I was reading some of C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image while munching my morning Raisin Bran when I came across this passage:

"This I believe to be a stroke of calculated and wholly successful art. We are made to feel as if we had seen a heap of common materials so completely burnt up that there remains neither ash nor smoke nor even flame, only a quivering of invisible heat."

He was referring to how Boethius ends his De Consolatione Philosophiae, but the description, all that talk of fire and heat, made me think of the novel I'd just finished reading. A fascinating novel that features a fire-dancing, dragonish man who consumes his sons, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer's Perfecting is one of the best novels I've read this year.

The narrative follows Canadian Martha Moore on a journey into the past via New Mexico after she discovers a Browning pistol in the room of her lover/spiritual leader Curtis Woolf. Curtis came from a family of lapsed Mormons, the son of the fire-dancing Hollis Woolf, and his escape to Canada thirty years ago created a void in his life that he subsequently filled with the Family at Soltane, a re-imagined Edenic community of believers. A pseudo-Christian, Mormon-influenced group of believers who find the way to Christ through the body, through light, bees, but mostly through Curtis.

We are told very little about where Martha came from. It's as if she was created by Curtis. And, in a way, she was. Her journey from Eden, Curtis's salvation/damnation, the undercurrent hum of bees and trickle of the Pecos, kept this reader turning pages long after she should have been asleep.

Peopled with vivid characters who harbour truly complex beliefs, fears, or obsessions that mingle and clash against each other, this story is well worth the read. Fishing, violence, love, vengeance, it has it all. From the bird-like Martha who dredges up the bones of the past, to the scaly Hollis who is the quintessential possessive parent, the characters live and breath and take you right along with them on the journey to discover what really happened to Curtis's half-brother Edgar, and the redemption/revenge tie that binds all these siblings and half-siblings together.

And it's not just in characterization that Kuitenbrouwer displays great skill. This narrative is layered with clever metaphor, timely allusions, interesting perspectives. Fishing (specifically lures) play a role, the fear of snakes (fitting for a narrative that includes a new Eden), bees and honey, to name the obvious ones. The imagery of Christianity threads in and out of the story in ways that not only do not detract, but illuminate and draw the reader in. At the same time, this is certainly not a work that presents Christianity or the spiritual interpretations extrapolated therefrom by the 'Family' (or Curtis) as either negative or positive. There is no obvious authorial intrusion. It's all about the characters and their responses to each other. I.e. it's expertly managed.

What a great read. The more I think about it, the more impressed I become with how Kuitenbrouwer juxtaposes the idyllic Canadian commune (that is, in reality, less than idyllic) against the parched New Mexican landscape. Her use of the weather, too, should not go unnoticed. And fire, heat, and light. This is a book that will keep you thinking for a good long while.

And did I mention there was sex? Sex and salvation are conflated by Curtis and confused by Martha and the results are both intriguing and tragic. The final image will stick with you long after you close the book. If you read only one new Canadian novel this year, I'd recommend this one.

Between a busy birthday week, a noisome head cold (that just won't decamp) and the inevitable draw of springtime, I find myself playing catch-up on The Overdecorated Bookcase.

But now back to writing and reading in earnest.

New Acquisitions:

Mr. Inkslinger brought home a couple of novels I've been working my way through. The first, Wanting by Richard Flanagan, follows the parallel journeys of Charles Dickens as he loses his way in the aftermath of his daughter's death and Sir John Franklin's entanglement with a Tasmanian child. The connection is Lady Franklin and . . . well . . . desire/wanting. Flanagan writes in his author's note at the end of the novel that this was meant to be a 'meditation' on wanting. And it is. Charles Dickens must face the dissolution of self in the face of desire. Lady Franklin must face the failure of her experiment in 'civilizing' the wild child who dances her way into Franklin's heart.


Flanagan has a great deal of skill as a wielder of prose, but the novel as a whole left me wanting. The parallel narratives seem to fizzle out despite the beauty of the prose, and the lives that have been trampled in Tasmania are drowned in a puddle of stereotypical pathos that is ultimately unsatisfying.

As to how the historical figures of Charles Dickens, Sir John and Lady Franklin, and Mathinna (the aboriginal child) were treated . . . I'm conflicted. These are interesting figures. However, the characterization felt narrow. The characters mere fragments as opposed to fragmented. And to say that 'we don't really know' what happened doesn't seem enough of a justification to fictionalize historical figures away from substantial consistency with what is known about them. Why not just create totally fictional characters?

That having been said, if you like historical fiction (but don't have a bee in your bonnet about character consistency of actual historical figures) this is a book worth reading. Richard Flanagan writes better than most and I'm interested to see if his other acclaimed novels have more to offer.

The second novel Mr. Inkslinger brought home is Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer's Perfecting. I'm enjoying it so far (about 1/3 of the way through) and am surprised at how Kuitenbrouwer manages to connect Canada, New Mexico, and Mormonism. Lots to think about.

Currently Enjoying: Spring! Gardening is the plan today.


Just Read, LOVED, and Still Mulling Over: Asking Questions Indoors and Out by Anne Compton. Her third book of poetry (the final instalment in the Island trilogy), this one needs time to sink in before I comment further . . . so beautiful, challenging, and moving. Long-lined and rich!

More to come on this . . . but I'm still inhaling words and lines . . .

Mr. Inkslinger brought home a handful of novels for me to try the other day. Among them was Genesis by Bernard Beckett. I began reading it before bed on Saturday night and kept right on reading until the wee hours, finishing it before turning off the light and attempting to sleep dreamlessly into Sunday (the attempt failed . . . which is to be expected after reading a dystopian novel before nodding off).

The novel is set in the not-too-distant future and centres on a single character. We enter the story during Anaximander's examination. She is attempting to merit entry to the highest level of governance in the land, The Academy. She has chosen as her examination topic the controversial figure Adam Forde. She has been tutored by the famed Pericles and is determined to do her instructor proud. She enters the examination with some confidence. As it proceeds, however, she discovers that all is not what it seems and new aspects of the carefully controlled society of which she is a part come to light.

This novel is reminiscent of many futuristic/dystopian tales. There's some Asimov here, a nod to Huxley, but this take on a familiar theme is well-constructed and worth reading for its own sake. I liked Beckett's attention to detail when setting up a particular set of philosophical concepts and then surprising Anax (and the reader) with the results. This novel has interesting things to say about what it means to be a thinking being.

Happy Victoria Day to all! This is one of my favourite holiday weekends. We usually celebrate with BBQ and potato salad. This year, alas, we had to forgo the BBQ (rainy and hovering around the freezing mark) and stick to potato salad, vegan hot dogs, and sweet potato fries (the latter being a new addition). But it was lovely just the same.

In between boiling potatoes and eggs, however, I managed to finish reading Germaine Greer's Shakespeare's Wife (literally reading it over the bubbling water at one point). I did enjoy it, mostly because Greer has an engaging writing style and makes her argument interesting. I'm not sure I know or believe anything new about Shakespeare and his wife, but it's expanded the possibilities for me and that's all one can expect from a book about Shakespeare et al. One never does learn anything substantial because there isn't much to go on. But when the speculation is presented in good, common sense prose and contextual details are added, it's just a worthwhile read. I found it lagged a bit near the end, but that could have been the effect of watching the potatoes and eggs. Distraction thy name is cooking.

Basically, Greer calls into question the assumption that Shakespeare's wife was a scold and/or nag who meant little if not nothing to him. She suggests that Ann Hathaway could have been a savvy businesswoman who kept the home fires going while Shakespeare was off with his players. Greer is quick to make a distinction between evidence and a believable hypothesis. My only criticism is I'd like to have more focus on Ann and the role of women in and around Stratford at that time. I think it suffered from a lack of focus from time to time. But that's a minor consideration, really, since it's all interesting and clearly presented.

Listening To: Respighi (Rossiniana)

Recently Read and Enjoyed: Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes. Five stories in which music threads and connects each set of characters in absurd, humourous, heart-breaking, and/or tragic situations -- if only temporarily. All with first person narrators, all with unique voices. A few of the tales are interconnected by a repeating character, but each stands on its own. There are a couple of sax players, a guitarist, a cellist, and an language teacher whose connection with his oldest friend is their shared delight in musicals. Each story seems to contain one character in particular who suffers from a kind of emotional blindness in this quintet of tales, sorting his or her way through a transitional moment in life. The disparate voices never falter to captivate throughout and I thought this was a great book with which to spend a couple of evenings.

Recently Watched and Still Mulling Over: Passengers. Starring Anne Hathaway, this film caught me off guard and I'm still wondering whether I was annoyed or just thrown off-kilter and still need to recover. Like The Sixth Sense and Stay, there is a surprise ending. Unlike The Sixth Sense (but like Stay), I felt duped (as opposed to impressed/surprised and delighted by the interesting plot twist and skill in executing same). I feel that if there is a surprise twist in the plot a good story-teller will accomplish the reveal in such a way that the listener/reader/viewer will be able to go back over all the action and say, 'ah! now I see,' not 'huh? where'd that come from?' This film, though, was well-acted by all (and I love to see films in which the wonderful Dianne Weist makes an appearance), and it kept me interested, but still . . . not sure.

Currently Reading and Engrossed In: Speaking of Ann Hathaway, I'm currently making my way through Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer. I'm enjoying this perspective on the bard and his wife. So far. It's actually hard to put down.

Well that was a weird and wonderful ride! Having finished George MacDonald's Lilith: A Romance over the weekend I've been mulling it over before posting, trying to come up with a coherent synopsis/analysis/comment and failing miserably. Equally enthusiastic and stymied, I'm not sure what to say except I loved it! The ending seemed a bit lacklustre to me -- concluded on an exposition of ideas as opposed to neat plot tie-up (the latter is more customary but not necessarily better) -- but not altogether unsatisfactory because the book as a whole had been more about concepts of belief than plot or characters.

You can spot influences from Dante (the beautiful female guides, the vision of monstrous animals), some Pilgrim's Progress (the pilgrim going on an allegorical journey), and, if it comes to that, Arthurian quest paradigms (which, really, can be a lot like the previously mentioned), but altogether it's really quite a unique story that has some truly fascinating ideas to proffer (about suffering, repentance, imagination, and the soul . . . to name a few).

Dancing corpses, innocent children living under the shadow of brutish, dull giants (for some reason I thought of Fraggle Rock while reading about the innocents and the giants), wild beasts, blood-sucking immortals, and an old librarian who moonlights as a raven. And that's just the half of it.

There is something stern yet scintillatingly beautiful about MacDonald's imagination that just keeps you reading page after page. And I can see why he made such a controversial clergyman.

Some ponderables:

"That which is within a man, not that which lies beyond his vision, is the main factor in what is about to befall him: the operation upon him is the event. Foreseeing is not understanding, else surely the prophecy latent in man would come oftener to the surface!"

"What a hell of horror, I thought, to wander alone, a bare existence never going out of itself, never widening its life in another life, but, bound with the cords of its poor peculiarities, lying an eternal prisoner in the dungeon of its own being! I began to learn that it was impossible to live for oneself even, save in the presence of others -- then, alas, fearfully possible! evil was only through good! selfishness but a parasite on the tree of life!"

"'Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be good. That alone is the slaying of evil.'"

That last quote has interesting implications re the belief in the destruction/damnation of the wicked. My father (who believed God was the opposite of force and destruction) did not believe in the destruction of the wicked per se. He believed in the self-destruction of the wicked, seeing evidence for the idea that evil eats away at itself until nothing is left (therefore not requiring a destructive force outside of itself to accomplish annihilation), but I wonder what he would have done with the idea that only by becoming good can evil be conquered?

And lest you get the impression this is a dark, gloomy, allegorical horror show (which it is, in spots), Lilith has moments of sheer beauty as well as passages filled with humour.

And on the theme of silence . . . a poem from Sue Sinclair's Breaker:

Asleep by Sue Sinclair

A wasp-like hum in the room,
the something-going-on that passes for silence
in these quarters, for we want to believe in silence,
that our repose leaves nothing behind, empties all the chambers,
takes the present into our dreams with us and leaves
a void that works like acid on all that was.
Car headlights on the wall mean nothing,
the cramped, ungrowing furniture, nothing,
the church spires, tired bells, nothing.
They are but the residue of day, less than echoes,
the last creaking stair on the way out of perception.
We have come to an agreement: tired of the world
in its inalienable unlikeness, we will give up coaxing it out.
So the night darkens, the curtain drifts
out the window, the very lateness of the hour ceases.
We sleep side-by-side with eternity, and never touch.

A Mary Stewart quote (from Madam, Will You Talk?):

"And silence. Such silence. Silence with a positive quality, that is more than just an absence of sound. Silence like music."

Reading Jane Austen, stumbling across quotables . . .

From Sanditon: "for every body must now 'move in a Circle', -- to the prevalence of which rototory Motion, is perhaps to be attributed the Giddiness and false steps of many."

And this (also from Sanditon): "Those who tell their own Story you know must be listened to with Caution."

A trio of worthy reads:

• 20 Canadian Poets Take On the World (published by Exile and edited by Priscila Uppal) is an anthology of translations by a handful of contemporary poets. Some are more successful than others, and some of the poets translated are more famous than others. But it's a fascinating and informative attempt overall. Each set of translations is introduced by the translator-poet and some interesting ideas are expostulated while some lesser-known (to North American readers) poets are brought forward and given another skin (that's worth the read alone). I particularly liked A.F. Moritz's translations of Juan Ramon Jimenez and Paul Vermeersch's translation of some poems by Dutch poet Herman De Coninck. There's much to choose from in this anthology.

• The Blind Bookkeeper (or Why Homer Must Be Blind) by Alberto Manguel (The Antonine Maillet-Northrup Frye lecture from 2008 published by Goose Lane). First of all, why wouldn't one read all, everything, anything by Manguel? Secondly, there are some fascinating ideas expressed here (which is the obvious reason behind the former question). Like this: "The bookkeeper . . . was best thought of as blind, because readers realized that stories that mattered were not those copied from nature but those that distilled and translated the natural and social world into the language of myth. Frye, in his notes at the end of his unfinished paper, remarks that the prophet's role is to preach the Word of revealed, not natural, religion."

• Shades of Green by Brent MacLaine (published by Acorn). Currently on the short list for the Atlantic Poetry Prize along with Sue Sinclair's Breaker and Alan Wilson's Sky Atlas, this collection of poetry reads like a Nature immersion. And more (I don't mean to diminish this collection by limiting its scope in my description of same). Divided into four sections, the poems soak into the reader's consciousness. I felt like I'd been steeped in light, shade, green, blue, trees, etc. There is a "clutch" of compelling soliloquies (including one from a chestnut tree), a handful of sonnets, insights aplenty, with an expert's eye for sound and image throughout. Poems about farmers and haymaking appear, as well as poems about city life and scape. There's diversity yet it all reads so well as a collection. One's overwhelming impression after turning the last page is of dappled words shifting colours. Painterly, and a pleasure to read!

My current favourite from this collection is the following:

The Lesson Was Drawn from Psalms by Brent MacLaine

The lesson was drawn from Psalms,
but what I saw was fur neatly smoothed
around that woman's shoulders
in the pew in front of me.

The prayer asked for grace,
but what I saw was beady eyes black as bibles,
and what I heard was a fox
lift its sharp lean snout and bark.

I wished for it to purr like a hymn,
arise from its limpness,
and shake the shine of golden fields
still upon its glossy coat.

My hope was that it would trot towards the door
and make an offering of its wake --
the white-tipped sail of its miraculous tail
all the way to the reedy marsh.

At least, for benediction, this:
a reaching forth for fur beneath the palm,
one blessed stroke alone its silky nap --
almost achieved had not the interdiction
of a warm parental hand gripped my own
and placed in in my lap.

The control, what is left unsaid, how what is said is said! And I love "a reaching forth for fur" . . . so seemingly simple (which of course means it wasn't at all). Marvellous.

I'm working on a writing project involving Emily Dickinson poems and, since I'm in a poetry frame of mind, here's a Dickinson to enjoy:

The Heart has narrow Banks
It measures like the Sea
In mighty - unremitting Bass
And Blue monotony

Till Hurricane bisect
And as itself discerns
It's insufficient Area
The Heart convulsive learns

That Calm is but a Wall
Of Unattempted Gauze
An instant's Push demolishes
A Questioning - dissolves.

Currently Enjoying: The memory of yesterday's sunshine and the promise of summer walks along the water. Reading lovely bits of poetry from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene . . . like this one: "true love hath no powre/ To looken backe" . . .




Recently Watched and Not Recommending: Smother. Contributed feelings of anxiety and stress to my movie-viewing evening and did not have enough levity for my taste. I.e. too nerve-wracking in these economic times. Give me a movie that takes me out of the current stream of stresses. Or, at least, allows me to laugh about it all.

Recently Read and Enjoyed: Craig Poile's collection of poems called True Concessions. Edited by Jeffery Donaldson (a good indicator it's going to be worth procuring a copy), this collection deserves to be read slowly (accompanied by a hot cup of peppermint tea, perhaps), giving one time to appreciate the art with which Poile fashions the lines, attaching image and sound. It reads as current and exhilarating poetry. These lines, for example: "But how I need / That noise we make, to hear a sound above / The inner voice that fills the day with elegies."

Recently Read and Glad It's Over: Margaret Drabble's The Peppered Moth. I think what I found most off-putting was the narrative voice. Beyond unsympathetic. Perhaps even unpleasant. And after reading the afterword, the word unsavoury did flit through my mind (to be frank, I much prefer Doris Lessing's handling of the exhumation of parents in Alfred and Emily). The other word that came to mind was shallow . . . it is just not possible that these antecedents were so one-dimensional. But writing skill has Drabble. The character Faro Gaulden is very well-drawn, the latter half of the novel picks up considerably because of her. And another positive note: it does have a lovely cover . . .

Currently Reading and Loving: Lilith by George MacDonald. A serious influence on Tolkien and Lewis, MacDonald was the master fantasist of the 19th c. And he injected his fantasies with a great deal of philosophy. I'd read some of his short stories before (one made it into my syllabus almost every year when I taught high school), but this is the first full-length fantasy novel of his I've read. Love that 19th c. prose style. Yes I do.

In the afterword to Tam Lin, Dean writes, "At the moment, if you asked me, I would say that this book is about keeping the heart of flesh in a world that wants to put in a heart of stone, and about how, regardless of the accusations regularly flung at them from all quarters, learning and literature can help their adherents accomplish that." And if that isn't reason enough to applaud (and keep reading), what is?


This was a great read and I loved every line of it. Set in the 1970s at a charming but sometimes spooky liberal arts college, the action centres around young Janet, an undergrad, whose loves and reading mingle in ways that surprise. The mysteriously intriguing duo of Nick and Robin, the strangely disconcerted and disconcerting Thomas, the seemingly dangerous Professor Medeous all mingling about with some interesting literary references. (Which means, of course, that I've added to my TBR list.) Wonderful book!

Then again, there's so much to like in a Pamela Dean novel . . .

Again from Tam Lin:

The puddles of the February thaw, reflecting black branches and the usual patched blue and gray of the late winter sky, were among the first things she ever remembered noticing, before the cherry blossoms or the blooming crocus or the startling red of an autumn maple. They had held for her, all her life, the fascination of things seen in a mirror, the intimacy of things seen through a telescope, the curious charm of a dollhouse or of Molly's toy theater. And this year they made her think the sky had fallen and broken on the pavement.

And this is but one of the reasons I love Pamela Dean . . . the insight . . .

From her novel Tam Lin:

'Take it from me,' said her father, 'it is possible to get a Ph.D. in English while ignoring no less than three literary periods. You must have read something in all of them, so as to fling their names about, but you can be quite ignorant of at least three and still do very nicely.'


'Which three are you ignorant of?' said Janet.


'The moderns, the whole of the twelfth century, and the Jacobeans,' said her father.


'You should have waited until she went to graduate school to tell her, ' said Janet's mother. 'Here, have some pie to soothe your disillusionment.'


'I'm not disillusioned,' said Janet, accepting the pie just the same, because the lemon meringue pie in the dining halls tasted like lemon Jell-O with chalk in it. 'I'm just mad. I thought you knew what you were talking about.'

Of course the novel is chock-full of the love of literature and the setting reads like a love letter to liberal arts, but I just love how Dean can point out (and so efficiently too) the deficiencies in systemization and categorization. Then again, that's what art often does . . . implicitly . . . even if only incidentally.

And, later:

"The problem with literature, thought Janet crossly . . . was that either it applied not at all to your private concerns, or else you wished it wouldn't." I think we've all been there.