#19 - Somewhere Towards the End

Diana Athill's inspiring memoir about old age was like a balm these past few days. Tears, anger, emotional eruption, and the fine realization that the prednisone crazies have probably conquered all my good thoughts (despite almost being off the drug), all combined to leave me feeling quite exhausted. Luckily, then, I had this slight memoir to keep me occupied. Athill, who worked in publishing until she retired at age 75 (I don't know how she did it), has written brilliant little book in Somewhere Towards the End.

Narratively, the memoir has echoes of Jean Rhys (who was a friend), Joan Didion, and a touch of Isak Dinesen, and it's sharp, unwavering voice remains focussed and clearly meditative throughout. The book opens with a number of clearly practical observations about age, moves through more traditional memoir-type content (the life and death of her sex life; the important men in her life), and then passes quickly over the idea of regret. Independent and fiercely individual, Athill's words are nothing but inspiring. There are sentences, paragraphs, entire sections to be marked as one reads, which gives one pause to examine one's own life. To imagine the spec of dust one's own ninety-odd years will have left on humanity as a whole.

The parts that I liked best were about death and dying -- the business of it, as such, and how lucky Athill has been in all of her years not to experience too much of it. The idea of luck persists throughout the book and it's not as if Athill is bragging, her stoic, almost upright British self would never stand for such, no, she's simply stating a fact. To have lived her life as she has done meant that she was both incredibly lucky and incredibly hard working. Some advice: avoid television, read a lot, take up gardening, never worry if your life falls somewhat outside of the norm, and experience life moment by moment if you can, taking pleasure out of what brings you happiness.

Now, my fingers are sore to the bone, and my arms and legs ache from lugging pounds of soil, so I am going to sign off by saying prestigious awards or not (the memoir won the Costa Biography Award in 2008), I adored every single inch of this little gem of a book.

Word Power

I am about to head out into the garden to start giving our soil a lift. I've been reading Diana Athill's excellent memoir, Somewhere Towards the End, all morning and wanted to share this:

Getting one's hands into the earth, spreading roots, making a plant comfortable -- it is a totally absorbing occupation, like painting or writing, so that you become what you are doing and are given a wonderful release from consciousness of self.

Considering I haven't felt much like myself lately, maybe some time outside will give my mind a chance to make its way back. Last night, as I was lying on the couch watching television for the 100th day in a row, I decided I've lost my self-confidence. But I suppose that's what trauma does, takes away the delicate balance between putting yourself out into the world and keeping yourself tied up tight, safe. My mother died in September. And it wasn't an easy death. Like Athill says, she's been spared the difficulty of death among her family members, quite a feat considering she's in her 90s now. I envy her. But mainly I'm thankful for this wonderful little book she's written that seems to be helping me today.

I've started a year-long countdown to what I think I might call The Year of Living Royalty. We'll see how it goes.

Coming Up For Air

Life in general has conspired to keep me away from writing these past few weeks. I've spent so much time at a keyboard, both at work and then doing freelance, that working for myself was a chore I just couldn't add to the list. In fact, all I've been doing is writing lists that I never seem to finish, items that never seem to get crossed off, organizational tricks that never seem to actually work. So, of course, it's no surprise that I've ended up with a terrible cough just as spring decides to poke itself up out of my garden in the form of tulips.

We've been couch hunting. It's taken weeks. But at last we ordered both the main stage and a love seat on Saturday morning. I think we've been to every single furniture store in the GTA over the past few weeks. The good news is that the deed is finally done and even though we're incurring costs to have our own fabric put on the couch, at least it's what we want. The house is looking so wonderful that it's hard to believe that it's ours -- and it'll seem like a dream come true when we're actually living downstairs and enjoying all of my RRHB's hard work over the last few years.

Annnywaay. I can't seem to finish anything these days. Not a book. Not a project (have you been within earshot of me complaining?). Not a single damn thing. The foggy-headed disease blues are hovering and just knowing that I'll soon be off the prednisone isn't enough to keep me going. Hard work, hard graft, seems all I'm capable of -- and it's a little disappointing to realize that people all around you don't actually see you for who you are. Someone described me as a "work horse" the other day, and I don't know why it caught me in the wrong way. I've always been a hard worker but right now I just don't see the point. I'm not enjoying anything at the moment. My heart's not in it -- maybe that's why the to do list seems never ending. I just don't have the get up and go to actually get up and get it done.

Annywaaay redux. Today I spent some time in the garden. My RRHB laughed when he saw me hauling the bags of composte from the garage. He said, "There's no way you're going to be able to move that dirt." But the sun had worked its magic over the past few days. The top soil was flexible and I did manage to get one part of the vegetable garden turned. Layers of newspaper, more seeds planted (some spinach; we'll see how it does), and five bags of dirt, compost and clay reducer later, I think we might just have something. Now if I could only convince my neighbour NOT to do our front gardening. Last week he severed my enter lavendar plant simply becuause he didn't know what it was -- didn't know that it's meant to overwinter and not be trimmed back to its bare, bare roots. This is the third lavendar plant he's destroyed. We keep telling him. He keeps laughing. As you can tell, there's a language barrier.

What a metaphor for my life at the moment, huh?

#18 - The Good Wife

Relentlessly addictive, that's how I would describe Robert Goolrick's A Reliable Wife. The manuscript sat on my reader for months. Every time I found myself on page one, I quickly switched back to whatever classic I was currently tackling because I knew if I started I wouldn't want to stop. I wanted to wait until I had an afternoon of free time (right, phftt) and be able to read the book. Of course, I happened upon an extra long subway ride (what the TTC being delayed and having problems? Yawn.) Of course, I had forgotten my book. Of course, I was uninspired by the two classics I'm currently reading (Dracula; Tess of the D'Ubervilles). S0 I started A Reliable Wife. And. Couldn't. Stop. Reading.

The novel opens with an older man, described by himself as somewhat past his youth, but rich, so very, very rich. After the deaths of his wife and daughter, and the loss of his errant (and possibly bastard [as in not his]) son, Ralph Truitt stands on the cusp of the new century having written away for a wife. The woman who replied, the beautiful, dishonest, Catherine Land replied, reinventing herself along the way. A tragic accident on the way to the farmhouse puts them both in a precarious situation: Truitt close to death; Catherine entirely dependent upon his kindness once she nurses him back to health. They marry. And an odd, not entirely unromantic relationship develops out of their mutual need. He's rich; she's poor. He wants his son back; she's got a life that needs atonement, and an ulterior motive. As the rest of the novel unravels, these desires push them in different directions, and both Catherine and Pruitt are changed as a result of their union in ways they might not expect. The result is delicious for the reader.

The novel, while a little predictable (I had figured out one of the twists fairly early on), is utterly addictive. It's also terribly sexy -- full of sensual description and rich in terms of the description of physical affection. No one escapes sex in this novel and it makes people act in ways they might not expect. In some cases, sex turns into love, and love is sometimes mistaken for lust -- regardless, the book never shies away from the utterly human ways in which the act defines relationships. Goolrick has full, descriptive prose that sometimes feels a little over the top at times, yet it never overpowers the story. Quite the opposite, it pulls you into the characters even further, allows to to invest in them emotionally, which makes the drama of the last third even more interesting. All in all, I couldn't get enough of this novel.

#17 - The Believers

Before my head almost exploded from far too many rewrites of my latest Classic Start, I finished Zoë Heller's excellent The Believers. Familiar in tone and even basic story to Mark Haddon's similarly good A Spot of Bother, the novel begins with patriarch and left-wing lawyer Joel Litvinoff having a stroke in court. Rushed to the hospital, Audrey, Joel's cranky, opinionated and almost unlikeable wife, joins her children in the vigil by his bedside. Heller uses the traumatic situation to explore the family dynamics between Joel and Audrey, their daughters Karla (married to Mike) and Rosa, and their son Lenny. Each suffering from their own particular brand of unhappiness, the novel pulls the family apart like stringy cheese before she melts them all back again for the final scenes.

Despite the fairly Ann Patchett-like twist that I felt was kind of unnecessary (and that I won't spoil here), I can't think of a book I enjoyed so thoroughly in the last few months. Family drama lends itself nicely to Heller's voice and characterization. And she never shies away from conflict or uncomfortable situations in her novels, the kind of Sunday afternoon family dinners that can be so painful yet necessary are dissected with her clinical eye for weakness and exploited for their dramatic values throughout this novel.

Of the interwoven stories, I enjoyed Karla's the most -- a social worker dedicated to helping others and pleasing her union-boss husband (he wants to have kids; they're trying; then perhaps adopting) -- she begins an awkward, unlikely affair with the owner of the newspaper stand in the hospital where she works. The love affair with Khaled proves a catalyst for Karla to change her life and her evolution was the most satisfying. Not that Audrey's acerbic, sharp-tongued personality wasn't engaging, but it wasn't until the novel explored how she came to love her troubled (drug addicted) son Lenny that she truly felt human to me. The opening parts of the book did a little to set up that side of her, but it was Heller's unwavering honesty about Audrey's maternal limitations that finally brought her into full colour. Rosa and Lenny (the former exploring religion; the latter tumbling back into his heroin habit) also had their time in the narrative sun but, by the end, I just felt Karla's story was the most satisfying.

Annnywaay, small criticism for a book that does just what a literary novel should: create characters that challenge their environment, that evolve throughout the pages, that highlight the particular human problems that modern, Western families face today. A deep-seeded unhappiness guards their every move, despite their apparent affection for both each other (even if that's hard to get at) and for their dying father. He's larger than life, and they're all just trying to escape from his high-afternoon shadow. And regardless of their particular beliefs, whether personal, political, religious or simply philosophical, not a single member of the Litvinoff family survives unscathed from Joel's illness, and nor they should.

#16 - Life Sentences

I have a literary crush on Laura Lippman. Last year around this time, I interviewed her for Another Thing to Fall, the latest novel in her Tess Monaghan series. She answered my questions patiently and honestly (via email), which made me crush even harder. Two weekends ago, mired in the fog of disease and a decided lack of energy, I cuddled into bed with her latest novel, Life Sentences. Her latest stand-alone novel, like What the Dead Know, is also based on a real Baltimore criminal case. In this novel, Lippman mixes it up a bit, however, with her characters -- the main one, Cassandra Fallows, is a writer. And not even a crime writer.

With two successful memoirs behind her, Cassandra's third book, a novel, isn't doing so well. A lonely night on her latest book tour turns up a kernel of an idea: she'll write from truth once again, this time exploring the lives of her childhood friends. One in particular, a woman named Calliope Jenkins who spent seven years in jail for killing her child (but who never admitted the truth to anyone). A platform to explore issues of race, priviledge, memory and friendship, the novel exquisitely circles around itself, mixing in sections of Cassandra's successful books with points of view from other characters, until it reveals the truth.

There are so many reasons why I liked this book -- the insider's perspective on the publishing industry, the fast-paced nature of the narrative, and the rich characterization of both Cassandra and the supporting players. Lippman writes women well without falling into the typical stereotypes that sometimes plague lesser crime/commercial writers. She elevates them, regardless of their damaged state, into real people, and never passes judgement on their habits (alcohol for some; sex for another) and/or motivation unless it's to empower someone by the end of the story. Overall, there's not much else to say except that it's a pretty darn good read.

TRH The Weekend Edition

It seems that the only time I have for writing these days comes during the weekend. I've been working non-stop on my latest Classic Starts manuscript both Saturday and Sunday (of last weekend) and yesterday we spent the day out and about looking at furniture. We are moments away from having the main floor finished (with the exception of the kitchen). The trouble now comes with finding furniture. Every little step (deciding on a wallpaper for the downstairs bathroom, talking about the style of couch that we like) gets us that little bit closer to the goal. But we were both sure tired by the time we got home. I've finished two books (The Believer and Life Sentences), watched a really great movie that I'd love to blog about more fully (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and wish that I didn't have work to do so I could get to the more fun stuff. Alas, here I go, back to abridging.

TRH Movie - The Oscar Edition

There's still time, right? Can I squeeze one more movie in before tonight's show? Last week I handed over my Oscar ballot (still humming on my victory from last year) for my work pool convinced that my toonie might as well be lost for good. For some reason, I'm not as excited as I normally am about the Academy Awards. And while I'm enamoured as the rest of the world with the sweetness that is Slumdog Millionaire, the rest of the performances (from what I've seen) are kind of meh.

Actresses everywhere must be clamouring to work with Stephen Daldry. He led Nicole Kidman to her underwhelming The Hours performance that won her statuette and now the same kind of ultra-serious, aided by makeup and dowdiness, performance will enable Kate Winselt to win (if I'm predicting correctly). She should have won for Little Children, she was excellent in that film, but when set against the powerhouse that was Coutillard and La Vie en Rose, you can see why she didn't. This year, the Academy's making it right, even perhaps if it shouldn't -- I mean neither film, The Reader nor Revolutionary Road, is really up to scratch in terms of the best in film for 2008, regardless of what a powerhouse Winset was in either role.

The Wrestler vs Milk. It's a hard one. And one that'll probably bring down my ballot. I adored Milk and even though the story telling was conventional, truly feel it's one of the film's that should be celebrated. The supporting performances are excellent, both James Franco and Josh Brolin deserve nominations, even wins, and neither will get it (Franco wasn't even nominated even though he's now won the Spirit Award) because the steam-rolling, ham-boning (I know, do not speak ill of the dead, I know) Joker will reign supreme. It's not that I didn't enjoy Ledger's performance in the Batman film, it's more the defeat around the reasons why everyone's still talking about it, more about his life and how it ended than his acting. It's one of the same reasons why Mickey Rourke will win, or at least I'm betting that he'll win, not necessarily because Ram was the role of a lifetime, but because it was the role that came around in this point in his career. If I were the Academy, I'd be handing the Oscar over to Richard Jenkins or Sean Penn, but I don't think that'll happen tonight.

I'm babbling, I know. But after watching a pile of movies over the last little while, it's really discouraging to feel that so many are mediocre. I enjoyed The Wrestler (more than my RRHB) and I enjoyed The Reader, but they're kind of like excellent community theatre when placed next to the Maria Callas-calibre showing of some of the pictures from last year, like the aforementioned La Vie en Rose. In fact, the movie I've liked the most over the past few weeks is Ghost Town with Ricky Gervais, sweet, funny, smart, engaging -- all the qualities I look for in a picture. Don't even get me started on Revolutionary Road and how the much the picture ruins the book. That's a different post. But, I will end by saying that I'm going to cheer on Slumdog Millionaire, because the heart in that film, regardless of the fairly typical love story, and its somewhat original, magical storytelling, kept me thinking for days afterward.

The Words That Fill Up A Day

I've been banging on about the great content in Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop newsletters for a while now, and another good one arrived yesterday. And the idea of being "spent" got me thinking about how much information passes me by in a single day of working, reading and generally being on this earth. So I've decided to keep a rough track today of all the things I've done. It's a running commentary that's sort of inspired by Twitter, only with more context:

1. Start the day off by reading Book2Book, a UK trade newsletter, on the blackberry. Am drawn to this article that then sends me off to the Colin Robinson diary that I read yesterday afternoon. Ponder this for a second again over breakfast:

This privileging of the writer at the expense of the reader is borne out by statistics showing the annual output of new titles in the US soaring towards half a million. At the same time a recent survey revealed that one in four Americans didn’t read a single book last year. Books have become detached from meaningful readerships. Writing itself is the victim in this shift. If anyone can publish, and the number of critical readers is diminishing, is it any wonder that non-writers – pop stars, chefs, sports personalities – are increasingly dominating the bestseller lists?

Read a little bit of Gabor Mate's When the Body Says No and start The Master and the Margarita on the way in to work.

2. Read a bit of the Quill and Quire as computer boots up. Glance at Daily Candy, Sweetspot.ca and Shelf Awareness newsletters on the handheld. Simply delete Haro. Shelf Awareness links me to an article on Variety about Pride and Predator. Consistently stunned about this news no matter where it's reported.

3. Work email. Actual work. Check web stats. Check MSN.

4. Learn about the upcoming Updike bio from Mediabistro. (Briefly considered started Rabbit, Run last night in honour of Updike's passing but realized how much I hated it when I tried to read it three years ago.)

5. Read an article as it's posted up on MSN. Put in a missing period.

6. More work email. Meeting about data. More work email. Reading data reports. More work email. Login to both my Twitter accounts. Read the Amazon top 100.

7. Read the daily review over at the new Globe Books section. Am reminding of the best math teacher in the world from high school who actually got me to understand and excel at the subject. And then promptly almost failed in Grade 12 when I got a different teacher who was terrible. Have decided I have severe "arithmophobia." Browse Media in Canada.

8. This is a question I often ask myself.

9. Reading @stephenfry. It's work, honest, we have a book coming out by him this summer.

10. Willa Cather's 100 Year Old Minimalism takes me to Fifty-Two Stories. Am kind of enamoured by the idea of leaving deliberate blank spaces.

11. PW on Fifty-Two Stories.

12. Everywomansvoice via newsletter. Work email. More work email. More more work email.

And that's only until lunch.

#15 - The House of Spirits

Having never read any Isabel Allende before, and knowing how beloved (and lovable the author is; she came into the office about a year ago and wowed everyone) her novels are worldwide, I had earmarked The House of Spirits as a book I assumed I would devour. Yet, I found my attention drifting almost from the beginning and had to work really hard to finish all 433 pages of the book. The epic story of a South American family (Chilean, I'm assuming) who cope with decades of excess followed by the political turmoil that threatens to completely destroy them, it's no wonder the novel is included in the 1001 Books list. It absolutely deserves to be, it's a book full of the wonder and magic that often accompanies Latin-American fiction (dare I say magic realism, dare I? I know, it's painful to do so, I do hate those generic descriptions) and chock full of the kind of strong, independent female characters that are ever-so lacking in the list as a whole.

But as I'm coming to find in my old age, I like cynical, swift prose. Maybe cynical is the wrong word, maybe detached would be better. Regardless, I can see the irony in my even writing this because (as the fellows in my writer's group can attest) I write long, complex and fruity sentences. The longer the better. Annywaaay, Allende's talent for creating gorgeous and alive worlds, from weaving political and social messages into her prose, and for writing love in ways that rival García Márquez cement her place as one of the greats working today. A story of three generations, the novel begins simply, with the arrival of a very special pet (a dog) under very special circumstances. "Barrabás came to us by sea," writes Clara, the spiritual child who eventually marries and whose children end up leading incredible lives.

The story spreads out then as complex as the family tree that serves as its roots. But Clara remains its heart, even as she ceases to grace the pages in her human state. And just as every heart needs a body, the big house in the city that she called home centres the novel in a particular place (that's not to say that a good part of the action doesn't happen in the Trueba's country home; it does). Clara's husband, the formidable and furious Esteban, balances out his wife's more esoteric characteristics and together they live a long (and for the most part happy in a way) life raising their children, and then their grandchild, Alba.

Time winds its way through the pages at first on the edges as the way of life for the family changes little until the country forces change upon them. Communism rises and then falls. Then a dictatorship comes along and destroys what good might be left (as the narrative makes clear), forcing people to flee and the old ways to be lost forever. Through it all, through the rise and the fall of the Truebas, Allende's passionate writing never feels forced, but to me, I wonder if it's all necessary. All of those words, those many, many words. However, I'm going to temper my writing about the book by the fact that my head is foggy, my concentration bogged down by medication and a distinct lack of focus. None of this remains the book's fault. And not once would my sluggish reaction to the book convince me not to pick up another of Allende's novels.

READING CHALLENGES: Two birds with one stone time: The House of Spirits is on the 1001 Books list and its author Chilean, so I'll count it towards Around the World in 52 Books too.

#14 - The Sad Truth About Happiness

First, a confession: I read Anne Giardini's book because I love the title so much that even before I started, I had already made up my mind that I would enjoy the novel. As Maggie, the narrator, tells us from the beginning, she's the sober, well-adjusted middle child caught between two stormy sisters, who has never made a misstep in her entire life. For most of her thirty-two years, she's done the right thing: got good grades, found a stable job (as a mammogram technician), had a few misguided love affairs, and lived her life responsibly. Her older sister Janet and her younger sister Lucy are the drama queens in the family and no one expects Maggie to get up to anything remotely considered wayward. That is until her sister Lucy's ex-lover comes over from Italy to try and take her newly born nephew back with him (I'm not giving anything away; this fact is in the back cover copy!). Maggie's actions are rash and the consequences everlasting.

The Sad Truth About Happiness is by no means a perfect novel. Deeply flawed in many ways, the story feels a little far fetched, too movie-of-the-week, especially when it gets into the meaty middle section. Giardini's writing is often messy at times, she repeats bits and pieces that have no real relevance to the story, and there's a lot of "telling" in this book.

But, by the end I didn't care. I didn't care because life is messy. I didn't care because there's so much heart in this book that it's impossible not to get caught up in Maggie's life, in her insomnia, in the way that she looks at the ideals of happiness that seem to drive our modern society. I didn't care because I was hooked from the very first paragraph. I simply couldn't (and didn't want) to put the book down. Particularly poignant parts of the book are found within Maggie's relationship to and description of her aged parents, their eccentricities and obvious love for one another; of her deep understanding and explanation of how she came to her profession, the clarity and emotion from which she writes of disease, especially cancer; and of the tipping point when Maggie is spurned into action and how she copes with the aftermath.

In the P.S. section of the book, Giardini describes her sister Catherine reading some of her work and exclaiming, "put a fire into it," and you can see the spirited way that the author has interpreted this idea throughout the book. The prose has fire to it and, to add in my own overused cliche, it certainly burns from beginning to end. In the end, I picked up the novel as I said because the title is just so striking and I am so very glad that I did. This is the perfect book for book clubs, for women to hand over to one another over lunch, for best friends to talk about late into the night.

READING CHALLENGES: Anne Giardini is Canadian (and the daughter of Carol Shields) and obviously a woman so I'm counting The Sad Truth About Happiness as the 11th book in my Canadian Book Challenge. And for those of you still looking for titles for your own challenge, it's good to note that Giardini lives (and writes about) Vancouver. The setting is a very real and very solid backdrop for this book in particular. So, two more to go!

TRH Updates - The Pause

This might be the longest I've gone without blogging. Over the past two weeks, I've been tumbled upon by side effects and started to slowly weaning myself down in terms of the prednisone dosage. Hopefully, the world will open up now that I'm not taking as much medicine but the sadness persists regardless. For the most part, I'm finding it hard just to leave my house in the morning. This week was particularly difficult. I've done a lot of crying in my cubicle. It's not normal -- I realize that -- it's all the meds, but it doesn't make the day-to-day any easier. So I've been keeping quiet. I suppose no one wants to hear over and over again how miserable I am in my head. To the outside world, things are grand: work is fine, house is coming along swimmingly, RRHB is well, and the disease isn't killing me at the moment. To the inside world, it's a different story: there's panic welled up inside at the thought of leaving the house, all of television is making me bored, and the billows of depression seem to well up like a Greek tragedy threatening to overtake me entirely. Thankfully, the waves haven't swept me away just yet.

The Quiet -- Just Can't Do It

These days I'm trying to fill up the hours before I turn on myself without the will power of Ed Norton's Incredible Hulk and destroy all the good work of the last few years. The last time I dealt with the predisone crazies, truly dealt with them, it took me a long time to battle back and I think I'm more afraid of the crippling blues than I am of the disease actually killing me.

What's more, I haven't had much to say other than disease-related, general unhappiness, boring blah-de-blahs lately. It's tiring for me; I can't even imagine what it might be like for someone else to read or talk about it. I don't want to leave my house but at the same time I feel trapped. I don't want to talk but at the same time I feel so lonely. I don't want to hang out with my friends but I also don't want to sit around talking to myself all day. I don't want to sit around watching TV but I honestly don't have the energy to do anything else. So before I go absolutely bonkers, here's a list.

1. I learned that my new Classic Starts manuscript needs more work. I actually kind of expected this because it (the book) was hell to abridge and I knew it wasn't quite right when I sent it back. I'm still waiting for the substantive notes from the editor but hopefully they'll come sooner rather than later so I can get back to it.

2. Writing involves confidence that I don't seem to have at the moment. We watched the Joe Strummer documentary and it was excellent -- there was a scene when he was in the studio and said something about how great it feels the first time to do something, the first time you get it down, then you listen to it back and it all falls to shit.

3. My nephew was so tired when we were babysitting this week that he fell asleep watching Wall-E. It was cute.

4. Our kitchen floor has tile. It looks really great. As does all the trim downstairs. We are weeks, not months, away from having a main floor (not a whole kitchen just yet but soon). Today we were looking at carpets and couches. You can imagine my glee.

5. The weather last Sunday was so gorgeous that we walked all the way to Kensington and back, bought some groceries, and the fresh air was constitutionally exceptional.

6. For a girl who hates gardening, I sure am looking forward to growing vegetables. Today I said to my RRHB, "I'm going to need to figure out what seedlings to start soon." Can you believe it?

7. I don't think I've cried this much in a long time. I keep bursting into tears at work. Good thing we have shower doors to close and no one seems to notice how puffy I am.

8. Perhaps Gordon Ramsay does swear just a bit too much. I may need to break up with Hell's Kitchen. The stress of watching the show is unbelievable.

9. Bringing my lunch into work has reminded me how much I do enjoy a sandwich.

10. [This is a rhetorical question]. How does one stop the crazies after they've already begun? I know how to do it but my head is such a mess these days that if one more person asks me for something I honestly might crack in half in front of them. Now that would be a sight, wouldn't it?

#13 - Revolutionary Road

Richard Yates's novel, Revolutionary Road, has been sitting beside my bed for over a week. I'm finished reading it but I didn't want to put the book away. In a way, I sort of felt as though I wasn't quite done with the novel. It's honestly one of the best books I've read in a long time, a definite modern classic, a story with the cold, almost clipped air of Capote with a desperate current of sadness running throughout. I have yet to see the movie and, in a way, even though it's the only reason I've read the book, I don't want to now. I'm too afraid it'll ruin it. Even still, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet were running through my head as the two main characters: Frank and April Wheeler. I guess that's not to be helped.

As two young people, Frank's just about to turn 30, and April's a few years younger, playing hard at adulthood during the early 1960s, the Wheelers have everything. Two kids, a lovely home on Revolutionary Road, and should, for all intents and purposes, be happy. Yet, they're not, they fight, sometimes for days at a time, and both cling to a sense of unease that bubbles up and surfaces in their actions not only toward one another but to other people in the world. The clinical nature of Yates's prose, his exacting way with words, cuts them down piece by piece, pulling out the human bits within the detrious of their suburban lives. The novel is Mad Men only Frank's not as interesting as Don Draper, which makes it even more tragic, I think. People smell bad in Revolutionary Road; they appear in ways that betray their perfect stone paths and upkept lawns. Life is never what it seems on the surface, not for a single character, and no one survives unscathed.

So, one day, when April hatches a plan, to escape to Paris and start over so that Frank can really find himself, there's a spark of interest and ingenuity to both of their lives. Suddenly, they're better than their neighbours, different, not the same sheep on the commuter train. Only change is hard to make, it doesn't come easily and it never turns out the way you'd expect, especially in this novel. I haven't even seen the picture and I'm going to recommend reading the book first. I simply don't see how it could possibly be any better.

Medicine Makes You Feel 100 Years Old

Between the side effects and the long lists of things that could possibly interact with aforementioned medicines, I feel trapped by all of the modernities that are supposed to be making me better, my life better. Chemical taste in my mouth like a bad song stuck in your head, no matter what you do, you're never rid of it entirely. Woozy, nauseous, hair falling out, puffy cheeks, ever-increasing appetite, tired skin, upset tummy, tired, cranky, the list goes on. And fighting. It seems I just want to fight all the time. Maybe that'll be my superhero power: starting fights.

#12 - Ignorance

The last Milan Kundera book that I read was The Unbearable Lightness of Being. At the time I was living in Banff, Alberta with about six other women in a townhouse that had no furniture barring a really old, uncomfortable couch. We all slept on the floor in sleeping bags, worked awful jobs, drank too much and climbed many mountains (literally). I loved that book. But more I loved the experience of reading that book in that particular time and that particular place. In a way, it's like Melanie pointed out in the comments here a few weeks ago, sometimes the books just choose us.

Kundera's Ignorance takes these themes, or maybe ideas would be a better word, of time and place and how experience is tied explicitly to both, and explores them through two characters returning to their homeland after an extended absence. Irena and Josef run into one another in an airport, both having emigrated from their homeland (Prague) years ago, by chance. They make plans to have lunch the next day to catch up. For both, the return home is bittersweet, political regimes have changed, they've both moved on with their lives, had families, spouses, entire existences outside of the people they've left behind.

Is this right, if I say, "to coin a phrase"? -- "You can never go home again." The saying feels true for so many reasons. The time and the place will never be just the same again, it'll always be tempered by our particular experiences, and the philosophical implications of such, and that's what happens to both Irena and Josef. They feel the need to explain themselves: why they left, why it took them so long to come home, and what their lives turned out to be in their adopted countries. It can't be an easy thing, coming home after years away when everything is different, older, changed, and you somewhat expect it to be the same. Not because of a conscious realization that change didn't or couldn't happen while they were away but more so because it's impossible to imagine how much could be different.

Lives move so slowly in a way. Age catches up with people. Time turns hair gray and adds infinite bits and pieces to memories. But if you go ten, twenty years without seeing a member of your family or your friends, the awkwardness of the reunion will always remind you of how ignorant you are of the day-to-day occurences in their lives. There's no judgment in Kundera's novel about the impact of change for these two characters, in a sense, the narrator's merely observing the moments where they realize the implication of their emigration. For a girl who's always thinking of what it might be like to live somewhere different, it was an interesting book to read, a little bittersweet, and more than a little sad, but wholly fascinating.

READING CHALLENGES: One of the books from the 1001 Books list so I'll cross it off from there. Kundera was born in Brno, Czechslovakia, which is now the Czech Republic, so I'll add him to the Around the World in 52 Books challenge too. It's interesting, to read a book that's about returning to a place that has utterly changed since the collapse of communism. The book honestly made me want to go to Prague and isn't that just the point of my armchair travelling reading?

#11 - Got You Back

Jane Fallon's latest novel, Got You Back, retreads familiar territory -- the novel starts off, like Getting Rid of Matthew, with a cheating spouse (him) and the two women who are left to deal with his emotional wreckage. But even if the situation feels similar, the new novel is wholly different than her first book, the characters are fresh and new, and she never lets her writing fall down or stumble into the well-trodden clichés of the Sophie Kinsellas of the chick lit world.

Stephanie's husband of the last ten years, James, is leading a double life. He spends half his time in rural England tending to his veterinary practice -- and living with his mistress, Katie. He's got the best of both worlds: savvy, stylish Steph at home and comfy, cozy Katie while he's away. The trouble for James begins when Steph and Katie discover one another (and the fact that he's been lying to both of them) and they vow to get revenge. And let me just say: poor James. But also let me say that the book doesn't go or end up the way you'd think that it would. All of the characters grow and change and none in expected ways. Fallon's prose is light and frothy but she has such a knack for keeping the reader engaged. Also, her dialogue sparkles right off the page -- I know, it's a little cheesy, but it's true. Got You Back is a like a vacation -- warm, sunny, and always entertaining, and I'd highly recommend it for that one weekend you really wish you could just get away.

READING CHALLENGES: Fallon's British and the novel takes place in London and even though it's not the kind of book that I'd usually pick for Around the World in 52 Books, I'm counting it for now. Don't judge me.

#10 - Confession

Perhaps it's apt to start off reviewing Lee Gowan's latest novel, Confession, with two of my own: 1) I've taken more than one creative writing class with the author and therefore admire him greatly both as a writer and as a teacher; and 2) I enjoyed the last book of his that I read, The Last Cowboy, very much so when I saw that he had a new book, I was excited.

But now, almost a week after finishing the book, I still have some mixed feelings -- not about the quality of the prose (which is excellent) or the fact that I enjoyed the book (which I did, immensely) -- about how to write the review. How much do I reveal about the plot without spoiling it? How do I characterize the interesting way the author has created the story? What kind of comps would I suggest?

Confession's unreliable and slightly off-kilter narrator, Dwight Froese, has changed his name, found himself a new job, and desperately wants to stay close to his daughter. Trapped by both circumstance and landscape in a life that truly presents him with little options for happiness, Dwight tells and retells the story of how he ended up in Toronto. Raised in Broken Head, Saskatchewan by a young mother and a much older father (a very complex situation if my instincts [and reading ability] are correct), Dwight has always had a particular relationship with God. Whether it was his father seeing Him one day profess his death by the hand of his son, or simply just the comfort he finds in his spirituality, Dwight's morals are dictated by a higher power. And because he sits outside of conventional society, in a way, Dwight can see, understand and imagine a world that's not necessarily the norm.

The tragedy in his story comes from the fall, as one might imagine, not necessarily from grace but maybe from reality or, rather, the clash of his own perspective with that of the rest of society. The novel is heady and spends a lot of time exploring Dwight's thoughts, actions and relationships. As it's told from his point of view, the book remains intense from start to finish. The voice feels wholly original but also harkens back to familiar characters -- pop culture icons like Travis Bickle -- in the sense that he's an outsider. Overall, both the strength and success of the novel lies in the author's ability to create a character that's at once as unlikeable as he is compelling. It's a delicate balance, a difficult one, but one worth the investment by the time the end of the book rolls around.

If I had to think of comparative titles, I'd say there's a touch of the fierceness from Theft, a little bit of the structure found within The Double Bind, and a fair bit of 1970s-early 80s New York cinema, think Scorsese and Badlands. Keep in mind, the novel opens with a quote from Dostoevsky, and there are existential themes of crime and punishment within as well. But I sure would love to know what anyone else thinks...as you can probably tell, I'm still making up my mind about it all.

Bad Disease Day Blues

Yesterday might have been the worst "disease day" I've had in a few years. The full implication of the side effects from the prednisone came crashing down as I came face to face with the crazies. Suppressing my immune system means I keep catching all kinds of infections, which aren't worth noting except to say that combined it's all just a bit too much. Spent much of yesterday vacillating between bawling in my cubicle and wanting to drive myself head first out our 20th floor window. I know it's not rational. I know it's the prednisone. Having been through this all before, I can recognize that the medicine is turning my brain into a gloomy source of desperation and despair, but it still doesn't make it any easier to get through the day.

Sometimes, just sometimes, it's hard to stay positive when something so strong pulls you in the other direction. I fell down a little yesterday and just cried for a good long while. My RRHB was very kind by the time I got home and let me get it all out. Really, all I wanted was someone to tell me that it's all worth it, that it's a good thing to keep fighting the disease, that it's a good thing I'm not dead. I know none of this is rational. But there are moments when I can't pull myself up from under the weight of it all.

Today, though, is better.

#9 - Once

I think I tweeted last week about being so caught up in one of Rebecca Rosenblum's stories from Once that I completely missed the fact that our VP was standing right next to me on the subway. He laughed and said, "Good book?" when I finally realized he'd been there for almost my entire ride. And they are just that addictive, drawing you in from almost the first sentence, creating a world that sits slightly askew of the one you live in everyday, and then finishing completely.

I'm consistently amazed by the innovative ways young writers have when looking at the world. Rosenblum's characters -- people waiting for the bus heading to awful jobs, young immigrants, a family struggling to make sense of their situation -- are atypical. And yet, how often do you sit on the bus completely oblivious to the girl wearing three inch heels who carries on up Landsdowne after we all pile off and into the subway? But those people, sometimes lonely, sometimes burdened, always intriguing, make up the core of her characters. There's always something to explore in Rosenblum's world, and her keen writer's eye leaves little untold.

In the end, I suppose picking out one or two favourite stories might be the way to go, but it's hard when they're all so different and so, well, good. If I had to choose, I'd say my absolutely favourite would been "Linh Lai." A young immigrant girl who lives with her relatives tries to navigate her new world, holding tight to some very special talents, she gets a part-time job at a restaurant that is frequented by more than a few characters in the book. Charming, whimsical and full of great sneakers, the story stood out for me. But I honestly enjoyed every single story, their sad undertones, their slightly awkward protagonists, and the thorough ache of lives bursting with the kind of promise that never seems to quite bubble to the surface as it should.

READING CHALLENGES: Rebecca Rosenblum lives and writes in Toronto, so I'm counting Once as a part of this year's The Canadian Book Challenge. I'm way off in terms of books I picked at the outset but I don't think it matters as long as I'm still within my "for the ladies" theme.

WHAT'S UP NEXT: Blogging Lee Gowan's Confession, which I might leave until tomorrow so I can think about the book a little more... For now, I think I might start my Harlequin assignment for this week and then watch a movie. Foggy-cold-head makes for very poor book reviewing.