Mini-review: Lauren Kirshner's Where We Have to Go

After taking a few days off from novel reading upon finishing Anna Karenina - I'm usually anxious to pick up the next book in my reading queue after turning the last page on a book, but I wanted to digest AK, and not muddy my thinking with a new work - I took the library-loaned hardcover of T.C. Boyle's The Women from my bedside table, laid on my bed, and turned to the first page. I had read a review of it a few months back, and it sounded like an ideal read (largely because I'm fascinated about the life and work of Frank Lloyd Wright). I'd also read a couple of Boyle's short stories in the New Yorker, and figured I should give one of his novels a shot. Unfortunately, I was barely able to get through the first few pages. I chalked this up to simply not being in the mood for it - it's nobody's fault, sometimes that happens with me with books. (Not to compare Boyle to a legend, but it's my usual routine with Hemingway. My readings of Hemingway are "do overs," after I've barely managed to make it through the first 20 or so pages on my first attempt.) So I'm not-yet giving up The Women; in fact, I may give it another shot this week.

I then tried Arthur Phillips' new novel, The Song is You. Again, this is another book I'd heard much about, and again the subject matter seemed to be in my wheelhouse: any book that relies so heavily on music, one of my great loves, to help propel the plot must be interest. Not to mention that Phillips is a much-lauded stylist. The opening of the novel, about the protagonist's father attending a Billie Holiday concert just before being shipped out to the Pacific theatre in the second world war, is a wonderful little introduction. Yet, it's been downhill from there. I've managed to make it to page 87, but I've since put it down. Not only is the story a disappointment - it reads too much like a middle-aged man's fantasy, of being a muse to a young, beautiful and up-and-coming Irish singer/songwriter - but Phillips' writing style does nothing for me. (I was warned early on when he twice refers to the arm of a turntable as a "tone arm." Ugh.)

Giving up on one book is acceptable; two in a row, and I'm ready to dial 911.

Mid-week, Toronto writer Lauren Kirshner's first novel Where We Have to Go was waiting for me at the Lillian H. Smith branch of the TPL. I didn't know much about Kirshner or the book, except that she was a graduate of the MA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Toronto, and I have a very minor association with the program (as well as Kirshner's mentor from the program, Margaret Atwood.) But I enjoy reading books set in my city, Toronto, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

It's been a joy to spend a few days with the narrator, Lucy Bloom, and a good way to cleanse my system after two disappointing efforts at reading a new novel. Kirshner's voice is wonderfully assured, and her Lucy leaps off the page from our first introduction to her at age 11. She goes through some typical (but not trite) growing pains, including an eating disorder, that revolve around acceptance and the eventual discovery of self (aided by her high school friend Erin). It brought me back to my own adolescence - while I didn't suffer from an eating disorder, I did struggle with issues dealing with popularity (or lack thereof) and finding my place and "voice." (It wasn't easy at a school that reeked of old money, that had fraternities and sororities, and where one's popularity was often defined by how well you played football.) The big difference in Lucy's life is, while she's having to cope with these adolescent issues, she's also dealing with a family that seems to be falling apart. I was especially captured by her father's story: a one-time photographer who was now working as a travel agent in a dreadful office in a nondescript strip plaza. It got me thinking of that thin wedge between success and failure, and how high aspirations can give way quickly to crushing disappointment. The theme that kept replaying in my head was hope and promise vs. defeat and dead-ends. Even though Lucy suffers through a tough adolescence, there's still so much hope and promise in her future. It's never stated in the novel, but I imagine her biggest fear is ending up like her parents. The novel's conclusion, however, doesn't suggest that: as a reader, I felt Lucy was going to make it.

The novel is not perfect. (What novel is?) There were some over-wrought metaphors and some details that left me wanting (how was it, for example, that Erin was living alone in the city when she was around 15?). But these are minor quibbles. One major quibble: McClelland & Stewart needs to employ some better proofreaders. I caught at least three glaring errors, including this groaner on page 318: "But Mom never sped. You know, she would press the break when she went through the intersection, even when the light was green." Also, what's with not having numbers on the verso pages?

Highly recommended.

So in case you're curious, I'm going to make book reviewing a regular feature of this blog. For the two or three of you that actually read it... Next in the queue: Saul Bellow's Herzog.

Something to add to the "what an idiot I am" scrapbook: I thought I was taking out a Sigur Ros CD from the TPL. (I thought to myself, "Hmm, I've never seen this CD of theirs.") But I misread the cover: instead, it was a recording from the band Sugar Ray! Whoops. I'll give it a listen though, out of sheer curiousity.

The big book

It wasn't a deliberate strategy, but it appears 2009 is becoming the year of the "big book." I've tackled a number of hefty tomes so far, most recently turning the last page (over 800 of them!) on Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. This is the second time I've tackled the classic novel. A few years back, I read about ten pages of the Penguin version, but my heart just wasn't in it. But I bought the new translation (the husband and wife team of Pevear and Volokhonsky, who seem to be tackling the major Russian works; I had intended to buy their Crime and Punishment at the Strand in NYC, but ended up leaving the store without it, although I did walk out with their translation of War and Peace), and I was hooked from the start. A proverbial page turner! The true definition of a classic! A timeless masterpiece! Well, you get the picture. This reading comes on the heels of other lengthy novels, primarily Roberto Bolano's wonderful works 2666 and The Savage Detectives (which was a re-read). I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm a novel reader, not a short story reader.

This actually is difficult for me to admit, that I love the long novel over the short story. For years, I thought I was a true short story aficionado. The evidence, while not overwhelming, was there. I had a subscription to the New Yorker when I was 17, largely because I loved the idea of having a new short story to read every week since, at the time, I fashioned myself to be an aspiring writer. And how does one "break in" to the business? By writing short stories, I reasoned. Yet, I barely remember any short stories from those early reads, although I can rattle off a good number of excellent non-fiction pieces. And even today, while still a faithful New Yorker reader (there was a several-years gap when I barely glanced at the magazine on the newsstand), the short story tends to be the last thing I read. (Unless, of course, they publish a new Haruki Murakami or Roberto Bolano story. I'm not sure David Sedaris counts, but of course I faithfully read him too. And Woody Allen, although his "casuals" are becoming increasingly lame.) I'm not outright dissing the short form - after all, I love John Cheever and Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro short stories, and there was a recent John Updike piece that blew me away; and Salinger's Nine Stories is still such an important book in my reading history - but I think I prefer the sprawling, sometimes messy, aspect of a novel over the "perfection" of the shorter work. Maybe because my own life is so messy!

That being said, I'm currently reading The Song is You by Arthur Philips.

(This post was going to be about my own attempts at writing short stories, but it morphed into something else. Which is a good clue as to why I never become much of a writer...)

The number game

So, I've gone and done the big milestone b-day. It was rather effortless, actually. I was in one of my preferred spots, and indulging in a preferred activity, when the clock struck midnight: at a jazz club in NYC, holding a glass of red wine with one hand and the hand of a beloved with the other. In the end, I'm ok with the aging process. I like to think I'm getting better as I get older. I'm in a good head space, I have money in the bank, I have a job that I enjoy (and, perhaps more significantly, is important), I have a (small) group of wonderful friends. I have my foibles and faults, to be sure, but they seem to be manageable.

And let's face it, it's true what they say: age really is nothing but a state of mind, especially when one has health on their side.

a return

Despite my inactivity - a combination of factors, but mostly just plain ol' apathy/laziness and lack of motivation - I am still here. Sort of. Barely. Just about. Well, you get the picture. It's not that this hasn't been a particularly interesting time for me either. I'm bursting with mental acuity and philosophical musings, but they've largely been confined to the swirl in my head. (I've engaged in some writing, but nothing I feel is appropriate for public consumption. Although, let's be serious here, it's not like I had much of a public to begin with! And those that were with me a couple of months must surely have left the building.) Which is not good - I forget that it's healthy for me to get these thoughts down, to make sense of them. It doesn't necessarily make me more happy, but more content.

Some of the swirls include:

- a milestone birthday (fast approaching)
- better looks (largely the result of straightened teeth!)
- the next half of my life (at least I hope it's only half over)
- crushes and infatuations (both real and imagined/virtual)
- a genetic disposition toward melancholy

All of which to be examined, in due course. Right now, there's Anna Karenina to continue. Only about 400 pages to go...