During the winter my boyfriend and I purchased our first house together and the prospect of being a homeowner is a daunting enterprise. Though we've been in our house for six months now, there are constant challenges and any romantic notions that I had went out the window very quickly. The problems that crop up are none that HGTV prepared me for. There were none of those magical makeover moments, nor did those scary Holmes on Holmes issues come to light (knock on wood). Instead we found ourselves replacing gutters and fantasizing about a life which might include an on-demand hot water heater.
One of the elements of owning a house of which I was completely ignorant of was the overhauling and maintenance of a garden. As an apartment dweller for most of my life, I never had the need to learn anything about taking care of a garden, and my past as an indoor plant serial killer made my chances of success doubtful at best. Still I approached this challenge with gusto, and did the only thing I knew what to do when confronted by my own lack of knowledge, research. I bought The Zero-Mile Diet by Carolyn Herriot and used it as my guide to planting a respectable vegetable garden which might bring about something edible.
The book is structured like a calendar and I found this approach to be very helpful. For each month, there are different topics and instructions of what you should be doing to prepare, plant or harvest your garden. Particularly being from the West Coast where temperatures are much different than those of other parts of the country, I was happy to find a resource which has advice that corresponds to our unique climate. Although I think that the advice could be applied to other areas if one were to shift the calendar two months or so forward. The tidbits of advice which Herriot gives throughout the book are clear and very practical, and I can easily envision myself carrying out some of her tips as I become more confident of my abilities.
At this point I am doing the gardening equivalent of throwing a bunch of things against the wall and hoping that something sticks. If anything grows, I will consider it to be a victory and with The Zero-Mile Diet, I feel that I have a better chance.
I have many books in my past, good books, which I failed to finish for one reason or another. These books haunt me every time I go to my shelves to pick out my reading material. Above all others, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, and my inability to read it cover to cover, bothered me more than any other botched attempt. My tastes are fickle with little logic behind my decisions to read or give up and move on.
When embarking on a recent vacation to a destination with no phone reception, internet or cable, I chose to finally go back to this spurned novel and give it another chance. This time around, the book was equally as gripping and my understanding of the characters only deepened with my more mature perspective (such as it is). The plot revolves around a family who are about to spend their last Christmas together in their family home in the heart of the American Midwest. Leading up to this holiday, each character muses how, for different reasons, they are dreading the holiday and the inevitable confrontation it will entail. There are three grown children in this family, Chip, an overindulged former academic, Denise, a brilliant chef with a weakness for married men, and Gary, the depressed dictator of the Lambert brood. These siblings, each with their own serious issues, come together (or butt heads) while trying to deal with their father's ailing health and their mother's denial.
It is this story about the Lambert patriarch's broken body and deteriorating mind,that drives the narrative and provides relevant insights. Though the book was written over a decade ago, the plot of grown children looking after their aging parents and having to make tough choices, is even more topical today with the Baby Boomer generation heading into their golden years. I thought that Franzen's treatment of the dilemma's facing the siblings had a realism which struck a chord with me, though I felt that their dysfunctional lives were a little over the top. Another theme that appeared throughout the book, was the complex relationship that the characters had with pharmaceuticals. At the time that the book was written, the concept of people medicating their way out of their problems was new and this theme is played out in the lives of different characters spanning across both generations.
Although I have pointed out these two themes as being particularly strong, there is a lot of depth to this novel and it really presents a thorough snapshot of American life in the late nineties. With the constraints of a short blog entry, I sometimes worry about not doing justice to a book which is vast in scope, and this book in particular presents challenges to this medium. After all these years of sitting on my shelf and eliciting feelings of guilt, I am glad that I finally picked this book up again, and took an unexpectedly great journey.
When you write a blog about reading, people often come to you with suggestions about what books would make good fodder for your blog posts. People mean well and I appreciate their enthusiasm both for reading and the blog itself. No one has been a more diligent campaigner for a book than my friend Alysia. For many years she advocated A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith with relentless passion and sentimentality for a book which she views as a beloved companion. Needless to say, I was worried that I wouldn't like it for fear of her disappointment in my reaction.
It turns out that I didn't worry for long. The book is the coming of age story of Francie Nolan, an impoverished girl living in Brooklyn just prior to WWI. Her family includes her father Johnny, an alcoholic singing waiter, and his long-suffering wife, Katie. The family is rounded out by her younger brother Neeley who manages to inherit the best qualities of both parents. Throughout the story, there emerges many other singular characters that people Francie's community, so many that it is difficult to mention them all. These characters emerge through a series of of short vignettes which make up the story as a whole. It is an atypical plot structure which allows the reader to learn about Francie's life through the stories of her family and neighborhood. Therefore, unlike other books that have discussed in my blog, the plot cannot be summed up within a few sentences and proves to make for a more rewarding reading experience.
I feel like I understand what it meant to be a girl growing up poor in Brooklyn in that period of time, without the romanticism that usually colours the pages of coming of age stories. Due to Johnny's personal foibles, the family lives in a crushing poverty which is constantly in the background of their lives like another character. Alysia makes the astute point, that though the family lives on very little, there isn't an overwhelming sense of despair. The kids have happy moments where they manage to have the unconventional brand of fun that poor children often experience, full of imagination. Though the subject matter is serious, and I'm not sure how I would have reacted to the book had I read it at another stage in my life, but there is not the unrelenting melancholy of similar works.
Though I can't get into what happens in the book in any sort of detail (because I'd be writing all day), it does tackle such controversial topics like premarital sex, infertility, and the general complexity of romantic love. It delves into issues that many coming of age stories of this time period gloss over and author Anna Quindlen effectively makes this argument in the introduction to the edition that I read. She draws interesting parallels between this book and Little Women, a childhood favourite of many readers. Quindlen asserts that Smith`s account differs from Louisa May Alcott`s tale because the Nolan family dwells in a more gritty realism than the noble poverty of the March family. I see the truth of Quindlen`s observations, and though I love both books, I can relate more to Francie`s childhood than the experiences of Jo March and company.
I would heartily recommend that more girls read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and would like to see it reach the same sentimental literary space that other books like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables occupy. Because Alysia is right, as usual.
There are very few books, television shows, movies, etc. that bring out the sentimental streak in my otherwise overly critical soul, but somehow The Vinyl Cafe has done just that. For those who aren't familiar with The Vinyl Cafe, I will elaborate. It is a radio show which airs every Sunday at noon on CBC Radio One, and features musical guests and stories written by the host, Stuart McLean. These stories feature an average family, that always seem to get into interesting scrapes, especially the patriarch, Dave. Along with his long-suffering wife, Morley, he bumbles his way through life with the best of intentions and the worst stroke of luck. Dave's two children, Sam and Stephanie round out the family along with Arthur the loyal hound dog. Every week, McLean tells another story of their adventures, with a puckish, yet wholesome delivery.
I was first introduced to this show by my high school English teacher who impressed upon her students that some stories just sounded better read aloud. We read McLean's stories to each and found ourselves chuckling along despite our attempts to appear aloof. Though I can picture some other teenagers rolling their eyes, the stories really are ageless and they are richer through McLean's reading. This show reminds me of the oral tradition of storytelling which predates the written word and how people would it for hours as a wandering troubadour would recite Beowulf or The Iliad from memory. Similarly, The Vinyl Cafe travels all over Canada, rather than simply touring the larger cities, and McLean makes a point of talking about each individual place and supporting local musicians as well.
Though my previous arguments about the quality of the stories, and the community involvement of the show are good ones, I think that the most compelling thing about the show is the hos himself. McLean is charming in a folksy way with that typically Canadian self-effacing sense of humour. In fact, there is nothing more Canadian than The Vinyl Cafe and it doesn't fall into the trap of over-the-top Canadian content like so many other productions. A biopic of Laura Secord told from the point of view of a Metis voyageur, for instance. It mentions on The Vinyl Cafe website that their podcast was chosen by Apple as the best audio podcast of the year in 2011. This is not surprising to me as a fan of the show, and I hope that you will take the time to follow the link I am adding to this post so that you can listen and judge for yourself.
http://www.cbc.ca/vinylcafe/home.php
I knew at some point I would have to bring up this topic, but was somewhat dreading wading into the troubled waters of the creative non-fiction debate. Firstly, I don't know if I am adequately able to define the vague oxymoron that is creative non-fiction in an academic fashion. So this is going to be a conversation about creative non-fiction as I see it.
From the beginning, I will give you the working definition that I use to describe it. Everyone has at least one friend who is a great storyteller, but seems to embellish the events to the point of slight absurdity. This is how I identify creative non-fiction. There may be an element of truth to the tale, and the details might be fudged to make for a more engaging experience for the listener or reader. Another point worth stating is that perhaps the limits of memory force some authors to fill in the blanks. Marina Nemat admits in her book Prisoner of Tehran that she is not capable of remembering all that happened to her during her stay in prison. As a result of her experience, including torture and rape at the hands of her captors, her memory of that period of her life is imperfect. Due to this confession within the pages of her memoir and my compassion for her situation, I tend to be more forgiving of any possible untruthful elements of her personal narrative.
To my mind the debate comes own to a question of truth in advertising. I think that the literary world (and Oprah) rightly came down on James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, who fabricated a large portion of his book which was marketed as a non-fiction. His readers felt personally deceived when it surfaced that his story was largely untrue. Rather than possible memory loss due to a traumatic situation, he knowingly lied about the events documented in his so-called memoir. If he had marketed the book as a fictional book inspired by true incidents of his life, than that is a completely different animal. When people pull a book from the shelves of the non-fiction shelf, there is an unspoken trust that the book contains facts or the facts as they are perceived by the author. What Frey did was a violation of that trust.
Another aspect of this issue of creative non-fiction is that of books that are marketed as fiction which are largely autobiographical. Authors will often draw upon personal experience for their writing material and some arguably delve a little too deeply. Though he is one of the greats of Canadian literature and a personal favourite of mine, Mordecai Richler seemingly borrowed a lot from his own life when creating his protagonists. As Jewish men in Montreal, they shared many of his life experiences and even his personality traits. Should these novels be considered creative non-fiction? I am not sure, and discussing these questions of categorization are perhaps a silly game for people like me that enjoy such debates. Some would argue that the labels no longer hold the same relevance as they once did, especially where memoirs are concerned. Others would say that the distinctions do still matter, and they want to know if they are consuming the truth or the product of the author's imagination. My primary concern is always the entertainment value of what I read, but these issues do inform if I pick up a book in the first place and they are worth thinking about when making conscious choices about what one reads.
Every year I tune in to CBC's annual CanLit contest, Canada Reads just for the pure entertainment of listening to Canada's version of celebrities debate the merits of five books. For the uninitiated, I will give you a quick rundown of what Canada Reads is. This is an annual contest put on by CBC Radio in which five celebrities champion books which are in turn voted off in the spirit of Survivor. Over the years, this competition has become a large factor in the Canadian publishing industry, with last year's winner, Terry Fallis, seeing a jump in sales of 700%. Normally it is strictly a battle between fiction books, but this year was the first time that only non-fiction books were up for the crown.
I think that the addition this year of non-fiction books brought a different level of discourse to the debate. Particularly there was a war of words across the table and in the media, the focus of which was Anne-France Goldwater. Her book, The Tiger by John Vaillant, was being pilloried by the other debaters for poor characterization and she launched an attack on the other books that was both scathing and ignorant all at once. She accused Marina Nemat, the author of Prisoner of Tehran, of lying about the events which she claims happened during her incarceration in Iran. Another author which drew Goldwater's ire was Carmen Aguirre, who she dubbed a "terrorist". I found Goldwater generally off-putting in her quest to mix things up, and when she refrained from badmouthing the authors of her competitors' books, I found her long-winded rants more annoying than anything.
Thankfully the quality of the debate outshone some of the more, and I was pleasantly surprised at how invested the other panelists became in the outcome. Each of them brought a special perspective to the panel and were very diplomatic in the face of Goldwater's extremist notions and insulting comments. This debate did become more personal due to the fact that four out of the five books were memoirs and the authors themselves drew most of the attention. As I pointed out earlier, Canada Reads is a force in the publishing industry, and as such it provides a good platform for any author to increase their audience and sales. The stakes are high for everyone involved, and that, coupled with the emotional nature of memoirs, made for a more lively discussion. There were a number of issues brought up which shape our current landscape, and hopefully will propel more people to read the books discussed.
As usual, the moderator, Gian Ghomeshi, managed to objectively referee the participants and elevate the conversation. I really enjoyed this season and feel that it really allowed for some interesting questions to be posed through the works presented. A dark part of me relishes the controversy that this installment has caused, but another, more dominant portion of my mind will look forward to next year when the biggest topic is whether or not the protagonist's husband is a jerk or the narrative plodding. Those were the days.
After reading the two books about the Missing Women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, I needed a break from darker subject matter and Life Mask by Emma Donoghue presented itself as a good choice. Seemingly this period drama would be an excellent relief.
The story revolves around three main characters whose lives and reputations become intertwined. Eliza Farren is a successful comedic actress who rose up the ranks and now desires to make strategic friendships in High Society (or the Beau Monde). Her connection with one of the highest ranking peers in the country, the Earl of Derby, will allow her to enter the most fashionable drawing rooms in the city. This alliance with such a powerful man is the subject of much speculation, and though Derby is clearly in love with the actress, her feelings for the married aristocrat are unclear. Derby pledges that when his unfaithful invalid wife passes away, he will propose marriage, but until such time, Eliza won't entertain the idea of becoming his mistress. At the beginning of the novel, their strictly platonic romance had gone on for six years, and no one in their social circles seems to understand it.
Once Eliza and Derby's situation is outlined, Anne Damer is introduced to the reader. She is a sculptress who was widowed over a decade previously when her scoundrel of a husband committed suicide. Due to her rank and financial circumstances, she is able to live alone in fashionable Mayfair and pursue her sculpture without answering to a spouse. She and Derby have a longstanding friendship and share political sensibilities, and a friendship blossoms between her and Eliza. Anne's love of independence makes her a lightning rod for controversy, and her tendency to be in the forefront of idle gossip often causes friction in her friendship with the actress. When rumours surface that there is a secret romance going on between Anne and Eliza, Eliza breaks off their relationship and retreats into hiding.
Now that I've set up the plot, will tell you what I really think of this book. I had a very hard time reading it at first, and often was on the brink of giving up, but somehow managed to persevere. I had difficulties both with the pace of the plot and the characters themselves. My issues with Eliza were numerous. I felt that she was grasping, self-important, and superficial and could not understand her relationship with Derby. She seemed to string him along without giving him any promises and not settling for the perfectly acceptable status of mistress. Though she claims that she does not want to suffer from the same fates of other actresses who become romantically involved with aristocrats, one gets the impression that this is snobbishness rather than self-preservation. The manner in which she ceases her friendship with Anne, also reinforces the idea that she is nothing more than a cold fish. Eliza does become more likable towards the end of the book, but my prejudice against her at that point was firmly in place.
In addition to my loathing of Eliza, I didn't enjoy the pacing of the book either. I don't possess a large amount of patience, and I was on the verge of giving up on it a few times. My interest in plot only started to peak after the 350 page mark, which is a long time to read in the hopes that the plot will take off. But, take off it did, and I read the remaining pages very quickly. Before the story sped up, I barely managed to stay engaged and I attribute this mostly to the overwhelming amount of details about the political situation in England. The references to the French Revolution were interesting, but the internal struggles of the Whig Party failed to captivate me. I felt the book was bogged down by the scenes between Derby and his Whig contemporaries, and though the main characters were all involved in Party matters, I found myself not caring about the political fate of the Whigs.
Though I won't reveal the plot lines that did allow me to continue to read, there is an incident which puts events into motion, and thus a story happens. This series of events is engaging, I just find myself resenting the amount of time that it took to get there.
One of the elements of owning a house of which I was completely ignorant of was the overhauling and maintenance of a garden. As an apartment dweller for most of my life, I never had the need to learn anything about taking care of a garden, and my past as an indoor plant serial killer made my chances of success doubtful at best. Still I approached this challenge with gusto, and did the only thing I knew what to do when confronted by my own lack of knowledge, research. I bought The Zero-Mile Diet by Carolyn Herriot and used it as my guide to planting a respectable vegetable garden which might bring about something edible. 
