Family day fun

Happy Family Day! (As somebody at work said to me the other day, "Brought to you by sex." I think she read it on a greeting card.) Unfortunately, it seems most of my family is travelling - namely, the lovely A., who is in Cuba for the week - so I'm spending the day without family. I couldn't have swung the trip because of my lack of vacation time, although the excursion was never really on offer to me: it was a long-planned trip with a friend of hers. Besides, as she said to me, "I don't see you as an all-inclusive resort-type guy." She's probably right, although I'm sure I could be tempted by the sunshine, warmth and mojitos. So my Family Day will be spent mostly on the couch, surrounded by a book, long-put-off magazine articles, and perhaps a film or two on DVD. Accompanied, of course, by the only family member of mine seemingly not out of the country: my cat. I'll toast the day when the sun sets with a glass of Irish whiskey.

So it seems I'm struggling to post as often I'd like on this blog. And writing more in general. Without getting into too much detail - I promised this blog would not be a confessional about my personal life - it's been an emotional couple of weeks. It's sapped much of the energy I'd use for personal pursuits, like writing. Even reading has been difficult: my one-book-a-week pace was broken. But things have calmed, the sails are no longer flapping in the wind. I've found some emotional ballast. 

Much of this emotional turbulence can actually be summed up in a line from Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March, which I just finished this morning. "An independent fate, and love too - what confusion!" 

My reading history with the great Bellow is spotty. I read my first Bellow, More Die of Heartbreak, when I was around 18 or 19. I can't remember what compelled me to pick that book up: my guess is that John Updike, who I was reading quite a bit of at the time, probably made a reference to Bellow in an interview, and figured I should read his work. I don't remember much about Heartbreak, except that I read it during my breaks on my summer job at a golf course and genuinely enjoyed it (although I probably didn't "get" it all). I then read Seize the Day, which was short, powerful and wonderful. After which, I remember telling a friend, "Bellow is my favourite writer!" Hyperbole, to be sure, considering I'd only read two of his books, and had yet to tackle the real masterworks. I ended up buying three more of his books - and don't ask my why this particular detail is remembered - at Village Book Store, the fantastic (but now long-departed) secondhand book store on Queen St. run by Marty Ahvenus: Henderson the Rain King, To Jerusalem and Back, and The Adventures of Augie March. 

At this point, I imagine I knew Augie March was one of the classics, so that was going to be the Bellow book I would next tackle. To that end, I brought it with me on a train ride to Montreal. (Again, not sure why I remember these details, but they are emblazoned.) Unfortunately, even though it has one of the great opening sentences in 20th-century literature ("I am an American, Chicago born - Chicago, that somber city - and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent"), I don't think I got much farther than 20 pages. The writing was too dense and impenetrable for my still-developing 19 year-old brain. I figured I would eventually try again, and carried that particular paperback copy with me as I moved apartments over the years, but I never did pick it up. I eventually ditched it during one of my periodic book purges, along with the other Bellow books in my collection. 

Fast forward 20 years, and now suddenly I "get" Bellow, especially now that I've read the three acknowledged classics in the last six months: Herzog, Humboldt's Gift and, finally, The Adventures of Augie March. In some ways, these three books blend together for me, largely because their narrators share many similarities: namely, a propensity for wild, wonderful and dazzling semantic pyrotechnics. I think it's safe to say that nobody writes sentences like Bellow: they often have flash to spare, yet they're also rooted in a sometimes-coarse street vernacular. He can also be hilariously funny and rowdy. It takes some time and patience - at least it did for me - to dial in to Bellow's style and sensibility, but once locked in you're hooked. 

Ultimately, however, what hooks me more than the language is the general tone and melancholy that seems to surround the characters in his books. Yes, many of the characters are painted broad and wide, even larger than life, but the narrators themselves seem to be weighed down by endless self reflection and, often, disappointment. They tend to one catharsis to another, and rarely learn from their mistakes. In fact, at least in Augie March's case, they will repeat these same mistakes. They're flawed, probably much like Bellow himself (the man did marry five times, after all), but admirable nonetheless. There's also a genuine optimism that abounds in his works, that despite all the struggles and conflicts, there's still a hopeful jauntiness. 

Without making too big a deal, and for fear of overstating matters, I see a lot of myself in these books. That I live, for the most part, a happy and content life, full of good humour and surrounded by interesting people. Yet, I can't help escape from a seemingly chronic state of melancholy, that there's something more out there, something that's missing. It doesn't weigh me down nor do I suffer from depression (I tend to refer to it as a harmless case of the "blues"), but it's a constant presence. It's there, although perhaps it's also something I welcome from time to time. It helps to ground me.

Ok, enough about me. I'll be back on the Canada Reads Independently wagon this week, hopefully reading two of them back to back (I took them from the library): Ray Smith's Century and Martha Ostenso's Wild Geese. Reviews to follow.