Busting out bad joints all over the place
“…At her time of life, anything of an illness destroys the bloom for ever! Hers has been a very short one! She was as handsome a girl last September as any I ever saw, and as likely to attract the men.”
From Sense and Sensibility.
My family doctor to me upon learning of the treatment for my disease all those years ago, “It’s such a shame that this had to happy to such a pretty girl.”
Good to see the sentiment hasn’t changed in three hundred-odd years.
While it’s not my favourite story in My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, a couple lines from Isaac Babel’s story felt real to me, if only because of the doctoring-type day I had yesterday: “And now, when I remember those sad years, I find them in the beginning of the ailments that torment me, and the causes of my premature and dreadful decline.”
To the poor soul who Googled this question and ended up here: “is writing fake memoir wrong,” let me just go on record to say yes, yes it is wrong. Oh so very, very wrong.
I’ve been reading, sllloooowwwly, the stories in Eugenides’s collection: My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead. Some I’m familiar with (Joyce’s “The Dead”; Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”; Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”), but some have been complete surprises. Denis Johnson’s “Dirty Wedding” knocked me out as cold as a February wind; so much so that I went out and bought his latest book, Tree of Smoke, before realizing it too is a whopper, clocking in at 613 pages.
But Lorrie Moore’s “How to be an Other Woman” might just be my favourite so far. It’s a little gem of a story with such fresh prose that I kept laughing out loud last night in bed and reading parts to my half-asleep RRHB. But my favourite lines might have to be these:
“After four movies, three concerts, and two-and-a-half musuems, you sleep with him. On the stereo you play your favourite harp and oboe music. He tells you his wife’s name. It is Patricia. She is an intellectual property lawyer. He tells you he likes you a lot. You lie on your stomach, naked and still too warm.”
Now that’s how to use the second person and not make me want to punch the story in the nose (tm Munro).
Not the CBC kind, but the newly launched Atlantic Monthly blog, mini-reviews Peter Carey’s latest novel, and even though His Illegal Self got a middling write-up in the Globe, should I ever actually finish one of the six books I have on the go right now, it’s the next on my list.
The most beleaguered category in literature these days, the poor traditional memoir, takes another beating this week with the news that Riverhead’s hotly reviewed Love and Consequences is fiction from start to finish. I get a little peeved when every bit of book media references James Frey in situations like this, if only because I still believe that there are parts of A Million Little Pieces that are true and the book in general is true to the form; but whatever, he lied, we all know that, maybe it’s time to move on and let the guy continue with his career.
But I do think that it’s quite different from writing an entire FICTIONAL book as this crazy woman has done and then passing it off as a memoir with the vain hope of ‘speaking for people who can’t speak themselves.’ Seriously? That’s the reason why? It had nothing to do with you sensationalizing other people’s misery and flaunting it all out so you could make a million or two from your book? (Perhaps not now that all the books have been recalled. Ouch. And poor trees. I hope the pulping machines can recover).
I’m kind of flabbergasted that Seltzer actually thought she could get away with it. That the little truth-meter in her mind wasn’t blaring when the media started calling and the NY Times raved about her book? And how mad must the sister be for to become the whistle blower? In this day and age, with fingers that fly and author pictures that appear on the web, did she think no one would recognize her? And when she started “speaking” for a neighbourhood, did she not think anyone would come forward and call her out?
It’s not so much the surprise that fake memoirs keep finding their way onto the shelves that surprises me, it’s more the fact that these writers are making it so much harder for the rest of the genre. Margaret Seltzer might just be an idiot (what would have been wrong with writing fiction?) who made a bad decision, but the more fake memoirs that come out and then are ripped to shreds by the Gawkers of the world, the harder it’ll be for people who honestly do have a story to tell and to sell to get published. It’s as if the memoir in its truly glorious, Joan Didion loving format, is dying a slow death.
And “homies”? Seriously?
I managed to remember to listen to Canada Reads this afternoon (thank goodness for time shifting, oh yeah!), and enjoyed the discussion. Especially considering that I really wasn’t interested in any of the choices this year, I’m glad that the panelists are doing such an amazing job of pulling apart the books and making them relevant. So far, my vote’s still with Icefields, and it’s still alive…but I have a feeling Not Wanted on the Voyage will come out on top.
My favourite part of today’s discussion? Dave Bidini and Lisa Moore going head to head (as much as possible) about the nature of why people read. Moore says it’s to grow; Bidini says it’s to have fun. My point? Does it have to be one or the other? I read to be inspired (like today, when I read this quote from Kundera: “She was too much at one with her body; that is why she always felt such anxiety about it.”) but I’m also not embarrassed to admit that I absolutely pick up chicklit for one reason, and that’s escapism.
The family drama of Donna Milner’s sweet, forgiving After River sweeps you away in its everyday life on a dairy farm in the beautiful East Kootenays. The story of the Wards, who come to accept a draft dodger named River into their lives, into their homes, until the book’s fateful event tears them apart, rambles over thirty-five years through terrain well-told throughout Canadian literary history. Family novels told by Canadian women are a popular kind, and Milner has set herself up in line with no shortage of excellent company. The novel, with its strains of Crow Lake and Unless, feels familiar and unknown at the same time. A compelling tale that overcomes its stereotypical beginnings to crash into an uplifting end, After River came as a bit of surprise.
As Natalie Ward tells the story of how her life changed after River, the unbelievably handsome and utterly compelling young American came into it, she cannot do so without giving the reader the whole picture. River just didn’t come into Natalie’s life, he came into her whole family, and his presence changed everything. Like the water of his nickname, he slipped into their land and made himself as essential as the air or the cows themselves. For Natalie, and her eldest brother Boyer, River represents that instant when your childhood leaves forever, a burgeoning adulthood that comes with the cost of happiness, and how rich the price of forgiveness remains when conflict goes unresolved.
The setting swept me away as much as the story: a farm set on rich, fertile land, a town trapped in its own small mind and an even smaller belief structure, all trapped (or set free depending on how you look at it) by the mountains that tower above. A highly personal story, it’s impossible not to feel empathetic with the events of Natalie’s life, nor is it easy to watch her make the mistakes she’s bound to make, or feel the weight of the guilt she carries away the moment she leaves the farm.
The prose isn’t perfect, and there are first-novel moments all over the book, tired descriptions and worn out metaphors, but none of that matters by the end, when Natalie’s life comes full circle, and the book comes to its pitch perfect end. Isn’t it always the case that we end up so far from where we begin, only to come home in so many ways, whether literal or metaphorical, despite how strong the pull of life drags you in another direction.
READING CHALLENGES: I had chosen Stanley Park as my book for British Columbia, but I’m swapping in this book instead. I’ll probably still read it, but I feel like this story and setting are just so evocative that I could see the mist rising up from the mountains in the dewy mornings and feel every inch of Natalie’s pain, which means it’s the right choice for The Canadian Book Challenge. It’s such a Canadian novel, this After River.
PHOTO IN CONTEXT: As I read a terribly practical but not entirely gorgeous ARC, I’m showing off the glorious cover. I know it might not be for everyone, but it perfectly suits the story, and the colours are just so lovely.
As with so many of my ARCS, here we go again…would anyone like me to pass this one along?
Finishing up Graham Greene’s exquisite little The Quiet American brings me up to speed now in terms of my 1001 Books club, and this post is a milestone in the blogging world too, as I’ve hit 1000 posts. Instead of writing the same things in two different places, I’m just going to copy and paste what I posted up on the boards:
What did you think of the book?
I appreciated the short, succinct nature of The Quiet American. I enjoyed the book’s politics, its own powerful, yet stilted, observations about the conflict from Fowler’s point of view, and the overwhelming drive for Pyle not only to save the country from itself, but to marry Phuong, to “save” her in a sense.
Had you read this author before?
No, but I had seen the movie (although I didn’t remember all of it).
Would you read something by him again?
Absolutely.
What would you rank this book out of 10?
8.
Do you think it deserves to be included on the list of 1001 and why?
I do think it deserves to be on the 1001 Books list. Why is a much harder question. I think unlike books on the list like The Lambs of London (which absolutely do not belong on the list) or every single title that Ian McEwan has written (I think they were desperate to fill the pages by then; and not that many don’t deserve to be, but every one?), The Quiet American has a fascinating sense of morality underlying its narrative: the line between good and evil isn’t clear, not in war, not in life, and certainly not between men.
As a kind of conversation between neo-colonialism (of the quiet kind) and overwrought, more classic colonialism of the French and British, the novel puts the characters of Pyle and Fowler in impossible situations, if only to prove the utter uselessness of either side. Pyle can no more get over his innocence in terms of his believe in the justifiable reasons behind his cause than Fowler can actually return to his old life in London. Both are changed and immutable at the same time, much like the old ideals each side clings to during the war.
Any insightful literary critiques?
The edition that I found (it’s a British Vintage, I think) has an introduction by Zadie Smith, who points out that Fowler’s description of the war is never far behind a major plot point. That even though he states over and over again that he is neutral, whether that actually turns out to be true or not, not becoming involved is impossible. Narrative and politics become merged into one, as if the setting can’t help but stretch itself into every single aspect of the story, which remains the reason why the novel succeeds.
And this line: “She put the needle down and sat back on her heels, looking at me. There was no scene, no tears, just thought — the long private thought of somebody who has to alter a whole course of life.”
PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I didn’t like the cover of the one I have here so I just searched out one I preferred.
READING CHALLENGES: I’m on track now for the 2 per month 1001 Books challenge, and finishing this book brings my complete score to 151. I am enjoying these classics so much that I’ve already started Sense and Sensibility. I might not read anything written in this century for a while. However, I do have work reading and Canadian challenge to get back to too.