77 Fragments of a Familiar Ruin

Thomas King, born in 1943, is a prolific writer of Greek and Cherokee descent.  77 Fragments is his first book of poetry after writing The Inconvenient Indian and many novels and short stories.  King’s poems are brief but powerful, with an elegiac feel as he portrays the horrors of planetary degradation and political betrayal, often using mythic characters.  Here is #1: “As for the garden, Adam, after the fall.  Make no mistake he said, he will destroy it all.”

Some of my favourites are a series of poems about Coyote going to see social services, the doctor, and other representatives of western culture, who examine Coyote to diagnose his problems such as “adverse childhood experiences” then present misguided solutions. With brief responses, Mischievous Coyote shows the ridiculousness of their offensive diagnoses.  Of course, this is a hilarious yet tragic commentary on the Indigenous situation, presented in few but powerful words.

Even poetry non readers will find this an engaging and thought-provoking book,

Real People's Strange Lives

Hello!

I hope you've all recovered from the fun frenzy of Christmas and Boxing Day.  What is a holiday season without eating too much and then battling 50,000 cars at a shopping mall?

A growing and popular genre of recent years is the childhood memoir, often referred to as a "misery memoir" that tells of a strange and dreadful childhood and subsequent recovery.   The kickoff misery memoir for me is definitely Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle,  a riveting tale of neglect and weirdness with four children being raised by mentally ill addicts who are not abusive so much as neglectful and incompetent. It's got a strong beginning when Walls sees her mother rummaging through a dumpster.

Recently I've read two books in which the subjects are lied to by their parents until they can unravel the family mysteries as adults. Five Days Gone: the Mystery of my Mother's Disappearance as a Child, in which the author Laura Cummings' mother is kidnapped for five days when she is a toddler, tells of a family that is built on fabrication. The whole community is aware that this child's parents are not who they say they are, and keep the secrets from her until Cummings begins to look into the situation.

Another family built on lies is portrayed in Sarah Valentine's When I was White.  All during her childhood, Sarah was questioned about her race.  Growing up in a white family, she stood out as looking very different but her mother explained that she looked more Italian than the rest of the family.  After pressuring her mother she learns that she is actually African-American.  How did this happen? 

There are many good books about strange families.  I also enjoyed Red Star Tattoo by Sonja Larsen, in which her parents dump her into a communist cult at the age of eight and then leave, North of Normal by Cea Sunrise Person, and Leaving the Witness: exiting a religion and finding a life by Amber Scorah.   Scorah's book is one of a subgenre of memoirs about children brought up in cults and oppressive religions.  Very enjoyable tales indeed.

Here is a strange photo taken in the Seattle Public Library, a fitting complement to the family weirdness of the misery memoirs.

Drive your plow over the bones of the dead

Hello!

Polish author Olga Tokarczuk won the Booker Prize for a previous novel, Flights.  Originally published in Polish in 2009, it was only last year that  Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was translated into English and received wider distribution.  Tokarczuk is an intellectual and  one of the most critically acclaimed novelists living today.

The novel presents Janina Duszeko, an aging woman living alone in a rural community near the Czech border, an eccentric activist who defends animals. When a series of murders of local hunters mystifies the community, she presents an argument to the authorities that the animals have risen up in self defense.

Drive Your Plow is a good read with an unusual plot and many fascinating characters. Although a literary novel that concerns the plight of animals and the environment, touches of humour, an unexpected plot twist and a late-life romance make it a more entertaining read than many trips through the human situation.  I especially enjoyed her letters to the indifferent authorities, presenting the murders as arising naturally from the confluence of astrological influences.  Like many Eastern European novels and movies, "the authorities" are portrayed with acid sarcasm. Highly recommended for people who like literary novels in translation that aren't too experimental.

Here is a hiking photo from Lake O'Hara,  a remote mountainous area.

Books for Christmas traditions

Hello!

Thank goodness the solstice is tomorrow with longer days coming soon.  In the meantime, we have Christmas to enjoy or endure, or love or hate depending on your circumstances.  Whatever your situation, I have noticed that many people have a Christmas reading tradition for the holiday season.

For example, a friend of mine told me that in her family they read O. Henry's humorous and poignant story Gift of the Magi, written in 1905 and still a delightful tale of Christmas gifts gone awry.

My tradition is A Child's Christmas in Wales.  Last February my aunt died at the age of 87 and I remember listening to her recording of Dylan Thomas reading his poem.  I still try to incorporate a reading somewhere in the season. Who can resist the uncles snoring after dinner, or the auntie singing in the back yard after too much sherry?

 A Christmas Carol is filled with ghosts,  darkness, tragedy,  hope and transformation. Marley's face appearing on Scrooge's door knocker is one of the best things I've ever read. Not only can the book be enjoyed again, but every year many dramatizations are presented over this season, including one by the Wonder heads in Victoria.

There are so many good Christmas stories and books, that I am sure you could find others, such as Clement C. Moore's "Twas the Night before Christmas."   I believe Moore actually invented fat, jolly Santa in a red suit. 

In closing, I wish you happy Christmas reading and much seasonal frolicking. Here is a lovely donkey unicorn for your viewing pleasure.

Wow! writers: John Lanchester

I have thoroughly enjoyed John Lanchester, a British writer born in 1962.  You may be familiar with Capital, that has been made into a movie. Capital presents a family grappling with the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008. Described as "Dickensian," Lanchester's story revolves around a neighborhood in the South London area. Presented fictionally, issues include immigration, property prices and other social questions of the time. 

Fragrant Harbour, is an astonishing historical drama set in Hong Kong.  Lanchester was raised there where his father worked for a bank. He delves in the fascinating history and development of the country's business elite, presenting lots of Asian and European characters moving through the war, post war and modern times. Crime, unusual romances and business dealings add to the reading experience.

Lanchester then writes The Wall, a dystopian novel and total change of genre. It's a lovely exploration of what it would be like to defend a wall, with society's privileged on one side and everyone else struggling on the other side in an indifferent world where the seas have risen and survival is not easy.  Well, actually, it's not as Sci-fi  as it sounds!

 Lanchester has also written a memoir, Family Love Story, in which he explores secrets and lies.  He describes his father dying young after working at a job he hated for his whole life.  At that point, Lanchester felt free to leave his disagreeable academic career to become a writer.  Good choice, Lanchester!

Here is a picture of Havana, the capitol of Cuba.

The 2019 Giller in my opinion

Hello!

I recently attended a lovely Giller party at the Empress where we listened to local celebrities defend their title, then watched the award show from Toronto.   I had my fingers crossed for The Innocents, but could have rejoiced if David Bezmozgis or Stephen Price had won.  Bezmozgis has been writing fabulous short stories and novels for many years, mostly from an Eastern European immigrant perspective. Stephen Price's Lampedusa is a beautiful book based on a real person who is writing a novel called The Leopard at the end of his life. The winner was Ian Williams, who I am sure is a wonderful person who deserves all success.  I started his book, Reproduction, with high hopes.  It's about  19 year old Felicia and a much older Edgar who meet in a hospital room to watch over their dying mothers.  One lives and one dies, and Felicia gives up her education to live with Edgar and take care of his mother.  So far so good!  interesting, readable.  However, the novel goes on and on and on and I just couldn't stay interested unto the third generation.  I believe this book could have benefited from being shorter by 100 pages, or maybe 150.  It's a first novel, which may be the issue, as sometimes first novelists throw everything into their books, making them too long.  I also became tired of the experimental writing, especially in the last 100 pages.  Oh well, I wish Ian Williams a very good second novel!  I will understand if you disagree and tell me how passionately you love this book.  Fiction can be very subjective.  Here is a photo from Stewart in Northern BC for you.

The amazing Julian Fellowes

Hello!

While my husband was at home studying Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris, I was at a friend's taking in Downton Abbey and I'm not sure you can get two more contrasting movie experiences. Although Downton Abbey, written by British upper class guy Julian Fellowes,  has its charms that include a slow pace, beautiful costumes and a few interesting characters, it is with fiction that  Fellowes really gets going. As you know, British writers of past and present can really write, presenting strong characters, unique plots, and a good style. They are educated and competent.  Some examples include VS Pritchett, Winston Graham, Ian MacEwan, Graham Swift, and for me, Julian Fellowes.  His three astonishing novels, Snobs, Past Imperfect, and Belgravia, perfectly present the foibles and failures of the upper class life, with skewering and trenchant insight.  I especially like Snobs, the story of Edith Lavery who moves heaven and earth to marry an upper class Englishman, to the dismay of his family, who see her as a social climber.  Sure enough, she soon gets bored with the life that isn't as she imagined it, and takes a lover, which turns out to be another problem.  What next?  Fellowes' insights are pure Jane Austen satire, with the same touches of humanity and observation that humane values are more important in the long run than riches, status or fame.   He thoroughly knows his social class and presents it with the great combination of humour and viciousness that makes such a good novel. 

Best books of 2019

Joan Thomas deservedly won the GG award for her novel Five Wives, based on the true event of five missionaries killed in the Amazon in 1956.  Thomas speaks pitch-perfect Christianese, a delusional language that defies credibility, but which many people still speak today.  Besides the totally unnecessary deaths of the five misguided male missionaries, who follow God’s leading rather than any common sense, the larger tragedy is the collusion between delusional religious people and nefarious oil companies whose invasion of indigenous territories leads to the tragic destruction of a way of life. All of this is presented in readable and powerful fictional form.   Everyone should read this book.

Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carre

I just love spy stories, both fiction and nonfiction and it appears that at age 89, Le Carre’s still got what it takes to write a convoluted and page-turning ripping yarn. I really enjoyed this fast-paced twisty-turny tale of betrayal, confusion and bad management and if you enjoy spies, I can highly recommend it.  Spy fiction by writers like Len Deighton and Alan Furst are quite a lot of fun,  but I have to tell you that the real stories are much stranger and less believable than fiction.  An especially good one is A Spy Among Friends, the true tale of Kim Philby. If you read spy nonfiction, you will soon come to the unsettling realization that the world is being run in the shadows by secretive organizations following their own agendas.    Let me know if you want a list of the books I’ve read about

international espionage, although you won’t sleep well when you understand how good the Russians actually are at infiltrating everything.
.

Best books of 2019

Hello,  so far in 2019, I have borrowed 198 books from the public library, which puts me in a good position to recommend my favourite titles from the year, which I will do in upcoming posts.  I have to begin with Michael Crummey’s beautiful historical novel, The Innocents, which remains my choice for the Giller award.   The Innocents is a fascinating story filled with incredible research about how two children could have survived a tragic situation on a remote coast of Newfoundland.  Brave, inspiring, compassionate, heartfelt, with a fluid and fast- paced writing style,

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book for all fiction lovers.

Karamo!

Karamo, my story of embracing purpose, healing and hope is an uplifting fast read by one of the Fab Five Queer Eye guys.   I’ve been obsessed with Queer Eye, enjoying the positive messages and fun transformations of all kinds of people.  The five have now written books and naturally, I want to read them all.   These gay guys talk the talk but they also walk the walk, having overcome many forms of adversity.   If you enjoy inspiring memoirs, this book is for you.

Women Loving Women by Judith Castle provides the pleasures of a fine box of chocolates-some sweet, reminding me of Hafiz or Mary Oliver with their simplicity and unusual imagery; some like salted caramel with bits of despair adding flavour; some dark and bitter, presenting the awfulness of  fear, death, tragedy.
When you are finished gorging on these delectable offerings, you will feel the wonder, horror, complexity and completeness of what it is to love.

Judith is presenting her book publicly on Friday December 13 at 1:30 pm at the James Bay New Horizons Centre, 234 Menzies Avenue.

Idiot Wind by Peter Kaldheim

You live in New York and your job is to buy and sell drugs from a dealer named Bobby Bats, who will kill you if you don't deliver the money on time. You purchase a large quantity of cocaine, then decide to party a little. After a lost weekend of fun and sharing, you wake up Monday morning with no drugs and no money. Bobby is looking for you, so you decide to hitchhike across the country to the West Cost.  Hitchhiking is not easy. You have no money and you've lost your ID. The trip involves long waits, sleeping by the side of the road in the rain, cops moving you along, strange people who include you in dubious enterprises, hunger and catching rides on freight trains.  Eventually you land in Seattle where you are homeless.  You figure out where to sleep and how to get food.  You get new boots and a friend from the shelter shares his place under a bridge. Eventually you are hired for a job cooking in Yellowstone and change your life.

I'm glad Kaldheim described his trip in so much detail. Hitchiking across the country is now off my bucket list.

The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy

The Man Who Saw Everything is a complicated, splintered book that I first found difficult to follow, but that in the end provided a wonderful reading experience.  Saul Adler experiences identical car accidents in 1988 and then again in 2016.  Same location, same driver, but with very different consequences. In 1988 the accident is minor and he travels the next day to the GDR where he meets lovers Walter and Luna, and possibly inadvertently betrays them both. In 2016 his accident is more serious and leaves him recovering in hospital with a fractured mind that confuses the past and present, realities and fantasies. The reader is also confused, until we realize that Saul's broken mind reflects the broken glass at his accident site, and his broken life. At the end of the novel, a revelation leaves the reader with a heartfelt understanding of how life can become a series of accidents, seen only in shards.
I highly recommend this book for readers who like literary, complicated and somewhat experimental books.   

Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson

Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson (JW) is a fun book of 12 original stories and 12 personal essays. Touches of magic provide happy endings, and I especially enjoyed the two ghost stories.  Her recipes and personal essays can be very funny, as when she calls her difficult mother “Mrs. Winterson” and says “This was a woman for whom life was a pre-death experience.”  Although JW writes literary novels, I very much enjoyed this Christmas collection.

Island Writer launch tonight!

Hello!   We are launching Island Writer Magazine this evening at the Central Branch at 7 pm!  The mag features lots of poems and stories from local writers.