A partial return

For those few of you that read this blog: no, I haven't died. (You probably figured that out, since the few that do visit here actually know me.) I haven't been much in the mood to write on this thing, however. I went through a fairly difficult melancholic stretch a few weeks back, which I still feel like I'm recovering from. Just your garden variety existential angst, nothing to be overly concerned about. I was in a bit of a reading slump too - still am, sort of, although I'm on the cusp of finishing Richard Ford's Independence Day, his 1995 follow-up to The Sportswriter, both of which are narrated by the protagonist Frank Bascombe. These novels, The Sportswriter in particular, have been eerily prescient in terms of shadowing my current mood and state of mind. At times, I feel a little like Frank: self reflective, mostly happy, but also seemingly in search of something - a connection, a sense of fulfillment, all the while knowing that it's not necessarily attainable. But yet we continue to search.

Short(ish) life (and other assorted thoughts)

Even though Yann Martel's new book, Beatrice and Virgil, is but a slim volume, and I'm about two-thirds of the way through it, I've decided to stop reading it. I read Martel's Life of Pi a few years back, and loved it. And while I do consider myself a patient reader, and willingly to give complex works the benefit of the doubt, this book is leaving me cold. There's still a lot to like about Martel's writing - he's a wonderful prose stylist, and he makes the craft of writing seem easy and effortless - but there's much to hate about Beatrice and Virgil. It's almost as if Martel set out to write something that would be contemptuous toward his readers. Or maybe fables about the Holocaust just don't turn my crank. In the end, life is too short to waste on something that's really doing nothing for me, even if I was almost finished. (I flipped through the final 40 or so pages and got the gist of it. That seems good enough.)

This is the second book in a row that has left me disappointed. Priorly, I read Ian MacEwen's latest, Solar, which was also a disappointment. (Actually that's not entirely true: Roberto Bolano's Monsieur Pain was sandwiched in between. It's tier B Bolano, but it's still great fun, and takes some joyously surreal turns for good measure.) Again, MacEwen is one of those writers who I admire (but don't necessarily "love"), and I'm also one of the few who thought his last work, On Chesil Beach, was a small masterpiece. But Solar was, overall, a fairly weak effort. The writing is, as always with MacEwen, sharp, but I found the story flabby and, at times, downright silly. Moreover, the main character felt a little too much like Philip Roth's Mickey Sabbath. In the hands of Roth, despicable characters are three dimensional and (almost) likeable; MacEwen, however, doesn't seem to have the immoral balls to pull it off.

So as you can see, I'm in something of a reading slump. A bit of a mirror on my life, actually, since I feel like I'm in a personal slump as well. Nothing to be concerned about: just your regular garden variety melancholy that strikes me every few weeks or so. (I was also battling a nasty head cold for a week, which wasn't fun.) I'm struggling to write, which is frustrating. I get into these periodic, existential "what the hell are you doing with your life" moods, but then I find some degree of purpose and snap out of it. First world problems, of course. I'll get beyond this. And hopefully I'll soon be taken with a great novel.

Happy Earth Day

So if I'm writing on my unplugged laptop during Earth Hour, is that ok? Well I suppose it'll have to be since that's exactly what I'm doing. I figured I'd be skipping Earth Hour this year because I was going to be out in Mississauga with the parental unit. But I made good time on the way home, so I walked in the apartment door just around 8:20 - plenty of time to light a few candles and prepare myself for this hour where we pay tribute to our lovely planet Earth. (I know, it's easy to be cynical about the idea of turning off the lights for one hour out of the year, but I'll resist the temptation. For one, my footprint is pretty tiny for much of the year anyway as I'm not a huge energy consumer.)

My week of reading neglected New Yorker short stories has turned out quite well. (There were also a couple of non-fiction pieces that I had set aside, so it was good to complete those.) I was able to throw into the recycling bin about seven issues, not to mention enjoying some wonderful stories in the process. One, "Awake" (available free online, and not even from the New Yorker) by Tobias Wolff, was, amazingly, from an issue way back in 2008! I have no idea why I've held on to it for so long - not to mention how since I was living in a different apartment back then, meaning I must have moved the issue with me. What folly! There were two glorious pieces which I'm glad I hadn't discarded before getting around to reading them (and both, interestingly, appear to be novel excerpts): "The Gangsters" by Colson Whitehead (whose fantastic novel The Intuitionist was one of my favourites from a few years back), and Jennifer Egan's "Ask Me If I Care." Egan is not a writer I've read before, but based on the strength of this fantastic piece of writing, I'll be seeking out more of her work. And I most certainly will read both the Whitehead and Egan novels.

It actually was a good New Yorker week all around for me as I was lucky enough to deal with one of the editors of its book blog, Book Bench. Results of my help/work should appear sometime in the coming week. It was quite heady for me to deal with someone that carried the newyorker.com e-mail address, not to mention the anticipation of seeing my small contribution appear online. I've been a New Yorker magazine fanatic (and oft subscriber) for about 20 years, so it's always been a dream to have some contact or connection with it. (In my early 20s, it was my dream to one day work at the magazine.) I'm actually quite giddy about it! It allowed me to end the week - which was already a pretty darn good one, what with seeing both Norah Jones and Catherine MacLellan in concert, as well as catching up with an old high school friend - on a wonderfully high note. (And adding to the general excitement is that I'll be back to being a city cyclist, courtesy of my parents who have given me an old but rarely used bike that was taking space in their condo locker. It just needs a few modifications: new tires, fenders, a bike rack, and some front and rear lights. I should be up and running - and thus freed from the Toronto Transit Commission - by the end of the week. Happy days indeed are here again.)

Rearranging

So I spent part of yesterday doing what I call the "big purge": essentially, attempting to clear out the clutter in my apartment. I'm actually not much of an accumulator - when I moved almost two years to this place, I was fairly merciless in chucking stuff out while packing. In an ideal world, I'd pare my life down to about six or seven boxes. I like the concept of minimalism, of only having the bare essentials on hand. (I'm also partly inspired by the performance artist's Marina Abramovic's living spaces, gloriously photographed recently by the NYTimes.) Yet, it ain't easy! I look around my home office and I still see stray pieces of paper, books, ticket stubs, business cards, vinyl LPs - what the heck is all this stuff doing in here?

I began the purge with my bookshelf. I'm a reader, but I'm not a collector of books. I once was, and had two full-to-bursting bookshelves to offer up as proof. But when I moved out of the living space I shared with my then-partner M., she said she wanted to keep the books that she had accumulated from her participation in a monthly book club, many of which I had bought and also read. She had an emotional attachment to the books, so I left a whack of them with her. My new apartment wasn't so accommodating with space, so that's when I first started to get rid of books. My philosophy was fairly simple: I would truck the books that I had still yet to read with me, as well as books that personally meant something. Still, even a few years later, the messiness of my one bookshelf was a constant annoyance. So I engaged in yet-another book sort and purge yesterday.

Basically, I'm holding on to a handful of books from authors who mean something to me: Philip Roth, Roberto Bolano, Haruki Murakami, Iris Murdoch, John Updike, J.D. Salinger, Mavis Gallant, Milan Kundera, Margaret Laurence (well, just one Laurence: The Diviners, a book I've bought several times for a number of different friends; even today I still have two copies), along with a few "one offs" like Anna Karenina and James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime (perhaps the sexiest book ever written). These are the authors and books that have inspired me and, dare I say (for fear of hyperbole), changed me. I'm also holding on some non-fiction, primarily journalism that originally inspired me many years ago to be a magazine writer: a couple of Gay Talese books, Ian Brown's fantastic Man Overboard, two Joan Didion collections, among a few others. I also have some books of poetry and books about writers and writing on a shelf above my desk, as well as some music books (biographies of jazz musicians primarily) in the office, but I'm not "counting" those right now since I'm toying with the idea of purging those as well. (But not yet - I'll admit to struggles with nostalgia...)

Interestingly, I still have one entire shelf of my main bookshelf to deal with: it's the reading queue. These are books I've accumulated over the last few years, largely from secondhand sales, that I've been meaning to read. (Some, like a couple of the mysteries, are earmarked for a camping trip I'm sure to do at some point this summer.) I'm hoping to get through them eventually, but even those might have to be dealt with in a purge moment if I don't get to them in the next year or. This is how that shelf looks:

But let's be serious: am I really going to be reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest?

the poet

Came across this decade-old quote from Alberto Manguel the other day while at work: "In our time, the role of the poet has declined from that of fearful soothsayer to that of eccentric provider for the remainder tables."I'd say it's even worse today - that one is lucky to find poetry books in the shops at all, let alone the remainder tables. So that will be my book-buying goal of the month: to purchase at least one book of poetry, preferably a Canadian poet.

Not much to report otherwise (hence the paucity of posts). About a third of the way through Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (it's a classic!), a book I originally read when I was in high school. I long pointed to C&P as the first "serious" book I read on my volition - that I picked it up from the library simply because I wanted to read it, and not because it was part of my schoolwork. However, I'm not entirely sure I ever finished it. So technically this doesn't come under the banner of re-reading (a theme from last year, and one I hope to continue through 2010). It's been a fun ride so far. One forgets how much of a page turner the big Russians novels can be!

Katrina Onstad's How Happy to Be: A mini-review

There was an online review - and I apologize, I'm not much in the mood to seek it out (lazy city!) - that compared Katrina Onstad to Nick Hornby. How apt, then, that I read Hornby's Juliet, Naked just prior to reading Onstad's How Happy to Be. And it's true, there are comparisons to be made between the two. Both write in an easy, breezy and accessible (in a very good way) style. Both also write sharp, snappy dialogue, and there's an overall attentiveness and care to the craft of writing. In short, both are wonderful and natural writers. They are very easy to like.

Like most Hornby books I've read - with the exception of High Fidelity, which still remains a touchstone for me (although that might also be because I love the movie so much, although the circumstances of reading the book - on a long-haul Paris-to-Toronto flight - are also memorable) - Juliet, Naked was fun and entertaining, but largely forgettable. It had the requisite (stock?) Hornby characters, who function largely as caricatures. Moreover, I'm not sure he really "gets" women - his female characters seem to be one dimensional - but my more-astute female friends are more than welcome to disagree with me. It was good to spend 300 pages with Hornby, but I was also ready to move on when done.

I hadn't intended to dip into the Onstad this past week, but was instead prepared to read Wild Geese as my next Canada Reads Independently book. But it was a whim pick up last Friday, when I realized I had a long-ish commute ahead of me and no book in my bag for the trip. I read the first 20 to 30 pages on said commute, and thought, "Geez, there's no way I'm going to finish this." It didn't seem very serious or astute: did I really want to read a novel that centred around a boring national newspaper with a self-absorbed and unappealing narrator that covered the deadly dull topic of popular culture? It immediately reminded me of my attempt last year to read Russell Smith's How Insensitive - and a poor attempt it was, as I only made it through 40 pages. My head space just isn't into novels centred around un-selfaware, immature and shallow twentysomethings. I lived that life a decade ago, and it's not something I really wish to revisit.

Ah yes, but the narrator Maxime isn't in her 20s, but is in her early 30s - quelle difference! In truth, I decided to persevere because it was a Sunday morning where I was not in my own apartment and near my bookshelf, and thus had nothing else to read. I was trapped. And then, miraculously, about 60 or so pages in, I got hooked. The novel moved away from the world of pop culture - it started to mock it as well, which always helps - and the navel-gazing realm of the Toronto newspaper media (which I was once part of, albeit mostly peripherally) and began to develop more depth and complexity. If it wasn't for the gold medal hockey game that afternoon, I would have finished this book in one sitting (save for that original Friday commute).

As other reviewers have remarked, this is a coming-of-age story - and it's true, one can experience epiphanies in their 30s (I certainly did; I still experience them, in fact). This is a novel that perfectly captures the early (pre-twitter, pre-iPhone, pre-9/11) 21st century: the dot.com boom is about to go bust, and most of us (I include myself here) are avoiding commitment of any sort. Maxime is drifting through life: she hates her job, she's lost her long-term boyfriend, and she hasn't yet confronted her childhood "demons" (I put that in quotes because they aren't really demons, but issues). The novel becomes a story about self discovery and, ultimately, redemption.

This is not a perfect book by any stretch. (What book is?!) The narrative, particularly as it hits the halfway point, becomes overly conventional, and the ending is pat and predictable. There are scenes toward the end which shout "Here's the catharsis!" Still, I kept reading - and, really, I hate to nitpick on matters of plot and structure since I'm an amateur and hardly one to judge - and wanted to know how it would all unfold. I "got" Maxime, maybe because I could understand her dilemmas, her struggles. Ultimately, however, what makes it shine is Onstad's prose: she's a natural, seemingly effortless, writer. It's easy to forgive and forget certain plot contrivances when the writing is skillful and fun.

I'm not sure when I'm going to read Wild Geese. I read the first few pages and wondered if it's up my alley. I may read a couple of books in the interim. In the end, getting through four of the five Canada Reads Independently books feels somewhat like an accomplishment. I'll pat myself on the back.

Ray Smith's Century: A mini-review

The great thing about this Canada Reads Independently challenge (is that the right word?) is that it exposes me to books that I normally would never been have aware of. This is certainly true of Ray Smith's Century, originally published way back in 1986 by Stoddart, but republished by Biblioasis last year as part of its Renditions Reprint Series. (My apologies to Biblioasis as I ended up reading the Stoddart version, borrowed from the library. I couldn't find the reprint at my local bookstore.) Not only was I not aware of this book, I've never heard of the author Smith. (After reading Century, and trying to find out a bit more about the author - there isn't even a wikipedia entry on him - I have this picture in my head of Smith as this ultra-reclusive writer, a little bit of Salinger in him. Sorry, Ray, if I've got you pegged all wrong.) But I suppose that's the great thing about being an inveterate reader: there's always going to be a writer yet to be discovered.

Reading this on the heels of Bellow's Augie March, it was, at first, a mite jarring. Unlike Bellow, who delights in wonderfully long, lyrical and often ribald sentences, Smith's style is by comparison much more spare, direct. But upon completion of the opening story, "In the Night, Heinrich Himmler...," I was seriously hooked. For one, I've always been attracted to works where the unseen writer introduces himself - in Smith's case, subtly - and toys with the reader and the notion of artifice. He admits that the character of Jane Seymour might be nothing more than a figment of his imagination: "I have not managed to give Jane flesh, though I think the nape of her neck was not too badly done."

I won't bother to recount the entire "narrative" of this book - and narrative is purposely in quotes since this is not a conventional novel. In fact, is it even a novel? The first part of the book, Family, consists of four linked stories dealing with the Seymour family: the children Jane and Ian, the parents Bill and Gwen. (Is Seymour a nod to Salinger and his own linked stories of the Glass family?) Death permeates the stories: one suicide, one tragic, and the other by cancer. There's a wonderful complexity to these characters, particularly the parents in the last two stories: for one, despite a long shared life together, we discover that Bill really doesn't know his wife at all. This struck me as particularly perceptive: even though we often share our lives within various relationships, many of us often retain a "secret," hidden life that we don't share even with our closest loved ones. We're all mysterious cats.

The last story in this section, "Serenissima," revolving around the wife Gwen, was absolutely devastating for me. It was wonderfully measured, exquisitely executed and contained a shocking scene of humiliation. It's perhaps one of the best single stories I've read in a long time. (I finished the book a few days ago and waited to write this mini review, to see if that particular story would still resonate. It does.) The book is worth reading for this one story alone.

The second section of the book, The Continental, was more puzzling. Despite sharing certain themes, there doesn't seem to be any relation to the first part. Unless, of course, I totally missed something (which is always a possibility). It tells the story of American Kenniston Thorson, first in late 19th century Paris, then 30 years later on a train rumbling through Europe. Thorson is an odd character: his name is lost to history, yet he also seems to float among noteworthy events and be involved with many important historical figures. It's a perplexing story, but fascinating nonetheless. 

In the end, however, I didn't quite understand its inclusion as I couldn't intellectually - and emotionally - link this latter section with the first. (I plan on reading some reviews of the book to give me some additional perspective. Perhaps it's simply an unsophisticated reading on my part.) Still, because I found the first half of this book so strong and compelling, I didn't feel cheated that I was confused with this section. Morever, taken on its own, the Thorson tale is enjoyable.

Ultimately, the real strength of this work is Smith's assertive and limpid (a word he actually uses at least three times!) prose. There's a confidence in his style, a writer who's totally in command of the language. Quite a contrast from my reaction to the Ray Moody book - while Moody can certainly spin a good yarn, Smith's sentences shimmer. While I didn't plan on rating the Canada Reads books, I will admit that it's going to be tough to top my experience of reading this stunning book.

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.

Ray Robertson's Moody Food: A quickie review

Last week wasn't a banner week for me in terms of reading and writing. The writing part is obvious: I haven't posted in a week. The reading part is less obvious, but suffice to say I struggled to find a book I could sink my teeth into. Maybe I needed a week to simply veg. It was a busy one at work - yes, let's use that as my excuse (lame as it may be). (I did, however, read Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed, the much-anticipated sequel to her mega-hit Eat, Pray, Love. Yes, Virginia, I'm probably not the intended audience for this book. But I was a fan of Gilbert's writing before she struck it rich, largely because of this piece she wrote for the NYTimes, which has everything a humour article should have (ie., yuks). And I read Eat, Pray, Love while I was in the midst of my own break-up, so it had definite resonance. Anyway I will eventually write more about this book and Gilbert, hopefully in my long-promised post about memoirs. Particularly since I'm halfway through another sort-of memoir: Michael Greenberg's Beg, Borrow or Steal - what's with these three word titles?! - which is such a great, fun read, particularly if you've ever tried to make it as a freelance writer.)

I've never been accused of being a decent reviewer. I love my books and films, without a doubt, but that doesn't necessarily translate into being thoughtful in words when I'm done. This truth is particularly evident when I read insightful and incisive reviews by others. (For example, Kerry Clare's more thorough review of Hair Hat put mine to shame!) But I'm ok with this because the reviews that I conjure in my head are enough for me. Something seems to get lost along the way when I try to convey the jumble in my head to the tips of my typing fingers. Put another way: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

All that preamble aside, I do want to write a few words about Ray Robertson's Moody Food, the second book I've read for Canada Reads Independently. I had high hopes for this book based on the backcover blurb: "... is a critically acclaimed sex, drugs, rock'n'roll-suffused modern tragedy." Sign me up! There aren't enough rock-and-roll novels, after all (although my friend P. is trying to get one he wrote published). Not to mention I'm fascinated by the novel's setting: Toronto's Yorkville in the mid-1960s, when hippies and folk music ruled the neighbourhood. (I can barely stand to walk through Yorkville these days, except when I visit the Pilot on a Saturday afternoon for jazz.)

There is certainly much to enjoy in this novel. It has a fairly strong narrative thrust. The book is narrated by Bill Hansen, a charming and idealistic hippie who works at what sounds like the coolest bookstore in the world (located on Harbord St. no less). He's somewhat adrift until he meets Thomas Graham, who introduces the impressionable Hansen to roots-based music. Eventually the two, along with Hansen's girlfriend Christine, form a band called The Duckhead Secret Society (Hansen is the drummer, even though he's never played drums before), first playing locally before they're "discovered," after which they set out on tour through the U.S. on their way to L.A. to record an album. Hansen and Graham, however, eventually get hooked on cocaine, and the two veer toward self-destruction, all the way Graham is working on music that he hopes will transcend the time.

This book is a proverbial page-turner, to be sure, propelled forward by the narrative. The journey, beginning with the Toronto scenes and proceeding through various towns and dives through the U.S., is fun and engaging. This is a dialogue-heavy book, which makes it accessible and easily digestible. But for me, there was just something ... missing. There's not time spent on introspection or reflection: more like "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened." I love plot, of course, but I like something more than just plot. My real beef however is with the writing itself, which I found fairly sloppy and clumsy in spots. (Was this deliberate, I wonder? Maybe someone can enlighten me.) It's been a long time since I read so many run-on and jumbled sentences. This book could have used a strong editorial hand.

But hey, what the hell do I know? I'd recommend this book since I found it a frolic, but it doesn't have near the same depth as Carrie Snyder's Hair Hat. (It's also one that will not take a permanent place on my book shelf. It's up for grabs, basically, for anybody that wants to borrow it - on "long term loan.")

I'm still not sure what Canada Reads Independently book I will next take up. I couldn't find either Ray Smith's Century or the Katrina Onstad in my local bookshop - and I couldn't remember the title of the fifth book nominated - so I'm sort-of in a holding pattern. This has been a fun exercise, and one I will continue. Despite my less-than insightful reviewing.

Monday morning, you sure look wet

Just a quick note before I head off to work on this rainy Monday morning. It was a good weekend - a nice blend of activity (dinner out on Friday night, a matinee of Avatar on Saturday, which I'll write about in a future post) and low-key relaxation, which included finishing my second Canada Reads Independently book, Ray Robertson's Moody Food. I'm going to write more about this book in a post later this week - I want a day or two to properly digest it. The quickie review: good but not great. Perhaps my expectations for this book were too high, and it didn't deliver. Still a fun read though, and worthy of my time. I'm not sure what to read next. I'm going to take a break from the Canada Reads Independently books - mainly because I don't have any of them here in the apartment! - and instead tackle something unrelated. Once this post is done, I'm off to the reading queue in my bookshelf to pick something out. Maybe some Saul Bellow. Or perhaps Atwood's Year of the Flood.

I'd also like to point readers toward an interesting article about the memoir in last week's New Yorker. I want to write more about this - for one, Elizabeth Gilbert's follow-up to the immensely popular Eat, Pray and Love, Committed, is awaiting pick up at the Spadina TPL (closed on Mondays, unfortunately), and Gilbert is an author (and narcissist) I want to touch upon more on the topic of memoirs (since I'm also probably one of the few men that has actually read Eat, Pray and Love!) - as well as touch on my favourite type of fiction, what I call "confessional fiction."

All these promised blog posts - can I possibly deliver? Stay tuned.

Carrie Snyder's Hair Hat: A quickie review

So I've been a good Canada Reads Independently boy: not only did I buy Ray Robertson's Moody Food from my local bookstore this weekend, I also sat and read (in almost one sitting - I was about 20 pages from the end when the lovely A. wanted to watch a movie: the surprisingly delightful Julie & Julia, but of course I'm a sucker for anything starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams) Carrie Snyder's Hair Hat. As mentioned in a previous post, I cheated and ended up picking this book up from the library - going against my original plan of buying all the Canada Reads Independendly books - but I will poke around for it at my local secondhand shop. (I want to keep them in business too.)

What a wonderful work this is: whimsical, sad, profound, and it captures the not-so-ordinariness of many seemingly ordinary lives. The extraordinariness of ordinariness, in other words. It brings to mind (but just a mite) of Carol Shields: the characters themselves live, on the surface, these somewhat mundane lives, but there's such a richness behind the facade. Just one example: the character of Aunt Lucy, who we're introduced to in the first story, "Yellow Cherries." As narrated by young Francie, Lucy is largely faceless: she's efficient - taking care of Francie at night, making breakfast in the morning, pitting cherries - but she's also seemingly lacking personality. Yet, in "Comfort," which I think is the strongest story in the collection, when the same scenes play out from Lucy's narration/point of view, she reveals depth and sadness and regret. (The classic cliche, I suppose: still waters run deep.) Most of these characters are lonely, which probably explains why it spoke to me: my life is wonderful and full, but sometimes I tend to experience a profound sense of loneliness. It's always a nice confirmation knowing I'm not alone.

I was worried after reading the first couple of stories that the recurring character of the man with the hair hat would be overly "gimmicky" - especially after reading the jacket blurb: "Different to each of them, he makes perfect sense to them all. By turns a figure of forgiveness, of threat, even of love..."; ugh - it eventually played itself out and worked. (I wonder if the story "Chosen," in fact, should have been the final one in the book?)

What really stands out, however, is Snyder's prose. It's luminous and limpid. No trickery, no showing off, but clean, crystalline. Which has got me asking: Carrie, when are you going to publish your novel, as promised in the author blurb?! Well, it only said you were working on it. I guess with four kids, maybe finishing a novel isn't your top priority.

I doubt I'm going to "rank" the Canada Reads Independently books, but if I did, this would be an early favourite. (Note: I'm about 100 pages into Ray Robertson's Moody Food - so far it's good, but not great. The novel is, surprisingly, a mite sloppily written. But the story itself is engaging, so onward we go.)

In other news, I note the death of Robert B. Parker, he of Spenserfame. I was introduced to Parker's writing by my friend H., who during our last year of undergrad went through a detective and mystery writing phase. Many felt Parker was an heir to the writings of the acknowledged masters of the genre, Hammett and Chandler. The early Spenser books are wonderful: expert narrative, tautly written, and also fun as hell. While the later books are still good, something of the magic is missing. But it's a small quibble. Interestingly, Parker also wrote one of my favourite romantic novels of all time: Love and Glory. It's tough to find (outside of Amazon, of course), but well worth it grabbing if you see it secondhand. In his honour, I'm going to read this coming weekend a Spenser book that I bought at the Vic College sale in the fall: Ceremony. It's supposed to be one of the best.

Short and precise

Reading Rose-coloured's recent thoughts on the film Up in the Air, where she eventually brings Denis Johnson's collection of stories from the book Jesus' Son into the conversation, brought to mind the mid-1990s. Why? Simple: Jesus' Son was once a proud tenant of my bookshelf. It was the original paperback, with the wonderful black cover. Yet, despite its occupancy, I never read the book. More scarily, I can't exactly remember why I didn't read it, and how it came to disappear from my shelf. To the best of my recollection, I think I lent it to a work colleague, who never ended up returning it. I can't say that I blame him: now that I've finally read the book, I too probably would have made off with it.

Jesus' Son has long been a book that has been in my consciousness - it just hasn't been in my actual brain. I had, naturally, heard the great things said about it - phrases like "a modern masterpiece" tend to get thrown away in discussion of the book - but I usually look toward my well-read friends as guides. My friend H. claimed that it was one of the five best books he had ever read. Another friend also said it was unforgettable, to the extent he read it twice in two days to help him not forget it. It's one of those titles that, over the past couple of years, I look for when I'm browsing secondhand book stores. I never could find it, however, which perhaps also attests to its legacy: once in a reader's possession, it remains a treasured companion. I ended up taking my copy out of the TPL, and, after spending Friday and Saturday reading it (I could have probably read it in one sitting, but I wanted to spread it out over a couple of days, to better fully take in the stories), I'm even more determined to find my own copy. Yes, this book is pretty much perfect.

"Spare" tends to be the word ascribed to Johnson's prose, but I think I prefer the word economical. His phrasing is precise and often lyrical, but there's also a wonderful rawness, a hardness, about it. For example, I love this sentence from the story "The Other Man":

"I'm sure we were all feeling blessed on this ferryboat among the humps of very green - in the sunlight almost coolly burning, like phosphorus - islands, and the water of inlets winking in the sincere light of day, under a sky as blue and brainless as the love of God, despite the smell, the slight, dreamy suffocation, of some kind of petroleum-based compound used to seal the deck's seams."

Powerhouse! He's also fair and generous with his characters: yes, many of them live on the fringes, but there's a genuine caring and honesty about them all. These are stories that will inhabit me for a while.

I should probably break up these male authors I've been reading of late with some female writers. (I've also started reading the Tim Winton book The Turning, but I'm not planning on reading it through straight; the stories are overlapping, but I don't get a sense there's a narrative arc that requires me to read it like a novel.) There's a few in my reading queue: Atwood's Year of the Flood, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, Jane Austen's Emma. I'll make my decision this evening.

Autumn meanderings

Ah, there's a chill coming through my office window. Autumn is approaching, which is wonderful news. I was out of town last week - Sandbanks Provincial Park, to be specific, where the sunsets are out of this world (see photo) - with my lovely companion, who loves the sun as if its ... well, her son. Me, I tolerate the sun and heat, but I don't necessarily seek it out. It's ok when it finds me, but only on a temporary basis. Give me cooler, long-sleeve temperatures any day.

But the few days out of the city, away from the smog and the general stresses of work and life, were a wonderful tonic. I had hoped to get quite a bit of reading done, but only partially succeeded. I mostly read in snippets: a few Mavis Gallant stories, a wonderful Orhan Pamuk story in the New Yorker, as well as a few other magazine articles. I also needed something for the beach, so I brought up an Elmore Leonard novel, 52 Pick-Up. I can see why Leonard is a darling of other writers: his prose is snappy, his narrative sense keen, and his characters (usually) original. The novel ends rather abruptly - as well as mildly predictable - but it was still a fun read.

Now I'm on to Peggy Atwood's Oryx and Crake, in anticipation of her new novel Year of the Flood, where I'm high-up on the holds list at the Toronto Public Library. I'm 50 pages in, and struggling a mite. I'm not a big fan of science fiction, although Atwood calls her work "speculative fiction." But a close friend of mine swears that the book is wonderful, and that one needs to read it whole to fully "get" what she's doing, so I will persevere. Although I reminded said friend today over gchat that we don't seem to have a similar literary sensibility.

Oh, and good news for those interested: I found a secondhand copy of Bellow's Adventures of Augie March that I'd been seeking. I bought a companion for it at the same time: Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound. Yes, I have too much to read. And yet I still haven't decided what I should bring with me to Argentina. Borges seems a little too heavy for a trip. I'm of course open to suggestion.

the heat, the books

Ah, so this is what we've been missing all summer: hot, sticky, uncomfortable evenings because of the humidity. Let's just say, that crazy rain aside, I can live without this summer weather. Give me cool, fresh summer nights anytime. Humidity blows.

Since I couldn't sleep this morning, I thought I'd cobble together a quick post. I've been going through a variety of moods of late. Some of it is because of job-related stress and continued frustrations in my workplace. I've also been dwelling (too much, I think, and probably irrationally) on aging, feeling life is starting to proverbially "pass me by." It's always dangerous and foolish to compare one's life to others, but sometimes I can't help observe the activities of the friends and acquaintances around me and wonder if they're doing it "right." They're buying houses, getting married, having children. There's a sense of progress there, while it seems my life has been somewhat stagnant.

Anyway I don't mean this to be a lament. But I figure it was on my mind this morning (and of late), so I thought I would share it. (For those of you that might be worried, don't! As per usual, this will pass.)

In other news... I've decided, after reading 123 pages of TC Boyle's The Women, that I'm going to return it to the library without reading the last 200 pages. It's not that I wasn't enjoying the book per se - Boyle is a great craftsman, and the narrative is engaging - but I realized when I was about 100 pages in that I didn't really care all that much about these characters. Nor did the book seem to have any relevancy and insight to the particular moods and thoughts I'm currently experiencing. It made me realize how important that type of relevancy and immediacy is to me when I read. I don't read to escape; I read to understand, to involve, to make some sense out of my own life. That doesn't mean I require a narrative that's comparable to my life and circumstances, but I need something I can relate to. Perhaps offering some wisdom into solitude, or relationships, friendships, family. The Boyle just didn't have that going for me (as entertaining as the story was), so I'm giving up on it. Life is too short to spend with a book that just isn't working for me.

Instead I picked up another Saul Bellow: Humboldt's Gift. I was hooked from the first few paragraphs! It's not nearly as complex as Herzog, but it contains all the elements I love about Bellow, namely the richness and wonder of both his language and the characters. It's going to be an engaging read. And the thing that resonates (which is why it has relevancy for me) is the theme of literature (and its so-called purity) vs. crass commercialism. More on this in another post, after I finish the book.

Is it a fact of life that CBC's Metro Morning has to play the same crappy music almost daily?

randomness

A few things rattling in my brain this evening:

- I forgot how different camping is in the US versus Canada. I spent many summers in my youth in a Coleman trailer in the wonderful United States of America - living in Montreal, the folks confined our travels to the eastern seaboard, primarily Maine (which I'd love to visit again) - but have camped almost exclusively in the last 10 years (when I rediscovered the great outdoors) in Ontario. I had an extra-long long weekend this past weekend camping in upstate NY, at Letchworth State Park. It was a spontaneous trip planned on the fly, and was largely quite wonderful. It helps that I have a thing for running water and water falls. Yet, spoiling the experience was some terribly unruly campers from NY who were intent on speaking very loudly at midnight ("quiet time" was supposedly 10 pm), hitting the car with a soccer ball, and walking through our site to visit the loo. I don't remember experiencing the same type of camper in Ontario's Provincial Parks. More important, was I loud and obnoxious when we camped in the Adirondacks when I was a kid?

- It's fun to read a Spenser novel by Robert Parker after so many years. Ideal campsite reading. (For those curious, it was Looking for Rachel Wallace. I have the 1980 Dell paperback if someone wishes to borrow it. A fun read.) I brought Jane Austen's Emma as well, but didn't get around to breaking the spine. (Well, I broke the spine when I was supposed to read it in my Introduction to the Novel class during my first-year undergrad, but never got past page 30 or so. I'm determined to finish all the books in my various syllabuses from years past.) I think it might be next in the queue, particularly since I don't have any books waiting for me at the TPL. I also bought Leonard Michaels' The Collected Stories, which I'll dip into over the next few weeks.

- Hiking really is a great stress reliever for me. File that under "note to self."

- Hooray for Argentina! I booked an Oct. flight to Buenos Aires on Thurs. Nice to have some travel to look forward to.

- You have to love the post-camping shower.

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.

For the love of reading

"Oh, how different my life would have been had I not grown up in the same house with my grandmother, how much narrower and blander! She was the reason I was a reader, and being a reader was what had made me most myself; it had given me the gifts of curiosity and sympathy, an awareness of the world as an odd and vibrant and contradictory place, and it had made me unafraid of its oddness and vibrancy and contradictions."
- American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld (p. 321)

I'm beginning to re-emerge from my silence. Stay tuned!

General thoughts on reading

My apologies to my reader(s?) for not updating the blog in a while. It's been a bit of a crazy couple of weeks, largely with writing a cover letter (yes, it takes me that long, particularly since I used the intelligence of many different people to help me craft something appropriate and that will stand out amongst many, many letters) and updating my CV (an exercise I haven't done for three years) for a new job. Cross your fingers and wish me well.

In my spare time, I turned the last page on Robert Bolano's 2666. There's always a sense of accomplishment, finishing a neary 900-page tome. It's quite a wonderful work - in fact, upon completion, I was tempted to pick up the first book (I bought the three-volume paperback, figuring it would be easier on my back when carrying it in my bag) and start it all over again. It will be a book I'll reread, I'm sure of it. In fact, it did inspire me to pick up Bolano's The Savage Detectives, which I read during my 2006 xmas holidays. I'm actually not one to revisit a book when I'm done, my reasoning being that there are so many other great books to gorge on, why waste my time reading something I've finished? Yet, I'm still attuned to the Bolano sensibility right now, I don't feel ready to leave him yet. And while I can pick up one I haven't yet read (Amulet is an obvious choice), there was something drawing me back to The Savage Detectives. Maybe it was my friend M., who recently finished it and was effusive in his praise. Also, now that I'm in tune with Bolano, it would allow me to pick up some things I missed on the first go-around with the novel, when I was totally new to the author. Anyway I'm 100 pages in and very happy I picked it out of the book shelf.

I wish I had the energy to write about why I prefer the novel to short stories, but I'm feeling a mite wiped from the day's activities. Watch this space (hopefully tomorrow) for a post about shorter works, John Cheever, and more on Bolano. I really just wanted to get something on here, for fear that my reader(s?) will no longer visit here.