#15 - Don't Move

Margaret Mazzantini's critically acclaimed and prize-winning Don't Move is an apt book to have finished today, as a great snowstorm falls upon Toronto rendering the city motionless. Well, truth be told it's just the title that's fitting because the guts of the novel have little to do with either snow or Toronto...

Annnywwaaay. Told in something akin to exposition, Don't Move lets the narrator and main character, Timoteo, a successful, married surgeon tell his own story. His daughter Angela has been involved in a very serious accident while riding her scooter to school, and Timo sits and waits for her to come out of surgery. He's a cold, exacting character; and if I were being completely honest, I'd admit that I found him utterly unlikeable.

In fact, despite the obvious and real tragedy of his daugther's accident, I ended up feeling little for Timoteo past disgust as the main thrust of the novel involves a very abusive affair he has with a poor, thin, wisp of a woman named Italia. The two meet just after his car breaks down in a rural area of Italy, and their surreptitious affair begins shortly thereafter.

Including as selection from Italy on my Around the World in 52 Books challenge, I felt that I got little from the story about the setting. With the exception of the time Timo and his wife Elsa spend at their summer beach house, very little of his surroundings are described in detail. With the majority of the action taking place in Timoteo's mind as he sits in a hospital waiting room, which is by its nature both cold and sterile, and uncomfortable and bland, much of the other settings take on this same atmosphere.

This is a novel that tells you everything, that leaves little to conversation, and forces the reader into the position of the dying daughter by his consistently addressing her within the story. And I really didn't like being coerced into a sympathetic position where I had to like the main character, after all, who can despise a man who is obviously in so much pain?

"Dear Angela...let me tell you about the time I cheated on your mother and ruined a poor, desperate girl's life...just because you don't have anything else to worry about as you lie there on the operating table half-dead already."

But, alas, I am paraphrasing.

On the whole, I struggled through this book, forcing myself to finish it, and wondering why Don't Move was included in the 1001 Books list. It tells it is a "multilayered novel of love, loss, and desperation, set upon the affluent backdrop of Northern Italy." Beside the write-up is a giant picture of Penelope Cruz, who starred in the, again award-winning, film adaptation.

For me, it's an intensely cold novel, and a lot of the times, I had a hard time believing the character was even a man. In places, the author uses odd metaphors that just didn't work: "A rain as fine as face powder was falling." Not that metaphors need to be gender specific or should even be so, it just felt wrong in this case, something that this man wouldn't notice and/or care to know. Anyway, it's a small point, and maybe not even a relevant one, but things like that pulled me out of the novel time and time again.

Mazzantini is obviously a talented writer, and moments of the novel are really quite brilliant, but I prefer to take my cold, calculated protagonists with a bit of redemption, which should never be confused with pure confession.

Tragic Right Update

1. There is a lot of snow outside.

2. This is not good for a girl with a tragic hip.

3. This is especially not good for a girl with a tragic hip who didn't listen to the weather reports this morning and wore her Frye boots to work.

4. This meant the girl slipped all the way home from the subway and almost killed herself approximately 67 times.

5. But it sure shows the power of weather-appropriate footwear.

(PS - The first week of my new job has been awesome but busy).

TRH Movie - The Queen

My week off of work was supposed to be punctuated by seeing a lot of movies, but I was felled by a damn cold, and so the only day I did actually make it to the theatre was yesterday when Tara and I went to see The Queen. The last of the Oscar films I'll actually get to go and see before the Awards tomorrow night, I have to say that I enjoyed it very much, and was impressed by the performances, both by Michael Sheen (love him) and Helen Mirren (goes without saying that she'll win).

But on the whole, other than The Departed, I'm really uninspired by this year's crop of Best Picture nominees. I haven't seen Letters from Iwo Jima, but I have now seen the other three, and I still think that Scorsese's picture is the best out of all of them. And two movies I've seen since, The Children of Men and Half Nelson, are better pictures than the other nominees. But I'm not on the voting committee and I don't share the lovefest over Babel, so who knows. I also think that Little Children should have had more nominations, and that Jackie Earle Haley should win in his catagory, even though my vote will probably go to Eddie Murphy.

But it does make me think that with all the money Hollywood spends to make money, I'm surprised that better movies simply don't come out. Or maybe I've just watched the wrong ones lately. We did watch The Prestige yesterday, and it was really good, better than Dreamgirls, better than Flags of Our Fathers, better than (shhh) Babel, and still nothing in the way of recognition.

I'm guessing that my radar is really off the mark in terms of what Hollywood finds to be good and I what I think truly is exceptional. But isn't that always the case?

#14 - Blind Submission

I missed yesterday and the day before I think with my Book A Day challenge. I've got one for today though: Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg. Angel Robinson (seriously, that's her name) finds herself out of a job when the bookstore she works for in Southern California shuts down (damn the fate of independent bookstores everywhere). She ends up, upon the insistence of her aspiring novelist boyfriend, landing a job with Lucy Fiamma at her literary agency.

There's a lot of bookish insider stuff going on in the novel, the role that agents play, how they do a good deal of editing and building up the books before they get pitched, how it's like being a salesman, etc. But Angel finds herself really good at it, until Blind Submission arrives. Written by an anonymous author and strangely echoing Angel's own life (the main character is called "Alice" for heaven's sake), it's the central mystery of the book, who wrote it and why?

As Angel goes somewhat mad trying to figure it out, the Devil Wears Prada-esque relationship with her boss escalates. Oh, and there's some aspects of chicklit thrown in too, will Angel choose Malcolm, her gorgeous but somewhat unstable boyfriend or will she end up with a fiery Italian writer-slash-pastry chef? (It sounds so ridiculous when I write it out here...)

In the end, I enjoyed the insider-type stuff with the book, and I did read it quickly; it's that kind of novel, where the prose isn't particularly inspired (and the sex scenes are embarrassing, as were the setups, dropping towels in hotel rooms, you get the picture, yawn) but I got sucked in regardless. Anyway, it's a good vacation book, perfect for beach reading and/or something light and fluffy for when you're tired from a long day of real life. But no hearts were broken, squished or otherwise, which is okay sometimes too.

Absolute Nothingness

So, I have a question: how old is too old to be wearing black tights with your work outfits?

When do you get to that age where you should no longer be wearing black tights with your skirts and shoes?

And what do you wear instead?

The Way Not To Finish A Book

Here are the reasons why there is no book update today:

1. I spent much of yesterday writing, yay!

2. Instead of curling up with a good book after my pilates class (the first one in almost three weeks, ouch. Seriously, I almost passed out, it was a bit much), I feverishly started knitting so that I could have my homework completed for my knitting class tonight. Yeah, I stayed up until almost 4 AM. So. Not. Relaxing. My fingers are so cramped that I had to sleep with them splayed across my stomach just so they wouldn't curl up into little balls I couldn't get open in the morning.

3. The book I picked is a whopping 400 pages long. Damn you Out of Africa, damn you!

4. Too much television was consumed last night (see #2) in a pathetic attempt to stay awake.

5. Had a very poor night's sleep on Tuesday as a result of eating massive, and I mean massive, amounts of chocolate because I gave up sugar on Wednesday. I had a caffeine buzz from chocolate people. Just think of how much was actually consumed!

TRH Movies & A Stupid Cold

I've been sidelined at home the past few days with a rotten cold, a sore throat and lots and lots of sneezing. Good for reading, not so good for thinking, which means I'm not getting as much writing done as I'd like, but I'm making progress regardless.

I've been buying DVDs lately for two reasons, one because we always need stuff to watch at the cottage in the summer, and we generally end up viewing many films multiple times so I don't really think it's a waste of money; plus, I'm sick to death of paying late fees because we never get the videos back on time.

Annnwaaay. Yesterday I picked up Babel and The Prestige. I kind of feel like the first film was a waste of money. We haven't watched it last night. And you know what? It's kind of overbearing and quite unbelievable. I know it's all arty and ohhh look how connected the world is but the tenuous nature of said connection in terms of the Japanese storyline was almost laughable. Like Crash, it kind of plays out with a bit of the movie of the week sensibility where you're forced to suspend your disbelief just that little bit too much. Why is it nominated for so many Oscars?

All in all having a stupid cold the last few days has meant I've watched way, way too much television. I'm looking forward to getting out of the house tomorrow and enjoying the few days I've got left before I start my new job.

Oh, and just FYI, I wrote a guest post over at Martinis For Milk about a trip to the doctor yesterday. It's a bit graphic (there's a whole gross but funny thing going on) and it's about lady bits, so be forewarned, only read it if you are truly convinced there are some things that you just NEED to know about me.

#13 - Shopaholic & Baby

Kinsella returns to her mainstay character, Becky Bloomwood, who enters the Yummy Mummy phase of her life in Shopaholic & Baby. With an incredibly predictable plot, the series (and I must confess, I've only read one other of the books), feels like it's waning a bit. Becky runs into a few problems on her way to the delivery room: her OBGYN is her husband's ex, he's acting all shifty and stuff, and they're trying to buy a house. Becky's usual antics, well, shopping obsessions, are all there but there's just not as much spice to this book as to her last couple of non-Shopaholic titles.

And while I'll confess to loving a fair bit of chicklit, this series just isn't up there as my favourites. However, I do completely appreciate the wit and humour in Kinsella's writing, even if this book wasn't right for me.

#12 - Lion's Honey: The Myth Of Samson

David Grossman's Lion's Honey, part of Canongate's esteemed series The Myths, is the entry from Israel in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge. More of a meditation than perhaps a true retelling, Grossman dissects the myth of Samson like a teacher approaching a poem. Taken apart piece by piece, the overlived* existence of the hero is explored both in an historical and in a modern context.

My feelings about the entire project are mixed: I'm not sure what the purpose of The Myths in these short, concise little books is, but I enjoyed reading Lion's Honey, if only because it gave me a glimpse of how interesting it might be to study the stories of the Bible. In Samson, a man truly at odds with his destiny, Grossman is able to present a "character" with a keen eye to the subtle differences between the original text and the sense of the myth as it's been studied by hundreds of thousands of people over the course of its lifetime.

This brings forward a real sense of how the myth itself is played out both in religious studies and how it has evolved over the years, finding its way into pop culture, poetry, modern novels and Talmudic study. In some ways, as Grossman relates the very real landscape of Samson's story to the modern-day Israeli state, you get a true sense of how myth combines with history, which in turn combines with story.

Many of the books in my 52 countries challenge didn't give me a sense of what life was like in the country of the author's origin. The Ireland of Tóibín is found more in how he constructs a story than in the narrative itself in The Master (but felt a great deal in his marvellous Mothers and Sons). The Canadian Arctic of Consumption is one that's utterly foreign to me, which was kind of the point. But in this book, I felt the landscape, the lush trees, the hills, the dust, the imprints of civilization on the caves, and it made quite an impression.

There's a bit where the graves of Samson have sort of popped up, no one thinks they're the actual resting spots of the man and his father, as Grossman says, they can't be, but believers are there anyway, faith prevailing over common sense as it should. And that's kind of an apt metaphor for this little book as well: Samson the hero, whose story has been told and retold over thousands of years, that despite his shortcomings, despite his inability to come to terms with his gift from God, finds a way to act, even if those very actions will bring about his own death. His own faith prevailing against reason, betrayal, even love.

Anyway, it's a bit deep for a Tuesday morning when I've got a wicked cold and a big foggy head, so if the above makes no sense, go ahead and tease me for it. But I've managed to keep to the first day of my Book A Day challenge. I have a feeling I might not make it tomorrow, Lion's Honey, after all, is a mere 145 pages.

---

*overlived was today's OED word of the day. Shockingly the first one, like, ever, I've actually used in a sentence the day it arrived in my inbox.

A Book A Day Challenge?

I think I might try my Book A Day challenge this week that I've got off so that I can get ahead with some of my reading before the new job starts next Monday. I've cheated a bit already by finishing off some books that I had started weeks back, but I'm still going to give it a go...hell, I'm up for the challenge!

#11 - Breakfast At Tiffany's

They would never change because they'd been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic.

We read Truman Capote's novella as a part of our 1001 Books club at work. I finished it while at the spa with my stepmother a few weeks back, but it's taken me a bit longer to complete the other short stories included in the collection.

I enjoyed "Breakfast at Tiffany's" immensely, both because of Capote's power as a storyteller and his ability to create characters that may be have questionable moral cores but are still utterly fascinating. I'm going to confess that I've never seen the film, but I have got it at home now to watch this week, so using that as a reference and/or point of discussion will have to wait. Holly Golightly, iconic, ironic, desperate even, is such an electric character that it's impossible not to sympathize with her, regardless of whether or not you like her and/or support her actions.

The Norman Mailer quote on the back of my Vintage edition, states that Capote 'is the most perfect writer of [his] generation. He writes the best sentences word for word, rhythm upon rhythm.' There is no way I can say this any better or agree any more heartily. If I were still in grad school, I would have loved to have studied Capote's style: the grace and impact of his sentence structure, his use of language, his ability to create compelling metaphors. The skill in his writing seems unparalleled in modern American fiction, but maybe I'm making sweeping generalizations, because I haven't read ALL of the writers of his generation.

I loved Holly Golightly. I loved her sass and her style, her unsympathetic actions, her selfishness, her drinking habits, her large sunglasses and her ability to attract and repel attention on a whim. I loved how the narrator love, love, loves her but can't really get it out, or maybe he doesn't want to. I got caught up in the world in which she lives and ultimately escapes from, thinking, again, how magical it must have been to live in NYC at that time.

And on the whole, I'm still as in love with Capote as ever, especially after reading "A Christmas Memory," with its haunting sadness, rampant poverty of everything except imagination, and its sad sense of tragedy. I highly recommend this collection; even if it's not heartbreaking in the traditional sense, the writing is just so delicious that it makes your heart ache—in that good way.

So many books I read these days feel rushed and unfinished. They feel like they need time and attention, focus and re-edits, and not once when I'm reading Capote do I feel this way. I feel like he's paid particular attention to every single word, to how it sits in a sentence or feels on the page. For once, I feel like the fable, as 1001 Books refers to the story, was included because it's a little bit of a revolution on the page: a freethinking, feeling and sexually explicit woman makes her own way in the world free of society's structure, which must have been shocking at the time of publication? Regardless, I think I am a better person for having read this book, which I would imagine is the true test of the 1001 Books list.

So where I am I now on the list? I've added two more I think, which takes me to 124. A very, very long way to go still.

Moby-Dick

So, according to this quiz (props to Booklust for the link), I'm Moby-Dick and 65% a good book.

Considering that I hated that novel and never finished it the seventeen times I've tried to read it, um, I don't think so.

#10 - The Master

Finally, after weeks of reading, I have finished The Master. The Irish entry in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge, Colm Tóibín's majestic and utterly compelling novel reads more like a series of interlinked short stories that follow the life of writer Henry James through the latter part of his life. Told in a strikingly engaging yet cold third person, the narrative, as 1001 Books states, is episodic. The fictionalized biography, like Mothers and Sons, highlights Tóibín's unparalleled storytelling ability.

I savoured this book like sipping fine wine, reading it in small parts rather than gulping it down like a pint at the pub. I got a little further each night, slowly working my way backwards and forwards through James's life, having never read a single one of his novels (successfully avoiding them both through my undergraduate and graduate degrees), I can still feel like I know his style, form and function simply because Tóibín is so adept at working his way into the head of a writer.

An exercise that satisfies both my own curiosity about the writer (having always been more interested in the lives of the great writers than their work itself), and leads me to an even greater understanding of the scope and structure of James's work, The Master truly deserved its 2006 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. This book made me long for a provincial life, to buy a small piece of property in France somewhere, made me long for a time when one "moved" in intellectual circles, and spent days in conversation. Of course, I would have to be a member of the terrible upper class, and all of the other less appealing things about the fantasy, including marrying for money and the like, but hell, let me wallow in a Merchant-Ivory fantasy for a moment. Like someone always says, you never imagine your ancestors to be of the lower classes, the same goes for my imagination...

Annywaaay. Spending so much time with one book means I'm well behind in my reading for this month, but it's been a bit hectic too, finishing one job, finding another, finishing off my next Classic Starts with what's beginning to feel like never ending edits, and watching way too much television (damn you Jack!), there never seems to be enough time in the day.

So, to sum up, while aspects of the novel were certainly heartbreaking, the book on the whole wasn't. But that doesn't necessarily mean I wouldn't highly recommend it to anyone who might care to listen to be ramble on about the genius that is Colm Tóibín.

This Is The End

Yesterday was my last day of work. It was the last time I'll need to take the car to the outer limits of Mississauga, too. So, I'm happy that I've just decreased my ecological footprint. As of next Monday, I'll be taking the transit every day, walking after work, and in the summer, riding my bike. That makes me feel much better. I made a donation the other day to Tree Canada to offset some of my carbon emissions, but I still felt guilty every single time I got into the car, especially in the dead of summer, with sweat rising up off the asphalt, the earth burning up underneath me. Anyway, it's over now, the daily commute.

For the first time in a long time, I actually left a job versus the job leaving me. Almost every experience in my adult life has been the other way around. I worked in magazines for many years before getting into the web side of things; and both of the magazines I worked for folded, which meant I lost my job twice in less than a year. In the first case, I had worked for three years on contract, which meant I got no package, no severance. I didn't even get two weeks notice. The second magazine went bust after my only working there for eight months. In that case, despite how broke they were, we all still ended up with two weeks severance. This all happened during and just after my years in grad school as I was finishing up my Master's degree with massive amounts of debt. I lived hand to mouth, paycheque to paycheque, constantly worrying about money and how to get the bills paid.

So leaving was always by signaled a time to panic. How was I going to pay the rent? How was I going to afford groceries? Each new job hunt was like a pressure cooker: it had to happen and it had to happen fast. And when I got fired from my old-old job by the boss from hell, it was met by a mini-nervous breakdown. I paced the hallways of our newly bought house convinced that we were headed for the poorhouse because my RRHB had recently lost his job as well. I think it was the most stressful period of my life.

And then things got under control. I had good spin on the story: evil empire firing a poor slightly disabled girl who was still recovering from hip replacement surgery. Girl with serious and scary disease thrown in the gallows of stress by a wicked witch who wanted nothing more than her own success and to punish anyone who spoke ill of her behind her back. Who was going to smell like a sweet Jo Malone perfume at the end of that story? Through some of the contacts I had made by working for the evil empire, I found my last job. And it was lovely. The people were lovely, I was working for and with books, which I adore. I kind of found my calling, I think.

So yesterday was bittersweet. I am sad to be leaving. I am thankful for the opportunities that I was given, for the people I've met, for the books I've read. But I am also totally thrilled for the new challenges that I'll be facing at the end of the month. My new job is a combination of what I did for the evil empire and what I did up until yesterday. It was an opportunity I did not, or could not, turn down.

But I was also proud of myself that I made a decision based not on desperation, not on the basic need for survival, but for myself. As Oprah as that moment felt, I also feel somewhat vindicated. For the longest time, I felt put upon, depressed from all the tragedy in my life, frustrated that no matter how good I thought I was, terrible things kept happening to me. Some of what I felt just turned out to be life lessons: that you need to rise above certain things, hold your head up and work hard. Some of what I felt turned back inside me and caused things like depression and disease: that bad things happen to bad people, and illogical thoughts persisting, I must be the worst person on earth, so what's the point of doing things that might make me happy, that might make me well adjusted.

So now with my week off, I have no stress. I'm not under the gun. I'm going to write my stories, take long walks, go shopping, maybe donate some more money to compensate for the fact that I would really like some new shoes, see movies and relax before I get back into the daily grind.

And I'm all about being well adjusted and taking deep breaths. Because my life might not be an episode of My Name is Earl, but it kind of feels that way, with all the good karma finally making its way back into the palm of my hand.

TRH Movie - Music and Lyrics Redux

My "official" review is posted up at ChartAttack.

Downtown

The roads, as you well imagine, are a mess. This morning I got the car stuck in a snowbank coming out of the laneway behind my house. And when I tried to turn on the car, it wouldn't work.

I didn't cry. I didn't panic. Instead, I calmly got out, walked the few houses over to our front door, and shouted, "RRHB, I need your help." We dug the car out and I was on my way.

My new office? Yeah, it's downtown which means I'll calmly sit on the streetcar as it rumbles along plowing all of the snow in its way in two days time. I really, really hate driving.

The other scary winter driving story? A couple weekends ago when I went to the spa with my stepmother? I got the car stuck on a snowy hill when it started rolling...in the wrong direction. Soon, I was barrelling backwards down the hill and couldn't slow down. For the very first time in my life, you know what I did? I used the emergency brake. After all, it was an emergency.

Come to think of it, I didn't panic then either. But I was a bit nervous on the roads today, with the Curse of St. Valentine's looming over my head and all.

Ann Equals Awesome

This morning at work we had a breakfast for YA superstar Ann Brashares. I've read and loved every one of the books in the Sisterhood series, and so it was a real pleasure to see her in person and have her sign a copy of the latest book Forever in Blue.

First off, she's absolutely gorgeous, and had just come from her appearance on Canada AM, so the first thing she said was something along the lines of 'that explains all the makeup.' (And I'm probably paraphrasing).

She spoke for a few minutes and then someone asked if she wrote the books chronologically or if she wrote each character separately. And, in fact, it's the latter. Brashares has colour-coded cue cards for each character and maps out what's going to happen to each of them in one fell swoop. She spends as much time as she needs with each one, notes out all of their scenes, and then spreads out the cards all around her house to plot out the book.

It was inspiring to hear her speak about her creative process. She writes the books in that way because she feels that every character deserves her full attention, which I was fascinated with because it's not the way that I write at all. I might try it though considering she's finished, ahem, many books and I've never completed a one!

And Carmen is her favourite character, which sort of surprised me. But when I went up to talk to her and get my book signed, I told her that Bridget, being a motherless-daughter herself, had a special place in my heart. She also asked me a lot of questions about me and what I did at the company etc., etc., and I said, "I'm not here to talk about me!" And then we laughed. As a writer, she told me, she's always more interested in other people's lives than speaking about her own. Delightful, I say, absolutely delightful!

On the whole, she's just wonderful, well-spoken, intelligent, everything you hope and expect an author to be...

Organic Beer...

...doesn't give you any less a hangover.

Sigh.

Shhhh. I have news.

Yesterday, I quit my job. Not to worry, I have another one to go to in about three weeks, and I'm super excited about it.

I mean really excited.

Hence the imbibing of St. Peter's organic beer until the wee hours.

And now, I hurt.

So I've been listening to my new favourite songs and trying to do the dishes for about forty-five minutes. There aren't that many dishes. It's just hard to, ahem, stand up.

If you're wondering what my iTunes is cooking this morning:

1. A Mirror Without, Royal Wood
2. Under Control, The Strokes
3. Jolene, Dolly Parton
4. Snow (Hey Oh), Red Hot Chili Peppers
5. Save It For Later, English Beat

Oh yeah, that's inspired me to re-write the first sentence of my long story about seventeen times. It keeps getting longer and longer with more commas, lots of adjectives and a really interesting metaphor that I can't wait to try out on you all.

Happy Saturday!

I. Can't. Stop. Smiling.

Readings Dot Org Indeed!

Last night Zesty and I braved the cold to attend a truly spectacular evening of readings at Harbourfront. Part of their weekly series, last night Vikram Chandra, Colm Tóibín and Neil Smith read from their new works. Of the three, Toibin, of course, stands out, the headliner who read last, he honestly brought tears to my eyes.

Sacred Games is a huge (and I mean massive) novel by Chandra, who read first. His readings were a bit dense but they did capture my interest both in terms of their subject matter (modern-day, crime-addled Mumbai), and their descriptive value. The third reading, of the passages the author selected, was by far the best. I'm not sure if it's enough to pull me up and out into the novel, but there was a bit about women and marriage in his passage that grabbed me by its plaintive ache and sort of held on.

Neil Smith read about half of the first story from his Bang/Crunch, the collection that's launched him as part of Knopf Canada's New Face of Fiction this year. Tall, thin, impeccably dressed, Neil Smith's reading was humourous and intriguing at the same time. The story, about a premature baby and her mother, and by extension her sperm donor of a father, was funny, insightful and urged me to read more.

But, as I said above, the true highlight of the evening for me was Tóibín. Wow. He sauntered on to stage looking like a middle-aged English professor in his jacket and thin tie, and his face has such deliciously deep creases that you could even call them folds. He started to speak immediately as he stepped behind the microphones, telling lovely stories about music festivals, troubles in Armagh and a trip to Australia. At first, you wonder where it's all going, and then he read "A Song" from Mothers and Sons, and you slowly, as the narrative unfolds, realize that he's showing you all of the inspiration for this particular story. I'm telling you, it brought tears to my eyes. Tears.

TRH Movies - A Triple Header

So I've been on the 'oh my gosh I have to watch all the Oscar-nominated films in one go' streak lately. It's not that I'm going to do well in any awards night polls because, well, I never do—I always vote from the heart, which is the kiss of death in those types of contests.

Annnywaaay.

Children of Men
On Saturday afternoon, the RRHB and I went to go see Children of Men with Tara and Dave. Many, many people have been raving about how wonderful this movie is and about how it truly should have been nominated for Best Picture. I can certainly see why. Based on P.D. James's novel of the same name, the film takes place in the near future after the human race has, essentially, ended—all women are infertile. Society is barely functioning. England is exporting all of its immigrants. Eerily familiar bombs are being detonated in coffee houses. Violence and civil disobedience are everywhere. In short, it's on the verge of apocalypse. And so soon! The film is set twenty years from now, which is one of the reasons it scared the bloody crap out of me.

Clive Owen plays Theo Faron, an alcoholic, downtrodden London office worker who finds a shadow of his former self when he's enlisted to help his underground-movement-leader of an ex-wife smuggle some important human cargo out of the country. It's a bone-chilling and brilliant movie that should have gotten a lot more kudos than it did. Where's Clive Owen's love? He holds the movie together, from start to finish, and man, is the movie the better for it. Add to the mix superior art direction, brilliant editing, a wonderful script and man, you've got a superior piece of film work. And it's not often that I rave, rave, rave about a film. The crucial test is whether or not I'm still thinking about it days later, and I am.

Half Nelson
Okay, I've never downloaded a movie from the internet before. But, and I'm not saying who, a certain someone I know and love does it a fair bit, and he grabbed Half Nelson the other night. The two of us, perched on desk chairs and eating lasagna for dinner, watched this utterly captivated picture from start to finish on the computer. I felt guilty the entire time.

Ryan Gosling plays Danny Dunne, a junior high school history/social studies teacher and aspiring writer with more problems than the usual Mr. Smith standing at the head of the class. A functioning addict who uses the kids like an anchor holding him on board his own life, Danny is a total mess when he's not at school. Like one of those truly tortured souls who can't possibly be meant for reality, he develops an oddly patriarchal and somewhat inappropriate relationship with Drey (Shareeka Epps). From the first, tragic minute when she discovers his fatal flaw, the two dance around the issue of his drug use, until the penultimate moment where Drey, when confronted with the cold, hard truth of the life she's in the middle of, is forced to leave her childhood behind far sooner than she probably should.

Gosling's performance is haunting and hectic, full of addiction ticks that aren't remotely stereotypical but the product of a man whose talent is so compelling it almost steams off the screen. He is so magnetic that your body tingles when you watch him. And Shareeka Epps shows such wisdom in her own performance that the pair of them are both captivating and, yes, heartbreaking at the same time.

I truly think that Half Nelson might be my favourite movie I've seen this year (I'm using 'year' in terms of Oscar-nominated pictures, of course).

Music and Lyrics
Another film I had to review for Chart, this film, a fun, whimsical romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant turned out to be kind of charming and almost funny. And, seriously, watching it just for Hugh Grant's dancing was enough for me, more to come on that one when I write my "official" review.

Amazon Takes Down The Long Tail...

...By one ridiculous email after another.

This morning I opened up my email to find yet another useless 'if you like this you're sure to love this' email from Amazon.ca. First off, let me say that I heart Amazon and do use their site all the time. What I find frustrating is the very odd computer program that matches up the likes and dislikes, which obviously doesn't know its head from its motherboard's a**.

And I quote:

We've noticed that customers who have expressed interest in Snow by Orhan Pamuk have also ordered Still Life With Husband by Lauren Fox. For this reason, you might like to know that Lauren Fox's Still Life With Husband is now available in Hardcover. You can order your copy at a savings of 37% by following the link below.

Okay, here are all the things that are wrong with this:

1. I did not order Snow, I merely browsed the title while doing research for my Around the World in 52 Books. Amazon should not be recommending books based upon browsing, it makes me feel like my every single movement is being watched, categorized and then pounced upon. It makes me want to destroy my profile and never shop there again.

2. Seriously? Still Life with Husband? Compared to Nobel-prize winning Pamuk? Here's the description:

Yes, it's an affair novel, but file this adroit but placid debut under chick lit for early marrieds—the ones who are not sure they want to be on the baby-house-'burbs track. At 30, Emily Ross is a Milwaukee freelance writer with a part-time job as assistant editor at a medical journal called Male Reproduction and a marriage to "steady, staid" Kevin, a technical writer she met in college. Kevin, "innocent and intolerable," wants a baby and a house. Emily is ambivalent and bored. A few pages in, Emily meets David Keller, a dark, good-looking writer/editor at the local alternative newspaper, and starts an affair. Things, as expected, do not go well, but Fox's voice is steady, moving easily between comedy and drama.

They’re comparing Snow, crimes against Turkishness-Amnesty call out serious-type writing to chicklit, and not just any old chicklit, but vapid, trite and obviously clichéd chicklit.

I'm all for the terribly abused and over-used long tail philosophy of marketing, but the problem remains that Amazon is attempting to harness what should just come naturally: a person making connections through books and finding new authors based on external recommendations. This recommendation system shouldn't be some computer program that's matched up two books that wouldn't be caught dead being catagorized together on a table if the bookstore were any less virtual. Obviously, there's a problem with the circuitry. And for now, under no circumstances will I be ordering Still Life with Husband.

Write Around Town Debuts

Lots and lots to update on, not the least of which is one more book down from the 1001 Books list, Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, a visit to the spa, a night of 24, and two movies (Music & Lyrics and Children of Men).

But for now, if you're at all interested in literary events in Toronto, I've started to write a monthly column for Experience Toronto called Write Around Town. It's the first one, so it's a bit rough around the edges, but I'm excited about it and am looking forward to having something fun to write every month for someone other than myself!

A Bird In The Hand

Last night, despite feeling utterly under the weather, I headed out in the cold to my first Sweater class at Knitomatic. I arrived, of course, without needles, but luckily there were some in the store I could use and, after I did my gauge swatch, it was a good thing I hadn't bought needles because I work tight so I needed to go up a size anyway.

We're knitting a raglan sweater in the round, which I've never done before, so I'm excited about it. I've got this rich grey wool with lovely white strands through it that looks very old fashioned. I think it'll make a grand sweater.

The owner of the store has a lovebird named Pluto. He's really sweet and affectionate and took quite a liking to me. At one point, he was perching on his owner's water glass, after dropping himself in more than once for a quick drink, he looked and chirped at me until I paid attention to him. I held out my hand so he could jump on. Then, he hopped up to my shoulder and trilled in my ear as I chatted with him.

And then he pooped on my new coat.

Heh.

It's good luck, isn't it? When a bird poops on you?

Anyway, I'm taking it as a sign that my sweater will turn out brilliantly.

TRH Movie - Because I Said So

Or "Quite possibly the worst movie I've ever seen in my life and if I didn't have to review it I would have walked out of the theatre."

Okay if you are remotely interested in seeing Because I Said So in the theatres and don't want to be the least bit spoiled, do not read this post. But if you do go see that movie and decide that it sucks, don't blame me for not telling. I'm just sayin'.

Yes, the Diane Keaton / Mandy Moore cash grab for the poor suckers on Valentine's Day who actually convince their men folk to go to see this film are in for a real treat. Because I Said So, which I saw last week for Chart magazine, is truly and abysmally bad. It's cliches wrapped in forced situations and all tied up in a shrieking bow that made me wince more times than I can count.

Essentially, Keaton plays a single mom facing the wrong side of fifty, who approaches her "big" six-oh with trepidation because her youngest daughter can't find love. Cue the big sweeping "I am your mother and can't rest until you are settled" speeched coupled with the "I just don't want you to turn out like me" sap storm, and you've pretty much got the emotional underpinnings of this movie of the week wannabe.

Keaton, playing "Daphne", decides that Mother Does Indeed Know Best and places a want ad for fellows for "Milly" aka Mandy, a perky, singing chef with a heart of gold and nose for the perfect soufflé. The fellow she finds is a remarkably wealthy, shockingly single schmarmball named Jason who loves polka dots and long walks on the beach. Barf. Of course, as happenstance would have it, Johnny, a guitar-playing musician-slash-teacher with a crazy-ass kid meets Daphne when she's interviewing potential suitors and wants in on it too. According to Johnny, he's got a feeling he'd really like Milly (what? come the fark on) and, of course, Daphne thinks nothing of the sort.

What do you think happens? Milly falls in love with both men. Yawn. Cue the "conflict" scenes. As you could probably tell from the trailer, it gets all messy and stuff when she finally, after a good 90 minutes and my ass becoming so sore from boredom that I almost needed a seventh inning stretch, figures out who she wants to be with, and well, let's suffice to say there's a happy ending.

I think what I find most offensive about films like this, apparently made by women for women, is that they don't take women at all seriously. Every single romantic cliche that is so worn down, recycled and ever-so tired is pulled out in this film, shined up, sung out loud (yes, Mandy Moore SINGS in the picture) and then applauded. In a time where polar bears are drowning, and we are wasting more and more of our precious resources on art that will make no difference to the world, I'm even more ashamed that dreck like this is still finding its way onto the big screen.

But maybe that's the debate for today. Should art just make a difference or is there value in creating mindless entertainment?

Millbank, Ontario

So, on Saturday, my RRHB and I went to Millbank, Ontario. I wanted to see where my Irish ancestors settled, and even though I didn't know much about it beyond the fact that it's where they farmed after coming to Canada and where they died, it was actually kind of cool.

There's a great furniture shop there, we saw Amish carriages carrying very cold bearded men along the two-lane highways, and despite the cold, I had a great day. We stopped in Stratford for some lunch, ate some candy, and walked around a bit looking at some of the great old buildings in the very lovely town.

And it gave me a real idea of what life was like in the winter in Millbank, and some good ideas for description for the long story I've been working on. But, of course, I discovered where the old coot was buried (my Irish forefather) AFTER we got home, which just means there's another road trip on the horizon. Not in winter. Not on the coldest day of the year. And not during a snow storm. But soon, that's for sure.

Now if I can only figure out where in Ireland a) they came from and b) when they got here (they were here for the 1851 census, I know that for sure), then I'd be cooking with oil. I know they were from the north, which would have good to know, oh, I don't know, when I was THERE two summers ago.

Sigh.

#9 - Havana Best Friends

As much as I didn't want to, I had to put down The Master and pick up Havana Best Friends this weekend. There was a slight chance that I might get to interview Jose Latour for work and I needed to be prepared just in case (which also included reading his latest book Outcast, which comes out in February, review tk).

For any of you more familiar readers of MTRH, you'll know that I don't read a lot of mysteries and/or thrillers. It's not because I don't enjoy them, it's more because my tastes tend more toward the literary and less toward the commercial in fiction, which isn't meant to imply anything at all in terms of the quality of the writing. However, I think that Latour manages to cross over the boundary from the commercial to the almost-literary exceptionally well, and this book is a mixture of all kinds of influences.

I think the recipe for Havana Best Friends starts with a few cups of good spy fiction like John le Carré, it's flavoured slightly with a bit of the bombastic nature of Robert Ludlum, then all the ingredients are tossed around with Law and Order for a minute to see what sticks, and to taste, just add a hint of Mankell. Presto! You've got the novel. Yet, even though you can compare it to many titles, the style is Latour's own: brazen, bold and sometimes funny (with a wickedly blush-worthy sex scene), the book takes you along for a ride and never really leaves you behind, and I think that's his key skill as a novelist.

The implausible plot actually works and there wasn't a moment where I said, "Oh come on!" In short, there's a fortune hidden in the walls of an old Havana apartment. Put there by a wealthy follower of Batista before Castro's revolution, the son of the man wants to reclaim his treasure. But it's not as easy as it seems because there are people living in the apartment, and now the question becomes: does the fortune exist and, if so, how do they get it?

What follows is a tense, even chilling, thriller that winds around the central mystery until the book's satisfying conclusion. As the Cuban entry in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge, I'm happy to say that Latour's descriptions of the place, of the people, and of the country itself did give me a sense of what life is like there. And I did enjoy that some of the places Latour talks about, I'd seen, so it felt real to me in that way too. This book didn't pass the heartbreak test, but I enjoyed it anyway. It was perfect reading for a cold January afternoon.

CBC Words at Large - Giles Blunt

Mystery author Giles Blunt is answering questions over at CBC's truly lovely Words at Large. I'm dying to know if he plots out all of his books in advance or if he lets the mystery unfold as he's writing.

Hey, maybe I'll go ask that question right now.

#8 - Mothers and Sons

Colm Tóibín's new short story collection, Mothers and Sons, took me completely by surprise. I must confess that I don't read a lot of short stories with the exception of Alice Munro and the ones in Taddle Creek. Like so many aspiring writers, I have drawers of unfinished short stories that I'll cull one day for ideas and sharp sentences, but that doesn't mean I seek out the art form. It's a shame because when they're done well, like here, they really are exceptional in the way they convey so much in so few pages. Anyway, like I said the other day, I have tickets to see him read at Harbourfront on February 7th, and I wanted to at least have read one of his books.

And wow.

The stories are magnificent. Each one so utterly and entirely complete, and even though Tóibín's narrative style is somewhat removed, even emotionally distant, you still get to the heart of the characters as quickly as if you were hit by lightning. The first story, "The Use of Reason," reminded me so much of Flannery O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge," and even though there's no Southern grotesque in Tóibín's writing, there is an element of human desperation that finds its way into each of the stories defining a relationship on some level between a mother and a son. And I think the first one, of all of them, remains my favourite. I don't want to give anything away so I won't go into the plots of any of the stories except to say that reading this book was a true pleasure. So much so that it spurned me into my next Around the World in 52 Books read, which is Tóibín's The Master.

Tragic Right Updates

Okay so it's been a pretty busy few days, with lots going on, and I love lists, so here we go:

1. 24 kicked all kinds of crazy ass last night, but my favourite part? When Jack retired for eleven minutes. Awe-some. His retirement was even shorter than Jay Z's. And let's talk about 99 Problems: nuclear bombs, presidential bomb shelters with cell phone signals (heh), crazy sibling rivalry, and Rena Sofer as the 'wife' character, like someone that hot would end up with angry short man McCrane, but whatever. Enjoyable!

2. Editing and re-editing is super-hard work but I've handed in my third draft, just minutes ago, of one of my Classic Starts. I've been doing them forever in my spare time and I'm super-exhausted and really want to start working on my other projects.

3. I've been attempting to find a version of microwave popcorn that isn't completely and utterly disgusting. See, I hate butter, love cooking with it, hate the taste and smell otherwise, but every single version of the damn popcorn has way, way too much fake butter on it. And I can't seem to find a damn box of 'original' anywhere. It's very annoying. We tried "corn on the cob" (oh my god it's nasty) and cheddar (equally nasty) and are now about to give up entirely. But hell, maybe that's a good thing as I supposed to be dieting anyway.

4. Tina Fey's 30 Rock is damn, damn funny. So funny that I actually rewound this bit from last week's episode about Tracy Morgan (aka Tracy Jordan) "writing" his "memoirs" because it cracked me up so much.

5. I am going to see Colm Toibin on February 7th. I just finished reading his new book of short stories Mothers and Sons, full review to come tomorrow, and it's bloody brilliant. I've also started The Master, which is on the 1001 Books list and my Around the World challenge.

6. I saw Dreamgirls on the weekend and really enjoyed it. Beyoncé was kind of flat but utterly gorgeous, but I totally agree with all of the reviews of Jennifer Hudson, man she completely steals the show. Wow. And I hope that Eddie Murphy wins the Oscar, but who knows...I'm not making any predictions just yet but I have a feeling that all my Oscar ballots will be from the heart, which is always the death of me in our company-party pools.

7. I read Don Hannah's Ragged Islands. Although not on either of my lists, I'm still saying its #7 for the year, and I have to say that I did enjoy it. Quickly, it's the story of Susan Ann, an elderly woman brought to the hospital on her last days, that floats in and out of consciousness. When she's in her 'dream' state, she's all over her life, from start to finish, and it's fantastical, mystical and whimsical all at the same time. There is a central mystery to her story that never gets solved but I think that's okay because the book is more about the fact that life simply doesn't give you the answers. Hannah, a playwright, borrows heavily from Laurence and Shields, but that's okay, there's room in CanLit for more than two ornery old broads.

Whew! What a week already...

#6 - Slow Man

Now, I am gladly going to knock another one off the 1001 Books list with J.M. Coeztee's Slow Man. Oh, and that takes care of South Africa in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge as well. But what do I really have to say about the book? Well, that's a bit more difficult considering my toes have been cold all day, I've got a "spot" on my forehead, and I'm so tired that I can barely keep my eyes open.

All of my remarks about this particular book will be prefaced by the fact that J.M. Coetzee is a well-deserved Nobel Prize winner. In fact, he is probably one of the greatest writers living today. I count his books, especially Youth and Disgrace, among my personal favourites. But lately, especially after the fiasco of a book that Elizabeth Costello turned out to be, I'm starting to wonder if he's spending a bit too much time, well, talking to himself.

As the critical consensus is split between whether or not the character Elizabeth Costello is in fact Coetzee himself, I have to wonder about why he chose to include her, yet again, in another one of his novels. The story of Slow Man takes place in Australia where an older gentleman, Paul Rayment, ends up in a terrible biking accident where he loses a leg. The amputation puts a stop to his life as he has know it, obviously, and, as the novel progresses, he is less inclined to get better and more inclined to stop living altogether.

Nurses are assigned from the hospital's roster of home care to care for Paul once he gets home, and he goes through a number of them before settling on Marjiana, who becomes a catalyst in his life for many reasons. And when things start to unravel as a result of both his injury and his professional relationship with this woman, Elizabeth Costello shows up on his doorstep unannounced, and stays. She's an omnipotent character of sorts, spouting all kinds of meta-fictional/philosophical speeches about the state of his existence. And that's where the book sort of goes off the rails for me—I don't mean to sound flippant because I loved the first half of the novel, but the rest, meh.

One the whole, the book, at the beginning, comes close to passing the heartbreak test, and it excels at what Coetzee does best, which is delve into the most frighteningly human aspects of his characters when they're set upon in the most horrific of ways. But the second half of the book became so pedantic and almost existential (not that that is a bad thing) that I sort of felt like I was listening to a Beckett play rather than reading a novel. And had I known I was going to be reading a Beckett-like novel, I would have been okay with it, but as it sort of showed up out of the blue to become that way, I was put off, and kind of disappointed.

Will that stop me from reading more Coetzee, not on your life. Primarily because he writes such awesome sentences, strings the words together like this:

"No, Paul, I could care less if you tell me made-up stories. Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths."
She pauses, cocks an eyebrow at him. Is it his turn? He has nothing more to say. If truth and lies are the same, then speech and silence may as well be the same too.

But did it mix up my thoughts on Slow Man, absolutely. It's almost as if Coetzee wrote two different novels and then patched them together, or he fell so in love with Elizabeth Costello from her own novel, that he wanted to keep on writing her. My only unanswered question now is why?

Friday Musings

1. I do honestly know the difference between "forth" and "fourth" but it seems the typo was up on the site for, like, two days before I even noticed that I had spelled it wrong. And it's still in the perma-url. Oh well.

2. Well, I might have to break up with Grey's Anatomy. I simply can't take the emotional pressure and/or over the top, everybody dying, heartwrenching stuff that happens every single bloody week. Could someone, anyone, please a) not die, b) not break up, make up, make out, or whine and c) not have something absolutely tragic like an abortion happen to them? Please, just one week where I'm not waking up with giant, red, puffy eyes from bawling about the damn show saying to my RRHB, "I c-c-c-can't watch this show anymore." Sigh.

3. Some crazy dude is stalking Edgar Allen Poe's grave. Now there's a slasher film in the making...and would that be a first, a literary-stalker inspired horror movie? Please educate me if I'm wrong.

4. I had an Office moment when I sent out Linked In notes to a whole bunch of people I didn't mean to. Kind of like when Michael sent out that email with him and Jan in it to, like, his entire company. Yeah, it was like that. But it all turned out okay, I made a lot of new connections.

5. There's snow on the ground in Toronto, and it's cold, but it doesn't matter because at long last I have a brand-new winter coat. And it's lovely. And warm. And lovely. And did I mention it's warm? It's so snuggly that my RRHB says it looks like I'm wearing a sleeping bag. Isn't that awesome?

#5 - Forever In Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

I saw the little blurb on Entertainment Weekly's "Must List" this morning that said, "Talk about good jeans: Expect lotsa laughter and tears for the Sisterhood...in the final volume of the well-worn series." It reminded me that I can now blog about the fact that I did, indeed, read Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares a few months back when our ARCs arrived in the office.

Well, I wouldn't say read as much as I would say absolutely inhaled, "skipped" dance class and sat in bed reading while my RRHB walked by saying "Are you STILL reading, don't you want some dinner?"

Sigh.

It's delicious,and totally lovely, and a perfect ending (if indeed it is the end) for a the sweet YA series by Brashares. I've loved and read all three other installments and totally recommend them to girls young and old when they need a little pick me up.

#4 - The God Of Small Things

Arundhati's Roy's first novel, The God of Small Things, won the Booker Prize in 1997, which I'm assuming is one of the reasons why it was included in the 1001 Books list (I'm at 122! whee!). Set in Kerala, India primarily in 1969 and moving through the odd flash-forward to present-day (1996), the novel tells the story of two different-egg twins Estha and Rahel before, during and after the tragic death of their British cousin, Sophie Mol.

Told in a narrative style that is frustrating to say the least, Roy's brilliance comes in spurts, where she puts words together in such a fashion that yes, her prose comes close to my heartbreak test, but on the whole, I felt like I was walking through mud while reading this novel. Lovely thoughts about loneliness, the meaning of family and the implication of the caste system permeate the novel as Estha and Rahel discover that life can absolutely change irrevocably in a day, and that one event can stain your entire existence. After Sophie Mol dies, the twins, now separated, wander through life feeling half-whole, disjointed and totally ruined by the emotional damage inflicted upon them.

There's no coherent story, but you get a sense of the events from Roy's vignettes, each told in a very child-like tone: the twins are born into a bad marriage, their flighty, beautiful, but damaged mother takes them back to her mother's house, where they live with their uncle and their great-aunt, their uncle's ex-wife comes to visit from Britain bringing along their beautiful, sand-coloured cousin, said cousin dies tragically, their mother's affair with a Paravan is revealed, his life forever changed, she's shunned, one of the twins must go live with their father, the other becomes totally lost.

But you piece together the events like a puzzle as the novel moves backwards and forwards towards the penultimate event: Sophie Mol's death. The final, deep, dark tragedy, of what happens when the romantic relationship between Ammu, their mother, and Velutha, the Paravan, becomes public knowledge, is an offering from Roy to her own gods of small things, the rights and wrongs of the world, of how love isn't always magical and sometimes simply doesn't change anything, and how some people just become lost in their lives at any age.

Part of my own goals with this Around the World in 52 Books project is to experience the literature of other countries, in this case, India, to feel the sights and the sounds, to breathe in the air a bit differently, and the novel truly accomplishes that—I got a real sense of the surroundings, of Kerala, and of the social and political differences between the characters in the book. Am I glad I read this novel, yes, but would I highly recommend it, probably not, but that doesn't mean someone else wouldn't be totally enthralled by the magical, almost mystical, non-linear storytelling.

The Almost All Clear

Wow. Just got back from the kidney doctor and while my creatinine levels aren't back to their super-fantastic levels of three or four years ago, they are steady and no longer increasing at alarming rates.

And, I don't have to go back and see him for six whole months. That gives me some serious time to try and shake off these prednisone pounds. Apparently, doing everything to ease the load on my kidneys, which includes not being overweight, is a good thing.

So no more procrastinating. Dammit.

TRH TV - 24 & Rome

Okay, so my New Year's Revolution not to watch so much television is actually working (I'm only on week 2, but still). The only two shows I watched this whole weekend (Saturday and Sunday) were 24 and Rome. And if you haven't watched either show yet and they are sitting patiently on your Faux-Vos, please ignore as some of the following might be construed as spoiler-esque.

On the whole, I loved 24 but felt that it was a bit forced in terms of the set up and some of the situations. Sometimes the exposition is so painful (i.e., Karen talks to Bill, LOOKS at her wedding rings, and says, "I wish you were here.") because they don't give enough credit to the audience that we'd get what was going on without the characters overtly telling us. But anyway, here's what I learned/thought last night:

1. Jack is always right. He's been right for five seasons, why is it that when it comes down to making THE decision, the President rarely listens?

2. Chinese prison must be very sunny. Why else would Jack have a tan? And when he cut his hair his neck was still tanned too.

3. He also must have been fed very well; there's not a muscle out of place, even when he takes his shirt off and reveals the SIGNS OF TORTURE, you're still like, whoa, Jack's been working out!

4. Alexander Siddig must get super-tired of getting blown up, and his character seems straight out of Syriana, but whatever, there's this one scene where he's just so absolutely frightening that it gave me chills.

5. Kal Penn playing against type (slightly) is funny. I know it's wrong of me because he's a Serious Actor now, especially with the film version of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake coming out. But seriously dude, I'll bet he was Jonesing for a White Castle when the FBI came around and tore up his sh*t and took his dad away. And what's up with him playing a kid in, and am I correct about this, high school? First off, he may be trim but he still looks like a man and he's 30, or there abouts. A bit of the Andrea Zuckerman going on there.

6. Chloe. Rocks. Even if she is going out with the FoodTV guy that used to date this woman who terrorized me in grade school but then made up for it when I lost my mom and used to call me all the time and be really sweet and sh*t.

7. What's up with Peter MacNicol's eye makeup? Seriously? It's like George on Grey's Anatomy where they can't get the balance right between "shading" and "overtly colouring the lids so that he could step on stage in the drag show at Il Convento Rico."

8. And if he's (Peter MacNicol, see above) a baddie, well, that sucks because we've been there done that last season and I didn't much appreciate the tense, "I'm thinking very hard about this situation and have my hand on my chin in Deep Thought" moments. Yawn.

9. Please, please do not let the fact that neither Kim nor Audrey know that Jack's out of Chinese prison mean that we're in for tearful reunions. Please. I beg you.

10. I got a little choked up when Jack said, "I don't remember how to do this." In the promos for tonight's episodes. Aw, Sensitive Jack is very appealing, even if you know within a matter of, well, hours, he'll have strapped on his Sidebag of Super Tricks and stepped off a plane knowing that he can absolutely make a parachute by the time he almost hits the ground.

Sigh. I am SO glad 24 is back. Oh, and Rome wasn't bad either, but that's Serious TV; it's HBO, so even though you know you won't understand ALL of it, it'll still be miles better than anything else that might be on. And Marc Antony takes his shirt off, A LOT.

The Soundtrack Of Your Life's Work

One of the suggestions that my mentor came back with in her first comments about finding your voice and getting really into your characters and their story, is to find a piece of music that truly suits what you're writing—something to get your mental juices flowing.

The only thing is, I don't even know where to start. I mean, I've got music, lots of it, that I find inspiring, but nothing that suits the piece. It's set in Ontario at the turn of the century and there's not a single song that screams: "This is your character! Pay attention to me."

In my mind, the closest I've come is Neil Young's "Helpless." I wish I had a list of traditional Irish ballads, that might work, or even if I had an idea of what kind of music was popular in New York City at that time, I could find something that might keep the characters firmly entrenched in the period they're supposed to be existing within.

So now, I've got to do some research on what I should probably find inspiring even before I get inspired to re-write the stories I've already recorded on the page.

Bloodletting & Non-Miraculous Events

Okay. Here's a note of what not to do:

Never, ever get the blood requisitions for two different doctors done on the same day in the hope of saving time and energy. What happens? You end up very, very, very lightheaded trying to make awkward conversation in the waiting room with a girl you went to high school with but didn't recognize.

Then, you eat a giant chocolate bar and call your RRHB 14x to pick you up because you don't think you can make it on the streetcar, can't get through, forget you have to buy your brother a birthday card and then fall asleep on the 10 minute ride almost missing your stop.

Consumption Redux II

Okay, so I don't often mix work with blogging but I have some extra copies of Consumption to give away to anyone who wants to read it. I'd really like other people to read it so that a) I can talk to them about it and b) to see if anyone else thinks it's as good as I do (like, still, the best book I've read since Joan Clark's An Audience of Chairs or Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking) and c) to share the love. What good does it do to be in January without something brightening up the dull, grey post-holiday blues?

Holler via email if you want a copy.

#3 - The Emperor's Children

"Do you hang on to clothes you haven't worn for ten years? Or bags of pasta, cans of beans?"
Danielle did not need to answer.
"What is it about books? Perfectly rationale people get crazy about their books. Who has time for that?"
"I measure my life out in books."
"You should be measuring your life by living. Correction: you shouldn't be measuring your life. What's the point?"

Claire Messud’s massively addictive, massively hefty novel ended up on more than one ‘best of’ list this year, not the least of which was its inclusion in the NY Times “The 10 Best Books of 2006.” The Times describes the novel as 'superbly intelligent' and a 'keenly observed comedy of manners,' and I would not disagree. But it's long. And it's wordy, which is in complete contrast to the 2nd book in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge, A True Story Based on Lies.

At first glance, too, Messud's novel seems to retread over well-worn territory, especially for me, in a year where I also read The Good Life and Elements of Style, tackling yet another book about New Yorkers and the tragedy (and its aftermath) of 9/11 might be a bit much for my already broken heart to take.

But that's where I was wrong, Messud's book, while earnest in its intention to examine the subject matter, is not earnest in its narrative style or tone. And the elements of satire that appear as a result of her ability to take these characters so deep into themselves without necessarily letting them in on the joke, ensures that the novel feels a little like a Restoration play written in our very modern age.

The plot of the novel follows the lives three college friends, Marina, Julian and Danielle, ten years or so after their graduation, who are now firmly ensconced in their adult lives, which means essentially nothing considering they are as much adrift as they ever were, from a few months before 9/11 until just after the attacks. There is a firm cast of supporting characters, Julian's boyfriend, Danielle's mother, Marina's socially awkward and strangely surreal cousin with the odd nickname of Bootie, along with the 'Emperor' himself, Marina's father Murray Thwaite, an accomplished, and older, infamous journalist in the style of Hemingway, who smokes, drinks and, ahem, well, you know.

Marina, beautiful, lost and finishing her own manuscript, deliciously self-absorbed and ridiculously Paris-Hilton-with-brains (entitled) in her approach to her life looks to her best friends, Julian, a freelance writer in a totally destructive relationship, and Danielle, the one with the stable job, stable life, stable outlook, to guide her as she lands back home while attempting to finish her book about children's clothes. Life happens. Love happens. Lots happens. But as the planes crash into the two towers, no one in the novel comes out unscathed.

Messud's talent for long, breathy sentences with many, many commas, dashes and other forms of punctuation, means that we know so much about each character, from their brand of Scotch to the workings of their inner minds, that there's always the fear the book will careen off the page. Yet, her skill as novelist means that all of the many threads of their lives are woven into an immaculate quilt, with not a single stitch out of place.

It's fitting, somehow, that my book from the United States, is about New York City, the one place that's been so ingrained in our psyches from books, from film, from television, that it seems so much more than the sum of its magnificent parts. Oddly, it's an apt description of The Emperor's Children as well, it's a magnum opus of a book, an epic of a tale that carries you in and around its over 400 pages without leaving you lost in Alphabet City in the middle of a scorching hot summer season.

If I have one, teeny, tiny criticism, it's that my heart remains firmly in tact, and as much as I admire Messud's skill as a wordsmith, I wanted more in terms of emotional involvement, and even in the book's penultimate moment, when my favourite character, Danielle, finally falls apart, I didn't ever get that catch in my throat I felt while reading Consumption. But it's not like every book can (or should) make you cry.

Books Are In My Blood

As if I didn't know that already, but yesterday, when I should have been editing my latest Classic Starts, I got sucked into doing some ancestral research. When I was in Vancouver visiting my aunt and uncle in November, we were talking about the history of the family, a familiar topic, when it was mentioned in passing that my great-great grandfather was a publisher in London. Now, a publisher of what or when exactly, not to mention whether he worked for someone else or for himself, has still yet to be discovered.

However, I did find some fascinating things. His grandfather, John Mardon, was a Bookseller (as listed in the 1841 census) in St. Sepulchre, or at least that's the parish where he lived when the census was taken. Now, I got to thinking that he too must have published books because, well, if you sold them back then most likely you published as well, and low and behold, here, I've found what I think must be a pamphlet he either published or distributed in 1833.

Now, it's only 50 pounds, so I might buy it, but honestly, how cool is that?

On Setting Aside The Ego

Well, the mail carried with it the first of my mentor's comments for my Humber Correspondance program. Daunting would be the word I use to describe it; and even though I know it's necessary to break down every last bit of the work in order to build it back up again, I can't help but feel a bit defeated. Which then pushes me back into thinking about my interview with Wayne Johnston, who said that there's no shame in discovering yourself a reader and not a writer.

And now I've got to spend the rest of the day revising my Classic Starts. Something that's taken me far, far, far longer than it really should.

Ruth Rendell On Getting Older

What a great article by Ruth Rendell about her philosophy about growing older. Of the many things I like about what she has to say about both the prejudices about the so-called third generation and her own particular ideas about her age, I'd have to say the advice I'm going to follow is about dressing 10 years younger.

Now, that's the last link-based post for today. I promise.

The Best Best Of List

Had I known today would have been all about the links and less about the posts, I would have put them all in one instead of spreading them all out all over...

Annnywwaay. My fav of the 'best of' lists for this year belongs to The Tyee, so sharp, so witty, so full of love for Kevin Patterson.

If I Am Robin...

Does that make my RRHB Batman?

(link c/o here.)

Shot Glass Lust

Despite the fact that I rarely drink hard alcohol, I still want these.

"Work is the curse of the drinking class."

That Oscar Wilde, so witty.

Traveling Pants Find A Nice Home

Check out Ann Brashares house, profiled in the NY Times.

TRH Movie - Notes On A Scandal

It's very rare that I like any movie better than the book, and considering I really enjoyed Zoë Heller's novel, to say I was surprised by the film is kind of an understatement.

Notes on a Scandal follows the story of an upper-class British woman, Sheba Hart (Blanchett), who has an affair with one of her students, 15-year-old Steven Connolly (played by newcomer Andrew Simpson), and must rely upon her much older friend Barbara (Dench) once the affair comes out and her life falls apart.

Only the film is from Barbara's perspective, it follows her life, her narrative and tells the story from her point of view. This means we hear of Sheba's affair second hand, through her retelling of it to Barbara, once the elder woman discovers the lovers in the classroom, ahem, in a precarious position. And Barbara, or "Bar" as Sheba calls her, is nuts, driven to the point of obsession by utter loneliness and maybe a bit of a predilection for mistaking friendship for the intimacy normally found between two adults in a romantic relationship.

But you say, it stars Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, of course it's going to be good. And yes, Dench's Barbara is totally creepy and quite obsessed, and Blanchett's Sheba is one part flighty, one part entitled and always beautiful, which is perfect casting. However, why the film succeeds has more to do with how it manipulates narrative exposition to its advantage. In bookish films where the "book" aspects don't usually work (ahem, Possession, I'm looking at you), it totally ruins the film for me. Here, however, Barbara's obsessive note-taking and journal writing underpins her character so perfectly that it actually makes the movie. And it doesn't hurt that the script is bloody brilliant.

There are a couple of cringeworthy moments, and Bill Nighy as Sheba's husband is stupendous casting (LOVE him), and on the whole, I liked this movie far, far better than I thought I would.

Knit the Classics

How cute is this? And I hope that the sweater class that I've just signed up for does not result in my own version of the "Frankensweater."

#2 - A True Story Based On Lies

The second book in my Around the World in 52 Books challenge is Jennifer Clement's A True Story Based on Lies. I'm counting this as Mexico, although I'm not sure if the author herself is Mexican, but the novel is set in Mexico City.

The story folllows the lives of two women, one a rich young girl called Aura, whose chapters are all entitled 'Every Leaf is a Mouth,' and Leonora, a servant in her household (and her mother), whose headings are all called 'Some Things Were Overheard and Some Said it Was All a Rumor.' As you can probably guess, it's not a simple story as Aura has no idea Leonora is her mother, and the book travels through the latter's past to tell us the story of how the child came to be.

Leonora is a young, impressionable, impoverished girl sent to the convent by her broom-making mother. They live on the outskirts of Mexico City and have been broom-makers for generations. As the book opens, Leonora's own mother explains that generations of twig-collecting girls have been born with mothers wearing no wedding rings:

"'All the fingers in our family are buried without wedding rings. Under the ground there are bouquets of fingers without wedding rings.' Leonora imagines the pale, white bones of her grandmothers' fingers buried beneath the earth."

In an effort to improve her life for good, Leonora is sent away to the convent, where Mrs. O'Connor finds her and brings her to be a nanny and a servant in her household. Once there, Mr. O'Connor takes a liking to her, and eventually gets Leonora pregnant. The child is taken away, and registered as Mrs. O'Connor's, which means a complex relationship begins where Leonora tends to the child, but Aura has no idea she is her mother.

Clement, from what I understand, is a poet first, and the sparse, short paragraphs of this book are filled with lots of sweet bits of metaphorical language, folklore, catechism, magic as well as the actual story. It's a short book, just over 150 pages, but with each paragraph just being a sentence, and much of the book repeating thoughts, images and motifs, it's a short read.

What I liked: the way Clement tells a very complex story about class, race, infidelity and motherhood, in an almost prose poem kind of way. The ending of the novel is utterly heartbreaking, and after reading Consumption, I feel more than ever that every book I'm going to read on this challenge will break my heart. Clement excels at characterization though, as sparse as it is through the book, simple details, like Aura being unable to control her hands (one moves one way; the other another), form complete pictures in my mind.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the fact that this was a story primarily about women. And even though the actions of the men (Mr. O'Connor and his two sons) greatly impact their lives, much of the book feels feminine and reflects these women's particular strengths. Alongside Leonora are Sofia, the oldest servant in the household, and Josefa, the cleaner, who only speaks in one word sentences.

What I didn't like: sometimes I find that poets who write novels can't quite escape their tendency to break traditional form and structure. While for the most part it works, there's a section near the end, all in italics, where a pivotal moment is happening, that essentially repeats all of the folklore-esque bits from throughout Leonora's section for over 10 pages. Here, I thought, it would have been more powerful to actually explain what happened in a more straightforward way, but it's a small nitpicky kind of criticism.

I'm not sure if I would highly recommend this book, like I would Kevin Patterson's novel, but it certainly gave me a flavour and a taste of gender and race relations during the middle of the last century in Mexico, and that's not something I read about everyday. And super props to my friend RC who loaned me this novel and happily gave me my Mexico!

Consumption Redux

I just found this article on CTV.ca about Consumption where Kevin Patterson describes the one job that novels are supposed to do:

"It's a novel, and novels only have one job, and that's to break your heart," Patterson says. "Novels with agendas and messages are frequently bad novels, and certainly the more undisguised and obvious those agendas are, generally, the worse the novel is. So I want the reader to be moved and I want the reader's heart to be broken."

And he's so right; his novel squished my heart into pieces. Now I regret being so flippant about how hot he is when I saw him read in November. He's hot AND smart. Sheesh.

Havana From The Back Of A '57 Pontiac

Fingers crossed this works! Here's a video from our fancy-dancy new camera of us taking a cab back to the hotel from Old Havana.

New Year's Revolutions

So last year, my one Revolution was to be healthy and live like a normal girl again. And old girl, but a normal one none the less, and I think I almost got there. After a shaky start with the ups and downs of the medicine for the disease, and another solid year away from the Boss From Hell (who I was dreaming about last night; it was a nightmare actually), I feel like I am gaining traction and steadily moving towards a calmer, simpler version of "Ragdoll." Call her version 3.50.

What's on deck for this year? Well, I've got to lose some weight. After a year off and on and off an on prednisone, and a full two years into my tragic hip's recovery, it's time to get serious about the weight I've gained. I know everyone has this goal but I'm going to try to make it a reality. I've got my health almost under control; it's time to stop being so lazy about it.

The other main revolution involves writing: I want to finish the first draft of this big story I've been working on; the one I'm workshopping at Humber (got my first note from my mentor yesterday; it was kind of scary!). In order to at least give this the old college try, I'm going to have to stop watching so much TV (noooo!) and cut down on the movies (nooooo!) but the writing time has to come from somewhere.

Lastly, I'm going to try not to complain so much. Those of you who know (and I hope love) me know that I complain a lot. A LOT. Perhaps more than any relatively healthy, happy and perfectly normal person should. It's just what I do and it's got to stop, maybe not all at once, but I'm certainly going to try to be more aware of it and approach everything with an open mind. Let's hope this one even makes it to January 2nd.

And finally, although this isn't my own personal revolution, it's more about my RRHB, as he stops working and embarks upon the giant and massive project that is the renovation of our house, I'm going to do less nagging and not worry so much about the money. He needs some time and space to both finish this project and to find out what he wants to do beyond the rock and roll, which may or may not happen this year, but it certainly needs to while he's still young enough to make the change.

How about you all out there? Any Revolutions on your fronts?

#1 - Consumption

It's oddly fitting that this book straddled my 2006-2007 reading; it's possibly the best book I've read in ages. And it made me cry, full, flooding tears dripping onto the pages. Kevin Patterson's brilliant novel, and I use that word without a hint of exaggeration, centres around a young Inuit girl named Victoria who leaves the north when she's diagnosed with TB to return a virtual stranger becomes an epic tale of how change impacts a culture, which in turn, affects every single character in Consumption.

The title that refers at once to both the disease and to our own consumptive culture, becomes a metaphor for what happens to every single character in the book. Victoria is consumed by the disease and then obsessed with it for the rest of her life. Robertson, a Hudson Bay man and Victoria's husband, becomes consumed with both his love for her and his own material success, striving to find a balance between the place he's fallen for, the Arctic, and the world defined by his own skin colour. Their children, Pauloosie, Justine and Marie, each struggle with growing up in a world, even in the north, more and more defined by material culture. And each child reacts in his or her own way: Pauloosie, who rebels against his father by turning to his grandfather and the land; Justine, who leaves Rankin Inlet the first chance she can get; and Marie, who becomes lost in so many different, heartbreaking ways.

On the periphery of Victoria's life are Bernard and Keith, the community's priest and doctor respectively, and each struggle with their own commitments to their professions and to the barren world they have come to both know and love. The teachers, Johanna and Penny, who go their separate ways, one toward love, the other toward the land, and come to very different ends, and Keith's family back in the States, especially his niece Amanda, who finds her own struggles as a result of her parents' split.

And there's also the story of the third generation, as the Cubans say, of Victoria's parents, Winnie and Emo, who themselves come in off the land when she's taken south to be cured of her TB. Emo takes a job at the newly opened nickel mine and all of their lives are forever changed.

This book is as much about the struggle to remain true in an ever-changing world as it is about the inevitable problems that occur as a result of said change. The moments cannot be taken back, like a wheel set in motion, to use a tired old metaphor, the culture of Patterson's novel explores the very essence of change in the Arctic, using the body, and its diseases, almost as a trope to describe what's happening within.

But what I liked most of all about this book is the clinical eye of Patterson, himself a doctor, as he speaks through Keith Balthazar toward the end of the novel, in a section entitled, "The Diseases of Affluence."

When the immune system is never called upon, it behaves the way underworked soldiers do and makes trouble. If it's not finding infections, then it must not be looking hard enough. So it looks harder, and starts to detect infections that aren't there: thus the terrible toll of autoimmune disease rises steadily in our era of antiseptic floors and single-child families.

An apt description of both my own perilous health situation and a metaphor perhaps for our entire world. We look so hard for what's wrong with us, questing for happiness and material gain, that we haven't noticed that we've infected our own surroundings in ways we can't even fathom yet.

There are moments in this book, little unexpected bits of tragedy that come upon you so suddenly that reveal Patterson's deft hand as a novelist. There are a few spots where the narrative voice breaks, cracks slightly under the pressure of this immense story, but nowhere does it pull you out so much that you lose your way. These characters, so rich and full of life in ways that it's hard to describe without giving the story away, are broad and introspective all at the same time.

I left this book many times, the first time, in the summer when I started to read it and just couldn't get into it; the second, just before we left for Cuba because I didn't want to take a hardcover with me; and the last, between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day because I thought it would be the perfect book to start off my reading for this year. But am I ever glad I finished it. In the end, it remains probably the best book I read in 2006, which is no small feat considering the fact that in that year I also tackled two Jane Austen novels and a Giller Prize winner. It's the first book on my 52 Countries in 52 Books challenge, and even though it doesn't get me any closer to the 1001 Books challenge, it does make me start my reading at home, here in Canada.

I would highly recommend this book to readers and writers; it's one for the shelves for sure.