Transformative Explications

Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay

Randy Metcalfe — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:24:54 +0000

Sometimes the characters a writer pursues take on a seeming life of their own, wresting control of a tale from the hand that holds the pen. In Alone in the Classroom, the narrator, Anne, sets out to write about her mother but gets diverted into the lives of her father’s older sister, Connie, an unsettling sexual predator named Parley, a traumatized dyslexic boy named Michael, and the disturbing events that tie them together over the course of more than sixty years. Anne’s mother still appears but she has become a minor character, and ultimately what sets out as biography reveals itself as autobiography. Or maybe that is always the case in some respect. And, if so, does it have its analog in fiction? Has Elizabeth Hay, herself, suffered the same befuddling as her narrator? Certainly the results here appear jumbled, moving forward (or back) in fits and starts. What appears to be the centre of the story collapses or suddenly shifts out of sight. As the details begin to emerge, connections between characters become clearer but their significance is obscured. And what you are left with is the muddled mess of lives lived. Only a writer with the expressive power and observational talent of a fine poet could turn such a muddle into a compelling narrative. A writer like Elizabeth Hay.

The story turns on the relationship between Connie, who is 18 in her first teaching post in a small town in Saskatchewan, her sadistic and frighteningly self-absorbed school principal, Parley, and the severely dyslexic (at the time dyslexia is not a recognized condition) student, Michael, who is, in Connie’s eyes, clearly intelligent and sensitive. Both in this initial encounter and when Connie crosses paths with Parley again eight years later, Connie’s strength and Parley’s weakness are revealed. But the tripartite construction continues to re-emerge again and again, in different forms and often with different participants. What does it all mean? For Anne, the narrator imposing narrative order on disordered lives, its significance is rich. But Anne’s need for order is just a further hue for Hay’s palette, so the meaning for the reader remains open.

Writing that so faithfully brings its characters to life, escaping the simplifying tendency of art will, I think, naturally be at times confusing. At least I was confused at times. Certainly this writing forces the reader to slow down, to work things out, to make connections, even to reread sections. (I wanted to reread the book from the start numerous times as I went along, realizing that I had missed vital aspects on my first pass.) It’s like the difference between reading a longhand letter from a dear friend and a scrabbled email; the former gives you pause, gladly. Elizabeth Hay’s writing gives me pause. Highly recommended.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Randy Metcalfe — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 23:57:34 +0000

A novel that deserves and demands the full attention of the reader, it is hardly surprising that To the Lighthouse might be described as a novel of and about attention. As the narration flits between Mrs Ramsay and her husband, their eight children, and their numerous guests all gathered at the Ramsay summer house on a Hebridean island, one thought leads to another, one observation spills into the next, one emotion peaks and subsides as another peaks and subsides like the waves endlessly rolling in upon the shore. And then there is the question of lighthouse on a crag of rock across the bay, whose light pierces the summer house and its inhabitants, ceaselessly. Will James, the youngest Ramsay, be taken to the lighthouse the following day?

If Mrs Dalloway is the quintessential stream-of-consciousness novel, then Woolf’s next novel, To the Lighthouse, must surely be the start of something new, something even more intense, more challenging. Attention, or perhaps perception would be a better term, or even, as Lily Briscoe terms it “vision”, is the challenge. For it seems clear that it is almost impossible to really see someone, anyone. Even Mrs Ramsay, who is as much the centre of all that is as anyone could be, even for her, Lily thinks, it would take at least fifty pairs of eyes. And yet, the wonder of it is, that for some—the poet Augustus Carmichael, the painter Lily Briscoe, even the still beautiful wife and mother, Mrs Ramsay—the thing itself can be achieved. And it is an achievement when it comes. Even though it may disappear as quickly as it came.

If you are willing to engage with this novel fully, if you can focus your attention sufficiently (don’t be surprised if you find you need to read it in small chunks), if you let the consciousness of the novel guide you as it sparkles across the minds of those characters arrayed before you, then this novel will repay your effort manifold. If not, then set it aside for a few years and try again later. It’s worth it. Highly recommended.

Women with Men by Richard Ford

Randy Metcalfe — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:29:13 +0000

The three lengthy short stories in this collection have all the hallmarks of Ford’s early brilliance as well as his middle period introspective anxiety. His writing is never less than compelling, at times thought provoking, and at others unsettling. He has a remarkable ability to turn a story on a dime, either through external events or through misplaced introspection. Yet these shifts never seem extraordinary once they have occurred. The reader just accepts them, possibly even saying to themselves, “that’s what I was expecting all along.” And then another shift takes you off in a different direction.

“Jealous” is set in Montana and feels like an extension of the stories in Ford’s first collection, Rock Springs. The bleak landscape, lives lived on the edge—the edge of despair, alcoholism, and violence—family disruption, and the transition to manhood. It’s all there. Here the narrator, a boy of 17, is a touchstone for the other characters—his father, his aunt, his absent mother. Both a means to highlight their stories and their sadness, and to reflect that back onto the vast emptiness of the prairie.

Depending on the Ford you prefer, “The Womanizer” may appeal more. Here is the Ford of the Frank Bascombe trilogy. In this case, the protagonist is a man in Paris for a few days. He is intelligent, in his way. He is worldly, unafraid to partake of opportunities that arise before him. And he is introspective. Incessantly. Argumentatively. And without any clear grip on reality. It is an enthralling effect. A bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion. And unsettling as well, since introspection is more typically associated (from Socrates to Descartes) with rational thought and behaviour. Here, not so much.

The final story in the collection, “Occidentals”, feels transitional. Again we are in Paris. Again we have the hyper-introspective male protagonist. Again we are on the cusp of something, some kind of transition perhaps heralded by the couple’s hotel being located on the border of a cemetery. And Paris, or at least Ford’s imagined American Paris fully mediated by his character’s encounters with it through literature (the protagonist is a novelist who recently had been a literature professor), is significant. Perhaps Paris plays the role that Canada played in Ford’s Montana stories—a far-off imaginary space (even if you are a tourist in it) where much is possible.

These stories will, I think, captivate any reader interested in how Richard Ford handles the longer short story form. Recommended.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Randy Metcalfe — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:15:40 +0000

Elena and Lila have been friends since they were children together in the slums of Naples. The novel opens with a framing prologue with the two women in their sixties, but the focus here is on their lives from the ages of six to seventeen. They are bound to each other, at times inseparable, at times at the furthest remove. Each takes the other as a kind of superego, a spur to acts and endeavours that will take them out of their families, their claustrophobic neighbourhood, their lives, in fact, and onward to something they know not what. Their horizons are stultifyingly limited initially, but together, at least, they are able to lift themselves up in order to see beyond. However, this is post-war Italy, and what is beyond the horizon is not always so attractive.

The relationship between Elena and Lila is the brilliant centre of this story, but swirling around that intimate friendship—one in which both girls at different points refer to the other pointedly and justifiably as “my brilliant friend”—are a huge cast of characters, economic and political tensions, passion and consequence. Initially that host is limited to immediate family or the families of others who live in the same building. Only gradually does that circle expand. Elena is a diligent student, but Lila is, without seeming to even try, utterly brilliant. Unlike her friend, Lila can already read and write before she gets to school. She taught herself. Lila’s autodidacticism becomes a recurring motif. We see Lila read through the circulating library, and teach herself Latin and Greek. There seems no limit to what Lila might be capable of. No limit other than the imaginative capacity to think herself outside of her own situation. Perhaps. Fortunately Lila’s development spurs Elena on to renewed efforts of her own, though within the school environment. And so each enables the other to flourish.

Elena’s development, thanks to the encouragement of teachers, takes her, in school, beyond anything her parents might have hoped for her. Her friend, however, needs to be more inventive. And she is. Lila is an alchemist of old, transmuting base metals into gold. Or in this case, working within the elements and forces of her local environment to create dramatic new possibilities. Seeing her way through. By the end, however, it is unclear which girl has succeeded.

You will find yourself rooting for both Lila and Elena even as you fear for them. And the dramatic conclusion to My Brilliant Friend will have you waiting impatiently, as I now am, to get your hands on the second volume of this trilogy. Highly recommended.

Deaccessioning

Randy Metcalfe — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:41:01 +0000

What is the first thing you do after adding a new bookcase to your home? I mean after you sort out precisely where to place it. And after you shift books from other bookcases in order fill the new bookcase.

In our house that shifting this time introduced a bit of breathing space for the British and European fiction books. They were getting cramped and, in places, were doubled stacked. Spreading out over three more shelves must feel good for them.

But now that the bookcase is in place and the books have been shifted (shifting also includes dusting), what is the first thing you do? For me, it is time for deaccessioning. By which I mean the annual cull of books.

Annual because each year in the Spring we donate one or two boxes of books to the CFUW Annual Book Sale. The CFUW is the Canadian Federation of University Women. Their book sale raises money for scholarships for women at institutions of higher education. A worthy cause, and conveniently their book sale is located just around the corner from where we live. There are two days in which you can drop off your books (only items in good condition are accepted), and the next day the madness begins.

Did I say “madness”? I mean book sale. But it truly is mad. For two days ravenous book bargain buyers hunt through thousands and thousands of books (usefully sorted into fiction and numerous non-fiction categories). People leave with bags and bags of books, all purchased for two dollars per item, whether it is a hardcover in pristine condition, or a much-loved (but still in good condition) trade paperback.

The CFUW book sale is coming up in April. So it is now time to embark on the annual, and painful, cull. On the other hand, soon there will be more space on the shelves for whatever exciting new books come along this year.

Exodus by Lars Iyer

Randy Metcalfe — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:51:20 +0000

W. and Lars are back for the third and final instalment of Lars Iyer’s besotted double-act. After Spurious and Dogma, Exodus follows the put upon philosophers on a conference tour of Britain. W. has retained his post at Plymouth University by means of a technicality, though he has been relegated to teaching Sports Science students Badminton Ethics. The much abused Lars persists in his damp, underground flat in Newcastle (though thankfully the rats are gone) but he has just as little hope of surviving the desecration of Humanities faculties, and most regrettably Philosophy departments, across the country. All that’s left to them now is despair. Despair and Plymouth Gin.

W. and Lars meander across the country and across the (continental) philosophical landscape. W. is ever nostalgic for his postgraduate days at Essex University, though he appears to be the last hanger-on from those days still in academic employment. Will his early experience of life in the wilds of Canada(!) sustain him in the thoughtless wilderness of modern Britain? Is thinking even possible anymore? Or are they all now on the long march from Egypt heading toward a Canaan that W. and Lars will never be able to enter? If so, it is a curious exodus that leads to London and Edinburgh and Oxford and Dundee only to bring them back to Plymouth and one long, last drunken dark night of the soul and dreams of Plymouth Sound glinting like utopia.

It’s over. It’s been a desperate journey across the three novels, full of philosophical musings, sly observations on the state of tertiary education in Britain, exultation of the generative properties of Plymouth Gin, and endless abuse by W. of his erstwhile companion, his Boswell, his inspiration and exasperation, and ultimately his one true friend.

Tenth of December by George Saunders

Randy Metcalfe — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 13:59:37 +0000

Astonishingly assured writing of characters so hesitant and fragile that your heart breaks for them. This is George Saunders at his best. With stories so lean that each individual word is vitally important. And even the nuance is nuanced.

Every story in this collection deserves mention as both typical of Saunders’ earlier style, and adventurously striking new ground. With “Escape from Spiderhead” and “My Chivalric Fiasco” we see the satirical Saunders’ alternate future, complete with chemically induced mood, emotion and diction. These are at once lighter than some of his previous satires but perhaps (or because of that) even more cutting. A Saunders protagonist may hope for, even expect, at least within in his own mind, the world to bend itself to his needs and goals, but will find himself almost invariably brought back to reality, or lower, when the world insists on its own integrity.

Saunders is a master of the exorbitant monologue, here represented by “Exhortation” and “The Semplica Girl Diaries”, or the sad sack “Al Roosten”. But perhaps even more impressive are the stories which function as dualistic monologues—not dialogues, to be sure, but rather alternating monologues. Both the opening, shockingly surprising, story, “Victory Lap”, and the concluding title story, “Tenth of December”, take this form. The latter must surely stand as one of the finest, saddest, and bravest short stories I have ever encountered. With characters so vulnerable, so susceptible to destruction by themselves and others, only Saunders’ love for them can sustain them, even help them succeed beyond their own imaginings.

The writing is so swift and spare that a story almost sweeps past you. So take the opportunity to read it again and you will find that you will want to read it yet again, even. Highly recommended.

The Blondes by Emily Schultz

Randy Metcalfe — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:51:37 +0000

Mesmerizing. Like Cormac McCarthy on estrogen. Emily Schultz tells a gripping, even haunting, tale in The Blondes, that is subtle, sophisticated, sensitive, quirkily observant, and horrific.

Hazel Hayes is a Ph.D. candidate in Communications Studies spending a term in New York City to pursue her research and, in effect, to avoid her thesis supervisor, Karl Mann, with whom she has inadvisably had an affair. Absence, from Karl and from her other friends in Toronto, does nothing to alleviate her mixed feelings or help her focus on her thesis. And the fact that she has just learned that she is pregnant doesn’t help matters. Her life, her whole world, is a mess. But that’s nothing compared to the mess that is about to ensue when a pandemic of rabies-like madness begins to strike blondes and those whose hair colour has been made blonde through dyeing. From an initial attack that Hazel witnesses in the New York subway to outbreaks at JFK and further afield (the Nordic countries are severely at risk), Hazel must negotiate her way through this field of mayhem in order to get back to Toronto.

That makes it sound like a horror story, but it’s really a meditation on representations of women in culture and advertising, a commentary on systemic sexism, a reflection on a woman’s control over her own body (exacerbated by Hazel’s uncertainty over whether she wants to carry her foetus to term), a searching examination of varieties of grief, and yes, of course, also a bit of a horror story. (Interestingly, “blond/blonde” is one of the few adjectives in written English to retain its masculine and feminine grammatical genders.)

The writing is measured, thoughtful, well paced, and crisp. It was a pleasure to read and think about and I would gladly read anything else Emily Schultz chooses to write. Recommended.

The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford

Randy Metcalfe — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:22:30 +0000

Anyone who followed Frank Bascombe through Richard Ford’s previous novels in this trilogy (The Sportswriter and Independence Day) will be forgiven for some trepidation on picking up the final instalment, which is situated during the Thanksgiving Day weekend of 2000. American holidays haven’t been good to Frank. They tend to induce introspection, disruption from the usual routine, and interactions with one’s family, all of which are somewhat risky activities. And for Frank, who is now settled in what he calls his ‘Permanent Period’, such moments of personal and national soul searching usual trigger transformation. A change is certain for the country, mired though it is in the aftermath of the disputed Bush-Gore presidential election. But what kind of change can come for someone in his Permanent Period? What’s next, other than the ‘Next Level’, and what can that be other than death itself?

Frank is estranged from his first wife. His second wife, Sally, has been gone for nearly a year, having followed her former husband (who had been presumed dead) to the Scottish island of Mull. He cannot survive even a brief conversation with his son, Paul, without nearly coming to blows. His daughter, Clarissa, is pursuing her own transformations. His Tibetan colleague in Realty-Wise is itching to climb another rung on the great ladder of being. And Frank is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Anxious might be too modest a word to describe Frank’s state of mind.

Once again, Richard Ford paints a masterly picture of the modern condition in this gripping conclusion to his Frank Bascombe trilogy. The prose is dense with hesitant metaphor and promiscuous symbolism as Frank asserts, contradicts, and reasserts himself, more acted upon than acting, and incapable, seemingly, of transacting the smallest bit of business without disaster—physical, emotional, spiritual—rearing up and biting him. It’s hard to imagine a character more in need of our sympathy, or less able or likely to accept it.

Of course, endings are very much the theme of The Lay of the Land. One way or another, it’s the end for Frank. Eschatology breeds an intemperate clamouring for teleology. But whether Frank can piece together his life as a whole is an open question. And the end, when it comes, is always a surprise, however much we prepare ourselves.

Recommended without reservation.

Reading – a year in review, 2012

Randy Metcalfe — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 13:02:45 +0000

2012 was a very good year for reading. I discovered new authors whose work I enjoyed: Tove Jansson, Richard Ford, Susanna Clarke, Colm Tóibín. The book club whose meetings I attend continued to give satisfaction. I reread a few favourite novels. And I discovered some new favourites. I also wrote short reviews of each book I read this past year and posted them on LibraryThing, a few of which I re-posted here on this blog. I’ll continue with that in the year ahead.

Stats from my 2012 reading list:

30 were borrowed from our public library
15 have Canadian authors
21 were chosen due to personal recommendations from friends
11 are by authors who appear more than once on the 2012 list
2 were being reread
3 were read aloud by my wife and me
22 are non-fiction

Books read in 2012 (88):

Proust, Marcel. In Search of Lost Time: volume 2, Within a Budding Grove
Baker, Nicholson. Vox
Fish, Stanley. How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One
Watson, Mark. Eleven
Graff, Gerald and Birkenstein, Cathy. They Say / I Say: The Moves That Matter in Persuasive Writing
Murakami, Haruki. Sputnik Sweetheart
Nussbaum, Martha C. Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life
Tóibín, Colm. Brooklyn
Oatley, Keith. Such Stuff as Dreams: The Psychology of Fiction
Roth, Philip. American Pastoral
Smiley, Jane. 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
Stein, Sol. How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them
Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Cossé, Laurence. A Novel Bookstore
Egan, Jennifer. A Visit From the Goon Squad
Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility
Clarke, Susanna. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and other stories
Spurling, Hilary. Matisse: the life
Babbitt, Susan E. Impossible Dreams: Rationality, Integrity, and Moral Imagination
Stock, Brian. Ethics Through Literature: Ascetic and Aesthetic Reading in Western Culture
Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
Morrison, Toni. Beloved
Moore, Lisa. February
Jansson, Tove. Fair Play
Pym, Barbara. The Sweet Dove Died
Lapeña, Shari. Happiness Economics
Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending
MacLeod, Alexander (compiler), Pick, Alison (compiler), and Selecky, Sarah (compiler). The Journey Prize Stories 23
Moore, Lorrie. A Gate at the Stairs
Patchett, Ann. State of Wonder
Jansson, Tove. The Summer Book
Fish, Stanley. Save the World on Your Own Time
Currie, Gregory. Narratives and Narrators: A Philosophy of Stories
Goldie, Peter. On Personality
Iyer, Lars. Dogma
Tournier, Michel. Vendredi ou La Vie sauvage
Yoshimoto, Banana. Asleep
Grossman, Lev. The Magicians
Poulin, Jacques. Mister Blue
Shields, Carol. Jane Austen
Grossman, Lev. The Magician King
Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict
Sileika, Antanas. Underground
Murakami, Haruki. The Elephant Vanishes
Hedges, Peter. The Heights
Rosoff, Meg. How I Live Now
Hample, Zack. Watching Baseball Smarter
Mandanna, Sarita. Tiger Hills
Benioff, David. City of Thieves
Donoghue, Emma. Room
Calvino, Italo. Why Read The Classics?
Mars-Jones, Adam. Noriko Smiling
Lee, Harper. To Kill A Mockingbird
Tyler, Anne. The Beginner’s Goodbye
Jansson, Tove. A Winter Book
Prose, Francine. My New American Life
Cascardi, Anthony J. (ed.) Literature and the Question of Philosophy
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre
Perkins-Valdez, Dolen. Wench
St. John Mandel, Emily. The Lola Quartet
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights
Lamott, Anne. Bird By Bird
Jansson, Tove. The True Deceiver
Hough, Robert. Dr. Brinkley’s Tower
Baker, Nicholson. The Way the World Works
McEwan, Ian. Sweet Tooth
Saunders, George. In Persuasion Nation
Ford, Richard. The Sportswriter
Henderson, Eleanor. Ten Thousand Saints
Chabon, Michael. Telegraph Avenue
Walter, Jess. Beautiful Ruins
Strube, Cordelia. Milosz
Fforde, Jasper. The Woman Who Died A Lot
Christie, Michael (compiler), Kuitenbrouwer, Kathryn (compiler), and Winter, Kathleen (compiler). The Journey Prize Stories 24
Munro, Alice. Dear Life
Sloan, Robin. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel
Perrotta, Tom (ed.). The Best American Short Stories 2012
Ellmann, Lucy. Mimi
Goldie, Peter. The Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion, and the Mind
Moore, Lorrie. Self-Help
Kermode, Frank. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction with a New Epilogue
Ford, Richard. Independence Day
Morgenstern, Erin. The Night Circus
McCann, Colum. Let the Great World Spin
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go
DeWitt, Patrick. The Sisters Brothers
Fitzgerald, Penelope. The Golden Child
Jonasson, Jonas. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared