I Give You A Giant Tomato

Something’s up with the soil in our backyard being made radio active by all the household construction waste or something because we’re growing GIANT tomatoes.

See? SEE!

That’s an old-school rotary phone people, my paternal grandmother’s from when she worked at the Ontario courts many, many years ago, and they are almost THE SAME SIZE. I swear to you there is no trickery involved: I simply placed the tomato next to the phone so you could honestly see that it’s HUGE.

Oh The Irony Of Being Called Thoughtful…


Thanks to Kailana who kindly gave me a thoughtful blogger award this week, ironic, yes, on a day where I did some serious thinking about good, evil and books from around the world.

Not knowing how this is supposed to work, I’m going to send out my own props to the thoughtful blogs that I read on a regular basis, they are in no particular order: Sam‘s, Tim‘s, Melanie‘s, Kerry‘s and Munro‘s.

#53 – Annie John

Finally, a novel from my Around the World in 52 Books challenge that truly captures the setting where the author herself was born. Jamaica Kincaid’s utterly lovely Annie John, a bildungsroman to match, I think the masters like Joyce or Richler when it comes to imbibing the story with a strong sense of narrative voice and intention, takes place in Antigua, and tells the semi-autobiographical story of a young girl growing up and coming to terms with a difficult relationship with her mother.

While Kincaid’s prose may be straightforward, her intentions are certainly not, as Annie John is a rich, vibrant novel where the protagonist, who grows from being an awkward but brilliant pre-adolescent to young woman setting off into the world on her own for the very first time, refuses to move seamlessly from the arms of her mother into her own generation. It’s such a real book, and gave me such a rich reading experience, despite (as with The Accidental) getting through half of it months ago only to pick it up again last weekend. I could smell the salty air of the island, feel the hot sun, imagine her crisp school uniform, picture the richness of the setting, and wanted to taste all the food I had never heard of, all the while thinking that there are common themes with any girl: getting her period (oh, how very different from Margaret), finding true friends, reacting to boys, and enduring a sickness (okay maybe this one applies just to me). But Kincaid’s ability to ensure that we find Annie John different, if only from the place she grew up, moves this book from a novel about a foreign place into a book that displays bits of post-colonial brilliance.

Yet, it’s the private, personal, behind-closed-doors warring, back-and-forth relationship that Annie has with her mother that truly forms the backbone of this story. As Annie firmly moves beyond her safe embrace, and into that stage where all you do is fight, push back, and fight some more, the whole of her existence is described in opposition to the woman who raises her carefully and lovingly. Metaphorical maybe if you want to think in those cliched terms of countries being women and all that, but it struck me as powerful, as life-affirming, as honest and real. Of course a bildungsroman, technically (and correct me if I’m wrong) tosses out the hero into the social world, forcing his change to come about because he leaves home; but here, if we think about it in the world of these women, the social order of the family most definitely comes from Annie John’s mother, and the conflict with her society truly brings about our hero’s changes.

Kincaid’s writing reminds me of Abeng by Michelle Cliff or the non-Wide Sargasso Sea novels by Jean Rhys in a way; she has the same kind of lilt to her sentences, but Annie John remains her story from beginning to end, influences or no influences. On the whole, I think I rather enjoyed this book, and if I were still in the essay writing mode of university, I think I would have gotten great pleasure out of deconstructing it and putting it all back together in a paper.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I shot this while reading, of course, but you can see the water and the boat, plus a bit of Tina’s lovely boyfriend Mimoun lying in the sun with his own book. His was in French. He is from Paris, you know. Totally irrelevant details but they make a wonderful couple. I’m just sayin’.

#52 – The Devil and Miss Prym

As I revamped my Around the World in 52 Countries challenge to better fit with the 1001 Books list, the Paulo Coelho book that came off was The Zahir, which was replaced by his The Devil and Miss Prym simply to kill two goals with one stone. More parable than novel, The Devil and Miss Prym was intended to be the Brazil stop in my reading around the world, but as it’s set in a small, mountainous French village named Viscos, it again proves the point that so many of my books are not set in the countries where the author themselves was born, and don’t really tell me a whole bunch about life in his or her original setting.

Regardless, it’s a short, swift read that focuses on the battle between good and evil. The devil, a fallen businessman who propositions the tiny enclosed town (population 281) into testing not only their faith but their very humanity, walks into Viscos and chooses the local barmaid Chantal (Miss Prym) to be his messenger. At once the entire town becomes aware of the man’s plot: to prove that human beings are essentially bad by forcing them to murder a member of their village in exchange for gold.

A philosophical debate charges back and forth through the pros and cons of taking some one’s life in exchange for the social and financial security offered by the gold. As the centre of the town’s focus (blamed for bringing the terrible decision to them; gossiped about for the choices in her life; and sleepless over the problems her role in the decision creates in her life), Miss Prym moves through various emotions before coming to her own conclusions about the morality offered by this businessman haunted by the devil and his own tragedy.

It’s been a while since I’d read anything where philosophy and theology were so cleanly mixed up in fiction. In fact, the last time I remember thinking about “big picture” ideas not over beer or cards, honestly, was in university, when I took quite a few philosophy classes. I’m not going to give away the ending but I would like to add that Coelho’s simplistic prose and straightforward storytelling made this slim novel extremely compelling, even if I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced of the story’s moral and religious underpinnings.

Should it be included on the 1001 Books list? Well, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did The Alchemist, when I read it all those years ago after finishing my undergrad degree (you know that fairy tale time when you rediscover reading for reading’s sake, sigh.) and I certainly think that there are far better novels out there (why is Margaret Laurence not on that list, seriously?), but I think I’m richer for having read it, if only to have done some thinking about the great never-ending battle between good and evil in my own infallibly human mind.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: The cover of this book is grand, isn’t it? Anyway, it’s a close up snapped on the sun deck before leaving the cottage to come back to the city in a panic of “is it really over my extra-long weekend?”

Morning Bells, Awkward Spills And Writing What Not

The bells on the church just behind our house just rang out. It’s an odd sound to hear in this day and age, and it always makes me think that I’m living somewhere else where church bells still ring for specific reasons. As they went off at 9:39 AM, it’s hard to say, but I’m assuming they’re just testing out the bells for some sort of celebration or for tomorrow’s services.

Anyway, I half-fell off my bike on Thursday morning on the way to work, and it was more of a shock to my system than anything. And, as much as I complain about the idiotic people in cars downtown when you’re a biker, this time, this almost-accident was entirely my fault. I was going the wrong way up a one way street when a car came roaring around the corner, not expecting me, who was biking a bit too far away from the curb as well. I live in a quiet (for the most part) neighbourhood and it’s rare that any car turns on to that street for the two minutes I’m actually on it before getting to College Street. Regardless, I had to slam on my brakes, and it’s a slight downhill so I was going really very fast, and almost toppled over my bike. I slammed my arm on the handle bars and skidded my feet to stop myself from crashing into the back of his car. But what hurt the most was I jammed my poor tragic hip so hard that it brought tears instantly to my eyes. Oh, it hurt.

I limped while peddling the rest of the way to work and then was sore all day and most of the night, and then didn’t bike yesterday, which was okay because I had things to do after work. But after so many months of not being in pain, it’s still a shocker when my tragic hip wakes up and says, “Whoa, don’t do that to me, come on now!”

However, I’ve certainly noticed how much stronger I am this summer compared to last. I am doing restorative yoga once a week, swimming like a fish all weekend at the cottage, jumping on the trampoline at least once per weekend, and then biking during the week. I still haven’t lost a pound, nuts or no nuts, but I can feel myself have more energy, especially with the swimming. Where I could do one lap in the lake (halfway to the little island and back) kicking with the noodle three weekends ago, I’m now doing two or three, and even floatation device free for one of them. I can make it up bigger hills in the city now, and have more confidence in my step now that my legs aren’t so wobbly. Small victories, right?

We’re not up at the cottage this weekend, much to my chagrin, but it’s also probably for the best. I’m a bit behind in my latest abridgment, and do need to get cracking before my September 1st deadline. I’ve taken the last week of August off to spend up north with that manuscript and my own story, and I’m thinking about which classes to take this fall at U of T, before I can apply for the Humber School for Writers again in the winter.

It’s a long life, this writing life. There are days when it seems forever just to write one sentence or get caught up here, on the blog. I finished my first new freelance assignment, which I’ll expand upon once I know it’s been accepted, approved and another one’s coming. While it wasn’t hard per se, it was certainly different, and I’m worried that my tone wasn’t quite right and that I haven’t done a good job—which are always the concerns when you put virtual pen to paper for someone other than yourself.

Oh, wait, it’s even worse when it’s for yourself: you’re utterly convinced that it’s sh*t.

#51 – The Accidental

As much as I enjoyed Absolution, am I ever glad that I put Ali Smith on my Around the World in 52 Books challenge. The Accidental is one of the best books I’ve read this summer, with its echoes of Mark Haddon and David Mitchell (I still think his Black Swan Green has never gotten the attention it deserves; it’s a brilliant book), Smith’s novel quickly sucks you in with her switching voices, intuitive point of view and tumbling prose. And while she’s officially my Scottish writer, and this book is set in England, it’s hard to assess whether or not it’s an accurate reflection of the chosen country’s literature. I’ll probably have to delve into Smith’s backlist to find out if she’s written a book set in Scotland, but after reading The Accidental I’d be surprised if it wasn’t on the 1001 Book people’s radar and might be included in an updated version years in the future.

Annnnnywaaay.

The story of the Smart family (daughter, son, stepfather, mother) is told chapter by chapter in each character’s voice starting with Astrid (aforementioned daughter), as they spend the summer away from London in a “substandard” vacation house. When a stranger named Amber who has absolutely no connection to anyone in the family, regardless of what everyone in the house thinks, simply walks into their life and starts making changes, she becomes the catalyst that skyrockets the family into a whole other world in terms of their physical and emotional lives.

Each character has a specific, overriding emotional issue: Astrid’s being bullied at school; Magnus suffers through a tragedy somewhat of his own making; Michael, the step-father, needs to deal with his, ahem, indiscretions; and Eve, the mother, suffers from a writer’s block that bleeds into all aspects of her person. But when Amber bashes into their lives and mashes up their thoughts not only about each other but about the various issues that are pulling them apart and in all different directions. Amber is a hippie, a charlatan, a psychic, a seductress, and her presence finally makes everyone come to terms with the facades that structure even the purest of lives.

On the whole, it took me a long time to get through this book. I picked it up months ago and read 30-odd pages and then put it down. Picked it up again a few weeks later, started from the place I stopped, got confused and gave up. But this weekend at the cottage, after a particularly intense game of multi-language Scrabble, I relaxed before swimming and read the entire book from cover to cover. And I loved it. I really did.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I’m proudly displaying the book on my grandmother’s sideboard-thingy that has pictures of her tucked into that totally creepy print of my uncle’s. Oh, and I think I have the US version of the book because I ordered it through my old work…

On The Road Turns 50

How could I possibly have missed this? Shelf Awareness pointed me to a NY Times article that celebrates two very different yet bestselling books of 1957: Peyton Place, which I haven’t read, and On the Road, which I have read at least half a dozen times. Iconic, culturally for so many reasons, it’s important to me, not just as my go-to ‘favourite’ book, but for what it represents: reading at different stages.

I have my battered stolen school library copy of On the Road that I’ve carried to university and back, through young adulthood and into my, ahem, golden years. I’ve got the copy I bought in university when I had to do a shared project with a fellow in my class that I ended up having a giant crush on. I’ve got the copy I read when I finished school, and together the RRHB and I had 4 or 5 copies of the book when we merged households almost 9 years ago.

It’s a book that I don’t care to study. A book that I don’t care to analyze. It’s a book that causes me comfort just knowing that it’s on the shelf. It’s not something I can explain, this love for Jack Kerouac, but I’ve avoided reading so many of his books just because I know there are a limited amount, and I always want something new. I realized my mistake when I discovered Henry Miller when I turned 19. I read everything he ever wrote and then some and soon realized that it’s like eating all your Hallowe’en candy, too much of a good thing and all that.

When we took our trip to California a few years ago, I read Big Sur, the copy of which we had picked up visiting City Lights in San Francisco. I read Dharma Bums when I felt like I needed it in between university and grad school, when I was still considering getting an advanced degree. And that’s kind of what Kerouac is for me, a representation of art at its most meaningful, when it jumps over the line from entertainment to ethos, when it bleeds into ever little bit of your being and when it forces me to change the way I think about all things. Now, I roll down the window while the car speeds along, stereo on, wind knotting my hair, and never stop imagining that perfect trip that never ends.

Ripped From The Headlines

We’re back from the cottage and I have three books to write reviews for, which I will do the moment I get home from work. However, one of the things I can’t stop myself from doing is reading a news headline and thinking, “Hum, I wonder how long until they use that in an episode of Law and Order.”

The latest, this crazy case of Canadian sailors being kicked out of the navy for cocaine trafficking. How awesome would that be to see the in the original Law and Order? It’s always so dramatic when the NYC cops go up against the military cops.

Sigh.

Oh, and my new favourite show? The Closer. I have to watch it on W Network, which means we’re seeing episodes all out of order and not remotely current, but who cares, Kyra Sedgwick rocks. Thank you!

#50 – Absolution

Sometimes the heat makes life absolutely unbearable and I find it hard to concentrate, which means it’s necessary to pick up a mystery. At first, Caro Ramsay’s Absolution presented such a gritty and realistic portrait of Glasgow that I considered making it, instead of The Accidental, my Scotland stop in the Around the World in 52 Books challenge. I have since come to my senses just knowing how much Maylin loved that book makes me want to sit down and finish it this weekend (which I just might do having an extra day to spend up at the cottage on Monday). I’ve been half-way through Ali Smith’s book for about four months now and there’s no good reason why I am procrastinating finishing it.

Annnnnywaaaay, I did finish Absolution up this morning before work, having but a few pages to go after putting it down last night when my eyes refused to stay open for a moment longer. The story starts off really strong and introduces the book’s main detective, DCI Alan McApline, in a clever way. Smart, rugged, and handsome, he’s forced to reckon with his past when a case that’s been haunting him for twenty years becomes the focus point of a current investigation. A young woman named Anna, pregnant but hideously scarred from an acid burn, lies in the hospital, and McAlpine, then a young policeman, is assigned to the case. Her killer is never found but her scarred face, known to McAlpine only through pictures, consumes him. As all good investigators do, he gets on with it, has a successful marriage to Helena (who becomes the subject of an unfortunate number of dropped plot threads) and tries to forget all about Anna, which we all know is impossible.

Fast-forward twenty years when McAlpine is transferred back to the unit he left after the double trauma of Anna’s death and his brother’s untimely drowning in the line of duty. The Crucifixion Killer, known to the cops on McAlpine’s crew as ‘Christopher Robin’ (a quirky profiler’s idea of a good code name), starts murdering women, and McAlpine’s charged with finding him. The two cases intertwine until they come to a shocking conclusion, which makes this a little anti-Alexander McCall Smith, if I had to compare this book to my favourite mystery series, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

While I found the plot somewhat muddled in places, and got a little frustrated with the fact that there are simply too many characters, I did like Ramsay’s book overall. It’s fast-paced, and way more Cracker than the bland American mysteries I usually watch on television (ahem, Law and Order), which I totally appreciated. While I didn’t actually guess whodunnit by the end, I had figured out some of the clever twists Ramsay drops in throughout the narrative. All in all it’s a perfectly satisfactory summer mystery for a foggy-headed girl on an August afternoon.

PHOTO IN CONTEXT: I read half the book here and half the book up north, I took the picture on my desk where you can see the remnants of my tax forms and the corner of my next abridged classic source material peaking in at the corner.

And if you’re feeling particularly brave, check out the book’s trailer. Ohhh, it gives me creeps just hearing the music in my head.