Hello readers, this post's for you.
This month, my friend, Louise invited me to be a guest at a meeting of her book club. Curiously, despite living and breathing books for nigh on...well, a lot of years...I had never previously been part of a book club, even as a guest. I'd always eschewed what I assumed would be a formulaic approach to appreciating a book and resisted being forced to read books that didn't particularly interest me. Or maybe, no-one ever invited me. Whatever. Anyway, I enjoy Louise a great deal, and when she told me which book she'd selected for the meeting - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell - I couldn't resist. You see, as Louise has said, David Mictchell is my boyfriend. No really, he is. (Have I mentioned I read mostly fiction?)
I discovered David (yes, we're on a first name basis; or at least I am, with him) one July, about four years ago, when I realized I'd purchased Cloud Atlas, but had never read it. Because I rarely read reviews of anything - yes, I know, that makes this blog somewhat ironic, if not presumptuous - among the books I buy, will be those that have been long- or short-listed for various awards (Booker, Giller, Orange, Commonwealth, Nobel, Pulitzer, Ed). Cloud Atlas had been short-listed for the Booker in 2004. That July, on Balsam Lake, Cloud Atlas (and the obligatory glass of Auchentoshan) transported me, and I fell in love with Mitchell and his prodigious talent. I devoured his three other books; Ghostwritten and Number9dream, both of which were also short-listed for the Booker in their respective years, and shortly afterward, Black Swan Green, a semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman which was no less enchanting than its predecessors.
Then I waited. And waited. Not patiently and insouciantly, but like a petulant, hungry child. Mitchell was working on his new book, set in 18th century Japan, on Dejima, a fan-shaped island in Nagasaki Harbour, which was Shogunate Japan's only window of contact with the rest of the world. That book, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, finally landed in my feverish hands this past summer. I read it this autumn. And discussed it, after a mind-altering brie, warming glen fiddich and epicurean stew, with Louise's fab book club, this month.
And so, what about Jacob de Zoet and his Autumns? Well, Mitchell remains a literary giant. He's a master of description. a meticulous researcher and a consummate story-teller. His characters - like Jacob and Uzaemon - are fully and wonderfully drawn; his dialogue - like the stilted, pregnant conversations between Jacob and Orito - is riveting; his stories - from the card game in the kitchen to the frightful reality of the nunnery to which Orito has been taken - are rollicking, evocative and sublime... Are you sensing an approaching 'but'...? Yes...well, and it's difficult for me to admit this; as difficult as it would be for a parent of a clumsy child to admit that ballet's not in the cards. And let me say emphatically, this is a wonderful book. An enchanting book. A superior book, even. But...there it is...this is not Mitchell's best book. Perversely, perhaps Mitchell himself is to blame. Ironically, Thousand Autumns, a linear story and a departure for Mitchell, lacks the thing that made Ghostwritten, essentially several separate and distinct narratives, a better book; that is, a common and defining theme. There are hints and glimpses of one - predatory behaviour, isolation, maybe love - but they don't mature enough to connect the admittedly profound interactions between admittedly heart-wrenching characters. A lemon meringue, this book. Delicious, delightful, desireable...but now I'm hungry again. Petulant and hungry.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Blog Van Winkle
Yes, it's been two years, and my, how things have changed for Mr. Obama in that mere blink of an eye. I guess he's finding out what I've known for too long a time, that is, no, we can't. At least not whilst there remain people on this planet who weren't mortified at the crazy look of pure excitement on Sarah Palin's face when she shot that caribou, people who truly believe Christine O'donnell is them, people who think Africa is a country, and even so, only when forced to think at all, people who follow Kim Kardashian on Twitter, people for whom Don Cherry expresses their political views, people who have been persuaded that Rob Ford cares about them more than he does about his 70-ounce porterhouse, people who... But, Obama's fate is not what I want to talk about, here; I only note it because of its timing in relation to the birth, brief existence and now rebirth of this blogette.
As you can see, the mere act of creating a blog dealt a crippling blow to any creativity to which I might have laid claim. Therefore, I have decided to dedicate the reincarnation of blog, this phoenix, not to my own creativity (such as it once was), but to the creativity of others. Mostly writers, but sometimes film-makers, sometimes musicians, sometimes artists, sometimes journalists, and yes, sometimes even hockey players.
Stay tuned. I promise it won't be two more years of radio silence.
As you can see, the mere act of creating a blog dealt a crippling blow to any creativity to which I might have laid claim. Therefore, I have decided to dedicate the reincarnation of blog, this phoenix, not to my own creativity (such as it once was), but to the creativity of others. Mostly writers, but sometimes film-makers, sometimes musicians, sometimes artists, sometimes journalists, and yes, sometimes even hockey players.
Stay tuned. I promise it won't be two more years of radio silence.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Write what you know, doncha know!
i admit - i’ve been struggling with content for this blog. ordinarily, i have no difficulty reducing my views and reviews, opinions and observations to writing, and that writing has been generally persuasive and even entertaining, somethimes. and yet, somehow, this medium is having a chilling effect on the creative process and bringing on a veritable crisis of confidence. so, i got to thinking: what in calliope’s name makes me think i can write, anyway? well, you see, i wrote a novel when i was 9 years old. it was never published, of course. partly because, well, i was 9 years old, but mostly because agatha christie beat me to it.
writing is the natural by-product of reading, and i gather i was reading at an uncommonly early age - alice in wonderland, the wizard of oz and treasure island, by 4, and most of the books in my parents’ library by 13. i’m not sure that siddhartha and lady chatterley’s lover are appropriate pre-teen reading material, but my parents, martinets, otherwise, didn’t seem to impose any restrictions on what i could and could not read; with the notable exception of ’the happy hooker’.
And here’s the story of that sorry escapade: i went to an all-girls school in georgetown, guyana (bishops‘ high school). it was very proper, run by the anglicans. uniforms had to be 4 inches below the knee (yes, below), no jewelry, no makeup, and so on. anyway. at one point, i’m 12 or so, xaviera hollander’s ‘the happy hooker’ is making its way around the school. it started at the top (the 6th formers), and made its painstaking way down, until finally, it got to me, in the second form. FINALLY, it was in my waiting hands. and a rattier, more dog-eared, nastier tome you've never seen. i was VERY excited. i put it in my games bag, played games (netball, i think it was) after school, and then went home. and, as i usually did, dropped the bag at the door and promptly forgot about it. well, the nanny found the book, realised it wasn't on the required reading list, and took it to parents, who blew a stack.
my parents had a standard way of handling these things. my mother would rage and rage, and demand answers, and my father would sit there sighing and looking like i'd kicked him in the stomach. this was prototypical, except that even he was expressing his abject disappointment in me, the model child. where HAD they gone so terribly wrong? they demanded to know who i'd gotten it from. i refused to say. (believe me, the wrath of my parents was gonna be a snap compared to the treatment i'd suffer at the hands of 200 angry girls). they manhandled me to the headmistress's office the next day. both of them. and all three, plus the severely pickle-up-the-ass spinster assistant head-mistress, used all forms of torture on me for several hours. but i didn't spill. nothing. not even name, rank and serial number. they eventually had to release me to amnesty international without the names of anyone else to torture. book was confiscated, though, and i still got shit from the girls, especially the other form 2 and form 1 girls who were in line after me, for the book. and you know what? i’ve still never read the damn book! it and its author (who must be close to 80-years old now, which is not an appealing thought at all), continue to hold some mystique for me.
believe it or not the foregoing was not the point of this story, at all. it was quite possibly, the longest digression in the blogosphere. (it probably isn’t; i just like saying that made-up word).
anyway, reasonably soon after i started to read, i started to write (first, disobediently and shamefully, on those two or three blank pages that can be found in hardcover editions of the classics, and then later, after some whupass from the martinets, on paper designed for the purpose, complete with illustrations). then, having decided that d’d satisfactorily mastered the art form of the short (very short) story, the poem and the diary, a la pepys and anne frank (well, without the concentration camps and plague), i decided to embark on a novel. it was daunting and herculean, but i devoted a great deal of time, thinking and effort (not to mention, paper) to the task, and i was happy with the finished product. it was a snappy little murder mystery, set on a boat on a river, and entitled (cleverly, i thought), ’murder on the nile’. i took it to my father, confident in his approval and admiration. he reached up to the third shelf on the right, and pulled down the hercule poirot anthology.
write what you know, he said. what?? i’m nine freaking years old! what do i know? i got nothin'! no-one’s gonna want to read about piano lessons (even though they were interesting insofar as every day we experimented with ever larger and sharper objects on mrs. haynes’ chair, to determine the precise point at which she would actually start to feel something through her outsize ass), or climbing guava trees, or that time I was thrown off my bike headfirst and everyone else just rode straight past me, or when the jordans had an exorcism, next door, and I tape-recorded it, or about the maid that used to drink my parents‘ gin and replace it with water, and then roll around on the floor, and all of my parents‘ friends couldn‘t understand why their G & Ts were so weak. write what i know, sheesh!
which may be why i'm having so much trouble with this blog...
writing is the natural by-product of reading, and i gather i was reading at an uncommonly early age - alice in wonderland, the wizard of oz and treasure island, by 4, and most of the books in my parents’ library by 13. i’m not sure that siddhartha and lady chatterley’s lover are appropriate pre-teen reading material, but my parents, martinets, otherwise, didn’t seem to impose any restrictions on what i could and could not read; with the notable exception of ’the happy hooker’.
And here’s the story of that sorry escapade: i went to an all-girls school in georgetown, guyana (bishops‘ high school). it was very proper, run by the anglicans. uniforms had to be 4 inches below the knee (yes, below), no jewelry, no makeup, and so on. anyway. at one point, i’m 12 or so, xaviera hollander’s ‘the happy hooker’ is making its way around the school. it started at the top (the 6th formers), and made its painstaking way down, until finally, it got to me, in the second form. FINALLY, it was in my waiting hands. and a rattier, more dog-eared, nastier tome you've never seen. i was VERY excited. i put it in my games bag, played games (netball, i think it was) after school, and then went home. and, as i usually did, dropped the bag at the door and promptly forgot about it. well, the nanny found the book, realised it wasn't on the required reading list, and took it to parents, who blew a stack.
my parents had a standard way of handling these things. my mother would rage and rage, and demand answers, and my father would sit there sighing and looking like i'd kicked him in the stomach. this was prototypical, except that even he was expressing his abject disappointment in me, the model child. where HAD they gone so terribly wrong? they demanded to know who i'd gotten it from. i refused to say. (believe me, the wrath of my parents was gonna be a snap compared to the treatment i'd suffer at the hands of 200 angry girls). they manhandled me to the headmistress's office the next day. both of them. and all three, plus the severely pickle-up-the-ass spinster assistant head-mistress, used all forms of torture on me for several hours. but i didn't spill. nothing. not even name, rank and serial number. they eventually had to release me to amnesty international without the names of anyone else to torture. book was confiscated, though, and i still got shit from the girls, especially the other form 2 and form 1 girls who were in line after me, for the book. and you know what? i’ve still never read the damn book! it and its author (who must be close to 80-years old now, which is not an appealing thought at all), continue to hold some mystique for me.
believe it or not the foregoing was not the point of this story, at all. it was quite possibly, the longest digression in the blogosphere. (it probably isn’t; i just like saying that made-up word).
anyway, reasonably soon after i started to read, i started to write (first, disobediently and shamefully, on those two or three blank pages that can be found in hardcover editions of the classics, and then later, after some whupass from the martinets, on paper designed for the purpose, complete with illustrations). then, having decided that d’d satisfactorily mastered the art form of the short (very short) story, the poem and the diary, a la pepys and anne frank (well, without the concentration camps and plague), i decided to embark on a novel. it was daunting and herculean, but i devoted a great deal of time, thinking and effort (not to mention, paper) to the task, and i was happy with the finished product. it was a snappy little murder mystery, set on a boat on a river, and entitled (cleverly, i thought), ’murder on the nile’. i took it to my father, confident in his approval and admiration. he reached up to the third shelf on the right, and pulled down the hercule poirot anthology.
write what you know, he said. what?? i’m nine freaking years old! what do i know? i got nothin'! no-one’s gonna want to read about piano lessons (even though they were interesting insofar as every day we experimented with ever larger and sharper objects on mrs. haynes’ chair, to determine the precise point at which she would actually start to feel something through her outsize ass), or climbing guava trees, or that time I was thrown off my bike headfirst and everyone else just rode straight past me, or when the jordans had an exorcism, next door, and I tape-recorded it, or about the maid that used to drink my parents‘ gin and replace it with water, and then roll around on the floor, and all of my parents‘ friends couldn‘t understand why their G & Ts were so weak. write what i know, sheesh!
which may be why i'm having so much trouble with this blog...
Monday, November 3, 2008
big winged wheel, keep on turnin'...
well, you might as well know off the top - i like sports. and hockey, in particular. and the red wings, in further particular. so, if you're reading this page with any kind of regularity, you should expect to see some hockey, with an emphasis on the wings. yes, i bleed red - and white, with a little winged wheel in the centre. this is by way of disclaimer, which is to say, don't be a-complainin' if you're finding i haven't been giving equal time to your thrashers. and if you're a fan of the (goddamn) ducks, well...hope you're okay with profanity.
being a red wings fan in the heart of leafs nation is not easy, believe me. i continue to be reminded of nikolai borschevsky's game 7 overtime winner for the leafs in 1993, knocking the wings out of the playoffs. (yeah, leafs fans have to live in the past, even if that past is not especially great). 1993 was back when the wings were bad and the leafs hadn't yet achieved their current level of badness. i am not a vengeful person, though, so i let them crow, and then i gather up my three stanley cups and take my leave. to the detroit eatery, where wings fans are not only welcome but feted in style.
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/438286
http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/detroiteatery
the great thing about being a red wings fan is the size and scope of hockeytown, which is not defined so much by the metes and bounds of wayne county, as by an intense loyalty to and affinity for this storied franchise and little caesars pizza.
and hockeytown exists everywhere, as i found out to my pleasure last year in the run up to teh cup. last spring, despite having lurked for years, i joined a fan forum (on the detroit free press) for the first time. as every single-celled organism who calls into talk radio says, 'long time listener, first time caller'. anyway, it was wonderful. heady, intense and a feeling of community, of being among friends. friends i've never met and most of whom i know only by their online moniker, to be sure, but friends nonetheless. some of the posters are clearly nuts, and not in a good way. you know, the ones who insist there's a canadian conspiracy against the wings (most referees are canadian, after all), an NHL conspiracy against the wings...oh wait, that might be me...and the ones who litter the board with needless insults and rudeness. but most are lovely, polite people with something interesting to say. long live the freep forum.
which brings me to this...i should also say up front that a lot of the red wings arcana you will see reproduced here can likely be attributed to my witty friend in chicago, scotty (no, not bowman) and his new-fangled technology which goes by the acronymistic, 'PVR'. if you see trenchant, incisive and error-free analysis...well, that's scott's. the hysterical, unsupported and simplistic pap...sorry, that's mine.
so, here we are, 12 games into the season, and even though they're a respectable 8-2-2, the wings have only just started playing like the team we know. could be the stanley cup target on their sweaters when they come to town. could be the horrendously unfair schedule which took them on a 10-day western swing, playing back-to-back games on the road against the (goddamn) ducks and the sharks. or, it could be brett lebda, dragging everyone down. he's replaced by meech in last night's game, and bingo, wings are back to their winning ways. it may be the proverbial chicken and egg conundrum, though. scott has astutely noted that lebda thrives when the wings thrive. which is to say, when the wings are playing their game, lebda's speed and fast break are an asset. however, when the play is in the defensive end, pinned down, he is a stark liability. like scott says, it's not like he's not fast any more, or joining the rush, it's just that in the defensive end, he's not seeing as much open ice, and not as frequently. all this says to me that lebda's skills are limited, and if meech continues to play as well as he did last night, i say lebda's out for the foreseeable future.
the wings are now off for 6 days, and no games in 6 days can be just as damaging as 5 games in 7. (to me, really, more than the team.) so, with no hockey for a few days, you'll have to make do with my other interests: books, music, law, advocacy, scotch, getting through november, and trying to avoid annoying man, trying to convince my niece she's not the most beautiful little girl in the world, and even if she is, what of it, if she can't yet spell 'precocious'?
being a red wings fan in the heart of leafs nation is not easy, believe me. i continue to be reminded of nikolai borschevsky's game 7 overtime winner for the leafs in 1993, knocking the wings out of the playoffs. (yeah, leafs fans have to live in the past, even if that past is not especially great). 1993 was back when the wings were bad and the leafs hadn't yet achieved their current level of badness. i am not a vengeful person, though, so i let them crow, and then i gather up my three stanley cups and take my leave. to the detroit eatery, where wings fans are not only welcome but feted in style.
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/438286
http://www.blogto.com/restaurants/detroiteatery
the great thing about being a red wings fan is the size and scope of hockeytown, which is not defined so much by the metes and bounds of wayne county, as by an intense loyalty to and affinity for this storied franchise and little caesars pizza.
and hockeytown exists everywhere, as i found out to my pleasure last year in the run up to teh cup. last spring, despite having lurked for years, i joined a fan forum (on the detroit free press) for the first time. as every single-celled organism who calls into talk radio says, 'long time listener, first time caller'. anyway, it was wonderful. heady, intense and a feeling of community, of being among friends. friends i've never met and most of whom i know only by their online moniker, to be sure, but friends nonetheless. some of the posters are clearly nuts, and not in a good way. you know, the ones who insist there's a canadian conspiracy against the wings (most referees are canadian, after all), an NHL conspiracy against the wings...oh wait, that might be me...and the ones who litter the board with needless insults and rudeness. but most are lovely, polite people with something interesting to say. long live the freep forum.
which brings me to this...i should also say up front that a lot of the red wings arcana you will see reproduced here can likely be attributed to my witty friend in chicago, scotty (no, not bowman) and his new-fangled technology which goes by the acronymistic, 'PVR'. if you see trenchant, incisive and error-free analysis...well, that's scott's. the hysterical, unsupported and simplistic pap...sorry, that's mine.
so, here we are, 12 games into the season, and even though they're a respectable 8-2-2, the wings have only just started playing like the team we know. could be the stanley cup target on their sweaters when they come to town. could be the horrendously unfair schedule which took them on a 10-day western swing, playing back-to-back games on the road against the (goddamn) ducks and the sharks. or, it could be brett lebda, dragging everyone down. he's replaced by meech in last night's game, and bingo, wings are back to their winning ways. it may be the proverbial chicken and egg conundrum, though. scott has astutely noted that lebda thrives when the wings thrive. which is to say, when the wings are playing their game, lebda's speed and fast break are an asset. however, when the play is in the defensive end, pinned down, he is a stark liability. like scott says, it's not like he's not fast any more, or joining the rush, it's just that in the defensive end, he's not seeing as much open ice, and not as frequently. all this says to me that lebda's skills are limited, and if meech continues to play as well as he did last night, i say lebda's out for the foreseeable future.
the wings are now off for 6 days, and no games in 6 days can be just as damaging as 5 games in 7. (to me, really, more than the team.) so, with no hockey for a few days, you'll have to make do with my other interests: books, music, law, advocacy, scotch, getting through november, and trying to avoid annoying man, trying to convince my niece she's not the most beautiful little girl in the world, and even if she is, what of it, if she can't yet spell 'precocious'?
Sunday, November 2, 2008
congratulations, it's a bouncing baby blog!
i actually created this blog a few days ago, but despite previously having no difficulty sending friends witty bon mots, trenchant political analysis and biting social commentary via email (mostly unsolicited, to be sure), i immediately contracted writer's block...or should i say, thinker's block.
and i'm new to this whole blog thing. i did some cursory research in the blogosphere, to see if i can figure out what people write about, who reads it and why people have blogs, anyway. and, ladies and gentlemen, i'm pleased to report...i haven't a clue. maybe we're all performers at heart. so, let the show begin!
and i'm new to this whole blog thing. i did some cursory research in the blogosphere, to see if i can figure out what people write about, who reads it and why people have blogs, anyway. and, ladies and gentlemen, i'm pleased to report...i haven't a clue. maybe we're all performers at heart. so, let the show begin!
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