snad's book blog

I Bought The Help at Walmart

2012-02-15T21:22:00.000-05:00

The Help. It's a very hyped book and movie. It's got mass appeal. It's not the kind of book I'd pick up. I mean, I have EM Forster's Maurice in my purse and I'm re-reading Sputnik Sweetheart in the vague hope that I'll finally understand it.

I don't read mass appeal books.

But there I was at Walmart, staring at a pile of these books, and I thought, "You know, if there was a place to buy this book, it's here." And I picked it up. I didn't even feel embarrassed when I got to the cash. It was all OK. I was buying a book. At Walmart.

I also bought my favourite recycled toilet paper.

SOPA Blackout

2012-01-18T07:34:00.000-05:00

I'm doing the SOPA blackout thing. I don't know all the details, but I'm trusting Wikipedia on this one.

I also don't like the idea that, potentially, my blog could be shut down if someone complained about my quoting some piece of poetry or some book. If that's possible. Which it might not be.

In any case, I'm doing it.

I Hate You, eBook Previews!

2012-01-15T16:58:00.001-05:00

I have a bone to pick with eBook previews.

I don't really read eBooks. I prefer the good old fashioned books where you can keep your page, but skip a few pages ahead or behind without having to bookmark your page, tap the screen a few times, and then go back. But this isn't about the merits of eBooks.

I buy most of my books online because 90% of the time the only book store anywhere close to where I live -- a big box bookstore -- doesn't carry what I want. Because I can't go into a bookstore and have a "sample read" of most of the books I want, I rely on eBook previews to make decisions about what to buy.

Lately, though, I've downloaded a bunch of previews that only provide the table of contents, acknowledgements and dedications. Everything else is locked. And now, while I'm sure it's nice to know that a book was dedicated to Henry, Alison and Mooshy, and their baked goods, but it doesn't help me decide whether or not I like the writing, tone, cadence or subject matter of the book.

I mean, dammit, eBook publishers, it costs you almost nothing -- NOTHING! -- to publish an eBook. Would it kill you to provide one chapter? It's not like people are just going to keep reading that first chapter over and over again and never buy the book if they really like it. The alternate scenario is that people won't buy books they might like because there is no preview. Cuz it's not like you can return a book to Amazon. (Can you? Like what would you say? "I'm returning this book because, based on a casual skimming of the book, I can tell that I won't feel anything but apathy toward the main character"? What if you read the last chapter and didn't like the ending? Is that a good reason to return a book?)

Anyways, my guess is that publishers don't think proper previews are necessary because there are enough people out there who buy books because Oprah told them to, regardless of the content of the book. I mean even I bought stupid Villette because the Internets told me to. (Though we all know that that ended in tears.)

*sigh*

You know what the worst thing about this is? It's that the latest shitty previews I downloaded belong to books that even my local library doesn't carry. But the story of how bad my library sucks is for another day.

Now I'm going to go back to Skippy Dies, a book I bought on a whim at the bookstore when a casual skim made me laugh out loud.

Bow Before My Geekiness.

2011-12-06T16:19:00.001-05:00

I don't get it: The Sisters Brothers

2011-12-05T20:31:00.001-05:00

The Sisters Brothers was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and The Giller Prize. It was recommended by Amazon, Indigo, the chick in the bookstore, and some guy on the radio. There was a write-up about it where someone went on about the book's design and how awesome it was. So when I found it in soft-cover (I don't buy hard cover), I bought it right away despite really wanting to finish up Dombey and Son.

I was expecting a lot. What I got, though, was the cowboy, post-modern lit version of Seinfeld: It's a book about nothing.

Now don't get me wrong: I loves me a book about nothing! I've read four Barbara Pym novels and absolutely nothing happens in those novels. I mean, what happened in Jane and Prudence? Nothing! OK, Miss Whatserface ends up with the widower instead of Prudence and Prudence starts dating that guy in her office. Yeah, tonnes of action there! And just the other day I was telling my workmates -- a bunch of engineers who all list "Lord of The Rings" as the last book they read -- that a book doesn't "need a twist" to be good. But I spent the whole of The Sisters Brothers waiting for something -- anything! -- to happen.

All right, all right...In all fairness things do happen: Eli's tooth gets infected and they meet some random women and they run into some guy who's crying on his horse and they meet a kid on a dying horse and whatnot, but it's like some kind of cheap version of Krzysztof Kieślowski's Trois Couleurs series where the random actions in the background all have some kind of metaphysical meaning. And by "cheap version" I mean that none of these background actions appear to have any metaphysical meaning. It literally feels like an unfunny, Old West, post-modern lit Seinfeld.

There is a dramatic dénouement at the end where our two protagonists change, but it's not like a real epiphany. It's not Lucy Honeychurch coming to grips with her non-conformity and marrying George. It's not Renton realizing that his friends are assholes and running off with their money. It's not even Rob and Laura's anticlimactic realization that it's just easier to stay together than to start over, apart. No. It's nothing.

It is a book devoid of point.

And it made me wonder what everyone saw that I didn't see.

From The Shelf of Books Left Unread: Loose End by Ivan E Coyote

2011-11-06T14:04:00.000-05:00

I have a whole shelf of books that I haven't read. Actually, my new bookshelf can only stack books two levels deep, so it's two shelves of books. But whatever. In any case, I have a pile and a half of books that I've accumulated over time that have been left unread. Many of them are leftovers from back when I was doing my radio show, when publishing houses would send me piles of craptastic books for my "consideration". These books were usually Canadian and they were usually boring as all get out. Sure, occasionally I'd get something awesome like...like...um...OK, I never got anything awesome. I got a few Camilla Gibb books, but unlike everyone else in Canada, I can't abide her writing. So I'd just abandon her books in building lobbies and on subway trains, hoping that someone would think it was a find.

Anyways.

Loose End was one of the books I got randomly. It's published by Arsenal Pulp, so I probably got it at a book show or something. I'm surprised it's not signed. I never read this book for two reasons: it's Canadian and it's supposedly short stories. I already can't stand short stories, but when I get a book of short stories that has a picture of the author looking all Canadian-outdoorsy on the back cover, I know I'm just not going to like the book.

But I was wrong.

I picked up Loose End off the Books Left Unread shelf because I wanted something light to read. I figured I'd give it a shot. Plus, upon closer inspection of the cover, I discovered that Ivan E Coyote is actually a woman and her stories are actually selections from her "Loose End" column in Xtra!West.

These were not, as I thought, stories of the rugged outdoors written by some urban outdoorsman in a folksy tone. No no no. These were stories of being genderqueer in Vancouver! And they were really short! Like a couple of pages short. This was awesome!

The "stories" (if you can call them that) are interesting vignettes of living in a city full of different people. They span a variety of themes, though Coyote's genderqueerness is a factor in almost all the ... I can't call these stories ... um ... essays? The stories are witty and sometimes funny. The writing is accessible. Even if you aren't queer, you can appreciate the stories.

Apparently since Loose End came out, Coyote's written more books of stories and even wrote a novel. Go figure. I don't know if I really want to read her novel, but I do know that I'm going to add her Xtra!West "Loose End" column to my list of "Things to Read When I'm Slacking Off At Work".

Villette or The Sucky Life of a Prude

2011-10-30T16:18:00.000-04:00

Lucy Snow, the supposed heroine of Villette, is Charlotte Bartlett of A Room With a View, but years earlier when she was younger.

Before I start discussing how much I came to really hate Lucy Snow, I need to first admit that I dislike the works of the Brontë sisters with a passion. I tried reading Wuthering Heights something like 12 times over the past 20 years and never got past Chapter 1. I never read Jane Eyre because I assumed that Charlotte Brontë was just as much of a bore as her sister. But then someone told me that Villette was an awesome book, way better than Jane Eyre, and that I should give it a chance. The internets confirmed this, telling me that Villette was the epitome of a great, but underappreciated, novel. So I went out and actually bought the book before I realized that it was available as a free eBook.

Reading the eBook would have saved me money, but buying the book meant that I actually read the whole damn thing. I had to skip many words to get through the book -- and I spent the better part of my several months with the book rolling my eyes -- but I finished the damned thing. I finished all 500+ pages of it.

The gist of the story is that Lucy's orphaned and pretty poor. She gets a job as a governess in a school in Villette (Belgium) and ends up becoming a teacher. She ends up living a miserable life. She divides her time between passing judgment on others, feeling superior to everyone else, feeling sorry for herself and congratulating herself for being so good that she's miserable. Oh yeah, and she "falls in love" with an abusive asshole who is, supposedly, our romantic hero.

You can see in Lucy the beginnings of A Room with a View's Charlotte Bartlett. Charlotte is a single, older woman (a spinster, in the parlance of the time) who spends a good deal of A Room with a View judging others, feeling sorry for herself and congratulating herself for being so good that she's miserable. Charlotte also spends a lot of A Room with a View trying to convince Lucy, her niece, that she should also be proper and miserable and marry the socially acceptable, but totally dickish and cold, Cecil instead of the more interesting George.

Now back to Lucy Snow and her miserable existence.

Lucy could totally change her fortunes if she just chillaxed and stopped spending her time over-analysing everything and second-guessing every single minute action of hers. You want to wear a pink dress to the ball? Wear the damned pink dress and STFU! Don't spend your time wondering what everyone thinks about your dumbass pink dress. So what if the students snicker at you and M Paul makes fun of you.

Speaking of M Paul, he gets alternately called M Emmanuel. Just like Dr John also goes by Graham and by some other name I now forgot. I'm not sure why Charlotte Brontë insisted on using more than one name for these two characters. Maybe she thought her book was too readable and she needed to make it a little extra confusing. Or maybe they get referred by different names depending on context and I didn't notice cuz I didn't give a flying fuck about these characters.

Anyways.

Lucy gets rescued by Dr John after she collapses on the road on her way out of a Catholic Church (and of course Lucy's all "Oh Noes! Did he see that I went to a heathen Catholic church?!"). She could have totally made her life so much less miserable had she just let the guy pursue her. But no. That wouldn't have been proper for reasons that were very wordy but otherwise amounted to "because I'm meant to be miserable."

Instead, Lucy "falls for" Paul Emmanuel, the incredibly abusive asshole who spends 90% of the book insulting her and putting her down -- to her face!

OK, look, I like stories where two head-butting individuals find love as much as the next sappy girl, but this storyline was not right. I mean, Pride&Prejudice would be a boring book if Elizabeth and Mr Darcy didn't spend most of the book hating each other, but at no time did Mr Darcy ever call Elizabeth names to her face!

Paul Emmanuel, though, is an arrogant prick who calls Lucy names, "punishes" her for imaginary indiscretions and puts her down at every chance he gets. Then, when he sees she's getting upset, he apologizes and does something nice. And Lucy, like a good abused wife, takes it. And she likes it. And she falls for it. And they're totally going to get married so that he can continue abusing his victim, except (spoiler!) he dies in a shipwreck.

Of course the death by shipwreck is described by Lucy as yet another misfortune to befall her and she totally feels sorry for herself at the end of the book, despite the fact that this guy's untimely -- and hopefully slow and painful -- demise at sea was the best thing that ever happened to her.

In conclusion, I hated this novel more than I've hated any novel I've ever read. I hated the writing. I hated the characters. I hated the story. I hated it all. I want to take this book and throw it into a murky, sewage-filled canal and hope that time forgets it.

Lost in Translation: Sputnik Sweetheart by Murakami

2008-01-13T15:55:00.001-05:00

I swear that I read a different "Sputnik Sweetheart" than my coworker.

My coworker read the Chinese translation and I read the English translation.

The book follows an unrequited-love triangle between the narrator, his friend, Sumire, and her boss, Miu. The narrator loves Sumire, but can't muster up the courage to tell her (he doesn't know if she's interested in him, or even men in general), Sumire is in love with Miu, but Miu is married and is Sumire's boss (and Sumire doesn't know if Miu reciprocates, either) and Miu...Miu feels nothing because of an otherwordly experience which left her a shell of her former self (and has left her hair totally white).

The story goes along in the usual "I'm in love with a girl who loves another girl so I'm screwing someone else that I don't like to make up for it" way until Sumire goes missing. She vanishes one night while she and Miu are vacationing on a tiny, isolated Greek island. Then our intrepid narrator joins Miu to "look" for Sumire. Except they don't look so much as tell each other their problems and Miu relates how she lost half of herself to another realm of existence, the realm which, presumably, Sumire has disappeared into.

The rest of the book is about the narrator's own feelings of isolation, loneliness, emptiness, etc. The narrator wonders about the other realm, which, I thought, was a metaphor for a state where you can allow yourself to let go and live uninhibited. A state where you can declare your love for people, free of hurt and stigma, where you can feel sexual pleasure without guilt. The question becomes, can the narrator let go? The answer is, well, no. He can't. He just waits for everyone to join him in his insular world (the "real world").

At least that's what I thought. My coworker had a completely different interpretation. He thought the narrator had let go. He thought the narrator finally joined Sumire. But he also didn't think that the other realm was the place where you let go, so much as an escape from real life.

I would have thought that these were just different interpretations, but when we discussed particular parts of the book, it was as if we had read two completely different books. The descriptions of the events and thoughts of the characters were completely different.

At one point I found a French version of "Sputnik Sweetheart" in a book store and skimmed over it. The French version also had a different feel to it. It was much more matter-of-fact and less magical than the English version.

Obviously, the translation changes the book, but I didn't think it would change the essence of the book. The translator appears to infuses their own understanding, esthetic and interpretation into the book, creating something wholly different.

This makes me wonder: is it fair to say that two translations of the same book are really the same book?

"That Symptom is fucking my wife!" Two books about random adultery.

2007-09-26T21:45:00.000-04:00

Apparently marriages don't break up on account of adultery; the adultery is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Or so Bruno Kirby told Billy Crystal in "When Harry Met Sally". (And Billy Crystal's reply was "Well, that symptom is fucking my wife!")

Anyways, Bruno Kirby's character was apparently on to something because I've read three books and two short stories with various degrees of adultery and in each case, it was because of general malaise and not for the heck of banging someone else.

For the sake of brevity, I'm just going to talk about two of them: Haruki Murakami's "South of the Border, West of the Sun" and Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence".

Actually, in all honesty, I'm not 100% sure that Hajime in "South of the Border, West of the Sun" didn't bang Shimamoto for the simple joy of the conquest. I've discussed this at length with one of my coworkers who's a big fan of Murakami. His take on it is that Hajime is just as much a victim of a repressive society (in this case, modern-day Japan) as a character like Newland Archer in "The Age of Innocence" (in that case, early 20th century New York). But I don't know.

Both Newland and Hajime are bored bourgeois. Newland has had the requisite affairs of a young, bourgeois male and has now settled into his comfortable life of doing nothing at a law firm. He's engaged to May, but needs something more; he needs to escape this world that he secretly hates. He hates all the posturing and the hypocrisy and he hates how everyone's life is pre-determined. So he falls back in with Ellen Olenska (May's cousin), who is -- Goodness Gracious! -- getting divorced. He champions her because she's an outsider bucking the trends. And then he falls for her. And makes plans to run off with her. But, of course, society conspires against him and he falls back into line. Sorry for ruining the book for you (if anyone's reading this), but did you really expect anything else?

Hajime has a successful business, a wife, two kids and two luxury vehicles. He's had his affairs (some during his marriage). He's bored. He reminisces about this chick, Shimamoto, he knew when he was younger. He never had sex with her. And from what I can tell, all Hajime really gives a crap about in life is how many times he gets off. He's a selfish sonavabitch, as far as I can tell, because when he finally meets up with Shimamoto (and eventually beds her) and finds out that she has had her fair share of tragedy, he doesn't really give a crap. Even when she disappears, he doesn't wonder if she's OK. Like the selfish turdling he is, he wonders if she doesn't want to see him and obsesses over how he'll never fuck her. Hell, he thinks about her when he's screwing his wife.

I'm sorry, but Hajime is just a jerk. I don't care if Japanese society is repressive (including sexually repressive) and that women are only slightly more important than table lamps on a good day, and I don't care if Hajime is isolated and doesn't know how to interact with people because he's an only child. He has had a lifetime to learn how to act, and, despite hurting people to the point of damaging them psychologically, he learns absolutely nothing. He maintains this absolute inability to feel compassion or empathy towards others. Maybe he's a psychopath. Japanese Psycho.

Is Hajime a symbol for modern society -- cold and only interested in screwing you? Maybe. Does that make him any more likeable? No.

As for Newland Archer...Newland was a poor naive idiot. He gets roped back in and only at the end does he realize that despite what he thought or perceived or did, the society around him was making sure that nothing ever got out of place. Society spun around him and steered events to make sure that it was never disturbed.

BTW, "South of the Border, West of the Sun" is a fantastic novel. Any novel that inspires you to have heated discussions around the water cooler about the nature of the protagonist's angst is a good novel. It's provocative and intellectually challenging. And it has the usual Japanese claustrophobia (loads of inner dialogue, few emotions).

And it goes without saying that "The Age of Innocence" is a beautiful, smooth read. And while "South of the Border" has more sex in it, "The Age of Innocence" is by far the sexier book.

As for the two other short stories and the one other book about adultery. They were all about failure and entrapment. That is all.

The Chrysanthemums: Why Can I Never Finish What I Start? or Mr Kenneally, Women Are Not Divided into Sluts and ManHaters

2007-07-29T12:04:00.000-04:00

OK, so a couple of posts ago, I said I was going to go over these four short stories that I had to read for English class in CEGEP and that I thought were grossly misrepresented by my English Prof, Mr Kenneally. What I didn't take into account was how much I hate short stories.

I also didn't take into account the fact that I felt that this was some late-coming final exam and totally started to get anxiety over making sure I had covered all my bases and thought it all through before writing down my brilliant commentary.

Finally, I didn't take into account my ADD (undiagnosed...but everyone has ADD nowadays and all I'd need would be one frustrated teacher to point their diagnostic finger at me and PRESTO! I'd have some Ritalin in my hands and a good excuse for being messy in my pocket!). Where was I? Oh, right, my ADD. Yeah, so I lost interest in the short stories, but started to really dig "The Age of Innocence" and that made me start thinking of Gordimer and Camus and I wanted to write something about THAT. But I couldn't because of this damned short story exercise. What's worse is that I decided to finally read "Eva Luna" and "Pure Inventions", but "Pure Inventions" was pretentious, so I took out "Guns Germs and Steel", but I got mad at it within 35 pages. I desperately wanted to write about how the only reason "Guns Germs and Steel" won anything was because it fed into White Guilt but I couldn't because, hello!, stupid short story exercise.

Where does that leave me? It leaves me frustrated is where it leaves me! I have all these swishy ideas and I have to write them down somewhere so I won't do like I did with "The Grammar Architect" and come up with something utterly brilliant (OK, maybe not, but the author at least thought it was pretty insightful) and then forget all about it when I finally get around to writing it 6 months later.

And I'm also stuck trying to write something -- ANYTHING! -- about Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums".

Have I ever mentioned that I hate Steinbeck? No? Well, I hate Steinbeck.

Then again, it's not like anyone is reading this....so I could totally just write something random and no one would notice:

Mr Kenneally said that scissors represent both women and castration in reference to Elisa in The Chrysanthemums, and that reminds me of the fact that many men are somehow intimidated by strong women because they feel emasculated by them. This influences their judgement when reading a story like The Chrysanthemums; they diminish Elisa by interpreting the dead flower on the road as her having given herself away to some random guy and now being discarded as the random sexual object she has become. So Elisa is given two options of who to be: Strong, manly and castrating, or a sexualized cheap slut. Great going guys! How about this: given that Steinbeck liked to write about how the Great Depression was full of deceit and treachery and how it made good people easy targets, maybe, just maybe, this is more about Elisa's good natured trust in people. She temporarily believed that these guys who she thought were swindlers were actually good folks because they wanted to help give people her flowers (i.e. spread beauty and love to everyone). Really, all they wanted was the pot she put the flowers in so they could sell it. So Elisa is temporarily happy and hopeful and full of joy and looking great and then she sees the dead flower on the road, realizes she's been swindled and feels crappy again; she retreats and becomes resigned. She is a metaphor for society as a whole (The US, if you will) during the depression: lost faith, broken hopes.

There. I hate Steinbeck. And I hate the fact that I had to be exposed to misogynistic, outdated notions of female gender roles as a student.

Mr Kenneally, You Made Me Hate Joyce Carol Oates!

2007-06-16T20:59:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Kenneally: "Where are you Going, Where have you Been" by Joyce Carol Oates is a sad story about loss of innocence, teenage angst, and family. It is not about The Devil or Religion of the evility (yes, evility; not evilness, evility) of pop culture. Thanks, Snad.

Back when I started CEGEP, I had had very little exposure to critical thought. My high school was not the kind of place where critical thinking was valued. Consequently, I spent little or no time writing essays or term papers (as if we had real term papers!), and any research I needed to do was done by breaking open an encyclopedia and rearranging the words a bit. It wasn't a proud time for me, but it got me high marks.

So when we read "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" (WAYGWHYB) in Mr Kenneally's class, I just trusted Mr Kenneally's analysis of the short story. Sure I thought it was a bit cheap of Joyce Carol Oates to name her bad guy Arnold Friend because he was "An Old Fiend"; I thought it kinda smacked of grade school composition writing. And I do remember being incredulous about Connie, the story's anti-hero, worshipping at the altar of the Rock'n'Roll Radio Show instead of Church; I thought it was a bit far-fetched. I refused to believe that Joyce Carol Oates would have spent so much of her time cramming this sad, sad story about a very scary abduction by a creepy old guy, full of religious allusions that served only to blame Connie for her own fate at Arnold's hands.

Here's the Coles Notes of the story: Connie is a pretty, vain, superficial teenager. She doesn't like her family: her mom keeps picking on her, her dad ignores her and her sister is a vision of mediocrity. Connie spends a lot of her time doing teenage things like going to the mall, listening to the radio and making out with boys. One Sunday afternoon, instead of going to Church and then a bbq with the rest of her family, Connie, like many other teens, begs out and stays home. Her family is, predictably, frustrated and disappointed in her. While Connie's at home, a creepy weirdo and his even creepier buddy drive up to the house, and force her to go with them under pains of harming her family.

The way Mr Kenneally and prettymuch every other High School curriculum treats this story is as a religious allegory about a girl who has fallen and who eventually becomes The Devil's Bride. See, Connie has rejected family and Church, and has become a self-absorbed heathen-child, running around town doing Forbidden Things with boys and worshipping the radio (Connie never misses her favourite radio show on Sunday mornings). Consequently, An Old Fiend (Arnold Friend) comes to take her away.

Point taken Mr Kenneally, my Irish Catholic teacher at my secular-but-secretly-Catholic CEGEP: I will go to Church, stay chaste and not worship false idols so that Arnold Fiend doesn't come to get me too.

Now, I re-read the story and, to me, the most interesting part of the story is that Connie willingly goes with Arnold because she doesn't want her family harmed. She sacrifices herself for her family. In the end, Connie realizes that she loves them, but it is ultimately too late for her to let them know. And, to boot, her family will never know how much Connie loved them; they will probably assume she's run off with her friends and won't think anything is wrong until she doesn't show up for a few days, and then it will be too late for them too.

The story, to me, is about alienation in the family.

I also read an interview with Joyce Carol Oates about the story. She wrote it about a serial killer in the Tucson area (The Pied Piper of Tucson). The guy was running around, abducting the girls and all the kids knew, but no one did anything about it. And, guess what, the Tucson serial killer stuffed socks in his boots to look taller, so he had an odd gait! It wasn't that Arnold Friend had cloven feet and that's why his boots stood out at a strange angle, it was because he stuffed them with socks!

So Mr Kenneally, while Arnold Friend was a fiend, he wasn't the fiend you thought he was.

He was a much scarier one.

Dear Mr. Kenneally: You Made Me Hate Short Stories!

2007-04-27T20:03:00.000-04:00

When I look back at all the crap I learned in CEGEP
It's a wonder I can think at all

During my first week at Marianopolis College (CEGEP) there was this BBQ on the grounds and this crappy folk band played 60s music while my new classmates, all dressed like hippies, danced around. It was the first time I had ever seen anything like it and I thought to myself, "Wow. So this is what rich people do!"

One of the songs the crappy band played was a modified version of "Kodachrome", with the words "high school" replaced with "CEGEP". And I thought to myself, "There is no way this will be worse than St. Pius X Comprehensive High School!" I was right; it wasn't. Except for First Semester English, taught by Mr Michael "Killer" Kenneally. That man made me hate short stories.

I realize that I've already blamed Mrs Gualtieri for making me hate poetry, so blaming Mr Kenneally for my hatred of short stories makes it look like I'm blaming a lot of random folks for my own youthful stupidity. But I assure you, I am not.

I have a crazy good memory, especially for stories, and for the past 14 years I have thought about four short stories I read in Killer Kenneally's class: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" by Joyce Carol Oates; "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck; "Araby" by James Joyce; and "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter.

For 14 years I have wondered if all the symbolism Mr Kenneally made us find in those stories was really there. And for 14 years I have thought about literature and whether the symbolism was put there on purpose, whether it naturally emerged, or whether it was in the eye of the beholder. And, the same as with poetry, whether it mattered a stitch to the appreciation of the work.

Finally, yesterday, I looked up those four short stories. Turns out that they're all available for free on the weeb. Unfortunately, because every friggin first semester English class in the whole wide world studies these stories, there is at most one interpretation of each of them available, and it's usually the one I had to learn.

Because this has haunted me for so long (just under half of my lifetime, hello!), I am going to devote my next four entries to each of these four stories. I don't know if anyone will care, or if anyone reads this, but at least it'll provide me with some catharsis.

Bad Snad! No More Books!

2007-04-25T21:06:00.000-04:00

I was taking a break at work today and read an article on the CBC website about the Barbara Pym Society. If you don't know who Barbara Pym was, she was this mellow English writer who mostly wrote books about English society ladies having tea and talking to their neighbours in the 1950s. They aren't the most exciting books. To be honest, you spend the whole book waiting for something -- ANYTHING -- to happen, but nothing ever does. Despite this lack of excitement (or maybe because of it), her books are oddly compelling.

Anyways, the article on the CBC website said that only one of Barbara Pym's books (Excellent Women) was still in print. I was like, "Oh noes! That means that I can't read any more of her books! I missed my chance!" So I went on the Chapters-Indigo website to see if there were any copies of Excellent Women left, and you know what? None of her books were out of print! Damnit!

Unfortunately, the mere threat of Pym's works going out of print gave me the desire to run out and buy her whole library.

Fortunately, I restrained myself. I'm still finishing up Foucault's Pendulum, I've barely made a dent in Eva Luna (actually, it fell behind my dresser and I'm still trying to workout how to get it out of there), I still want to read Guns, Germs and Steel, and, to top it all off, I went off and bought Michael Fabre's The Crimson Petal and The White (it called to me, ok!).

That said, I'm feeling kinda stressed lately and I think Barbara Pym would calm me down. I can splurge on something therapeutic, right?

Eva Luna: A Book That I Haven't Read Yet

2007-03-19T18:27:00.000-04:00

OK, so way back in, like, 1990-something (after '95, before '99) I got into this Latin American author kick. I read Julia Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents), Jorge Amado (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands) and Laura Esquivel (Like Water For Chocolate). It's a long story about how this happened, but basically in 1995 I went to see this really wonderful Argentinian movie, "Don't Die Without Telling Me Where You're Going". I remember that I loved that movie, but I can't really remember what it was about aside from reincarnation and love throughout lifetimes. (Though now that I've looked it up, I found out that it's about cinematography, using reincarnation as a metaphor. Who'd've thunk it? Turns out it was originally a book. I guess I'm doomed to go out and read it now.)

Anyways, I went to see the movie with a friend of mine who was into a Latin kick at the time, and she told me all about how South American movies and novels were full of this kind of stuff and it was called "magic realism". I was enchanted and I wanted more magic realism. This is what happens when a science-fiction-reading, hopeless romantic grows up: they end up becoming Magic Realism Junkies!

So I looked up the various different South American authors and gave them a whirl. The first was Julia Alvarez's book, which was nice, but lacking in magic realism. Then I went with Laura Esquivel (all the rage, because the movie came out around then). Let me tell you, Like Water for Chocolate was a really cool book! I didn't care about moral dilemmas: I loved food and I loved love and I loved magic and fantasy and the thought that cooking while in different emotional states could affect food gave me a desire to learn to cook and helped me connect to cooking in a way I hadn't before. I can't say enough good things about that book! (Though the whole girl-running-off-with-the-outlaws subtheme did lead me to Only Cowgirls Get the Blues, which was a tremendously bad idea).

Then it all went to pots when one of my friends gave me Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands for my birthday. I think it may have been a cheap translation, because while the story was interesting, there was something missing in the writing. It fell flat. I felt like I was reading a book narrated by a guy speaking staccato English with a thick accent! And it really saddened me because my Brazilian friends loved that book, so it must have been really great in Portuguese. (It also didn't help that I had two friends that reminded me of Flor and Vadinho, the ghost husband.)

After Dona Flor I laid off the South American authors for a while. But I regretted never reading any Allende. But the question was, what to read? Then one day I was at a dinner party and I ended up in the host's study for some unknown reason. On one of the shelves, looking over-read and loved was Eva Luna. I was overcome with a need to pick it up and start reading it. And I did. And then someone told me that we had to go downstairs for a toast and I left the book.

The next week, I went out and bought Eva Luna. Then I never read it. For some reason, it sat on my shelf for 6 years. Until two weeks ago when I picked it up and decided to read it. I haven't gotten far, but it's off the shelf and within reach.

I'll let you know how it is. Hopefully I'll start to love South America again.

I Give Up! Life is Too Short for The DaVinci Code

2007-02-21T21:56:00.001-05:00

I have had it with The DaVinci Code (TDVC)! Just like Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, there was only so much unimaginative writing I could take. So TDVC is going to go back from whence it came, namely my parents' bookshelf, where it will remain more-or-less unread for decades to come.

Just so we're all on the same page here, I don't just hate TDVC because of its boatloads of misleading, misguided and blatantly false information. Nor do I hate it for its outrageously trivial "puzzles" that it tries to pass off as High Cryptography.

Heck, even the ridiculously preposterous opening premise is not enough in and of itself for me to hate it. However, I do have to say that the idea that a fatally shot seventy-six year old man has the time, the forethought, the strength and the will to run around a museum creating a scavenger hunt for his granddaughter (or whatever she is) to find is one of the most far-fetched premises outside of science fiction.

Each of these things is more or less a hallmark of a really craptastic book, but I bet they could all be forgiven if only Dan Brown had at least written plausible characters you could care about!

I swear Dan Brown cared only about his "shocking" ending. It's like the characters are an afterthought, put in just to give voice to his own offbeat theories. The characters are mere puppets for the "true story" of the Templars and The Holy Grael. (Also, "Le Saint Graal" is not "Sang Real". Nor is "Mona Lisa" meant to be an anagram for "Amon L'Isa". For cripe's sake Dan Brown, don't make fun of me! I can look things up and I took Art History in Undergrad.)

Just like Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was full of two-dimensional characters meant to construct stickmen arguments for the author to destroy, TDVC is full of two-dimensional characters that modify facts just enough to give credence to Dan Brown's crappy theories.

Life is too short to be wasted reading asinine books.

I'm going back to Foucault's Pendulum. If you want to read a mystery novel with real puzzles and riddles, that is grounded in religious history, read Foucault's Pendulum, The Name of The Rose or Le Club Dumas instead. They won't insult your intelligence.

In the meantime: Shut Up, Dan Brown.

Absolutely Giddy About Bad Writing!

2007-01-11T19:42:00.000-05:00

Ladies and Gents, I'm sitting on my kitchen island, eating a cream cheese and black cherry jam sandwich, listening to loud music, and getting all giddy about bad writing!

After a week and a half of respite from work, it only took six days back for my mind to implode. I don't know if it was the billion emails about "processes" implemented on a "going-forward basis" or the water cooler talk about fellatio that finally did me in, but all I know is that I've been singing (and drinking!) "Red Red Wine" a lot. (Just so's I know, is the topic of fellatio now considered appropriate water cooler chit-chat? Is this part of the BritneySpearsParisHilton-a-Fication of America?).

But you know what? I've been reading The DaVinci Code (TDVC) again, so I'll blame it for my implosion because it's definitely the worst offender (yes, even worse than the fellatio water cooler talk).

Over the holidays, someone brought over TDVC:The Movie (TDVC:TM). It was a really, really wretched movie and made me angry in several different ways. The movie's most egregious crime was that despite the fact Dan Brown wrote TDVC as if it were a screenplay, TDVC:TM still managed to butcher it (well, at least the first five-six chapters).

I'm not naive: I understand that you have to take certain liberties in movies because narratives don't generally translate well to pictures. I understand that often books have to be condensed to fit a movie and thus characters get fused and events get muddied. That's fine. I'm all good with that. I don't expect everyone to be Peter Jackson making The Lord of The Rings (and, frankly, I wish Peter Jackson hadn't been so friggin' faithful to those boring books!). But TDVC was written for the movies. Heck, even Fache, the crusty/evil detective, is written as if he were Jean Reno in any American movie he's been in.

Frankly, given the characters' wooden internal narratives, the over-emphasis on location and scenery, and the choppy dialogue, it's hard to see how anything in the book would have needed to be cut for a movie adaptation. TDVC did all the work for the screenwriter and the director and yet, yet, Ron Howard still messed with the first few chapters and somehow managed to make them worse!

Thus my curiosity got the better of me: what else did Ron Howard screw up?

So, despite the fact that I was really getting into Foucault's Pendulum, I put it down and started once again on TDVC. And that's when my mind started its quick descent into madness.

I'm not even halfway through TDVC, but already I am very, very, tired of the cliffhanger chapters and the excessive exposition (Yes, it's a fibonacci sequence. I got that the first time. Don't insult me by repeating it again. Damn you.) And, seriously, the book moves at a snail's pace. In the twenty very short chapters I've read, the book has gone nowehere. Our protagonists are still in the bathroom in the museum. And they aren't doing anything exciting there, either, except acting as Exposition Fairies.

Also: WHY WOULD YOU NEED A CRYPTOLOGY EXPERT TO FIGURE OUT A FIBONACCI SEQUENCE? WHY? YOU LEARN THAT IN HIGH SCHOOL!!! 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ...

Sorry. That was my brain imploding again. It needs more wine.

The book is full of stupid. No, seriously. It's like a mathematical idiot wrote the book. The codes aren't interesting or challenging. They barely qualify as riddles in those books they sell before you get on the plane. Jeebus!

After reading Foucault's Pendulum, that was dense with information, ideas, backstory, passions, motivations, conundrums, going back to TDVC is like eating Campbell's Tomato Soup after having a really ripping homemade Gazpacho.

Anyways, the loud music has stopped and my buzz has died. I'm going to feed my brain some wine, watch some reality TV and hope that it gets sedated enough to function again tomorrow without splattering all over the white board in my cube.

Not Reading Books on a Going Forward Basis

2006-12-16T16:49:00.000-05:00

I had almost finished "Jonathan Srange and Mr Norrell" when I made the mistake I always do: I read the ending. And because it didn't end the way I was hoping it was going to end, I stopped reading it.

I'm a suck that way.

Anyways, my dad had received "The DaVinci Code" for his birthday, but had hated it and was more than happy to foist it on me. So I decided I would give TDC a try.

"The DaVinci Code" was a total piece of trash and I got sick of reading it in about three days.

My mom had managed to read TDC and hated every minute of it. To cleanse her palate, she decided to re-read Umberto Eccho's "Foucault's Pendulum". I decided to do the same.

Unlike my mom, though, I never managed to finish reading FP the first time around: I had gotten massively confused halfway through and had stopped reading it. I also thought it was pretentious and wordy. But I was 18 then and pretty stupid, so I decided I would give FP another go.

A few chapters into FP, I decided to go back to "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell". It wasn't because FP was bad or anything; I was actually finding it pretty cool this time around and felt that it wasn't the book that was pretentious, but rather it was the narrator who was pretentious, making it all OK.

No, what made me go back to "Jonathan Strange" was the desire to finish it before my next trip so that I would be able to bring a new book with me in good conscious.

And that is insane.

So You Won An Award: Mindscan by Robert J Sawyer

2006-08-10T22:37:00.000-04:00

Robert J Sawyer is a nice guy and a really excellent author to interview. He's fun, vivacious, witty and talkative.

And that's why I hate to say that Mindscan, despite winning an award, is a pretty darned disappointing read.

Here's the plot: Dude finds out that he has some inherited brain defect that will kill him off at 40ish. He frets about getting married and having kids cuz he doesn't want to leave a wife and kid(s) with the burden of having him either drop dead or become a vegetable. So he signs up for this procedure that will copy his brain into a "quantum gel" in a robotic body that will inherit his personhood while he gets to retire to some resort on the moon and never come back. His goal is that his robtic self will marry the woman he loves and live out the life that he always wanted to lead.

The only problem is that Dude doesn't realize that the robot is a copy of him and not him in a robot's body. So he's all disappointed that his robotic self will be leading the life he wanted to live.

The other problem, for Mechanical Dude, is that everyone is pretty skeeved out by him and not even his dog will hang out with him. So he's a pretty lonely Mechanical Dude.

This sounds promising, right? I mean, think of all the cool things you can explore with this: how the brain deals without its usual biofeedback mechanisms; how people around you deal with the fact that you're a robot and smell like a car interior rather than a human being; how learning and growth would be affected by a static body; how society would be affected by individuals never dying; how a mechanical body would be maintained. All kinds of cool stuff.

But you know what RJS does with it? He turns it into a courtroom novel about civil rights.

*sigh*

If I wanted to read a courtroom drama, I would have picked up a John Grisham novel. But I wanted a sci-fi novel... Something that explored the limits of technology. And, you know, if the sci-fi novel wanted to go into the rights of robots, it wouldn't have to be heavy-handed and obvious. Like, the best short story in "Island Dreams", "Burning Day", is about robots and humans coexisting. It deals with the Uncanny Valley and prejudice without smacking you over the head with a courtroom.

Halfway through Mindscan, I felt it was all very, very sad and, sadly, boring.

There is no way this was the best sci-fi novel of the year.

Kodachrome and Velvet Shoes

2006-06-24T07:55:00.000-04:00

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all

-- Simon&Garfunkel, "Kodachrome"

Well, it's been a month since I started writing this, but I finally got around to finishing it off.

You know, after writing about poetry last entry, I started thinking about how it's a wonder that I like poetry at all.

As a kid, I really loved poetry. My parents had a couple of books of poetry hanging around the house and I would routinely pick them up and read them. Then I hit High School and I was almost lost forever (thank Heavens for CEGEP!).

I don't know how my High School English classes managed it, but they took all the life and beauty out of poetry. All we ever did was "analyse" poems in the most trite, pointless ways ever. For chrissake, who the hell wants to read a poem and pick out all the metaphors and similes? What the hell will that give you? Will it give you access to the subtle meanings of the poem? No. Will it help you understand why the poem makes you feel the way you do when you read it? No. Will it give you an appreciation for poetry as an art? No.

Will it make you pray for the bell to ring so you can go outside and complain to your friends that you have no idea why "shod in silk" is an oxymoron? Yes.

"Shod in silk". That line has haunted me for sixteen years (and I really do mean the line, because I've never been able to remember the name of the poem or the author). But today, I get my revenge.

The poem: Velvet Shoes by Elinor Wylie
The class: Secondary 4 English with Mrs. Gualtieri (Hi there if you managed to find this! Yes, I'm bitter. You can continue feeling sorry for me the way you did back in HS.)
The task: Find examples of metaphors, similes and oxymorons in this poem.
The result: I got a really shitty mark because I couldn't find an oxymoron in this crap-ass poem.

I told Mrs Gualtieri that there were no oxymorons in this poem. Try as I might, I couldn't find one. She patronizingly replied that "shod in silk" was an oxymoron. I was all, "Um, how the hell is that an oxymoron?" She became even more patronizing (she felt that I thought I was too smart for my own good) and was all, "because to be shod is to be badly dressed and you can't be badly dressed in silk."

I still don't get it. Especially since my Oxford English Dictionary defines "shod" as the past tense of "to shoe".

Did this stupid high school excercise help me appreciate the poem? No.

Did it make me resent poetry, English class and Mrs Gualtieri? Yes.

But after all these years, I tracked down the poem. I still think it blows. The measure seems to be all screwed up, like the stanzas are one line too long, giving it an akward cadence. It's also pretty vapid. It's Bad Teen Poetry quality, in my opinion (your opinion may differ).

So for your reading pleasure, I present the poem that almost made me hate poetry forever, "Velvet Shoes" by Elinor Wylie:

Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow,
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as white cow's milk,
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
Upon silver fleece,
Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.

Winding Down After a Rough Week: Poetry That Heals My Soul

2006-06-17T19:52:00.000-04:00

I'm slowly slowly going insane
I look at the signs and see your name
I'm slowly slowly going insane
How will life ever be the same

It's like a pain inside my head
It sits on my heart like a piece of lead

That, my friends, is as much as I can remember of a Bad Teen Poem I wrote when I was 16 for my quasi-punk/goth friend who was in love with a guy named Denis who prefered rocker chicks in bustiers. My friend kept seeing Denis's name everywhere and it was driving her nuts (there was a soda distribution company called "Les Boissons Denis" that parked its trucks near our High School, incidentally). So, one night when we were on the phone and she was telling me all about this guy, I wrote this poem. She absolutely loved it.

I was actually considered quite the poet at my HS and people would often remark that my poems could easily be turned into songs. It all ended, though, when I hit CEGEP. I was told by the snooty, Anglo, private school kids in the poetry club that (a) my poetry sucked and (b) only free verse poetry about Important Things (like The Environment or War or Alienation or Kurt Cobain) was cool. So I stopped writing poetry. Deep down inside, though, I still had a soft spot for the uncool lyrical, rhyming poetry.

Anyways, this week, I had a pretty crazy week at work, full of meetings and more meetings with some folks from New York (I used to think I'd like to live in NY, but now I think that all I'd get out of it would be high blood pressure) and my mind started to drift to "Lochinvar" by Sir Walter Scott. I had to memorize it in HS and it has stuck with me forever. It tends to play through my mind when I'm stressed. Have you ever had a poem stuck in your head during a heavy meeting? It's not fun.

To make matters worse, I had downloaded a CBC podcast discussing the different rhythms in poetry: iam, bacchus, "tripping girl wth her skirt up," etc. And that caused more poems to start popping into my head.

So, in the name of cathartic release, here are my top five favourite poems:

1. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliott

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo

I analysed this poem for an English class once. I can't remember what kind of bullshit I wrote, but I'm positive it was bullshit. It doesn't matter, really, because (in my opinion) what really matters is how I feel about the poem. This poem makes me sad and introspective. You know that Joe Jackson song, "Stepping Out?" This poem reminds me of that song. It reminds me of parties I've been to where I've known no one and pretended to be having fun. It reminds me that you feel the most lonely when you're surrounded by people. And it reminds me that you should just go out and eat that damn peach! Grab life by the horns and get to it!

2. To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvel

Andrew Marvel says, "Yo, fuck, sleep with me," but in a funny, clever way that will guarantee that the girl will sleep with him. You can't not like that kind of poem (unless you have something against sex, but then you have other problems and you're probably not reading this blog anyways).

3. Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

Don't you just want to go back in time, find Edgar Allen Poe and give him a big, giant hug? This is the most melancholy poem I have ever heard (OK, I have a limited knowledge of poetry, I admit). I know it's morbid and gothic and my mother yelled at me for liking this poem ("Why would you like something about a dead person?"), but the sentiment is so strong and pure that you can't help be moved. And when you've spent your day listening to business speak, it really does the soul good to feel some strong emotions.

4. Shakespere's Sonnet #130: My Mistress's Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

Brutal freaking honesty. It's so refreshing. And who can't love a poem that says, "My girlfriend may not be perfect, but she's better than any chick who has flowery superlatives applied to her." This sonnet is a love poem for every couple who's been together more than five years.

5. Poem #260 (I'm Nobody! Who are You?) by Emily Dickinson

Apparently almost all of Emily Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." I can't remember how that goes (something like "Oh Susanna" I think), but I'm pretty sure this poem is one of them.

I realize the irony of posting that I understand the feeling of wanting to be nobody on a blog (which is, by its nature, exhibitionist), but sometimes, you really feel like being nobody. You just want to blend into scenery and let someone else be asked the tough questions or be put on the spot. Or even, sometimes, you don't want to be popular. But the world hates a wallflower: it's all about being outgoing and happy. Of course, Emily Dickinson was a recluse, so I think there was more than just introvertness or a need to unwind going on.

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

"I'd know you better if you told me what you reread": Tales of the City

2006-06-06T22:26:00.001-04:00

"Dis-moi ce que tu lis, je te dirai qui tu es, il est vrai, mais je te connaîtrai mieux si tu me dis ce que tu relis."

François Mauriac

Sigh.

I'm having a bit of a stressful time at work. I've been put on a really crazy project with a really demanding client and I've been going to non-stop meetings and generally feeling anxious. I must have looked pretty harried after one of the meetings because my boss came up to me and said, "Look, it's OK to be stressed out, but don't lose sleep over this." So I went home, put aside Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell and took out Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.

Tales of the City is one of my favourite books to read when I need to unwind. It's written in a flowy, breezy style that offhandedly says "laid back." The book's chapters are really short because it was originally written as a serial in a newspaper (can't remember which right now), so it takes about 5 minutes to read each chapter and it's not hard to find your place in the event that you're so tired that you pass out mid-read with the book on your face.

Tales of the City is about twenty- and thirtysomethings living in San Francisco in the late 70s: their work, their friends, their loves and their seemingly random interconnectedness. I went through this kick in the 90s where I really dug the whole 6-degrees-of-separation thing and sought out books and movies where several seemingly disparate storylines would eventually come together at the end. Unfortunately, the genre caught on in a big way in the late 90s and it was taken to such levels of crappiness and pretention (I'm looking at you, "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing") that I swore off the genre for good. But I still loveLoveLOVE Tales of the City.

TotC is so charming and funny and full of real life that it's just fun to read. It's easy to get transported into the world of these characters and I really care about the shitty time they're having at work and the bastards they date and the self they need to find. I also probably love this book because of the memories that I have of the first time I read it. I was in grad school in Montreal, it was summer and I would sit in Carré St-Louis and read TotC while watching the denizens of the park (squeegees and punks; business men and women; the homeless; kids playing hacky sack; students) do their thing while the wind blew through the trees and sprayed the water from the fountain. It was a really nice summer, the park smelled really sweet and I felt really good. I felt like the folks in the book: young, generally happy, but on a quest for True Love and Meaning.

So when I read TotC now, I'm not just reading an amusing, relaxing book; I'm remembering a time when my Universe was full of hope and happiness and carefreeness. And that is why I love Tales of the City.

Book Addiction: Part II

2006-05-31T22:57:00.000-04:00

As Britney Spears's writing committee once said, "Oops, I did it again!"

I went out and bought more books. But it wasn't my fault. They were on sale and I can't resist a sale!

Here's what happened: York University was having this book fair as part of some humungous conference and there were all these publishers there selling books at a reduced price. So I went to all the independent publishers and shmoozed with some of the folks I knew from when I used to do The Show (because now that I have gainful employment, I no longer have time to volunteer for community radio) and one thing led to another and I walked away with three books: "Heartways" (many authors, Arsenal Pulp Press), "Pure Inventions" (James King, Cormorant Press) and "Race Against Time" (Stephen Lewis, Anansi Press).

Now, you may be wondering why I shun the large publishing houses, like Random House and Penguin. The thing is, me and the large publishing houses, we don't get along. When I did The Show, the large pubs would send their new, sexy, hardcover books with their glossy press kits to us whether we wanted them or not. Then their publicists would call us and ask when we would have the authors on. And I swear, 90% of the time, the books blew goats. I mean these books, even if they were by major authors, were unreadable. I don't ever give books away (or even sell them or lend them out), but recently I took a bunch of these hardcover monstrosities and left them in my building's lobby for people to grab. They were that bad.

And, you know, I don't fault the publicists for sending us these books and pestering us to do the interviews because, frankly, it's their job to get exposure for the authors and the books. They're just doing their job. I hate whatever machine keeps these cruddy books with their sub-standard editing and poor-quality writing published. I have two books on my shelves that have glaringly obvious factual errors in them -- factual errors that could have been corrected with one Google search. How can a large publishing house justify that? Forget James Frey and his dumbass fiction-cum-autobiography, it's the small, minor-league editing errors in real non-fiction that shows that a publishing house only cares about the cash.

That is why I don't go near the large publishing houses anymore. Occasionally I'll still buy one of their books if it's by an author I know and respect (and who I often feel happy for because they're finally making some money). But, in general, I'm so disillusioned by the whole thing that I'd rather take my chances with some small press book by a no-name author. Then, at least, I know that my money is going to someone who loves what they do.

No More Freakin' Books, Please

2006-05-23T23:23:00.000-04:00

I mentioned Bram Stoker's Dracula to a coworker the other day and today, he showed up at my cube and plopped his copy on my desk. He left before I had a chance to say that he should just take it back because I've got a backlog on my to-read list.

This episode, though, has made me realize that most people read one book at a time and finish each one before starting a new one (unlike me who gets impatient midway through a novel, skips ahead to the last chapter and then loses a bit of interest and moves on to the next victim).

Oh well. I'll give it back tomorrow. For now I'll ponder whether to read ahead to the end of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell so that I can move on to something else.

Also: I have to stop blogging when I'm tired.

Weird

2006-05-22T00:03:00.000-04:00

I used the word "weird" way too often in that last post. I gotta stop writing when I'm tired. I'm usually much more articulate. I hope.

Mid-Read Review: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell

2006-05-21T23:04:00.000-04:00

I am a fickle, fickle girl.

I was fully intending to finish "Lust for Life" (esp after reading Claude Lalumière's comment), but then, something happened.

I was taking a train trip out of town and figured that "Lust of Life" would not be the best book to read on the train. I mean, you're stuck on the train for a few hours with strangers next to you, so you don't want to weird them out too much. (For example, one time I sat next to this woman who was reading a book titled "Ritualistic Candle Burning" and it kinda weirded me out. I can't imagine what erotic literature would do to someone more prudish.) Also, the train doesn't really have the right, shall we say, atmosphere for erotica. So I packed "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe" and "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell" (JS&MN) instead. (Incidentally, it was Claude Lalumière who recommended the book to me.)

I had started reading JS&MN about a month earlier, but had put it down a quarter of the way through because I found it dull. But I figured that it had the potential to put me to sleep on the train so I brought it along.

On my way out of town, I wasn't in the mood of sleeping and I mostly read a magazine and occasionally read the time travel book. My ride back to town was a completely different story. We were trapped behind a freight train and moving super-slow. My train was delayed by something like two hours (enough for Via Rail to reimburse half the cost of each passenger's ticket) and I was sitting next to a woman who was possibly the most annoying person to ever walk the earth. The whole time she kept grumbling about how slow the train was going and how this would not stand ("This slowness will not stand!"). I desperately, but desperately, wanted to pass out so I wouldn't have to interact with her. So I put my earbuds in and cracked open JS&MN.

To my astonishment, the book was really fascinating and engaging. I couldn't stop reading! I became enveloped more and more into Part I of this novel about a strange, reclusive magician (Mr Norell) who is very greedy about his magical knowledge and prowess. It was well-written, funny and spooky, in all the right proportions (like when the book gets too funny, it turns spooky and when it gets too spooky, it turns funny). I was so enthralled with the book, that when Annoying Lady Next To Me would start crabbing to me, I'd take out my earbud and say, "I don't mind that we're delayed; this book is really good." Man, did that piss her off! (She only had two dinky magazines with her and no portable music device. She was obviously an amateur Via Rail traveller.)

Anyways, I'm halfway through Part II now (it's a three volume novel) and it's getting weirder and weirder and I'm wondering if Jonathan Strange will be able to clean up Mr Norell's messes. It's fantastic and I can see why so many people recommend it.

And I promise -- promise! -- that after this I'll give "Lust for Life" another go.

This is Me...Or Rather my Avatar

2006-05-21T21:30:00.000-04:00

Mid-Read Review: Lust for Life

2006-04-22T11:36:00.000-04:00

Previously, I mentioned that I fully expected "Lust for Life" (edited by Claude Lalumiere and Elise Moser) to be weird and twisted. Well, I was right.
I'm halfway through the collection of short stories and so far I've read about a woman who prefers her nymphomaniacal, schizophrenic hallucination to her girlfriend; about a group of guys who cross-dress to catch a would-be serial kisser; and about a support group for suck sluts. I dunno about you, but I think those are some pretty weird topics.

But aside from the novelty of the odd story topics, I'm not sure if I like the collection. On the one hand, the stories make for fairly decent leisure-time reading, but they seem a bit unfinished. Like the story of the nymphomaniacal schizophrenic hallucination really felt unresolved, and it had really piss-poor character development. And the story of the suck sluts seemed like random porn disguised with a thin veneer of art. Only the story about the cross-dressing youth was insightful and had real character development.

So far the book is just a collection of random, mostly mediocre stories that deal, in varying degrees, with sex and/or sexuality. The collection doesn't have the cohesion of "Island Dreams" (also edited by Claude Lalumiere). I'm actually a touch disappointed. But I'm only halfway through, so it might get better.

Book Addiction!

2006-03-26T17:07:00.000-05:00

Oh no. I've done it again!

Even though I have a huge pile of books on my "to be read" shelf, I've gone out and bought more books!

I went to the bookstore yesterday just to browse.

I saw Burroughs's "Naked Lunch" and said to myself, "I should read this because 'The Iron Whim' has a whole chapter on 'Naked Lunch.' I didn't really understand that chapter and so I should read 'Naked Lunch.' And, while I'm at it, I should get Bram Stoker's 'Dracula,' because that's about communication and not about vampires, as I learned from 'The Iron Whim.'"

But then, next to "Naked Lunch" was "In Cold Blood." And I said to myself, "I've always meant to read 'In Cold Blood.' I should pick it up. Or maybe I should get the book of short stories that contains 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.' That would be good."

Then I saw the Small Press section and I really went nuts.

"OMIGOD! I wanted to request a lot of these books for The Show, but never got around to it! Which should I get? Which?"

After spending a lot of time looking at the Small Press books and noting that I already had a lot of them, but hadn't read them yet, I bought two books:

"Lust for Life: Tales of Sex & Love" edited by Claude Lalumiere and Elise Moser (Vehicule Press). I bought it because (a) it's
Claude Lalumiere who edited it, so it's probably good and (b) because everyone needs some tales of sex and love that aren't Harlequin Romances. I expect it will be weird and disturbing.

"Bowlbrawl" by Nathaniel G. Moore (Conundrum Press). In this day and age where guys like James Frey try to pass off their unbelievable works of fiction as non-fiction, you need a book about full-contact, hypermasculine bowling (in Canada!) to remind you that reality is, in fact, stranger than fiction. I expect that this is going to be really good.

Meanwhile, on my in-progress shelf, I've got: "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell," "Adieu Betty Crocker" (original French version) and "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe." That's just books I started reading and fully intend to finish. The list of books I haven't gotten to yet is too long to list. I've actually started giving some away to friends and family because I'm running out of shelf space and I can't bear to part with books I've read, even if they're crappy.

Fit for the Pit: Think Redux

2006-03-03T12:45:00.000-05:00

My mom was pretty pissed off at me for my last post about Think: "That's a really mean thing to write," she said. "The author obviously thought his book was good when he wrote it and someone thought it was good enough to publish, so you shouldn't be mean about it."

My mom was obviously right. Being harsh doesn't really tell anyone anything about the book. All it does is just tell you that I hated it and that I'm a bit fanatical when it comes to books. So I figured I would write a comprehesive review and post that. I wanted to post this ages ago, but couldn't because my computer decided to have a billion issues. But at least that gave me time to cool off and gather my thoughts.

Think is marketed as a case for critical thinking and a response to Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which LeGault equates with emotional, gut-feeling thinking. I read Blink. In it, Gladwell explores the idea that, if you're an expert at something, you can make decisions (many times correct, but also sometimes wrong) in the blink of an eye, before you've consciously thought about it. Which makes sense because if you're, say, an art appraiser, you know what to look for when deciding if some piece of art is fake. To everyone around you, it looks like you made some random, gut-feeling decision, but you actually just know your stuff and don't need a billion years to figure out what's going on (though it'll take you a billion years to write out the report explaining your reasoning).

The unfortunate thing about Blink is that the whole book is a series of anecdotes, giving the whole book a "truthy" feel, as Stephen Colbert would say. So while Gladwell doesn't advocate emotion-based thinking, the book isn't really full of cold, hard research either.

That said, I can see how Think would be a response to Blink. On the other hand, once you start reading the book, you get the feeling that Think isn't going to be doing a great job at hard, unbiased critical thought either (page 53):

Ultimately, I trust that my libertarian instincts will ring true with the reader.

I don't know about you, but I never equate something "ringing true" with critical thought. In my universe, critical thinking usually involves picking things that "ring true" apart into little smithereens using logic and analysis.

This inability to stay on message was one of the main reasons why I wanted to send the book back to the publishing house. Think is a poorly-written rant against...something. I can't say that it's a rant against gut-feeling thinking or liberalism or anything really because the book is totally disjoint. The only underlying theme that seems to hold the book together is Einstein.

LeGault keeps bringing up Einstein throughout the book. The author feels (note that I say "feels" and not "thinks") that had Einstein not been a critical thinker, he would never have been creative enough to come up with the Theory of Relativity (special and general) or Brownian Motion (though LeGault doesn't seem to know about Brownian Motion, for which Einstein won the Nobel Prize). LeGault holds up Einstein as this paragon of critical thought and even praises him for questioning authority -- about two paragraphs after getting all in the face of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" for being anti-authoritarian and thus anti-intellectual. From pages 30-31:

Rock and roll culture has helped glorify a number of macho, monosyllabic myths about education and intelligence in general. As Pink Floyd sings:
"We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control"
("Another Brick in The Wall," 1979)

Multiply the above anthem by a thousand variations and you begin to get the picture. Thinking and learning are for boot-licking conformists destined for lives as cubicle mice.

[...] Or one more common take found in the tough-guy world of many adolescents, including grown-up ones: To read, reflect and think is to be an egghead, a genius. Here we also detect that hint of social ostracization that awaits the unsuspecting egghead: "You're intelligent. That's pretty uppity and pretentious of you, buster."

Yet the consummate egghead, Al Einstein, was neither pretentious nor obedient nor conventionally bright in his youth. In her memoir, Einstein's sister, Maja, writes that [...] Einstein "had formed a suspicion against every kind of authority."

Hello convoluted reasoning! I'm not sure what LeGault was getting at in that passage. Was he saying that rock music is bad because it turns people against authority and makes them hate education and be stupid? Or was he saying that it's OK to hate authority as long as you're doing so "critically?" Or is he saying that smart people can be cool cuz they also hate The Man, dude!

LeGault also conveniently omitted the next line of "Another Brick in The Wall" ("No dark sarcasm in the classroom"). I'm not sure where LeGault went to school, but where I was, "Another Brick in The Wall" was the anthem of the alienated smart kids, for whom the whole point of The Wall was how society focused on obedience rather than independent thought. Then again, until I read Think, I never realized how much cherry-picking was involved in critical thought, so what do I know?

The book just goes on from there. LeGault basically decides that anyone who comes to different conclusions than he does isn't thinking critically (like "unscientific environmentalists" who still think that carbon dioxide causes global warming). And you know who the hero of all this is? Managers in large multinational corporations (bet ya didn't see that one coming!). Yes because (page 319):

Managers at today's companies display a concrete understanding of how reason and the pursuit of self-interest advance the betterment of the whole when they aspire to make their organizations "lean."

LeGault just throws ideas like this onto the page without any supporting statements or analysis. OK, my debating and persuasion skills aren't fantastic (which is why I ended up in the mathematical sciences rather than in, say, political science), but even I know that you need to back up your statements with some kind of argument. And, again, I'm not writing books, here. (Though the more uber-crappy books I read, the more I wonder what's stopping me from getting a book deal.)

In the end, it wasn't as if LeGault didn't make good points about society. It's true that most people nowadays don't read and don't really think about what the media feeds them. It's also true that we're over-medicating children with Ritalin instead of just changing the way schools are run (I'll let you put your own reference to The Wall here). But the author jumps around so much and says so many weird things (like lamenting the "feminist agenda") that the good bits get lost amid the insanity.

Finally, as for Einstein, even the real Einstein wasn't the mythical Einstein. It took Einstein 8 years to come up with the General Theory of Relativity. Eight years of learning topology and differential geometry and playing around with equations and proving theorems. To me, that's more of a proof of perseverance than critical thought.

Fit for the Pit: Think by LeGault

2006-02-08T16:30:00.000-05:00

I'm considering buying a bird just so I can line the cage with the pages of this book.

That is all for now. More later.

I Give Up: Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

2006-01-27T14:04:00.000-05:00

Ten years after I dated the first guy who told me that this book changed his life, I finally picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And after a month of trying to read this book, I've given up. It's going back to where I found it, namely on my aunt's bookshelf, where it had sat half-read since 1983.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the biggest pile of self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, pseudo-philosophical conversation-with-yourself I've ever been party to. The four chapters I managed to read before throwing the book at the wall in utter frustration consisted of the protagonist explaining to the reader that his attitude toward motorcycling is better (more intuitive, purer, etc) than his biking companions'. But it's all a metaphor: the author/protagonist's view on biking is just a way to convey his worldview, which is The Bestest, Rightest Worldview Ever!

I wish I could say that this bit of ego-stroking was at least interesting or amusing, but it isn't. The writing has all the soul of a midlife crisis. It's hard for me to articulate what's wrong with the writing, aside from saying that it's dull, but at the same time, over-done. One might say that the book is full of the author's bloviations.

Take Chapter 3, The Chapter That Made Me Scream. That's the Chapter where the protagonist/author has a "conversation" with his riding companions about the existence of ghosts and spirits. The author/protagonist's view is that spirits are just as real as atoms and "quants" (did he mean "quarks?"). He goes on to tell them (because it's more of a lecture than a conversation) that gravity is also a "ghost." Let me just quote the book:

"So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"
[...]
"What I'm driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."
[...]
"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind, because there wasn't anyone, not in space, because there was no space either, not anywhere -- the law of gravity still existed?"
[...]
"If that law of gravity existed," I say, "I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. [...] I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton."

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
My head EXPLODES each time I read this!

The "law of gravity" is a mathematical model for describing how gravity works at a macroscopic level. Gravity is a force, it need not have energy or mass. ARGH!

OK, but setting aside the poor grasp of physics this guy has, there are, like, a billion things wrong with this passage. The writing is of the same caliber as a high school student's (I'm not saying my writing's better...it isn't, but I don't write books) and there are enough logical fallacies in that one exerpt to send my CEGEP philosophy prof's head spinning. Moreover, the author has been lazy creating the biking companions because they never once come up with an objection to his ramblings! Neither of them ever says, "Dude, um, just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

That never happens. I mean, if the author had made the biking companions with half a brain, he would have had to construct a strawman to tear down instead of just lecturing to an enraptured audience.

Lazy. That's what this is. Lazy.

But now at least I know where my ex-boyfriends they got their insane ideas from and why conversing with them was like talking to a ten year old. It all makes sense now.

I should have read the book sooner. An ounce of prevention could have spared me several painful dinner dates.

Three Science Fiction and Fantasy Books I Should Finish

2006-01-19T10:31:00.000-05:00

These are three books taken from my Couldn't-Finish-But-I-Feel-That-I-Should-List. It is going to take forever to discuss all the books sitting on my shelf and I'm starting to doubt my sanity for doing this. Anyhoo, here are the three books, in no particular order.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
How I really wanted to read this book! I got about four or fivechapters in and started getting antsy cuz I felt that the story wasn't really moving along. Everyone told me that this was "tension" and "suspense," but to me it was like reading through writer's block. I kept thinking that JK Rowling had something to say, but was having a bit of a hard time of it, but decided to write through it. Then, for reasons I don't understand (probably due to publication deadlines or something like that), the editor left in the flabby writing. *sigh* Anyways, I want to finish reading the book, though, mostly because I want to find out how Sirius dies and because I got the follow-up, The Half-Blood Prince, as a birthday gift.

Humans by Robert J. Sawyer
If you don't know, Humans is the second book in Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax series (Hominids, Humans and Hybrids). I read Hominids and I thought it was a pretty good book. The basis of the story is that there's a parallel earth where the Neanderthals beat out Homo Sapiens as the dominant species of homonid and, through a freak quantum computing accident, a Neandethal crosses into our reality. It's a really cool book and while it can be a bit contrived and the Neanderthal world is way too idyllic for my taste (hammering in the "the environment is important, mmkay" message of the book), it kept me interested. But Humans was a whole other story. I got it as a gift and started reading it and could see right away where it was going. I felt even more manipulated by the lesson-of-the-week feel of some parts of the book and I really didn't like the sex scenes, so when I got sidetracked and put Humans down, I wasn't really in a rush to pick it up. But then all my friends read it and told me that it was good, so now I'm going to finish reading it. Eventually.

Island Dreams edited by Claude Lalumiere
Of all the books I've had a hard time finishing, this is the most interesting and well-written of the lot! It's an anthology of weird fiction, ranging from speculative fiction to macabre, by Montreal-based writers. It's a really excellent collection and I have to congratulate Claude Lalumiere for finding such top-notch fiction. I mean, the future worlds don't overpower the stories, nor do they seem like irrelevant contrivances; the future worlds just mesh really well with the stories, making them seem natural and almost commonplace (it's tough to make your spec-fic look like Blade Runner rather than, say, Total Recall). I stopped reading the anthology at a story called "Carrion Luggage" (Claude told me that the anthology was meant to be read sequentially). It was going to be the third or fourth macabre story and I was really starting to get freaked out by them. Already the zombie love story set in the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetary in Montreal had given me nightmares (probably because my psyche wasn't prepared for thinking of Montreal flooded by global warming and corpses rising in the cemetary where the bodies of people I know are burried), I didn't need to know about carrion in luggage. I have a really active imagination and this book was like caffeine and chocolate for it! So I stopped reading the book, despite the fact that I had to interview Claude for The Show. (I justified it as saying that he was the editor and not the author, so it was OK.) Now Island Dreams sits on my shelf, waiting for me to get a grip.

2006-01-17T22:47:00.000-05:00

OK, if I'm going to write about books, I gotta write about the books on my to-read list. Actually, I have four book lists: To-Read-For-The-Radio-Show, To-Read-For-My-Own-Edification, On-Hiatus and Couldn't-Finish-But-Feel-That-I-Should.

Here's an explanation of the lists:

To-Read-For-The-Radio-Show: These are books that I've received from publishers that I have to read so that I can eventually interview the authors. Even if the books are boring as all get-out, I have to finish them or else I can't really do a good interview. Mind you, most of the interviewers on TV or on the radio haven't read the books at all, but you can tell. Or, at least, I can tell. In any case, these are books I have to read.

To-Read-For-My-Own-Personal-Edification: These are books I bought because people have recommended them to me or because I've heard good things about them. I stack them nicely on my bedside table and then I dutifully forget to read them.

On-Hiatus: I have so many books on this list, it's just nuts. What'll happen is that I'll actually get around to reading a book I've bought and I'll be really digging it until I realize that I've totally neglected a book I have to read for The Show. So I'll read the book for the show and then, because I have a short attention span, I'll forget about the book I was reading initially and move on to some other book that caught my fancy. This happens more often than you'd think, which is why this list is insanely long.

Couldn't-Finish-But-Feel-That-I-Should: You know how many people have said that I should read Wuthering Heights? At least 30. I can't finish Wuthering Heights, but everyone tells me it's a great book and I feel I should finish it. This list is full of books like Wuthering Heights.

There you go. A list of lists. At some point I'll elaborate on these lists and bore you to death with more random info that you don't need. Kinda like the guy who listed all the flavours of Jolly Ranchers he had in his desk. Info you need.

2006-01-17T22:18:00.000-05:00

So here's the thing with me. I like books and I do this literary show on community radio. I get a bunch of books for free because of this literary show and, because I'm a big nerd, I also buy other books on my own. The result is that I have more books than you can shake a stick at. This blog is partially to keep track of the books I'm reading and have read.

The other reason I started this blog is because I hate book reviews, yet I feel this overwhelming urge to review books. Most book reviews are, you know, pompous and have these snotty attitudes. I want to write reviews for The People.

Does any of this make sense?