Wherein the Book Lives Up to the Title (in a good way)

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston is an involving tale that fictionalizes Joey Smallwood (beloved or infamous -- depending on one's point of view -- first premier of Newfoundland). The narrative, told from his perspective, spans his life, and proffers an epic look at Newfoundland. So much so, in fact, that Newfoundland has often been referred to as another character in the novel.

Epic in breadth and depth of characterization, but held together throughout by the unwavering ego of our narrator, the fictional Joe Smallwood, and punctuated by the wry asides of his life-long love (and sometime nemesis) Sheilagh Fielding, a truly fascinating character in her own right, the story of his childhood with a guilt-ridden mother and alcoholic father, his struggles with the unyielding failure occasioned by circumstance, and the drive to get beyond those circumstances is nothing if not engrossing. I was compelled to keep turning those pages despite moments when I wanted to howl in outrage over Smallwood's small-mindedness or downright meanness. I looked forward to the exchanges between Smallwood and Fielding, seeing her as the counter to his meandering ethics. And, since it's really a novel about Newfoundland, Newfoundland intangible, Newfoundland lost, one can't help but wonder about the symbolism of Fielding's character, how she seems to, at times, embody the country/province (though without losing any of her fascination and individuality as a character). I'm looking forward to procuring a copy of (and then voraciously reading) Johnston's recent novel which centres on Fielding, The Custodian of Paradise.

This novel is variously sad, enraging, humourous, and beautiful. Always engaging despite, at times, Smallwood himself. A really good read in the end. And what a great title!

How To Spend A Night Dreaming of Time Travel

1). Read Jeanette Winterson's Tanglewreck.
2). Finish reading Jeanette Winterson's Tanglewreck at 2:30 a.m.
3). Ponder the significance thereof between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. before drifting off into dreamland and unconsciously, and in vivid detail, relive same between the hours of 3:30 and 7:30 a.m.

Regrets? None.

What I enjoyed about this novel directed towards 'young readers' is the sheer quality of the tale. This is just good story, no matter how old the reader happens to be. An 11 yr old girl, Silver, and her Throwback, mammoth-befriended 'angel', Gabriel, embark on a quest to find the holy grail of time, the Timekeeper. They are beset by dim-witted schemers as well as dangerous serpent-like tempters and power-hungry alchemists and are forced to keep the faith in spite of black holes, time tornadoes, and possible atomization. Pirates, woolly mammoths, petrol ponies, and a house with walls that remember rub elbows with thugs, inmates from Bedlam, and a London bus filled with schoolchildren. Winterson mines Christian tropes, incorporates physics, Egyptology, and throws in some magic and alchemy for good measure. A hodgepodge that works, by and large, and an ending that by no means 'talks down' to its intended audience.

I think some 'young readers' may find the complexity of metaphor and allusion outside their ken, but the story works well just as story. I was reminded of Madeleine L'Engle and Philip Pullman, even a little Lemony Snicket, while reading about Silver's adventures, and enjoyed the mix of science, magic, and faith (the latter being in love and family). Silver, too, is a great character. Believably precocious (again reminded of L'Engle's Meg Murry).

I'm still thinking about the implications regarding deity in the story, though. Haven't sorted it out yet. But a fascinating young reader novel from beginning to end.

Pondering A Hummingbird's Heart*

Don Domanski's All Our Wonder Unavenged is just a brilliant, brilliant collection of poems. I was expecting good poems (it won the Governor General's Award for poetry in 2007, after all), but wow. This is the kind of collection every poem-lover should have a copy of.

It contains a wonderful mix of the metaphysical and the mundane, the observable and observed with the unobservable and transformative. And he makes full use of the pause within the line. His use of metaphor is startling, in a good way, and if you like poetry that electrifies language, this is the collection for you.

Syntactically interesting, especially in how Domanski organizes the pauses within the lines, filled with images and language that linger and stick in the mind, I just keep returning to poem after poem. Wondering, 'how did he do that?' and 'look at how this line just spills its sounds over into the next' . . . and on and on, marvelling over the likes of "the rain falling with the names of everything / the rain falling with more secrets than we can hold" ("A Petition to Clouds") and "it'll find the god of hawks / nesting in the dark reach / of all ascension" ("The Feather").

And how intimate it feels while reading, like the speaker's voice is just over your shoulder, pointing out this and that, causing you to observe and reflect at every turn. The observations so careful, so minute, so immediate. Clouds and feathers, raindrops and sparrows, calligraphy and insects: "to write poetry is to sign-off the words yourself / take them from the visible and return them to the invisible / burnishing the backs of beetles as you go" ("Ars Poetica").

The sacred, the mythic, the beautiful, it's in there.


*Note: One of the poems is titled "A Hummingbird's Heart Beats 1260 Times A Minute" . . . it's a prose poem that doesn't forget it's a poem.

Recently . . .

Recently Discovered: Margaret Atwood has a blog? Evidently.

Recently Watched and Enthusiastically Recommending (but only if you don't take small children or the already nervous or anxious): District 9. Brilliant film, in story and execution. I won't go into plot because it's just so much better if seen and experienced personally.

Recently Began Reading: A). The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. After many years of hesitation (the concept was appealing but I didn't want to be disappointed by the result), I decided to give it a try. So far it isn't too bad for a few days of summer reading. B). The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston. Great epic novel. I've just passed the part where they come across the frozen men. More to come. C). An ARC that I'll be posting about soon (absolutely wonderful novel!).

Recently Can't Stop Listening To: the cool evening breeze in the overheated trees, accompanied by the faithful crickets (the daylight hours have been hot as Hades lately).

Recently Made and Will Need To Try Again (for success): Coconut Rice. But the accompanying vegan-bacon-substitute fried with rosemary and tomatoes was very good indeed.

Surprised by tone and organization, I wasn't sure what to think, at first, but I was definitely entertained and frequently moved (to laughter as well as more sombre emotions). Antonine Maillet's 1971 novel La Sagouine is an engaging first-person account of Acadian life in New Brunswick. Marked by poverty, ignorance, and endurance, the poorly educated, but strident voice of the narrator is compelling, humourous (sometimes in spite of itself), and just plain fascinating. The in spite of itself humour left me feeling a tad uncomfortable from time to time (the narrator frequently mistakes one word for another when referring to things beyond her ken) as I feared the humour was a bit at her expense, but the conversation of the narrator was not undermined by the humour (some of the mistakes were pointed, in a way), and, ultimately, I was left with a feeling of respect for her strength of will and perspective.

There isn't anything precious or condescending about this narrative, and that makes for an excellent story. It presents a character who talks about whatever comes into her head, though what comes into her head is organized around various subjects and opinions relating to life as an Acadian. She talks about her relationship with the church, government, and her husband Gapi, all in a forthright, no-nonsense, ultimately rather optimistic tone with unanswerable questions put to the listener. The tone is the most heartbreaking aspect of the book, in the end. And the questions stick.

A portrait of Acadian life, yes, but just as applicable to any group of people suffering economic hardship and being ignored, politically, while doing so (and all that that entails in terms of education and opportunities).

Here's a couple of excerpts from the section "On the Moon," in which Gapi argues against the idea anyone ever sent someone to the moon:

According to Gapi, he says that if anyone went to the moon, from then on the moon would belong to them, just like in the old days land belonged to whoever it was who discovered it first. I told him it don't work like that anyways, never did. Land didn't belong to whoever found it, it belonged to whoever was strong enough to take it from the other fella, or rich enough to buy it off of him. If land belonged to whoever got to it first, how come we still don't have the fifty acres we all got when we first got here? And how come we can't fish year-round in the bay no more? And how come we can't hunt for partridge and porcupine no more in the bush? Tha land belongs to whoever is strong enough to hang on to it.

And all the talk about the moon is really, of course, about ownership and rights, and how silly it all is when you break it down (though the silliness certainly costs when taken seriously, that's for sure, and isn't it usually taken seriously?).

Now, you take the moon, he says. The moon belongs to all of us. Where would we be if we all suddenly took it into our heads to cut ourselves off a piece of the moon? Eh? If we can cut down every tree in the country to make parks and sawmills, just imagine what we could do to the moon. We'd shave it down so's there wouldn't be enough of it left to bring in the caplin. And why should the moon belong to one of us more than to another? The moon's like the air we breathe, no one's got the right to take it away from us. Gapi says he wouldn't be surprised if one day they tried to sell us moonlight. Just like they already sold us the water in the sea so's we could go fishing.

This translation certainly maintained a lively style throughout. The character was both familiar and unique all at the same time. An engrossing read.

Pizza Sub Extraordinaire and the Library

Yesterday saw me struggling to duplicate Mr. Inkslinger's gifts with pizza subs for lunch with my sister. I had a few advantages (like Mr. I's special pizza sauce, along with the necessary -- for his recipe -- French bread, left for me before work in the morning) so it was really only a matter of assembling the various, already provided, layers. Still, it was a sorry substitute for the mouthwatering-pizza-sub-extravaganza Mr. Inkslinger can deliver. This confirms my suspicion that some people just have a gift for food. I can make a mean cake, but my hesitation in other matters culinary is the mistake I keep making. One must just dive in and love the food into good taste.

Next up on the let's-just-dive-in-and-cook schedule? Brigadeiros (Brazilian recipe). Mr. Inkslinger found one of his older copies of Fine Cooking and pointed to the deceptively-easy-looking photographs and said, 'you could do that.' Mr. Inkslinger is an eternal optimist. We'll see what happens.


But what does this have to do with the library? Not a thing. Except to point out that a good writer can do the same thing with prose that a good cook can do with food stuff. And I've a bookbagful of good prose to prove it. Mr. Inkslinger and I took a trip to our university library (Mr. I for a book on gluttons, evidently) and I picked up a few CanLit volumes I've been meaning to get around to:

• La Sagouine by Antonine Maillet (I chose the recent Goose Lane edition translated by Wayne Grady)

• The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

Why more books when I'm the proud owner of a leaning tower of TBRs? Well, I am a book addict and libraries just feed the habit. Besides, can one ever get enough good literature? Thought not.

Feels Like A Poem Day

I've been reading about in The Library of America's Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters again. And I have to share this one (the sounds alone. . . !):

Sonnet by Elizabeth Bishop

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Bee In My Bonnet? Or How A Novel Got Me Thinking . . .

One of the tragedies of contemporary society is the disregard of subsequent generations for the previous, what has gone before. Some people talk about this tragedy, and how we might avoid it, as if it had something to do with forgetting to honour tradition, which is too simplistic, too narrow a view. Some people talk about it in terms of the importance of remembering one's cultural or political history, which I think is too broad and general and encompasses other imperatives. Rather, I think of it as a tragedy to forget to honour and study the best of human endeavour regardless of its relation to our personal selves, whether that means cultural, political, historical, or whathaveyou. If it's good, does it really matter whether it's 'in' or current? If it's good it's always current. Or there's something wrong with the current.

The transitional years between the wars, as well as those immediately following the second, saw a good deal of attention paid to this theme in literature. Illustrating the tragedy of throwing off the old, as past-it and irrelevant, and celebrating, even heroizing the new, the present, the young (and along with it the beautiful, the glamourous products of the ugly, infirm, ignorant past). I can think of two examples that strike me as particularly poignant: The Browning Version, a play and subsequent film (or two) which highlights the battle between outmoded instruction and present-day fascination with glamour and the obviously useful-for-PR (among other things), and Robertson Davies' Fifth Business, the first of the Deptford Trilogy, which opens with an argumentative stance, the old forgotten battling in the form of a memoir-letter as response to the new and dismissive. What follows in the latter is a matter-of-fact narration whose emotions quiver endlessly under the surface. It becomes luminous with the unstated.

Davies gives us a narrator, Dunstan (Dunstable) Ramsay, with quiet authority, whose quirks and oddities, not to mention his complicitous associations, nonetheless rise to the surface. And his complex relationships, formed early in life, with the town bully, Percy Boyd Staunton, and the town loony, Mrs. Dempster, inform against his seeming isolation. Like Rattigan's Crocker-Harris, his is not a spotless character. But he does make a good point now and again. Not to mention the savvy asides. This one, for example, about heroes and kings:

There was a moment, however, when the King and I were looking directly into each other's eyes, and in that instant I had a revelation that takes much longer to explain than to experience. Here I am, reflected, being decorated as a hero, and in the eyes of everybody here I am indeed a hero; but I know that my heroic act was rather a dirty job I did when I was dreadfully frightened; I could just as easily have muddles it and been ingloriously killed. But it doesn't much matter, because people seem to need heroes; so long as I don't lose sight of the truth, it might as well be me as anyone else. And here before me stands a marvellously groomed little man who is pinning a hero's medal on me because some of his forbears were Alfred the Great, and Charles the First, and even King Arthur, for anything I know to the contrary. But I shouldn't be surprised if inside he feels as puzzled about the fate that brings him here as I. We are public icons, we two: he an icon of kingship, and I an icon of heroism, unreal yet very necessary; we have obligations above what is merely personal, and to let personal feelings obscure the obligations would be failing in one's duty.

His insights/disillusionment about crowd/mob mentality, earned from watching the great unkindnesses wreaked on others through sheer amoral pressure of numbers, is interesting as well. Pointing out the societal disease of the majority voice. Mrs. Dempster is the antithesis of this pressure and she is seen as a victim of madness and, by Dunstan, as miraculous.

From the opening image of his old sled, as contrasted with Percy's "splendid sled," and the uselessness of the "too good" watch, so many of the metaphors circle around usefulness and age, uselessness and show. Dunstan as narrator is fascinating in his seeming reliability. Of course, because this is a kind of memoir of justification, he is undoubtedly unreliable at times (especially with his stated penchant for fictionalizing lives). Somehow, however, he just takes over and I found myself rooting for him, feeling by turns indignant on his behalf, fearful for his safety, apprehensive for how it must all end. Dunstan is the kind of character who just tugged at my sympathies, regardless of my hesitancy to fully trust his word.

And I haven't even talked about the magic.

Just a beautifully written book with a cast of characters who deservedly linger in the imagination. I.e. CanLit that really deserves to be CanLit.

Date Night and Food Love

Mr. Inkslinger has this thing about cookbooks. He loves food -- eating it, preparing it for himself or others -- and he has shelves of great books filled with recipes, gorgeous descriptions of food, glossy, mouth-watering photos, and anecdotes about famous chefs and restaurants. And let's just say the Food Network gets a lot of play at our house.

That having been said, I'm the fast-food, easy-to-make, take-out, non-meat-eating, just-give-me-a-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich, couldn't-be-bothered-to-cook-it girl he married (i.e. not a gourmand by any stretch of the imagination). But he's been bringing me back to my heritage of food appreciation (my father's father was a baker by profession and my maternal grandmother was well-known, in certain, modest circles, for her culinary abilities in the kitchen) one recipe, one book, one great food idea at a time.

So yesterday he took me to see the new film Julie & Julia, a film about the trials and tribulations of Julie Powell's challenge, recorded on her blog and then later in her book, to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol. I, as well as garnering story from Child's memoir My Life In France. I'd started reading the book by Powell in anticipation. An irreverent, and yet affectionate, take on French cooking, Julia Child, and the angst of turning 30. I have to say that I enjoyed both book and film. Similar in emotional tone, the film had more Child in it (more of a balance between the two Julias) . . . and Meryl Streep as Julia Child was a treat all on its own. Mr. Inkslinger and I laughed heartily and even found a lot of the film rather touching. What we definitely came away with, though, was a hunger for more things Julia Child.

After the film, Mr. Inkslinger kindly cooked me the best pizza sub known to humanity, thereby drawing me further in to the world of good food appreciation (he knows it's best to start with something already in my sad culinary repertoire, but improve it with fresh, healthy ingredients, new-to-me herbs, and go from there), and we made definite plans to hunt down more Julia Child and Julia Child-related books.

And last night, as I turned the last page of Powell's book, I couldn't help but feel -- differences in approach to the concept of immortality notwithstanding -- a definite respect for what Ms. Powell managed to accomplish, the courage it took to commit to a seemingly (just seemingly) meaningless challenge and see it through. And the sense of humour evidenced throughout is just infectious. Yes, my respect for the world of the food-lover increases daily.

Pulse Journalism and the Inconvenience of Meaning

When I first decided to try a reading challenge (even though I have a tendency to shy away from canon, curricula, or challenge), I thought it would be a great excuse to get off my metaphorical derriere (while remaining comfortably parked on the real one) and get some of those history tomes on my TBR pile good and read. Don't get me wrong. I love history (and I'll mention that history degree every chance I get), but somehow my list of finished novels, plays, and books of poetry always outweighs the list of finished history books.

But thanks to the motivating push of the aforementioned challenge, I've read some wonderful stuff over the last few months. Even if some of the books were not directly connected to the challenge itself (all I need is a push in the right direction). But I have to say the one that really caused my brain to percolate in ways it hasn't in awhile is John Ralston Saul's essay (published by one of my favourite publishers, Gaspereau Press) called Joseph Howe & the Battle For Freedom of Speech.

Given at a university, and prefaced by a bit of Canadian historical contextualizing, this address is basically a call for journalists to start paying attention to the conversation within the democracy. It reminds us that democracy and freedom do not come about by a series of sensational reports, but by discussion, argument, and conversation at the most basic level, where people gather together to talk about what they want, what isn't working, what could work better. But it's also so much more than that. A look at what freedom of speech means, how education accommodates it, what society can do with it. And all in readable, accessible prose. Pithy (necessarily so, given the context) and thought-provoking.

A few excerpts:

"An increasing percentage of our media experiences are devoted to little more than primal shouts. Shouts repeated again and again and again. Pulse news, pulsation. Pulsations as opposed to arguments or thought. Clips which are mere seconds long, repeated endlessly, so short and so endlessly that they become interesting in the sense that they are so uninteresting."

Language, in effect, used against meaning.

"Fractions of ideas, shouts completely unattached to context, completely unattached to the possibility of establishing whether what is being discussed has any relationship to truth or to history or to anything else. These short loud shouts are little more than emotion; or the scripted facsimile of emotion. And so nuance becomes more difficult."

"This linear, consumer-oriented, insistent society somehow treats us as if we were in a rush. Yet this is our society, so we are treating ourselves as if we were in a rush. How does that contradiction work? I suppose you could say that we are allowing the form of our society to bully the content. Form over content. Directionless structure -- which implies a certain innate panic -- over the complex meanings of human society."

Mr. Inkslinger recommended this book to me and I have to say I really loved it. I suspect it will be read and reread again and again.

Recommending Vertigo . . .

Having finished Philipp Blom's The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West, 1900-1914, I had to pause for a couple of days and mentally digest. It's the kind of book that deserves to be read and thought about, discussed, and read again.

Well-organized and wide-sweeping, it's a fascinating look at the early years of the 20th century, a time of transition and upheaval that, Blom tells us, set the pace for the succeeding years in ways that we've often overlooked. Instead of the years between the wars when, we usually assume, "the phoenix of modernity arose from the ashes of the old world," the first fifteen years of the last century changed the world we inherited, and, indeed, changed "the very image people had of themselves." This engagingly written account of those years, encompassing art, literature, and music, links key events and trends with significant psychological and philosophical movements, highlighting the increasing fascination with sex, redefined gender roles, and the rise of the machine as a socio-political and economic force.

Blom makes a convincing case for the significance of those years, what was set in motion by thought, scientific experiment, warmongering, and business interests. Even now I find myself going back to certain images conjured up by Blom's prose . . . and how current so many of the issues feel. The uncertainty, the shifting ground of gender norms and the definition of the self in relation to society, the inhuman machine of political interests . . . this is history at its most interesting, most relevant.

Cutting Along the History Bias

After watching a few episodes of the first season of The Tudors* on dvd, and being entertained by the spectacle of it all (as well as the acting) and yet mildly annoyed by the disconnect between the historical Tudors and the tv Tudors, I decided to do a little Tudor history rereading. Having been brought up in the shadow of a sister fascinated by all things Tudor, I am not ill-versed in the lives of said rulers. But it's been awhile. I grabbed the nearest book to hand, a library sale bio, Anne Boleyn by Norah Lofts, and proceeded to delve.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to look elsewhere for meatier, more reliable information.* Lofts' biography of Boleyn shows a heavy moralizing bias and I'm a little suspicious of her fascination with salacious anecdotes. An interesting writing style, mind you, conversational, engaged, but I didn't get to know anything more about Anne, Henry, Mary, Katharine, et al, than I already knew upon opening the book. (I hate it when that happens.) Alas.

I'm thinking this one might be a better bet. But all suggestions/recommendations welcome . . .

* Just a thought: what about authors/producers working with the fabric of history rather than against it?