October 13, 2012

REVIEW: From Away by Michelle Ferguson

“There is no law past here.”

My husband (then boyfriend) and I passed the hand-lettered sign on a dark stretch of highway on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. The whale watching tour we’d planned was cancelled due to rain, so we decided to go off the tourist path to Dark Harbour. This side of the island was rough and isolated. After passing the sign, the road simply ended at a beach. This was not a tourist spot. The people there were working – getting on or off a boat while dulse was drying on racks. No one said hello or smiled. There was something about the situation that screamed “leave,” and we did.

Dark Harbour, Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick

Dark Harbour, NB. I took this picture just before the road ended. This place gave me the creeps.

The rest of our trip was all quaint B&Bs, cafes and gift shops. But we’d seen something else. Something that wasn’t meant for us. Some of my family had told us about a group of local vigilantes who burned a drug house down recently. Did the sign have something to do with that?

I thought about this experience as I read From Away. I share a lot in common with Marion, the main character. We are both from Alberta, but feel some claim on the East Coast, because “our people” are from there. Like Marion, I visit every couple of years and consider myself an honourary Maritimer. The premise of this book, an outsider trying to find her place in a small maritime
community, was interesting. Continue reading →

October 4, 2012

This is What a Feminist Book Snob Looks Like

Let’s assume Ashley is also a book snob, then this image works.

So there is this article, in which guy-author Jeffrey Eugenides accuses lady-author Jodi Picoult of “belly-aching” about the fact that she doesn’t get any love from the New York Times. I hate how soundbites are taken out of context, so here is the full quote, emphasis mine:

I didn’t really know why Jodi Picoult is complaining. She’s a huge best-seller and everyone reads her books, and she doesn’t seem starved for attention, in my mind — so I was surprised that she would be the one belly-aching. There’s plenty of extremely worthy novelists who are getting very little attention. I think they have more right to complain. And it usually has nothing to do with their gender, but just the marketplace.

Hmm, you mean she wants to be commercially successful AND respected? How dare she! Complainer! And really, does ANYTHING have “nothing to do with gender?” My feminist spidey-sense are tingling…

Then I read this Jezebel article. Jezebel has a feminist perspective, and I was ready to be righteously outraged… but I totally wasn’t. The author doesn’t deal with the fact that Eugenides writes literary fiction while Picoult writes commercial fiction, so all the ranting about how ladies aren’t taken seriously is moot because literary fiction is more deserving of publicity and attention… isn’t it? Maybe Eugenides is right, it’s all about the marketplace…

I was feeling very conflicted and icky. I didn’t expect to agree with a guy who accuses a woman of “belly-aching” because she demands the same sort of respect her peers are getting. But then, I don’t see a situation in which I would ever read a Jodi Picoult book on purpose. Jeffrey Eugenides is brilliant and wrote one of my favourite books, The Virgin Suicides. So am I sexist, a book snob, or both?

Then I read this article (tweeted by @jenniferweiner. Follow her.) The author takes the time to research the background, present some actual data, and break down the issues. There are a couple of things going on:

Commercial fiction is not seen as important or worthy as literary fiction
Female genre writers like Picoult are treated differently than male genre writers, like, say, Nick Hornby.
Female genres like romance and YA are treated differently than male genres like horror and mystery.

The whole “belly aching” controversy seems like a smoke screen to distract from the real issues. Kind of like that whole “mom wars” silliness a few months ago. There is ABSOLUTELY sexism in publishing and in writing and in reading. I’ve been reading the classics for years, and it is a vast sea of dead white dudes. Think it’s not a problem today? Nearly all of the current New York Times hardcover bestsellers are by male authors. If you add e-books to the mix, suddenly half are by female authors – thanks to E.L. James are her ilk.

I’m trying to assuage my feminist guilt by stacking my Classics Club list in favour of female authors. I still only made it to 19/50 books, and that was difficult. Maybe I need to write a book.

Do you think the publishing industry is sexist? Do you make an effort to read female authors?

October 2, 2012

Reading Roundup: September 2012

Who knew I could do enough book and bloggy things in one month to warrant an update?

September was a challenging month. Henry went through pink eye, thrush, teething, and colds. He still doesn’t sleep at night. Or ever. But, I feel like I’m getting back into a groove. My commitment to read every day helps a lot. There were a few days where it didn’t happen, but usually, if I tell myself “just one sentence,” I’ll end up reading a few pages. I may never be as prolific a reader and blogger as most, but this feels good.

I got books! And things!

Won: Every Love Story is a Ghost Story by DT Max, a biography of the late David Foster Wallace. The Edmonton Journal’s book columnist Michael Hingston (@mhingston) had an extra copy to give away and I entered on a whim; I’ve never read any of DFW’s work. I was going to jump right in with Infinite Jest, but Michael suggested I start with something a little less ambitious, like Consider the Lobster. “Considering” that Infinite Jest is more than a thousand pages long, I think I’ll take that suggestion. Check out Michael’s blog for lots of local literary goodness.
Bought: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. This might just be the longest book I’ve ever attempted. Eek.
Bought: Love in the Time of Cholera. See my rant about the cover here.
Gifted: A brand new, pink Kobo Glo. It’s great! Mostly. Review to come.

I read books! Yes, plural, BOOKS.

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon – I wrote up my initial thoughts on this excellent book. Four stars, nearly five.
From Away by Michelle Ferguson – Review soon. Interesting themes but the characters didn’t come alive for me. Three stars.

I did things on other blogs!

I guest blogged on Reading in Winter. Check out my post on Paranormal in Classic Literature. What a great experience. Kristilyn even helped me with the final touches as I was in the middle of sleep hell with my seven month old.
I created my Classics Club list! Now I just have to actually join. I figure it’ll be book snob central – so excited.
I committed to do a guest post for Angry Vegan in October. It’s not a book blog, so I’ll have to come up with something a little different. Here’s a guest post I did last year about my week-long vegan challenge failure.

Here’s to an even more productive October. And hopefully some sleep.

September 28, 2012

Damn it, Oprah.

I was so bothered by not having the exact quote I wanted for this post that I bought a myself a new hardcover copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. I could only find the first sentence of this passage online, and it was driving me nuts. Here it is in its entirety. I just love this!

It was also the time when he happened to find in one of his mother’s trunks a liter of cologne that the sailors from the Hamburg-American Line sold as contraband, and he could not resist the temptation to sample it in order to discover other tastes of his beloved. He continued to drink from the bottle until dawn, and he became drunk on Fermina Daza in abrasive swallows, first in the taverns around the port and then as he stared out to sea from the jetties where lovers without a roof over their heads made consoling love, until at last he succumbed to unconsciousness. Transito Ariza, who had waited for him until six o’clock in the morning with her heart in her mouth, searched for him in the most improbable hiding places, and a short while after noon she found him wallowing in a pool of fragrant vomit in a cove of the bay where drowning victims washed ashore.

I love that I have a brand new copy of this book. Now I’m on a mission to pick up nice hardcover editions of my favourite books. For Love in the Time of Cholera, I chose the first edition cover art. I was so not impressed when it arrived with the Oprah’s Book Club stamped on it. Ugh. Going to watch for that next time.

Do you buy special editions of your favouite books? Are you picky about book club logos? Am I being overly snobby or what?

This is what it’s supposed to look like, unsullied by Oprah’s stamp of approval.

September 24, 2012

Babies of Wackiness

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon is #176 in the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

This isn’t a review of Vineland. I’m not ready for that yet. But I really want to talk about it, so I’ll begin with a shout out to Matt Bowes of This Nerding Life for bringing Vineland to #yegbookswap. I was one of the last to choose an adult book, and there wasn’t much left except for Pride and Prejudice (read it) and The Count of Monte Cristo (too long), and Vineland. I’d never heard of Vineland, and only had Matt’s reason for choosing it to go on. He wrote, “For some reason, I love ’60s burnouts. Hopefully you will too.”

Burnouts are just the beginning. There are also zombies, ninjas, and yuppie lumberjacks, to name a few. The narrative is layered with multiple flashbacks, flash-forwards, dream sequences, and narrators interrupting each other; and full of pop culture references both real and invented. It’s the kind of book you just want to devour. One night I informed my husband that he was in charge, walked to the park, and read for a solid hour, but apart from that, it was read in chunks of ten minutes here, and twenty minutes there. It was hard to keep the plot straight reading this way, so I looked for a reader’s guide, and found Babies of Wackiness.

Babies of Wackiness is not your typical SparksNotes-type reader’s guide. It was created in 1990 by Pynchon super-fans John Diebold and Michael Goodwin. They put the guide online in 1998 – and it shows. Old timers like me remember when most web pages looked like this.

Old school.

Babies of Wackiness was exactly what I needed: succinct chapter summaries and a list of important passages, with a brief and accessible discussion on the major themes. I was so happy to see that my favourite passage was mentioned. I’ll leave you with that passage while I think about what else I want to say about this incredible book. Stay tuned.

The first time I read this, it took my breath away. I had to put the book down.

So the big bad Ninjamobile swept along on the great Ventura, among Olympic visitors from everywhere who teemed all over the freeway system in midday densities till far into the night, shined-up, screaming black motorcades that could have carried any of the several office seekers, cruisers heading for treed and more gently roaring boulevards, huge double and triple trailer rigs that loved to find Volkswagons laboring up grades and go sashaying around them gracefully and at gnat’s-ass tolerances, plus flirters, deserters, wimps and pimps, speeding like bullets, grinning like chimps, above the heads of TV watchers, lovers under the overpasses, movies at malls letting out, bright gas-station oases in pure fluorescent spill, canopied beneath palm trees, soon wrapped, down the corridors of the surface streets, in nocturnal smog, the adobe air, the smell of distant fireworks, the spilled, the broken world.

And, just because, here are my own babies of wackiness:

Getting ready for a few home renos

: Something wacky was going on here

September 8, 2012

Sixteen Saltines

Occasionally, I am allowed to listen to the radio in the car between renditions of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” (Ben loves the “hum diddle iddle iddle hum diddle ay” part.) It’s important that I don’t play it too loud, or appear to be enjoying myself, lest Ben realize that we’re not listening to his music and demand that I “PUSH THE BUTTON.”

One day, when conditions were good, I was listening to the local modern rock station (Nirvana every hour, on the hour) when I heard the lyric, “She doesn’t know but when she’s gone I sit and drink her perfume.” I cranked the volume just long enough to figure out what we were listening to before switching over to Disney Soundtrack Hell, as it was clearly a reference to Love in the Time of Cholera, one of my all time favourite books.

“Sixteen Saltines” by Jack White is supposedly a big “eff you” to his former partner Meg White, but this lyric makes me think there’s more to it. In the book, unrequited lover Florentino Ariza drinks Fermina Daza’s perfume to literally make himself lovesick. It’s a powerful image, and I don’t think it was used accidentally. I would LOVE to provide a quote from the book, but I can’t find my copy. I’m a bad book owner.

I love literary allusions in music, and I especially love it when I find them myself, because then I get an “aren’t I clever” bonus. What are your favourite musical literary references?

From Away with Footprint on author signature

How? How did this happen? Sorry, Michelle!

A few asides:

In other Bad Book Owner news, my mom finally returned my signed copy of From Away. Yes, that is a FOOTPRINT over the author’s note and signature. This is why I can’t have nice things.
I love that I got to work “Sixteen” into this post, because today is my 16×2 birthday. Sixteen was quite the year for me. First job, first love, first heartbreak, first… well. MANY FIRSTS. I hope that 32 is just as auspicious and a lot less traumatic.

September 4, 2012

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I am in awe of blogs that have weekly summaries. Apparently, some people not only read a book a week (OR MORE,) but do other things, such as buy new books, take part in memes and challenges, and even blog. My pace is a little slower, but the end of summer feels right for an update and a look ahead.

How I Spent My Summer

You will have acid flashbacks. Even if you never did acid.

I updated my About page. Now with more about my awkward teenage years!
I added a Book Blogs and Websites page. These are the websites I visit on the regular, all focused on modern and classic literary fiction. I even found a few 1,001 Books readers!
I updated my 1,001 Books list. I’ve only finished three list books this year, but two of them were doozies. See my reviews of The Magic Mountain and The Idiot.
You may recall that I made some grand plans for my summer reading that involved reading some local books. See my review of Americas, including a brief summary of magical realism in the 1,001 Books. I would like to read from From Away by local author Michelle Ferguson, but I’m learning the hard way why you should not lend books, ESPECIALLY SIGNED COPIES, to anyone, even your mom.
I read my books swap picks, which are also 1,001 Books (convenient!) Reviews are coming soon(ish). SPOILERS: The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul was okay. Vineland is blowing my mind; about 100 pages to go.
I met a bunch of Edmonton Book Bloggers for coffee, and nabbed a few books in the process. Thanks to Kristilyn for organizing our little group!
I posted my birth stories. I know most of you aren’t in to that. That’s okay. Moving along.
I wrote something for Make Jen’s Day. If you have kids, you may relate to this. If you don’t have kids, this may scare you off of having any. Either way, check out the site, it’s a very cool way to promote random acts of kindness.

What’s Up Next

It was motivating to have an end-of-year goal in 2011, even though I didn’t quite make it. This year, I’m on maternity leave, so I should have plenty of time to read, right? Hah! I have a very high-energy two year old who screeches when I’m not in his sight, and a six month old who doesn’t sleep. I’m in survival mode right now, and am lucky to read ten pages per day.

I recently came to an interesting (obvious?) realization; when I don’t read, I’m not happy. A few weeks ago, I was feeling burnt out to the point that I though I had postpartum depression again. I was also going days without picking up a book. Am I unhappy because I’m not reading, or am I not reading because I’m unhappy? Either way, I need to make reading a priority, but without a lot of pressure.

So, my 2012 goal is to read everyday. That’s it. Could be a chapter, a page, or a sentence.

It’s very exclusive.

Well, okay, there’s a little more to it than that. Here are some specific plans and goals for the rest of the year.

Read one more from the 1,001 Books list.
Write a guest post for Reading in Winter. I’m really excited about this one. I’m participating in “4 Weeks of Bookish Things,” and my theme is paranormal. I’m thinking of an overview of the paranormal in classic lit… beyond the obvious Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Watch for my post on Sept. 28!
Join The Classics Club. The concept is simple, but I’m really excited to join the community and meet new people. Each member chooses 50 (or more) classics and commits to read them over the next five years. I’m basically doing this anyway with the 1,001 Books, but it’ll be a good exercise to put some thought into what I want to read. Plus, it’s as close as I’ll get to joining The Finer Things Club.

What are your reading goals for Fall?

August 13, 2012

Keepin’ it Real. Magically Real.

Jason Lee Norman’s short story collection Americas was brought to my attention on Twitter. When I found out that Norman is a local author, I was inspired to write a post about reading local.

I really had to restrain myself from calling this post “Americas! Fuck Yeah!”

I read Americas right after a three-month slog through The Idiot, and didn’t know what to expect. I knew it was a collection of short stories, with one for each country in North, Central and South America. I didn’t expect to find magical realism. I associate magical realism with South American authors, and with epic novels that follow a family across generations. It was surprising to find it here, though the opening quote from Jorge Luis Borges should have been my first clue.

For those who didn’t study magical realism in school (thanks Mr. Jefferies of Grade 12 IB English), here’s the wikipedia definition:

…an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the “real” and the “fantastic” in the same stream of thought.

Americas starts with Canada and works south. Canada was my favourite, because it was so familiar. Those “A Part of Our Heritage” commercials play a prominent part. I had vivid memories of sitting on my couch at home, watching The Simpsons after school. A nice, safe feeling.

From there, things get weird. Magically weird! By the time I got to Venezuela, I knew something was up. It starts with “In Venezuela, all the children are adopted from South Korea.” In my sleep deprived brain, I actually wondered for a moment if there was some adoption agreement between these countries. Each chapter begins this way; “In [country], [absurd statement].” There’s something really disarming about such a simple structure, and such short stories, taking on the magical realism genre. Chile’s story mixes real life (the Chilean miners who got stuck underground) with the fantastic (window washers stuck in the sky at the same time) and gets it just right.

The stories are really, really short. They’re more like scenes or maybe dream sequences. You will finish this book in one sitting.

Read this if you’re a fan of magical realism. Read this if you want to try magical realism, but are scared of long, translated-from-Spanish family sagas (I don’t blame you.) Four stars!

Further reading: Here are my favorite magical realism books from the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die:

Maybe I didn’t like it because the cover is so ugly.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is in my top five books EVER. I have read this multiple times, and will read it many more. It’s that good. See my post about it here.
100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I was forced to read this in grade 12. Everyone in this book has the same name, which is a challenge, but it’s worth it.
Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel. I read this last year in my bid to make it to 100 of the 1,001 books read. It was much quicker, easier, and less dense than the Marquez books, but still has that elusive magical quality.

The House if the Spirits, Isabel Allende. I think I read this for high school English. Mr. Jefferies was kind of into South American literature. This was my least favourite of the bunch, but upon reading the plot summary, I think I need to revisit it. Lots of pregnancy and child birth symbolism!

July 31, 2012

The Invisible Women

Seriously, every cover of every edition of The Idiot and The Magic Mountain feature some brooding, intense looking dude. Where the ladies at?

Two of my major reads of the past six months were Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. I knew very little about either going in, and was surprised to find they have similarities beyond the obvious (long, difficult, written by dead white dudes.) Both stories are written from the perspective of a young, naive male protagonist on the fringes of society. Both young men have a complicated relationship with a beautiful, mysterious, and morally suspect young woman. And of course, no one lives happily ever after.

Months after finishing these books, I’m still thinking about those mysterious women. They are mysterious because we never hear their side. They come and go from the story as needed, and with little or no explanation as to where they’ve been. They are both notably absent from large sections of the story.

Were these characters merely there to move the plot along? To help the hero reach his goal? To personify the usual madonna/whore view of women? Remember, both books were written in the 1800s. Feminism wasn’t really a thing.

Whatever the authors’ intentions, they left me wanting more. In particular, I want to know what happened to The Magic Mountain’s Clavdia between leaving the mountain and returning as the mistress of the equally eccentric and mysterious Mynheer Peeperkorn. She`s married, too, so presumably she`s juggling a husband in addition to her lover(s).

Oh god. I just realized this is probably how fan fiction started. Well, that, and the need to make various characters have sex with each other. Don’t worry, I have neither the time nor the inclination to write Magic Mountain fan fiction. Can you imagine?

Is there a character who left you wanting more? Have you ever wished a book was written from another character’s perspective? Have I just rationalized the existence of fan fiction?

PS: While Google image searching for an “invisible woman” picture, I discovered that a movie about Charles Dickens’ secret mistress will be released in 2013. A post about literary movies is coming soon!

July 27, 2012

Words With Friends

Book blogger extraordinaire Kristilyn (@readinginwinter) wrote a fantastic piece about making bookish friends. She inspired me to write about last month’s yegbookswap.

Credit for yegbookswap goes to Andy (@agrabia) and Vanessa Grabia (@vgrabia). From the event website:

Time for an old-fashioned book swap. Here’s the lowdown:

1) Everyone brings three books. One they loved as a child. One they loved as a teenager. One they loved as an adult.

2) Used or new paperback books are encouraged, to keep down costs. Just make sure the used copies are in decent, readable shape.

3) All the books go on a table, we socialize and talk books for a while, and then everyone goes home with three new books.

And that’s that.

I was super excited to have a few hour’s worth of adult conversation. Meeting fellow book lovers was just a huge bonus. I had my four-month old in tow, but he’s pretty docile. I wisely left the two-year old at home. Apart from picking up some great new books for free, I met up with friends old and new, online and “real life”, and met people who I had no connection to at all. A huge thanks to Andy and Vanessa for putting this event together.

The books I brought to swap

Kind of like TLC’s CrazySexyCool except FunnyCrazyDepressing

Child pick: Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life
Teen pick: Wuthering Heights
Adult pick: Mercy Among the Children

The funny thing about my child/teen/adult choices is that I read them all in my teens. I remember buying Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life when I was 13, I read Wuthering Heights for English in grade 11, and I read Mercy Among the Children when I was 19. I was a late bloomer and pretty much a child at 13, and though certainly not mature at 19, I remember thinking that this was such an “adult” book. Meaning I didn’t really understand it. I’ve reread it a few times since then.

The books I took home

Books I took home: Where the Wild Things Are, The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, and Vineland

A mixed bag!

Child pick: Where the Wild Things Are
Teen pick: The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul
Adult pick: Vineland

I had never read Where the Wild Things Are. I looked through it before reading it to Benjamin, and thought, huh, what’s the big deal? But Benjamin was taken with it right away. He calls it “The Jungle Book,” and I suppose one day he’ll learn about the other Jungle Book, but for how, he loves reciting the lines and talking about the “monsters.”

I’m nearly finished Douglas Adam’s The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, and it’s a perfect, light, funny book with a wild plot that I can’t imagine being resolved in the 50 or so remaining pages!

I know nothing about Thomas Pynchon or Vineland, except that it is actually one of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die! Bonus!!

So? Do you have a good group of bookish friends? How do you make more?

And, If you were at yegbookswap, I would love to read your review of the event!