Fall Book Guide

Eye‘s main feature this week is a Fall Book Guide. I imagine that kudos goes out to them for calling attention to so many small press books, and I always enjoy a cover story on Michael Winter. But I also kind of feel like a ninny for never having heard of many of these books (the Coupland and Hitchens obvious exceptions to the statement).

The one other book I have heard of, Carl Wilson’s, just makes me want to roll my eyes. I know I’m not the target hipster demographic but, and no offense meant to Wilson’s obvious writing talent, going from Pere Ubu to Celine Dion somewhat makes me feel like the book is more of a giant F U to everyone involved. Is it just me or are books that want to make a point this heavy-handed simply trying too hard?

But then again, having only ever written abridged classics for kids, I’m not one to put anyone else down for writing something they want or finishing a book at all. But really, one of the BIGGEST books for the season? All of the other books on the list, yes, I can see how they fit, but I do have to admit a giant yawn when I read the first blurb on the page.

Random Thoughts On A Thursday

When I rode my bike into work this morning, still happy that even though it’s October, the weather doesn’t necessitate a heavy wool “biking” (translation old and crappy) sweater just yet, it was so foggy that it reminded me of Dublin. Which got me thinking about other things that have served to bring me out of my eternal state of crabbiness:

1. Biking in on Monday a fellow two-wheeler shouted at a car, “Your breaking my tender heart!” When the driver cut him off. Awesome.

2. My RRHB was so nice to me yesterday. I had to work late and miss yoga (which I hate doing) because things are so busy with it being the Fall season and all. When I got home he had made me a pizza, tidied up the living room, and organized our evening’s entertainment (the last third of the current season of Rescue Me). What’s not to love?

3. I powered through Dennis Lehane’s truly engrossing Gone, Baby, Gone for our Facebook reading group (that’s #64 for the year) and have started to read PS, I Love You (also for Facebook), which is cute even if it feels a little like it was rather inspired by Marian Keyes.

4. Mad Men is the best show on television. Now, it goes head to head with Rescue Me, it’s true, but I’m having trouble wondering who’s hotter Denis Leary or Don Draper? Don’t force me to choose. Just don’t.

5. We are spending a relaxing weekend at home instead of going up north to the cottage. I couldn’t be more pleased. That means I can do hospital visits and farmers markets and eat my MIL’s turkey and make soup and organize my closet and clean off the exercise bike and read and watch movies and not have to race home to race onto the highway and maybe even do some of my own writing. Of course, I will use commas there.

TRH Movie – Into The Wild

I’ve been mildly obsessed with reading about Sean Penn these days after going to an advance screening of Into the Wild before I jetted off to NYC two weeks ago. I know I’m prone to hyperbole, but goodness, it’s one hell of a film. As he’s mentioned in interview after interview, Penn wanted the landscape to be as much a character within the picture as the actors themselves, and it’s truly heartbreaking how he achieves this throughout the movie.

Emile Hirsch plays Christopher McCandless, whose tragic (if you want even to call it that) story was brought to light by Jon Krakauer in his best-selling book. When McCandless promptly hands over the balance of his college fund to Oxfam and heads on his own to discover America with only his courage to guide him, it’s less than two years later that he ends up starving to death in a magic bus in the Alaskan wilderness. The film charts his journey with an effortless spirit and energy that portrays McCandless as a modern-day hero, fully realized and idealistic, charming and charismatic, who gathers love around him like a moth to a flame. Abandoning the ethics and ethos of his upper-middle class parents, McCandless steps to the beat of his own heart in a way that betrays his youthful good looks. As my RRHB said to me when we left the theatre, “How incredible to live that fully realized, even if it was just for a short period of time.”

And it’s true. McCandless might have been foolish to head off into the Alaskan wilderness, but the philosophy behind his need to live a life off the beaten path, remains true. All in all, it’s a wonderful movie that runs maybe just a tad too long, and showcases an extreme talent in the young actor who carries the burden of the title role.

I think, however, the performance of the film, for me, rests solidly with Hal Holbrook, An older man Chris befriends the months before he heads into the wild, Holbrook’s Ron, who tenderly tries to dissuade the younger man from following his dream, ends up coming to terms with a life he never expected to lead. I don’t want to say too much more for fear of spoiling the genuine moments the two have on screen. But I will say that akin to Richard Farnsworth’s magnificent turn in The Straight Story, Holbrook’s performance in Penn’s picture remains riveting throughout.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on far too much today anyway. Just know that I admire Penn’s aesthetic when it comes to this picture so much that I fell I’m the one doing it a disservice trying to describe it with my weakened words.

So YOU Think You Can Dance?

Okay, so I know I’m not the only one in love with the television show, but when Alicia and I showed up at our Fundamentals of Dance class two Thursdays ago, we certainly weren’t expecting to be standing next to 100 other happy feet.

Seriously.

What’s up with that? Toward the beginning of last summer there were maybe 10 people in our class, half of which didn’t show up most of the time. But now, with Nigel and a rash of “contemporary” dancers on the small screen week to week, people are excited about dance in a way I’ve never seen before.

Even the studio was shocked. Goodness, they have a waiting list! That’s never happened before. Ever.

Thankfully, this week wasn’t as crowded, and I know that in my mind, I’m way too advanced, having danced so much as a kid, for the class. But the Tech I class hurts my hip, and so I’ll take it slow and work my way through with baby steps alongside a whole bunch of other hopefuls.

It’s honestly the physical highlight of my week. I just enjoy it so much that I’m willing to yawn through the explanation of plie and give it my best shot when my left foot goes where the right truly should be.

New York, New York

So my trip to NYC last week didn’t exactly turn out as I’d hoped. That is not to say, in the least, that I had a terrible time, but falling ill from medicine, lady problems and the remnants of a bug I still don’t think I’ve entirely shaken, meant that I didn’t do as much as I’d hoped I would.

We were there Thursday / Friday for work, which meant a lot of racing around the NY office of our company for different meetings. On the whole, I enjoyed it immensely, and truly felt that the meetings were well worth the price of the ticket to New York. On the Thursday night, I had work drinks that lasted for quite some time, and by the time I made it back up to the room, it was later than I had hoped, having a freelance assignment to finish. So…I ordered room service, which is always fun.

Cue a truly upset tummy and some other issues, and by Friday morning I was up at 6 AM throwing up that gross yellow bile that tastes like medicine, which meant I felt terrible for most of the day. It also meant that I couldn’t go to the movies with Dave and Tara, which made me sad. Luckily I had flown in on Wednesday night and stayed over with them, so I did get to see Tara and spend some quality time with her, I really miss her living in Toronto. So, by the end of Friday I was so ill I was shaking and crying. Gawd, I hate it when that happens. I spent the night ordering room service again, taking Gravol, and whining on the phone with my RRHB.

Annnywaaay, by the next morning, after a good night’s sleep, I was feeling much better. I got up early, determined to make the most of my Saturday in New York. There was just one problem and that was the fact that I had to check out of my hotel, which meant a day of carting my computer around because I was a bit scared of leaving it with the doormen in case anything happened to it. The last thing I needed was to lose my work computer.

I had an expensive breakfast at the hotel and started walking south (at least I think it’s south!) toward the Lower East Side, where I went on a great tour at the Tenement Museum. Then I met some friends for lunch, and by then, Sam was in town, so we started shopping. We ended up back at the hotel around 6 PM, rested for a bit, and then headed back out to try and find a Mexican restaurant that Carrie recommended in Hell’s Kitchen. Glad to be out of the touristy manic Midtown, we never did find it, but ended up eating at an Ethiopian restaurant that was truly delicious.

All in all, a good day.

Then, on Sunday, Sam and I tried, desperately, to find some cultural things to do: we tried to buy tickets for Rock Doves only to find out that we wouldn’t have time to see it if I was to make my plane, and even Googled some of the museum exhibits, none of which thrilled us, so we went to Saks Fifth Avenue and looked at the glorious shoes. We ate a terribly gross lunch (so disappointing) and then made our way back to the hotel where me and my still-upset tummy got on a plane and came back to Toronto.

It’s such an amazing city, even being there for four short days spent mainly inside a hotel room and/or an office building, was an amazing rush of energy.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: The view from NYC from the crazy-expensive Saks’ Cafe. Trust me, the food sucks. The view, not so much…

#63 – At A Loss For Words

Diane Schoemperlen’s new novel At a Loss for Words kept me good company on the way to New York. While it’s not out until January, I had the good fortune to read an ARC of the book that I got from work. It’s a swift, slight novel about a middle-aged woman who suffers from writer’s block brought on by the devastating end to a love affair with a man she had first fallen for over thirty years ago.

As the narrator works her way through crossword puzzles and self-help writerly books intended to break the curse of the block, she tells the story of the relationship with a comical and somewhat cynical edge that ensures the novel hits that sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction. As most of their relationship took place over email, with the two main characters living in different, undefined, cities, it’s a wordy novel, which really works. And the irony of being wordy while working through writer’s block isn’t lost on the protagonist.

For the most part, Schoemperlen isn’t an author I’ve had the pleasure of reading before, but I think I might check out Our Lady of the Lost and Found seeing how much I enjoyed this charming “post-romantic” novel.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: The ARC sitting on the chair in my New York hotel room.

#62 – Mister Pip

When civil unrest comes to a small Solomon Island and all the white people who were running the government, schools, and copper mine, abandon the indigenous people and flee to higher ground. Without a proper teacher, the children, including the narrator of Lloyd Jones’s excellent and Booker short-listed Mister Pip, Matilda, among them, run wild. With no lessons, their days stretch out in front of them like a million Sundays, until finally Matilda’s mother announces that the island’s one remaining white man, Mr. Watts, will begin to lead the lessons.

With no curriculum to guide him, Mr. Watts reads aloud from the Charles Dickens classic, Great Expectations. Immediately, Matilda is hooked, on Mr. Dickens as Mr. Watts refers to him, on Pip’s journey, on the sheer impact the words have upon her life. As they make their way through the story, life continues around them, the fighting between the island’s guerrilla forces and the army carries on, and the violence escalates. The impact of the war on the people can be seen in the obvious ways: some are killed, their homes are burned, but as the novel moves to its tragic and heartbreaking penultimate moments, their human strength remains fortified.

Matlida’s special relationship to Mr. Watts comes out as well—they have an obvious connection, not just in their mutual love and admiration for Mr. Dickens and for Pip, but in their faithful need to love and respect the fact that words can sometimes make all the difference to a life. In a sense, words themselves represent a kind of power in this novel, whether they’re from the Bible or the novel, they are literal objects that can change your life.

The main conflict within the novel, outside of the obvious physical violence, is generational, between Matilda and her mother. With her father having escaped to the mainland years before and turning into a ‘white’ man, Matilda and her mother scrape by together. As she falls deeper and deeper under the spell of the imaginary Pip, Matilda and her mother move further and further away from an understanding of one another. It’s not an unfamiliar theme, any daughter of a mother will know it intimately, yet with the added layer of the civil war, their petty arguments and fundamental differences run a course that will ultimately have an deep effect upon both of their lives.

I read much of this book in an airport and on a plane; two times where despite being surrounded by people, I felt incredibly lonely and alienated. In this sense, it was a perfect book for that moment in my life, uplifting and generous, lovely and tragic, heartbreaking and momentous. The ending sucks the breath right out of your body (in a good way) and it’s one of those books that just stays with you for hours, days, months, years, after you’ve finished reading.

READING CHALLENGE ASIDE:Mister Pip now graces my Around the World in 52 Books challenge, as I didn’t have an author from New Zealand on the list, and I certainly have never read another novel set in the Solomon Islands. The setting is crucial, and if I were teaching post-colonial literature, I would absolutely insist this novel be on any course list. And I think if pushed, I could probably write one hell of a paper comparing this novel to Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea.

#61 – All In Together Girls

Let me confess, first of all, that I don’t read a lot of short stories. So while I’m a huge supporter of short fiction, I don’t necessarily pull it off the shelf and read it as much as I probably should. Like my friend Metro Mama always says, sometimes it’s good to read short stories simply because, well, they’re short.

But I also feel like it’s important to buy and read the work of people you know. Not just because you know them but to show your solidarity in terms of their art. I go to plenty of indie rock shows for this reason. And after finally meeting Kate Sutherland in person at the beginning of the summer, I had been meaning to read her book for months. Well, am I ever happy that I did. Wow, is All in Together Girls ever an excellent collection. Some of the stories are linked, some not, but all feature riveting characters who transcend, in a way, their more humble circumstances.

Of the collection, I’d have to say that the majority of stories with the teenage girls were the ones that stood out for me. Not only because I was that teenage girl, because I knew the skids, the rockers, the preps, and fell in love with the boy on the lake, not necessarily across the street, who was certainly all wrong for me. But more because how can you not love a story that begins, “Saturday night started off like usual—just us girls and Mitch, drinking in the parking lot behind the Pentecostal church.”

Immediately, I’m walking down Winston Churchill Blvd with Lesley, drunk on beer that Katrina bought, having left an awful house party where I felt, as always, awkward and out of place, until the cops stop us and kindly mention that isn’t it about time we got going home. The tone of Sutherland’s stories reminds me of Prep, but with a cooler edge, of a necessity to push the boundaries of the words to an edge that she isn’t afraid to explore, even if it makes the reader feel uncomfortable.

In a way, I wish I was reading provincially as well as globally this year, and then I’d count this collection as Saskatchewan, long-winded places populated by everyday people who get out and get back in with alarming regularity. The prairie towns, like the town near my cottage, where kids wander off into the night with a sense of recklessness that feels utterly necessary at that age. What else are you going to do?

Regardless of my own emotional connection to many of the stories in the collection, I’d still highly recommend it to anyone who might ask.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I read the majority of Sutherland’s book in transit to work this week. I snapped the picture as quickly as I could before the bus picked up speed again.

I Am Alive

But just so totally swamped that I haven’t had a moment to blog for myself until right now. There are a million things to update so here’s my list:

1. I’ve started dance class again. Very exciting. And hilarious.

2. I’ve read two more books and can’t wait to talk about them.

3. Went to see a screening of Into the Wild that kind of blew my mind.

4. Have signed up for another creative writing class.

5. Have been wondering what’s it all for in terms of, well, just about everything, and suffering from a good dose of the crabbies.

6. Will dish about NYC and exciting things seen and bought.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Live Blogging NYC

Well, so far I’ve seen a lot of the inside of my hotel room. Started off Friday morning with a little barfing (gross, I know) from all the meds for the disease and all the other complex things happening in my body. After a two full days of meetings I could barely move, and ended up ordering room service. In NEW YORK CITY. And then watched Live Free or Die Hard on the pay per view.

I was so disappointed. I had friends I could have seen. Great restaurant recommendations, and had already had room service the previous night because we stayed out too late having some corporate drinks. I knew I had to get up early the next morning so it was just easier.

But room service two nights in a row? Well, that’s just an insult to NYC, I think. Stupid medicine.