booklog

Atonement, Ian McEwan

2011-01-24T02:33:00.003-05:00

I was looking at reviews of Atonement, which I'd read over a year ago. I had been very disappointed. It had come recommended as worthy of comparison to the classics, probably in its prose, which was luscious and echoed Jane Austen. But I had felt very ambivalent about the whole book, plot, characters, and structure.

The events were very contrived, and the author attempts to disguise this through elaborate piercing insights into the characters' motivations. But the characters in their turn did not elicit my sympathy. I did not care about them. And I think the fault is that, as this review pointed out, it is more interested in exposing flawed characters than creating sympathy for flawed characters.

I think, as a writer, I would like to learn to create sympathetic characters. A pretense of insight into human psychology is just a means of showing off.

2666, Roberto Bolano

2009-11-05T02:26:00.000-05:00

Here are five thoughtful reviews of the five books of 2666, authored by a blogger who – from circumstantial evidence, like a title quotation to do with snow, a penchant for Victorian lit and knitting, and the use of an Emily Climbs bookcover in her avatar – sounds like a kindred spirit:

Part 1: The Part About the Critics

Part 2: The Part About Archimboldi

Part 3: The Part About Fate

Part 4: The Part About the Crimes

Part 5: The Part About Amalfitano

Here is the running list of things I jotted down on the back of a sales receipt during my first reading:

- I think every sentence is perfection.
- The characterization shines.
- I enjoy the summary, even dismissive introduction of Liz Norton: “Liz Norton, on the other hand, wasn’t what one would ordinarily call a woman of great drive, which is to say that she didn’t draw up long -or-medium-term plans and throw herself wholehearted into their execution. She had none of the attributes of the ambitious. When she suffered, her pain was clearly visible, and when she was happy, the happiness she felt was contagious.” (pg. (The latter line reminds me of the girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead “when she was good, she was very good; when she was bad, she was horrid.”) The lives of the critics, though, which center around Liz, render her a very enigmatic female.
- I was fascinated by Archimboldi’s Lola: her breadth of experience, her whole life story which has panned out because she was seized by passions, and the political and societal ramnifications of the geographic areas she lands in, or the people she encounters
- Bolano’s microscopic eye – I like all the revealing details, descriptions of people, places, thoughts. It is all showing, a presentation of scenes: no overarching analyses or telling. Part I is a series of moments, Part II the minute illustration of Archimboldi’s life. In Part III – juxtapositions of absurd events, Part IV returns to minute documentation. Only in Part V is there a traditional, kind of inverted fairy-tale like narrative pace.
- I can’t help but wonder: what propels Bolano to include certain elements in a scene? Do smaller objects play a symbolic role for a larger them?
- All this illustration is also highly subjective: the character’s emotions, always portrayed, are intimate and incredibly hyperbolic
- There is so much revelation of different characters, different human beings

Here are the quotations I tagged:

Probably the most famous quotation from this book, no doubt resonant with a generation of book-fiend fans:

“Leaving aside the fact tha A Simple Heart and A Christmas Carol were stories, not books, there was something revelatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist, who in another life might have been Trakl or who in this life might still be writing poems as desperate as those of his distant Austrian counterpart, and who clearly and inarguably preferred minor works to major ones. He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial… and A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afriad to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or waht amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle agaisnt that something, that something that terrifes us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.” (pg. 277)

Disregarding all the aspersions this casts on the characters’ attitudes towards the killings, this is also a very accurate assessment of (what can be considered) literary “masterpieces.” Middlemarch, Atlas Shrugged, the Harry Potter series, and even 2666 itself are all flawed. Their authors are capable of more minor, “perfect exercises.”

“When poor people make money, they should admit publicly to having made only half as much. They shouldn’t even tell their children how much they really have, because then their children will want the whole inheritance and won’t be willing to share it with their adopted sibilings.” (pg. 249)

!!!

This brutal statement, delivered by Seaman, characterizes the black preacher. Perhaps it does more. I can’t help admiring that this sentence was crafted by the single poetic mind we met in earlier chapters.

“Those Spaniards believed in a mongrel whiteness. But they overestimated their semen and that was their mistake. You can’t rape that many people. It’s mathematically mpossible. It’s too hard on the body… They might have gotten some results if htey’d been capable o raping their own mongrel children and then their mongrel grandchildren and even their bastard great-grandchildren.” (pg. 288)

The theories people come up with, in a drunken tirade!

“A sketch of the industrial landscape in the third world,” said Fate, ” a piece of reportage about the current situation in Mexico, a panorama of the border, a serious crime story, for fuck’s sake.”

“Reportage?” asked his editor. “Is that FRench, nigger? Since when do you speak French?”

“I don’t speak French,” said Fate, “but I know what fucking reportage is.”

“I know what fucking reportage is, too,” said the editor, “and I also know merci and ua revoir and fair l’amour, which is the same as coucher avec moie. And I think that you, nigger, want to coucher avec moie, but you’ve forgot the voulez-vous, which in this case ought to hvae been your first move. You hear me? You say voulez-vous or you can get the fuck out.” (pg. 295)

I’m inadvertently struck by the crude, it seems, but talk about elegant speech amongst intelligentsia!

“Sometimes, especially on his days off, Inspector Juan de Dios MArtinez would have liked to go out with the director. That is, he wanted to be seen in public with her, eat at a downtown restaurant with her, neither a cheap nor a very expensive resaturant but a normal restaurant where normal couples went and where he would almost certainly run into someone he knew, to whom he would introduce the director naturally, casually, coolly, this is my girlfreind, Elvira Campos, she’s a psychiatrist. … The perfect happiness, goddamn it, thought Juan de Dios Martinez. But Elvira Campos wouldn’t even hear of a public relationship. Phone calls to the psychiatric enter, yes, so long as they were short. Meetings in person every two weeks. A glass of whiskey or Absolut vodka and nocturnal landscapes. Sterile goodbyes.”

Interesting, this intimate scrutiny into casual relationships, interesting, the divergence of the lover’s wishes, preferences, and weaknesses.

“She dreamed, for example… and then she dreamed about flying to Paris, where she would rent a tiny apartment, a studio, say between Villiers and Porte de Clichy, and then she would go to see a famous doctor, a wonder-working plastic surgeon, get a face-lift, get her nose and cheekbones fixed, have her breasts enlarged, in short, when she got off the operating table she would look like someone else, a different woman, not fiftysomething anymore but fortysomething, or better yet, just o ver forty, unrecognizable, new, changed, rejuvenated, although of course for a while she would go everywhere wrapped in bandages, like a mummy, not an Egyptian mummy but a Mexican mummmy, which would be something she enjoyed, walking to the metro, for example, knowing that all the Parisians were watching her surreptitiously, some of them even giving up their setas for her, imagining the horrible suffering, burns ,traffic accident, that this silent and stoic stranger hand undergone….and then someone brings a mirror and she stares at herself, she nods at herself, she approves of herself, with a gesture in which she rediscovers the sovereignty of childhood… I’m crazy about you the way you are, said Juan de Dios Martinez.” (pg. 535)

Who comes up with imagery like this?

“Her hands were tied behind her back with plastic cord, the kind used to tie up big packages. On her left hand she was wearing a long black glove, the kind used by the highest class exotic dancers. When the glove was removed they found tow rings, one on the middel figner, of real silver, and the other on the ring finger, workedi n the shape of a snake. On her right foot she was wearing a man’s sock, brand name Tracy. ANd most surprising of all: tied around her head, like a strange but not entirely implausible hat, was an expensive black bra. Otherwise the woman was naked and had no identification on her.” (pg. 575)

“The factory buildings were tall and each plant was surrounded by a wire fence and the light of the big streetlights bathed everything in a vvague aura of hast, of momentousness, which was false, since it was just another workday… Damp, fetid air, smelling of scorched oil, struck him in the face. He thought he heard laughter and accordion music on the wind.”

I like the commingling of loveliness and industrial waste in this scene.

“Hers [life story] had been mostly a disaster. She tried to be a theatre actress in New York, a movie actress in Los Angeles, tried to be a model in PAris, a photographer in London, a translator in Spain. she set out to study modern dance but gave it up the first year. She set out to be a painter and at her first show realized that she had made the worst mistake of her life. she wasn’t married, she had no childre, no family, no projects. It was the perfect moment to return to Mexico.” (pg. 604)

“When hans Reiter was ten, his one-eyed mother and one-legged father had their second child. It was a girl and they called her Lotte. She was a beautiful child and she might have been the first person on teh surface of the earth who interested (or moved) Hans Reiter… As far as Hans was concerned, his sister was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and many times he tried to draw her in the same notebook where he’d drawn different kidns of seaweed, but the results were always unsatisfactory: sometimes the baby looked like a bag of rubbish left on a pebbly beach, other times like Pterobius maritimus, a marine insect that lives in crevices and feeds on scraps, or Lipura maritima, another insect, very small and dark slate or gray, its habitat the puddles among rocks.

“In time, by stretching his imagination or tastes or his own artistic nature, he managed to draw her as a littel mermaid, more fish than girl… but always smiling, always with an enviable tendency to smile and see the positive side of things, which was a faithful reflection of his sister’s character.” (pg. 648)

I love the bizarre, ethereal, mad romance of Archimboldi and the madwoman Ingeborg:

” ‘I hate first editions and pyramids and pyramids and I hate those bloodthirsty Aztecs,’ said Ingeborg. ‘But the light of the stars make me dizzy. IT makes me want to cry,’ said Igneborg, her eyes damp with madness.” (pg. 831)

What I can glean from a first reading is scant. I really like the aforementioned blogger’s analyses of the book’s structure:

“The first three books tighten into an ever-more tense and surreal vortex, narrowing uncomfortably toward the mysterious wrongness in Santa Teresa, Mexico, which is related to the sexual homicides being committed there. Just as the third part reaches a climactic pinhole, the narration suddenly widens, becomes a stark, straightforward descent through a pile of dead bodies, the hardboiled chronicling of the female corpses of Santa Teresa, and of the inability of police, private citizens, detectives and seers to stop the perpetual appearances of more. As opposed to the increasing tension of the first three parts, I experienced the fourth part to be even throughout, tension released and stark reality confronted. Then, in The Part About Archimboldi, the narrative turns a sharp corner into something more like a traditional bildungsroman, in which a young boy grows up, lives his life and finds his calling: a calling which gradually curves toward the literary world of the first part, and a life which, even more tangentially, intersects with the Santa Teresa killings. “

I so love the perfection of the prose, that I will happily read it again and again. I hope there will be many more rereadings.

Homesick: My Own Story, Jean Fritz

2009-10-26T02:25:00.000-04:00

This is the autobiography of an American girl, growing up in China in the 1920s, fiercely proud of being American. She is – like so many YA fiction heroines, like Caddie Woodlawn or Patty in Summer of My German Soldier, willfully different, stubborn, full of secret delight in the world. But while I found these traits — best expressed in the yearning for her grandmother, the summers at the sea, the little sister who died– easy to relate to in many novels, and especially inspiring in my favourite LMM characters… I simply found Jean a little annoying. Maybe I thought her bursts of patriotism were a little too immature and grating.

The backdrop for Jean’s childhood is Hankow, during the revolution. Jean’s father, who works for the YMCA, is directly involved in… helping out? But the revolution stays in the background of Jean’s own life and childhood dramas, which I think is effective. Jean’s friends disperse, she notices differences in the attitude of their Chinese servants, and Jean and her mother are forced to evacuate, but Jean’s world remains very sheltered: nothing happens to her immediate family or causes them delay. Instead her concerns are her best friend, Andrea’s parents’ divorce, Andrea’s stylish silk stockings, the loss of freedom in being able to wander all over Hankow, her cat…

The appropriate conclusion is that when Jean gets to her grandmother’s house, and begins 8th grade in Washington – she learns, as she combats the ignorance and insults of her classmates – the China was more a part of herself than she had acknowledged. Jean’s very minor troubles at school are still sheltered by the love and sympathy of her grandmother and aunt, and the book ends with laughter.

Upon rereading, each chapter does function nicely as a short story on growing up – each themed on a tiny grief, or milesone, of childhood, like singing the American national anthem, or the anticipation and death of Jean’s baby sister.

The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, Paula Danziger

2009-10-20T02:25:00.000-04:00

I found this book lacking, despite the quirky title and a sarcastic teenage narrator. Marcy Lewis, narrating in first person, paints a picture of her crappy junior high life what with obesity, friendlessness, hating gym class, boring writing assignments, and a verbally abusive father. Then a new English teacher comes and changes her world. Unconventional Ms. _________ is a hippy, doesn’t teach by the curriculum, but inspires in her students the aptitude to get to know their true selves and to use the English language with witty metaphors. Marcy’s crush, Joel, begins to notice her and admire her for her intelligence, and their friendship begins with many quick-witted exchanges.

All very promising, right?

Unfortunately, Ms. __________ gets suspended for her rebellious teaching methods and the book turns into a battle for justice. Marcy, Joel and their friends team up to undermine the principal, and Marcy’s “put upon” mother rallies against their father to help. There’s a lot of household drama and too many blatant messages about “I don’t need to be/dress/act like everyone else.” Caring parents (it also bugged me that Marcy and her mother were both weepy, and hugged one another a little too much — not all moments of affection need to be documented in a novel!) tell their children how much they’ll learn from the experience, unsupportive parents are utter jerks. Realistically, Ms. _______ wins her hearing, but resigns out of personal principle. I’m thankful that Marcy and Joel don’t have a hackneyed fairytale ending. Marcy’s mother is empowered to escape her father’s clutches and get a job.

I’m thinking of Budge Wilson’s short story, “The Metaphor”, which is a similar tale of a life-changing English teacher. Wilson’s story, though, is a simpler and more sophisticated — in “The Metaphor,” the narrator encounters her favourite teacher again in high school but is too embarassed to acknowledge her, because most of her friends found the said teacher uncool. To me, that’s a far more tragic and appropriate expression of growing up, change, and self-realization.

Dear Mr. Henshaw, by Beverley Clearly

2009-09-22T02:24:00.000-04:00

I think this is a simple story of a tragic contemporary situation, well told.

The premise is unique: a boy writes to his favourite author, Mr. Henshaw, about his parent’s divorce. Henshaw’s replies are terse, but Leigh writes persistently, eventually -at the writer’s suggestion – keeping a journal to “Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw” to abate his loneliness. Leigh’s character is shown through his writings, and as he journals, we can see Leigh grow, and his voice develop.

In the middle of the story, Leigh asks Henshaw for advice on a story he is writing.
“In a story, a character must grow or change in some way.” Leigh acknowledges the advice: “I guess a wax man who keeps melting isn’t really the kind of change you’re talking about.”

Heeding her own advice, Clearly’s character changes perceptibly: each of three strands of Leigh’s life – school, family, and writing – change and become resolved. As his relationship with his father (whose irresponsible behaviour has always been jarring to the sensitive boy, particularly in his inability to express affection – “Keep your nose clean, kid,” is all Leigh gets when he wants to be addressed by his first name and be told he’s missed) worsens, Leigh’s writing improves: at the climax of the story, Leigh calls his father after a long silence and discovers that not only has he neglected to call his son, but that he has lost his dog, and has a girlfriend with a son. In his incredible pain, Leigh finds that he is able to journal for himself: he finds that he no longer has to write to Mr. Pretend Henshaw, “I have learned to express my feelings on a piece of paper.” When home life falls apart, Leigh has his writer’s epiphany. Eventually, his intelligence – which takes expression in fashioning a burglar alarm for his lunchbox (his stolen lunches has been a source of humour and a way to portray his out-of-place- status at his new school), he finally garners friends who think his skills are all too cool.

Leigh continues to write honestly and wins a prize in the yearbook writing contest. In his composition, he had described a memory of an afternoon with his father, which apparently – according to the jury writer – conveyed the place, and his feelings truthfully. This reminds me of Emily of New Moon‘s trial to write “only the truth” for three years, and her writing improves from illustrating facts. “Write what you know” (although there’s a good deal of writing limited by what the author knows, -> see The Cat Ate My Gymsuit). Dear Mr. Henshaw is also the classic novel-for-aspiring-writers, in which the bookish main character gets their first recognition for their dreams – but for all its perfection in plot and structure it is no Emily, which will always be a true psychological portrait of a writer’s mind, and “alpine path,” for me.

The book culminates in this awkward scene when Leigh’s father comes back and tries to reconcile the divorce, and we can tell that Leigh’s writing talents have become articulate enough to convey the charged emotions of this moment. It’s a poignant scene, and artful of Clearly to choose to tell it from the limited perspective of a child narrator.

Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot

2009-05-20T09:54:00.006-04:00

I had a lovely forenoon eating my grilled eggplant salad and finishing Princess Diaries which, to my surprise and delight, is absolutely hilarious and not teeny-boppery at all.

Cabot can write literature - not just Disneyfied potboilers. Mia is an opinionated ninth-grader and snarky diarist with real teenage problems: I don't mean the princess deal, but a flat-chest, the lack of a date, and a quarrel with your best friend from kindergarten is all truly heartrending stuff in the high school world, not that the book is sappy or cliched at all. All her issues are set in this great hyperbole in NYC, with her activist friend Lilly, and the succession to the Genovian throne, and her mother's bohemian life... not for a moment do you believe it or are swept away by the escapism, but you do laugh your head off because it's just so ironic and fantastic that Mia is handed the royal crown and she thinks it's the most horrible thing that has ever happened to her, and she would take any way out.

The diary format is perfect. As per tradition Mia warns us that she is an unreliable narrator with a penchant to lie, but all throughout her voice is convincing. She uses big words and comments on current events all through the eyes of a teenager who is developing her own opinions. She might despair about her appearance, while being astute enough to notice that her mom is "hot" (comment prior to mom's date), but she completely avoids being a whiny or stereotypical teenager. Mia is very much her own person. Her strong vegetarianism, how readily she confesses how comfortable she is around the Muscovitzes, her immature but oh-so-funny disgust of Mr. G. dating her mom, the dorky Boris, her dad's testicle cancer... etcetera. And the tone of her diary is perfectly complemented by the algebra notes in the margin, and the notes and essays she clips into it. That she does manage to journal so often at school, and in restrooms during a crises, is a little hard to believe, but the immediacy of all her thoughts and situations make the book such an engaging read.

I am such a fan.

I have been a fan of the movie for years, and have a hard time picturing Mia as a tall, short-haired blonde rather than dark-haired Anne Hathaway. And while the Disney movie has very little of the edgy humour there is in the book (of course, testicle cancer, mom's date with the algebra teacher, and Mia's hilarious comments about being brought up out of wedlock had to be censored), I do think they captured the message of the novel and of Mia's character: a princess who is true to herself, who holds fast to her own unique identity.

When I think of Miriam Toews' mennonite novel, A Kindness, I think there is almost the same level of humour. Toews' sarcasm was darker and she had a heavier subject to deal with, but essentially, it's the same theme: teenage girls, coping with family drama and growing up, journalling by request of an adult, to sort through problems. I laughed just as hard in either novel and I think Mia is much more likeable (and worthy of sympathy) than Nomi. I hope Princess Diaries receives more critical acclaim, because it's so easy to dismiss it as a popular teenage novel, just because it has a bright pink cover and a princess theme - when - in my opinion - it really does touch on the deeper issues of growing up without being maudlin.

Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Judy Blume

2009-04-25T02:23:00.000-04:00

Okay, i see why judy blume is awesome. Sheila is complex, exactly her age, and hilarious. Her self-denial is so realistic and it makes her very down to earth. What a great character! I love how she admits everything reluctantly, but does come to admit it after all… what a great inspiration for pre-teenage-hood.

Totally digging blume and i can’t believe i missed out on her growing up. I was so close to reading Superfudge. Well, i’ll read more of her sometime.

The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis

2009-04-21T12:38:00.002-04:00

So The Witch, the Lion and the Wardrobe is Edmund's struggle, Prince Caspian is - all of the children's, - Dawn Treader is Eustace's and The Silver Chair is Jill's.

Jill, who shows off, and forgets to repeat the signs - or say her prayers, and so, "muffs up" the sequence of things in the story. The children in the underworld, where, like Plato's cave, all is darkness and we can be conned into believing that sunlight and God are imaginary because there is no visible proof. The children brainwashed into this by the Green Lady and her lute and fire, like Meg and Calvin with IT in A Wrinkle in Time.

As always, very clear images. Not as purely symbolic as Dawn Treader, though.

The passage of time hurt me in this story as much as it hurt Eustace. It is one of my least favourite parts about the Narnian series - first, that the time in the two worlds aren't relative, second, that we MUST jump from character to character and to differernt eras. Then, too, we know Caspian as a bright young man, and it does hurt to see him aged - frail - dead. (His "ascension", the thorn and blood and rejuvenation is beautiful and symbolic and joyous, though. And I'm glad Caspian got to visit the world even if he plays a very minor role.) There is SUCH sadness in the Silver Chair, out-rivalled only by the finality of The Last Battle. That's my other point of contention with the Narnia books - the end always has the sadness of farewell.

In that way, The Horse and His Boy is one of the happiest stories of Narnia, although I can't love these characters as well as the Pevensies.

Lewis is a snarky writer. Puddleglum is hilarious and wonderful. His insights into Jill's acting innocent is hilarious, and his comments on the Experiment House are definitely political. He's extremely critical of "modern" ways through Eustace and Eustace's school, and in doing so he sets up this battle between Christianity and Modernity. As for his comment that the "Head... went into parliament, and there she lived happily ever after"... I can hardly believe this sort of snark is in a children's book. Then again these aren't children's books per se... I'm convinced they are family books, meant to be read aloud, therefore full of humour that will enliven the elocutionist's reading.

The landscape is distinctly British.

WELL: project for next month: read Mere Christianity!

Quidditch Through the Ages, J. K. Rowling

2009-03-26T09:13:00.003-04:00

I really do enjoy Rowling's "charity books" more than the Potter novels. She is such a skilled parodist. The factual tone is flawless. The mock-historical accounts of broomsticks for flying, early broom sports, are perfect (and of course, perfectly hilarious) too.

The Giver, Lois Lowry

2009-03-26T09:09:00.002-04:00

I have a precise memory of The Giver sitting on the shelf by the carpet in my fifth grade classroom. I turned the book over in my hands many times during silent reading, and considered reading it, intrigued that the name "Jonas" was a character I liked in one of my favourite books. I never did read The Giver, and years afterwords I regretted that I didn't. Somehow I felt that I had missed out on something I would have cherished growing up.

Well, I finally did read it today, hungry for reading material while watching tests. It's a one-sitting thing - although I did carry it with me to three separate sittings. Now that I've finished I don't want to give the book back - it's so well done I want to savour it again, and again.

Such a well-crafted book! In the beginning I had no idea what was going on, and the differences between our world and Jonas's world dawned on me gradually. Then I admired how the author could make us relate to Jonas even though he lived in a limited world. I appreciated how the dystopia was complex, but made easy for children to understand with classifications like the "Nines" get bicycles, the "Twelves" get careers chosen for them. The precision of language is a really interesting point (as are "comfort objects", that get recycled.)

I really like how the plot worked for Jonas's coming of age - all the trepidation over a future career, and then the mysterious role of receiving knowledge, pain, and wisdom. Growing up and a metaphor for growing up. Then all of a sudden he is called to his own act of bravery....

The story is really well paced. The ending, though, leaves me dissatisfied... what really happened to the community after Jonas released his memories on them? What about Fiona? What really happened to Jonas and Gave as they slid downhill?

I'm glad I googled and found that there are sequels!

2009-03-09T10:02:00.000-04:00

Twilight

It's actually not bad! A little high-falutin, and certainly on the sappy and cliched scale. I like Bella a lot, though, and can really relate to her: how she's friendless, hates gym, can cook, and has read all the Brontes and Shakespeares. I would have enjoyed this story as a teen and I still do. All the Edward moments are very sweet, but they are overwrought, as are Bella's many admirers. Seventeen is too old for Bella, I think - she would have fared better as a fifteen or sixteen year old.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

HP5 flows much better than HP4, but I still find satire so hard to read. I don't enjoy reading about Umbridge and the tortures she inflicts on students, although her come-uppance by Fred and George is hilarious. There is just too much badness in this book, save for brief moments of laughter. The Department of Mysteries IS a perfectly wonderful bit of imagination. I have to admit - I can't put this book down.

The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie

This book is beautifully written and the idea is captivating, but it didn't captivate me. I was bored by it. The things in it have already been done. And that is that.

New Moon

Oh... I really like Bella Swan. She is terribly obsessive, but I am the same way -- incorrigibly constant. The way boys fall for her is completely unrealistic, but what girl's story wouldn't want that? Jacob... in fact, all of the characters.... rely on description from Bella's part, so they aren't very well drawn. I think of rubygillis's classic pattern of a romantic boy and his comic rival, and she does it so much better - so much more lively - than S. Meyer. The climaxes are always extremely melodramatic. I really enjoyed this one because - isn't Volterra the fictional city in Maurier's Flight of the Falcon, which was in turn based on Urbino? I had thought so, but I could be mistaken.

Eclipse

Oh dear. You have to admit this is a pretty good love triangle. I like Jacob, and I like Edward, and I don't despise Bella.

Breaking Dawn

Utter crap, as in, Smeyer's writing needs SO much editing to tone down her language, but still such a guilty pleasure. I'm surprised that Bella really DID become a vampire after all the times and delay. I'm not fond of the half-breed baby as a plot device. Having Bella and Edward start a family right now, it's too soon to think of them as parents. I'm also not sure if the switch to the Jacob chapters were effective.... the book has been so consistently about Bella's voice, and Bella is a decent narrator. I'm glad Bella and Jacob's friendship has been resolved, but

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J K Rowling

2009-02-17T03:01:00.002-05:00

If you ask me, I'd say that, as much as I truly enjoy them, as pieces of literature the Harry Potter series is imperfect. HP4 is probably the most flawed.

My main critique is length. I have no problem reading long books; War and Peace is one of my favourites. HP4, though, is unnecessarily long.

Consider a summary of plot points from HP4:

INTRO
- Wormtail and Voldemort make plans for Voldemort's return
- Harry's scar hurts, he writes to Sirius
- Quidditch World Cup: meets Bagman and Crouch, Winky, students from different schools, ogles Krum, Fred and George are trying to start their own joke shop - products and gathering funds

ASCENDING ACTION
- Dark Mark appears when Death Eaters torture Muggles for fun, Harry loses wand, Winky sacked
- Mad-Eye teaches Defense Against Dark Arts (unforgivable curses), Sirius returns
- Triwizard Tournament begins and Harry chosen as fourth champion
- Rita Skeeter begins giving Harry bad publicity
- 1st task - Hagrid tips Harry off that there are dragons, Sirius and Mad-Eye help,
- Hermione starts SPEW
- Yule Ball: Cedric/Cho/Harry drama, Ron/Hermione/Krum drama, Hagrid/Mme Maxine
- 2nd task, Cedric and Dobby help Harry
- accidentally meets mad Mr. Crouch in Forbidden Forest, but he's gone by the time Dumbledore comes
- memories of Death Eater trials in pensieve

CLIMAX
- 3rd task: Dark Lord returns, Cedric killed, Priori Incantatem when Harry & Voldemort duel
- Harry gets away

DENOUEMENT
- Barty Crouch impersonating Mad-Eye is revealed
- Fudge doesn't believe Dumbledore
- Rita Skeeter turns out to be a beetle animagus
- Harry gives Fred & George his prize galleons

compared to HP3

INTRO
- Harry's birthday & presents from friends: Weasleys won the lottery and are on Egypt holiday
- murderer at large on Muggle news

ASCENDING ACTION
- Harry blows up Aunt Marge by accident, runs away and travels by Knight Bus
- Fudge does not punish him, encourages him to stay in Diagon Alley
- sees Firebolt in shops
- Hermione purchases Cruikshanks, pet cat that keeps harassing Ron's rat
- Harry faints from Dementor on train, saved by Lupin
- Hermione takes too many subjects and has a ridiculous time table
- Malfoy is hurt in Hagrid's class by Buckbeak, Buckbeak put on trial by Ministry
- Divination: Harry begins to fear that the black dog he keeps seeing is "The Grim", an omen of death
- Lupin is sick every month
- Black gets into Gryffindor tower
- Harry gets Marauder's map and sneaks into Hogsmeade, overhearing the story of how his parents were betrayed
- gets a Firebolt mysteriously for Christmas, after his last broom was destroyed
- Snape finds Marauder's Map
- Trelawney makes a real prediction

CLIMAX
- Harry, Ron and Hermione try to help Hagrid through Buckbeak's execution
- Dog drags run through Whomping Willow tunnel
- discover Black is an animagus, Lupin appears, Snape appears, Wormtail caught
- Lupin transforms, Wormtail escapes, all are in danger, Black caught and turned over to ministry/dementors

DENOUEMENT
- Harry and Hermione use time turner to help Black and Buckbeak escape
- Harry produces a patronus
- Lupin's identity as a werewolf revealed to the school
- Owl post from Sirius, owl becomes Ron's new pet

As you can see, the plot of HP4 isn't any more action-packed than the previous books. I'd argue that it's far less dense, probably because it is so long. The plot doesn't merit its length.

The problem with this book is, that it overdoes the mandate "show, don't tell." The first chapter is a slow-motioned description of the circumstances of Frank Bryce's death. The description does very little to enhance our knowledge of Frank Bryce or the Riddle house. This strategy of an alternate setting, and a portrait of the "other side", was done with more humour and suspense in HP6 and HP7. The second is inconcise language, and, bad grammar. I'm a snob when it comes to style in novels: I think it's unprofessional when published authors have bad grammar.

The plot is weak, too, in my opinion. I'm not that well versed in the Potterverse, so maybe I'm picking up on contradictions that have already been clarified, but the contradictions are still there.

Why did they have to use a muggle campsite for the World Cup? Why couldn't they simply summon the egg for the first task? How do people with such age difference and interests get together (Krum is 18 and a star athlete, Hermione is 15, nerdy and doesn't like sports)? Fifteen and Eighteen are huge differences when you're that age. If Hermione couldn't dig up any spells for the second task, why did the other students find means to deal with breathing underwater? Is two month's dating really enough to make Hermione and Cho be the things their boyfriends miss the most? Those bonds are of a different nature than Harry/Ron's friendship, or the Delacour sisterhood. Why couldn't Sirius pretend to be Harry's pet, if no one knew he was an animagus? If Barty Crouch imitated Mad-Eye with such skill that even Dumbledore was hoodwinked (not to mention that he overcame a skilled Auror), he must be a very skilled wizard. I find Crouch's story the most unconvincing and unnecessarily complex. Why not simply have him run away at the World Cup? What does Wormtail and Voldemort coming to rescue him add to the plot? Too complex.

Other Voices Other Rooms, Truman Capote

2009-02-17T02:21:00.003-05:00

Even since I found out that Harper Lee is a character in Truman Capote's novel, I simply *had* to see how he rendered her. There is so little biographical information about Harper Lee that I was - well, curious. Besides, there is one wonderfully nostalgic paragraph in Mockingbird saying that "summer was Dill... stealing kisses when Jem wasn't looking," so I *had* to see what love there was between Lee and Capote, Capote who turned out to be gay. Perhaps it's prying, but it's without malice. I'm very fond of Scout. I can't help wondering.

The book is beautifully written. The language and the portrait of life in the south, lazy and redolent and slightly creepy, really draws you in. I don't know about the "intensity of Capote's writing" lauded on the cover of my book, because I didn't find it intense, I found it detailed and poetic. The conversation and turns of phrases are reminiscent of Mockingbird, so I'm sure Lee was influenced by Capote's novel, which got published first. I had fun deciphering the transmogrification of names - it's "Noon City" here for "Meridian," no doubt, and there's a homestead called the "Landing" too. I recognized Capote/Dill at once in Joel: the short boy with britches too small for him, sensitive and a hand at hatching lies. I LOVED our first glimpse of Idabel/Lee, a really ferocious tomboy whom the sensitive (and gay) Joel is intimidated by. In Mockingbird, through Lee/Scout's own perspective, we know that Scout is a tomboy but her manner is much more aggressive described from the outside. She has a ladylike sister to compare against - Lee, I remember, had a sister, too. Idabel and Joel go skinny dipping in the creek and Idabel makes no qualms about it, so I'm sure that was only a proprietary reference in Mockingbird when Jem and Dill tell Scout she can't come cause they were going in naked! Joel and Idabel try to run away.

I'm hard pressed to see how Idabel shows Joel "the closest thing to love" (also quoted from my bookcover). Joel does long to show her affection after he becomes her friend, but she fights him when kissed. (So yes, there must be some germ in the Scout/Dill romance, too!) The ending also loses me completely. Why is Joel suddenly indifferent to Idabel, if she is his only friend? That disappoints me. Also, although Joel is very sensitive, I thought the novel was supposed to be an exploration in homosexuality, and the only reference I have is Joel seeing two men kissing, and being puzzled by it. Is it because he faced female temptation (via the circus midget lady) that he's scarred? Does he withdraw from Idabel because he's come to terms with his sexuality? Is Cousin Randolph gay?

I am probably really lost.

Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie

2009-02-17T02:09:00.002-05:00

WOW. - from the first page I was astounded, Rushdie writes well, like a next-generation Gabriel Garcia Marquez with epic plots and a style that flows on the quirks and obsessions of life. The religious and cultural references are lost on me, but the images (falling through the sky, singing, rebirth) are from the beginning very basic, and catch my imagination. Magic realism.

The Moving Finger, Agatha Christie

2009-02-17T01:57:00.005-05:00

I have never read Agatha Christie before, but since she's a favourite of one of the bloggers I follow, I made note to read something by her. In fact - since she has written so many novels, I had to google for her bests. The Moving Finger (incidentally a chapter title for A Tangled Web, thus making me think that it's a quotation) sounded very promising, being one of Christie's own favourites.

Well, I was thoroughly converted into a fan. The beginning was nothing more than a suspenseful and ominous statement - mysterious letters - followed by a series of character sketches of all the curious personages in town. Of course, you immediately survey and sum them up as suspects. Each character is conveyed through a quick few paragraphs of description, and his/her conversation:

Consider Megan's pattern of speech:

"She spoke, as usual, in a kind of breathless rush.

.. 'Shouldn't they? They all do around here. Are you walking down to the town? I saw you were alone, so I thought I'd stop and walk with you, only I stopped rather suddenly.'"

compared to the force of Aimee Griffith's:

"Extraordinary child," said Miss Griffith. "Bone lazy. Spends her time mooning about. Must be a great trial to poor Mrs. Symmington."

The plot thickens every chapter, and is very well paced. You're made to suspect Megan all along, although the narrator never does, and you're infuriated with him for his blindness and dread the revelation. Then, of course, an unaccountable plot twist occurs. Very clever stuff, great book, holds together excellently.

A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Toews

2009-02-07T01:12:00.002-05:00

This is my short review:

"I think Toews nailed the small-town teenage girl. I know people like Nomi and places like her dump of a town. Nomi's wit and sarcasm really makes the book, as in, the humour really balances out the drama. I don't know, though, it's missing something. Maybe it's the lack of proper quotation marks in conversation that bugs me. Maybe for all their depth, the paragraphs are too long. Maybe it's because Nomi reminds me too much of your usual Margaret Atwood heroine (passive, but with a mind of her own, and secretly rebellious), but the plot isn't quite as clever and unexpected. So awesome characterization, but I think Toew's prose could use more spunk."

I had so many thoughts as I read this book today. First, I was annoyed by the stream-of-consciousness tone. Too stylized, too imitative of Margaret Atwood. I would have preferred wit and regular punctuation. I fell to wondering again: does anybody (worth his/her salt) write in a "representative" manner instead of in stylized prose these days? Unless you're writing fantasy or children's books?

I also had misgivings about Nomi and the state of affairs in her life. Nomi is your typical rebellious teen, who dabbles in delinquency, drug, and sex. I think it's realistic, but if I knew her personally, I would find her (at least her lifestyle) intimidating. And it's a grimy picture. Is that the only modern life we have to depict, unless (again) you're writing fantasy or for children?

What I really loved was that, despite Nomi's vindictive tone, perhaps as the (slightly cheesy, awkward) title implies, the book is gentle. Despite the ready condemnation of religion and society, never does it reek with hate or true bitterness. Nomi loves her family, and through her quirky but loving eyes you believe in the goodness and good intentions of all the characters.

The book made me WANT to understand the small Canadian towns that I've lived in, want to befriend the goth girls smoking crack on the fire escapes instead of looking askance and pityingly at them. It made me examine why small towns are the crux of Canadian literature, why I (a suburban girl) am attracted to some romanticized aspect of them, and how if I were to write a story I would deal precisely with this fascination of mine, as if this were a heritage I somehow long for in all my stability.

Nomi's recollections of her childhood made me reminiscent - no, made me see all the potential in my childhood, too. That quirkish way of thinking.

"I had an imaginary friend who hated me and was trying to kill me."

"This was a bedtime ritual. I dug the shunning story. I couldn't wait to hear it. What a gem. It completely reinforced my belief system of right and wrong. And everyone had to stand up in church and publicly denounce them. Yeah! I'd say. Denounce them! I'd always loved the sound of that."

"I wasn't pretty enough to be the complex, silent girl and yet I never knew what to say. I didn't want to be the ugly, quiet girl. There was no such thing as the ugly, mysterious girl. I could be the tortured, self-destructive girl. But where does that ldead? I remembered a conversation I'd had with Tash on the same trampoline a hundred years ago when it only cost a nickel."

Those are a *real* teenage girl's thoughts, not contrived at all.

"For some reason when we were in the library, Tash and I often pretended that we were German spies and we called ourselves Platzy and Strassy. We'd hide bits of information in books and then give each other clues about how to find them. There are probably still little notes stuck in Billy Graham books that say things like: I was brutally tortured for several hours this afternoon but I am fine. Let's meet for drinks at the UberSwank at eight. Platzy."

So awesome! Fantasy, but not told in a traditional way at all. Once again, not contrived.

Well-- I should, I think, attempt to write a story in the structure of Toews or Budge Wilson. It will be good practice. I have a long way to go in finding my own voice.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J. K. Rowling

2009-02-06T10:35:00.003-05:00

I think this simple little book shows Rowling's skill as a writer, more than the entirety of the Harry Potter series. You can tell that Rowling is a master of imitating a voice and style, and of course a master of parody. (Hello, the entire magical world mimics and mocks the structure of ours?) The whole thing is a Russian-doll framed narrative, with Rowling editing an imaginary Dumbledore. The purpose of the book is made evident in the first commentary: (other than simply for reading pleasure, it's) to parody fairy tales as cultural artifacts. Rowling continues her muggle/wizard racism thesis, noting that the Hopping Cauldron story has been bastardized throughout the centuries to A) show no muggle favouritism, B) censor tales too violent and gruesome for children. This is, of course, a laugh at people who say her stories are too dark for children: right in the middle of the book is a story that sounds like traditional fairytale, with lovers literally ripping one another's hearts out.

I'm less sold on the Hogwarts mentions, which I think are awkwardly inserted. I don't think Dumbledore's bitter tone regarding his feud with Lucius Malfoy has any real place in a mock-academic work; nor do Professor Kettleburn's lack of limbs. Dumbledore's occasional footnotes to "... many brilliant wizards... [footnote] such as myself," too, are a little overboard arrogant.

Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence

2009-02-03T20:18:00.002-05:00

I am very lucky that I was raised in a household where books are believed to be good. No ban has ever been placed upon my reading, other than the chastise that I would ruin my eyesight. I still remember that my parents had no qualms buying me two five-dollar novels at the Costco checkout, one being a titilating V. C. Andrews, the other what none of us realized was a (non-)harlequin(-published) romance. It did not have a suggestive cover illustration, and was really no more lewd than V. C. Andrews. It was my seventh grade teacher who raised an eyebrow when I, in all innocence, brought out the novel for silent reading. He asked me if I enjoyed it with a strange expression, and I assured him I did, very earnestly. I had read every word, but I still didn't see how it was objectionable. Reading is good, it broadens your mind and expands your vocabulary: I didn't think anything in a printed book should be censured.

I think I will raise my kids with that maxim. They are free to read whatever they like.

So I intend to quote and comment on Lady Chatterley's Lover. Now, nobody who tries to please both sides ever succeeds or ever ends up sitting comfortably on the fence; nevertheless, I live by the tenet that I must think for myself. And sex is a fascinating topic to ponder on. I guess I am one of those cerebral types who read but have not done; but I don't think discussing sex is a sign of lust, or corrupts. I am both Catholic and the picture of a good girl all prunes and prisms, people would say it's creepy and wrong if I had "dirty" thoughts, but curiosity isn't inappropriate, and if I'm curious, I'm only human. And so I read books with sex scenes, and I think about them.

Lady Chatterley's Lover has some interesting proclamations: first, that sex is really meaningless, and that it certainly does not imply the giving away of something sacred (namely, yourself.)

A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connexion. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him.

We have been having the same holy war of first kisses and more, in which are pitched those who say you should say yourself for your ideal, against "i hope that whatever the essence of "me" is, is not weak or insignificant enough to be completely destroyed to the point of worthlessness because i let a man touch me before my wedding day... i dont think i have ever given part of myself away, not when i've loved a person or simply lusted after them. even when i've been in love and it didn't work out, i emerge from it changed in subtle ways but still essentially the same person, or at least still a full, complete person."

I, predictably, have been trying to appease both sides with no avail.

" 'In that case I love to give a part of myself away! I am a firm believer that you have to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find "prince charming". ' "

I like that way of putting it, too.

Once upon a time, long long ago, I was very happy about my first kiss and who it was with. I was pretty sure I would grow up and marry him. It would've been very sweet if it worked out that way, but life isn't always like that.

You can save yourself for someone, or be sure they're the one, etc., but people change and even engagements can break. So if you love someone, why not cherish the moments now that you have together?

As quoted in Emily's Quest books:

Since ever the world was spinning
And till the world shall end
You've your man in the beginning
Or you have him in the end,
But to have him from start to finish
And neither to borrow nor lend
Is what all of the girls are wanting
And none of the gods can send.
"

I, on the one hand, know I have a (religious) allegiance to chastity, on the other I know I can only be true to myself, and then, most of all I would like to know passionate love.

So here it is: a book published in 1928 that in the very first chapter takes the idealism out of sex and social constructs of fidelity. As a beginning it is extremely effective and captivating, like the thesis stated at the beginning of an essay: really this is the book that Two Solitudes should have been. Constance is a heroine whose life shows her philosophy, instead of a demographic sample or exemplary character created to show the point of the story, like the ones in Two Solitudes. Both novels are essays in that they propel a certain view and critique of modern society, but Lawrence has woven the discussion artfully into the novel and MacLennon's conversations seem contrived, inserted.

What are Lawrence's conversations, though? His basic beliefs outlined in the first chapter, I am surprised that the characters can go on and converse about - nothing, really - for pages. How do you write this stuff? No, I'm not a Lawrence fan, and his books leave me feeling strangely desolate and empty: not because of Lawrence's opinions, but maybe because of the life depicted. How do you paint a picture to show that something is essentially meaningless? Doesn't that make your work of art itself meaningless?

Compared to Anais Nin (from whom I first read about Lady Chatterly's Lover) Lawrence's psychology is really one-sided, limited to the affairs of the upper-class and working classes. Nin's short stories are captivating, and each one reveals more about sex and human personalities than Lawrence's whole book. What does Lawrence gain by length? A greater time-span and more conversation, it seems; probably all that anchors it in its society and its contemporary notions of bolshevism and socialism, but I know so little of that world. Instead, what shines in the novel to me is that chapter of Constance and Mellors's lovemaking, when Constance falls to mimicking in Mellors' dialect, and Mellors elucidates the meaning of someone having "balls" to us. I have always thought that expression vulgar, but now, glamourized by Mellors, I find it charming.

But I don't know if all the beauty, artistry, and classical allusions of Mellors' and Lady Chatterley's romance rivals the love scene between Paul and Heather. The latter is so natural. The former; well, I still find Lawrence's archaic sexual language awkward, and I suppose I must be well-read enough or I wouldn't understand what he means, because he is very detailed, without being graphic or "lemony", no: his sex scenes are as a dream or a classical painting.

For my sex education, here is the blunt and brutal you get in Lawrence: "No, it's hopeless! I just simply can't vibrate in unison with a woman." This compared to the glamourized versions I see in fanfiction and film where everything is perfect! Oh, of course I see the point of those who will say that "good girls" shouldn't be reading stuff like this, it teaches you too much for your own innocence and makes you wonder whether you will really get satisfactory love-making of your own. It makes you really pity those who don't know what they're missing, and makes you wonder if you have the adequate physique for this sort of intense pleasure. Oh, I'm sure all they had a point: ignorance is bliss.

I do like the ending: curiously, after so many pages of passion, the ending is about chastity and waiting; something that speaks for the magnitude of true love, I think. After all the whole book shows that (after much sexual frustration) it is possible to experience great passion, which promises to last forever.

A tremendous mental effort to finish, but I'm glad I did.

Gabrielle Roy: Creation and Memory, Linda and Bill Clemente

2009-02-02T00:49:00.002-05:00

I suppose once you have exhausted all of an author's works, it is natural want to find out more about her life. In Gabrielle Roy's case, I have always been sorry that she died before completing all the volumes of her autobiography, so Enchantment and Sorrow only covers the years before she became a published writer. Reading Gabrielle Roy has always been an inspiration to me, and this tale of her life has made me rethink and reaffirm so many feelings I have had over the past months, faults I have struggled with all my life, perhaps. In terms of how it has affected me and can change me, it may be the most important book I have read these months.

A good biography, I believe, makes you relate to the life described. Like with Maud in The Gift of Wings and Looking for Anne, I became convinced that I am very much like Gabrielle, and began to hope that I would attain a measure of success like hers. Clemente writes in the same delicate and compassionate style as Gabrielle herself, so reading the biography was like treading on familiar ground, almost as good as reading one of Gabrielle's books. That is one thing I find a little amiss in L. M. Montgomery biographies: aside from Mollie Gillen, whose The Wheel of Things breathes with Montgomery's own poetic writing style, many biographers have been very objective, and as a result the text is sensitive and tactful (all very understandable given the complexity of Montgomery's life) but a little dry.

Creation and Memory is not chronological: rather, it begins with the epoch of Roy's life in Europe, where she was "endlessly and aimlessly walking, walking, walking, upbraiding herself, wallowing in indecision and, doubtless, self-pity."(18) How familiar I am with this sort of constant self-berating! "Supposedly trying to uncover her destiny, and, like most of us, she still felt accountable for her actions."(19) I feel as Gabrielle does that, in my present confusion, I am trying to "break free" in some way: "Her actual motivation, however, she simply could not articulate at this juncture in her life: 'I had no definite ideas in mind,' she would say to an interviewer almost fifty years later... this brave woman [was] driven by something ill-defined to search for something unknown."(12) Upon her return to Canada, Gabrielle remained on her own in Montreal instead of returning to live with her mother, perhaps to "stay free" (14): "In her mind, going farther west from Montreal would now mean a surrender to all she had sought to escape. A return to St. Boniface would demote those two years in Europe to the status of a fling, and it would also preclude the possibility of further personal and professional growth."(51) This was "one of the most anguished, selfish, and painfully ambivalent decisions of her life, as decisions based largely on one's personal desires and welfare must be."(52) And like Gabrielle, I write best from a distance... I can recall so clearly those hours in my Crouch End attic, when inspiration seemed to spark from homesickness and isolation, and despite my surface melancholy I was perfectly content with my work. "Before discovering new shores, we must be content to lose sight of land completely." (Fragile 186)

THERE is the conflict of my heart of late: that on one hand, I am duty-bound to remain at home, that permanently moving out would be the selfish act of abandoning my parents. Besides, I love my home dearly. It is a veritable paradise to me, with its blossoming pear trees, the shy, secretive star-lilies down by the gate, the great "watching pine" outside my window, the "little half chick" weathervane on the garage roof, and my very own, maple-flanked "bend in the road" beyond. Inside, there are low, wide windows inside, gossamer curtains, and a stained-glass lamp that gleams at sunset. I am grateful that my parents have kept such a haven for me, and I am afraid that if I were to leave, I would sever it from my life forever: my parents would sell the house, and I could never truly come "home" again. That is how my romantic notions run; on the other hand I cannot reconcile myself to the picture of living as a dependent, and working and saving towards a future that to me is entirely undefined, but promises little more than a parent's conventional expectations of stability and marriage. I need to be on my own and to run my own life, but to anyone's mind that is an incredibly lonely and pitiful existence.

I was surprised that Gabrielle's ambition to be an actress during her European years was so strong; most true writers know from childhood that they must write. (I did find out, later in the biography, and also from recollections of her writings, that she did write avidly as a child despite her mother's disapproval.) Then, too, I felt a little alienated by her dramatic abilities: I could certainly never breathe fire into a performance, nor can I lay any claims to sparkling wit and powers of mimicry... but haven't there been points in my life when I too am full of vivacity and life? Despite her outbursts of animated feeling, Gabrielle was by nature reclusive, "I never knew a person more secretive or more of an enemy to herself."(16) That is exactly how I am. I share Gabrielle's fragile self-confidence, her perfectionist tendencies (best exemplified by her scholastic achievements and how she would stay up late to study until her mother cut the fuse), and her tendency to block time out by projects and accomplishments rather than by a regular schedule. "Given the teenager who was so ardent in her studies that her mother unscrewed fuses to force her to get sufficient sleep, empathetic readers who feel equally driven will easily understand the anxiety that interruptions provoke in those who work not over the course of a day with frequent breaks, but who labour intensely for hours at a time with no breaks... For a writer of Gabrielle Roy's ilk, an interruption could change the course of her novel."(163-164) After all, I was not so foolish when I protested in first year that the calibre of my drawing would change if I took a dinner break, and had to be bodily carried away from my desk.

I am, too, heavily affected by my mother's tendency to view life as a tragedy; and my mother's many sisters are in turn the product of my grandmother's incredible will and sorrow. As Gabrielle writes of her own siblings, "All of us - all Melina's children - have a tendency to live too much on our nerves. It makes the fire burn bright, true enough, but later we pay for it dearly, don't we?" (94)

What I dislike most in biography literature is the finality of reality, in which some lives are irretrievably damned. Her sister Adele is the black sheep of the story, unsuccessful, spiteful, laughed at and pitied by her family. I can't help studying others' lives as if to seeking for a formula that will tell me that outcome of my own. How do I know if I am really like Adele, whose "constant shifting indicated serious problems," who "would stay for a year or two until life became a little easier, and then, perhaps fearful or feeling herself undeserving of peace or happiness, would move again, farther north, farther away" (102)? Gabrielle herself wandered aimlessly, and these were to her immensely valuable experiences: "writers should seek experience actively in their youth, should travel as much as they could geographically and emotionally; then at about the age of forty, they could, as she put it, 'draw in.' "(156) What did Adele do wrong that Gabrielle did right, and how do you know which you are doing?

The years that fascinate me most are those just after Enchantment and Sorrow ended: the seven years before she "arrived" with the publication of The Tin Flute. She determined to throw away her stable career as a teacher, to live on her own, and to write, and she did. She managed to support herself in a lifestyle of her choosing. She became an excellent journalist, and was so in her element was she that her natural shyness must have vanished by necessity, even if she were to return to great privacy in later life. "Almost as though life had finally given her the go-ahead signal, Roy gathered momentum and was not to be stopped. The adventurer out for a good time in Provence turned into the adventurer who had found her calling. All her endurance, initiative, temerity, capacity for hard work and intellectual brilliance she now channelled into what she did best: writing. She wrote, more over, about what interested her most: human relationships. And she wrote using the method that was her forte: close, analytical observation. By all accounts she had a wonderful time honing her talent." (143)

There are several particular episodes in this biography that are a bright beacon of hope to me: one, that Gabrielle was to revisit her beloved haunts in Europe with success on her brow. I have been so heartbroken over saying goodbye to those cities where I have loved being me, that it embitters me to think that if I ever went back things would never be the same. Two, that if Gabrielle's perfectionism and drive (and her great dread of failure) brought into life a multiple-prize winning novel, won't I do something worthwhile someday? (Part of my reason for not beginning grad school right off, I think, is a vague fear of failure, or in otherwords of mediocrity, in which my sense of self would be reduced to nothing.) Three, that this period of pursuing writing as a career presents an appealing alternative life-path to me: it seems very unattainable, for there are thousands of people who long to be published, but though I enjoy the work, I have never felt a true calling to be a designer, whereas I have always longed to write. I would write no matter what, and it is immensely satisfying to me to produce a good piece of writing, and no other achievement brings me such exultation. Yet I know the little stories I spin in spare moments are lacking - lacking life experience, lacking dedication, lacking true training for a discerning eye? I come to wonder: isn't true writing a full-time job? I would be dreadfully afraid to take the plunge of such a commitment on such a precarious path: but this what Roy did, what Harper Lee did. Doesn't it make sense that I should develop my craft through more than my sporadic and highly emotional stories? But how do you find an opening into such a world?

Two Solitudes, Hugh MacLennan

2009-02-01T23:05:00.002-05:00

This book is well-written, but I found it largely inaccessible. The portrait of the elite in Montreal is entirely foreign to me, and for the first three parts, the years move so swiftly and the drama drifts from character to character that never are we given to chance to *know* these figures beyond what they represent to society. At the end of the novel Paul Tallard is writing a book on Canada, stating just what MacLennan has been trying to do:

"As Paul considered the matter, he realized that his readers' ignorance of the sessntial Canadian clashes and values presented him with a unique problem. The background would have to be created from scratch if his story was to become intelligible."

Curiously, the criticism that applies to his previous book, and Paul's remarks on art in general, are precisely my critique of Two Solitudes:

"A novel should concern people, not ideas, and yet people had become trivial."

"Your characters are naturally vital people. But your main theme never gives them a chance. It keeps asserting that they're doomed."

People in the book discuss the politics of Quebec and ponder on the Canadian identity every day, so the issues the novel is concerned with are no secret. I think an essay would be more suitable to this debate than the stilted conversations of the characters, though. In this case, the characters become mouthpieces.

There is so much background, so much descriptive text for every character that walks on stage, but this is more "telling" than "showing." Characters are introduced this way, but behave only in a predictable manner afterwords. Athase's death is central to the plot, but Kathleen and Marius, both very complex and promising characters, disappear from the scene partway through the book: is it because their purpose has been exhausted? The time-lapse is really disconcerting for Kathleen, Marius, Daffy and even McQueen's stage exit: each make a brief appearance to show their fate before dropping out of the plot. We do not see their growth and progress, we do not learn what they really think.

Yardley I truly love. He is a creation I recognize: the Maritime sailor, rough and charismatic, who lives according to his own rules and righteousness, and remains full of curiousity about the world. I know people like him. I do not know many McQueens or General Methuens, whose world is so glamourous I can only believe it exists in movies, and whose roles are entirely cliched.

The romance between Paul and Heather redeems all of the ennui of this saga, in which MacLennan must be trying to construct a Tolstoysian novel of Canada with its vast cast of characters and intertwined drama. The love between Paul and Heather I can relate to and believe in. How their friendship develops, and that first, charged encounter in the car - "You know GReek, and you understand cars, and your'e a hockey player. It's a fascinating combination. What else have you been doing since we all went fishing together in Saint-Marc? // Paul - am I very different from what I used to be?), then in Heather's studio is one of the finest pieces of the novel. It touches on essential matters, shows their shared intellect and interests, and then the insecurity that comes with romantic involvement. Paul and Heather should have been the hero and heroine from the beginning. Each one's introspective thoughts are worth reading. I think the novel has been designed to show precisely what attracts and binds them to one another.

"What was love anyway, but the knowledge that you were not alone, with desire added?"

"For there was no loneliness now, not even when she was awake and he was asleep."

I think what Paul says of art is true:

"An artist had nothing to offer the world except distilled parts of himself."

In other words, write/paint what you know.

Is Paul autobiographical? Does this describe the creation process of MacLennon's own book?

"Out of Marius, out of his own life, out of the feeling he had in his bones for his own province and the others surrounding it, the theme of his new book began to emerge. Its outlines grew so clear that his pencil kept moving steadily until three in teh morning. He was not forumlating sentences; he was drafting the design of a full novel. He had never been able to see so far into any work... Outlines of scenes he would later create followed each other inevitably, one by one out of his subconscious. he picked up ten pages covered with scrawled notes, and as he reread them he found tha teach scene had retained in his mind the trasparent clarity of still water."

It sounds so grand: this stroke of inspiration, but fills me with despair if this is how writing should be, for I struggle with every episode and rarely does a whole book flash into my mind completed.

Silas Marner, George Eliot

2009-01-31T00:41:00.002-05:00

I have been having a royal literary feast. In the last two days I read A Wrinkle in Time, Many Waters, Silas Marner and Narnia. All great stories, really stories told in grand tradition that can be read out loud.

Silas Marner is a fairytale. It begins with an evocation of time past "I have been having a royal literary feast. "IN the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses -- and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak -- there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race.", and is a tale with symbolic characters, lost treasure and cherubic infants, and a happy, heartwarming ending. It is the only George Eliot book I have read with a truly happy ending, one where there is no sacrifice or compromise. I wonder why it is George Eliot (and L. M. Montgomery's) favourite book, and the only reason I can come up with is that it is a simple tale, probably to popular taste, sophisticated told. George Eliot's writing is more refined here than in any other book, and the lilting rhythm of her prose is echoed in Montgomery.

But oh! It does not have the far-reaching grasp of humanity, and that delicate bond between humans who involuntarily torture one another, that is the hallmark of Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss. Silas Marner is too simple and... too happy. I can't see the piercing psychology in having a cheated man grow isolated, absorbed in his work, and miserly. That is how the fairytales characterize misers. I'm interested in Eppie, but I think the bond between Silas and his daughter is too sweet, too simple and idealistic. Were I in a place where I meant the sun and moon and stars to my guardian, I would feel fettered. And since Eppie falls for the first man we hear of her with, since there is no real love story or drama to her life save her birthright, I feel like we don't really know her, and I can care less about her fate. So, too, is the abrupt coming to light of Dunstan, and Godfrey's confession without true precedence or motivation. He really needn't reveal his secret since Dunstan had taken it to the grave with him, so why now? And after all, it is unsatisfactory that Godfrey should miss Eppie's wedding.

How strange - I am always happy to see a book end well, but I think I bear a grudge against Eliot for writing a happy story.

Many Waters, Madeleine L'Engle

2009-01-31T00:28:00.002-05:00

I love Madeleine L'Engle and I think she is a wonderful, gracious, faith-filled person. Thus, even if I haven't read all her books, I like them because I like her. I do think the sequels to Wrinkle lack the graceful flow of pen, and the tightness of Wrinkle's plot, and the wide imagination.

Many Waters must have been fun for L'Engle to write: to revisit characters of a beloved family tree and to give them their own stories. I enjoy L'Engle's characterization of Sandy and Dennys, and find them realistic and hilarious for who they are.

I understand, too, some of the prevalent themes: that you have to believe for something to be (unicorn), that non-violence is the best policy (Sandy captured: "Sandy's rejection of violence had nothing to do with giving in. Anything but."), that goodness and purity (Yalith) are more attractive than physical beauty (Tiglah). I was glad to see the Seraphim and the Nephilim, all named: it is wonderful to see archaic names revived in a modern tale. I was, too, glad to know the people of the Flood story: know what their lives were like and the social atmosphere Noah faced when he built his ark.

But in general, the book made very little impression on me. I could care less about life in the oasis, and the complex dramas of Noah's family, and Lamech and Malah. I plugged on in the story waiting for something to happen, and I think it is a little disappointing to end the tale just before the great flood. This is an enjoyable book, but not a fable I'll remember and refer to.

The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis

2009-01-30T23:40:00.006-05:00

I have never read Narnia growing up, and so I have been trying to read what I can of the series whenever I can find it. Lewis is also a master of storytelling, and his narrator's voice is conversational, so I think if the books were read to me out loud, I would be alive to their magic. I often wonder where the appeal lies in these stories that have captured the imagination of so many children. Is it the thought that there is this wonderful world somewhere, that exists parallel to ours, only their time runs so much faster? Is it the funny talking animals? Or the fun of engaging in battle and of being indispensible in saving the world?

My imagination fails me here. Growing up, I loved the Wizard of Oz, especially the walled china city where figurines ran to and fro, and it thrilled me to imagine that this microscopic world existed alongside one of real-life humans. So I can see how absorbing imaginary worlds, these "heterotopias" are. But it goes back to the issue of a heroine I can grow with and identify with. I grew up (really grew up, became who I am heart body and soul) on Anne of Green Gables, and Anne is such an absorbing and real heroine, that her soul is knit with mine. I don't know who I can attach myself to in Narnia - Jill? I hardly know her. The only person I really love is Lucy Pevensie, but not every book stars her. And here is, again, where C. S. Lewis's comment that his characters are pawns for his plots instead of vice versa come into play: you like his characters, no doubt, but you never get to know them intimately.

Coming to Narnia as an adult, I cannot fail to see the Christian allegory so evident in the plot and all the symbols. It is very, very effective at explaining the Christian faith. These books make me believe. How much clearer can you get with the stable that is light within for those who believe in Aslan? How much more clearly can you convey that those who say life is crap will find life crappy because that's what they choose to see, than the story of the dwarves who think they are tasting donkey dung when they eat the feast Aslan spreads for them, whose reality is of their own making? Faced with a picture like this, I yearn to proclaim proudly that I believe in God. It seems that it is always better to believe - believe in anything.

Doesn't this show that it doesn't matter what religion you follow, so long as your intentions and works are good? I was brought up Catholic, and brought up to be compassionate and forgiving, and all my religious education (through class, discussions, and books) only affirms my conviction that Christian acts are more important than professing to be Christian. I never try to convert anyone - I don't believe in it. Let each live according to his or her convictions, and be true to his or herself, so long as their faith - in whatever they name their God - causes them to do good. Tenets to the contrary I struggle with, and I hate to say that I have a stone wall in my convictions, but this is it: One can be Christian - "truly Christian", without being so in name.

"Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me... Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou has done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.... Bloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek."

The image of Aslan's judgement as all Narnian beasts came rushing through the portal is very powerful, and the joy I felt in seeing all our dear Narnian friends again was unsurpassed. I think there is no greater happiness than reuniting with beloved friends, and I agree that there is no better promise for heaven. That is the only idea of heaven I want. Lewis's heaven is lovely, though: a place that resembles those we love best, only better, since this is the true and perfect Platonic ideal. Where countries are connected by mountain ridges, and places that have ceased to be continue here. Where Narnia (or whatever fantasy-lands are dear to our hearts) can be found.

And then, I was shocked to hear that all the friends of Narnia had died in a railway accident. Died! When they are all so young! Without them there is no link from our world to Narnia, (even if Narnia is no more), and there will NEVER be. Unless someone finds the magic rings. Poor Susan, what will she do when she finds out she has lost her siblings and parents? Is THIS Lewis's test of our faith: after a long glimpse of heaven, to see if we would be satisfied with this ethereal place or our own attachment to earthly life? If so, I've failed the test, for I can't help but rebel and be aghast at the thought of Lucy and Edmund and Peter and Jill and Eustace's death. That revelation fast plummetted the book to one of my least favourites of the series.

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle

2009-01-30T23:40:00.004-05:00

I love this book so much. Here is another book on par with Mockingbird for perfection: everything hits the right note. There's the classic and entirely effective opening sentence "It was a dark and stormy night". The whole exposition in the first chapter (introduction of characters, especially the characterization of Meg, and then the stranger in the night) is just enough. Meg is another character you can really love from the start, because she's a teenager struggling with normal teenage problems: hating school, not fitting in and getting bullied; imperfect and unhappy in her shell. She embarks on a great adventure that changes that: and here is the grand and universal theme of love that can defeat all evil. Her adventure is so wonderful, and peopled with such symbolic people: feisty Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who who quotes multilingually because she hasn't learned our speech, wise Mrs. Which who struggles to materialize, the Happy Medium, the two-dimensional planet, the planet of Aunt Beast's where you can't see, and Camazoztz where the horror is conformity and not thinking. Quotations liberally but always aptly used. Perhaps most wonderful of all is that subtle blossom of love between Meg and Calvin that is so sweet, and surprising, and affirms Meg's being. Like Lyra and Will, one journey bonds them forever, but though Meg and Calvin get very little real "romance" time, you love their love.

Madeleine L'Engle is a writer who *can* write. Let me prove it to you:

"It was a dark and stormy night.

In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground.

The house shook.

Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook.

She wasn't usually afraid of the weather. -- It's not just the weather, she thought. -- It's the weather on top of everything else. On top of me. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong."

Then you are - all on the first half-a-page you have a catching opening line, spectacular imagery, and an introduction to Meg that all ties in to the weather and her problems.

"Curled up on one of her pillows, a gray fluff of kitten yawned, showing its pink tongue, tucked its head under again, and went back to sleep."

Concise, again does not waste words in painting a picture.

Some Meg and Calvin love:

'"Calvin continued to look at the picture [of father.] "He's not handsome or anything. But I like him."

Meg was indignant. "He is too handsome."

Calvin shook his head. "Nah. He's tall and skinny, like me."

"Well, I think you're handome," Meg said.'

"'Mother,' Meg pursued. 'Charles says I'm not one thing or the other, not flesh nor fowl nor good red herring.'

'Oh, for crying out loud,' Calvin said, 'you're Meg, aren't you? Come on and let's go for a walk.'"

Can you say romance?

"Calvin led Meg across the lawn. The shadows of the trees were long and twisted and there was a heavy, sweet, autumnal smell to the air. Meg stumbled as the land sloped suddenly downhill, but Calvin's strong hand steadied her. They walked carefully across the twins' vegetable garden, pickign their way through rows of cabbages, beets, broccoli, pumpkins. Looming on their left were the tall stalks of corn. Ahead of them was a small apple orchard bounded by a stone wall, and beyond this the woods through which they had walked that afternoon. Calvin led the way to the wall, and then sat there, his red hair shining silver in the moonlight, his body dappled with patterns from the tangle of branches. He reached up, pulled an apple off a gnarled limb, and handed it to Meg, then picked one for himself."

"'I wish I were a different person,' Meg said shakily. 'I hate myself.'

Calvin reached over and took off her glasses. Then he pulled a handkercheif out of his pocket and wiped her tears. This gesture of tenderness undid her completely, and she put her head down on her knees and sobbed. Calvin sat quietly beside her, every once in a while patting her head. 'I'm sory,' she sobbed finally. 'I'm terribly sorry. Now you'll hate me.'

'Oh, Meg, you are a moron.' Calvin said. 'Do you know you're the nicest thing that's happened to me in a long time?'

Meg raised her head, and moonlight shone on her tearstained face; without the glasses her eyes were unexpectedly beautiful...

Now she was waiting to be contradicted. But Calvin said, 'Do you know this is the first time I've seen you without your glasses?... Well, you know what, you've got dreamboat eyes.'' Calvin said. 'Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses. I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have.'"

"Calvin came to her and took her hand, then drew her roughly to him and kissed her. He didn't say aything, and he turned away before he had a chance to see the surprised happiness that brightened Meg's eyes."

Not much, but every bit worth savouring.

Oh, and wisdom in so many ways.

"We want nothing form you that you do without grace, or that you do without understanding."

I REALLY like that evil is simply not thinking. I'm less fond of Calvin calling everyone "morons", but this was the 60s, and that derogatory name didn't bother me the first time I read it.

Someone NEEDS to make a movie of this book.

A Bird in the House, Margaret Laurence

2009-01-27T21:03:00.002-05:00

I was surprised to encounter a child narrator reminiscent of Scout Finch when I began this book. Vanessa MacLeod is precocious and defiant. She is also a budding writer. The book opens with a description of a brick house, "an ancestral home" in a small-town world, dominated by striking female characters. I was reminded of Margaret Laurence's statement that "all Canadian women's fiction began with L. M. Montgomery" - for of course, Vanessa is an attic-cat Emily, a shrewd observer, perceptive and calculating like the girls in Munro's stories, and sensitive to the tenor of human tragedy like Gabrielle Roy's Christine. Grandmother MacLeod has precedent in Montgomery's stiff, starched grandmothers of a bygone generation whom the young cannot relate to, and Aunt Edna has all the fire and spunk of a Montgomery heroine. In a typical Montgomery twist, Grandmother Connor shows unexpected strength, meanwhile, domestic tyranny and clash of (female) wills reoccur.

I have no doubt that the writing is autobiographical. The theme is no more than the web of family relationships and a portrait of Canadian life, but the writing is erudite and the dialogue captures the atmosphere easily, without pretense. When I read something like this the images that have been engraved in our own minds and heart require much skill to be told with great subtlety. Even telling a story that is based on one's own childhood is an art.

There is something to be said for the short story format. Montgomery knew it well, and Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside (as well as her journals) are particularly full of "other women's stories" and gossip, for this is the pre-WW2 female perspective. The stories deal with external incidents and have psychological meaning. Munro and Gabrielle Roy are notable short story writers, too (Munro, of course, becoming arguably the world's best short story writer). Even Mockingbird was originally a chain of short stories: each chapter is poignant and complete unto itself, each tells its own finished story and advances the plot. That is the beauty of the short story format, versus conventional chapter-books where the ending is no more than a section break, and cliffhangers are desirable. I think the short story format is very effective in conveying life lessons.

The chapter that moved me most of The Half Husky. What a cruel story!

Well, one of these days I need to read the rest of the Manawaka books. I really enjoy Laurence's writing: it is less stylized than Munro's and Atwood's, but very readable. Again, great "representational art."

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

2009-01-27T06:53:00.002-05:00

I have been friends with this book for a long time. I won it, long ago, in Mr. F's class for a reading award or somesuch, and he bequeathed it to me with remarks that it was his favourite book. Which is slightly awkward, after all... favourite books are such intimate things. I don't quite know what my honest assessment of Mr. F is, because I didn't know him very well and was influenced by the malicious class atmosphere and petty gossip. Besides, he came after Ms. J., whom we admired so wholeheartedly that he was no rival. But judging by the repertoire of fiction that he really, really loved: LotR and Mockingbird amongst others - and tried to impress that love upon us (I don't know how many of us appreciated it), there were probably unsounded depths to his personality.

I have always admired Mockingbird, and upon rereading after many years my assessment is still the same: this book is so PERFECT. it does everything right. it's an essay about an important issue, and it has a heroine you can really love and grow up with. it's so easy-to-read, and not a single thing is out of place or amiss. There are books that are instructive, not preachy but designed to enlighten on a certain issue: The God of Small Things, or the Life of Pi, fall into this category. Singular of purpose and meticulously executed works of art. Then, there are books where the plot is a breathing ground for the main character: Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter are novels of this type, with heroes/heroines you really learn to love. Mockingbird does both. You can be friends with Scout and Dill, and you come away moved and wiser by the events of the story.

I began Laurence's A Bird in the House just after closing this book. I was surprised to find the same erudite prose and child's eye view I found in Lee. I began thinking of "traditional" prose, like in Lee and Laurence and even Harry Potter, and Austen and Tolstoy, versus stylistically beautiful prose like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pasternak and Ondaatje. Even Mark Haddon's Dog in Nightime falls under the stylistic category. And I think, masterpieces as Love in the Time of Cholera and The English Patient are, there is nothing like a traditional, "storytelling" story. I guess it's the equivalent of the debate between representational and non-representational art. As beautiful and moving and profound as abstract art is, there is nothing as comforting and easy to relate to as a really well-done realistic painting. I admire experimental fiction and art, and I think it's necessary that we seek out new means of expressing ourselves and to react to societal change, but for me, there is nothing quite like the classics. A really great work of art relies on more than style, of course. Nevertheless, I think it is more challenging to paint or write really well within classical constraints. Orwell, for instance, has not defied the "elements of style and grammar," but his prose is well-tuned, sound.

Lastly, I will have to track down some Truman Capote. I'm increasingly intrigued by the friendship between Harper Lee and Truman Capote, given that Lee seems to be influenced by Capote to pursue a writing career, that she "toiled for years" while he was successful and popular. Given that Capote seems to be the quintessential affable, social homosexual. And given that there are some nostalgic paragraphs in Mockingbird that make me think she must have loved him.

the Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time, Mark Haddon

2009-01-25T05:04:00.003-05:00

I wonder if Mark Haddon is one of those writers who write, or those who must write. I'm inclined to think the former.

I have high praise for this book. The writing is easy and approachable. The book is clear, in purpose and execution, too - it is like a very well-formulated, clearly illustrated essay. It is exactly one idea that has been completely fleshed out: everything in the book works. The plot was unexpected, unpredictable, and so the suspense is part of what makes this book such an engaging read. I did not know that the trivial scene of a dead dog would blow into such a drama. At first I doubted whether the incident was real, or a deranged figment of Christopher's imagination. I questioned the timeline. I expected it to have a different catch, really, one deeper and more psychological. I hardly thought it would be a family drama, so I can see how it makes for dramatic film material with a unique perspective. I really expected Christopher to get caught when he ran away, but I can see how well it works that he succeeded in his quest to London. I think the ending is realistic, but a little flat and "factual" after the intrigue of all the other chapters. It lacks Christopher's unique voice, and is too motivational.

This book made me reflect upon and become more deeply convinced of some things: one, that there is truth in stories. I would learn more about autism reading this, or watching its film rendition, than a thousand textbooks or an "awareness" pamphlet. Literature arouses compassion, and changes lives. And that is why I would really like to write.

Also, I can see how I'm... not autistic, but has the germs of it. I'm not truly affectionate and I'm selective about physical contact. I have trouble deciphering facial expressions (and I actually have trouble remembering faces, but that's another story.) I like logic, but I share Christopher's implicit convictions... or superstitions about signs for good and bad days. My memory is fairly remarkable, and I detest it when furniture is moved. I could not talk or eat for extended periods. My world is so delicate that very little could make me erect a wall to protect it and to shut out what hurts or frightens me.

Perhaps that is Haddon's best achievement: to make autism so accessible and easy to relate to. I'll think twice from now on about the crazy man in the subway. The prime numbers, observation (like the billboards in London - oh how nostalgic this makes me for London!), the Hound of Baskervilles book report, the lists, his Mom's spelling mistakes and the slightly awkward turns of phrase like "do sex" really make it real.

Haddon's math and logic does have flaws though, and I do nitpick. For instance, if Christopher's fear of his father and his feeling of safety are an inverse relationship, fear(constant)≠ fear(father) x safety. it would be fear(father) / safety. And Christopher says he does not like metaphors, but at the very end he describes the pain of missing his A-levels like putting a finger on the radiator. That's a metaphor. What Haddon means is that Christopher doesn't get idioms and common expressions, like "you're the apple of my eye." That's *not* a metaphor.

I find Christopher's family entirely realistic in the modern context. I think it's realistic that his Mother felt trapped by taking care of him, and envious of her husband's ease of managing him. The partner swap is maybe a little too soap-opera. And lastly, it's realistic that there is no resolution for his parents' relationship, but they do work together to ensure the best possible for Christopher.

But that's not how my family would've handled it. I'm not too conservative - over the years I've become a fan of non-traditional families (and, in all honesty, desensitized to and sympathetic of having affairs), but Christopher's family makes me sad. It troubles me how much a person has to give up to care for their child. I don't think I could ever handle such a responsibility - what a daunting thing it could be to bring a life into the world! It also troubles me that Ed showed no mercy to Judy even though they both had Christopher's best interests at heart. You'd think that, if she was his wife, if they both still love the child they brought into the world, he'd let her stay in the house. I don't know, it's not very realistic, and I'm not talking in terms of romance, but my family would have different values in this situation, and I'm ashamed to say that my rebellious ways would probably make me shirk duty (to the child and to one another), and my parents wouldn't.

And last of all, the book is a well-presented argument, but it is JUST a well-presented argument. I learned from Christopher, but I would not grow in him. That is the difference between a stand-alone piece of this sort, and a true classic like Anne, or Jane Austen, or even - I daresay - Harry Potter. And if I ever made it, I do not know what kind of writer I should prefer to be, after all.

HP3 (also HP1 and HP2)

2009-01-19T03:33:00.003-05:00

HP3 is definitely the most coherent book in the series. Everything fits. There's huballoo in the beginning over a convict, Black, amongst Muggles and wizards alike. Padfoot appears, and McGonagall's first lesson is about the Animagi. Hermione's timetable require a time turner. Hagrid's Hippogriff in the first lesson is a major part of the plot. Crookshanks and Scabbers... of course, and Ron and Hermione's fight is the natural consequence. Harry hears his parents for the first time, and the story is all about his dad's friendships. The Marauder's Map is all about his dad's friends. And everything, everything is resolved in the end.

There isn't a single extraneous element in the story. Everything works together.

To add to that, Lupin is one of JKR's best creations I think - someone who is so likeable, kind, and confident. There's a happy beginning with the sunny days in Diagon Alley, and a happy ending. Easily the most heartwarming book.

In the other books so far, I think the Dobby storyline is extraneous to HP2, and HP1 I never "get" because there's so much going on. The Dragon incident is a climax in itself, but it's not the real climax and takes away from it. The unicorn and the Forbidden Forest fiasco takes away from the climax, too, I think. HP1's ending disappoints me because Harry is simply physically saved from Quirrell by Dumbledore, and a pile of housepoints are awarded to an incident which the rest of the school hasn't even witnessed. HP1 has a strong exposition, I think, but the ending is too glossed over. HP2 is more coherent than HP1, and would be perfect if there was no Dobby - although then I guess Dobby would have to wait until Book 4.

Confessions, St. Augustine

2009-01-17T06:22:00.003-05:00

I'm reading Augustine of Hippo's Confessions, because I think it would be good for me. I have read it once before, summarily. I believe (I could be mistaken) that Augustine is considered rational by philosophers, and that his Confessions is an intellectual piece of conversion literature. I am reading it slowly, because I want to really process the somewhat dense text.

Book 1

You can imagine my surprise when the first chapter begins: "Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you."

I think a non-believer would find that difficult to relate to and presumptuous. Even I think it's quite an assumption. Augustine doesn't explain why he believes man will instinctively praise and glorify God, and will never be happy unless they worship him. Instead, he wonders if it is necessary to know God to pray to him, or if through prayer we come to know him. Yes, the methodology should be discussed, although I think it's fine either way. What surprised me was that Augustine really does accept the basic truth of Christianity from the outset and does not question it, but is seeking guidance to be a better follower, and thus to truly turn to God.

Yet as I read on, perhaps spurred by growing up in Catholic doctrine, perhaps by the events of the past few days when I wanted to openly thank God for a few good tidings in my life, I found myself agreeing with him that yes, those who find God will praise him. But if Augustine's intention is to explain and convert, I don't see how these assertions answer the purpose.

Then Augustine says that, throughout his childhood (even from infancy), he was a sinner: vain, disobedient, non-studious, given to overindulging in his own dreams and emotions. In fact, he thinks that a baby's cry is sinful, because should an adult cry for food he would be regarded as abnormal. That seems like an illogical comparison: he even acknowledges it is the norm for babies to cry and adults not to. He also claims that just as people know reading and writing is more valuable than daydreams, obedience to God is better than indulging in fantasy. Says who that literacy is worth more than imagination? Finally, he asserts throughout that his attachment to worldly things makes him sin and distances him from God. I have always struggled with this doctrine. For instance, in one section he claims that studiousness is good, in the next that his pride in his intellect is bad. Okay, I get that his intelligent makes him arrogant and unkind, but you can't blame that on worldly attachment in one chapter, and say that dreams (not academic intelligence) was worldly attachment in the last. I think Augustine is advocating some things here: humility, and restraint, two things that are not easily found in a world that values humility and self-indulgence. Well, I like the world and I find many things in it intellectually stimulating. I'd like to win my way into it. And like Augustine, I've grown up Catholic so I feel guilty about my wanton lust for everything luxury (success, romance, intellect) in life. But I can't see how it's wrong to seek success in this world that God created. This is the gap I can't leap: that it is better to be humble and content, I hate the thought of being mediocre and complacent and I'm not sure my faith can make me happy about forfeiting ambition. I know Augustine has equal trouble renouncing his self-destructive ways, so I'll see what he thinks, but I still can't see why he can so easily accept it's a sin.

HP1

2009-01-13T03:06:00.003-05:00

Upon rereading I think HP1 is more well-written than I remember. I still stand by that while I think JKR's imagination is extraordinary, her powers of description could be improved upon. The exposition, with the Dursley and their horror of anything extraordinary, is excellent. (In my opinion, easily the best part of the book and a classic way of beginning a story, although according to JKR's website it's not very popular: http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=1) Harry's life with the Dursleys is pretty unrealistic. The characterization, though, is realistic: Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all realistic people. I still think most of them are caricatures, like Jane Austen characters. I still don't understand how Harry's adventures in this first book made such a sensation, though. At around 10 years old, I would have liked the details of the story - Quidditch, dragons, owls, etc. - but I wouldn't have been very keen by the plot to find out what's being hidden in the castle. And I think Dumbledore's rescue of Harry from Quirrell is a bit of a cop-out.

2008-12-31T05:06:00.000-05:00

Out of all the books you've read this year, which was the one that:

moved you most deeply/"changed your life"?
Delta of Venus, by Anais Nin - sex has so much to do with one's psychological makeup, and Anais Nin's short stories are spot-on
The Gift of Wings, Mary Rubio - LMM's biography is probably the most disturbing books I've read this year. A human life can take so many sad turns.
The Alchemist, Paolo Cohello - I keep referring back the the lessons from this fable when I think about my own struggles and "quest" in life

made you laugh most?
Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine. It is really a charming rendition of a fairytale... Gail Carson Levine is a great storyteller.

you learned the most from?

Persepolis, by Marijane Satrapi
The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway

(both offered perspectives on political events I had never really thought about before)

you absolutely loved?
Silmarillion, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen

(there's something so satisfying about classics)

was the biggest waste of your time?
The Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier - terrible writing, cheesy.
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hossein - sorry, not a fan.
Before Green Gables, by Budge Wilson - BAD, but I guess I couldn't help reading it
Laughter in the Dark, Nabokov - just a rather unpleasant story

you are proud of yourself for finishing?
Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
Utopia, by Thomas Moore
Rememberance of Things Past v.1, by Marcel Proust
Purgatorio, Dante
Faust, Goethe

(These have been on my reading list for a very long time)

Which ones do you recommend to go on someone's "must-read" list?

Definitely Persepolis, by Marijane Satrapi. This graphic novel from a child's perspective of the war in Iran is so witty and moving.

Adam Bede, George Eliot

2008-12-07T01:10:00.000-05:00

It's a mark of how tastes have changed, that Adam Bede was popular when it was first published, but both the story and theme are hardly engaging to me. "The world of Adam Bede": farming folk and dialect, and the plot of a poor girl seduced by a rich man, is neither scandalously exciting nor profoundly moving.

But such is George Eliot's gift that I learned to become interested in the fate of the characters.

Adam: I do not know why he is the title character, and do not admire him. He is made out to be strong, earnest, handsome, truly compassionate, and good, physically and emotionally and morally. There are probably many people like him in the world, but I would not like to marry them for I find moral righteousness like his hard and binding. I feel sorry for his brother Seth, who is secondary in status and affection to him always: his long suffering mother, Lisbeth, favours Adam blatantly although Seth is very good and gentle to her, and he has to win Dinah Morris's heart. I am disappointed that Dinah married him, and eventually gave up female preaching: all throughout the novel it was so clear that she had a vocation and was fitted to it, and that she was happy in it - to have her change her heart in the final chapters is sudden and such a damper on her independent spirit. I think George Eliot wanted to show that Adam finally arrived at a woman who was fit for him, but I do not think Adam is good enough for Dinah! I am not satisfied that he is giving her a love which "sprung out of his love for Hetty, and would not violate his memory of Hetty." A second choice to a woman much inferior?

This book has the only happy ending I have read yet in George Eliot. Oh, I suppose it is not very happy: Hetty and Arthur are both punished, Arthur most of all I think, while Adam is rewarded with love and success because he was honorable. Very idealistic - and dull. I prefer the note of tragedy and unwittingly hurtful character interactions in The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch. Those characters are so much more truthful and larger-than-life. Adam and Arthur and Hetty are too unrealistically good-hearted, despite their actions.

A Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2008-11-22T21:34:00.003-05:00

This book is horrible. Nothing good ever happens in it. The story is captivatingly told (who knew that so much drama could be told so that it's plausible?) but every time you begin to like or be hopeful for a character, nothing good comes to them. If there had been one moment of triumph and not just that abject oblivion we're plunged into at the end!

I read it in one sitting, and the theme and suspense is fantastic - but it's hard to read a book where you can't like any of the characters! The only one I could relate to and really liked, and believed in, was Ursula. I can't see how Rebeca had any of Ursula's spirit at all, and when Amaranta Ursula returned I had so much hope for the Buendias family. I hate that they came to such an end, and I hate unhappy endings, and Garcia Marquez is especially talented at describing scenes of fetid horror.

I recognize the story's merit (and am charmed by GGM's talent), but UGH. "Pine woods are as real as pig sties, and a darn sight pleasanter to be in."

The Tin Flute, by Gabrielle Roy

2008-11-18T06:09:00.000-05:00

I have always loved Gabrielle Roy's writings. Her short story "The Move" was in my grade 11 reader, and I have read nearly every one of her novels since. I found that her voice was so akin to mine, that she had put into words just how I see the world.

But I had not read her most famous book, The Tin Flute, until now.

I was surprised not to find the innocent optimism, the "enchantment and sorrow" that had breathed from her other novels, at first. The conditions of St. Henri were very harsh. I did not warm to Jean Levesque or Florentine very much, nor their cruel game of love. But I was intrigued - the plot itself was already very impelling, with Florentine placing her fate in the biting Jean Levesque's hands. I was annoyed, therefore, when the focus shifted to Manuel and then to Rose-Anna -- I do not like novels with multiple narrators and main characters, because then your sympathy for the protagonist is divided.

I did not understand Florentine - who is brazen and shallow - or Manuel, who is a little like Walter Blythe of Rilla of Ingleside in that he believes in a greater good to come from the war. I could understand cynical Jean Levesque, but it was impossible to like him because he was willfully brutal. But I did sympathize with every one of them, and Rose-Anna most of all - Rose-Anna, who must be like Gabrielle Roy's mother whom her other stories focus on, like my mother who is weighed by a tendency to see tragedy everywhere. I read on, only wanting the love story of Jean and Florentine, but every chapter was a blow. I began to despair of a happy ending, and found this story of the slums of St. Henri very cruel. I was revolted that things could be so dire.

But in true Gabrielle Roy fashion, there is "borrowed happiness" (Bonheur d'Occasion) at the end.

This book made me want to write. I dreamed a whole caste of personnages representative of the society I knew. I wrote last year that I should like to write like Pasternak - but I should like even more to have a voice like Gabrielle Roy's. There are stories I know, from all my life, clamouring to be written.

Fanfiction

2008-10-28T06:34:00.002-04:00

I can't get into books lately but I'm addicted to fanfiction.

The Legacy of Terabithia by Wordsmith
Great premise, Leslie Aaron - 10-year-old daughter of Jess Aaron, famous author of Bridge to Terabithia - is sent to Lark Creek for the summer. She befriends Jamie Byrne, an imaginative, geeky boy. This story is so well written (great characterization, great plot, great descriptions (i.e. "showing not telling") and dialogue that's both natural and funny.) Leslie and Jamie's friendship fits so well. Their tweenage romance is *squeals* SO cute, and sends butterflies through my stomach - makes me relive my ten-year-old crushes and first kiss all over again. I love this and I'm already rereading chapters three hours after I read it through for the first time!

Ancient History Comes with a Helmet, Right? by orchidvines
Persuasion isn't my favourite Austen book, but I love its modernizations. I don't know who copied who, but all over fandom Anne Elliot is the jobless college graduate who doesn't know what to do with her life, and gawd I can relate to that so completely. I know people who are just as passive and nice as Anne, and this version partly convinces me how realistic Persuasion is. This version has great (if, yes, mature) language, and the story flows. I don't usually like lighthearted romance novels, but the writing style is clever, humourous and relaxing. There's a lot of character - Mary, and the younger Musgrove sister, are much more well-drawn out than in JA's version, and I love the personality she gave Sophie Croft. Karen Harville is a sweetie and just the friend Anne needs, and I would love to hang out on a beach with this crowd - bashing Danielle Steele and observing Fred / Anne tension, etc.

TOMORROW
I read rubygillis's TOMORROW in one sitting - all 50 odd chapters. It is so perfect a sequel to Gone With the Wind. She captured the spirit, the dialogue and atmosphere, and the southern belle dilemma perfectly. The pairings are perfectly satisfying for the demands of a fanfiction fan. And the plot is original and gripping, fresh, inspired, complex. She is an excellent plot-artist.

Snape Split
Completely original, and simply hilarious. This author's White Out and its sequel are also easily the best HP fanfiction I've read. Her writing style is impeccable, characters spot-on, and there's depth and thought in the plot.

Survival, Margaret Atwood

2008-10-07T23:19:00.001-04:00

This book depressed me in its beginning- like the narrator, I was embarrassed by her trip and the shallow lives of the company she kept. As the story progressed I saw themes common to all Margaret Atwood's books. But the daring and controversial plot was absent, this was only rural Quebec and the maudlin problems of two couples.

Fasut, Goethe

2008-10-07T23:18:00.000-04:00

What a fantastic world I have been thrown into in this play - all the tiers of hells, all the mythological creatures. I should love to see it performed.

Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

2008-10-07T23:16:00.000-04:00

I have been reading Mansfield Park and it is so delightful. It has given me more pleasure than anything else in my past weeks. Fanny Price is the character I should have written for my Dora - half caricature, but so well developed and so convincing in her emotions that I do not know if I want her feelings, or Edmund's, to prevail. She is the only Austen heroine we meet as a child, and it is easier to form an attachment to a younger heroine. I can hear her, as I can hear Mary Crawford's banter off the pages - though I do wonder at how the people of the Regency amused themselves, pacing idly about drawing rooms hours on end, and how Jane Austen is so decided in her judgement of characters as "ill" or "selfish." Is there no room for redemption, do people never change?

I finished it in a sitting, thrilled that every time I turned the page the story had not ended yet. My only regret is that the denouement happened too quickly. I would like to know "just when, and not a week earlier or later" Edmund finally made his professions of love to Fanny.

The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway

2008-08-28T02:41:00.001-04:00

read it today and "liked" it... liked the loose, abstract writing style and the questions of morality raised, i guess. arrow is the most fascinating character in the story by far; not sure if i really "get" the point of dragan and kenan. actually, i tended to mix them up. i thought dragan's encounter with his wife's friend, was very well done; and the pessimist/optimist joke stands out: "a pessimist believes things can't get any worse, an optimist believes things can always get worst."

Looking for Anne, Irene Gammel

2008-08-28T02:39:00.001-04:00

I read this today, and it's very good, well-researched, fascinating. It pieces together bits of LMM's life from her journals and letters, the books she read and the magazines published around the time Green Gables was being written, searching for clues of what inspired Anne. I like how there are no direct implications that any character was based on a specific person, or that any incident was actually drawn from life - but rather an amalgamation of people and events in LMM's life, and there is a lot to do with the subconscious; for instance, names in the Anne books suggest other literary works. Green Gables suggests Hawthorne's The House of Seven Gables (which LMM read), and a short story in a contemporary magazine (which LMM might or might not have read) where the heroine goes to live at "Gray Gables." It's not that LMM was directly inspired by these books, but their influence may have filtered into the fabric of the novel. Two magazine stories published a few years before Anne featured orphans named "Ann" who are similar to Anne Shirley, one with a knack for taking care of babies, the other with red hair and freckles.

I also find myself a lot like LMM as Irene Gammel describes her. Shy, soft-spoken, and self-critical - LMM is not at all like chatterbox Anne, neither in appearance nor personality, and Anne perhaps resembles some of her enemies (a redheaded boy) and ex-lovers(a very talkative man)! LMM has a photographic memory, is proud and snobby, isn't always "nice" despite her petite and feminine aspect. She reconstructs and manipulates her relationships and memories. This book is a fascinating psychological portrait (of a fascinating subject).

The Leaving, Budge Wilson

2008-08-22T00:12:00.001-04:00

i read the first story, "The Metaphor" today and it's very well written. The writing style is precise, the characters intriguing, and there is just the right amount of pathos. The story is complex, "deep", and engaging. Every paragraph was significant and an integral part of the plot. The story was very charged; it did not lag for a minute. I really loved it.

All the same, I wonder why Wilson was asked to do the Anne prequel. Her world-view and themes aren't really LMM-like. I can see how her style translates into Before Green Gables - there are well-described but not particularly loveable characters like the narrator's mom; and even Ms. Hancock is exaggerated. I thought the narrator's remark that her father "was not a very original man" was pretty harsh for a 13 year old. It reminded me of when Mrs. Thomas's parents said she wasn't very pretty and needed to be married off soon. I've just never found sentiments like that, written so bluntly, in LMM.

"The Diary" seems more LMM-ish... the diary format and the meek wife who's always lived under her father/husband's thumb shows up in LMM stories. Allison's finally standing up for herself is LMM-like, too.

"Mr. Manuel Jenkins" is a good story, and Mr. Jenkins reminded me a little of Mr. Tillytuck in Mistress Pat. A good story, although LMM stories are again open-ended.

"Lysandra's Poem" starts with an evocation of the sea... which is sort of LMM-ish, because it shows that the climate is a large part of maritime life, but the description is in no way as beautiful as LMM's. This story is the first one that doesn't deal with mother-daughter relationships; instead, it's a very realistic story of a best-friendship gone sour, and it's something so morbid you'd probably read it in LMM's later works, like The Blythes are Quoted/The Road to Yesterday. I could also see Margaret Atwood taking on a similar plotline.

"My Mother and Father" - I rather really like this story. The mother in this story is the most motherly of all the mothers described so far, and it's not as harsh as all the other stories where there is anger directed towards someone, usually the cold/uncaring mother. The only person at fault in this story is the narrator herself, and there is a happy ending.

I just finished it, and I really liked every story.

"The Leaving" is good, abstract, and unexpected.

"My Cousin Clarette" reminds me a little of Gwendolyn Lesley in Magic for Marigold. I understand completely what Victoria is going through, and have felt that way about visitors in my adolescence. The ending is morbid, though: but I can see a teen "liking" the depth and melancholia of it

"The Reunion" is one of my favourite stories in this volume. Once again, it has the atmosphere of something I might read in "The Road to Yesterday/ The Blythes are Quoted," only it's far more well-written than LMM's later work. I like this story because it makes me think of Love in the Time of Cholera, and it has a sweet, triumphant ending.

"Waiting" has very realistic characters. In this story, Juliette is an overachiever (whom I can especially relate to) and her twin sister is very meek. I have seen twins and best-friendships where one leads and the other submits. I thought Juliette's scorn was a little overdrawn, though: I can't imagine anyone being so harsh about someone they love. And so callow and self-righteous about their own cruelty and hypocrisy. Here is a quote, italics mine.

(Juliette is the lead actress, director of their play, and Henrietta helps out backstage)

"She did a truly good job, and if it weren't for the fact that I can't stand conceited people, I probably would even have told her so... I didn't want her strutting around looking proud of herself and putting on airs. One time one fo the kids said, "Hey, Henrietta, that's a really great royal bedroom you made,".... I hate that kind of thing, and I knew the others wouldn't like it either. So I said, "Oh, sure! And the king must have just lost his kingdom in the wars. Who ever head of a king sleeping on a pile of branches or having an old torn distowel at the window? Some king!" And everyone laughed. I always think that laughter is very important. It makes everyone happy right away, and is a good way to ease tensions"

I feel like the irony's too obvious and Juliette's self-assuredness was exaggerated.

"Be-ers and Do-ers" once again deal with a demanding mother and a peaceful father, who love each other very much although the mother nags relentlessly. This family dynamic reminds me of ones I know in real-life.

"The Pen-Pal" has a very humourous twist ending; I love the diary/correspondence format, the small teenage problems are very LMM, and I can relate to the narrator completely. The twist ending is the best display of humour I've seen in the whole volume, which deals with rather serious, troubling issues (and has a sombre tone). I wish there were more stories like this one - which talk about growing up, but are lighthearted and comical (in the sense that the narrator laughs at herself, and without bitterness.)

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine

2008-05-23T21:07:00.002-04:00

I was a little ashamed when I picked up this book - anticipating something cheesy and popularized. The quote from Sharon Creech on the back of the book bolstered my faith a little. I started reading and was completely engrossed. I didn't even realize it was a fairytale of Cinderella until the second chapter. The characters are so aptly named, names I've always disliked for evil characters and ones that sound beautiful for the good. There is just the right mixture of romance, adventure, and plot twists. The castle/glass slipper scene makes me sigh. I love Ella, I love Mandy, and Ella's self-conflicts are just right for a teenage novel. Ella is your classic natural-witty-human-princess (Princess Diana-ish) heroine. I wasn't too satisfied with the description of how Ella overcame her curse. All in all it's a lovely little story.

Mama's Going to Buy You a Mockingbird

2008-05-11T14:39:00.002-04:00

Jeremy Talbot is an amazingly sensitive and perceptive sixth-grade boys. I'm not sure why they seem to exist in fiction and rarely in real life.

Jean Little's tone is very different from C. S. Lewis - of course. But it's another very well written book! This one plunges right into sadness and never truly lifts from it... the ending is almost too altruistic.

But Jeremy's relationship with his sister is a very convincing one for a boy of his age. The Talbot family's relationships are very well rendered. Tess 'the outsider' is stereotypical of the ... Newberry award fiction of the 90s. seriously! I appreciated the reference to Gilly Hopkins. I didn't know Mockingbird was published after that.

And I have no idea why it's entitled "Mockingbird."

The Horse and His Boy, C. S. Lewis

2008-05-10T12:02:00.004-04:00

I like this story - it's very well told. C. S. Lewis's writing isn't lyrical, but very narrative - I think it's best read aloud. Shasta and Aravis (and Bree and Hwin) are lovable creatures who change and grow within a story. Lewis conveys Christianity very well - Shasta's moment in the mountains, with the voice of the lion is a powerful scene. And the way Aslan talks - never does he really speak in a Biblical way, but the reverence and awe is achieved nonetheless. I wonder what Aravis's father ever did about her. The invovlement of Lucy et. co. was very satisfactory - neither too much nor too little. and I wonder if all children become royalty in the Narnia books.

Before Green Gables, Budge Wilson

2008-04-28T11:34:00.003-04:00

Disclaimer: I'm prejudiced against the premise of this story. I don't think an "official prequel" should have been sanctioned and I tremble lest people will henceforth consider it part of the LMM canon.

But I read Wilson's book as judiciously as I could. I believe she writes well - her sentences are well formed. I write rather like her - precise, piercing. I agree that it's not necessary to imitate Montgomery. And yet her writing reads rather dry. I should never want to write like that.

Wilson's caste of characters add dramatic interest, but I find them very two-dimensional. Do good, well-meaning, semi-genteel parents ever sum up their only daughter as Mrs. Thomas's did? "With her looks, she won't last, let's marry her off." Mr. Thomas, Eliza, Jessie, The Egg Man are all archetypes - they each have their own plotline but there's little insight into how they change and grow, and little divine justice for their actions.

Montgomery writing is replete with mathematical errors, but I have a harder time condoning Wilson's logical inconsistencies. Why didn't Mrs. Thomas give Anne to Jessie when her husband died? Why didn't the Egg Man and Miss Henderson adopt her? Why does Anne hate her hair if Mrs. Archibald praised her for her beautiful red hair? If Anne was so loved by Eliza, why did she never talk about her to Marilla?

Overall, I had a hard time holding my interest in this book. It was too long and too consistently doleful. I cannot imagine myself reading it if it weren't for the Anne connection. I especially wouldn't have enjoyed it as a young adult.

Persepolis, Marijane Satrapi

2008-04-28T11:08:00.002-04:00

i love Marijane - the vividness of her childhood memories make me want to tap into my own. I was a child like her, blunt, imaginative, inquisitive. The book awakes that old desire to rewrite my memoirs, childhood memories remembered photographically, with poignant social-political implications.

yeah.

The ending - I want to know what next in Marijane's life. I like that the return wasn't the answer, as I don't believe it always was... but there are idealisitc overtones in Marijane's mother's prediction that she won't be back. Did she ever go back?

Once Upon a Time in the North

2008-04-28T10:56:00.002-04:00

I love Lee Scoresby - how much like Lyra he is! and York Burningson! fantastic.

But I daresay Pullman has stopped writing books. This is a commercial product, with its antique cover, pictures, and a pull-out board game.

And of course, spread out your short stories in separate collector's volumes. Why make an anthology?

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

2008-04-12T09:06:00.002-04:00

what i loved:> the history; i didn't know much about what life was like under the Soviet Rule and/or prior to the Taliban; i've only ever been exposed to post 9-11 war-on-terrorism Taliban outrage. all very interesting because it's current history; titanic from a different perspective, etc.

what i disliked:

the hollywood ending. GRRR. did they really have to find a bag of money?

plus the implications that - what - reconstruction is only possible if you have a pile of gold stashed away for your somewhere? i'm sure the overthrow of the taliban doesn't mean a happily-ever-after ending, and not that i want to read anymore hardships, i'm glad the love story of laila and taliq worked out, but this just seems too easy.

Jalil and Rajeed are both very 2-dimensional characters; Jalil especially - his repentence at the end just doesn't sound very convincing and sounds very soap-opera-sy. Rajeed is too consistently cruel.

I don't get Aziza's stutter and "t"'s - what is that about?

it's moving alright but rather gruelling to read.

Mistress Pat

2008-02-24T19:40:00.003-05:00

"I know." Rae squeezed Pat's hand. "And I know it must all seem like indecent haste to you. But if you count time by heart-throbs as somebody says you should, it's been a century since I met him. He isn't a stranger. He's one of our kind . . . like Hilary . . . knows all our quacks, really he does. You'll understand when you meet him, Pat."

Pat did understand. She couldn't find a single fault with Brook Hamilton. As a brother-in-law he was everything that could be desired. Tall, lean, with intensely blue eyes and straight black brows. Certainly he and Rae made a wonderful-looking young pair in spite of his "rather ugly" face. She couldn't hate him as she had hated Frank, even if he were going to take her sister away. But, mercifully, not for a long time yet. And there was no doubt that Rae loved him.

---

It is true - there are certain types of people you can feel irritated by, despite the fact the they're nice people. There are others whom you know from sight, that they are "your kind."

Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell

2008-02-11T18:43:00.002-05:00

I am enamoured by writers on writing.

Maybe this explains

pg. 4

(George Orwell's four great motives for writing)

1) Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after your death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc. etc. It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition - in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sens of being individuals at all - and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong to this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.

pg. 149

Contrary to popular belief, the past was not more eventful than the present. If it seems so it is because when you look back things that happened years apart are telescoped together, and because very few of your memories come to you genuinely virgin. It is largely because of the books, films and reminiscences that have come between that the war of 1914-18 is now supposed to have had some tremendous, epic quality that the present lacks.

pg. 241

Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London... There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mie radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a half-penny of rent.

... But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured. Down in the sqaure the sooty privets have turned bright green, the leaves are thickening on the chestnut trees, htet daffodils are out, the wallflowers are budding, the policeman's tunic looks positively a pleasant shade of blue, the fishmonger greets his customers with a smile, and even the sparrows are quite a different colour, having felt the balminess of the air and nerved themselves to take a bath, their frist since last September.

pg. 346

I have not enough animosity left to make me hope that Flip and Sambo are dead or that the sotry of the school being burnt down was true.

----

Orwell is a very - opionated man, mured in his belief that people (he himself included) are hypocrites. Age certainly did not mellw his bitterness with humanity. He must have been trying - unpleasant - conflicted to live with. Extremely interesting to converse with.

Maybe his most successful story deals with animals in allegory, because his political views and cynicism is so - witty and unpalatable.

The Alchemist, Paolo Coello

2008-02-05T07:05:00.000-05:00

I can't help but think how ordinary and captivating this story is. Am I on my personal quest? Am I on the verge of giving up? Will I find love, unexpectedly, love that will then wait for me?

Delta of Venus, Anais Nin

2008-01-30T04:47:00.000-05:00

"And you can be Henry Miller, and I'll be, Anais Nin
But this time it'll be even better we'll stay together in the end
Come on darling, let's go back to bed."

Jewel's Pieces of You was my first CD, and still an enduring favourite. I've wanted to read Anais Nin, because of her ringing name, her cameo in my favourite song, and the imminent separation.

Erotica aside, Anais Nin writes with such clarity. Her sentences are precise. Nin speaks of creating a "female sexual language," whatever the stereotypes, her language is scientific, psychologic, more than flourid or sensual. Fetishes are the main subject matter: but there is a plot to the stories that is not merely coincidential to lucid details. Events progress because of someone's sexual desires.

What marked my own maturity this year was the awareness, by hearsay, of people's sex lives. My desire to be a write had for a long time been accompanied by some vague notion that it required a bohemian lifestyle, a familiarity with the nuances of casual sex, the intimate knowledge of an enigmatic other? I think Anais Nin illustrates that casual sex is not merely a lifestyle imbued with glamour. I think her characters' sexual fantasies are a... key to their character. One's sexual comportment has so much to do with how s/he perceives him/herself.

how true this is of first loves:

When she first met him they were mere children ... Miguel had been drawn to Elena magnetically, following her like a shadow, listening to her every word, owrds no one could hear, her voice so small and transparent. ... a romantic attachment, in which each one used the other as the embodiment of the legend or story or novel they had read. Elena was every heroine; Miguel was every hero.

When they met, they were enveloped in so much unreality that they could not touch each other. They did not even hold hands. They were exalted in each other's presence, they soared together, they were moved by the same sensations. - pg. 81

Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence

2008-01-30T04:41:00.000-05:00

It is just by accident that I'm reading this simultaneously with Anais Nin. Anais Nin has great veneration for Lawrence, and of course we have the inevitable comparison between male/female depictions of sexuality. But all I can draw is that Lawrence uses mythic language like "loins."

Otherwise Lawrence's novel... is exactly the sort of psychoanalytical, philosophical treatise (where characters converse in grand discussions) that I'm wont to write, but is fairly dry to read. I'm confused on his whole take on bisexuality. I may research it. I'm also surprised at the choice of female names - are Gudrun, Ursula, and Hermione typical midland English?

The Silmarillion, Tolkien

2008-01-30T04:20:00.000-05:00

I think I like this book more than LOTR. I don't think its appeal is as wide as the trilogy, which has both comic appeal (hobbits) and epic language (men, elves). As I wrapped up RoTK over Christmas, pouring delightedly over the appendices, my dad asked " so where did sauron come from?" Of course - the question had never crossed my mind - in novels, as in our very existence in this world, we inherit a given world full of mythology, traditions with forgotten origins, a history grander than ourselves. It was AAragorn's veneration for the mysterious traditions, and his equally... intuitive?... knowledge of them that made half the magic of the book. As for the rest, my perspective was as limited as the hobbits.

I read that Tolkien crafted the myths of the Silmarillion, working prior to and simultaneously on the other Middle Earth stories, partly because so many questions were left unanswered by LOTR. The Silmarillon (which I understand were later compiled by his son) begins with a Biblical creation story, told with artistic license; and an imminent Paradise Lost. That and the hubris of all creation sets a thread of good vs. evil, inescapable curses, that bind all the stories of Tolkienverse history. The language is archaic, "biblical," regurgitative, the place and character names sonorous. (There are also more females in these stories than in LOTR!) Somehow - I would rather not write like Tolkien; I can mimic it almost addictively but it MUST be an art that takes only a genius to master - only be appropriate to original subject matter - anyway its mimicry is a dangerous art.

And then to compare Tolkien's view of history to Tolstoy!

The Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier

2008-01-30T04:07:00.000-05:00

My first book of the year - and a friend's favourite novel. "Tell me what you read, and I will tell you what you are." Knowing that a book is beloved by someone makes every page of it sear with their personality.

Griet is a well-illustrated, believable character: her methodology in all her tasks and in dealign with people, and process of mind makes her so. The girls she associates with, especially Tanneke, are also vivid. But static. Villains are villains, the virulent is inexorable, Maria Thins is a fairy god mother. I think this is where the discord lies between my writing style and my friend's - her attention to detail lies in the human, mine in some sense of larger cosmic meaning. My favourite authors (Dickens, Eliot, Gabrielle Roy), no matter their realistic subject matter, bring their psychoanalysis to a revelation of human life and history. For me anyways, "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" is just a good story.

Booklist 2008

2008-01-01T09:34:00.017-05:00

The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien
Women in Love, D. H. Lawrence
Delta of Venus, Anais Nin
Puck of Pook's Hill, Rudyard Kipling
Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
Invisible Man, Ralph Elliot
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
*The Story Girl, L. M. Montgomery
*Magic for Marigold, L. M. Montgomery
*The Blue Castle, L. M. Montgomery
Shooting an Elephant, George Orwell
Remembrance of Things Past, Book 2, Marcel Proust
Demian, Herman Hesse
*Mistress Pat, L. M. Montgomery
*Rilla of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery
Le temps , ce grand sculpteur, Marguerite Yourcenar
*A Tangled Web, L. M. Montgomery
*Anne of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery
Utopia, Thomas Moore
The Duel, Anton Chekhov
The Parasites, Daphne du Maurier
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
Once Upon a Time in the North, Philip Pullman
Before Green Gables, Budge Wilson
The Flight of the Falcon, Daphne du Maurier
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
Othello, William Shakespeare
The Horse and His Boy, C. S. Lewis
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
The Magicians Nephew, C. S. Lewis
All that is Solid Turns Into Air, Marshall Berman
The Leaving, Budge Wilson
The Cellist of Sarajevo, Steven Galloway
Looking for Anne, Irene Gammel
Persuasion, Jane Austen
Faust, Goethe
Kamera Oskura, Nabokov
Purgatorio, Dante
Six Memos for the Millennium, Italo Calvino
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
Heroides, Ovid
How to Travel with a Salmon, Umberto Eco
Fire, Anais Nin
* Anne's House of Dreams, Montgomery
* The Story Girl, Montgomery
* The Golden Road, Montgomery
* Rainbow Valley, Montgomery
Magic Island, Elizabeth Waterston
Survival, Margaret Atwood
The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy
The Gift of Wings, Mary Henley Rubio
The Cashier/Alexandre Chenevert, Gabrielle Roy
Adam Bede, George Eliot
A Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
* HP7, JK Rowling

* signifies reread
italics signify non-fiction

Dr. Zhivago, Pasternak

2007-12-28T17:50:00.000-05:00

If there was a writing style I should like to emulate, it is Pasternak's. I don't know what it takes to be a writer like him - political strife, disillusion, poverty, sexual passion - but I admire his writing style exceedingly.

The intro by John Bayley of Oxford notes the unconventional form, and poetry, of Pasternak. The poetry refers to the material richness of the descriptions, the mesmerizing everyday details. "This is Pasternak's remarkable power of conveying the wonderful oddity of objects which is the life force of his poems..." The unconventional form is the somewhat chaotic rythmn of the novel, the fairy-tale abruptness with which events occur and people appear.

The lyricism of the prose, and the zeitgeist (the temporality but richness of life?) resonates with Michael Ondaatje's The Skin of a Lion.

When I read Lord of the Rings a week ago, I loved the epic form, the archaic turn of phrase, and how multiple characters and viewpoints are handled. It struck me how personal an epic can be - the greatest events are handled from the viewpoint of a bystander, recounted by someone, instead of being narrated directly. But sometimes Tolkien delved into the personal emotions of a hero, as well as of a more common (but nonetheless heroic) character.

All the same, in the grandeur of the world the narrative voice seems removed in an epic as such.

I read somewhere C. S. Lewis conceived of his stories in terms of plot, and the characters were mere pawns by means to achieve this end. I tend to generalize that to the fantasy genre in general. In a bildungsroman, however, I've often felt that the plot is only occasion for a character to breathe and have their being in; it's the character that matters.

I like the epic scale of Dr. Zhivago - it assumes "the dimensions of a national myth" , has that wonderful coincidential cast of characters- but it remains Zhivago's story.

---

As for Zhivago himself - have I ever met anyone like him? Intelligent, introspective, with a circle of friendly acquaintances despite his ineptitude for common life - he is idealistic and perhaps he is so absorbed in his ideals that he deteriorates. What makes him attractive to Lara, to Marina? What makes him love Lara with no wholehearted contrition, or dimunition of love for Tonia? Women are attracted to that introspective type - perhaps with a maternal desire for someone to care for, perhaps their unkemptness is coloured with romance.

And is sexual passion essential to intelligentsia?

The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisnero

2007-12-27T02:25:00.001-05:00

I found the novella in my mother's laundry room and fell to reading it, more shamelessly to fulfill my "read 52 books a year" quota than anything else. But I picked it up because I've heard the title long ago, and was intrigued.

It's a candid telling of childhood poverty, coming of age, tragic and comic characters, in the same era and social setting of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. (So much of it must resonate with my mom's childhood.) The chapters pages are brief as poems, each a tribute to a character or incident.

The author is of course hispanic, and falls into the category of "writing what we know." Will I, too, write what I know? Will my stories (which lately have been developing along the lines of character sketches, of tragic and the burden of parentage and immigraion) be a social product too?

Kilmeny of the Orchard, L. M. Montgomery

2007-12-27T02:20:00.000-05:00

Upon re-reading (I love my LMM's so well, that most of her novels I have reread countless times) I find that Kilmeny is underrated. The characters are original: they vary from the LMM formula. Robert Williamson, the gossip of Lindsay, for example, is a man, a rare choice for Montgomery; and a defiance against stereotypes. His wife, on the contrary, holds her counsel. Thomas Gordon is reserved, stoic, but intellectual- he can be fired up by discussion. There's a very conventional but colourful flavour to teh way Eric's father talks. Eric is a good depiction of a charming young man. I know (or holds someone on a pedestal by fancy, esteems) people like that: genuine, truly charismatic.

The plot holds, and it's a story well-told.

Tales of Edgar Allan Poe

2007-12-27T02:14:00.000-05:00

The flyleaf bookcover writes that Edgar Allan Poe is the father of short stories. The tales, though I have long known and thrilled to some of their very names - the Tell-Tale Heart, the Masque of the Red Death, the Cask of Amontillado - aren't as delightfully engaging as classics sometimes are. The turn of phrase sometimes chimes with my very soul in Dickens or Tolkien.

Poe's stories make me wonder if a short story isn't really an essay, illustrated with a fictional incident. There is a thesis on human psychology preambling every tale.

The prose - constant prose, verging towards stream of consciousness, little dialogue - gets very tedious at times.

I thought I would delight in a good volume of ghost stories, but I struggled to stay focused on them.

Middlemarch, George Eliot

2007-06-30T15:35:00.002-04:00

I finished Middlemarch awhile ago. It affected me so much that I have not been able to accurately review it. I have thought about it much, and dreamed of discussing it with my mom. It is one of the most accurate and incredible portrayals of human life I have read; like many classics, I find it to be true.

to quote more of its genius:

Life would be no better than candle-light tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits were not touched by what has been, to issues of longing and constancy. 570

We must not inquire too curiously into motives. Miss brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in the utteranace: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must kept the germinating grain away from the light. 17

Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retinaed very childlike ideas about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted... any of those great men whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed uncertainty - how could he affect her as a lover? -5

Since they could remember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the attitude of Celia's mind towards her elder sister. The younger had always worn a yoke; but is there any yoked creature without its private opinions? 10

There are characters who are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in drams which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilitis will clash against objcets that remain innocently quiet. 200

Scenes which make vital changes in our neighbour's lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of the unity which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness. 342

our good depends on the quality and breath of our emotion; and toWill, a creature who cared little for what are caleld hte solid things of life and greatly for its subtler influences, to have within him such a feeling as he had towards Dorothea, was like the inheritance of a fortune. What others might have called the futility of his passion, made an additional delight for his imagination: he was concsious of a generous movement, and of verifying in his own experience that higher love-poetry which had charmed his fancy.

I like Mary best out of all the characters, for her imperfectness of character (upon meeting her, don't we know she is surly because of her plainness, but compensatingly endowed with a clever tongue and good humour?) in her fidelity are traces of my heart:

It has taken such deep root in me - my gratitude to him for always loving me best, and minding so much if I hurt myself, from the time when we were very little. I cannot imagine any new feeling coming to make that weaker. 550

If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions ,partings and resolves are the last of their kind. Each crisis seems final, simply because it is new.

I could never relate truly to Dorothea's passion for Will, though, who seems lacklustre, mediocre, what our society calls a "loser" and theirs a "vagabond."

I like Mary's father Caleb, too, who is generously good, who manages to convince others of their folly in a simple, logical way. (re: Railroad fight scene.)

When a tender affection has been storing itself in us through many of our years, the idea that we could accept any exchange for it seems to be a cheapening of our lives. and we can set a watch over our affections and our constancy as we can over other treasures.

I find Lydgate and Rosamond's marriage very tragic and realistic. In the young and charismatic doctor Lydgate's sacrifice of anything, even manlly pride, and ambition, for domestic comfort, I understand how some men are unerringly tender towards their wives. The inevitable softening comes because it must.

His marraige would be a mere piece of bitter irony if they could not go on loving eachother. ... His wife had a hold on his heart, and it was his intense desire that the hold should remain strong. In marriage, the certainty, 'She will never love me much' is easier to bear than the fear, 'I shall love her no more.' Hence, after that outburst, his inward effort was entirely to excuse her, and to blame the hard cicumstances which were partly his fault. He tried that evening, by petting her, to heal the wound he had made in the morning, and it was not in Rosamond's nature to be repellent or sulky; indeed, she welcomed the signs that her husbnad loved her and was under control. But this was something quite distinct from loving him.

Rosamond's depiction is very accurate too - there are women like her, whose smallest words and expressions bring others to blame and make them yield to her. In a thought-out, but not malicious way.

It is a terrible moment in young lives when the closeness of love's bond has turned into this power of galling.

He had begun to have an alarmed foresight of her irevocable loss of love for him, nad he consquent drearines of their life. The ready fullness of his emotions made this dread alternate quickly with the first violent mvements of his anger.

His mariage... if it were not to be a yoked loneliness, must be a state of effort to go on loving without too much care about being loved...

The affair of Raggles' sinister information, which brings about the catastrophe of the novel is a little overblown and unrealistic. But its effects are accurately drawn enough.

Everybody liked better to conjecture how the thing was, than simply to know it, for conjecture soon became more confident than knwoledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the incompatible.

Dorothea's impetuous generosity is made of this:
Some of her intensest experience in the last tow years had set her mind strongly in oppostition to any unfavourable constructions of others... she disliked this cautious weighing of consequences, instead of an ardent faith in justice and mercy, which would conquer by their emotional force.

more of Tertius (what a horrible name) and Rosamond:

"Even this trouble, like the rest, she seemed to regard as if it were hers alone. He was always to her a being aprt, doing what she objected to.... For he had almost learned the lesson that he must bend himself to her nature, and that because she came short in her sympathy, he must give the more."

Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life - the life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it - can understand the greif of one who falls from that serene activity into absorbing soulwasting struggle with worldly annoyances.

When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech - one does not at least hear how inadequate the words are."

I liked the ending about Mary and Fred's successes, each being attributed to the other.

There is really an odd reversal of foturnes in this story - Fred irresponsible, finally successful, Lydgate having always seen himself as sold out. I liked the portrait of how the Bulstrode dealt with their tragedy, too, but neither acknowledging the crime. That is how soem people work.

He burst out crying and they cried together... his confession was silent, and her promise of faithfulness was silent. Openminded as she was, she nevertheless shrank from the words which would have expressed their mutual consciousness as she would have shrunk from flakes of fire. She could not say, "how much is only slander and false suspicion?" and he did not say, "I am innocent.

I think it is one of my favourite books.

Vanity Fair, William Thackeray

2007-06-30T15:35:00.001-04:00

I just finished "Thackeray's masterpiece." - and liked it. I tried to read it years ago and ran short of time. I don't think I would have liked it at seventeen... like Middlemarch, it is a "classic for adults."

I would have thought Becky evil incarnate years ago, perhaps. But I admire her Becky and almost wish for her success. We wish for Dobbin's success, too, we want a happy ending and are satisfied! Becky is not subdued but remains as intriguing as she ever was. Sometimes you are inclined to pity her for being an orphan. You wonder in what way of life can she otherwise find happiness. I find that in her I get a glimpse of people who are "too pretty and clever for their own good" - people who strive to please, and succeed.

quotes:
The best of women are hypocrites. We don't know how much they hide from us: how watchful they are when they seem most artless and confidentaial, how often those frank smiles, which they wear so easily, are traps to cajole or elude or disarm - I don't mean in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models ,and paragons of female virtue. Who has not seen a woman dhide the dulness of a stupid husband, or coax the fury of a savage one? We accept this amiable slavishness, and praise a woman for it: we call this pretty treachery truth. 137

By humbly and frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no knowing, my son, what good you may do. I knew once a gentleman and very worthy practitioner in vanity fair, who used to do little wrongs to his heighbours on prupose, and in order ot apologise for them in an open and manly way afterwrads - and what ensued? My friend Crocky Doyle was like everywhere, andd eemed to be rather impetuous but the honestest fellow. 179

As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husbnad had nothing but to link each other's arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect frution. (But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxioulsy back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from teh other distant shore. 216

I really like the picture (how sad, stirring, bitter) of Rawdon's departure to battle:

Faithful to his old plan of economy, the Captain dressed himself in his oldest and shabbiest of uniform and epaulets, leaving the newest behind his wife's 9or it might be his widow's) guardinaship. And this famous dandy of Windsor and hyped Park went off on his campaign with a kit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with something like a prayer on his lips for the woman he was leaving. He took her up from the ground, and held her in his arms for a minute, tight pressed aginast his strong-beating heart. his face was purple and his eyes dim, as he put her down and left her.

concerning Geroge's burial:
Which of us can tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for others, and how selfish our love is?

I think the tale is a very clever one of reversals and opposites. Rebecca goes from poverty to wealth by din of her wits, Amelia from wealth to poverty for too gentle affection. Rebecca does not love her husband, who is devoted to her; Amelia adores her too much for her own good. Ditto for the sons. Amelia ruins her husband, but Becky makes hers' fortune.

I think Dobbin's move at the end was very wise. Even though I am a patron of fidelity and tragic love, I wanted Amelia to be happy, I wanted Dobbin (who is endeared to me by his awkwardness) to finally gain his long endeavoured prize.

And how like Rebecca to be involved in the blackest, most intriguing scandal! She triumphs to the end.

It's a jolly comedy.

My Name is Anne, she said, Anne Frank by Jacqueline van Maarsen

2007-06-30T15:31:00.000-04:00

The memoir lay on a display table at Waterstones and I don't know I picked it up merely because it was simple to read. No - although it was a short book that I knew I would champion in the course of a few stolen evening's peaking - it was the fly-leaf synopsis describing Jacqueline van Maarsen's survival because her french mother managed to unlist her from being a jew, that intrigued me.

I have never read Anne Frank's diary, though I have read fragments. Jacqueline's memoirs were fascinating. I liked from the beginning the descriptions of Jacqueline's mother Eline and her triumphs in the fashion industry. I liked the explanations given for everything, like Eline's decision to pursue fashion in defiance of her unfaithful father, or her desire to have children to console her parents for a lost grandchild.

I liked Jacqueline because she was artistic, and often her descriptions diverted to descriptions of art nouveau art and architecture. I liked that they lived on a street of flourishing new young families, involved in art and music.

When Anne entered the scene, her friendship immediately reminded me of my friends CE's. How friendships where the best friends are utter opposites have always bewildered me! Jacqueline writes: " We were complete opposites, but we were kindred souls." Jacqueline admired Anne for being bubbly, spirited, extraverted and full of zest for life. On the contrary, I sympathized and felt for Jacqueline who suffered under Anne's tyrrany. Anne was jealous of Jacque's other friends, writing slanderingly of them in her diary. Anne seemed very possessive and "full of herself" to me. Just the other day, though, my roommate mentioned how she liked a certain bold coworker of hers "because I'm not like that." And Jacque suffered from loneliness at her new school, withdrawn because after her intimacy with Anne other friendships were hard to come by.

I even mourned for her how she would never have suffered if her mother had had her unlisted as a jew from the beginning of the war. I mourned the secret correspondence Anne proposed, that was never realized.

It surprised me how short the period of their friendship was - only a year in their 12th or 13th spring. And yet its poignancy endured for a lifetime, Jacque is an old woman now. I wonder who she finally married. I liked that the theme of the book was really her parents marriage, the mariage of the french lady and her dutch jewish husband, and that the memoir primarily pays tribute to Jacque's family. Her sister, I suppose, is mentioned only in passing for privacy reasons.

The book affected me, and I already like Anne's friend better than Anne herself.

The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood

2007-06-09T17:37:00.000-04:00

I hadn't known that Margaret Atwood had a "new" book.

So I walked to the next nearest library (it was signed out at the nearest) to fetch it. The cover illustrations by nina chakrabarti really half enticed me to hold a copy of the novel.

It was an enjoyable read. Typical Margaret Atwood witticism and subversive feminine perspective of a male world. Penelope was a believable character whose logic and "unprettiness" I could relate to. But she was a bit of a wimp... you wonder if the maids' farcical version didn't have some truth in it. After all, Penelope does claim to be a liar.

The mock anthropology at the end (also very typical Margaret Atwood) made me laugh.

The real problem with the novel is that it doesn't have "enough meat". We fly through years of Penelope's life and nothing remarkable happens... but more importantly, we learn nothing more of her. She is an unchanging creature. At thirty-five is she less impressionable, less weepy, more guile-ful as she was at fifteen? I wish we saw more of her personal growth, palace strife in the intervening twenty years. Her conversations with her maids and the blarney of her suitors, and the slander of the minstrels. I read the book in two hours: it felt rushed, Margaret Atwood could have elaborated.

Not that I'm not glad to have another book done and listed on the record!

Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar

2007-05-16T08:11:00.000-04:00

Of late I have loved, loved Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian. I love writing translated from french - it resonates with my own "writing style." It is so easy to read. I love the complexity and grace of her writing. I finished it right away because it was so hard to put down. Even without a word of dialogue the memoirs read.... never fail to hold my interest for a moment, never lack for fascinating detail which I wish I knew more about. If I could write a book like that....

the most secret aspirations of a young man impatient of the present, uncertain as to the future, and thereby open to the gods. 56

The condition of women is fixed by strange customs: the yare at one and the same time subjected and protected, weak and powerful, too much despised and too much respected. In this chaos of contradictory usage, the practices of osciety are superimposed upon the facts of nature, but it is not easy to distinguish betwen the two. THis confused state of things is in every respect more stable than might appear: on the whole, women want to be just as they are; they resist change, or they utilize it for their one nad only aim. The freedom of the women of today, which is greater, or at least more visible, than that of earlier times is but an aspect of the easier life of a prosperous period; the principles and even prejudices of the old laws have not been seriously disturbed.... The weakenss of women, like that of slaves, lies in their legal status; thye take their revenge by their strength in little things, where the power which they wield is almost unlimited. I have rarely seen a household where women do not rule; ... In financial matters they remain legally subject to some form of guardianship, but in practice it is otherwise. In each small shop of hte Suburra it is ordinarily the .. wife who sits firmly ensconced in command of hte counter. 105

His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass)

2007-04-23T09:01:00.000-04:00

Despite having heard about it for all of my childhood, I only recently read this novel, and I believe it's one of my favourite fantasies thus far. I'm currenlty reading the last book of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass.

I love the premise of Pullman's fictional universe - namely that growing up, is about gaining consciousness. I admire how he explains this (and many other philosophical matters) in such a simple and appealing way to children by creating a world where each child has a daemon, that is a symbolic animal. It's extremely well written, complex, and controversial - rebelling against ideas of the church, family, dealing with mental illness etc. VERY interesting material, especially for "just a children's book."

finally finished it some weeks ago... i drew it out, reluctant for the story to end, knowing it wouldn't end happily.... which at the same time makes me think of anne shirley's dictum "only a genius should try to write an unhappy ending." beautiful... and torturous! when will and lyra are so perfect for each other. i am haunted by the story.

i read lyra's oxford immediately after to squelch my cravings... and i don't know if i am happy with the lyra in it. has she lost her spunk?

speaking of which, what on earth is a pine marten? i very well expected pan to become a wildcat.

and while pullman wrote "more lyra"... what about more will? i can't help thinking will will have a much harder time adjusting to his world than lyra. a much harder time "creating more dust." lyra is naturally friendly and it's no surprise that she will make friends at st. sophia's, patiently and cheerfully... but will isn't really a people person. he is earnest, honest, but oh god... the burden on him is SO much harder.

i can't say i'm too happy with the ending. what temptation did mary malone offer... and wasn't it both will and lyra's choice, not just lyra's? WHAT is this means of travelling between worlds without windows, and who is the friend who knows it? serafina? mary? what does it mean, that lyra's oxford and will's oxford will one day overlap but never touch?

arghhhh... i'm so unsated.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Marcia Marquez

2007-04-11T08:19:00.000-04:00

There are several quotations in Love in the Time of Cholera that I love so far.

"in the solitude of his soul"
"Little by little he idealized her, endowing her with improbable virtues and imaginary sentiments, and after two weeks he thought of nothing else but her."
"a vocation for complicity"
"... after having renounced not onlly their family name but their own identity in exchange for a security that was no more than another of a bride's many illusions. They alone knew how tiresome was the man they loved to distraction, who perhaps loved them but whom they had to continue nurturing until his last breath as if he were a child, suckling himm, changing his soiled diapers, distracting him with a mother's tricks to ease his terror at going out each morning to face reality. And nevertheless, when they watched him leave the house, this man they themselves had urged to conquer the world, then they were the ones left with the terror that he would never return.
"to cry with her in rage at the loss of paradise"

I just finished Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. So well written - original in thought, in conclusion, convincing in description and metaphor. I love the writing style; I love it a lot. Stunning, joyous ending.

It is really a "life story."

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

2007-03-11T08:10:00.000-04:00

In the relative quiet of morning - or what mellowed into the quiet of morning, I huddled in bed to finish memoirs of a geisha. It's a convincingly written story, rather true to an oriental sensibility. Hatsumomo and Sayuri's rivalry, and the subtle brutality women, especially lesser women, display towards one another is an ancient theme since the dawn of civilization. It recalls "Wan jue gak gak" and the like.

And so, I imagined criticizing the novel with my parents. I know they would find the Chairman's magnamity unrealistic, and so do I - mainly because he remains a dream figure whom we do not know or understand as well as Sayuri, Mameha or even Nobu in his arrogance. We only see the Chariman through her eyes, and his hidden passion for her is hard to believe. I don't know if it is forgiveable. So the ending fails to reconcile my anxiety for Sayuri's fate.

Sayuri's story and enduring faith in the Captain does not convince me that hope will bring true love into fruition. All along I had a stake in Sayuri's enterprise, for winning the affections of her Chairman - how could I but relate to her romance, and wonder if this was the stuff true love is made of? All that she had done in her life was fueled by her dream-life of romance with the Chairman. He permeated her every thought. When she had sex, she wondered what it should be like with him.

And what filled my nightly dreams, or as I sat reading with my skirt inadvertently hiked up under the blankets?

What is truly admirable is Golden's thoroughness in creating Sayuri's character. The novel is by no means flawless; as convincing as Sayuri's voice sounds, the writing style and tone flow but in an amateur way. The "nature similes", in speech and thought, seemed overdone in western writing yet I know how common that sort of thing is in Oriental speech. But very rarely does a male writer portray the female psyche realistically, and Golden's heroine is thoroughly female in her conniving cleverness, studied winsome charm (a reminder of how women inviegle their way into cracks and spaces in civilized society, and what intelligence it requires to achieve what one wants indirectly and with subtle arts!), memory for minute detail and impassioned longing. I'm not sure about the malice and kindness. But never once did Sayuri seem to be painted sentimentally, to beggar pity, to speak without confidence of her past. Retrospective reflection, analyzing situations and uttering proverbs of psychology - eg. "I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it." - probably passe since the day of Dickens, adds to the authenticity of Sayuri's voice even when I do not believe in her convictions.

In all I loved the novel even despite, or perhaps for its flaws. And finishing it leaves me with a sort of heaviness, of the same weight Sayuri describes her sorrows and desolate plight. A mingling of no choice, and that this is fortunate. Peppered with questions of choice and fate. It's easy to read and easy to comprehend, and causes a comfortable amount of self-reflection. The proof of a good, successful novel. And Golden's success is inspiring because you can see the flaws indicative of how it might be achieved, the details that create realism and the unrealistic fictions readers are hoodwinked by.

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

2007-01-21T08:06:00.000-05:00

"They say that this has not just begun to happen: actualy, it was the dead who built the upper Eusapia, in the image of their city. They say that in the twin cities there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead" (110, Calvino - Invisible Cities)

"The world is covered by a sole Trude which does not begin and does not end. Only the name of the airport changes." (128)

"I think you recognize cities better on the atlas than when you visit them in person."

The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot

2007-01-10T08:02:00.000-05:00

There is Eliot's The Mill of the Floss which I am reading too. Characterization is the key word - there is wonderful characterization in that too, such that we understand why Tom is confident, always right, why imaginative Maggie is ever questioning herself and magnifying her tragedies. I'm not very good at characterization and these two books offer a great study.

I just finished The Mill on the Floss - couldn't put it down after I had begun, although the ending disappoints me. The entire book is full of Victorian melodrama which I revel in, but if I were inclined to cry over novels, I would cry over Maggie Tulliver's death. She seems real to me - the ever wronged, tragic, fallen clever woman. Couldn't Eliot have allotted a better fate for her after all? Jane Eyre got her Rochester and Catherine and Heathcliffe's love are requited in their children, but Maggie Tulliver's - only relief - is in death.

New to Eliot I loved her writing and her art of evoking sympathy - truly of describing human psychology. Is that what a novel is - character studies, and wisdom imparted as to a mode of life? Achieved through conflict of course, internal and external. Lessons in human nature. I will give you a sample of some of Eliot's words which strike me:

Of those two young hearts Tom's suffered the most unmixed pain, for Maggie, with all her keen susceptibility, yet felt as if the sorrow made larger room for her love to flow in, and gave breathing space to her passionate nature.

This is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism - the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy homours to be gathered and worn.

Perhaps the emphasis of his admiration did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her -perhaps he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not strike him as a remarkable rarity.

The middle-aged ,who have lived through their strongest emotions, but are yet in the time when memory is still half-passionate and not merely contmeplative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whom life has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue of early stumblers and victims of self-despair.

Where, then would be all the memories of early striving, all the deep pity for another's pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of affection and hardship, all the divine presentiment of something higher than mere personal enjoyment which had made the sacredness of life?

If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.

Then there is Philip's letter with echoes of Jingle in Pat. Are there truly those who love so, who love devotedly and gladly and unrequitedly, finding that such love sustains them? Is there really anyone like Tom - so unimaginative and quick to judge, so decisive in his sense of righteousness? Was Maggie's bravado in the final rescue enough to convince Tom to give her merit? There is something so vaguely dissatisfying about the ending.

But we know there are women like Maggie - we female readers know that we are ones ourselves. Do writers write anything except for the like-minded? We are clever and forever slighted - we are impulsive, self-doubting, imaginative to the disregard of consequences and self-sacrirficial. We strive to do right and find that it doesn't pay. We are hurt when we hurt others.

And there are of course many like dear Lucy, like Maggie's simple mother - who thwart the circumstances against themselves in benevolence and guilelessness. We laugh at them, we clever women, we find that our souls are fashioned of different stuff than theirs are - but we flock to their comfort all the same in our hours of need.

How different from Atwood where she gives the dullest Roz and simpering Charis credit. For perhaps even dull women have backstories and uncanny powers. They have strived too, to carve themselves a niche in this world of women-who-oppress-women.

Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood

2007-01-09T08:01:00.000-05:00

I have been reading Atwood's Robber Bride. It is delightful to feel pleasure once more in reading - to cherish every written word as inspiration. Atwood's novel is inspirational - it is, first, a series of real, exaggerated, character sketches - each of the three very different women in their appearance, tastes and perception of the world. There is less dialogue than I would have thought would've flown in a novel, but the stream-of-consciousness keeps interest. The characters are accurate - Boyce the artistic, sensitive gay - or meaningful - the giggling twins, harsh Augusta. I love how one incident leads to each woman's backstory - a book of the lives of women, told through stories. The plot itself is gripping - we want to know what happens to Zenia, what happened with Zenia, who she is. Then there is the characteristic word-play, zenophobia and backwards words, the cool ending tying things into the larger scheme of history, the story told through Tony the historian's eyes. All the stuff about women's psyches and their longing for drama and murder and viciousness, which Zenia embodies. What a theme to center around! It's a very cool piece of work, and I admire - want to analyze - feel alive, in brain and soul, hungrily reading such manna.

Booklist 2007

2007-01-01T07:49:00.000-05:00

Robber Bride, Magaret Atwood
The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
The Wreckage, Michael Crummy
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodr Dostoevsky
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes
The Need for Roots, Simone Weil
The Golden Compass / "Northern Lights", Philip Pullman
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
The Old Curiousity Shop, Charles Dickens
The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman
London - A Short History, A. Wilson
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman
Lyra's Oxford, Philip Pullman
The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud
Paradise Lost, John Milton
Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar
The Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaajte
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, Italo Calvino
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood
My Name is Anne, she said, Anne Frank, Jacqueline van Maarsen
Vanity Fair, William Thackeray
Man and his Symbols, Carl Jung
Ireland, Frank Delaney
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
HP & the Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
HP & the Chamber of Secrets, "
HP & the Deathly Hallows,
Hp & the Prisoner of Azkaban,
The Death of the Maiden (play), Ariel ___
Tennyson - Selected Poems (Penguin Edition),
Elizabeth Regina, Alison Plowden
Manual of Painting and Calligraphy: A Novel, Jose Saramago
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
The Broken Bridge, Philip Pullman
The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Italo Calvino
Under the Jaguar Sun, Italo Calvino
The City of the Sun, Thomas Campanella
Manifeste du Tiers Paysage, G. Clemente
Italian Journey, Goethe
The Book of the Courtier, Castiglione
Heroides, Ovid
The Return of the King, Tolkien
The Golden Road, L. M. Montgomery
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Allan Poe
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisnero
Dr. Zhivago, Boris Paternak

Enchantment and Sorrow, Gabrielle Roy

2006-06-15T22:15:00.000-04:00

Gabrielle Roy's work never fails to delight me. Her writing touches my heart in a way no other author does (aside from L. M. Montgomery) and her autobiography was especially akin to my soul. I relived my days in Paris through her - looked forward to my plans for London. Marvelled at the fragility and faith she saw the world through, and knew the guilt and quandaries she felt. Lost and eager, I took heart that one day I too shall find my voice. I mourn that she did not live to write the other two volumes of her biography, to tell how she finally found her way as a writer.

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

2006-06-01T22:13:00.000-04:00

I just read this, and I didn't like it. Am posting this in hopes that all the JA fans here will enlighten me to its merits.

I found Marianne, Colonel Brandon and Willoughby all very one dimensional. Marianne was a stereotypical daydreamy, irrational girl: is she really so fragile that elinor has to shelter her 24/7? Colonel Brandon was "too good to be true" magnanimous, and Willougly too transparent a cad and villain. Lucy too blatantly shallow. Plus, what was the use of having Margaret around as a little sister when her character was never developed? And Colonel Brandon to fall in love with Marianne just because she reminds him of his old love? The brother and sister in law too. And that quick ending for Elinor and Ed.

I find it a very commonplace story.

Mirror, Mirror, Gregory MacGuire

2006-05-26T14:22:00.000-04:00

Countless recommendations for Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West drove me to read Mirror, Mirror by the same author. It was a sorely disappointing introduction to MacGuire.

Mirror, Mirror is the story retold of Snow-White, set in Renaissance Italy. Feature historical characters are Cesare Borgia of Machiavellian fame, and Lucrezia de Borgia whose historical references I knew little of, save Emily Starr and Dean Priest of Emily's Quest hung a portrait of her in their home, describing her as a pleasant aunt who would have a sweetmeat for you under her dress.

Mirror, Mirror is instead, a banal little tale weaving together trying to lend a coherence to the fairy tale in most arbitrary fashion. The famed looking glass, a two sided mirror allowing people to viewers to see into each other's worlds, was fashioned by the seven dwarves to study humans. Lusty Lucrezia is no vain stepmother, but a powerful beauty who owns the castle of Snow White's father and conspires to send him on a grail quest for the golden bough, three golden apples finally used to poison Snow White. Finally, Bianca de Nevere "Snow White"'s prince is the hunter Rannuccio who was first commanded to cut out her heart. His abrupt reappearance in the ending does little to justfiy his status as the story's hero.

The story is coupled with a most graphic representation and a-religious discussion of sexual matters. As if such brute realism is a mark of maturity!

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

2006-05-14T13:43:00.000-04:00

(I began War and Peace in August 2005, reading through Book 1 before I departed for Paris. In October I picked up the book once more, re-reading it from beginning in French until Book 3, when I was peeved by the incessant military strategies and forced to return the novel. At Christmas, my friend gave me the Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart film, which made me exigent to finish the book so I could watch it. After exams in April 2006, I signed out the book and read speedily but pleasurably halfway. I was once again forced to return it when I moved out, and finally, in mid-May, I commenced reading again.

Despite the length of the book, the writing style is surprisingly undaunting. Leo Tolstoy writes as directly and simply as C. S. Lewis, making the book a far easier read than many classical authors such as Jane Austen or Dickens.)

I finished this last night/ this morning. This was a happy story. For a classic, I found the plot unpredictable. I love Tolstoy's ability to evoke the minute details of family life and human relationships. The final scenes showing the interaction of the two couples are real, admirable, vivid.

Princess Mary is my favourite character, whose quietness, tolerance and relentless affection I could relate to. I was joyous for her in her romance, finding its obstacles rich with revelation of her character and Nicolas's.

The novel pursues a really interesting idea - the portrayal of little details of humanity, of everyday life playing a part in the unfolding of history, like how (this is the analogy Tolstoy used) bees all enact a role in the larger scheme of the beehive. quite incredible how he demonstrates what is essentially a new *theory* of looking at history (as opposed to history which merely describes the actions of the ruler, he looks at many minor circumstances of different people which influence or are governed by the course of history) in a story with a fascinating plot.

The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe

2006-05-10T14:06:00.000-04:00

On a sunny summer day, I left the computer lab while it was processing and ran across Queen's Square Quad to revel in the library. I had two hours to kill before I needs check on my machine, so I found the children's section and collected Little Men, a french translation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, or The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe. I quickly perched myself by the window and began the "chapter book" I had wanted to read since "I saw the movie first.", and yet had felt secretly ashamed and childish to sign out.

This first "Narnia" book only took me an hour and a half, and was enjoyable and engrossing. Of course, I couldn't help envisioning the children of the movie: I loved little Lucy Pevensie and her staunch braveness, and had trouble reconciling the girl in the film with the blond in the novel.

It bothered me that Susan never really "did anything" in the fray. Father Christmas said that "Wars are ugly things for girls to be in," which can explain Susan's minimal involvement. Was she supposed to portray a different role - more traditionally female/domestic guidance for the group, maybe? Aren't wars ugly anyhow? C. S. Lewis was ready to acknowledge that Lucy is brave. Why this - is it supposed to be a sexist statement?

I had previously debated with friends over the extent to which the story is a Christian allegory. I found the references very pointed, as phrases like, "Daughter of Eve," "Son of Adam," denote. (For instance, in The Colour Purple, the story begins with "Dear God" and is first and foremost about religion). Father Christmas as well. I wonder what the "deep magic" and "deeper magic" would be.

As for Aslan's sacrifice to save edmund's life with his own was ... it was very nice. Edmund is a child who has realized the enormous consequence of his greed/temptation/mistake, and it would be cruel and heart wrenching and ... indicative of a very unbenevolent world if he was forever condemned for his sins. aslan's ressurection "made everything okay" too - aslan being wisdom ultimate of the story, if he didn't come back [just like how Gandalf came back and how i think Dumbledore will continue to have a presence in HP... opening a whole new can of worms here though.] Narnia would be a very dark world indeed. Aslan the lion doesn't lack in virtues of gentleness and humbleness associated with lambs.

Who is Lilith? What is the story behind her being Adam's first wife?

By the way, did you know C. S. Lewis's full name is Clive Staples Lewis? What a mouthful!

Booklist 2006

2006-01-01T19:25:00.000-05:00

The Sorrows of Young Werther - Goethe
All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Mirror, Mirror - Gregory MacGuire
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

Reading Lolita in Tehran

2005-11-18T06:55:00.000-05:00

reading lolita in tehran

personal

"do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth" (3) 
"Yaasi was shy by nature, but certain things made her lose her inhibitions" (4)

"Only there is no room, just the teasing void of memory" (7)

"my nomadic and borrowed life"(7)

"we felt their presence only through the disembodied noises emanating from below" (8)

"understood each other at the first word, since they had words that would end in an unexpected way, perhaps in some archaic letter, an upsilamba, becoming a bird or catapult with wondrous consequences" (20) Nabokov

"every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you the freedomes that reality denies. in all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of life, an essential defiance." (47)

other
"each one gained an outline and a shape, becoming her own inimitable self" (6)

"But to steal the words from Humbert, the poet/criminal of Lolita, I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we won't really exist if you don't. Against the tyranny of time and politics, imagine us the way we sometimes didn't dare to imagine ourselves: in our most private and secret moments, in the most extraordinarily ordinary circumstances of life, listening to music, falling in lvoe, walking down th shading streets or reading Lolita in Tehran."(6)

colors of my dreams (11)

private gestures interpreted in political terms (25)

we tried to live in the open spaces, in teh chinks created between that room, which had become our protective cocoon, and the censor's world of witches outside. (26)

imagination shapes vision and identity, what occurs outside the room (26)

liking small things

"in some perverse way, the physical punishment was a source of satisfaction to her, a compensation for having yielded to those other humiliations"

"but my girls spoke constantly of stolen kisses, films they had never seen and the wind that they had never felt on their skin. this generation had no past. their memory was of a half-articulated desire, something they had never had. it was this lack, their sense of longing for the ordinary, taken-for-granted aspects of life, that gave their words a certain luminous quality akin to poetry." (76)

German thinker Theodor Adorno: "the highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one's home." I explained that the most great works of imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they feel too immutable

Fitzgerald in Conrad's preface to The nigger of the Narcissus: 'artists appeal to our capcity for delight nad wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain.. and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear which binds men to each other, which binds together all humaity -- the dead to the living and the living to the unborn."

Mike Gold, Marxism

"A novel is not an allegory; I said as the period was about to come to an end. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel; you inhale the experience." (111)

"A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil..."(133)

fitzgerald - absolution - "honesty of imagination"

"as i walked thsoe dearly beloved, dearly remembered streets, I felt I was squashing the memories that lay underfoot." (145)

"turn their small corner into a sanctuary" (169)

four quartets, eliot

Baudelaire - "Le Fleurs du Mal - "Hypocrite, lecteur, -- mon semblable, -- mon frere!"

Diderot - Jacques le Fataliste
Racine -

shadows of a conditional smile

Bertolt Brecht - poem

balance between public private in p&p

bellow, mandelstam, sinyavsky,

"she felt secure only in her terrible sense of insecurity." (29)

list

nabokov

scheherazade, a thousand and one nights
llose, aunt julia and the scriptwriter

muriel spark - loitering with ntent

reflections:

- polyphonic voice of many novels
- reader/writer redressing quotations in new context, giving words new meaning, contrast/foil of like and unlike -- similar situation, accurate context? is new context accurate?
- mythicizing experience - regime is mythicizing
- recalls personal memories - tacos' passion

Booklist 2005

2005-01-01T15:17:00.000-05:00

The O. Henry Prize Stories
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The Oxford Book of Love Stories
Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas
La Petite Fadette, Georges Sand
Mary Queen of Scots Biography
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
The Steppe and other Short Stories, Anton Chekhov
Letters to a Young Novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa
Fast Food Nation
Wuthering Heights (reread), Emily Bronte
Boundaries, Maya Lin
Nietzsche
Montaigne
*Perpetua and Gargantua, Rabelais
*Of Man, Thomas Hobbes
The Prince, Machiavelli
*In Praise of Folly, Erasmus
*Meditations, Descartes
*Candide, Voltaire
Survival, Margaret Atwood
The Intimate Life of L. M. Montgomery, Irene Gammel
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J. K. Rowling
span style="font-weight:bold;">In Praise of Shadows (reread), Tani?
Madame Bovary, Gustav Flaubert
Therese Raquin, Emile Zola
Le Proces de Marie Antoinette
Snow Falling on Cedar
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
Le Fantome de l'Opera, Gaston Leroux
Paris, Ile de France
Le Fantome de l'Opera, Gaston Leroux
Emma, Jane Austen
Origin of Species, Charles Darwin

Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

2004-07-06T20:57:00.000-04:00

This book made me ill, literally. I lugged it home excitedly for reading week ... I had wanted to read it since I saw the poster with my friend at Indigo, and we thought it resembled The Handmaid's Tale. But it was always, always signed out at the library.

Oryx and Crake is a biotech dystopia. Elite biotechnological companies (such as for genetically modified foods) and their employees live in exclusive guarded cities with all amenities; exit to the outside world is controlled, betraying company secrets result in horrible deaths. Crake, the narrator's childhood best friend with whom he played at various computer games and hacks, becomes a mastermind in one such company, and even designs his own human species which he keeps hidden in a dome. Oryx, a child porn star whom Crake and the narrator love, is brought in to nurture the people. Crake's plan fails (or was it his plan to fail?) and we find the narrator in a primitive world, charged with taking care of "the children of Oryx and Crake."

I didn't find neither the plot nor the writing style half as captivating as The Handmaid's Tale. There was something compelling about Offred's voice, about the circular narrative that's perhaps incomplete, about the nostalgic wordplay that isn't present in Oryx and Crake. We still have Margaret Atwood wit. But Snowman's post-apocalyptical flotsam isn't Offred's regime: Snowman is just any man, Offred is ... a woman, a Eurydice, calling with a haunting voice from the dark.

And too, somehow a genetically modified pig is more unappetizing than cloaked figures hung on The Wall.

I ran through Oryx and Crake in 5 hours one night, and my copy of the novel stank of liniment. It made me ill with a sniffly snuffly cold for the rest of the week.

Booklist 2004

2004-01-01T16:53:00.000-05:00

Selected Journals of LMM v.4, L. M. Montgomery
Emilie de la Nouvelle Lune [Emily of New Moon translation], L. M. Montgomery
The Odyssey, Robert Farthes (?) *
Oresteia, Aeschylus *
Delight in Architecture, ______ *
Great Dialogues of Plato *
The Philosophy of Aristotle *
Shirley, Charlotte Bronte
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
De quoi m'ennuie toi, Eveline?, Gabrielle Roy
Aeneid, Virgil *
Satyricon *
Metamorphoses *
Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes
The English Patient, Michael Ondatje
Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard
J'ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir suivi par Il n'est pas si facile a vivre, Christine Arthony
Harry Potter et l'Ecole de Sorciers, J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter et la Chambre des Secrets, J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter et le Prisonnier D'Akazaban, J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter et la Coupe de Feu, J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter et l'Ordre de la Phoenix, J. K. Rowling
Lives of Mothers and Daughters, growing up with Alice Munro, Sheila Munro
Dance on the Earth, Margaret Lawrence
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Confessions of St. Augustine

* signifies course [school] reading
italics indicate non-fiction works | standard print indicates fiction

Booklist 2003

2003-01-01T15:27:00.000-05:00

The Piano Man's Daughter, Timothy Findley
Tess of the Dubervilles, H. Hardy(?)
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
My Dear Mr. M., letters to G. B. MacMillan, L. M. Montgomery
The Ingenuity Gap, Thomas Homer Dixon
Elske, Cynthia Voigt
Goldengrove Unleaving, Jill Paten Walsh
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
The Waves (re-attempt), Virginia Woolf
Making Avonlea, Irene Gammel
A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L'Engle
Enchanted Summer, Gabrielle Roy
A Recipe for Bees, Gail Anderson Dargatz
Storyteller*
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, G. M. Marquez *
Waterland, John _______ *
The Ogre, Micheal Tournier *
Letters to Ephraim Weber, L. M. Montgomery
Periodic Table, Primo Levi *
Shoah, Claude _______ *
Maus, Art Speigelman *
L. M. Montgomery and the Mystique of Muskoka, Sylvia duVernet

* signifies course [school] reading
italicized signifies non-fiction works | standard print signifies fictional works

Booklist 2002

2002-01-01T15:07:00.000-05:00

I hardly remember everything I read this year. There's probably much more.

The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien (reread)
Streets of Riches, Gabrielle Roy
The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shield
Childhood, Alexander _____
Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood
The Quest of the Holy Grail
Innocence and Experience: Essays and Conversations on Children's Literature
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad *
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
The Hidden Mountain, Gabrielle Roy
Where Nests the Water Hen, Gabrielle Roy
The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell
Essays, Henry Thoreau
Best of Alice Munro, Alice Munro
Frankenstein, Mary Shelly *
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

* signifies course [ school ] reading