaving recklessly because, due to her youth and protective upbringing, she didn't yet realise that the alligators are always lurking? It's a small complaint, no doubt compounded by my big expectations, and I will gladly read anything Lisa Moore comes up with next. ...more |
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Mar 29, 2013
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Mar 30, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 3.71
| 7,501
| Jun 15, 2009
| Jan 01, 2010
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it was amazing
|
I don't remember the sinking of the Ocean Ranger off Newfoundland in 1982, but I was only 14 at the time (such a self-involved age). I had, just the y
I don't remember the sinking of the Ocean Ranger off Newfoundland in 1982, but I was only 14 at the time (such a self-involved age). I had, just the year before, gone on a band exchange with a girl from St. John's, and she and her family were warm and funny and generous people. They didn't seem to have that much, but as they drove me around, proudly showing off the city that they loved, it was apparent that they had everything that mattered. With this frame of reference, I should really have been more aware of this real life disaster, and it may have been within this frame of reference that I found myself sobbing, barely able to read the words through the tears, at several points as I read this book. Although you know pretty much right away that Helen loses her husband Cal in the disaster, when this scene happens, I could barely get through it: (view spoiler)[Somehow Helen had picked up on the idea that there was such a thing as love, and she had invested fully in it. She had summoned everything she was, every little tiny scrap of herself, and she'd handed it over to Cal and said: This is yours. She said, Here's a gift for you, buddy. Helen didn't say, Be careful with it, because she knew Cal would be careful. She was twenty and you could say she didn't know any better. That's what she says herself: I didn't know any better. But that was the way it had to be. She could not hold back. She wasn't that kind of person; there was no holding back Somewhere Helen had picked up the idea that love was this: You gave everything. It wasn't just dumb luck that Cal knew what the gift was worth; that's why she gave it to him in the first place. She could tell he was the kind of guy who would. Her father-in-law, Dave O'Mara, had identified Cal's body. He told her this over the phone. I wanted to catch you, he said. Helen had known there wasn't any hope. But she felt faint when she heard Dave O'Mara's voice. She had to hold on to the kitchen counter. She didn't faint because she had the children in the house and the bath was running. It gave me a turn, her father-in-law said. I'll tell you that much. There were long stretches in the phone call where neither of them said anything. Dave O'Mara wasn't speaking because he didn't know he wasn't speaking. He could see before him whatever he'd seen when he looked at his dead son, and he thought he was telling her all of that. But he was in his own kitchen staring silently at the floor. � Helen lost her peripheral vision. She could see a spot about the size of a dime in a field of black. She tried to focus on the surface of the kitchen table. It was a varnished pine table they’d bought at a yard sale, and in that little circle she could see the grain of wood and a glare of overhead light. She had willed the spot to open wider so she could take in the bowl with the apples and the side of the fridge and the linoleum, and then the window and the garden. Her scalp was tingling and a drip of sweat ran from her hairline down her temple. Her face was damp with sweat as if she’d been running. � Helen was in a panic as if something very bad was going to happen, but it had already happened. It was hard to take in that it had already happened. Why was she in a panic? It was as if she had split in half. Something bad was going to happen to her; and then there was the other her, the one who knew it had already happened. It was a mounting and useless panic and she did not want to faint. But she was being flooded with the truth. It wasn't going to happen; it had already happened. You don't want to see him, Dave said. � Dave kept talking and didn't know he was talking, but it was also an effort to talk; Helen could tell. Dave sucked in air through his teeth the way someone does when he is lifting something heavy. He kept saying the same things. He kept saying about holding Cal's hand. Not to worry about the ring. She would get the ring, he'd make sure. That Cal's glasses were in his pocket. That Cal had on a plaid flannel shirt. The receiver felt sweaty and it was dark early in the afternoon because it was February, and it would be dark for a long time. It was silent out in the dark except for the wind knocking the tree branches together. (hide spoiler)] I wish I had the room to copy out every scene referring to Helen's loss, because they were touching and brutal and beautiful and relentless-- I think relentless is the most appropriate adjective because, although I have never suffered this kind of a loss, I can imagine that it is the unrelenting nature of grief that most debilitates a person; the moments when you have forgotten to remember that central loss, some rare moment of peace, when suddenly, wham, it all comes flooding back, fresh and horrifying, and conveying that experience is what Lisa Moore achieves in February. In addition to the story, the themes, that overwhelmed me while reading this book, I was also astounded by the craftsmanship of the writing. The beautiful turns of phrase, the nimble interspersing of present and past, even the use of colons and semi-colons made me stop and marvel at their inclusion-- making me wonder if they were used in specific places simply to make me go back to parse why they had been placed in exactly the place they sat, rereading key phrases, as though the author knew she would be forcing me to pay closer attention. I was also stunned by several small scenes that so perfectly described a mundane type experience that I had to reread them, just to see how Moore had achieved such simple perfection. An example of what I mean: (view spoiler)[The one woman at the table full of men, her mouth full, raises her escargot prong, a wet grey slug hanging from the end. She has slug in her mouth and her lips are glossy with slug juice. John is surprised to find this erotic. Butter. It is garlic butter that makes the woman's chin greasy, and she is trying to get the men to shut up� Butter and the sweat of a boiled organism, all muscle. John tries to think of a muscle in the human body that is the same size as a slug. Natalie is bobbing in her seat and waving the little fork. The men wait. One by one, they fall into an agitated silence� Natalie Bateman puts her fingers over her mouth and chews and chews and rolls her eyes comically because this is a table of men held up by a miniature fork. Her eyes water and she takes a gulp of champagne and John sees she is beautiful…He watches her wrinkle her nose when she drinks from the champagne glass. (hide spoiler)] More personally, as the mother of girls, I could identify with the following passage, and am encouraged that I will survive the natural loss of them from my everyday life: (view spoiler)[The girls left hair on the sink and in the drain, and they shaved their legs and left a ring of grey scum around the bathtub, and they talked on the phone, and the parties they threw, the cold smell of cigarette smoke in the morning and beer and all the windows open, the freezing air coming in. And they fought with each other, her girls; they bickered. A hairbrush hit the wall, someone borrowed someone's something or other without asking. Where's my new sweater? She took my sweater. But just let someone outside the family make a disparaging remark. Just let some outsider say something about one or the other of the girls and see how they flew together, to defend. They took care of one another. there was the worry of them driving with drunk boys, the worry of illness or no date for the prom, or they wanted expensive things for Christmas or their birthdays, or there was some injustice with a teacher, some threat of expulsion, or they wanted a job or someone wanted to marry them. And then, without warning, they were gone. They had all grown into their own lives, and it was very quiet. Helen had thought she would have to claw her way out of that quiet, and then, very soon after, she was grateful for it. (hide spoiler)] This is my first 5 star book of 2013, and it earns every stellated point of it. A work of perfection, not least of all, because it made me feel. ...more |
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1
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Mar 23, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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Mar 23, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 0060596988
| 9780060596989
| 0060596988
| 3.94
| 27,862
| Nov 03, 2009
| Nov 03, 2009
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liked it
|
So I’m not recounting things because they happened to me; I’m trying to make a work of art the way a novelist would or a poet would. I’m trying to ass
So I’m not recounting things because they happened to me; I’m trying to make a work of art the way a novelist would or a poet would. I’m trying to assemble a machine that the reader puts the penny of his or her attention into and pulls the handle and gets out a feeling. I'm glad that I listened to the audiobook of Lit because it was read by Mary Karr herself and her slight Texas twang gave a sardonic edge to the more self-effacing bits; and as anyone would think, someone who survives this harrowing childhood and overcomes this alcoholism and resolves an adult relationship with this mother would likely need some complicated coping mechanisms, including wit and irony. Hers is a eventful and rich story (especially impressive since this is her third memoir) and listening to her tell the tale felt intimate and maybe (hopefully) not too voyeurish. On the other hand, if, as that quote I found indicates, her intent was to make me feel, I don't know if this book is 100% successful-- it left me a little empty, despite the interesting story told by a successful poet and professor of English. I respect that she fought for sobriety, and I understand that that is hard work that she had to do by herself for herself, but I don't understand how she became so especially favoured by the God she refused to believe in: every time she was broke or unhappy or unfulfilled, someone would advise Mary to get on her knees and pray, and repeatedly, a royalty cheque would come in the mail, or a fellowship would be offered out of the blue, or an acquaintance would randomly offer what she was looking for. I don't resent her experiences with what she refers to as grace, but the world is full of people more desperate who can't seem to pray their way out of their problems. After finishing Lit, I was surprised by some of the things I discovered about Mary Karr-- she's considered to be a very successful and respected poet, lecturer and teacher, and yet in the book she seems to be always just on the edge of respectability and solvency, that one royalty cheque away from losing the home she's trying to provide for her son as a single mother. Also, it seems to be a poorly kept secret that the "David" she dates in the book is David Foster Wallace, and although I understand why a person wouldn't necessarily want to be name-dropping the famous person she dated, I would have had a slightly different understanding of the narrative had I known that at the time. In Lit, she describes a marriage in which her teetotalling husband is oblivious to her alcoholism, and yet it's easy enough to find some of his essays in which he writes about his own lifelong alcoholism. Was this change made to protect Mary's ex-husband's privacy? Shouldn't it make me wonder what other parts are sanitized or otherwise "improved" upon? Here's an excerpt from an interview about Lit and the nature of memoir: SFP: You write in the prologue to Lit, a letter to your son, that you’re telling your own story in the hopes that one day he’ll be able to tell his own. Do think that’s one of the projects of memoir, for the narrator to claim his or her story? MK: No, I think it’s one of the projects of becoming a grown-up. And, in fact, I think you have to be a grown-up before you can write a memoir—otherwise, put a cork in it, and don’t waste my time. You have to be a grown-up to be able to ruthlessly examine what happened. I wrote this book three times—and that’s multiple drafts each time. I wrote it the first time to remember what happened. I wrote it the second time to get some psychological perspective. Each one of those times took years. And then the third time, I was doing some work on the religious stuff and what I call lapidary work, just trying to make the sentences good. You look at the sentences in it, and if it says, “I went to the store,� you think, That’s a pretty tedious sentence. How can that be better? “My mother drove me to college.� No, My mother’s car moved like a Monopoly icon through fields of Iowa corn. That’s just a better sentence. I got that from reading Isaac Babel. He has some amazing sentences. I have a voice that I know how to do, that has certain qualities of syntax and diction that I’ve cultivated over years. This book is not in the same voice as The Liars Club and Cherry, but it’s akin to it, you can tell it’s the same person. If it seemed like a totally different person it would be weird. So, was this memoir overwritten? Does three versions, over many years, lead to a more artful experience? Could it have stifled feeling with form? I'm not certain: as much as I recognise how well written Lit is, I'm not sharing in the presence of grace. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 10, 2013
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Mar 31, 2013
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Mar 10, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 0062113380
| 9780062113382
| 0062113380
| 3.79
| 19,826
| May 15, 2012
| May 15, 2012
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really liked it
| I didn't read Sh t My Dad Says, mostly because I object to the coarsening of public spaces that results from seeing the title at the book store, and t I didn't read Sh t My Dad Says, mostly because I object to the coarsening of public spaces that results from seeing the title at the book store, and then in the TV listings. I'm not some total prude; I'm not offended by adults sprinkling their language with expletives in private conversation, but I don't want to hear (or see) that language at McDonalds with a bunch of kids running around. As a result, I had an idea that Justin Halpern's Dad was some kind of narrow-minded, foul-mouthed Archie Bunker that I didn't need to learn anything about-- and I admit I was guilty of the worst kind of prejudgement. I chose to listen to I Suck at Girls, just hoping for something light and funny. To my delight I discovered it to be a thoughtful, and very funny, look back on the author's experiences with girls, from his first grade crush to the woman he wants to marry. When his Dad appears in the book, yes, his language is foul, but his advice is sound and thoughtful and warm-- he obviously loves his son and wants the best for him. In one of my favourite scenes, a young Justin and a friend have braved their fears to explore the forbidden canyon beside the Little League field, and discover a "Hobo Cave" filled with dirty blankets, empty beer bottles and stacks of porn. The boys gather up all of the pictures they can carry and start running, but soon : There, hightailing it out of the canyon, came two bearded homeless men, each of whom looked like Nick Nolte rendered in beef jerky. As soon as I heard that description, I laughed, but then immediately felt kind of bad for laughing at homeless men-- which is, I think, the reaction I was supposed to have because when Justin's Dad discovers what he has done, he insists the first thing the boy needed to do was to return the pictures to the entrance to the canyon the next morning. “Why can’t I just throw them out? I don’t want to go back to the canyon,� I said. “Bullshit. Someone spent time collecting this shit. What if I threw out your baseball card collection? That wouldn’t be right.� I nodded. His analogy made sense to me, and suddenly I felt a twinge of remorse, having deprived those men of one of their few—and probably most prized—worldly possessions. I bent down and lifted the big wad of dirt-covered porno out of the hole. “Are you mad?� I asked, as I picked up the shovel. “Nah. I don’t think this even cracks your greatest hits of stupid. But there’s one important thing I need you to know.� I stopped shoveling and looked at him. He pointed at the pile of loose, grimy magazine pages on the ground. The Dad then explains that Justin needs to understand that real woman don't look like the women in those pictures and that real women won't do the crazy things depicted either. That these two important life lessons, respect for women and compassion for the less fortunate, could have been gleaned from such a bizarre situation gives me much respect for Sam Halpern as a father. And did I mention that the whole thing is really funny? Totally worthwhile experience ...more |
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| 0771008724
| 9780771008726
| 0771008724
| 3.85
| 925
| Jan 01, 1972
| Mar 23, 2004
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liked it
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I picked up the book Survival A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature because as much as I do love Canadian Literature, I'm not a terribly critical re
I picked up the book Survival A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature because as much as I do love Canadian Literature, I'm not a terribly critical reader and I thought I could benefit from an esteemed author such as Margaret Atwood pointing me in the direction of what I should be reading. She states in the preface to this book that she undertook its writing with the hope that it could be used as a teaching guide in high school/college and I'm afraid that it came off a little textbookish to me. It certainly took me long enough to read through such a small volume. For my own benefit, I'm going to keep track of her main argument here (as lifted from Wikipedia): The central image of the victim is not static; according to Atwood four "Victim Positions" are possible (and visible in Canadian literature). These positions are outlined below. � Position One: To deny the fact that you are a victim This is a position in which members of the "victim-group" will deny their identity as victims, accusing those members of the group who are less fortunate of being responsible for their own victimhood. � Position Two: To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim (but attribute it to a powerful force beyond human control, i.e. fate, history, God, biology, etc.) In this position, victims are likely to resign themselves to their fate. � Position Three: To acknowledge the fact that you are a victim but to refuse to accept the assumption that the role is inevitable This is a dynamic position in which the victim differentiates between the role of victim and the experience of victim. � Position Four: To be a creative non-victim A position for "ex-victims" when creativity of all kinds is fully possible. . Further affecting my enjoyment of this study, I must admit, are the facts that I'm not a particular fan of Atwood's writing or politics. I read all of her major works 20+ years ago, and like this book, found them rooted in a different time and not terribly relevant to me. I've read her more modern books as they've been released ( Oryx and Crake, The Penelopiad Canongate Myths, etc.) without enjoyment, more because I think I should than any other reason. After reading such an early book as Survival, I wonder to what degree the author herself would think CanLit has changed in the past 40 years? I remember the official hand-wringing of wondering what a "Canadian Identity" is-- chiefly defined by what we are not; neither British nor American. But wouldn't anyone agree that in today's world Canada has our own seat at the adult table of world affairs? And that our literature stands up against that of any country? What I liked most about Survival were the snippets of poetry. I'm not inclined to pick up a volume of poetry and these carefully selected lines spoke to me in a way that confirms the form as timeless and universal. What's packed about her ivory bones Is cruel to the wondering touch; Her hard skull rounds the roots of stones And cannot give or comfort much; Her lap is sealed to summer showers, Ice-bound, and ringed in iron hold; Her breast puts forth its love like flowers Astonished into hills of cold. Not here the Sun that frees and warms, Cherishes between fire and flood: But far within are Seraph forms, Are flowers, fountains, milk, blood. -Jay Macpherson, "The Caverned Woman" I live in a land where cold has conquered green things, reigns grey and heavy over phantom trees. I am a silent partner of a race that shivers in its sleep under frost-bound words, whose frail quick speech is fading. I am part of a cry all around me stone with no language steep cliff bare blade in my winter heart -Yves Prefontaine, "Country to Let" Some ideas for further reading inspired by Survival: BODSWORTH, Fred, The Last of the Curlews CARRIER, Roch, La Guerre Yes Sir COHEN, Leonard, Beautiful Losers GIBSON, Graeme, Communion GIBSON, Graeme, Five Legs LAURENCE, Margaret, ALL! ROY, Gabrielle, The Tin Flute WATSON, Sheila, The Double Hook ...more |
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Mar 14, 2013
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Mar 23, 2013
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Mar 05, 2013
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Paperback
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| 1400064163
| 9781400064168
| 1400064163
| 4.39
| 979,756
| Nov 16, 2010
| Nov 16, 2010
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liked it
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**spoiler alert** My brother handed me the book Unbroken and told me that it's his new obsession; that in a world where everyone knows the names Tiger
**spoiler alert** My brother handed me the book Unbroken and told me that it's his new obsession; that in a world where everyone knows the names Tiger Woods and Lindsay Lohan, it's unbelievable to him that we don't all know the name Louis Zamperini, and to the extent that he should be at least as famous as Seabiscuit, the author's more famous biographical subject, I would have to agree-- and am happy to hear that this story is being made into a movie, if only to make the tale even more accessible. I started this book, therefore, with great hopes and really enjoyed the story of his juvenile delinquency and redemption through track; his Olympic journey; his Air Force training days, deployment, and exciting crash; and, especially, the stranding on the raft. As the story went on, however, it just became too much-- it felt like Forrest Gump's unbelievable place in history. How many people have shaken hands with Adolf Hitler and Pappy Boyington and Billy Graham? The American POW in Japan experience is one I've never heard before and is truly horrifying, but I was already mentally checking out at that point-- it had just become too much. The Bird seemed like the final over the top detail in a cheap thriller-- and I know he existed and I know he was sadistic and I know that Louis suffered, but I couldn't take in any more. And then the rescue and the PTSD and the beautiful socialite wife and the drinking and the broken dreams of, finally, Olympic glory...too much happened to Louis Zimperini to keep reminding me that it was nonfiction. When he went to the Billy Graham revival meeting and remembered his promise to God while on the raft, then turned his life around, poured out his booze and dedicated the rest of his life to good-- the story was just too good to be true. Since the story itself is remarkable and inspirational and potentially riveting, I think I need to blame the author for my disengagement; it was just. too. much. The pages and pages of footnotes attest to the incredible amount of research that went into this biography, but maybe not every detail needed to make it in. I see reviews here that laud Laura Hillenbrand for the novel-like narrative she wrung from this research, but it just didn't work for me the way it did for my brother. ...more |
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Mar 05, 2013
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Mar 14, 2013
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Mar 05, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 088784684X
| 9780887846847
| 088784684X
| 3.60
| 466
| 2002
| Apr 10, 2005
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really liked it
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When I was a young adult, I was committed to reading nonfiction. Probably because I never finished university, I was on a quest for self-education and
When I was a young adult, I was committed to reading nonfiction. Probably because I never finished university, I was on a quest for self-education and could haughtily sneer to myself, "I don't have time to read novels when there's so much in the world to learn." I should also add that before university, I read mostly pulp: Stephen King, Anne Rice, Piers Anthony (on the badgering advice of a close friend/superfan). Then, a most astonishing thing happened: not long after becoming a mother, and picking up any book at hand while breastfeeding, I read Margaret Laurence's The Fire-Dwellers. This was 17+ years ago and I can still remember how gobsmacked I was by the main character: a frumpy, dissatisfied housewife who couldn't remember getting old. There's a scene (and I NEED to reread this book now that I'm thinking about it) where Stacey is in her wood-panelled recroom, alone in the middle of the day, drinking Tom Collinses, and she kicks off her shoes and plays some old records and moves around, dancing like a young girl once more-- only more free than she had ever been in her life. I was reading this scene, still young myself, but I can remember the tears springing to my eyes as I recognized myself in Stacey: we had absolutely no circumstances in common, but I could see the truth of the scene and it felt real and beautiful and universal and I had an epiphany of yes! This is the point of good literature and of course the most important things in life can be learned from it. From then until now, I have sought out these epiphanies, these pearls of truth, and naturally they're hard to come by, but Open is full of such moments. I recently read an article by Dave Bidini in which he said that the author of this book, Lisa Moore, once called him a lazy reader. Not being a particular fan of his, I had a moment of schadenfreude at the reproach, but after finishing and loving this book of short stories, I wonder if Ms. Moore would also call me a lazy reader. Absolutely without a sense of literary criticism, I approach books viscerally, and they either resonate with me or they don’t. And this one did. Full of basically unhappy and dissatisfied women, which I am not, I could recognize the truth of their lives. From a young girl of twelve hunching forward in her bathing suit so her budding breasts weren't obvious, to a forty-something in an open marriage realizing that she didn't want to lose her husband to another woman, I don't need to have lived through these exact situations in order to know that the way they are described here is exactly how they would feel to me. The stories are mostly written with memories springing up in the middle of present consciousness and I loved the experience of this style of writing-- so true to the way that we all experience real life. The language is poetic and descriptive and each story is a perfect pearl. Getting back to Stephen King, I remember reading Gerald's Game, written from the point of view of a woman, and thinking, "I just don't buy any of this". King is a master storyteller, but I don't think anyone would argue that he is a master of literature, and though that sounds in my head like my new version of a haughty sneer, I simply mean that he's not trying to reveal the universalities of human experience through the particulars of his characters, and I did not for a minute believe that this man had gotten into the head of his woman protagonist. By contrast, in Open, Lisa Moore hit me again and again with beautiful, honest, and gobsmacking moments that reflect what being a woman is. Lazy reader I may be, but my reading life has been enriched by the experience. ...more |
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Mar 06, 2013
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Feb 28, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0771099754
| 9780771099755
| 0771099754
| 3.40
| 1,514
| 1852
| Dec 04, 1989
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really liked it
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I once saw Jon Stewart on Just for Laughs doing a bit of standup, talking about Canadians (paraphrased here). " It's amazing", he said, "that your anc
I once saw Jon Stewart on Just for Laughs doing a bit of standup, talking about Canadians (paraphrased here). " It's amazing", he said, "that your ancestors got off the boat at the first frozen port and, looking around at the snow and ice and wilderness, said, 'Yep, looks good to me'. And stayed. 'What's that? You heard they've got palm trees and sunshine if we keep heading south? Nah, this is good right here'." I've marvelled at that myself: that my own ancestors chose Canada, and having survived their first winter here, decided it was worth staying. In Roughing it in the Bush, Susanna Moodie explains what circumstances led to her family emigrating to Canada from Mother England and what hardships and privations that decision led to. I found her account fascinating and funny in so many places. She relates the following story right at the beginning: (view spoiler)[ The dreadful cholera was depopulating Quebec and Montreal, when our ship cast anchor off Grosse Isle, on the 30th of August, 1832, and we were boarded a few minutes after by the health-officers. One of these gentlemen–a little, shrivelled-up Frenchman–from his solemn aspect and attenuated figure, would have made no bad representative of him who sat upon the pale horse. He was the only grave Frenchman I had ever seen, and I naturally enough regarded him as a phenomenon. His companion–a fine-looking fair-haired Scotchman–though a little consequential in his manners, looked like one who in his own person could combat and vanquish all the evils which flesh is heir to. Such was the contrast between these doctors, that they would have formed very good emblems–one, of vigorous health; the other, of hopeless decay. Our captain, a rude, blunt north-country sailor, possessing certainly not more politeness than might be expected in a bear, received his sprucely dressed visitors on the deck, and, with very little courtesy, abruptly bade them follow him down into the cabin. The officials were no sooner seated, than glancing hastily round the place, they commenced the following dialogue:� "From what port, captain ?" Now, the captain had a peculiar language of his own, from which he commonly expunged all the connecting links. Small words, such as "and" and "the," he contrived to dispense with altogether. "Scotland–sailed from port o' Leith, bound for Quebec, Montreal–general cargo–seventy-two steerage, four cabin passengers–brig, ninety-two tons burden, crew eight hands." Here he produced his credentials, and handed them to the strangers. The Scotchman just glanced over the documents, and laid them on the table. "Had you a good passage out ?" "Tedious, baffling winds, heavy fogs, detained three weeks on Banks–foul weather making Gulf� short of water, people out of provisions, steerage passengers starving." "Any case of sickness or death on board ?" "All sound as crickets." "Any births ?" lisped the little Frenchman. The captain screwed up his mouth, and after a moment's reflection he replied, "Births ? Why, yes; now I think on't, gentlemen, we had one female on board, who produced three at a birth." "That's uncommon," said the Scotch doctor, with an air of lively curiosity. "Are the children alive and well ? I should like much to see them." He started up, and knocked his head, for he was very tall, against the ceiling. "Confound your low cribs ! I have nearly dashed out my brains." "A hard task, that," looked the captain to me. He did not speak, but I knew by his sarcastic grin what was uppermost in his thoughts. "The young ones all males–fine thriving fellows. Step upon deck, Sam Frazer," turning to his steward; "bring them down for doctors to see." Sam vanished, with a knowing wink to his superior, and quickly returned, bearing in his arms three fat, chuckle-headed bull-terriers; the sagacious mother following close at his heels, and looked ready to give and take offence on the slightest provocation. "Here, gentlemen, are the babies," said Frazer, depositing his burden on the floor. "They do credit to the nursing of the brindled slut." The old tar laughed, chuckled, and rubbed his hands in an ecstacy of delight at the indignation and disappointment visible in the countenance of the Scotch Esculapius, who, angry as he was, wisely held his tongue. Not so the Frenchman; his rage scarcely knew bounds,–he danced in a state of most ludicrous excitement,–he shook his fist at our rough captain, and screamed at the top of his voice, "Sacré, you bête ! You tink us dog, ven you try to pass your puppies on us for babies ?" "Hout, man, don't be angry," said the Scotchman, stifling a laugh; "you see 'tis only a joke !" "Joke! me no understand such joke. Bête!" returned the angry Frenchman, bestowing a savage kick on one of the unoffending pups which was frisking about his feet. The pup yelped; the slut barked and leaped furiously at the offender, and was only kept from biting him by Sam, who could scarcely hold her back for laughing; the captain was uproarious; the offended Frenchman alone maintained a severe and dignified aspect. The dogs were at length dismissed, and peace restored. (hide spoiler)] And another story that made me laugh about the habit of "borrowing"; (view spoiler)[ While we were all busily employed–even the poor baby, who was lying upon a pillow in the old cradle, trying the strength of her lungs, and not a little irritated that no one was at leisure to regard her laudable endeavours to make herself heard–the door was suddenly pushed open, and the apparition of a woman squeezed itself into the crowded room. I left off arranging the furniture of a bed, that had been just put up in a corner, to meet my unexpected, and at that moment, not very welcome guest. Her whole appearance was so extraordinary that I felt quite at a loss how to address her. Imagine a girl of seventeen or eighteen years of age, with sharp, knowing-looking features, a forward, impudent carriage, and a pert, flippant voice, standing upon one of the trunks, and surveying all our proceedings in the most impertinent manner. The creature was dressed in a ragged, dirty purple stuff gown, cut very low in the neck, with an old red cotton handkerchief tied over her head; her uncombed, tangled locks falling over her thin, inquisitive face, in a state of perfect nature. Her legs and feet were bare, and, in her coarse, dirty red hands, she swung to and fro an empty glass decanter. "What can she want ?" I asked myself. " What a strange creature !" And there she stood, staring at me in the most unceremonious manner, her keen black eyes glancing obliquely to every corner of the room, which she examined with critical exactness. Before I could speak to her, she commenced the conversation by drawling through her nose, "Well, I guess you are fixing here." I thought she had come to offer her services; and I told her that I did not want a girl, for I had brought one out with me. "How!" responded the creature, "I hope you don't take me for a help. I'd have you to know that I'm as good a lady as yourself. No; I just stepped over to see what was going on. I seed the teams pass our'n about noon, and I says to father, 'Them strangers are cum; I'll go and look arter them.' 'Yes,' says he, 'do–and take the decanter along. May be they'll want one to put their whiskey in.' 'I'm goin to, says I; so I cum across with it, an' here it is. But, mind–don't break it�'tis the only one we have to hum, and father says 'tis so mean to drink out of green glass." My surprise increased every minute. It seemed such an act of disinterested generosity thus to anticipate wants we had never thought of. I was regularly taken in. "My good girl," I began, " this is really very kind –but�" "Now, don't go to call me 'gal'–and pass off your English airs on us. We are genuine Yankees, and think ourselves as good–yes, a great deal better than you. I am a young lady." "Indeed !" said I, striving to repress my astonishment. "I am a stranger in the country, and my acquaintance with Canadian ladies and gentlemen is very small. I did not mean to offend you by using the term girl; I was going to assure you that we had no need of the decanter. We have bottles of our own–and we don't drink whiskey." "How ! Not drink whiskey ? Why, you don't say ! How ignorant you must be! May be they have no whiskey in the old country ?" "Yes, we have; but it is not like the Canadian whiskey. But, pray take the decanter home again–I am afraid that it will get broken in this confusion." "No, no; father told me to leave it–and there it is;" and she planted it resolutely down on the trunk. "You will find a use for it till you have unpacked your own." Seeing that she was determined to leave the bottle, I said no more about it, but asked her to tell me where the well was to be found. "The well !" she repeated after me, with a sneer. "Who thinks of digging wells when they can get plenty of water from the creek? There is a fine water privilege not a stone's-throw from the door," and, jumping off the box, she disappeared as abruptly as she had entered. We all looked at each other; Tom Wilson was highly amused, and laughed until he held his sides. "What tempted her to bring this empty bottle here?" said Moodie. "It is all an excuse; the visit, Tom, was meant for you." "You'll know more about it in a few days," said James, looking up from his work. "That bottle is not brought here for nought." I could not unravel the mystery, and thought no more about it, until it was again brought to my recollection by the damsel herself. Our united efforts had effected a complete transformation in our uncouth dwelling. Sleeping-berths had been partitioned off for the men; shelves had been put up for the accommodation of books and crockery, a carpet covered the floor, and the chairs and tables we had brought from � gave an air of comfort to the place, which, on the first view of it, I deemed impossible. My husband, Mr. Wilson, and James, had walked over to inspect the farm, and I was sitting at the table at work, the baby creeping upon the floor, and Hannah preparing dinner. The sun shone warm and bright, and the open door admitted a current of fresh air, which tempered the heat of the fire. "Well, I guess you look smart," said the Yankee damsel, presenting herself once more before me. "You old country folks are so stiff, you must have every thing nice, or you fret. But, then, you can easily do it; you have stacks of money; and you can fix everything right off with money." "Pray take a seat," and I offered her a chair, "and be kind enough to tell me your name. I suppose you must live in the neighbourhood, although I cannot perceive any dwelling near us." "My name ! So you want to know my name. I arn't ashamed of my name; 'tis Emily S�. I am eldest daughter to the gentleman who owns this house." "What must the father be," thought I, "if he resembles the young lady, his daughter ?" Imagine a young lady, dressed in ragged petticoats, through whose yawning rents peeped forth, from time to time, her bare red knees, with uncombed elf-locks, and a face and hands that looked as if they had been unwashed for a month–who did not know A from B, and despised those who did. While these reflections, combined with a thousand ludicrous images, were flitting through my mind, my strange visitor suddenly exclaimed, "Have you done with that 'ere decanter I brought across yesterday ?" "Oh, yes ! I have no occasion for it." I rose, took it from the shelf, and placed it in her hand. "I guess you won't return it empty; that would be mean, father says. He wants it filled with whiskey." The mystery was solved, the riddle made clear. I could contain my gravity no longer, but burst into a hearty fit of laughter, in which I was joined by Hannah. Our young lady was mortally offended; she tossed the decanter from hand to hand, and glared at us with her tiger-like eyes. "You think yourselves smart ! Why do you laugh in that way ?" "Excuse me–but you have such an odd way of borrowing that I cannot help it. This bottle, it seems, was brought over for your own convenience, not for mine. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have no whiskey." "I guess spirits will do as well; I know there is some in that keg, for I smells it." "It contains rum for the workmen." "Better still. I calculate when you've been here a few months, you'll be too knowing to give rum to your helps. But old country folks are all fools, and that's the reason they get so easily sucked in, and be so soon wound-up. Cum, fill the bottle, and don't be stingy. In this country we all live by borrowing. If you want anything, why just send and borrow from us." Thinking that this might be the custom of the country, I hastened to fill the decanter, hoping that I might get a little new milk for the poor weanling child in return; but when I asked my liberal visitor if she kept cows, and would lend me a little new milk for the baby, she burst out into high disdain. " Milk ! Lend milk ? I guess milk in the fall is worth a York shilling a quart. I cannot sell you a drop under." This was a wicked piece of extortion, as the same article in the town, where, of course, it was in greater request, only brought threepence the quart. "If you'll pay me for it, I'll bring you some tomorrow. But mind–cash down." "And when do you mean to return the rum ?" I said, with some asperity. "When father goes to the creek." This was the name given by my neighbours to the village of P�, distant about four miles. Day after day I was tormented by this importunate creature; she borrowed of me tea, sugar, candles, starch, blueing, irons, pots, bowls–in short, every article in common domestic use–while it was with the utmost difficulty we could get them returned. Articles of food, such as tea and sugar, or of convenience, like candles, starch, and soap, she never dreamed of being required at her hands. This method of living upon their neighbours is a most convenient one to unprincipled people, as it does not involve the penalty of stealing; and they can keep the goods without the unpleasant necessity of returning them, or feeling the moral obligation of being grateful for their use. Living eight miles from �, I found these constant encroachments a heavy burden on our poor purse; and being ignorant of the country, and residing in such a lonely, out-of-the way place, surrounded by these savages, I was really afraid of denying their requests. The very day our new plough came home, the father of this bright damsel, who went by the familiar and unenviable title of Old Satan, came over to borrow it (though we afterwards found out that he had a good one of his own). The land had never been broken up, and was full of rocks and stumps, and he was anxious to save his own from injury; the consequence was that the borrowed implement came home unfit for use, just at the very time that we wanted to plough for fall wheat. The same happened to a spade and trowel, bought in order to plaster the house. Satan asked the loan of them for one hour for the same purpose, and we never saw them again. I happened to mention the manner in which I was constantly annoyed by these people, to a worthy English farmer who resided near us; and he fell a laughing, and told me that I did not know the Canadian Yankees as well as he did, or I should not be troubled with them long. "The best way," says he, " to get rid of them, is to ask them sharply what they want; and if they give you no satisfactory answer, order them to leave the house; but I believe I can put you in a better way still. Buy some small article of them, and pay them a trifle over the price, and tell them to bring the change. I will lay my life upon it that it will be long before they trouble you again." I was impatient to test the efficacy of his scheme That very afternoon Miss Satan brought me a plate of butter for sale. The price was three and ninepence; twice the sum, by-the-bye, that it was worth. "I have no change," giving her a dollar; "but you can bring it me to-morrow." Oh, blessed experiment ! for the value of one quarter dollar I got rid of this dishonest girl for ever; rather than pay me, she never entered the house again. (hide spoiler)] Amused, I followed her family from farm to bush, marvelling at their resourcefulness, hard work, love of nature and good cheer in the face of adversity. This book needs to be read with some sympathy for the Moodies, well educated and of some status back in England, but reduced to the hardest circumstances-- near starvation, taken advantage of at every turn, poor financial decisions, cold and exhausted or hot and exhausted. And yet, they must have been better off than those who worked as their servants, and those whom they had to dismiss as their servants when they could no longer afford to keep them. But it was the very fact of their education and self-regard that no doubt bore them through the hard times-- an unfailing belief in God and that the hand of Providence would reward them in the end. I could have skipped the heart-rousing poetry-- it was true to its time period, but of little interest for me reading now except to imagine Susanna scribbling away at her rhymes by candlelight. I could have also skipped the chapters written by Susanna's husband-- in which he tries to justify his poor financial decisions, and then later, gives a dry account of the history and politics of what had become the Province of Ontario during their residency. As Susanna herself ends the book (in an afterword written twenty years after the events described): I have given you a faithful picture of a life in the backwoods of Canada, and I leave you to draw from it your own conclusions. To the poor, industrious working man it presents many advantages; to the poor gentleman, none! The former works hard, puts up with coarse, scanty fare, and submits, with a good grace, to hardships that would kill a domesticated animal at home. Thus he becomes independent, inasmuch as the land that he has cleared finds him in the common necessaries of life; but it seldom, if ever, in remote situations, accomplishes more than this. The gentleman can neither work so hard, live so coarsely, nor endure so many privations as his poorer but more fortunate neighbour. Unaccustomed to manual labour, his services in the field are not of a nature to secure for him a profitable return. The task is new to him, he knows not how to perform it well; and, conscious of his deficiency, he expends his little means in hiring labour, which his bush-farm can never repay. Difficulties increase, debts grow upon him, he struggles in vain to extricate himself, and finally sees his family sink into hopeless ruin. If these sketches should prove the means of deterring one family from sinking their property, and shipwrecking all their hopes, by going to reside in the backwoods of Canada, I shall consider myself amply repaid for revealing the secrets of the prison-house, and feel that I have not toiled and suffered in the wilderness in vain. The secrets of the prison-house! In the end, Susanna Moodie said that she did not regret emigrating to Canada, and that if she had been given the chance to go back home to England, she would not have taken it. Neither did my own ancestors, those hopeful émigrés whose stories I shall never know, and I am grateful for it. Would I ever leave this land of snow and ice and wilderness? Nah, this is good right here. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 28, 2013
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Mar 05, 2013
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Feb 28, 2013
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Mass Market Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0671662341
| 9780671662349
| 0671662341
| 4.30
| 65,917
| 1987
| Apr 15, 1988
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really liked it
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I recently saw my daughter perform as Mrs. Frank in the stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank, so when I saw that this memoir of the likeable and h
I recently saw my daughter perform as Mrs. Frank in the stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank, so when I saw that this memoir of the likeable and helpful Miep character was available to download, I jumped at it. In the play, it's obvious that the Franks and the others hiding out in the Annex couldn't have survived without Miep and others bringing them food and other supplies, but not until I heard her whole story did I realise just what risks this courageous young woman was taking every day. I am grateful that Miep Gies started her story at the beginning: describing how she had come to the Netherlands from Vienna after WWI as part of a program to strengthen the health of sickly and starving children; how she quickly grew to love her adopted homeland and yearned for the day when she would be truly Dutch; how she met Otto Frank and then his family, growing to know and love them all; how she became politically aware in the years leading up to the German invasion of the Netherlands; and how this informed her sense of duty and justice. Anne Frank Remembered choked me up several times, the first time being when Otto Frank confides in Miep that his older daughter had been instructed to report to a work camp and that he was going to take the entire family into hiding. When he asked Miep if she would help them, she immediately replied, "Of course." When he attempted to describe the dangers that she would be exposed to, she cut him off and reiterated, "Of course I will help." How many of us would immediately offer this help, knowing that the penalty for hiding Jews was deportation or death? In the twenty-five months that the Franks et al were hiding in the secret rooms above her work place, Miep spent every day searching for the supplies necessary to keep them all alive. She visited those in hiding every morning to get their shopping lists and then, with forged ration cards (which her freedom fighting husband was able to obtain) and a quantity of money that would have gotten her arrested had she been searched by the ever present Green Police, she went from store to store, longer and longer trips as food became more scarce, never buying enough from any one store to raise suspicions. She would deliver their supplies and visit over lunch, never letting anyone know just how hard or dangerous conditions were becoming for her, return to her office job and then visit again at the end of the day when the workers had all left and those in hiding could move around a bit more freely. None of this is stated as a complaint in the book, Miep gladly did everything she could to help out her friends. It also choked me up in one scene where Miep, noticing that Anne was beginning to make the leap from child to young woman, brought her a pair of red high heels. I think that everyone knows that eventually the hiding place was discovered and those in hiding were sent to concentration camps. There is a monologue at the end of the play where Mister Frank says that the last time he saw his daughter Anne alive, she was naked and starving and her head was shaved and they were separated from one another by a fence. Knowing how their story ended, the arrest scene from Miep's perspective was horrifying and terribly sad. But I had to marvel at the courage she showed when confronted by the arresting Nazi: as he screamed at her, she recognized that he had a Viennese accent. She told him that she was also from Vienna and that he should be ashamed of himself. This was probably the only thing that saved her from arrest like her fellow coworkers. She followed this up by going to the Nazi headquarters the next day to see if he would accept a bribe to release her friends, but they had already been moved on. As this is Miep's story, it continues on with the conditions endured by the Dutch until the end of WWII, and then on to the reunification with Otto Frank, the details surrounding his decision to publish Anne's diary (which Miep herself had saved from the ransacked Annex), and her decision to publish her own memoir fifty years later. I recently enjoyed a similar memoir, The Secret Holocaust Diaries The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister, by a Russian woman who was the lone survivor of Nazi atrocities in her own family. It is unfathomable to me that anyone could be a Holocaust denier and I am grateful that these and other memoirs were published before the stories could have been lost forever with the memories of their authors. With this book, Miep Geis went from a minor character in a stage play to a fully real and amazing woman whose courage and sense of duty and justice should be an inspiration to anyone who learns her story. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 19, 2013
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Feb 28, 2013
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Feb 19, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0771038119
| 9780771038112
| 0771038119
| 3.58
| 12,455
| Sep 18, 2007
| Sep 18, 2007
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liked it
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I find myself slightly annoyed after reading Late Nights on Air. I've never been up to the Territories but have long been slightly fascinated by the N
I find myself slightly annoyed after reading Late Nights on Air. I've never been up to the Territories but have long been slightly fascinated by the North: I would love to go on one of those Polar Bear tours up in Churchill, or see the Northern Lights in Whitehorse, or witness the Caribou migration (as described here) outside of Yellowknife. I also know that I am too intimidated by the wilderness, and the wildlife in it, to ever attempt the epic canoe trip described in this book; in fact I'm too lazy to take out a canoe on the glassy lake my parents live on, too nervous to let my dog off leash in the city in case of coyotes. But going into this book, I was really hoping for a Northern experience, and I don't know if I got it. I was trying to find some old quote I thought I knew that says that all Canadian literature is really about geography-- a quote that I have found curious because, as a Canadian who has always lived in cities, the geography of my life isn't terribly different from people who live in cities anywhere in the world. What I found, repeatedly, were references to Margaret Atwood's Survival A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, wherein she argues that all Canadian literature is about is the notion of survival and its central character the victim. As this book is set in the timeframe that Atwood wrote her book, I don't think it's a coincidence that all of the characters in Late Nights on Air come off as victims (every female character is obsessed with her relationship with her own father, some are the uncomplaining victims of physical violence from their partners, the Natives are victims of Colonialism, the landscape is the victim of the white settlers, men are the victims of drink or their own passions, etc.) As it is probably also not a coincidence that this is really a book about survival, I take this as an homage to Atwood and her themes, but I have to believe that in the 40+ years since her critical study was published, Canadian literature has moved on from this narrow perspective. Something about this book, therefore, felt diminishing to me. I was also annoyed at the politics of this book-- from the boosterism of the CBC (whose funding today are tax dollars I resent paying) to the notion that all of the Natives who opposed the Mackenzie Pipeline project were doing so out of a selfless regard for the purity of the ancestral grounds it would defile. The last is particularly timely as right now we debate the similar project, the Keystone Pipeline. I have often thought that if the main argument against the pipeline is environmental, then surely pumping fossil fuels south, through two countries that already have strong environmental regulations, must be safer for the Earth than extracting oil in countries without such strict rules and then shipping it across the ocean in tankers. In this book, however, a small scene that describes the skittishness of migrating Caribou goes a long way towards influencing my ideas about the harm of running a pipeline through their calving grounds. Finding the people in this book sketchy and not all likeable, I would have liked more scenes with the animals, more scenes with the wilderness, more of a Northern experience. I was also annoyed, at times, by the writing style. Many passages were fragmentary, which can be poetic or disjointed. Where they were poetic, I revelled in them. Where they were disjointed, I was confused and a little bored. I actually can't believe it took me two weeks to finish this book, but I was rarely looking forward to picking it up. My last complaint: the excessive foreshadowing. I don't know if I have ever read a book that promised so often that something horrible was going to happen. The device did not keep me intrigued, and by the time the tragedy occurred, I was just happy to be getting near the end of the book. I'm not surprised that Late Nights on Air won the Giller Prize; it is unabashedly a Canadian novel, if something of a throwback to early Atwood, but in the end, you know what I wanted? More Canada. At the risk of negating everything I said about not thinking Canadian literature can/should be reduced to its geography, the following geographical passage is where I think Elizabeth Hay gets it right in this book: Somewhere between three and four in the morning, as they were paddling back, they saw a world that Ralph might have photographed had he seen it, and that Gwen would later try to paint. But it wasn't possible to duplicate the colours except by closing her eyes. Then the islands in the distance became the right shade of jet black, and the sky and the water were an identical, intense, unblemished peach. I would love to see that scene, even vicariously, and am left wanting more. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 12, 2013
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Feb 26, 2013
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Feb 12, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 1416972196
| 9781416972198
| 1416972196
| 3.98
| 45,526
| Feb 19, 2008
| Jan 06, 2009
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liked it
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I'm walking my dog Libby and listening to an audiobook of Nic Sheff's Tweak. The sidewalk is so slushy and the air is so chill and the narrator's voic
I'm walking my dog Libby and listening to an audiobook of Nic Sheff's Tweak. The sidewalk is so slushy and the air is so chill and the narrator's voice is just talking slowly, slowly, slowly. Nic got himself pretty messed up on crystal meth, and heroin, and crack and whatever. I look at the sun stuck on the horizon and I can imagine I'm in Nic's brown aired LA. Suddenly I can't tell if the sun is bleeding into dusk or crashing into dawn, but either way it's shattering the light into little fragments that mix with the snow and puddles and stuff. It's so goddamn beautiful that I'm just kind of stopped, staring at the sun. When my dog turns and looks at me with her big and knowing eyes, I realise that I'm crying for the first time since I don't know when. Just crying, crying, crying. I wipe snot on my sleeve and look straight back into Libby's eyes and say, "I think Nic's going to be okay this time." She looks at me with such understanding, I think she agrees with me. Smiling through the tears, I say, "Word." With apologies to Nic Sheff, if the above sounds both a little sophomoric and overwritten, that's how his memoir comes off to me. On the other hand, he was basically still a kid when he wrote it, and if he was experimenting and falling in love with the sound of his written voice, then more power to this damaged soul who was learning to love himself for the first time in his life. After reading Beautiful Boy A Father's Journey through His Son's Meth Addiction, an account of Nic's drug addiction from the point of view of his father, David Sheff, I was fascinated to hear many of the same stories from Nic's point of view. While David was frantic with worry when his son disappeared, obviously relapsed into drug use, here Nic fills in the blanks and tells us the gritty truth about what drugs he was using, what he had to do to acquire those drugs, and who he was consorting with at the time. My main interest in these two stories is as a parent of teenagers, and as I said in my review of Beautiful Boy, the superaddictive drugs like Nic was using are of particular concern-- even now I'm left without any real clues about how to positively prevent one of my girls from ending up just like he did. It seems like such a crapshoot-- unless you're on a deserted island, kids will likely experiment with soft drugs, some of them will try harder drugs, and some of them will become hopelessly addicted, living on and off the street, in and out of rehab, struggling with sobriety for the rest of their lives. So I'm looking for clues and can't help but compare these two books. In Beautiful Boy, David Sheff says that Nic appeared to adjust well enough to his parents' divorce at a young age and spent his childhood as bright and engaged, going on to become a Varsity athlete, an Honour Student and an award-winning writer, even published in Newsweek while still in high school. Although Nic had been caught with pot at 12, his Dad understood about drug experimentation, having used just about everything himself at one point or another, and Nic was able to assure his Dad it was a one time thing. David was eventually stunned to discover that his bright and shiny golden boy was a meth addict who barely finished high school. The whole story seems like it could happen in any family at any time and there's little to be done to prevent it. In Tweak, Nic Sheff says that his parents' divorce was devastating and he spent his youth shuttling back and forth between two homes, neither of which he felt he belonged to. When he was with his Mom, her second husband would be demanding and abusive, often leading to frightening shouting matches with Nic's mother. When he was with his Dad, he would be brought along to Hollywood parties where his father would drink and do drugs with famous people, all of which seemed impressive and glamorous to Nic. When his Dad remarried and had a son and daughter, Nic felt removed, replaced. While no one was paying attention, Nic smoked pot throughout every day, starting at the age of 12, eventually progressing to more drugs, harder drugs. So could this particular story happen in any family at any time? As a journalist, David Sheff's book came across as honest and open. It seemed like he has laid out all of the facts, taking blame for himself for the parts he could have done better as a father. As a damaged yet aspiring writer, the parts that sound over-written in Nic's book seemed to take away from the plain facts truthfulness of his story-- yet I couldn't help noting that there's a lot more blame that could be apportioned to his Dad than David had been willing to claim. So I am left to examine the clues, to see if anything from these memoirs can educate me, can keep my own kids from this pain. To the extent that I have been so educated, I am grateful to both of these writers for sharing their harrowing experiences and I wish them both futures full of peace and happiness. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 12, 2013
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Feb 19, 2013
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Feb 12, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0385664443
| 9780385664448
| 0385664443
| 3.51
| 30,100
| Sep 07, 2010
| Sep 07, 2010
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it was ok
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I don't tend to not finish the books I start, yet I've been staring at Ape House on my nightstand for over a year. I couldn't remember why I had put i
I don't tend to not finish the books I start, yet I've been staring at Ape House on my nightstand for over a year. I couldn't remember why I had put it down, but looking for my next book, I picked it up again. Rereading the page where I had left off, I could vaguely remember what had happened, but decided to start from the beginning again anyway. I didn't find it horrible, if a little Harlequin Romance-y, and couldn't really remember why I had abandoned it. When I realised that I had stopped right after what was actually a pretty exciting part (view spoiler)[ the bombing of the Language Lab (hide spoiler)], I had to wonder why I had abandoned it in the first place. Sure, I didn't really like the characters. Or anything they were doing. Or, for the most part, the writing. But I really liked the Bonobos. Browsing some reviews, I've seen other people here comment that they couldn't imagine why Sara Gruen bothered to do serious research on the apes for what was such a lightweight novel, but I'd say that's the part I totally understand: Gruen was obviously affected by her interactions with Bonobos who had been taught to communicate in human language, and when the book is describing these types of interactions, or reporting on how they interact with each other when humans aren't present, the writing is joyful and playful and intriguing. My biggest complaint would be: who cares about the humans and their mundane (if in this case a bit sketchy and two-dimensional) lives? I wanted more of the Bonobos. As for the Ape House that the title refers to: (view spoiler)[ I would totally watch a television show about a troop of Bonobos. Not the "monkeys running the zoo" type show that the pornographer (!!) produces, where they eat an unhealthy diet, are recklessly exposed to mold and other germs, and there are close-ups of sex acts (complete with claxons and whistles), but since even the pornographer (!!) producer references Meerkat Manor, I can imagine that a similar show based on the uncontrived lives (ideally lives in the wild) of such human-like animals could be fascinating. I've never seen an episode of Jersey Shore, but I imagine here is where one would insert a joke about Snooki or The Situation. (hide spoiler)] And as for the ending: (view spoiler)[ By the time the book ends, Gruen isn't even talking about the Bonobos anymore. It's just happily ever after and everything tied up in a bow; everyone has their dream job, dream family, dream lives. Incidentally, I was SUPER annoyed by every part of the Pinegar subplot. From the first mention of the name, I knew that Pinegar was a gun that would need to go off (a la Chekov) but I didn't expect it to be a toy gun with a little BANG! flag coming out the end. I think Chekov would have advised leaving the gun at home this time. (hide spoiler)] To the extent that there were more Bonobo scenes to come, I am not sorry that I read this book to the end. But had it continued to gather dust indefinitely on my nightstand…meh. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 09, 2013
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Feb 10, 2013
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Feb 09, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 0618683356
| 9780618683352
| 0618683356
| 4.17
| 99,306
| 2007
| Feb 26, 2008
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really liked it
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Recently, there was a gruesome article in the newspaper about a woman's torso that had been found in a Dumpster. It turns out that her likely murderer
Recently, there was a gruesome article in the newspaper about a woman's torso that had been found in a Dumpster. It turns out that her likely murderer was a co-worker of someone I know and I was given the inside story: the victim was a crackhead who was involved in a relationship with the accused. When his money ran out, she ran out on him, and likely out of jealousy, maybe even by accident, he killed her and then dismembered her body. In telling the story, "crackhead" was used freely to describe the victim, and there is just the slightest implication that she ended up the way that crackheads do; that it was perhaps inevitable; foregone. Once her remains were identified, her family released a picture to the newspaper of the victim as a fresh-faced 15 year old, apparently the last picture they have of her before she became an addict and unrecognizable to them. Fifteen. And murdered at twenty-four. I don't know this family, but I can imagine they did everything they could to get between their daughter and her addiction, but crack, like meth or heroin or whatever I've never even heard of, is one of those drugs that can hook some users nearly instantly (or so I've been told). As the mother of teenage daughters, this young woman's death scared me and I totally empathized with her family; there but for the grace of God� I also recently started watching Breaking Bad, and although I have been silently cheering on this terminally ill high school teacher who is just cooking up some meth to set his family up financially before he dies, perhaps I should be recognizing him for the villain that he really is. These two influences led me to listen to the memoir Beautiful Boy A Father's Journey through His Son's Meth Addiction by David Sheff. The author paints his son's childhood as happy and fulfilling, perhaps glossing over the traumatic effects of the breakup of his marriage to the boy's mother. Although Sheff had once caught his son with a small amount of pot, he thought of it as normal experimentation, and Nic went on to become a Varsity athlete in high school, an honour student, an award-winning journalist, and by all accounts a bright and engaged kid. By the end of his senior year, however, Nic had become chronically tardy and absent and, as is discovered later, had been abusing drugs and alcohol. This led, ultimately, to a meth addiction, dropping out of college, rehab, relapse, more rehab, another relapse…The story is horrifying in the sense that if it could happen in this family, maybe it could happen in any family� In mine? Is it possible to prevent your children from trying meth (or crack or heroin or�)? Is it possible to predict if your children would be among those unfortunate experimenters who go on to become addicts? As a journalist, Sheff dealt with the helplessness of his situation by educating himself on meth addiction through research and interviewing leading experts. The information he intersperses into the memoir was fascinating to me, and ultimately, discouraging: meth is a widely available and particularly addictive drug that traditional rehab has very little efficacy in dealing with. Not only that, but Sheff cites research that proves that drug dealers are lacing less serious drugs (ecstasy and pot) with meth. Is that true? Is it happening here? I know that here in Canada there is growing support for the legalization of marijuana, and to the extent that it would ensure that my kids don't get criminal records for one day trying a so-called "soft drug", I can get behind it. If it gets pot out of the hands of criminals who might taint it with meth, then the safe supply argument gets me even further behind it. But then Sheff explains that pot is indeed a gateway drug: not everyone who smokes pot will end up trying meth but, he says, everyone who becomes a meth addict started out smoking pot. What can a parent do with that information? This memoir is well written and interesting and had me rooting for the whole family to come out safely on the other side of addiction. As Sheff learns in Al-Anon, the families of addicts need to remember the three C's: the families didn't cause the addiction; they can't control the addiction; they can't cure the addiction. I understand and believe those words but what I was hoping to learn was: can families prevent an addiction? Probably not. I understand that Nic Sheff, the addict at the center of this father's memoir, has written his own account of life as a meth addict and I'll be listening to that next, looking for another piece of the puzzle. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 02, 2013
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Feb 12, 2013
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Feb 02, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 3.72
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liked it
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Apr 09, 2013
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Apr 06, 2013
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| 3.82
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liked it
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Apr 06, 2013
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Mar 31, 2013
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| 3.75
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liked it
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Apr 11, 2013
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Mar 30, 2013
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| 3.91
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really liked it
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May 08, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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| 3.95
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really liked it
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May 24, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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| 3.77
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it was amazing
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Mar 27, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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| 4.18
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really liked it
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Mar 29, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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| 3.31
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liked it
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Mar 30, 2013
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Mar 25, 2013
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| 3.71
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it was amazing
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Mar 25, 2013
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Mar 23, 2013
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| 3.94
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liked it
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Mar 31, 2013
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Mar 10, 2013
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| 3.79
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really liked it
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Mar 09, 2013
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Mar 06, 2013
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| 3.85
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liked it
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Mar 23, 2013
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Mar 05, 2013
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| 4.39
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liked it
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Mar 14, 2013
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Mar 05, 2013
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| 3.60
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really liked it
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Mar 06, 2013
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Feb 28, 2013
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| 3.40
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really liked it
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Mar 05, 2013
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Feb 28, 2013
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| 4.30
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really liked it
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Feb 28, 2013
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Feb 19, 2013
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| 3.58
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liked it
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Feb 26, 2013
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Feb 12, 2013
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| 3.98
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liked it
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Feb 19, 2013
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Feb 12, 2013
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| 3.51
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it was ok
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Feb 10, 2013
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Feb 09, 2013
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| 4.17
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really liked it
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Feb 12, 2013
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Feb 02, 2013
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