Currently Reading

Christmas seems the best time to read fantasy and children's books, and I'm so glad I started this series, His Dark Materials. The book begins well and just gets better: animal daemon companions, a truth-telling alethiometer, and armoured panserbjorn. Dramatic and innovative, with well-drawn characters, The Golden Compass flew by and I finished it in four days. I'm so glad there are two more books in the series.

'Scuse me while I hit the library for The Subtle Knife. Oh, and I have to get my advance tickets for The Two Towers. Ain't fantasy great? I'm thinking of switching genres from literary realism!

My obsession with JCO must be clear by now, and I also have a secret passion for young adult novels, which are more like novellas than their adult counterparts, and thus often thriftily and densely told. Big Mouth and Ugly Girl is JCO's first YA book, but she's written so often about teenagers that she gets the details perfectly.

Big Mouth is Matt Donaghy, a junior who jokes about blowing up the school and lands in a heap of trouble with authorities. Ugly Girl is Ursula Riggs, a stocky athlete who takes a stand for Matt, even though she hardly knows him. These two characters are so unique and remarkable, and seeing them come together makes for fascinating reading.

You must read this book. The Crack in the Teacup is a close runner-up for favourite book of 2002.

Joan Bodger's memoir is full of amazing stories and symbols, as she tells her life and interprets it through the myths and fairy tales she loves. Bodger was a storyteller and Gestalt therapist, and her journey through childhood, marriage, and tragedy into a blossoming old age is captivating.

Bodger died in August 2002, and you can read a moving account of her last days written by her friend, Diane Wolkstein.

Here's the text of my book review:

Reading The Russländer is like walking through a museum exhibit on Russian Mennonites during the early 1900s. Sandra Birdsell fills the book with carefully reconstructed detail, from a bottle of leeches used as a barometer to the famine-fare bread made with half flour, half clay. However, the narrator Katherine (Katya) Vogt tells the story with a sense of detachment that is strangely unmoving, despite the tragedies that destroy her family.

Now living in Canada, an elderly Katya tells an interviewer about the events of World War Two and the Russian Revolution. Her tone is that of her grandparents’ decades earlier: “[They] told what happened as though they were reading the event from a newspaper, as though they lacked energy for strong emotions and had become immune to grief.”

Katya certainly has reason for grief. The novel begins with a newspaper account of the murder of Katya’s parents and siblings at Privol’noye estate in 1917. The anticipation of this crime throws a pall over the happier events of Katya’s childhood. The chaos of the Russian Revolution leaves Katya orphaned and starving. Her grandparents are looted by marauding peasants and then evicted from their home by Mennonite bourgeoisie.

But only in brief scenes of emotion do we see how Katya has been affected by this upheaval. Her Mennonite faith is merely a backdrop, a cause for persecution but not a source of hope.

Katya is based on the author's Mennonite grandmother, who emigrated from Russia to Manitoba. Writing a tribute to her grandparents, Birdsell wanted to understand what her family had been through, and how these experiences shaped them. Perhaps she chose to concentrate on the characters’ surroundings rather than their inner lives to avoid overdramatizing the Mennonite experience. Whatever the reason, like a period painting, The Russländer portrays a beautiful and horrific world with minute strokes, but leaves the reader at a distance.

Ethan Frome was another book tape, chosen partly because it was short but unabridged. (My brother's middle name is Ethan, and I've always liked that name.)

After reading so much modern fiction, Ethan Frome seemed a little old-fashioned, but still a perfectly constructed story of a man trapped in between a hypochondriac wife and the poverty that prevents him from leaving her.

I watched the movie of Virgin Suicides not long before picking up this book by Eugenides (it took him ten years to write his second book, which makes me feel a LOT better!).

I really enjoyed the book (I love them thick and chock full of scenes) but I echo what many reviewers have said. The book doesn't quite hang together--it's trying to tell too many stories. It starts with the grandparents and doesn't get to the birth of the main character, Calliope, until halfway through the book. But if you can forgive that, the chapters about Calliope's teenage years, when she/he discovers she/he's a hermaphrodite, are definitely worth it.

The Yokota Officers Club was a daily pick on Booksense some months ago, and I read the first chapter on their website.

Bernie is a military brat who's been away at university, protesting the Vietnam war. When she returns to her family for the summer (they're stationed in Japan), she finds everything falling apart. A secret from her childhood in Yokota keeps us reading, but the characterization and the world of the American military in Japan is really well drawn.

While I was reading prodigies, I figured it was time to find out what all the fuss about White Teeth was about.

What I found was something of a joyful mess, too long but again stuffed with imaginative characters and scenes. A fun read, but I had to push myself to get through the last half.

Safran Foer's celebrated book finally came to the Ottawa Public Library, and I got to read the source text for all the rave reviews popping up for the latest prodigy. Everything Is Illuminated is about a Ukrainian, Alex, who tries to help an American Jew find the village his grandfather fled in World War II. Alex's English is full of funny malapropisms, and his letters are much more interesting than the magic realist narrative written by the Jew (who happens to be named Jonathan Safran Foer).

So what did I think? At first I couldn't get the reviews out of my head while reading the book. But gradually I got into the story, stopped hearing the lines quoted in the newspapers, and very much enjoyed the book. No question Safran Foer is an imaginative writer. I hope he can survive the hype. Perhaps he'll avoid the sophomore novel syndrome, seeing as how he's already written his second book(!).

I listened to the audio cassette version of Stamboul Train while reorganizing and labelling my file drawer, and cleaning my house. I have a long history with book tapes, going back to my pre-teens listening to Rumer Godden and P.G. Wodehouse.

Stamboul Train is one of Greene's entertainments, a term he used to distinguish his thrillers (The Third Man) from the more literary fiction (The Power and the Glory). Even if Greene didn't think so highly of his entertainments, I still found this one highly superior to a Grisham or Crichton. The characterization particularly is detailed.

After my thrilling experience with Atonement, I decided to see what kind of writer McEwan had been in his earlier days. I read an article somewhere that said he had tried to be shocking in previous books, but in Atonement he had matured.

I read The Cement Garden quite quickly, mostly because it was so odd I had to see where it went. The story is that the four children in a family conceal their mother's death by burying her in cement in the basement. An interesting academic exercise, reading this book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, though.

I got a free used copy of The Weight of Water somewhere, and decided it was the perfect book to take on a week long canoe trip. I knew it would be an absorbing read, based on an earlier reading of Shreve's The Pilot's Wife. Plus if the book got soaked in the rain or dropped in the lake, I wouldn't mind.

I have fond memories of reading the book, lying in my tent on beautiful July afternoons. The premise is that a photographer makes a sailboat trip with her family to an East Coast island, Smuttynose, where a gruesome murder took place a hundred years before. I preferred the historical storyline to the present day version. I'll be interested to see the movie version with Sarah Polley and Elizabeth Hurley.

I don't read many Christian self-help books, but Larry Crabb, a psychologist and counsellor, is someone whose writing I do respect. The message is that, if you're burnt out trying to make a better life for yourself, there's another way to live, without the pressure.

The Pressure's Off is written in a simple, repetitive way that almost gets annoying, but I did find it worthwhile reading.

The birth of comic books in 1940s New York makes a fascinating book. However, there's almost no tension in Kavalier & Clay: the main characters are superheroes in their own right, able to conquer obstacles in a single chapter.

I borrowed this book from the library (paperback edition with hardcovers glued on) and my favourite part of the reading experience was the close type on the thin paper. Also satisfying long (perhaps too long), it definitely kept me turning pages.

I got Raney free from the church library. Raney is Edgerton's first book, about a small-town Baptist woman who marries a liberal from Atlanta. Think Dharma and Greg, but in reverse. It was a quick read, but Edgerton's later novels are funnier and more complex.

No question, Atonement is my favourite book of 2002, possibly of all time.

I won't try to describe the story, since the book has become quite well known. Quite simply, the story and characters (especially Briony) became alive to me in a very moving way. Warning: Some people think the ending is manipulative or over-clever. I do not. I think it's the most brilliant, true, writerly ending I've read. Your mileage may vary.

Foe is a retelling of Robinson Crusoe's story, from the perspective of a woman shipwrecked with him. The story didn't really capture me; I think this is more of a literary critic's novel. I'm sure Coetzee is doing wonderful things with language and structure, but it didn't connect with me.

Interesting note: I borrowed this copy of Foe from a Website called Booklend.net.

I knew when I picked up this book that it had been nominated for a Governer General's award, and now I know why. Small Change is a linked story collection, by turns catty and and compassionate, that looks at friendships, mostly between women. An engrossing read, very psychological.

Writer's block takes many more forms than the classic picture of the writer staring at a blank page, tearing out hair. If you can handle the 80s psychology, On Writer's Block gives an thorough taxonomy of the various ways writers don't write, and how to get the words flowing again.

This was my second reading through Johnson's excellent biograpy of Joyce Carol Oates. Invisible Writer is a detailed, intimate account of a prolific writer's life. I find JCO's own story more fascinating than some of her fiction. I love the way she is driven to work and derives sustenance from the hours spent at her typewriter.

The Peppered Moth is Margaret Drabble's struggle to understand her mother by telling her story. Bessie Bawtry, the fictionalized mother, shows potential in her younger days and takes a degree at Cambridge, but settles into marriage and motherhood and never makes much of herself. This failure to fulfill her promise makes Bessie a bitter, difficult woman. Drabble has a hard time getting the autobiographical and fictional parts of this book to hang together, but it's fascinating to watch her try.

Inspired by this article in Salon, I read A Winter Haunting. It's so uncharacteristic for me to read horror; I have very little interest in the genre and the writing is usually bad enough to put me off within a chapter or so (I tried reading Pet Semetary and had to put it down before I threw it across the room, I found it so laughably awful). Anyway, I did read all of Simmons' book, and didn't mind it too much. The story line concerns a hack novelist who returns to his hometown to fight his depression after his marriage falls apart. I suppose I would call it well-crafted but forgettable.

In preparation for her appearance at the Festival of Faith and Writing, I read Kathleen Norris's Dakota, a series of essays on small town life, poetry, faith, and the weather and geography of the Dakota plains. Norris's writing is clear and perceptive, although I didn't find this book as rich or coherent as her later volume, Cloister Walk.

A plot synopsis would make The House of the Spirits sound like a depressing melodrama. Instead, the story of the Trueba family, set in a country much like Chile, is a lush, magical book that leavens tragedy with laughter, and counters political upheaval with the strong bonds of family. If that's not enough of a recommendation, read this account of an interview with the author, Isabel Allende (part 2 of the interview here). She's a delightful person as well as a skillful writer.

I read the stories in this collection to clear my palate between long meals made of three other novels, and I wasn't disappointed--these narratives have a sharp, singular flavour. The author, also a poet, is a fellow Ottawan and a member of my writing group. Nadine handles everything in these stories (imagery, dialogue, structure) with such deftness that the reader is unaware of their construction--the seams holding everything together are invisible. Quicksilver has a keen sense of loss and suffering, tempered by the beauty of its words and images.

Bel Canto tells the story of a group of hostages (including a famous soprano) who are captured by terrorists in the mansion of the Vice President of an unnamed South American country. Despite this scenario, the book has virtually nothing in common with a hard-edged thriller--instead it offers a lyric tone echoing with humour and pathos, a magical setting, and a vibrant love story. A beautiful tone poem of a book.

Middle Age is a masterfully structured novel about the effects of a man's accidental drowning on the lives of his friends in the New York town of Salthill-on-Hudson. At 464 pages, one can luxuriate in an abundance of fascinating words and paragraphs, wherein the author paints a character, an outfit of clothing, or a car in such fascinating detail (never tedious, at least not to my mind, but then I love long books). JCO is surprisingly merciful to her characters in this expansive narrative, so you can rest assured that most of them avoid a grisly death or disaster.

A wonderful meaty book to start off the year. In this novel, a small Maine town and a middle-aged man, Miles Roby, both try to extricate themselves from the grip of the wealthy Empire Falls matriarch, Mrs. Whiting. Russo has a narrative style marked by digressions--he never mentions a detail without going into the entire story behind it. His most memorable character is Miles's teenage daughter, Tick, who has more smarts and spunk than the entire town of Empire Falls. The many plot threads come together for a dramatic, perfectly orchestrated ending.

A true book-lover's fairy tale, Salamander creates fantastic images: a girl who can breathe while submerged in a milk bath; mercury-like metal type that shimmers and reforms to print page after page; a castle whose walls and furniture move about on giant mechanical tracks. With all the adventure and imagination of Gulliver's Travels, this novel is brightly-coloured read for a bleak winter night.