I've just been reminded of why I prefer Michael Ondaatje's prose to his poetry by a reread of The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. Enough said about that.

I have also started in on Anne Simpson's novel, Falling, which I've been wanting to read for quite awhile now. It starts off with an accident, which grabs you, and then moves on to the aftermath of tragedy. I find my mind straying back to the novel while I'm busy working on other things. Which is a good sign if one is looking for an engrossing read. But my goodness! I've never had so many books on the go at one time. Scattered thy name is Inkslinger.

And in other bookish news: a package of books arrived yesterday (excuse for ordering was Mr. Inkslinger's birthday, which is coming up in a few months) and I now have three novels* I've been wanting to read . . . oh, and The Coast of Utopia trilogy by Tom Stoppard. I believe the TBR bookshelf has gone from groaning to shrieking with dismay.

All it will take to catch up on my want-to-reads is just a few extra hours added to each day. That's possible, right? But how can one be discouraged with full bookcases, cozy felines, some chocolate proffered by a thoughtful sister, and sunlight knocking at the windows?

Update: Ended up enjoying Falling, but with a few reservations. I can't fault Simpson's use of language . . . but the characterization didn't always feel authentic. A beautifully written book overall, though, and definitely heartrending. About the grief process, and, as it happens, Niagara Falls (side note, completely unrelated in tone: whenever I hear the name Niagara Falls now it always reminds me of Cary Grant's line in Arsenic and Old Lace when his new wife says -- reminding him that they are supposed to be leaving on their honeymoon-- "Niagara Falls!" and he replies, "It does? Well, let it!")

* The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (which my sister says is very good), Drood by Dan Simmons (about which I've heard conflicting reports), and Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (which came recommended by Janet)!

What an utterly wonderful collection of poems! I've just finished Anne Simpson's Light Falls Through You (published in 2000) and I loved every bit of it. The way the lines fall perfectly within the frame of the poem, the way the images stay in one's imagination, inhabit one's sense of the world. And the way she experiments with symbol and sign is so much fun. (Though it is often serious fun).

From the evoking of myths like Ulysses and Helen of Troy and Gilgamesh to the mining of Grunewald imagery in the last section, Altarpiece, in which sprinklers and annunciations dot the field, no ground is too holy or too mundane but deserves a promenade of words and images. And the details, of garden, of body, of mind! Such a wonderful world to visit in the midst of a grey-brown couple of days (though the snow did fall like tiny bits of crystallized cotton on the trees yesterday afternoon, and that was quite lovely indeed).

One of my favourites from the collection:

Light Falls Through You by Anne Simpson

After many years avoiding the place, I lift the latch
(which disappears as it is touched) and find

you are young as always, while I have closed thousands
of little doors in my skin. Perhaps small words, such as love,

still exist, floating through air in the far distance. Like kites,
they come back when I pull on them, so I've lost

nothing, not even your hands, full of something discarded:
the nests of birds, complete with eggs, or feathery ostrich ferns.

But look, there is snow on the floorboards, where the wind
brings it under the door. You are in shadow and then light,

as you lean forward. Now I see wrens hiding in your hair,
field mice scampering down your leg. I pause, catching the scent

of earth, and realize your arms are moss, fingers about to blossom --
the wrong season, but never mind, your eyes are the same,

uncannily. I see everything planted in you unfurling new leaves
and flourishing. I reach out fondly, at the same moment

sunlight falls through you. After all, I should have known
you would dissolve into something clear and unresolved,

like water, and that I would put my hands deep in you
and they would come up empty, wet from the touch of my own face.

Such seeming simplicity of phrase and line, then she wallops you with the imagery, infusing the beautiful with something akin to the macabre. Certainly the authenticity of grief lends itself to these couplets. Gorgeous!

You know the kind of week that promises snow and then delivers some (albeit sporadic) bright sky and spring-like sun? The kind of week punctuated by poety friends, chocolate cake with strawberry icing, and a little sun . . .


Mornings filled with chocolate truffles (only a few at a time, mind . . . and I have yet to taste a chocolate truffle I prefer to Ganong chocolate truffles), Vaughn Williams on the radio, and the fascinating Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (I've made my way to the half-way point already and am trying to slow down and just savour . . . gorgeous writing).

And then something pleasant, discovered while researching a project involving early 19th century music:

Perhaps a rather gory, scary film like The Wolfman isn't the most romantic film for a Valentine's Day viewing, but since Valentine's Day is about love why not go see a movie the person you love actually wants to see? So out we trotted under an iron sky (which belied the springlike tendencies of the last week), coated and ready for adventure, and found an entertaining Valentine's Day afternoon in a dark theatre with hands clasped and hearts in tune. I was surprised, actually, that it unfolded like a good, old-fashioned scary tale. Usually contemporary revisitings of gothicky tales have a tendency to pander to an imagined audience. And Benicio Del Toro was delightfully steady and understated in his approach to the character. So not a bad gift for Mr. Inkslinger.

The latter had already presented me with a lovely little Folio Society book of love poems. Where he finds these things I don't know . . . has a gift for the perfect book find, does Mr. Inkslinger.

A quick, lovely bit of verse from the aforementioned:

She stood by the branch of a tree,
And writ her love on a leaf.
Anon.

Currently . . .

Reading/re-reading: Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (good ole L. M.!):

'Marilla, isn't it nice to think that to-morrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?'

'I'll warrant you'll make plenty in it,' said Marilla.

And

'Anne, are you killed?' shrieked Diana, throwing herself on her knees beside her friend. 'Oh, Anne, dear Anne, speak just one word to me and tell me if you're killed.'

To the immense relief of all the girls, and especially of Josie Pye, who, in spite of a lack of imagination, had been seized with horrible visions of a future branded as the girl who was the cause of Anne Shirley's early and tragic death, Anne sat dizzily up and answered uncertainly:

'No, Diana, I am not killed, but I think I am rendered unconscious.'

Listening to: the soundtrack to Bright Star. Keats and music! Lovely.

Anticipating: getting started on Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. I've been wanting to read it for some time (goes along nicely with my ongoing exploration of things Tudor . . . still reading and enjoying Six Wives by David Starkey). I'm also looking forward to the trip to the library this afternoon. Yes, much book-related pleasures on their way.

Planning: some more cake-baking for tomorrow. Either chocolate, or my grandmother's silver cake.

Enjoying: sun and poetry, friends who seem to distill same.

An excerpt from Journal of a Solitude. May Sarton writing about what the painters of the Northern Renaissance achieved:

I suppose these paintings speak to me with such force because they represent all that I hope to do in the novels and in the poems. They compose the world without ever imposing a rigid schema upon it and make us see even the domestic scene at its most banal with a sudden sense of revelation, with poignant recognition. The painters look at reality with devotion, and what we see is life never sentimentalized, but enhanced.

The sky is bright, but oh so grey, and outdoors the cold lingers. But inside is all sparkling words and feeling. A feast of movie-watching and reading took place over the weekend. Among the dishes up for savouring was the dvd Bright Star, about the moving relationship between the doomed John Keats and his love Fanny Brawne. I wasn't sure I would like this film, but have wanted to see it for some time . . . just in case. John Keats is my favourite of the Romantic poets (you can have your Shelleys and your Byrons) and I find the Fanny/Keats relationship very interesting indeed. So I was worried a film based on that relationship might not live up to my considerable expectations.

And it didn't, not entirely, but it was lovely nonetheless. It skated a bit over the surface of things for my liking, especially their introduction to one another, as well as concerning the poetry itself. But, even so, it was a beautifully filmed story, and wonderfully acted. The actor playing Keats (Ben Whishaw) was absolutely brilliant. A beautiful, moving film, and had I not had such high expectations I would have loved it wholeheartedly. As it is, I did enjoy it quite a bit. Fanny's reaction to Keats' death is heartrending. And the idea of fleshing out Fanny (who must have been a remarkable woman indeed) is a good one. And what the film has to say about love itself is well worth whatever quibbles I might have: "There is a holiness to the heart's affections."

The director (Campion) also is so well aware of how erotic non-erotic scenes can be. I believe Robert Redford once talked about this in an interview about the lack of sex scenes in The Horse Whisperer. How longing can be depicted without groping, and how sexual excitement can be communicated by good acting and directing . . . and without going all out in a sex scene. For example:



Especially relevant in the story of John Keats and Fanny Brawne.

And what can I say about that glorious scene with the butterflies? Love and butterflies!

This week needs a poem post. Since I've been reading The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte, why not one of hers?

There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning,
While evening sheds its silent dew
Or sunshine gilds the morning.

There should be no despair, though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart forever?

They weep -- you weep -- it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing;
And Winter pours its grief in snow
Where Autumn's leaves are lying.

Yet they revive, and from their fate
Your fate cannot be parted,
Then journey onward, not elate,
But never broken-hearted.

It's been a run-around kind of week, with appointments involving varying degrees of stress, and this morning was my chance at returning to stillness. Living a writerly reader's life lends itself to a bit of isolation and an initial sense of jarring can occur when said writerly reader is forced to rub elbows with the wider world (hence my enjoyment of Sarton's Journal of a Solitude in which, among other things, she addresses the issue of isolation, albeit from the position of a writer living absolutely alone). So this morning, with the sun shining on desk, books, and (seemingly) cuddle-starved felines, I indulged in some 'get back to my reality' time. This inevitably involved reading and listening to music. Oh, and a fresh tea biscuit with a healthy dollop of blueberry jam.


What I like about Sarton's Journal is its transparent nature, as if she leaves nothing cloaked, but takes out all of her impressions and emotions for sharing and analysis. And I find what she has to say about women writing in the 70s (Journal of a Solitude being published in 1973) fascinating . . . especially (sadly) since little seems to have changed in terms of the complications women face when attempting to balance 'life' and 'work/writing'.

And the frequent insights and quotables.

This one struck me this morning:

There has been a long hiatus in this journal because I have had no days here alone, no days when time opened out before me. I find that when I have any appointment, even an afternoon one, it changes the whole quality of time. I feel overcharged. There is no space for what wells up from the subconscious; those dreams and images live in deep still water and simply submerge when the day gets scattered.

Travelling in the dust of Boers and British soldiers is tiring stuff. I'm still in Fred Stenson's The Great Karoo (twenty pages to go) . . . interesting novel with undeniably political undertones.



I've also been scribbling away with my fountain pens. The two I bought are very inexpensive (both from Jetpens.com). The first (in the photo above), an Ohto, is not unpleasant to hold or look at, and it writes well. The second is a Pilot Petit and it's fun to tote around and jot down quick thoughts quickly. Mr. Inkslinger went for a small Spalding and has voiced his approval of same. Much prose and poetry has been making its inky way onto various pages in the Inkslinger household this past week.

Last Thursday, however, saw a return of book-buying weakness. Having sworn to read my TBR pile and pad it with whatever I needed from the library before purchasing more reads and must-reads, I found myself in the discount aisles of our local bookstore. Willpower went out the proverbial window and died a quick death in the freezing temperatures. I purchased a non-Mary Russell novel by Laurie R. King. It has been relegated to the groaning TBR shelf (which threatens to seriously maim the bookcase when it gives in and collapses under the weight of neglected reads), but I've a feeling it's going to be rescued and read before long.