currently reading
- London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd
recently bought
- A Room with a View, E. M. Forster
- Atonement, Ian McEwan
- Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
- Much Depends on Dinner, Margaret Visser
- Tasting Pleasure: Confessions of a Wine Lover, Jancis Robinson
recently borrowed
- Native Tongue, Carl Hiaasen
- High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
- The Pianoshop on the Left Bank, T.E.Carhart
In the event of a fire, save the cats, and these books
- Life after God, Douglas Coupland
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
- Ulysses, James Joyce
- Dubliners, James Joyce
- Paradise Lost, John Milton
- Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
- All Beckett, Chekhov and Ibsen
- All Medieval stuff
[books
2001 Here]
...wishlist...
I will venture to call this one of the best books I've read all year, and that praise is not just a result of me ranking all the books I've read, music I've listened to, films I've watched, over the past 12 months, being that it is now the end of a calendar year. It is honest-to-goodness praise for the fact that Galeano positively blew me away with this book that I just could not put down. It is a catalgue of Everything That Is Wrong With The World, in which he tackles issues from the environment to The Establishment, pollution to poverty, the culture and politics of consumerism to the heavy-handedness of Government. He challenges the assumptions of the populations of the priviledged (west and north) world in an irascible, scathing, and often funny manner, and while his politics are, by and large, my politics, I nonetheless tried to read this book critically. For all the diatribe and rhetoric, one quick flip to the back of the book shows that Galeano has the research and stats to back up his claims. There are whole lot of eminently quotable and caustic aphorisms in this book, but there is also a lot of honesty and truth, and reading it will make you challenge many of your own assumptions.
Notes from a Small Island
(March 1998), Bill Bryson
read 15.12.02
This book chronicles Bryson's farewell trip around England before he returned to his native Midwestern USA, after having lived and worked on the "small island" for almost two decades. I fully expected to enjoy and appreciate this book, especially because I like to think that I have a fairly keen understanding of what it is about England that so intrigues Americans (who are far more enamoured of all things British than say, Canadians are), and why. But I didn't enjoy it hardly at all. There were moments that stirred a bit of a chuckle out of me, but overall, I found Bryson to be over the top, excessive, exaggerated in both his praise and damnation of various aspects of English culture and landscape. His prose is clunky, overbearing, and devoid of those subtle nuances that are often peculiar to good travel literature, the ones that, if successfully employed, provide enough detail to tantalise and keep you coming back for more, but don't smack you in the face when you do.
High Fidelity
(April 1995), Nick Hornby
read 07.12.02
This is a light and very funny read and all I could think about when I was reading it was "how could they have made this into a movie?" And then when I recommended the book to my sister, she said the film was the biggest waste of two hours of her life and I had my answer: not very successfully, apparently. Still, it is a very good book and there are a couple of things Nick Hornby does that I really liked and one of them was his use of many-words-strung-together-in-lieu-of-an-adjective. If you read these reviews with any regularity, you will know that I tend to fall into the many-words-strung-together-in- lieu-of-an-adjective habit myself, so it was nice to see someone else pull it off. Although Hornby does it in a much more effective and side-splitting way, of course. Much of the book is an internal monologue by Rob, our protagonist, who has circular conversations with himself that tend to lead him to funny and outlandish conclusions about his life's focus: women and relationships. I hadn't read much about this book before I started reading it, and as indicated above, I knew nothing of the film other than the fact that John Cusack played the main character. The only thing I did hear about the novel/movie was that it supposedly provides some insight into the male perspective of a monogamous relationship, and if that is the case then I'm hoping against hope that Rob is a male anomaly because the state of arrested development he is in is funny but pathetic, and if his perspective is supposed to be representative of how most men feel about monogamous relationships, then the single amongst us are well and truly up the creek without a paddle. And, in this context, up the creek without a paddle is not looking like such a bad deal.
Strangers on a Train
(August 2001), Patricia Highsmith
read 25.11.02
and
A Suspension of Mercy (August 2001), Patricia Highsmith
read 27.11.02
It sometimes happens that I finish a book, lay it aside, begin the next, and forget all about sitting down to write a bit about what I've read before moving on. And when this happens, I tend to lose the details, forget the story, and more often than not, plot, characters and authorship all get jumbled into one mass of names and places that I can't even begin to untangle. That is sort of what happened with these two novels, hence the combined review.
Both of these novels are mysteries, both attempt to come to terms with the nature of the kind of human being who can contemplate a crime (all of us) and those who can actually carry one out (fewer of us) but in a very superficial and morally ambiguous way, which is a real shame because the concept intrigues me on a very fundamental level and is one of the major reasons why I think Crime and Punishment is one of the best and most philosophically complete novels ever written. That said, I did not pick up Patricia Highsmith for any sort of philosophical explication, so as far as mysteries go, these two novels are fairly satisfactory, nothing too memorable, just fine if you are looking for something quick paced and mildly absorptive.
The Virgin Suicides
(March 2000), Jeffrey Eugenides
read 22.11.02
I have been meaning to pick up this book for a very long time, partly because from the very first time I heard Jeffrey Eugenides' name I knew I had to own something with that deliciously classical name on it. And I really shouldn't have waited this long to search it out because I could not find a single pre-movie copy without that lurid cover with Kirsten Dunst on it, looking ecstatic in a slightly demented way. No matter, I still loved this book. It's about a year in the life of the Lisbon daughters, a year that is defined more by their deaths than their waking days. The story is told from the collective point of view of the teenage boys whose lives the Lisbon girls have impacted (which screams untrustworthy narrator) as a result of their depressingly dark and twisted fates, and Eugenides manages a chatty, exposé style that makes you feel like you are reading a piece of in-depth investigative journalism or an unauthorised biography of sorts. It's a quick, absorbing read that took me about 3 hours to finish, but it's the kind of book that I will probably be thinking about for a very long time, not only because of the slightly disturbing yet hysterically funny story, but also because of Eugenides' fresh and compelling way of telling it. His description of Lux's and Trip's first sexual encounter was intoxicating while it was hilarious, and it's not a description I am likely to forget for a while!
All Families are Psychotic
(September 2002), Douglas Coupland
read 16.11.02
I'm still not really sure how I feel about this novel. I gave myself a few days to stew over the novel, process the details, and crystalize my thoughts a bit, but it hasn't helped really. If you have been following my reading patterns and habits over the past few months, you will know that I am very much a Coupland fan, and generally given to enjoying anything from the hip, urban, pop culture oeuvre. This novel has all the hipness and pop culture it needs, minus the urban part because it is set in the beachfront wasteland that is Florida. But nevermind that, I'm willing to accept any novel that compares Disney World to a casino. In All Families are Psychotic Coupland pulls off the same old dysfunctional family song and dance in that I-can't-stop-laughing-I-want-to-cry vintage. And maybe that is part of the problem: maybe I have had just about enough of the depressing, cynical, drug-induced psychosis that characterizes anyone that steps into a Coupland novel.
All that said, I will admit that I did enjoy reading this novel, and I was affected in the same way that most of Coupland's novels affect me [i.e.:I-can't-stop-laughing-I-want-to-cry, as above], and I did recognise and appreciate the magically uplifting conclusion, which is not unlike many of his other novels that manage to end on a life-affirming note, despite the cynicism and drudgery that characterises much of the rest of the novel. But here it is: maybe it's time for Doug to try a little something different. He's not surprising me anymore. There are a lot of new novelists out there who are doing the hip, urban, pop-culture thing really well, so maybe what Doug needs to do is to freshen things up a bit and start surprising us again.
A Short History of Wine
(August 2001), Rod Phillips
read 10.11.02
It has been a very long time since I first began searching for a book that deals with all the different aspects of the grape: the history, the science, the cultural significance, and the global industry. Phillips' book covers all this ground, and he pulls it off in an entertaining and educational way. He begins by tracing the origins of viticulture in the Greek and Roman civilizations, through the resurgent middle ages, to the introduction of the grape in the Americas and the rest of the new world, ending with the properous twenty-first Century. While the chapters are peppered with charming anecdote, the majority of the work is based on solid research and scholarship. What better way for a historian to celebrate his love of wine than to offer up this delightful opus to the oenophiles of the world!
It's always nice to read a memoir every once in a while that is not filled with childhood torment, familial angst and overall personal recrimination. Haven Kimmel actually likes her family, and her relationship with her parents is [dare I say it] a good one, despite the challenges the family faces living in a small, floundering, Midwestern town. Kimmel recounts various episodes in her childhood as the youngest of three children, a member of the family who has outwardly been called "an after-thought." Two important elements make this book work: 1) Kimmel knows how to tell a simple story really well, and 2) Kimmel knows how to make a simple story sound very funny. When it comes down to it, these are ordinary childhood tales, the kinds of stories we can all tell. But Kimmel manages to turn her stories into the large, transformative experiences of childhood, where neighbourhood paranoia can challenge personal identity, and the two-day disappearance of a pet can inform lifetime attitudes, and it is this ability that also accounts for why this book is, at times, so hysterically funny.
Family Matters
(April 2002), Rohinton Mistry
read 20.10.02
I might just be the only person on the planet who did not like this novel. Trust me, I've looked into it. Mistry's last novel, the critically acclaimed A Fine Balance has been on my to-read list for a very long time, because everytime I admit to someone that I haven't yet read that book, they flash that incredulous look of surprise at me and usually say something to the effect of "that has got to be one of my favourite books ever." Figuring that ALL these people can't be wrong, I put the book on my list, and ever since I took the Booker shortlist challenge, I felt somewhat contented knowing that I would finally be getting some Mistry under my belt. Even though this might just be the most boring book I will read all year, Mistry does manage to shed light on some of the complexities of inter-generational comunication and just how difficult it is to care for the elderly. Because of this, Family Matters kind of reminded me of The Stone Angel, a grittier treatment of a similar theme; if it's the theme you're interested, I'd recommend the latter by far.
The Story of Lucy Gault
(September 2002), William Trevor
read 17.10.02
I don't think I've ever read a book while making mental casting notes in my mind for when it will eventually be turned into an overwrought Hollywood production. I have no doubt that this book will be a film (starring Nicole Kidman as the title character) within roughly three years. It tells the story of Lucy Gault, a precocious, young Irish girl who is growing up in a wonderfully sheltered universe admist the political strife of 1920s Ireland. When that political strife threatens to undermine the Gaults' quiet existence, Lucy's parents decide that it would be best if they moved to England, to wait out the local unrest. This piece of news practically breaks Lucy's heart, and she concocts a plan to run away to the arms of a former maid, an act she hopes will make her parents acknowledge the depth of her resolve, which will in turn encourage them to forget their plans and stay in Ireland. But something goes terribly wrong, and her parents end up leaving all the same, believing Lucy to be dead, not lost. The bulk of the narrative oscillates between the story of Lucy's life back in Ireland, and her parents' lives as grieving nomads. This book has all the makings of a Merchant/Ivory piece: childhood tragedy, grief, mistaken loss, protracted periods of loneliness and even a hint of unrequited love. As a novel, the last few chapters do not do justice to the rest of the work, as the story seems to almost peter out. But as a film, I have no doubt that this "problem ending" will be worked out.
Dirt Music
(May 2002), Tim Winton
read 13.10.02
The second on the Booker prize shortlist whirl. Dirt Music is a nice little novel about love and loss and grief. The story is a really compelling reel-in tale, the kind that you'd like to spend time with but really just want to rush through to find out what happens. The story's protagonist, Georgie Jutland, is a forty-something woman who started out as a free-spirited rebel, chosing to live with a small-town fisherman in defiance of her elite and upper class parents and siblings. However, Georgie's life with Jim Buckridge (the fisherman) has dampened that spirit and left her jaded and disconsolate and therefore in search of a brand new adventure, which she finds in Luther Fox, the sole surviving member of the local unlucky family. All sorts of history and intigue surrounds Jim's past, and Lu's family tragedy, and the bizarre co-mingling of the two, which rightly and thankfully, is all revealed at the novel's gratifying conclusion.
Unless
(March 2002), Carol Shields
read 11.10.02
Carol Shields has always drawn ordinary so perfectly. I think one of the major reasons why her books are so popular amongst female readers is that she has the ability to elevate an ordinary female life, with all its major and minor disappointments and victories, to celebratory heights. There is definitely some of this Unless, but there is also another little ingridient in this novel that we have not seen before: anger. Reta Winters is, by all accounts, an ordinary middle-aged woman who happens to be an author and a wife and a mother. The novel opens with Reta claiming that she is heartbroken, and we soon learn that the reason for this is that her bright and talented daughter Norah has dropped out of university and taken to living on the streets in search of "goodness." The bulk of the narrative deals with Reta's search for meaning in Norah's actions, and she eventually settles on the notion that Norah is reacting to a world in which women are isolated, marginalised and often entirely shut out.
I loved this book for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it is a truly feminist novel in a way novels aren't written anymore. Shields doesn't just use metaphors for the many injustices women still have to face so many years after the "female problem" first surfaced - she actually puts it out on the line when she has Reta write letters to various public figures, whether they are novelists, academics, or historians, admonishing them for not recognising the various accomplishments women have made. Reading Reta's letters reminded me of Helene Cixous' tone in "The Laugh of the Medusa": while Reta is not as brazen in her feminist rallying call to arms, she still manages to communicate her anger and frustration with the world. Her anger is not that of a poststructural theoretical feminist, but is instead the anger of a mother who refuses to accept the constraints under which her daughters are forced to live.
I like reading about reading. This book is a collection of essays and anecdotes by literary figures from Michel de Montaigne to Graham Greene, Italo Calvino, and Robertson Davies about the practice of reading, why they read, and what they've read that has influenced them. Reading about why writers and literary heavyweights such as these read is a particularly satisfying pursuit, because they are so much more articulate than I could ever be about why books and ideas and words are so central to the person you become. My favourite chapter was the one by Elizabeth Bowen who attempts to describe the way the memories of childhood of what she calls a "reading child" become so inextricably linked to what that child read during his/her early years. She says, "I know that I have in my make-up layers of synthetic experience, and that the most powerful of my memories are only half-true. Reduced to the minimum, to the what did happen, my life would be unrecognizable to me...The over-lapping and haunting of life by fiction..." As a "reading child" myself, I can definitely relate.
Ex Libris
(May 2002), Ross King
read 03.10.02![[released 04.10.02]](http://www.etches-johnson.com/images/cross.gif)
I was very tentative about entering the world of the murder-mystery, but I couldn't have asked for a better introduction. Ex Libris is an historical murder-mystery, and it is about books and libraries and all those things I can never get enough of. The attention to detail is exquisite, it almost felt like a refresher of a bibliography course I took in grad school: leaves and gatherings and bindings, oh my! As a story, it works extremely well, and without giving away any of the delightful plot intricacies, I will say that the spiral of intrigue, as well as King's remarkable style and composition kept me turning pages at a ravenous pace, and left me with that deliciously satiated feeling.
This is a curious little book. Newton outlines the history and social treatment of "wild children" by exploring the most popular historical cases: a boy suckled by bears, siblings raised by wolves, and a girl who sustained herself while growing up in a forest. It is an interesting read not only because of the necessary spectacle, but also because Newton explores the implications of feral living as a metaphor for life itself and the many ways that our reactions to these "wild children" provide all sorts of alarming insights into our own socialization. Even though this is clearly an academic explication, it is a very accessible read.
The Ordinary White Boy
(September 2002), Brock Clarke
read 25.09.02
This one is pretty formulaic: twenty-something lives an average life, works an average job, in an average town, and deals with average relationships armed with less than average wit and smarts. Lamar Carney is this average guy and his life really is ordinary, and unfortunately, Clarke falls into that trap of ordinariness early in the novel as well. The focal event of the narrative is the disappearance of the town's only Puerto Rican man, and while the pace does pick up a bit as Lamar embarks upon his own investigation into this disappearance, it still does nothing to rescue the novel from abject averageness.
Rule of the Bone
(April 1996), Russell Banks
read 21.09.02
Rule of the Bone is a first person account of the life of Chappie Riley, or The Bone as he calls himself, who is a homeless 14 year old from small town, upstate New York. Banks does a great job of writing a compelling character who is at once naive and caustic in his commentary on a society that has clearly marginalized him. Don't get me wrong: this book is no Catcher in the Rye, and Bone certainly isn't the Holden Caulfield of the 1990s, but he does do a certain amount of justice to the hopelessness of teenage life that is often steeped in drugs, dysfunction, and indifference.
Border Crossing
(February 2002), Pat Barker
read 17.09.02
Thankfully, this book managed to coax me out of the dangerous trend I was starting to settle into: come home bagged > shower > curl up in front of TV > fall asleep > proceed, in dazed stupor, to bed. I knew all I needed was a book that was strong on story and kept me reading, and this one certainly did both. Border Crossing is about Tom Seymour, a psychologist whose encounter with a former patient, Danny Miller, pulls him, reeling, back into Danny's life. This is good, old-fashioned storytelling at its best, with a healthy dose of social commentary thrown in.
Spadework
(July 2002), Timothy Findlay
read 27.08.02
Now is probably a good time to come clean on how I feel about Tim Findlay. It was the summer of 1995, I had just finished the second year of my English undergrad degree, a year that also saw my first meaningful foray into Canadian literature. Close on the heels of this compelling introduction, I picked up Not Wanted on the Voyage, not only because Findlay was considered a contemporary Canadian gem, but also because I've always enjoyed the use of Biblical tropes in fiction. Well my newfound literary nationalism just about ground to a premature halt because this book was unreadable. After I managed to drudge through the work, I more or less swore off Findlay, but I'd always acknowledged that that decision was probably a little unfair. So, when I saw Spadework in the bookstore, published in a handy pocketbook, and thus easy to travel with size, I thought maybe it was time to give him another go.
Well, trying to come back to Findlay with this book was probably a really bad idea because this book is as uninteresting and lightweight as the gold lettering and cheesy photograph on the cover (of the Canadian edition) make it look (being a book cover slut, I should have run the other way). The story is set in Stratford, Ontario and tells of the lives of the Shakespeare Festival theatre company, paying particular attention to Jane and Griffin, the former a prop designer, and the latter an actor. Spadework is filled with mawkishly dramatic plot acrobatics that, given the location in which the narrative is set, might have made an OK play, I guess, if you're into parochial, suburban theatre.
Souvenir of Canada
(July 2002), Douglas Coupland
read 20.08.02
Coupland is frequently criticized for a supposed dependence on pop culture icons to do his work for him. His critics (a group of which I am not a part) often claim that his artistry has staying power only insofar as the cultural iconography he depends upon has staying power. Well, this book is sort of a kick-in-the-ass to those critics, because in Souvenir of Canada, Coupland celebrates the very icons that make his fiction so poignant, current, and, most importantly, Canadian. And with this book, Coupland is in fact ensuring the posterity of those icons, making them a recognizable part of our national identity. Very clever.
Floating in my Mother's Palm
(July 1998), Ursula Hegi
read 18.08.02
This is a decent little novel, not as lightweight as it appears. Set in post World War 2 Germany, Hegi tackles some fairly major issues like homophobia and incest. Actually, the chapters of this book read more like short stories than a novel, and provide some enjoyable background details to Stones from the River, which is actually a sequel to this novel. That, and the fact that one of the central characters is a librarian is enough to recommend this one.
The Body Artist
(February 2002), Don DeLillo
read 13.08.02
I haven't yet read Underworld so I did not fall into the trap of comparing this novel with DeLillo's last. Which, from what I hear, would not be a fair comparison anyway. The Body Artist is a haunting little book, kind of reminded me of Crace's Being Dead. There is far more to this book than Crace's though - this novel follows the life of Lauren Hartke after her filmmaker husband commits suicide. Delillo describes Lauren's emotional state of mind, and her reaction to her house's squatter, with his usual stark, glaring metaphors that occupy the delicate grey area between brazenness and absolute truth. And only DeLillo can devote two pages of description to the fall of a paper clip onto the floor, making it seem like both an emotional and political event.
The Oath
(August 2001), Elie Wiesel
read 12.08.02
This book should not have taken me ten days to read. But it did. I found part one of The Oath to be almost unreadable - it was far too fragmented and poetic. These aren't qualities that I necessarily dislike in a book. But in this particular one, the observations and lyricisms seemed almost disembodied. Once through part one, the rest of the book became a bit more interesting, as Wiesel finally gets to the meat of the narrative. Ultimately though, the finished product hardly seemed worth the druggery of part one.
The Fifth Son
(May 1985), Elie Wiesel
read 31.07.02
I've always found that reading Wiesel is like reading a chapter in Judaism and Jewish History 101: I come away with all sorts of gems of Jewish law and wisdom that I practically collect and hoard. The Fifth Son is no exception. This is a profoundly moving book about the son of a holocaust survivor and his attempt to get both inside and beyond his father's silence. I especially loved the ending - in the hands of a lesser author it might have seemed lame, but Wiesel pulls it off gracefully, making it seem as though there could not have been another, more natural conclusion.
Is it just me, or is Louise Rennison not getting enough publicity in North America? It was only thanks to a slip of the mouse that I stumbled upon Angus when I was killing time on amazon.com one day. So, since Adrian Mole was a revelation to me during my teenage-reading years, I knew that I had to get my hands on these books. At first though, I wasn't that impressed. Georgia Nicholson is certainly amusing, but she's just not as clever as Adrian Mole was. By the time I finished the first book, I realised that Georgia will probably be, to teenagers today, what Adrian was to me when I was growing up, but maybe just dumbed-down a bit (which, in itself, is a sad commentary on young-adult literature today). So, while she certainly can't replace Adrian, and all the nostalgia he induces, I'm still looking forward to the arrival of Nunga-Nungas, for all those purely self-indulgent, plot-related reasons.
Summer Gone (July 2000), David Macfarlane
read 26.07.02
Summer Gone is the perfect summer novel. I'm not a cottager, and I never went to camp, but Macfarlane's nostalgic and lyrical descriptions made the experience of a northern Ontario summer feel warm and familiar. Bay, the novel's central character, seems to hold on to the memories of his one summer at camp in as tight a grip as he holds on to the memories of his once young family, making this as much a family tale of memory, silence and loss, as it is a celebration of those sleepy summer afternoons by the lake.
Hotel World (January 2002), Ali Smith
read 24.07.02
I think the best word to describe how I feel about this novel is appreciation. I appreciated Smith's postmodern devices, they made the book seem like an experiment in narrative style. Five characters narrate the five parts of the novel, with the unifying force being their relation/reaction to Sara Wilby's untimely death in a ubiqitous branch of an international hotel chain. Clare, Sara's sister, is one of the narrators, and her section is undoubtedly the most engaging of the five. The section is written without any paragraph breaks or punctuation, which made it trying at first, but as soon as I settled into the narrative flow, I was hooked. Reading it made me think about what it must have been like to have written it - it surely must have been as compelling and absorbtive to write those lines as it was to read them. If the storyline does not reel you in, the clever literary tricks certainly will.
My Darling Dead Ones (June 1998), Erika de Vasconcelos
read 19.07.02
I am the first to admit that I am a book-cover/dust-jacket slut. If it's got a pretty, interesting, or unusual cover, I'm all over it. This one's got a pretty cover. And that's about all it has going for it. I appreciated de Vasconcelos' attempt to write a feminist, matriarchal novel, where men exist only to fill in the anecdotal detail. But this is just a really uninteresting story, far too sentimental for me, with entirely forgettable characters (in fact, I can't remember a single name). BUT: it's got a really pretty cover.
Woman: An Intimate Geography (February 2000), Natalie Angier
read 18.07.02
Every woman should read this book. No, scratch that, every human being should read this book. It's that simple. Angier couples scientific fact with myth, history, literary anecdote, psychology, geography, and anthropology in this encyclopedic treatise on the female body. This is a remarkably informative and entertaining piece of work that only a woman could have written. And the best thing about it, scientific fact, delightful speculation, and knee-slapping humour aside: it has an index! I can look things up! Step aside Our Bodies, Our Selves; Woman: An Intimate Geography is practically a reference work, and I dare anyone to try and convince me otherwise.
The Barking Dog (September 2000), Cordelia Strube
read 15.07.02
No other contemporary Canadian author does urban, pop-culture commentary as well as Cordelia Strube. Her detailed descriptions practically bound off the page (as evidenced in my swearing off chicken for the rest of my life after reading Dr. Kalbfleisch and the Chicken Restaurant). In the past though, everytime I've finished one of her novels (and I've read them all), I've thought: snappy & poignant, but a little rough around the edges. Well she's smoothed out those edges and worked out the kinks with The Barking Dog. This novel is a first-person account of Greer (whose name we don't learn until about half way through the novel) and her attempt to survive two concurrent trials: a literal one - of her son for a double homicide, and a figurative one - her own cancer. It sounds like the most depressing novel on the planet (or close), but Strube tells it with the perfect mix of dark humour and grace, with the neighbourhood's barking dog as the symbol of Greer's (and her son's) life interrupted. She bitches and complains about the annoying dog (and murders and cancer), but every night, she faithfully shuts the window to the din, and wills herself to get beyond the noise (and murders and cancer). Strube's never-too-optimistic/ never-too-negative style tells Greer's story perfectly, which, despite the ending, which I thought was a bit of a cop-out, left me thinking: this is her best one yet.
Paris to the Moon (October 2000), Adam Gopnik
read 10.07.02
What I found so great about this book was the fact that it is not just another one of those American-moves-to-Paris-and-falls-hopelessly-in-love-with-the-Old-World-charm books. Gopnik certainly does give due attention to those Eurocentricities like their ardent, yet harrowing, love for soccer, and their (France's, in particular) epic labour disputes, the likes of which can only be dreamed of in the organized labour circles of North America. But he also deals with issues and ideas that are usually conspicuously absent from the traditional travelogue: things like politics and health care for example. Granted, Gopnik is as dewy-eyed about Paris as any American [who-moves-to-Paris-and-falls-hopelessly-in-love-with-the-Old-World-charm], but he manages to give us an entertaining glimpse at both what it means to live amongst Parisians, as well as what it means to be Parisian.
Destiny (September 1999), Tim Parks
read 07.07.02
This is a book about a man's reaction to hearing about his son's suicide. The entire action (or perhaps inaction) takes place in a 48 hour period and traces the manner in which Chris Burton, our protagonist, reacts to this devastating piece of news. Parks, who is an absolute master of the subordinate clause, manages to take us right inside Burton's head and shows us the way grief really works - it's not all about tears and anguish and a dramatic sense of tragedy; it's about asking simple questions ("where did it all begin?" he asks himself throughout the novel), trying to apply reason and finding it to be altogether insufficient, and grappling with the way in which the news (of the suicide) will impact how he is going to live his life thereafter. This is an incredible book.
Realia (August 2001), Will Aitken
read 01.07.02
I picked up this book because I liked the title. I'd also read that Aitken satirizes the usual Western reverance for Japan, which I found intriguing and thought would make an interesting change (I hated Memoirs of a Geisha). The book is about Louise Painshaud, from Lethbridge, Alberta, who has been transplanted to Japan and is essentially being paid, by her family, to stay there. Louise is certainly not taken with Japan, nor is she eager to engage in the expatriot experience, refusing to learn even the basics of the language or to sample authentic cuisine. The book has all the makings of a sharp, satirical narrative, but it fails because Louise is just not interesting enough as a protagonist. As the main character, she lacks complexity and, while initially her saucy humour is mildly amusing, by the end of the book, she is downright lewd and offensive. Not that I have a problem with lewd and offensive. It's just that, on Louise, it plays out as merely one of her many excesses.
French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew (May 2001), Peter Mayle
read 26.06.02
Delicious! Delightful! Delectable! Mayle is one of those writers whose books I eagerly await. He certainly doesn't disappoint with this one. For French Lessons, Mayle leaves Menerbes for a gastronomical tour of France, experiencing snails, truffles, frogs legs, cheese, and wine (amongst other things) along the way. This book displays Mayle's vintage wit and charm and leaves you rushing off to the nearest travel agent, or at least wishing you could rush off to the nearest travel agent. But not before a nice, long lunch of course.
The Powerbook (October 2001), Jeanette Winterson
read 23.06.02
I really wanted to like this book. I have been wanting to like Winterson's offerings since The Passion, but nothing has come close unfortunately. The Powerbook is about Ali, who writes stories on demand, and delivers them by e-mail. What she mostly does is retell the tragic love stories we already know: Lancelot and Guinevere, Paolo and Francesca, etc. That we already know them is not the problem; the problem is that her neat little summations get in the way. This book is filled with great little lines, like the recurring, "To avoid discovery I stay on the run. To discover things for myself I stay on the run" that might have meaning, even out of context (especially out of context?), and will appear tacked to computer monitors as personal favourites. The problem is, the whole book is a patchwork of these lines, and ultimately they do not add up to much. So, I haven't given up on Winterson, but I am losing patience.
Our Lady of the Lost and Found (April 2001), Diane Schoemperlen
read 21.06.02
This is a great book. The unnamed narrator is visited, not without warning, by the Virgin Mary. Once the initial akwardness of their meeting has worn off, Mary requests only one thing: she'd like a place to stay, for about a week, for some R & R. 2000 years of travel, appearances, visitations and miracles have taken their toll. At first, I was annoyed with the said narrator's reserve. She had all these questions racing through her mind, but she never actually ASKS any of them. But, once I got past this, I realized that the visit is as much a journey of self-discovery for our narrator, as it has been a reprieve for Mary. By the time I got to the final chapter, I wanted more. So I bought another Schoemperlen book... But more on that soon.
Slowness (April 1997), Milan Kundera
read 01.06.02
Typical Kundera. There really is nothing quite like his long, philosophical explications, and the ease with which he manages to weave these tirades into his narrative. Simultaneously though, it is not typical Kundera at all: this is a short novel, a mere 156 pages, nothing near the expansive tomes we’ve come to expect from him. And he wrote it in French, another first. That aside though, I do enjoy the self-reflexivity of Kundera’s work, and in that respect, Slowness does not disappoint.
Other Women (April 1996), Evelyn Lau
read 15.05.02
In Lau's second novel, she uses fragmented narrative in the same way she did in her first, Runaway: The Diary of a Street Kid. I liked this one less though. While this is a mildly compelling tale of Fiona's love for a married, and therefore unattainable man, her absolute and all-consuming obsession wore on me before long. Good thing it was a short book.
The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris (February 2001), Edmund White
read 01.05.02
I am taking this book to Paris with me the next time I go. White highlights Paris' hidden gems in the most compelling way, never glazing over the less-desirable attributes of the city. A "flaneur" is essentially a wanderer, an "aimless stroller who loses himself in a crowd", which is arguably the best way to experience the arrondissements of Paris. The Flaneur is the first book in "The Writer and the City Series" issued by Bloomsbury. I'm keeping my eyes open for the rest.
The Blind Assassin (August 2001), Margaret Atwood
read 12.04.02
I gave up on Atwood after I read The Robber Bride when it came out in 1998. My feelings towards Atwood were often summed up with: "I loved her older stuff, but don't have any patience for her current work." The Blind Assassin has changed that. This is a great book, one of those expansive, engrossing stories that I could not seem to tear myself away from. The book ends with a dramatic twist that made me want to go back and read it all over again, armed with the knowledge of the outcome. So now that I am back in the Atwood camp, Alias Grace has made it to my list.
The Engligh Patient (December 1993), Michael Ondaatje
read 28.02.02
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (September 2000), Michael Chabon
read 22.01.02