The Way Not To Finish A Book

Here are the reasons why there is no book update today:

1. I spent much of yesterday writing, yay!

2. Instead of curling up with a good book after my pilates class (the first one in almost three weeks, ouch. Seriously, I almost passed out, it was a bit much), I feverishly started knitting so that I could have my homework completed for my knitting class tonight. Yeah, I stayed up until almost 4 AM. So. Not. Relaxing. My fingers are so cramped that I had to sleep with them splayed across my stomach just so they wouldn’t curl up into little balls I couldn’t get open in the morning.

3. The book I picked is a whopping 400 pages long. Damn you Out of Africa, damn you!

4. Too much television was consumed last night (see #2) in a pathetic attempt to stay awake.

5. Had a very poor night’s sleep on Tuesday as a result of eating massive, and I mean massive, amounts of chocolate because I gave up sugar on Wednesday. I had a caffeine buzz from chocolate people. Just think of how much was actually consumed!

TRH Movies & A Stupid Cold

I’ve been sidelined at home the past few days with a rotten cold, a sore throat and lots and lots of sneezing. Good for reading, not so good for thinking, which means I’m not getting as much writing done as I’d like, but I’m making progress regardless.

I’ve been buying DVDs lately for two reasons, one because we always need stuff to watch at the cottage in the summer, and we generally end up viewing many films multiple times so I don’t really think it’s a waste of money; plus, I’m sick to death of paying late fees because we never get the videos back on time.

Annnwaaay. Yesterday I picked up Babel and The Prestige. I kind of feel like the first film was a waste of money. We haven’t watched it last night. And you know what? It’s kind of overbearing and quite unbelievable. I know it’s all arty and ohhh look how connected the world is but the tenuous nature of said connection in terms of the Japanese storyline was almost laughable. Like Crash, it kind of plays out with a bit of the movie of the week sensibility where you’re forced to suspend your disbelief just that little bit too much. Why is it nominated for so many Oscars?

All in all having a stupid cold the last few days has meant I’ve watched way, way too much television. I’m looking forward to getting out of the house tomorrow and enjoying the few days I’ve got left before I start my new job.

Oh, and just FYI, I wrote a guest post over at Martinis For Milk about a trip to the doctor yesterday. It’s a bit graphic (there’s a whole gross but funny thing going on) and it’s about lady bits, so be forewarned, only read it if you are truly convinced there are some things that you just NEED to know about me.

#13 – Shopaholic & Baby

Kinsella returns to her mainstay character, Becky Bloomwood, who enters the Yummy Mummy phase of her life in Shopaholic & Baby. With an incredibly predictable plot, the series (and I must confess, I’ve only read one other of the books), feels like it’s waning a bit. Becky runs into a few problems on her way to the delivery room: her OBGYN is her husband’s ex, he’s acting all shifty and stuff, and they’re trying to buy a house. Becky’s usual antics, well, shopping obsessions, are all there but there’s just not as much spice to this book as to her last couple of non-Shopaholic titles.

And while I’ll confess to loving a fair bit of chicklit, this series just isn’t up there as my favourites. However, I do completely appreciate the wit and humour in Kinsella’s writing, even if this book wasn’t right for me.

#12 – Lion’s Honey: The Myth Of Samson

David Grossman’s Lion’s Honey, part of Canongate’s esteemed series The Myths, is the entry from Israel in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge. More of a meditation than perhaps a true retelling, Grossman dissects the myth of Samson like a teacher approaching a poem. Taken apart piece by piece, the overlived* existence of the hero is explored both in an historical and in a modern context.

My feelings about the entire project are mixed: I’m not sure what the purpose of The Myths in these short, concise little books is, but I enjoyed reading Lion’s Honey, if only because it gave me a glimpse of how interesting it might be to study the stories of the Bible. In Samson, a man truly at odds with his destiny, Grossman is able to present a “character” with a keen eye to the subtle differences between the original text and the sense of the myth as it’s been studied by hundreds of thousands of people over the course of its lifetime.

This brings forward a real sense of how the myth itself is played out both in religious studies and how it has evolved over the years, finding its way into pop culture, poetry, modern novels and Talmudic study. In some ways, as Grossman relates the very real landscape of Samson’s story to the modern-day Israeli state, you get a true sense of how myth combines with history, which in turn combines with story.

Many of the books in my 52 countries challenge didn’t give me a sense of what life was like in the country of the author’s origin. The Ireland of Tóibín is found more in how he constructs a story than in the narrative itself in The Master (but felt a great deal in his marvellous Mothers and Sons). The Canadian Arctic of Consumption is one that’s utterly foreign to me, which was kind of the point. But in this book, I felt the landscape, the lush trees, the hills, the dust, the imprints of civilization on the caves, and it made quite an impression.

There’s a bit where the graves of Samson have sort of popped up, no one thinks they’re the actual resting spots of the man and his father, as Grossman says, they can’t be, but believers are there anyway, faith prevailing over common sense as it should. And that’s kind of an apt metaphor for this little book as well: Samson the hero, whose story has been told and retold over thousands of years, that despite his shortcomings, despite his inability to come to terms with his gift from God, finds a way to act, even if those very actions will bring about his own death. His own faith prevailing against reason, betrayal, even love.

Anyway, it’s a bit deep for a Tuesday morning when I’ve got a wicked cold and a big foggy head, so if the above makes no sense, go ahead and tease me for it. But I’ve managed to keep to the first day of my Book A Day challenge. I have a feeling I might not make it tomorrow, Lion’s Honey, after all, is a mere 145 pages.

*overlived was today’s OED word of the day. Shockingly the first one, like, ever, I’ve actually used in a sentence the day it arrived in my inbox.

#11 – Breakfast At Tiffany’s

They would never change because they’d been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic.

We read Truman Capote’s novella as a part of our 1001 Books club at work. I finished it while at the spa with my stepmother a few weeks back, but it’s taken me a bit longer to complete the other short stories included in the collection.

I enjoyed “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” immensely, both because of Capote’s power as a storyteller and his ability to create characters that may be have questionable moral cores but are still utterly fascinating. I’m going to confess that I’ve never seen the film, but I have got it at home now to watch this week, so using that as a reference and/or point of discussion will have to wait. Holly Golightly, iconic, ironic, desperate even, is such an electric character that it’s impossible not to sympathize with her, regardless of whether or not you like her and/or support her actions.

The Norman Mailer quote on the back of my Vintage edition, states that Capote ‘is the most perfect writer of [his] generation. He writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm.’ There is no way I can say this any better or agree any more heartily. If I were still in grad school, I would have loved to have studied Capote’s style: the grace and impact of his sentence structure, his use of language, his ability to create compelling metaphors. The skill in his writing seems unparalleled in modern American fiction, but maybe I’m making sweeping generalizations, because I haven’t read ALL of the writers of his generation.

I loved Holly Golightly. I loved her sass and her style, her unsympathetic actions, her selfishness, her drinking habits, her large sunglasses and her ability to attract and repel attention on a whim. I loved how the narrator love, love, loves her but can’t really get it out, or maybe he doesn’t want to. I got caught up in the world in which she lives and ultimately escapes from, thinking, again, how magical it must have been to live in NYC at that time.

And on the whole, I’m still as in love with Capote as ever, especially after reading “A Christmas Memory,” with its haunting sadness, rampant poverty of everything except imagination, and its sad sense of tragedy. I highly recommend this collection; even if it’s not heartbreaking in the traditional sense, the writing is just so delicious that it makes your heart ache—in that good way.

So many books I read these days feel rushed and unfinished. They feel like they need time and attention, focus and re-edits, and not once when I’m reading Capote do I feel this way. I feel like he’s paid particular attention to every single word, to how it sits in a sentence or feels on the page. For once, I feel like the fable, as 1001 Books refers to the story, was included because it’s a little bit of a revolution on the page: a freethinking, feeling and sexually explicit woman makes her own way in the world free of society’s structure, which must have been shocking at the time of publication? Regardless, I think I am a better person for having read this book, which I would imagine is the true test of the 1001 Books list.

So where I am I now on the list? I’ve added two more I think, which takes me to 124. A very, very long way to go still.

#10 – The Master

Finally, after weeks of reading, I have finished The Master. The Irish entry in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge, Colm Tóibín’s majestic and utterly compelling novel reads more like a series of interlinked short stories that follow the life of writer Henry James through the latter part of his life. Told in a strikingly engaging yet cold third person, the narrative, as 1001 Books states, is episodic. The fictionalized biography, like Mothers and Sons, highlights Tóibín’s unparalleled storytelling ability.

I savoured this book like sipping fine wine, reading it in small parts rather than gulping it down like a pint at the pub. I got a little further each night, slowly working my way backwards and forwards through James’s life, having never read a single one of his novels (successfully avoiding them both through my undergraduate and graduate degrees), I can still feel like I know his style, form and function simply because Tóibín is so adept at working his way into the head of a writer.

An exercise that satisfies both my own curiosity about the writer (having always been more interested in the lives of the great writers than their work itself), and leads me to an even greater understanding of the scope and structure of James’s work, The Master truly deserved its 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. This book made me long for a provincial life, to buy a small piece of property in France somewhere, made me long for a time when one “moved” in intellectual circles, and spent days in conversation. Of course, I would have to be a member of the terrible upper class, and all of the other less appealing things about the fantasy, including marrying for money and the like, but hell, let me wallow in a Merchant-Ivory fantasy for a moment. Like someone always says, you never imagine your ancestors to be of the lower classes, the same goes for my imagination…

Annywaaay. Spending so much time with one book means I’m well behind in my reading for this month, but it’s been a bit hectic too, finishing one job, finding another, finishing off my next Classic Starts with what’s beginning to feel like never ending edits, and watching way too much television (damn you Jack!), there never seems to be enough time in the day.

So, to sum up, while aspects of the novel were certainly heartbreaking, the book on the whole wasn’t. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t highly recommend it to anyone who might care to listen to be ramble on about the genius that is Colm Tóibín.

This Is The End

Yesterday was my last day of work. It was the last time I’ll need to take the car to the outer limits of Mississauga, too. So, I’m happy that I’ve just decreased my ecological footprint. As of next Monday, I’ll be taking the transit every day, walking after work, and in the summer, riding my bike. That makes me feel much better. I made a donation the other day to Tree Canada to offset some of my carbon emissions, but I still felt guilty every single time I got into the car, especially in the dead of summer, with sweat rising up off the asphalt, the earth burning up underneath me. Anyway, it’s over now, the daily commute.

For the first time in a long time, I actually left a job versus the job leaving me. Almost every experience in my adult life has been the other way around. I worked in magazines for many years before getting into the web side of things; and both of the magazines I worked for folded, which meant I lost my job twice in less than a year. In the first case, I had worked for three years on contract, which meant I got no package, no severance. I didn’t even get two weeks notice. The second magazine went bust after my only working there for eight months. In that case, despite how broke they were, we all still ended up with two weeks severance. This all happened during and just after my years in grad school as I was finishing up my Master’s degree with massive amounts of debt. I lived hand to mouth, paycheque to paycheque, constantly worrying about money and how to get the bills paid.

So leaving was always by signaled a time to panic. How was I going to pay the rent? How was I going to afford groceries? Each new job hunt was like a pressure cooker: it had to happen and it had to happen fast. And when I got fired from my old-old job by the boss from hell, it was met by a mini-nervous breakdown. I paced the hallways of our newly bought house convinced that we were headed for the poorhouse because my RRHB had recently lost his job as well. I think it was the most stressful period of my life.

And then things got under control. I had good spin on the story: evil empire firing a poor slightly disabled girl who was still recovering from hip replacement surgery. Girl with serious and scary disease thrown in the gallows of stress by a wicked witch who wanted nothing more than her own success and to punish anyone who spoke ill of her behind her back. Who was going to smell like a sweet Jo Malone perfume at the end of that story? Through some of the contacts I had made by working for the evil empire, I found my last job. And it was lovely. The people were lovely, I was working for and with books, which I adore. I kind of found my calling, I think.

So yesterday was bittersweet. I am sad to be leaving. I am thankful for the opportunities that I was given, for the people I’ve met, for the books I’ve read. But I am also totally thrilled for the new challenges that I’ll be facing at the end of the month. My new job is a combination of what I did for the evil empire and what I did up until yesterday. It was an opportunity I did not, or could not, turn down.

But I was also proud of myself that I made a decision based not on desperation, not on the basic need for survival, but for myself. As Oprah as that moment felt, I also feel somewhat vindicated. For the longest time, I felt put upon, depressed from all the tragedy in my life, frustrated that no matter how good I thought I was, terrible things kept happening to me. Some of what I felt just turned out to be life lessons: that you need to rise above certain things, hold your head up and work hard. Some of what I felt turned back inside me and caused things like depression and disease: that bad things happen to bad people, and illogical thoughts persisting, I must be the worst person on earth, so what’s the point of doing things that might make me happy, that might make me well adjusted.

So now with my week off, I have no stress. I’m not under the gun. I’m going to write my stories, take long walks, go shopping, maybe donate some more money to compensate for the fact that I would really like some new shoes, see movies and relax before I get back into the daily grind.

And I’m all about being well adjusted and taking deep breaths. Because my life might not be an episode of My Name is Earl, but it kind of feels that way, with all the good karma finally making its way back into the palm of my hand.