Yes, I know, the photo of the galley of Augusten Burroughs, This is How: Help is for the Self, Proven Aid in Overcoming More, For Young and Old Alike, is slightly skewed, and I think that’s entirely, utterly right. As it happens with most book reviews that I write, I’m going to begin with a digression. There are maybe two self-help-style books that I have truly found, well, helpful in my life. The first, Motherless Daughters, helped me understand the profound loss that I felt at a very difficult moment in my life during the course of living through the empty space my mother’s accident and subsequent hospitalization left in my life. It was entirely the right book for me to read. The other, a classic textbook-like tome about depression, The Feeling Good Handbook, gave me simple tools to understand how your mind alters your mood and the pitfalls of negative thinking, etc. I’m not saying that these books cured what ailed me. But what they did was give me a different perspective about what I was going through, mentally, physically. Continue reading “#11 – This is How by Augusten Burroughs”
Busted on the Bloor Line: The Times, They Are Changing
Things are getting better. I saw the SFDD this week, and while my bloodwork is never entirely good news, there’s hope on the horizon in terms of finally being in a little more sustainable remission for my Wegener’s. My kidney function was severely damaged by the pregnancy and intense flare all those months ago, and I just have to come to terms with the fact that I’ll probably be on some form of medication for my poor, beleaguered organ for the rest of my life. That said, at least I’m alive. I manage to get to work. I’m raising a little boy. I have an outlet here. Continue reading “Busted on the Bloor Line: The Times, They Are Changing”
Busted on the Bloor Line: Old Meets New
There is nothing that this wee toddler likes more than this old, old, old rotary phone. It’s my grandmother’s from when she worked at the Ontario courts (I think that’s correct; she was a stenographer; I think). I’ve had it since university, and it’s been in every place I’ve lived since, and it still works. We’ve been through three different iPods, the phone still works. We’ve been through three televisions, the phone still works. The zombie apocalypse could happen and that damn phone would still work. That is, until the RRBB drops it on its head for the umpteenth time. And it’s not that he’s just obsessed with this phone — he’s obsessed with all phones. Fussy on the TTC: hand him my blackberry. Grumpy at home: RRHB gives him his phone. He holds them upside down and backwards and says, “Hi!” It’s hilarious.
And the gloriously happy look on his face does nothing to betray the hell we’ve been through over the past few days. I’m coughing like Doc Holliday in Tombstone, running a fever; my RRHB’s got a cold; and the baby has the stomach flu, complete with the, ahem, runs — for FIVE STRAIGHT DAYS now. He’s not dehydrated. He’s actually eating well. It’s just a lot of changing diapers and rinsing kibbles and bits off in the tub. So, it’s been another marathon. Just getting through the days. Worrying incessantly about him, about his health, about whether or not I should call the doctor, checking things online, reading different parenting sites, doing more worrying, and then I cough up a lung, my RRHB feels nauseous, and all three of us collapse into another day defined by whatever daycare plague has descended upon us. Continue reading “Busted on the Bloor Line: Old Meets New”
#10 – The Flight of Gemma Hardy
When @em_ingram walked into my cube last week and told me that I absolutely had to read The Flight of Gemma Hardy, I took it to heart. Margot Livesay’s love letter to Jane Eyre, surprised and delighted me. It’s a familiar story, not just because of the latest filmed adaptation (which I thought was excellent), but because, like so many of these great novels, these stories are embedded in our collective reading consciousness. I’ve read a number of books that write back to Brontë, and I count Jean Rhy’s Wide Sargasso Sea among one of my favourite novels, of all time.
Ten-year-old Gemma, an orphan now twice-over, finds herself shunted away to Claypoole, where she’s a “working girl,” scrubbing floors and dusting shelves for just to sustain her Annie-like existence and meagre education. But she’s strong willed and good of heart, and lands an au pair position in the Orkneys, where her fate is forever linked with that of her employer’s, Mr. Sinclair. As with the original book, morality and secrets are the enemy of love, and Gemma finds herself chased away, yet again, from yet another home. She lands not fifty miles from her awful aunt’s house, and must come to face the truth of her own existence, her own life’s story, before she can even consider whether or not she’d like to be married. Set after the Second World War, when Scotland itself must have been changing, where the men and the women who had been through the battles faced a different world when they returned, Gemma’s life opens up for her in ways that her predecessor, Jane, would have most likely reveled in.
While I found some of the strings tying this novel to the other a bit flimsy, in the end, it didn’t matter because Gemma’s such a wonderful character in her own right. When she sets off to “find herself,” pushed to the brink by the choices forced upon her by both society and “good” morals, you root for her entirely, and that’s enough for me. Knowing the “other” Jane’s story so well becomes irrelevant by the end of the book, as if Livesay wrote herself out of it on purpose, if only to prove how far we’ve all come, to examine the roots of feminism, of free will, of delight in the power of learning, all of which, I’m sure, Brontë would have reveled in herself. Like Emma described it to me, this is a book for people who love books, and she’s not at all wrong.
#9 – Up, Up, Up – Stories
The one bright spot that I pulled off my shelf of “Bs” in the last week or so has got to be Julie Booker’s incredibly adept story collection, Up, Up, Up. I like, first of all, how she puts “short” back in “short story,” with many of the tales clocking in at less than ten or so pages. I also like the whimsical package, the pretty colours, and how the word “twee” never once entered my mind as I raced through the collection.
By far my favourite stories are the ones taking place in a natural setting. And by far by far, the one I enjoyed the best was the very first one, “Geology in Motion.” Because, how could you not love a story that starts like this: “Lorrie and Kate tended to say too much.” You see, they talk themselves right into an Alaskan vacation, two over-sized ladies in an under-sized kayak — woman against nature. And immediately the story brought to mind the infamous line from one of my favourite Flannery O’Connor stories, “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” where Julian accompanies his mother to the Y for her reducing classes. Continue reading “#9 – Up, Up, Up – Stories”
#8 – The Empire of the Sun
It took me ages to finish this book, another that has been on my shelves since I started working at HarperCollins, which is five years ago next weekend, because, well, I found the voice kind of boring. I know, it’s an awful thing to say. The content of the book isn’t remotely boring — young Jamie becomes separated from his parents during the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during the Second World War, he’s imprisoned and learns to fend for himself. His evolution from pampered school boy to scavenger and camp “rat” is impressive, as is both his intelligence and will to live. Yet, the book bored me to tears.
In a way, it’s one of those rare times where the movie wholly spoiled the reading experience for me. I couldn’t get Christian Bale’s Jim out of my head, and every time I saw him doing something in my mind’s eye, the movie flashed before me and I was back to thinking I’d just rather watch it again than read the source material. Not a good sign. There’s an emotional depth that’s somewhat missing in the novel, a chord that doesn’t quite strike right, and maybe that’s my own prejudice in terms of storytelling coming forward, but I wanted so much more from the book. The horrific things that Jim endures, like the constant flies at the sores in his mouth, are epic, and overwhelming, and yet, the childlike innocence that fosters the richness of the character from the beginning of the novel wains by the end. And the things that are never explained, the bits of the story in between the lines, that’s what I really wanted.
So, I’m glad I read it. I’m glad it’s off my shelf. I’m glad I crossed another title off the 1001 Books list, but the “Bs” are proving difficult to get through. I have a mammoth undertaking in Cloudsplitter, which I’ve started six times, and my go-to escapism author, Chris Bohjalian, has written a novel that’s impossibly dull as well — in short, I might be stuck in the “Bs” for a while.
Busted on the Bloor Line: Breakdown on the Tracks
I’m going to confess right off the bat: I did not take this picture. It’s a great shot and the RRBB looks exceptionally happy in this particular moment when his French Canadian father pumped up his French Canadian blood and dropped him full throttle onto the field by the park to just get out of the house. And, I missed it. I get to live my son’s life through the photographs that my husband takes to show me the moments that pass while I’m away at work. Oh, he’s comforting — consistently telling me I’m not missing all that much, but I am, and it’s overwhelming.
Then, I’m at work and it’s crazy busy and really stimulating these days, and actually kind of exciting. I have a number of giant projects, which means the days fly by, no lunch, no gym, no fresh air, and then on Mondays and Tuesdays, it’s racing to get the RRBB from daycare, racing home, and then dropping on the couch after he’s been fed, bathed, storied and deposited in bed. And, it’s overwhelming.
So, more so than usual, I think because everyone has been endlessly sick, and not the disease-kind of sick that I endure on a daily basis but a runny nose, achy, coughing, stuffed up, miserable, feverish, snotty, daycare-plague that haunts us from one weekend to the next. I don’t think we’ve ever had a Saturday or Sunday since I went back to work that all three of us have felt at our best. I’m sick. The RRBB’s sick. The RRHB’s sick. No one is happy. There’s a lot of whining. There’s not enough fresh air or fresh food because who can cook when their head feels like it’s going to explode. And, it’s overwhelming.
Things that I used to excel at — keeping our budget organized, our money sorted, our bills paid — were falling by the wayside. I paid our gas bill twice and forgot entirely to pay the cable bill (which, TWO DAYS after the bill arrived in my mailbox Rogers started calling me like they were a collection agency and I have never been so mad at a poor telemarketer. This is the ONLY time I have ever forgotten to pay that bill. Shut the flapjack up Rogers, seriously). We’re more broke than we’ve ever been in our lives — but still, we have a beautiful house, food on the table, clothes on our backs, a happy, well-adjusted little baby in private daycare — so I would better classify us as monetarily challenged at the moment, going from one salary to two, and from two people to three. You know, it’s overwhelming.
And my other work, my book, some short stories, things that have been percolating for decades, keep getting pushed aside, and a tiny little part of me, the me who I think I really am inside, gets lost in the shuffle. And that is, well, overwhelming.
So, I’ve started breaking my life down into manageable pieces. I pay the bills on any computer the moment they come into the house. I take the car in on daycare days even though it’s $13.00 to park because the baby is happier when we get home earlier. I run errands on my lunch hour when I’m not working through it. I’ve been doing okay with my New Year’s Revolutions — making soups with the slow cooker on the weekends that are good for lunches and at least one dinner. Making meal plans, fitting in grocery shopping wherever possible to make sure we can make meals at home. Now, we’re only ordering once a week — usually on Mondays because my RRHB has been working, and we’re all out of the house — instead of two to three times a week. That’s a win. We dusted off the bread-maker and my RRHB has been making delicious bread at home, which I think is terrific because we’re saving all that packaging and the RRBB loves his bread. And I’ve taken something to heart — a good friend of mine with two kids used to describe his life as “choosing tired.” In order to squeeze in the parts of himself that got lost in the daily back and forth and up and down that is parenting small children, he stayed up too late, and “choose” to be tired. So, I’ve skipped the last few naps with the RRBB on the weekends and sat down at the computer and wrote, and it was amazing. I started a new project. Found some new life in an old one, and was glad to have done it. It’s only once, but it’s a start.
That’s the key — to use the skills that I’ve learned in this new life to try and feel less overwhelmed minute-by-minute. And I think it’s working. However, I was up with a seriously cranky RRBB at 4:45AM this morning, trying so very hard not to get angry when he whined and moaned, knowing he was so very tired and just needed to go back to sleep, yet refusing the rest at every turn. We read books. I steamed him up to help with his cough. I cuddled him when he allowed it. I lay down on the floor in his room when he bawled at the thought of being in his crib. And I did all of this because at the end of the day I love him so much it hurts. I barrel through my life during the day so that I can get home and spend a lovely evening with my RRHB, whom I adore, even when I’m fighting with him tooth and nail. Because at the end of the day, I might be overwhelmed, but I am loved at every turn and, in that, I am lucky, so very, very lucky.
Reading Resolutions
Apropos of nothing, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we choose what we read. Does anyone pay attention to reviews (I did when I got the paper; but I’ve all but stopped reading reviews in my life at the moment)? What about marketing, does it work? What about the bestseller list, does anyone pay attention? For most of the year I wasn’t working in the industry, and not having to read anything for work, I was frequently stumped, standing in front of my shelves feeling utterly uninspired.
It’s the book equivalent of flipping through 100 channels and still finding nothing to watch — seeing 400-odd books on your shelves and not desiring to read a single one. And yet, I’ve collected them all for a reason, whether I enjoy the writer, or heard something good about the book, and until I give each title its due, I can’t get rid of them. But they weigh, weigh, weigh me down. I feel immense pressure to “get through” them — it almost takes the joy out of reading. All the lists, all the challenges, all the tries in terms of keeping my life organized — it comes out in microcosm with reading. I think on some level that if I manage to keep my books organized my brain won’t feel so scattered.
So this year I’ve just made two resolutions — I’m going to take the pressure off. I’m going to read alphabetically and then I’m going to read everything else organically. What does that mean? I’m going to read books that have been recommended to me by friends, colleagues, other bloggers and I’m going to carry on ignoring everything else around me. Those subway posters are usually terrible anyway.
#7 – Flaubert’s Parrot
My copy of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die characterizes Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot as such: “This is a fascinating jigsaw puzzle of a book.” And while it’s not an untrue statement, it’s also a little dismissive of what I feel is the real, true accomplishment of this novella — Barnes’s complete ability to broadly reimagine the constructs of the “novel.” In a way, if you were reading critically, you could define the book in so many different ways: a post-modern collection speaking back to one of the greats of Western literature, Flaubert; a finely tuned, self-referential critique of the Ivory Tower nature of literary history and criticism; a highly personal story of a man (a doctor) relating so deeply to a story and characters (in Madame Bovary) that it allows him the space to come to terms with the state of his own life; and the more you read it, the more you see in it — that’s the utter brilliance of this work. Continue reading “#7 – Flaubert’s Parrot”
#6 – Skippy Dies
When the book arrived in the mail for my upcoming book club with a thunk, I thought, “there’s no way I can make it through 650+ pages before Saturday.” And then, magically, I did. And then, no so magically, I didn’t even get to go to book club because the RRBB was terrifically sick (104 fever, oh my!), and he basically used me as a couch from Thursday to Sunday, which was one of the hardest parenting weekends I’d had in a long time.
Annywaay, Skippy. Oh, the poor soul, so troubled, so riddled with angst, so deliciously in love with an unworthy girl. And then, it happens, he dies and the whole world that he leaves behind can’t seem to cope with the loss. Paul Murray’s Skippy Dies would have made for excellent book club discussion had I been able to participate. And, from the sounds of things, it did. One would imagine that many threads of a 600+ page novel would get lost, but Murray manages to keep a handle on the sprawling story for the most part. Sure, there were parts that I would have excised, but, on the whole, the book’s utterly readable and incredibly well-paced from beginning to end. Continue reading “#6 – Skippy Dies”