The Indextrious Reader

Crome Yellow

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:51:00 +0000

Crome Yellow / Aldous Huxley
London: Penguin, 1960, c1921.
174 p.

I felt it was time for a classic read, of which many live unread upon my shelves. So I chose this slim volume. This is an odd little read, a British amusement of sorts. Most of the action takes place at a literary house party at Crome, home of the Wimbush family.

Our main protagonist, young poet Denis Stone, is madly in love with Anne Wimbush. She isn't particularly in love with anyone. Other members of the party include Jenny, deaf and scathingly honest in her sketching; Mary, looking for a man to claim as her own; the Wimbush elders; Mr. Scogan, an older and extremely talkative cynic; curmudgeonly artist Gombauld; and popular writer Mr. Barbecue-Smith, who channels his best-selling aphorisms in a trance.

It is quite amusing in parts, with much wry humour and satire of the literary mores of the day. Denis is young and idealistic, and announces that he is working on a novel. Mr. Scogan breaks in with his comments:

Mr. Scogan groaned. "I'll describe the plot for you. Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. He passes through the usual public school and the usual university and comes to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon his shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance, he dabbles delicately in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous Future."

Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. "You're entirely wrong." he said. "My novel is not in the least like that." It was an heroic lie.

Many things occur during this holiday. Love is fermenting, virginity being lost, poems unwritten, paintings painted, vicars fulminating, histories of the Wimbush family read out in evenings, a country fair is hosted at Crome for the locals (at which all house guests help out, though Denis seems to be able to absent himself rather skillfully). There is humour both gentle and cutting, there is also a bit of social commentary thrown in via different characters suddenly speechifying. At one point, Mr. Scogan's prediction of the future -- "In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires..." -- foreshadows Brave New World.

It was a light read, pointed in some elements and sure to appeal to those who enjoy reading about this era, certainly. I was a bit disappointed in the sudden ending, the unfulfilled denouement, but that is rather the point, considering what Denis was intending for his own novel. In sum, this was a lot lighter fare than I expected from Huxley, and I enjoyed it.

Lean In

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Tue, 21 May 2013 03:04:00 +0000

Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead / Sheryl Sandberg with Nell Scovell
New York: Knopf, c2013.
228 p.

I read this without knowing much about the controversy that surrounded it. I just thought it looked intriguing when it came into the library.

And I must say, I'm not sure what all the controversy is about. She has put together a book full of informative stories and stats that supports the truth that women not only are held back career-wise by social mores and the infrastructure of the corporate world, but also by the expectations and beliefs that they've internalized as well. She is clear in her introduction about who she is addressing in this book, and thus the content is aimed at that particular audience.

Of course this is a difficult discussion and full of nuance. So not everyone is going to be behind every statement she makes, nor is she even fully consistent with her own arguments. But this is the complexity of life, and Sandberg points out shades and complexities in her experience of success. She also deals quite a bit with combining motherhood with a career, especially mothers with young children. I'd have liked to see a little more discussion directly about women without children, and how they face many of the same struggles. Speaking as a childfree woman in the workplace, there are specific issues about this situation that I'd like to see spoken openly about as well. She does note in the first chapter, however, that not all women want careers, not all want children, and not all want both.

We know that each situation is unique in our working lives, but there are many confluences in how women experience their career paths, and this is what she discusses. There are some common sense discussions on topics like the importance of mentorship, along with a definition of what mentorship is and what young women can expect from it -- hint, it's not handholding and unwarranted promotions galore. There are also some powerful statistics about women's limitations both socially and economically. She states right at the beginning that there are obvious limitations built in to how our society functions, but that there are many books that deal with those, and that her focus is on what holds us back internally.

I don't believe that she is engaging in "blame the victim" thinking in the least. Rather, it was refreshing to get some inside wisdom from someone who has actually been successful in this milieu, to hear how she and others like her have dealt with some of their drawbacks and overcome various issues. Her path won't be everyone's, but she doesn't claim that it is. She is advocating knowledge, both of exterior circumstances and self-knowledge. I agree that the two are inextricably linked, and only by acknowledging both will we be able to move forward.

All around me I sense that the world is less feminist-friendly, less accessible than it seemed to be when I was growing up. We've regressed rather than moved on, in many ways. So, it really struck home when Sandberg says, "It has been more than two decades since I entered the workforce, and so much is still the same. It is time for us to face the fact that our revolution has stalled. The promise of equality is not the same as true equality." I also enjoyed her list of what this book was not, ending with "It is not a feminist manifesto -- okay, it is sort of a feminist manifesto, but one that I hope inspires men as much as it inspires women."

I hadn't heard her TED talk before reading this, and have heard since that the book is essentially a transcript of that talk. So if you've listened to the talk you may not want to read this, but I always prefer having text to refer to. I found this book thought provoking, intellectually sound, and inspiring. And as for all those voices in my head that have always told me to "sit down, you're rocking the boat", I'll now counteract those with Sandberg's simple statement:

"Knowing that things could be worse should not stop us from trying to make them better."

Bone & Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Bone & Bread / Saleema Nawaz
Toronto: Anansi, c2013.
448 p.

I enjoyed this novel for so many reasons. It's set largely in Montreal, so of course the joy of revisiting and trying to identify some of my old environs was wonderful -- though you don't have to be a Montrealer to feel engaged in this vividly drawn setting.

The most notable thing for me was the writing itself. It is beautiful, capturing images, characters, feelings, in its many descriptions, metaphors, and simply lovely sentences. It reads as completely natural and yet is also a clear reflection of such talent. I am envious!

The story details the relationship of two sisters, Beena and Sadhana, who are orphaned early, in quite a disturbing manner. These sisters have a Sikh father and a Western mother, and grow up in Montreal largely distant from their Indian family, other than an uncle. This uncle works in their father's bagel shop, and takes over both the shop and the girls' guardianship once they are left orphans. This is a realistic, difficult, yet ultimately powerful relationship for them all.

The book covers issues of sibling love and rivalry, family bonds, grief, the difficulty of maintaining and identifying one's cultural background, sexual desires and roles, teen pregnancy, anorexia, how much one can help really another person, and more. It is rife with issues, replete with drama.

And yet it is also extremely readable, engaging, and illuminating. The issues do not overwhelm the story itself; they are a natural part of the narrative, unlike novels in which story seems to exist simply to prop up a favoured perspective on The Issue that the author is dealing with. This seems to me to be a tough balance, but Nawaz manages it effortlessly.

I found the younger years of the sisters the most powerful, as they depend on one another utterly, and coexist in a small space, helping one another face the world. As they hit their mid-teens, Beena becomes pregnant, while Sadhana finds her focus in anorexia. They both move into their own private worlds until they finally split apart physically as well, with Beena moving to Ottawa with her young son to find a place of her own. The rest of the book details their efforts to stay connected despite the magnetic pull between them which both draws them together and repels.

There was one element right at the conclusion that I felt was jarring; Beena has been searching for Sadhana's diary after her death. She finally lays her hands on it -- but doesn't even open it, doesn't read it. In her circumstances, I can't imagine not reading it. It did feel a bit anticlimactic.

Nonetheless, this was a wonderful book, with much to admire. The setting was so well done, and the sisters' relationship was loving and difficult, very true to life. There were moments when Nawaz' choice of phrasing made me stop, look at everything differently, and reread the sentence more than once. I enjoyed it, and was interested in each character's take on the world, whether it was Beena, Sadhana, or one of the people who surrounded them. Intriguing reading, with lots to discuss.

Atkinson's Life After Life

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Life After Life / Kate Atkinson
Toronto: Random House Canada, c2013.
477 p.

(**Spoilers ahead**)

There's been much talk about this book recently, and as my hold finally came up at the library, I read it over a couple of days last week. Wow! There is a reason for the buzz.

This is one of my 'best books' so far this year. I was absolutely taken with the conceit of the tale; Ursula is born, and then dies. And then is born, and then dies. And so on, and so on. At one point, her brother wonders, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could live over and over again until we got it right?"

And that is essentially what Ursula is doing. The cleverness lies in the way Atkinson details it; at each death, she returns to the point where things could have gone differently, and starts anew. As Ursula gets older, this can entail going back a number of years -- the connections get more complicated as more is happening. Some of the situations are ghastly, violent and so sad. And some are simply unfortunate. During a spate of Ursula's childhood accidents and restarts, my husband commented, "It feels like I'm reading the Gashlycrumb Tinies." So true!

But the detail in each part, the small things that shaped the direction of life -- Ursula's small wooden knitting doll, heavy snow delaying the midwife, a moment's distraction during the Blitz, being unable to celebrate VE Day -- these details create a layered, enthralling world that I was utterly absorbed into.

I loved how Ursula became more aware at each restart that something was going on. She has a strange sense of familiarity, put down to déjà vu, when she is repeating something, trying to fix it, to change the possible future. It was brilliantly conceived, and brilliantly executed too. I read it in a mad rush, so impressed by the skill and imaginative power involved.

Upon reflection, there were some elements that were perhaps not as compelling. In one of Ursula's futures, she ends up marrying a German during her pitiful continental tour post-school, and has a child. By some stroke of luck, she befriends Eva, a young woman who brings her along to a posh retreat in the mountains for the sake of her daughter's health. It's Eva Braun, of course. But things end badly. This German episode felt a bit divorced from the tale that had come previously, but its reasons for being become apparent in the following pages.

Ursula begins again and again, and finally recalls enough to set herself a course of action. She plans, prepares and puts into motion her essential reason for living -- returning to Germany and finishing off Hitler. This is a bit unsatisfying; is Ursula really just an instrument of fate? If things can be altered by such a little detail, is Hitler's demise utterly in her hands alone? To me, this exposed the germination of this tale, as we have probably all considered that question -- if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?

Still, this was an amazing read, and now that I've finished I would like to go back and begin again, and pay attention to all those details I'm sure I missed in my first quick reading. If this book didn't have to go back to the library, I would! It was clever, but also very compassionate and human. Ursula was a deeply felt character, distinct from her siblings, unsatisfying to her charming mother, uncertain about what she wanted from life. I was drawn into her world and into her inexplicable condition. I found the repetitions in the narration as she begins anew each time both strong and affecting, as the reader could see the minute alterations and try to figure out what had changed and what the results might be this time around.

This was an excellent read with internal echoes adding colour and weight to the story. I felt that there were certain similarities of atmosphere or theme in a couple of other books I've read recently, which would make great companion reading. My suggestions:

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt -- for the pre and interwar setting, the sense of large families in the country, the intense interiority of the main characters, the looming presence of the War.

Making It Up by Penelope Lively -- for her focus on chance and the moments in a life when everything could have gone completely differently

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis -- for the episodes in the Blitz, the fluidity of time, and the emotional punch of unexpected losses

Poisoned Pawn

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sun, 12 May 2013 05:27:00 +0000

The Poisoned Pawn / Peggy Blair
Toronto: Penguin Group, c2013.
318 p.

This was a light mystery I picked up recently, book two in a series of which I haven't yet read book one! It features Cuban detective Ricardo Ramirez, who has to travel to Ottawa to follow up leads on a very complicated case which includes Canadian tourists, mysterious poisonings and much corruption of many bureaucratic organizations.

It paints quite a picture of life in Cuba -- the shortages, the differences between what tourists are allowed to see and what daily life is like (there are even two currencies: Cuban pesos and tourist pesos). There is a lot of description of the daily routines of Ramirez and his department, as well as his family life, always turbulent. Despite official agnosticism, there are still many practicing Catholics and those who practice Santeria in Ramirez' life, including his grandmother, who left him with the gift/curse of seeing ghosts. He is by now resigned to seeing murder victims in his living room until he solves a case.

There are predictable moments when Ramirez gets to Canada, like his shock at the cold. There are also comparisons pointed out between Cuba's third-world conditions and those of Native reserves all over Canada, when Ramirez is met at the airport by an Ojibway officer, Charlie Pike. In this instance, I found that the author didn't allow much subtlety of interpretation, rather she spells it out, coming across as somewhat didactic. Still, the conditions on reserves and in residential schools do play a part in the story, so for non-Canadians this approach may be necessary to aid understanding.

The mystery itself is complicated, a multilayered twist of various strands that end up not being completely connected, but in searching for the answers to one case, the other is invariably implicated. These strands connect Ottawa and Cuba, and Ramirez must walk a fine line between the expectations of both sides in order to sustain his precarious lifestyle in Cuba. He wrangles the corruption in each place with enough panache to preserve himself, while meting out justice, as much as he is able.

It begins with a poisoning of a Canadian woman who is fleeing Cuba, carries on with a dead woman in an alley in Havana, and has a suggestion of widespread child abuse as an element in the case. Ramirez, with the help of both the local coroner, a dwarf named Hector Apiro, and the contacts he makes on his Canadian visit, must find the connections.

The setting is an integral element of the story, and Ramirez' world is fascinating. Even without reading the first book I was able to follow along and get to know the characters sufficiently to become involved in the story. If you've ever travelled to Cuba you might find this one particularly interesting for its inclusion of everyday detail. Quite unusual, and intriguing in its variety of characters.

The Butler Speaks

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:35:00 +0000

The Butler Speaks: a Guide to Stylish Entertaining, Etiquette and the Art of Good Housekeeping / Charles MacPherson
Toronto: Random House Canada, c2013.
247 p.

I received this book from Random House and have really enjoyed looking through it over the last week. It's actually quite fascinating -- although I do freely admit I skimmed over the section on how to properly clean every single thing in your house.

This is not a stuffy volume of arcane protocol, rather, it is a modern take on the service industry. I really liked what MacPherson said in the opening pages:

Etiquette is not a set of classist rules for the rich, famous or snobby -- rather, it's a way of understanding other people and having consideration for their needs.

It covers all sorts of things, from how to set a table and differentiate between cutlery, to how to clean, iron or polish your household. If you ever wanted to know how to set a tea tray correctly, that's here too. What wine to serve with which meal? Is this chair Queen Anne or Louis Quinze? Fold a napkin? Make a bed? Create a champagne tower? Address people correctly by order of protocol? Yes, you'll find out how. There is also a wonderful discussion of the temperament and behaviours of an efficient and effective butler (or any other kind of service position).

While I am not considering a career as a house manager this was still great reading. Recommended reading which he includes at the end, a list of 10 essential household management books (actually 11, but one is only in French), contains Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts, a book I bought some years ago but have as yet never even opened. Oops. However, if this field does in fact interest you as a career choice, try reading this book to get a feel for what's involved, and check out his recommended titles. And then check out his website, too -- Charles MacPherson Associates offers an accredited training course in the field, and it appears to be quite elaborate with assistance in placement afterward as well. It is based in Toronto, and MacPherson also makes regular appearances on the Marilyn Denis show.

Definitely a useful book for the non-professional (like myself) who needs a reference for some of these things now and again! A great gift, too, for those people you know you won't offend by giving it to them ;)

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sat, 04 May 2013 16:04:00 +0000

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? / Maria Semple
New York: Little, Brown, c2012.
330 p.

Another epistolary read, this one has been repeatedly recommended to me. I'm sure that most readers will have heard of this one by now -- it's the story of Bee Fox, a rather precocious girl living in Seattle with her currently agoraphobic (and formerly famous) mother and her Microsoft exec father.

It is told in a collection of letters, notes and emails back and forth from the various players in the story -- Bernadette, her virtual assistant in India, crazy neighbours, passive-aggressive fellow mothers from Bee's fancy school, and more, with the addition of a few narrative sections to add information to the story.

Bernadette, formerly a star in the architecture field, has closed herself off from most interactions with the outside world, preferring to stay inside of her rambling, crumbling home. Bee, a brilliant student, has been promised a reward if she gets straight A's (which of course she does) and starts off this tale by asking for a family trip to Antarctica.

With her mother anxious about the entire idea, and her father a busy executive falling into a relationship of sorts with his hyperefficient secretary, Bee's trip doesn't look good. But planning goes ahead, until Bernadette disappears while an intervention is being staged in her kitchen.

The second half of the book follows Bee and her father as they travel to Antarctica and follow Bernadette's trail to try to discover what has happened to her. Father-daughter bonding (and non-bonding) goes on, they discuss Bernadette's place in their lives, we get to see Antarctica even as the sullen teenager Bee ignores it, and get to some emotional depth in Bee's longing for her mother. Finally, a resolution: by chance and daring, Bee and her father take action and find out what has happened.

I liked this book. It was fun, with snappy dialogue, some entertaining characters, great settings -- both Seattle and Antarctica are real places here. The epistolary format perhaps didn't work so well for the entire story, but exposition is really hard to capture authentically solely via the written word, especially in our non-letter writing culture. It was much more normal for 18th century letter writers to go on and on about every detail, since there was no other way that people were finding out information, for example. Still, it was pretty well done, and really creative and entertaining.

What I didn't like so much was the confusion I felt between the characters of Bee and Bernadette. Not only are their names similar, but their voices are as well. They think and speak in the same patterns, and with the same insouciant sarcasm. I couldn't immediately recognize who was speaking in some scenes, despite the fact that one character is a precocious teenager and the other a disappointed adult. Sometimes I felt like the structure and dialogue was just a little too snappy.

So while I didn't adore this one as much as many other readers have, I still enjoyed it and appreciated what it was trying to do. I liked many of the elements and will most definitely be keeping my eyes open for this writer's next book.

Henrietta Sees It Through

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front, 1942-1945 / Joyce Dennys
New York: Bloomsbury, 2011, c1986.
181 p.

I read Henrietta's War some time back, not realizing there was a part two to the story, until I was unexpectedly given a copy of this one! This book continues the story with Henrietta's letters to her cousin Robert, overseas somewhere. Henrietta lives in the West Country, and is tired of London visitors commenting that "these people don't know there's a war on", especially on the day that a local couple hears that their youngest son has been killed.

The book was published as columns in Sketch during the war, and only published in the 80's collected into book format. Thus there are many concerns that people who didn't know the outcome of the war might be experiencing -- food shortages, short tempers from the anxiety, a fear of lack of elastic and what that might mean for undergarment availability, having to take in evacuees, loneliness (especially of young wives left unsure of what was happening to their husbands), and more.

Despite this, Henrietta has a sense of humour and can always see both the ridiculous and the small delights still to be found in daily life. The book is simultaneously charming and serious, a little heavier than the first volume but still as light-hearted as possible, including the same kind of cartoon sketches that were so entertaining in the first.

There are marriages, engagements, lots of babies (Henrietta's husband Charles is a local doctor so she always knows about these), parties, music, dancing, and even kissing games at one point. The delight the village takes simply in dressing up for a party is palpable, a relief from the self-denial and stoic carrying on that makes up their daily round during these years.

I love reading letters, real or fictional, as I believe the format can create a kind of intimacy and self-revelation that is unique. Here we get to know both Henrietta's fears and her methods for keeping on, told in a delightful way to a friend and relative who is also familiar with the people and surroundings she's talking about. The book ends with a letter announcing the celebration of VE Day, still relatively low-key, but with the whole village out in the streets dancing and singing and lighting a huge bonfire. Soldiers stationed nearby join in, and there is even mention of a Canadian solider in the last couple of pages. It's quite moving though told so efficiently. Following Henrietta and her various friends and neighbours through the war was a lovely experience, both for her humour and her good heart. I'm glad both books were published for us to explore now; the fact of living through this war on the home front shouldn't be forgotten.

(FYI: For an example of life on the Canadian Home Front during WWI, I always recommend Rilla of Ingleside)

Women's Lives: Poetic Retellings

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I'm participating in the Poetry Month Blog Tour, hosted by Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit, again this year. I always enjoy this project, as everybody has such an individual choice to share for each day of the tour. If you haven't been following along so far, you can still go back over the tour schedule and catch up on some pretty great stuff!

Today I'm sharing two collections I've just read, The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy, suggested by blogger Buried in Print, and one that I recently won via the Literary Press Group's poetry month cross-Canada poetry tour, Glossolalia by Marita Dachsel.

The connection these two books have lies in the way they both focus in on women's lives, ones we often hear about only from a male perspective, and give us a first-person view of their experience.

I've read some Carol Ann Duffy before (loved her poem Tea) and so was eager to read this collection when I saw it mentioned by a blogger whose taste I trust.

The World's Wife reimagines the lifestories of women from myth and fairytale. It was fabulous.

Starting with Little Red Cap and going all the way to Medusa, The Beast's Wife, a bevy of "Mrs." and beyond, this was a marvellous, kaleidoscopic reshifting of what we think we know from all the stories we've heard -- none of which are traditionally told from a female viewpoint. These women explain themselves, express how the truth of their lives doesn't quite match up with the stories told about them, or simply comment on their own views of the world. Each poem works beautifully, and I was particularly taken with two, the sonnet "Anne Hathaway", and the final poem, "Demeter".

This last one, in particular, reminded me of a collection I read fairly recently, Demeter Goes Skydiving, and the ways in which that poet, Susan McCaslin, inhabited mythological women like Demeter, speaking from the perspective of this mythical mother experiencing the modern world. I think that this approach to poetry appeals to me quite a bit, and was happy to find Duffy's collection so I could sate myself with extensive examples of such!

Glossolalia, on the other hand, gives voice to the many historical wives of Joseph Smith. Dachsel is particularly interested in polygamy and the peculiar secretive way it was practiced at the time of these wives' experience. The lives of these numerous women lend themselves to exploration, and Dachsel digs in with imagination and verve.

There were so many wives. There's a list at the back, with ages and dates of marriage, and it's quite overwhelming to look at them all, ranging in age from 14 (ick) to 50's. Dachsel gives them each a specific voice, and yet a combination of 2 voices (one set of siblings) in the same poem was particularly notable. There was one poem by an unnamed wife who refuses to talk, who states that she has "nothing to say to you" -- this anonymous wife seemed to have a certain authority in her silence. Each of these women seems to be justifying her life and decisions from the grave, reminding me faintly of the famous Spoon River Anthology, though these poems are generally longer and sharper than the Spoon River examples.

Their stories reveal various reasons for their decisions to marry Smith. In this early method of polygamy, the marriages were secret, women could already be married with no requirement to leave their current husband to live with Smith, and these spiritual marriages could be as easily dissolved. There were practical reasons, like the oldest wife, who was a sister left alone when her only brother died, married as a kind of favour. There were more specious reasons, as with the youngest girls, with Smith pretending it was all for heavenly glory, ugh.

One of the most fascinating elements was the voice of Joseph Smith's first, original wife, Emma Hale Smith, throughout the book. Her perspective on his religiously permitted philandering was unexpected, and powerful. Notes in the back reveal that she approved of a small number of his marriages, mainly to younger girls who were already servants in their home. The others she either wasn't directly aware of or powerless to stop in fact, though that didn't stop her opinions on them. Here she is, around the middle of the book:

I believe I believed. Joseph,
you were everything
I believed....

I believed you
until I couldn't. ...

A person does not lose faith --
It is not a hairpin or a tooth.
Faith evolves, salvaged.
A grove becomes a house.
A fire becomes ashes.

I loved the creative impulse behind this collection, and the idea was brought to reality with great effectiveness. I enjoyed every minute I spent reading this, and will be going back to reread many parts of it again. I like clever concepts melded with a facility for language and imagery, and this collection delivered. Recommended to anyone interested in modern poetry and/or women's lives reimagined.

Grave Concern

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:46:00 +0000

Grave Concern / Judith Millar
Renfrew, ON: General Store Publishing House
320 p.

This is a light read, a gothic-comic novel that I came across via recommendation. It's Millar's first novel, though she has written a lot in other areas before.

It's set in Pine Rapids, Ontario -- our main character Kate has returned to her hometown from her life in Alberta after her elderly parents are both killed in a car accident. Despite this dark beginning, the book actually holds a lot of humour.

Kate sets up a grave tending business, Grave Concern, through which she offers to assuage the guilt of absent family members by looking after family gravesites. It's tough to find clients, but it does mean she hangs out a lot in the graveyard, which allows her to be on the scene for many strange occurrences.

What with old high school frenemies who still live in town, the lingering presence of her first true love, a mysterious creature seen only at dusk on the fringes of the graveyard, a talking raven, a handsome newcomer ( he's only lived there 10 years so far), and numerous memories arising from her return, the story has a lot going on. For the most part, it works.

Kate herself is a bit of a mystery to me -- she's approximately in her mid-to-late forties, but often acts much more like a stubborn 20 something. Perhaps it's just all the flashbacks that add to that feel, but especially in a scene near the middle of the book when she and her doctor friend inexplicably hold a huge party for everyone in town, she seems like a not very mature adult!

Nonetheless, this was a funny read that at times felt like it was echoing a gumshoe detective style. Kate is quick with the jokes and sees the oddity in everyday happenings. It was an entertaining look at a fictional small town and what might happen if you did indeed go home again. The slight mystery and the quirky cast of characters blend well, ending up with a story that has a lot of threads but that holds together effectively. It was a quick read perfect for a stormy night!

An interview with Judith Millar about the writing of this book can be found at Open Book Ontario

The Vital Importance of Library Teapots

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:46:00 +0000

At my workplace we were recently looking through some library history books from the 70's to be recatalogued. Then we came across this gem. The things we find!

Yours, Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:35:00 +0000

Yours Ever: People and their Letters / Thomas Mallon
New York: Vintage, c2009.
338 p.

I have owned this book for a couple of years now, bought in part, I admit, because of the beautiful cover. Beautiful to me, as I have a few similar stacks of letters tucked away in boxes. I loved reading Mallon's first book on people and their diaries, and knew I'd love this one too. Finally I've made my way through it, bit by bit, savoring the short sections that jump from one letter writer to another, loosely organized by themes like "Absence" or "Love" or "Advice". He admits that some selections could fit in various spots but has chosen just one in each case.

This made for an enjoyable read. There are excerpts from politicians like Churchill or Lincoln, opposites when it came to verbosity. There are letters from parents to children, like F. Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter (his advice: “Just do everything we didn’t do and you will be perfectly safe.”)

There are letters to and from famous people, and serious letters between obscure people who led private lives, containing details that would never make them famous but are still moving to read now. Letters to and from lovers, business partners, relatives, and more.

Mallon includes some postal history in his telling, mostly to revel in how habits of correspondence reveal civilized society. It is fascinating but not extensive, trusting that interested readers will already know and feel much the same things. I found the structure very appealing, feeling like a scrapbook of stories, small sections that you could read then put down the book, picking it up again at the next available moment for a new tale. This suited my meandering reading style as I made my way through this book in between other reading, and between letters that I was inspired to write myself as I read some of these gems.

There is also a dangerously extensive bibliography at the end, destined to lead to some growth of my To Read list, I am sure. This was an entertaining read with enough of Mallon's own interspersed comments to keep things lively. It's best to read by starts and stops though, as too much at once causes the reading to lose its savour as the epistolary impulse becomes satiated. Inspiring, instructive, a bit nostalgic... all in all a satisfying collection.

The Blue Guitar

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 02:47:00 +0000

The Blue Guitar / Ann Ireland
Toronto: Dundurn, c2013.
254 p.

Who will enjoy this book? Those who like a Canadian setting, those who revel in the details of music performance (in this case, guitar), those who find intrigue in the interpersonal machinations of closed groups -- whether in offices or in guitar competitions.

It's a short but fascinating novel about the goings-on at the International Classical Guitar Competition, held in Montreal, and the lives of a few of the competitors and judges. The main character is Toby Hausner, a performer who was full of youthful promise but who had a meltdown on stage in Paris over 10 years ago, and disappeared from the performance world. He's decided to try to make a comeback this year, something his older lover Jasper, a counsellor, deems unhealthy and dangerous. Still, Toby is off, leaving Toronto in the midst of a Flu epidemic, heading to Montreal (which later becomes an issue in the plot, leading Jasper to follow Toby, with depressing results).

Other competitors include middle-aged Lucy, who's decided to challenge herself, having never played in this kind of competition before -- and you can see why, when you read about the backstage wrangling of the judges, who argue that she's way too old to consider, even though her playing was fantastic.

There's also Trace, an unschooled young woman from a remote island in B.C., who appears as if from nowhere with amazing talent to show off. Here, sadly, one of the elements I've seen before in Ireland's writing reappears; the tendency for young, young girls to sleep with much, much older musicians who are in a position of authority. Still just as unpleasant to read about.

This older man is one of the judges, a Cuban with marriage troubles, who had a very hard time getting Cuban authorities to permit his visit to Montreal. These are the characters we follow through the book, with the pressure of performance intensifying personalities, and stirring up unlikely behaviour.

I thought that the story was pretty interesting -- great capturing of the minutiae of performance, from the chance of disaster coming from the tiniest thing like a torn fingernail, to the larger question of self-worth, talent and judgement.

But there a few elements that threw me. The over-involvement of Jasper in Toby's life, and the way that his character is built up, is reversed in the last chapters. Jasper's actions and motives in his rapid flight to make it to Montreal in time for Toby's performance changed him from a character I was actually quite involved in to a selfish, unpleasant creature I cringed from. The softness in his character turned to selfish weakness aimed right at the weak spots in his lover.

And the winner of the competition was a conclusion I hadn't really wanted to see, making the case that quid pro quo and backroom dealings are always the winners in these kind of things. I was disappointed that the conclusion felt so cynical, to me, anyhow.

But, this was still a book that explored different ground than most I've read lately, and was definitely researched extensively and written from the vantage point of all the senses. Sweat and exhaustion, food and sleep, love and despair, and music itself are all enlivened in this writing. Both Toronto and Montreal are great settings, drawn with care, and add a lot to the story. Music lovers will be intrigued.

Saturday Snapshot: Black Out Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:28:00 +0000

Today I am sharing a Saturday Snapshot inspired by the Poetry Month Blog Tour hosted by Savvy Verse & Wit. The Saturday Snapshot is a fun meme hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books. (basic rule: pictures must be your own and suitable for general viewing.)

I posted a photo last week, and though I don't usually participate each time, I had a lot of fun trying out a new poetic technique this week that I wanted to share.

I've been following along with the daily poetry posts in the Blog Tour, and a few days ago, The Picky Girl shared a very fun event that her university writing centre held in celebration of Poetry Month: a Blackout Poetry Party!

What is blackout poetry? Popularized by artist Austin Kleon, it is a technique which takes an existing text -- a newspaper, magazine, book page, etc. -- and removes words, via Sharpie, to create a poem. I thought that I'd give this a try, and since I had a bunch of magazines to go through before adding them to the recycling pile it was a perfect opportunity.

It took quite a bit longer than I thought it would, as I was looking for something that caught my poetic fancy. Finally, Martha Stewart Living came through with a gardening article! Here is my very brief Black Out Poem.

This process was a lot of fun, making me look at things a little differently. I'm going to try to create a few more. Odd side note: black Sharpie on shiny magazine pages smells an awful lot like nail polish!

Mount Pleasant

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Mount Pleasant / Don Gillmor
Toronto: Random House, c2013.
403 p.

This is a novel that strongly reminded me of another I've read recently, Bill Gaston's The World. It is set in Toronto and features a man in late middle-age, going through a financial and existential crisis.

But these novels also differ. Mount Pleasant is the story of Harry Salter, born of wealthy parents in Rosedale, married, with an adult son, and shuddering under a huge debtload. He is reduced to waiting for his long estranged father to die in order to receive his inheritance, which he hopes will wipe out most of the debt he is currently shouldering. Alas, when his father dies, he discovers that there is only a few thousand left for him.

He tries to trace the money, trying to figure out where it all could have gone. This involves interrogating his father's business partners, old-money shysters all, as well as forming a short-lived liaison with Dixie, his father's last and much younger girlfriend, who is also furious at the lack of the payoff that she'd been expecting.

The story tackles issues of expectations and entitlement among people who are accustomed to having money. As such, I found myself a bit disengaged with the characters. The story felt one-note to me, going over this financial ground repeatedly -- Harry's lack of money, his mother's lack of money, his father's business partners' manipulation of money, and so on. I'm sure it is a comment on the financial trauma of the past few years, but a little too much of a good thing, maybe. The author is known more as a non-fiction writer, and perhaps that's why I found the fictional aspects of plot and character a bit weak.

The narrative is carried by straight-forward writing, with clever observations, humour, and some entertaining interplay especially between Harry and his son's bossy girlfriend. The setting was great; Toronto really breathes here. The characters weren't so lively, especially the women, who seemed to be simply sketched in. But, it's likely that I am just not the right reader for this one, as I have little patience with the focus of this story: Toronto, male crisis, rich people losing some of their money. It was interesting, but ultimately fell flat for me.

other views:

Kevin from Canada muses on his own memories of Toronto while reading this

Shan from Curled up with a good book and a cup of tea says "There is much that I liked and much that I didn't "

Andrea at Cozy Up with a Good Read states "I can see many people enjoying what he has done with his story"

The Firebird

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 01:28:00 +0000

The Firebird / Susanna Kearsley
Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, c2013.
466 p.

I always await new books by Susanna Kearsley with great anticipation. She is one of my favourite writers of this kind of book; romantic, suspenseful, slightly paranormal with the inclusion of psychics, those who can see ghosts, and/or time travel. The settings are always intriguing and the characters engaging.

The Firebird is no exception. There are links between this book, and two earlier ones, The Winter Sea and The Shadowy Horses. Now, the Shadowy Horses is one of my favourite of her books (full of ghosts, and archeologists, and Scotsmen!), so I was a bit worried about seeing the characters all grown up here. Would they lose their appeal? Nope. If anything, Robbie the boy (from Shadowy Horses) has grown into a handsome, charming, sensible gentleman in this book.

This novel is a little different: rather than England or Italy, it's set largely in Russia. The modern day characters travel to St. Petersburg for business -- heroine Nicola works for an art dealer, and is very good at authenticating paintings. This could be due to her strong talent in psychometry, being able to see flashes of the previous owners of an item she has in her hands. Her strong talent that she would prefer to deny.

Unfortunately for Nicola, she touches a small wooden carving that instantly enthralls her with the flash of its history she sees. And she knows that the only person who can help her now is a former boyfriend, Rob McMorran, who makes no effort to hide his particularly strong gift of the second sight.

Off they both go to Russia, ostensibly for Nicola's work but also chasing down the source of the carving. The Russian setting is lush and romantic, and Rob and Nicola encounter a vivid past wherein Scottish residents of St Petersburg in the time of the Empress Catherine live and plot as loyal Jacobites. These characters develop a wider story for those in The Winter Sea. It's very intricate, all the pieces coming together to make sense in light of the structure of the other two books. There are no gaffes, and all the writing is enjoyable. The descriptions of St Petersburg are wonderful, past and present, and though at times there does seem to be a lot of research showing, I found it enjoyably educational.

The past narrative was much deeper and dreamier than the current day, though, and I did find a bit of an imbalance in the two stories, as if both were fighting for supremacy in this book. This was a solid, entertaining read featuring a dreamy modern-day hero -- but I do believe that little Robbie and his shadowy horses will always be my favourites.

Explore Susanna Kearsley's website for a look at this book, to be released here in Canada at the end of this month. Read the opening chapter to get a taste of the style and main characters, too.

Saturday Snapshot: Playing School

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 12:30:00 +0000

This week I'm once again joining in on Alyce's great meme, Saturday Snapshot. Alyce from At Home with Books hosts this one, and the rules are simple:

Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

This week I thought I'd share some pretty funny items I uncovered recently, some memorabilia from childhood. My younger sister and I used to play an elaborate game of "school" together -- we created class lists of 20-30 names each for our numerous classes, we made up teacher I.D. cards for what I now realize would be a huge staff (using Sears catalogues and local flyers to cut out faces for each I.D., and creating addresses and birthdates, setting our school in the fictional city of Cannada), we even typed out correspondence with parents and the school board on wee slips of paper. Some of these are great examples of an early customer service ethic....or not....

We were really into our St. Lawrence School activities. My sister (now the Trekking Teacher) was always a classroom teacher, while I preferred to be an administrator, sending out letters, drawing up curriculum and so on. Kind of funny how we both turned out! I don't quite remember how old we were when we stopped playing this (early teens I think), but I clearly still have some of the materials from those days, and finding them brought back some very amusing recollections. Hope you enjoy them too.

Here is the staff! All nicely named and photographed...almost

Lauralee Pix (of "Charolotte" Road) was my sister's alterego. You can see she chose one face and stuck with it! Poor Francine Waite. That was me, and I went through facial changes regularly. I'm kind of sad that when we stopped playing this game I was between faces. Now I will never be immortalized in 80's catalogue style :( Although I did somehow have a presentiment that I'd move to Montreal...

Do these guys look familiar? A rose by any other name...

Some very polite notes to various parents. I don't know where we came
up with this stuff! I'm particularly fond of the missive to Mrs. Googliment.
(click to embiggen)

Poetry Month returns...

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 01:18:00 +0000

So it's April again, and already, and I didn't get any poetry month celebrations planned out! But fortunately for me, there are other bloggers more organized, and I can leap in and participate with their well planned events :)

I'm thinking mainly of Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit, who is a champion of poetry all year round, but in April she goes all out, and hosts a spectacular month of poetry-focused blogging by a variety of poetry reading bloggers. I'm going to be chiming in on the 28th, but until then, check out her blog, and the schedule for all the poetic musings happening as part of her National Poetry Month Blog Tour Event:

April 1: Savvy Verse & Wit Kick-Off

April 2: Things Mean a Lot

April 3: MaggieMaeIJustSayThis

April 4: Necromancy Never Pays

April 5: Regular Rumination

April 6: Booking Mama

April 7: Rhapsody in Books

April 8: Maximum Exposure

April 9: The Picky Girl

April 10: Tabatha Yeatts

April 11: Book Snob

April 12: Peeking Between the Pages

April 13:

April 14: Rhapsody in Books

April 15: My Juicy Little Universe and Life’s A Stage

April 16: Lost In Books

April 17: Diary of an Eccentric

April 18: Still Unfinished

April 19: Wordy Evidence of the Fact

April 20: Bermudaonion Weblog

April 21: Insatiable Booksluts

April 22: Ad Astra (To the Stars)

April 23: So Many Books

April 24: Lit and Life

April 25: A Bookish Way of Life

April 26: Life’s a Stage

April 27: Insatiable Booksluts

April 28: The Indextrious Reader

April 29: Pen Paper Pad

April 30: Worducopia

****************************************

A few other fun poetry month goings-on: over at Brick Books (where it is also all poetry, all the time) they've created a Poetry Map. They note that it includes "recordings of Brick Books poets reading from their works; behind-the-scenes diaries of the writing process; excerpts and more." Check it out, it is great fun to explore -- and while you're there, take a listen to some of their extensive collection of podcasts!

Plus, the Literary Press Group has an amazing 30-Day Coast-to-Coast Poetry Project, with a lineup of 35 poets taking readers across Canada from one end to the other. They post a poem and then a Q&A with the poet, and, there's also a twitter/FB contest so definitely explore their blog!

And, of course, there is the ongoing #todayspoem hashtag on twitter, if you haven't yet participated, take a look. Post a link to a fave poem, a beautiful line, or simply explore all the poems that have been shared so far. There is also a #todayspoem Pinterest board if you prefer that method of exploration.

So just a few ways to celebrate poetry a little more loudly this month ~ hope you plan on enjoying it too!

Hallman's Wm & Hry

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Wm & Hry: Literature, Love and the Letters between William & Henry James / J.C. Hallman
Iowa City: U of Iowa Press, c2013.
156 p.

I read this via Netgalley, a while ago now, thanks to a recommendation by Stefanie at So Many Books. I find both William and Henry James fascinating, and of course, was immediately interested in their correspondence. I read it quickly and with great interest, although making comments on it has taken me a bit longer to get to!

The book is not a collection of letters per se, however. It is an analysis of how their relationship was played out through their writing, as they were so often living an ocean apart. Hallman has a great feel for the two of them, and considers tidbits from the letters and from their published writings, tying these revelations together to trace influences, expectations and the regular literary criticism that flew back and forth.

I'd love to actually read the letters myself, to get a wider picture of the whole correspondence, as this book gave a taste of what the brothers sounded like in private. I thought it was very well done, drawing links between William and Henry's writing styles and how they influenced one another's work, psychology and literature alike. It also showed a fairly normal sibling relationship, with both spats and TMI moments (especially regarding Henry's bowels...) They talk about their daily lives and the people they knew -- quite gossipy, these two -- and it is all Quite Interesting.

I enjoyed the way that the author dug in and gave us what amounts to a lengthy dissertation on these letters and how they shaped and reflected this brotherly relationship. It was illuminating and very appealing, and Hallman has a wonderful style of his own. Throughout I was thinking about all the stories I've read about the lives of both James brothers, and how the close relationship between them was a part about which I'd been lacking information. It certainly adds an intimacy to the picture I have of them, and adds more colour to both individuals. Also, as one Amazon reviewer has noted, it also contains "debunking of some scurrilous Jamesian myths"!

If you like either James, or are simply intrigued by letters between two massively intelligent brothers, and are looking for a surprisingly quick and flowing read, try this one out. Also, be sure to check out the author's wonderful blog about the letters, with excerpts and photos and more. It's great!

Suspicion

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:58:00 +0000

Suspicion / Rachel Wyatt
Regina: Coteau Books, c2012.
248 p.

Candace Wilson walked out one sunny morning on her way to the dentist. Because the dentist's office was closed, nobody having called her to reschedule, she had an extra hour to fill before work. Because of this extra hour, she decided to walk in the park and ponder her life, and how it seemed to be going so off-course; should she start reinventing herself by buying a new couch? Because of this decision to take a walk, she disappeared.

This novel looks at the results of her sudden, unexpected disappearance. Her husband Jack is a local developer, hugely unpopular right now thanks to his latest lakefront project. This makes it easy for many locals to quickly suspect that he has something to do with Candace's disappearance. Or maybe it has something to do with a local busybody whom no-one really likes, and whose husband had a short-lived affair with Candace. Could it be connected to her rocky relationship with her sister Erica, and her brother-in-law's frantic devotion to finding Candace, or perhaps to Erica's own interest in Jack? Suspicions mount, and as the hours and days pass, supposition and the ability to believe the worst of almost anyone takes over this small community.

The power of this book lies in Wyatt's sharp eye for human weaknesses. She is able to capture individual quirks, both amusing and unpleasant. Her depiction, both of mob mentality and of an individual's reasons for behaviour that looks odd from the outside, is believable and detailed. You can see how this one change in the stasis of this community is shaking everything up. From Candace's immediate family, to her coworkers, to the larger circles of former school friends and local acquaintances, everyone is affected by what has happened. The narrative is snappy, with lots of movement between characters, and as the story progresses, the reader also begins to hold their own suspicions as to who might be responsible. The book offers many scenarios, none of which are confirmed or denied, leaving the conclusion apparently obvious...but is it, really?

Despite a story element featuring an online chatroom that is just too conveniently local, and the last pages feeling a little bit unfocused, I really enjoyed reading this. There is an inescapable feeling that the reader is implicated in the quick and easy fallback upon ungrounded suspicions, that we are just as likely as these citizens that we are condemning for their prejudices to want to blame somebody for Candace's disappearance, as quickly as possible.

It's a psychological study as much as a mystery, and very Canadian in its setting (fictional Ghills Lake, B.C.) as well as in Jack's idea that he's going to have to start over in Saskatchewan to escape the gossip (do people really move to Saskatchewan to reinvent themselves? It's surely the opposite trajectory to my own!) There was a wide variety of character types, young and old, and many issues of fidelity, satisfaction, fulfillment, friendship, and meaning playing a part. It was an unusual and entertaining read.

Postal Adventures Update

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:08:00 +0000

It's nearly the end of March -- already! That means that I'll soon be adding a new Postal Reading Challenge round-up page for the next quarter of the year. If you've joined the challenge already, or are thinking about it, don't forget to share your book reviews and/or pictures of the mail you send out to the link-up list.

I have been having a great time with this so far, participating in LetterMo, seeing what others are reading for the challenge, and finding neat posts all about postal-themed books all over the place. Here are a couple I'd like to share with you:

For a fun list of colourful picture books all to do with good old postal mail, check out this compilation by the lovely Kerry Clare at Pickle Me This.

Then Buried in Print, who has just joined in on the challenge, mentioned her Goodreads list of possible letter reading! No shortage of inspiration in those 97 titles...

And I recently came across a great website belong to historian Susan Whyman, after I read Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison (loved it) and was looking for more info on his work. She's written something called "Letter Writing and the Rise of the Novel: the Epistolary Literacy of Jane Johnson and Samuel Richardson" which I found quite deliciously fascinating! Plus she's written a book entitled The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800 which I am most definitely going to have to look for now.

If you have any other links to share, please comment with your favourites and help us all discover more postal goodness!

Astray

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:38:00 +0000

Astray by Emma Donoghue
Toronto: HarperCollins, c2012.
275 p.

Just finished this collection of short stories, which I loved for many reasons. One, look at the cover. What a colour! And what a neat idea, silhouettes made of maps...very suited to the stories inside, and also giving me ideas!

But more seriously, this book was a fabulous collection. It is a set of stories written over a long period of time which all touch on the same kind of fascination with history and the stories of marginal characters who are in the process of change, of movement of some kind. Donoghue is clearly interested in the hidden, or overlooked, in the historical record.

After each story, she talks a little about the historical event or brief mention that inspired her leap into fiction (in this respect, it reminded me a little of Penelope Lively's Making Things Up). I really liked that, and found the faint spark of a beginning quite intriguing. Of course, in university I did a literature and history degree, so have always been somewhat interested in these kinds of intersections.

However, Donoghue's writing itself is so wonderful that I would have loved this even without the direct historical links. The collection is broken up into three sections, Departures, In Transit, and Arrivals & Aftermaths. Each has four or five stories, which range in topic from the first tale, "Man and Boy", about Jumbo the elephant and his keeper in 1882 London, to the final story, "What Remains", about artists Florence Wyle and Frances Loring, in 1967 Newmarket, Ontario.

There is always change, immigration, or movement (whether geographically or temporally) involved in each story. The strange question of how people end up where they do (a preoccupation of mine) is explored from many different angles, as Donoghue takes characters who are men, women, or sometimes of indeterminate gender, and sets them in mostly North American historical moments, and then imagines what might have happened in that meeting.

I enjoyed the variety of the stories, even while they all held the connecting thread of reimagined history, and a consistency in authorial voice. There were only two that I found a little less interesting, or perhaps more disturbing, and now that I think of it, those two were set in Revolutionary era America, not my favourite setting, so that could have affected my reading. Overall, I thought this was a strong collection that was also very accessible and one that I sped through. It's the first of her books that I've read (I know, I know, I have most of her titles but haven't read any others yet) so I was impressed with how it quickly caught me, and how much I enjoyed it.

Stony River

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 01:30:00 +0000

Stony River / Tricia Dower
Toronto: Penguin Canada, c2012.
350 p.

Three girls...three lives...braided together in the small New Jersey town of Stony River, during their tumultuous years of adolescence, and beyond. The 1950's weren't as ideal for those girls as we seem to paint them in retrospect. In fact, incest, murder, sexual assault, family violence, neglect, mental disorders, and poverty are just a few of the elements that feature in this book.

As the story begins, middle-class only child Linda is befriended by the new girl in the neighbourhood, Tereza, slightly older and much more wild. They are playing in the mud near the river when they see police officers escorting a small, thin teenaged girl out of a house that everyone thought the local eccentric man lived in all alone. She is carrying a toddler.

Those three girls interact, their lives intersecting then drawing apart as they grow up in this very small town. None of them have a perfect life. Linda's mother is troubled, and drives her husband to move out and live in a boarding house nearby. As Linda grows up, she is constantly nagged about her weight and appearance, but finally meets an artistic boy from a family on the wrong side of the tracks. They have a platonic relationship but enjoy creating comic strips and hanging around together, until one day he suddenly disappears.

Tereza is a wild child, with a very difficult home life. Her stepfather is a mean drunk, and has particular spite for her. After being beaten too many times, Tereza runs away to make it on her own. She lands on her feet, kind of, in a nearby town, where she's taken in by a young man she's met once to live with him and his grandmother. He is also messed up, fixated on Charles Atlas and pure living, while dealing with anger management issues.

As for Miranda, the ghostly girl who saw the outer world for the first time in 15 years when taken out of her home, she is first taken in by the family of one of the police officers who rescued her. But after a time she is placed in a Catholic orphanage/school and is nearly convinced by the nuns that she has a vocation. Her developmentally stunted child lives with her in the orphanage until he is fostered out, but later returned as faulty. Miranda blends this new world of Catholicism with the eclectic Celtic paganism she was raised with to create her own understanding of religion and spiritual life.

All three of these lives come together in quite an ending. What with courtroom trials and accusations made and innocence forever lost, the relationships begun in the opening pages are severed without any likelihood of being restored. I would have liked the connections between the three storylines to be drawn a little more clearly: they started out closely connected but kept drifting further and further apart as the book progressed, and in the ending I'm not sure that Miranda really had a role to play.

However, Dower is fabulous at keeping each girl's voice and experience distinct. You won't mistake one voice for another. The setting is strongly evoked and can nearly be smelled and tasted. The characters are all rather damaged, and the storylines somewhat sensational. I found it a light read nevertheless -- it didn't hold many surprises, since if you assumed the worst you were nearly always right! As a tale of innocence lost, both personal and societal, this captured the aspirational rosy glow of the 50's while uncovering the squirmy little grubs beneath that hopeful, false front once it was lifted.

Mr. Skeffington

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:50:00 +0000

Mr. Skeffington / Elizabeth von Arnim
London: Virago, 1993, c1940.
233 p.

I really like Elizabeth von Arnim. I've greatly enjoyed most of her books, and absolutely loved Elizabeth and her German Garden, Fraulein Schmidt & Mr. Anstruther, and Enchanted April.

So Mr. Skeffington was a big disappointment. It was, in a word, nasty.

The storyline is: Fanny Skeffington has turned 50. She is having a major life crisis, having been a celebrated beauty all her life (and that seems to be all she has ever been). What with a recent serious illness and age itself, she is looking old, and it terrifies her. It apparently terrifies everyone else as well, with people being shocked at her appearance -- how dare she have wrinkles or thinning hair? How dare she look tired, or even slightly mature?

Fanny was married young to Mr. Job Skeffington, a financier much older than her, who she finally divorced after his seventh affair. He was rich, indulgent, and most often noted, a Jew. This is a recurring theme.

The whole story is making a mockery of Fanny's affectations of youth, her desperate clinging on to her young lovers, her desire to revisit old flames to see if she still has IT for them -- of course she doesn't, with men older than her, fat, greyed and boring, all pitying and condescending to 'poor Fanny'.

All of her previous lovers are tedious men, old or young, with one in particular, a minister excessively fond of asceticism, being particularly horrible. She comes across him preaching on a street corner, follows him home and meets his sister, a scared, miserable woman kept hungry and cold and unhappy by his house rules. She takes care of him and all of his wayward souls as well, and only when she sees Fanny treating him lightly (while assuming that Fanny is a prostitute) does she begin to question his dominance of her...but that dies an early death, as Fanny goes away and the sister returns to her previous fatalism.

Another quite awful lover was a flash young gent, back in her heyday immediately after her divorce. He went off to become the governor of some tropical English colony, and is a completely disgusting creature. He comments on the oily greasiness of the skin of all the black women he's bedded while there, he uses the most awful word for the residents of the colony, he wants to marry Fanny now that he's back so he can use all her money to pay off his debts. Despite all of these faults, Fanny is most offended by the fact that he winks at her servant in joke against her.

Fanny's story eventually has a "happy" ending, as she finds a man to take care of her after all -- her long divorced husband, Job Skeffington. Her cousin George tells her she should forgive him all those affairs, as men will have their girls, and arranges a meeting. She is phobic about seeing him again, since what he loved about her was her beauty -- but all is well when she discovers.......he is blind!

This was a melodramatic, unpleasant, trite story unworthy of von Arnim. It has some flashes of her trademark wit, a few quotable lines:

Frankness became rudeness too easily for it ever to be of any real use in conversation.

Life was certainly a queer business,— so brief, yet such a lot of it; so substantial, yet in a few years, which behaved like minutes, all scattered and anyhow.

But in the main, the nastiness overwhelmed the rest of the tale for me, and left me with a definite distaste for this one. Even if (or maybe especially if) you are currently a fan of von Arnim, really, don't read this.

The Universe Within

noreply@blogger.com (Melwyk) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 02:19:00 +0000

The Universe Within: from quantum to cosmos / Neil Turok
Toronto: Anansi, c2012.
292 p.

This is the latest in the CBC Massey Lectures series, lectures given by Neil Turok, physicist and head of the Perimeter Institute just down the road from me in Waterloo (if you go to the Perimeter website, check out their extensive video library of 100's of lectures & course presentations - it's amazing -- you can watch Turok present the Massey Lectures kick-off too).

The Massey Lectures are usually pretty interesting, and this was a collection I knew I'd want to read right away, for the subject matter, a topic which intrigues me. I found more than I had expected, as Turok not only talks about the history of physics and scientific discovery, he also makes the case that new scientific discoveries will come from a melding of science with the arts & humanities, suggesting that separating the two does a disservice to both (this idea reminded me of a book I read last year, Intersecting Sets, written by a poet, Alice Major). He also strongly supports increased scientific and mathematical training for all, especially focusing on Africa (he is from South Africa) where he has helped to set up an institute, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences.

For me personally, I enjoyed the last two lectures the most. The first three were heavily based on explaining the development of physics and various scientific discoveries that support where physics is at now. It was nice seeing some familiar names and reading through his easy-to-understand information, but I do read quite a bit in this area so much of it was very familiar to me. I really began to get absorbed in my reading once I hit lecture #4, The World in an Equation. He talks about how many different scientists' work combines to create an equation that can be used to determine quantum probability (I think...will have to read it again to figure it all out!) Here is an image of the notation used in the book which he then explains bit by bit:

It was fascinating and I found out lots about alternate theories, as well as discovering the name of Emmy Noether, a female scientist from the beginning of the 20th century, an important theorist who I hadn't known of, despite all of my reading. Shocking.

The last lecture of the book is called "The Opportunity of all Time", and is a meditation on the possible quantum future. If we move past our current digital age into the much deeper, faster technology of quantum computing, for example, how will that change human life? He uses science, philosophy and literature to discuss his ideas here, ranging from modern researchers to David Hume to Mary Shelley, with a lengthy discussion of her dystopian novel The Last Man. He finishes with a recommendation that we connect "heart and intellect" to bring disciplines together, and focus on making education available so that the untapped genius of the world can be brought to bear on our future. It was a good read that inspired me to muse upon the connection between science and the humanist ideal of the search for The Meaning of Life.