Evenements

I went to a wonderful performance last week, a world-renown Canadian artist with a huge and frantically loyal following. I myself am new to this talent, but I attended the event with a group of sincere enthusiasts, who see this fellow on every tour, and buy pretty much everything he puts out as soon as it's available. We went over 40 minutes early, and already there was a sizeable group there, staking out the good seats. When we ran into another group of folks I know, they were even more enthusiastic, and everyone was instantly able to chat about complex details of this guy's work. When he finally took the stage, there was uproarious applause from the standing-room-only crowd and even some hoots at his knowing, witty banter with the crowd.

Rock concert? No, it was a reading: this really happened.

It was last Thursday, at the Toronto reference library, the world-wide launch of Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay, which consisted of a reading and staged interview with Jared Bland.

It was a stellar reading and a fascinating interview, much like many I've seen in Toronto over the past few years. What was different was the massive, wildly enthused crowd--not like I've never seen one, but not to this degree. I don't have much of a spatial eye, but I'm going to guess close to 300 people. Unlike me, most of those weren't just there to see what all the fuss was about--most of these folks had read at least two or three of Kay's 11 novels, which are mainly 400-500 epic tomes with a lot of complicated history, maps and family trees in the frontises, and three years of research behind them. I was pretty impressed at this well-read readership--who says they aren't out there? How inspiring.

And, of course, the show was pretty stellar on its own--Kay is an assured reader, and a convivial modest interviewee. Bland's questions came from close reading of not only the book at hand but numerous of Kay's others. The author seemed very pleased to answer such insightful, thoughtful questions (no "What sort of pen do you use?" generica) and the interview seemed more like an extremely well-spoken chat--with 300 people raptly listening (and occasionally hooting) in the background.

It just makes me really happy that such a crowd could gather at the library on a Wednesday for this sort of event, let alone be so incredible gleeful about it. Scott lent me Ysabel by way of GGK introduction, and I really hope that I like it so I count myself among that crowd. And even though it's likely some Rose-coloured readers find that Kay's work is not something you dig, I just thought the event itself was really cool and inspiring.

Some other events this week, which are likely to be equally fun and fascinating though a little less crowded and rowdy:

Tomorrow (aka Sunday) at 3pm, the Draft Reading series (pretty much the only series that I know of on Toronto's lovely east side--can you think of any others?) presents Dani Couture, Michael Bryson, Mark Sampson, Ian Burgham and Ellen S. Jaffe.

Wednesday evening, 7pm--The Free Times Cafe (on college, just west of Bathurst)--the Hear Hear Reading Series presents Adrienne Gruber, Andrew Daley, Julia Tausch, and yours truly. People never hoot during my readings but it would actually probably throw me off a lot if they did.

RR

Bits and Bobs

The always wondrous Kerry Clare has found another of her own kind, ie., another fascinatingly bookish Kerry! This one is poet Kerry Ryan, and their interview together is really insightful. A small example:

"KR: Well, domestic subjects are easy to come by; we’re constantly surrounded by them. But that doesn’t make it easy fruit to reach — there’s always the challenge of finding the aspects of everyday experiences or objects (especially the ones everyone is familiar with) worth the attention of a poem."


I don't look at a lot of photo blogs because, well, I don't have much technical insight into photography, and to just look at image after image, day after day, on a strictly "That's so awesome!" level, I must agree with the photographer pretty closely on the definition of awesome. I agree *very* closely with Brooklyn Codger about awesomeness--check this out, and tell me if you are surprised that her real name turns out to be Rebecca. Her posts are generally one (or more) of my favourite things: 1) things found on the ground, 2) cats, 3) food, 4) books (quite often, 1 and 4 combine), 5) cityscapes, 6) craft projects (ok, I don't get much out of crafts, but BC is so charming I go with it). Now go look at the whole blog and see if you agree about the awesomeness.


You can read a little interview with me over on the Now Hear This blog, posted in anticipation of my reading for them, next Wednesday at 7pm at the Free Times Cafe. It's been ages since I've done a reading in town, leastwise one that was public, so I'm really excited (ok, I'm always excited about readings). What to read, what to read...
RR

April is Poetry Month

But you knew that, I'm sure, and are probably well into a much-more-organized-than-mine celebration. But nevertheless, I am enjoying the poetic focus right now, reading the John Smith tribute issue of CNQ and Paul Vermeersch's Between the Walls (ok, so I read that at the end of March, but I'm still going to count it). Right now I'm in the middle of Skim by Mariko Tamaki, which is not poetry but a graphic novel, and also absolutely captivating (and funny!) so far (I knew it would be--not sure what took me so long to get to actually reading it!) But after that, it's back to poetry with The Laundromat Essay by Kyle Buckley, another book everyone but me has already read and loved.

Also this week, I'm thinking I'll do a poetry class with the teens. The teacher recommended it, and if I weren't such a chicken it should have already been on the slate. But I'm actually really worried about this, because I am not a poet. I've studied loads poetry, mind, but I very much doubt what the kids want is help with scansion. They would like to know how to write the stuff--or really, since they are teens, they are probably already writing it and just want to get better. But I don't know that I know about that.

I think the easiest way into poetry is the Imagists. It was for me anyway--I think The Red Wheelbarrow was the first poem I really really *felt*--it didn't feel like an inept teen half-guessing at an erudite writer's goals, but like the poem was there to paint a picture in my head and it did that. Anyway, it's a happy memory for me, so I'm gonna try out some of that stuff on them, and use it as an opportunity to talk about finding the single *right* word, not 17 close-enough, out-of-the-thesaurus words (a problem my students are having. Let me know if you have any recommendations, even if they're not from that particular movement--my students aren't too fussy that way, and neither am I.

And one more bit of poetic news is that I received an absolutely lovely illustrated copy of Hillaire Belloc's *Cautionary Tales* as a gift this week, from someone who likely has no idea that it's Poetry Month, but it does nicely suit. I haven't read the whole of it yet, but as soon as I saw the title in the table of contents, of course I read this one (the poet's been dead more than 50 years, so I'm not violating copyright by sharing this, am I?) It's best read *aloud*!

Rebecca
Who slammed Doors for Fun
and Perished Miserably

A trick that everyone abhors
In Little Girls is slamming Doors.
A Wealthy Banker's Little Daughter
Who lived in Palace Green, Bayswater
(By name Rebecca Offendort),
Was given to this Furious Sport.

She would deliberately go
And Slam the door like Billy-Ho!
To make her Uncle Jacob start.
She was not really bad at heart,
But only rather rude and wild:
She was an aggravating child...

It happened that a Marble Bust
Of Abraham was standing just
Above the Door this little Lamb
Had carefully prepared to Slam,
And Down it cam! It knocked her flat!
It laid her out! She looked like that.
*
Her funeral Sermon (which was long
And followed by a Sacred Song)
Mentioned her Virtues, it is true,
But dwelt upon her Vices too,
And showed the Dreadful End of One
Who goes and slams the door for Fun.
*
The children who were brought to hear
The awful Tale from far and near
Were much impressed, and inly swore
They never more would slam the Door.
--As often they had done before.

RR

Events: I likes them

Last night was the incomperable Book Madam's Sociable at the Pour House, which I attended with Kerry Clare and great joy. It would have been more useful if I'd blogged about this *before* the event happened, but you probably heard about it anyway. I'm a little out of the loop, but judging by the crowd around the bar, this was not an event that suffered from lack of publicity.

More upcoming events of awesomeness:

Wednesday March 31, 7pm--The launch party for the Baracuda anthology, put together of the most outstanding work from last year's SWAT program. One of my students is in it, and some of this year's are going to come out and applaud. I'm super-stoked.

Sunday April 18, 3pm--Draft Reading Series re-emerges from its winter hibernation with readings by Michael Bryson, Ian Burgham, Dani Couture, Ellen S. Jaffe and Mark Sampson. Woot!

Monday April 19, 6pm--Launch party for the poetry books by Paul Vermeersch, John Steffler, and Dionne Brand.

Wednesday April 21--Um, I think I'm reading, at the Free Times, as part of the Now Hear This series. Except, when I went to get the link, I got this instead, so now I'm not sure. Maybe someone will tell me soon. Check this space.

RR

Incidents and accidents

1) In class yesterday:

Me, looking over the shoulders of two grade 11 girls as I walk past their desks: Girls, c'mon! I said no phones. (keep walking)

Girl, calling after me: Sorry, miss! We were just--

(I turn to them)

Other girl: Trying to look something up.

(Me internally: Dictionaries live in phones now?)

First girl: Yeah. How do you spell "schizophrenia"?

Me: Oh, well, er-- Yeah, fine. Look in your phone.

First girl: Thanks, miss.

Me: You've won...

Other girl: Yes, miss.

Me: ...this round.

This proves that the reason I refuse to get a cell phone is that I am afraid they are smarter than I am (and I'm probably right, because what I was actually think began with "s-k-" until I realize that was nuts. People think I'm a good speller but I really just own a good [paper] dictionary and sit with it open at my left elbow, which is why I spelled "schizophrenia" correctly above).

2) On the subway, I laughed aloud at something I was reading. What I was reading was Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood, so it's not so surprising that I laughed, because it is very funny. But it's a little surprising because I almost never laugh aloud when alone. I don't know why, but somehow I think laughing is a communicative act, though semi-involuntary. I like funny movies and go to a fair number on my own (for reasons of necessity brought on by [occasionally] having extremely bad taste--I can't accept that they would bother to make a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine unless that had something important to say about the subject) and I'll laugh with the audience in happy solidarity, but not really reading and watching tv alone (from what I remember).

Anyway, but then I did, last night, and it caused the drunk guy behind me to say something obscene to or about me. Which is not exactly positive reinforcement to keep doing it.

3) I was walking down the sidewalk this morning and a truck travelling the opposite way made that "ffffffftttttt" sound that I always associate with air brakes although I actually have no idea what it is. But the truck was still moving along at a good clip, and then I noticed that a little jet of steam/smoke shot out under the *front* bumper in time with the noise. I was staring at this in perplexity when I realized the driver was waving at me in a hey-there-old-friend jaunty manner. I definitely don't know him. There aren't a lot of pedestrians in that part of town, perhaps he was just offering solace to an endangered species. Or maybe he was just glad I liked his truck?

Does anyone know what the noise and/or steam mean?

RR

Rose-coloured reviews *Nikolski* by Nicolas Dickner

I finished a day late (what's up with that lately?) but I was still able to be really pleased that Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner won Canada Reads. Even though I don't really know the radio flavour of the debates or what caused the book to rise to the top for that particular group, I enjoyed it immensely and am glad the book will have a wider audience (and another little decal to put on its cover, along with the GG one) thanks to this.

I am glad the book chosen as our national read is such unabashed fun--full of puzzles and confusion and fanciful adventure, and, especially, language that is an electric delight. I often feel a bit of frustration when reading translations, the sneaking suspicion that however good the English version is, it's a bit...muffled...compared to the original. Nikolski suffered not a bit from that cottony translation-y feel, so a considerable debt is owed to Lazer Lederhendler (what a great name!) for making this translation so crisp and snappy. Read or, really, listen and watch:

"In a few seconds, she will be pinned face down on the asphalt, a knee pressed into her back, and duly handcuffed.

"She swings around 90 degrees and bolts toward the wire lattice. A Frost fense. Good--she knows how this thing works. She grabs the steel mesh and scrambles up as fast as she can. Too late. A pair of hands are clutching the cuffs of her jeans and pulling her down toward solid ground. She tightens her grip and kicks out blindly. The young, aggressive guard holws with pain and lets go.

"Suddenly released from his grasp, Joyce describes an elegant arc over the grid. Sailing head down through the air, she wonders how this is all going to end."

Isn't that perfectly lovely?

From what I hear of Canada Reads, we should count ourselves lucky not to have gotten a medicinal winner that bears its Canadianness like a prescription for better nationalism. Nikolski's set all over the country (except British Columbia, which some of the characters are afraid of), and is gleeful in the place names, the little local details, the histories and topographies, and especially the maps. I could have done with a few fewer descriptions of maps, but Dickner seemed to be enjoying himself so much, so what the heck--it was interesting enough. The cartography theme, the bibliomania theme, the garbage theme, the fish theme--all seem to concentrate on history, signs left behind (ok, except the fish--the fish are just neat). It's a book that's thrilled about being a book, that's thrilled about other books, full of characters who read with joy and enthusiasm. Delightful.

Language, theme, now for the tricky part--what is this book about? Well, there are three central characters, although it's really hard to tell that for a long time--we get histories and ancestries of half a dozen others who them don't reappear. In this, as well is in the formally effervescent language, the emphasis on family trees, and wildly implausible coincidence plausibly brought off, Dickner owes a considerable debt to Marquez (oh, go to the link just to see the photo--have you ever seen a sweeter author photo?)

Ok, wait, not influences, plot--what is the book *about*? I, um, don't know. The three characters, Noah and Joyce in the third person, and an unnamed bookstore clerk in the first, are vaguely connected through a book (Noah and the clerk), family relationships (Noah and Joyce), proximity (all live in the same neighbourhood) and friends (Noah and Joyce). The most seemingly important relationships go unrecognized, though, and mainly the novel is three separate stories with minimal intersection.

Which is kind of awesome--characters move in and out of each other's lives with minimal fanfare, coincidences are known mainly to the narrator not the characters, and life changes happen in a breath without anyone getting too excited. And what's amazing is that this book has *no* closure--I actually literally did that thing where you turn the last page over thinking the story is still going, only to get the Acknowledgements. So you flip back, thinking two pages stuck together and then you realize--that's it. Some lives went on in front of us for a while and they were interesting, and now they will probably continue to go on and be interesting, but not in front of us anymore. We had our share.

If you hate books like that, wait, don't run away--you could think about it differently. If you just read the book as Noah's story, it coheres a lot better as a forward-moving narrative (albeit with a lot of digressions). Noah is by far the most fleshed out character--he has loves and longings and career anxiety. His academic career--studying indigeneous prehistory through archeology, introduces my favourite character, Thomas Saint-Laurent, his supervisor. Saint-Laurent is actually an archeologist of trash--he ends the book protesting the destruction of a dump--and is good goofy fun (although why does no one ever point out that all archeology deals with trash, ie., remains and debris??) Noah's adventures take over more and more of the book, and are pretty fascinating, especially since Noah is such a sweetly baffled, slightly adrift character.

Joyce starts out vibrant and vivid but by halfway through the book she's figured out her career path and then she just apparently...keeps doing it. We don't hear much about her for ages, and never about her ever having a personal interaction with a single soul until very near the end, and then it's only an emergency favour. I do have to quibble with the way women are treated in this book--of five female characters, one is dead as the book begins, three disappear by book's end, and the other one is enigmatic Joyce. Which is, perhaps, just the way it is sometimes, but none of the female characters besides Joyce ever seems to have a rational explanation for anything she does--certainly, none are offered--and Joyce's choices all dead-end eventually. These women serve more as the conditions under which male characters must cope, rather than characters in themselves, which, you know, bugs me. Joyce doesn't fit that mold, being rather a very cool character who wizens away as the story progresses.

That said, I really didn't do things like tally up female versus male plot action while I was reading--I was quite happily swept away by Niokski, and looking back on said sweeping, I think *Nikolski* deserved the complete attention I gave it. This book is big, weird, ambitious, hilarious, true, and magical--and the fact that it was written by a Canadian about Canada, and was voted for by Canadians, makes me proud to be one, too.

RR

Falling Behind

I've been reading along with Canada Reads Independently and picking up bits and pieces of Canada Also Reads, and somehow began to believe that the CBC's original Canada Reads was also a long-term, readerly discussion. I thought maybe it had already started, or would start soon, and go all spring. And that at some point in all that, I would get around to reading one book from all these lists, my sole attempted at a shared reading experience, Nikolski (I chose to read this one pretty much because Steven W. said I have to. (Never let it be said I don't read/obey my comments.)

Apparently, I've botched even that, because Canada Reads seems to have started yesterday and apparently will end on Friday, which strikes me as a rather compressed time-frame. So I started reading Nikolski yesterday and though I probably can't finish it in five days (I'm a little confused so far, and keep having to flip back to see who did what), I hope to have a good enough grasp on it experience an emotion (like happiness! or sadness, perhaps!) if it wins or loses the contest.

I don't know why I thought Canada Reads lasted months rather than days, and why I am so incredibly out of the loop that I don't even listen to the radio anymore. I also tried to pick up the phone last night and accidentally dropped it back into its cradle. The person did not call back, and I suddenly really regretted not having call display. Was it you?

I think a lifestyle rejig might be in order.

Yours, reading quickly!
RR

To Do

I haven't posted any events in a while, in part because I have been, as I may have mentioned so busy I haven't been going to many. But here are some I do plan to attend, because they are awesome and I will soon be (I hope, touch wood, fingers crossed, etc., etc.) less busy. If you are also less busy, perhaps you are interested in:

--the University of Toronto masters in creative writing showcase and gala tomorrow night. Should be some good readings, possibly some wine and cheese, and a nice opportunity to clap for Andrew when he is awarded a prize!

--Bad Dog theatre improva at That Friday Show, (appropriately) this Friday night. Hilarity, uncertainty, and pay-what-you-can--how ideal?

And if you are, sadly, too busy to go out, be comforted that I fully understand.

RR

Endings

I'm off to Waterloo tomorrow to do a reading for and have discussion with a group of high-school students who have been studying one of my stories, "Fruit Factory." Doing such a talk is a rare honour and a treat for various reasons, many obvious, I'm sure (what human doesn't like it when people pay close attention to something that that human has worked very hard on?) One that might be less obvious is that, since the teacher can guarantee that (at least most of) the students have read the entire story, I can read and discuss the ending.

Endings are very very difficult to write--Sam Shephard said in the New Yorker that, “I hate endings... Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing, and endings are a disaster.” And he's been writing for 30 or so years and is thought to be one of the foremost playwrights of... Oh, despair. What hope is there for the rest of us?

Obviously, the rest of us struggle on, and when we hit on an ending that we think is good and resonant and true to the rest of the story while also surprising and maybe even illuminating in some way, we are damn proud of ourselves--it doesn't happen very often. It'd be nice to get to share it your own self occasionally.

Of course, I'm not kidding myself that my stories are rife with suspense, nor am I of the opinion that knowing the ending of something "ruins" the pleasure of reading the rest. But structuring a story, arranging what happens when, is hard too--almost as hard as writing an ending. In separate places, I've seen story experts as impressive as Alice Munro and John Metcalf say they don't necessarily read stories from beginning to end in sequence, but rather jump around, like moving from room to room in a house (that's Munro being paraphrased there--I'm sorry but I'm not going to be able to find these citations).

That makes me sad, although it makes some sense, too. Certainly I can gauge the emotional tension and intensity, the sense of humour, the clarity and poetry of language if I start in the middle, but I don't get the events as the writer lived them with the characters, and how he or she wanted to place them in my imagination. You can take someone's temperature in lots of places on their bodies, but if you want to know how that person is actually feeling, it's best to just let them tell you (hmmm, is that metaphor working?)

I put a lot of deliberation into making the order of the story make sense to the characters and their worlds--so that's how I want it to make sense to the reader too. There's no reason why a story won't be enjoyable or interesting or perfectly understandable out of order--but that's not how I meant to do it. You might not love it, like it, or even get it the way I did, but I want to give you every chance.

So I don't read endings aloud at events where I assume no one's read it. They might not be going to read it, actually--this might be our one and only encounter--but I'd generally like people to enter the story at the point I worked out as the beginning. So I read beginnings, for the most part, or whole stories if they're short enough, when I do public readings.

But! I like my endings, too! Some of them took a dozen drafts and years of work--if I feel like I finally got it, I take a lot of pleasure in the words as they fell into place and I enjoy sharing them aloud. And even if I do feel like I nailed it, I am very much open to feedback to the contrary--there's always next time--and there's nothing like reading aloud to elicit an honest answer from some people.

So whenever I know the audience has read the work, I choose the ending as my selection to read aloud. This has only happened a few times and I've never done "Fruit Factory"'s ending before. So this evening will find me at home standing on a chair, praticing and tomorrow--who knows what they'll think!

RR

Groups and Challenges

In Writer Guy's review of Century as part of Canada Reads Independently, he wonders if he's right in calling CRI a "challenge." I'm sure it's fine to call it whatever one likes, but I much prefer a term I've learned from my bookfriends on GoodReads--a "group read." To me, that implies better what I think these projects intend: to get people agreeing to read something as a group so they can then talk about it. So fun and friendly.

"So why aren't you participating in any of these group reads, RR?" would be a reasonable question to ask, at least lately. It's true--I love book conversations and though I'm not the fastest reader, I'm fast enough to read a book purely for the sake of participating in a conversation. I used to quite often. But I can't quite get committed lately. Maybe it was the demanding, structured reading in grad school that's put me off. Maybe it was a few book-club related incidents--a club-wide insistance on reading "challenging" books that weren't "too easy" or "light"...which ended with me miserably hauling myself through a couple books that no one else liked, or indeed, bothered to read.

I think these sorts of group reads a project like Kerry's, or in fact Canada Reads itself, seems very fun indeed--as warm an invitation to conversation as one could hope for. I love the idea of a group of people focusing their reading so they can share it. All I can say is I really hope to get it together for next year.

Meantime, I'm trying one of the less-structured options of group reads, one where participants don't read the same book but engage in the same kind of reading and then share thoughts on that. One that appeals (because I was already sort of doing it privately) is a retro-reading challenge. Rereading has been a hot topic on The Literary Type lately, and now over at Free-range Reading, Mark suggests the Retro Reading Challenge. Ok, fine, it's got the word "challenge" in it, but it still seems pretty fun and friendly to me:

"So here’s the idea, which I’m calling the Retro Reading Challenge, and I hope you all will play along. The idea is to pick a book that you read and adored years and years ago, then reread it now and write a review of it to capture your impressions. Did you still love it? Did you see flaws (or strengths) that you missed the first time? Did you have an “Oh God, what the hell was I thinking?” moment?"

I might not quite be able to comply with all the rules--the book needs to have been something I read only once, at least 15 years ago--but I *might* have Mostly Harmless only once, in my early teens--it wasn't in the giant omnibus that I owned as a kid, since it didn't come out until 1992. And it's way darker than the others, so it's conceivable it wasn't on my reread list. And it fits in nicely with my don't judge Eoin Kolfer too harshly project, which has been going on since fall (I'm halfway through *So Long and Thanks for All the Fish* right now, if you're curious) and will end when I read *And Another Thing* and try not to hate it for not being written by Douglas Adams.

SO! Rambling aborted, I will read *Mostly Harmless* and review it as part of the Retro Reading project. Yes. This is my plan. Baby steps.

RR

Things I Like Today

1) Spencer Gordon's short story Transcript: Appeal of the Sentence on Joyland (although I did actually like it even more when he read it at Pivot at the Press Club readings--this story should be a podcast!)

2) The lovely new home of Kerry Clare's book site/blog, Pickle Me This, as designed by the crack team at Create Me This.

3) When you are standing looking up into the sky (you need a patch of sky free of buildings or bits of trees, so that all you see is sky) and it is snowing staight down and after you stare up for a while, you lose perspective and begin to feel that the snowflakes are standing still in the air, and you are travelling upwards into the sky. The snow today has been particularly good for that, if you wanna try it.

RR

How I Learned to Read

I am loving Kerry's Family Literacy Week posts so much that I want to play. However, most of my knowledge of kidlit comes from when I *was* one, so I'll be writing about that. My story actually fits in perfectly with the theme, since it's about family and reading (also two of my favourite things).

All authors seem to have some seminal story about the moment they realized the words on the page made a story, and they could have that story, right then and there, by reading. You see such anecdotes in all the big bio interviews with writers, and they're often tales of dweebish precociousness--"Oh, I couldn't speak clearly or run without a helmet, but I was reading novellas by the time I was in kindergarten." Or preschool. Or out of the womb.

My memory of the early years cuts in and out--I don't think I'm missing much except a lot of apple-juice spills, but dates are distinctly sketchy. I know my mom taught me to read, and I can remember bits of the process, but I can't exactly slot it into chronological time. I never asked about this, blithely assuming that I had been an early reader too--I certainly did well enough in the early grades, although some of those good marks may have been for not eating play dough (anyone who doesn't retain a residual longing for play dough obviously somehow got hold of a can when no one was looking and *ate it all*, thus finally slaking that hunger all children experience).

Anyway! One day, and I think this might have actually been in support of an interview I was doing for *Once*, I asked my mom whether I too, had been a magically advanced, obvious-writer-to-be infant.

"Did I learn to read pretty early?"
"Oh, no, not really."
"Like, only average?"
"I guess you were about...eight or so. I really had to push you, you didn't want to learn."

I was a single-digit illiterate! Oh, the shame! I finally managed to extract from my mother that I had in fact been able to read sentences in grade 1. But those were 40-word stories read aloud to the teacher, and my mom equated being "able to read" with being able to sit alone and turn pages, to immerse oneself in the story.

Which I had actually had no interest in doing, so readily available were adults to read to me. Of course I really liked stories, all stories (but especially those about plucky orphans or Laura Ingalls Wilder)--I just didn't associate them with something I could do on my own. It's funny, trying to remember the experience of learning to read now, because the sense I recall most from childhood reading now is physical--the feeling associated with reading is *snuggly*, because when I was read to I was held in someone's lap, and when my mom began teaching me to read that's where I remained.

I certainly watched television, and actually often with my parents, who liked to keep an eye on things. But I sat alone for that, or at least could. And playing outside or games or whatever (yes, I did occasionally go outside)--those could be independent, solo activities. But reading was interactive, intimate.

So when (apparently the summer after grade 2!) my mom said I was old enough to read chapter books, I had to start by reading the first page of each chapter of *Little House at Plum Creek* and *Charlotte's Web* before she would read the rest to me. I do *not* recall a lightning bolt moment when the words became a story for me--I recall it being extremely hard and *dying* for my mom to take over. But it's still a positive memory, and it is weird that I can recall exactly how my head fit under her chin and my legs sprawled on either side of her knees.

I am not at all suggesting that I was a lazy reader because I was read to too much--that might be impossible, I think. Of course, this is biased, but I am of the opinion that the way I learned to read was the best way possible. It was never a school subject for me, or any kind of subject at all. Reading was just a tool I could use to get at the best things in the world, stories--getting meaddicted to those was a far better goad to learning than any phonics book ever could be.

And by the time I started grade 3, I could read myself to sleep, and have been doing so ever since.

I like this topic, and would love to hear other reader-creation stories--how did you learn to read?

RR

Rose-coloured reviews *Bech at Bay* by John Updike

I first encountered Henry Bech in Updike's first collection of stories about the fellow, Bech: a book, when I was about 10. I had pulled it off my parents' shelves because the name was somewhat close to Becky and, likely, because I was very bored on some rainy day. I flipped around until I encountered the word "orgasm"--one of Bech's mistresses could have one on the New York subway, but only certain lines--and I realized it was not a book I was up to. I put it back wishing I was a kid who went *towards* the dirty bits, rather than being alarmed by them and fleeing.

Imagine my surprise when, last winter, a fellow-writer enthused over Bech, and said I had to read it. Imagine my surprise when I loved it! Bech is such a slow, sleepy, dopey guy in this book, his life largely structure by the success of a book he wrote when he was so young he can't relate to it, and by the baffling, aggressive, subway-orgasm-having women in his life. There's tonnes of lit-gossip in the book--largely about fictional writers, but occasionally Roth or some similar mid century man will turn up. Bech can be a malicious gossip inside his own head, but terribly funny. The character is Jewish, and Updike isn't, and I know some criticism has turned on whether this portrait is a caricature, but I find it too human, too intelligent and funny, for that. The Jewish thing does come up an awful lot, though. We keep get a few too many lines like, "It was hard to tell with Wasp males how old they were; they don't stop being boys." "Bech Presides"

I received the two sequels, Bech Is Back and Bech at Bay (that second link there has the book labelled "family saga"--what??) for my birthday, and read the first last fall and the second just now (I thought this would complete my Bech reading, but apparently there is one other story hiding in The Complete Henry Bech. They always do that with compilations of old work--how annoying! How am I going to get it??)

I really enjoyed *Bech Is Back." It had all his usual staples, my favourite of which is baffled yet sardonic interior monologue while being on literary or "cultural" tours of foreign countries. And *Bech at Bay* promised more of the same, starting with, "Bech in Czech," which is about what you'd expect (oh, that sentence rhymed!) Detractors of these Bech Abroad stories (there are perhaps half a dozen such stories; I'm not sure how many detractors) might claim that these seem to be too much simply Updike's own observations on the book-tour life, thinly veiled in a Jew'd up, less-successful, more-venal form.

I don't, usually, think that--Bech is a pretty well-fleshed, uniquely voiced character. And his work diverges pretty sharply with Updike's (Bech is far less self-referential!) Occasionally, their sensibilities collide and you think either could be narrating, but that's all right--all authors have at least a few things in common with all their characters. Also, then we get passages like this:

"The historical fullness of Prague, layer on layer, castles and bridges and that large vaulted hall with splintered floorboards where jousts and knightly elections used to be held; museums holding halls of icons and cases of bluish Bohemian glass and painted panoramas of the saga of the all-enduring Slavs; tilted streets of flaking plasterwork masked by acres of scaffolding; that clock in Old Town Square where with a barely audible whirring a puppet skeleton tolls the hour and the twelve apostles and that ultimate bogeyman Jesus Christ twitchily appear in two little windows above and, one by one, bestow baleful wooden stares upon the assembled tourists; the incredible visual patisserie of baroque church interiors, mock-marble pillars of paint-veined gesso melting upward into trompe-l'oeil ceilings bubbling with cherubs, everything gilded and tipped and twisted and skewed to titillate the eye, huge wedding-cake interiors meant to stun Hussite peasants back into the bosom of Catholicism--all this overstuffed Christian past afflicted Beck like a void, a chasm that he could float across in the dew-fresh mornings as he walked the otherwise untrod oval path but which, over the course of each day, like pain inflicted under anaesthesia, worked terror upon his subconscious." "Bech in Czech"

Pretty good, huh?

People who know these books are often a bit surprised that I'm such a Bech fan--I mean, they get why I like the language and the structure and the jokes, but why do I like *Bech*? It's the morality that gets a few, but I wasn't troubled even when he cheated on his (very recent) wife at the end of *Bech Is Back*. In the third set of stories, Henry's in his 60s and 70s, dallying with ever-younger women, who are quite susceptible to his charms. It's unlovely behaviour, but he is as often seduced as seducer and I found I bought it--all the dalliances seemed in keeping with the character Updike created, and while a little yucky, I think one of the joys of fiction is finding empathy with people we would not care to resemble, or even know, in real life.

*However*, there was a story in *Bech at Bay* that broke all these rules, and I hated it. It's the second-last in the collection--thus, in the series (except for that lost one in *The Complete*)--and it's called "Bech Noir." Straight from the title, the piece announces itself as a genre spoof, and though it hasn't much to do with Dashell Hammett, it has only slightly more to do with Bech. The piece concerns the same guy we've been reading about straight along--smart but pretentious, shy but vain, lecherous, envious, easily swayed--only now he gives in to his worst instincts and deliberately shoves a critic who had panned his work off a subway platform.

!!!

Not only would the character of the last 2-and-2/3 books not have been capable of doing that, *no one* would have been capable of doing a lot of what comes next--this first success launches a murderous spree that, if not impossible, is at least preposterous. And silly, and totally out of keeping with the other stories in the series.

In truth, if I came upon "Bech Noir" printed alone somewhere and read it having never seen the characters, I would have enjoyed it mildly, as a piece of highly erudite showing-off--a literary author taking a kooky excursion into genre to see how well he does. And that probably *is* what this is--Updike doing an experiment with a character he knows and feels comfortable with.

Obviously, his editors didn't find the disjoint too jarring to keep the piece in--but then again, it is Updike, so who would argue? But it doesn't work, fictionally, to have most of the pieces be seriously realistic fiction, and then have one be a writing-workshop lark! I feel sort of maimed as a reader, as if I had a relationship with someone on the Internet whose photo turned out to be from the Sears catalogue. I invested in Bech as a multi-dimensional, nuanced character, and I feel like "Bech Noir" says, "ha, fooled ya--he's not realistic at all!"

The thing is, you can't even mentally excise it from the canon , because the final story in the collection, "Bech and the Bounty of Sweden" builds on certain events that took place in "Bech Noir." What's interesting here is that the latter story is a return to form--Bech baffled and passive and interacting with the world like human being instead of a plot device. "Sweden" is also very funny and wise, with an ending (thus, the ending of the book) that is just perfect--hopeful and funny and strange and true.

So, what then? A good book with one story I disliked, right--no problem? Except that one story casts doubt on my whole understanding of the fictional project the author was undertaking? Or the project of fiction, period? Or what? Mr. Updike, how could you do this to me?

On the whole, though, it was a pretty good book.
RR

Bits

I have no major theme or connective tissue for today, just a little things I've been thinking of and would like to share with you. Please do not attempt to take them as a whole; they certainly do not come to more than the sum of their parts. I'll try to visually separate everything on the page for you.

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I like rules. Maybe more than a so-called creative person should or is expected to, I enjoy being told what to do. I gleefully tell potential employers that I take direction well, and I really mean it. My friend P calls this my desire to "outsource my thinking," and she's spot-on--I appreciate it when someone will bother to form a plan or opinion where I have none--saves me the trouble, and provides the illusion of an ordered universe. Obvious, this won't work well with things that matter a lot to me (ie., my writing, my clothes, what I'm going to eat), but I am really appreciative of advice (or imperitives) on such low-stakes issues as where to put the butter dish, when to send thank-you notes, and where I may wear my hat.

Yep, I'm an etiquette junky. When I was a tiny, I somehow picked up the Emily Post Book of Etiquette a great aunt had given my mother for high-school graduation (in a much much different edition than pictured here). And I've been a lifelong devote to her newspaper columns, and now the family (there's dozens of'em) have a website. Lately, when I've been feeling blue or harried or as if the world just weren't up to the white glove test, I've been turning to the Post family's Etiquette Daily blog, and it's been making me feel better. I thought I'd share my story, and the link, in case it might make you feel better, too.

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Kerry Clare wrote this amazing post I think you should read, called Escape the Ego. Don't be alarmed by the fact that it seems to be about a book called Eat Pray Love--I'm not sure what that is either, but I'm wary enough of the title that I'm not going to Google you a link (sorry!). Anyway, the post isn't really about that book--it's about why we read, and write, and what happens when we do. And it contains this beautiful paragraph:

"...I read, I think, to break it down and enable me to see the world in miniature, as manageable. Which, however conversely, is to be able to look at the big picture and regard it all at once, perhaps for the very first time. Fiction is a study in the hypothetical, a test-run for the actual. An experiment. What if the world was this? And we can watch the wheels turn and this bit of sample life run its course to discover. And I don't mean that literature is smaller than life, no. Literature is life, but it's just life you can hold in your hand, stick in your backpack, and I'm reassured by that, because the world is messy and sprawling, but if you take it down to the level of story, I am capable of some kind of grasp. Of beginning to understand what this world is, how to be in it."

To which I say, yes. Also, wow.

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Paul Quarrington has died, another hard blow in a rough week for CanLit. I hadn't, in truth, read much of Quarrington's work, but I was a big fan of his live performances--a great reader, a great speaker, a surprising good singer (I saw his band, The Pork Belly Futures play in Winnipeg because I was all alone and it was either that or stare at my hotel-room wall--and they were brilliant!!) He had a wonderful big warm presence, and an off-the-cuff joy in performing. I actually went to so many Quarrington events, and just ran into him randomly at so many litsy things, that he started smiling and saying hi to me, even though he had no idea who I was. I was in the process of working up the nerve to introduce myself, and now I am not going to get to do it. Which is sad. But I will be reading the books.

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And so ends another miscellaneous week. Hope this finds you well!
RR

Hearts and stars to 2009

Ok, I'm lagging behind but I am still thinking about 2009 and trying to think of an appropriate tribute. Just to be clear, this was a year I liked *very* much, but I don't think all the highlights are blog-appropriate (every cookie I ate and person I hugged and time a civil servant was extra nice to me could get dull, not to mention unwieldy). So I'm concentrating on bookish highlights--they are, after all, often the most interesting parts of my day.

Books read: 69 (ha!)

Books written: 1/2 of one (hiatus'd); 1/2 of another (promising!)

Regrets regarding the first of those: none that I wrote it, none that I stopped (right now, at least; I'm a little moody on this subject)

Best reading experience: Tongue by Kyung-Ran Jo over the course of two days in July, while lying in the grass in various public parks in Toronto. This was very much not the best book I read in 2009--in fact I have a lot of problems with it that I'm dying to discuss (any takers?) But it certainly is suspenseful and I was very eager to find out what happened, and I had nothing to do but keep reading in the glorious sunshine, interrupted only by bathroom breaks, eating on patios and conversations with my equally bookish companion. There aren't many better weekends, I'd say.

Best CanLit in-joke that I actually got: In the novella "Gator Wrestling" in Leon Rooke's The Last Shot. This is a stellar piece, even if you never get the joke--it's just the sprinkles on already overwhelmingly delicious frosted cake. Conversely, there are likely many jokes I didn't get in books I've read this year--but how good were those books to start with?

Most hated short story: "Pain Continuum" by Harold Brodkey. I *love* a lot of Brodkey's stories--even the notorious cunnilingus story, "Innocence" but he has a slew of first-person-narrator-experiencing-torture marathon stories that make you hate the narrator, the torturers, the author, the world and yourself. I think he had an artistic ambition with this story, but I don't care: I loathe it.

Best reading (as audience): Spencer Gordon, "The Sentence," Pivot at the Press Club. I think this would be a great piece on paper (but I'm still waiting for it to published so that I can confirm that) but Gordon's voice and the audience's warm reception made this incredible to listen to.

Best reading (as reader): the Metcalf-Rooke reading in Montreal at Drawn and Quarterly. Fantastic lineup, amazing venue (when else I am going to be onstage in a graphic novel store?), all in my old town. As to my own performance, I felt more thoroughly that I didn't suck than usual, which in my self-conscious universe counts as a win!

Best book launch accessory: Amy Jones's mixed cd for her launch for What Boys Like. What a good idea (and good music!) (and a good book!)

Worst disappointment: Closing announcement of Don Mills McNallly Robinson. I'd pinned a lot of hopes on that lovely space. So sad.

Best literary reading food: Really fat and enormous dates at the launch of Marta Chudolinska's Back and Forth graphic novel.

Best conversation about writing: About 72 short stories, with Camilla Gibb and Lee Henderson as we debated and decided on the stories for The Journey Stories 21. A warm, empassioned and literate conversation that lasted all day in a big sunny room, with sushi.

I could go on and on--it was a really good year. Buy you get the gist, I'm sure--and we all have a year to get on with!

RR

Rose-coloured Reviews *The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy* by Douglas Adams

I am rereading my old Hitchhikers' omnibus partly in response to Rosalynn and Catherine's dialogue on rereading. I used to reread like crazy--there are books on this earth that I have read close to 20 times--but as I age, more and more I feel the cold hand of mortality on my shoulder as I read, and I fear I won't get to read all the books I want even once in my life, and this stops me from doing much rereading.

Thus, a lot of books are frozen in my mind the way I read them and thought about them when I was a whippersnapper--I say something's "brilliant" but don't take into account that my 15-year-old mind may have been easier to impress than it is now.

I loved the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy series with all my tiny geeky heart when I was a teenager. So when I found out that, after Adams's death, some totally other person was writing a sixth book in the series, I was incensed. I could say, "Those books are perfect, Adams was unique, and this is a terrible idea." But I hadn't read those books in at least a decade, so what did I know?

So the other reason for rereading is to have some context by the time Eoin Colfer's book, titled *And Another Thing*, comes out in paperback. I want to read it, certainly, and give it a fair shake--not wrapped up in nostalgia.

I first came upon these books because I picked up the fourth title in the series (it was originally a trilogy that overspilled its limits). I read it because it was called So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and in those days I picked up any book with a funny title and read almost everything I picked up. (Other hits from that period include Elvis Jesus Coca Cola, Lady Slings the Booze, and The Paper Grail).

Of all those "funny title" reads, I loved *Fish* the most, and so went back to the beginning and read the whole series, and then the scripts for the radio show on which it was based (those made little sense to me; too much British humour, perhaps?), all the other books Adams wrote. And I watched the old film based on the book/show (the new one makes a lot more sense, by the way) and tried to get the old BBC tv show based on same, though I think by that point even my adolescent geek enthusiasm tapped out.

So it was in at least one sense very very nice to go back once more and read the old omnibus introduction, which endeavours to set the record "firmly crooked" in explaining the books' path to creation. I probably could have read it more objectively if parts of the intro hadn't been my grade 11 drama monologue, which I had (and apparently still have) memorized.

Then into the story--you know that story. Arthur Dent being sleepy and baffled, Ford Prefect being suave and fatalistic, saving Arthur while the rest of the earth is destroyed by a race called Vogons from a distant plant because they are creating a hyperspace expressway.

And their adventures therewith: cruising the galaxy, they run into Ford's semi-cousin, Zaphod Beeblebrox, erstwhile president of the galaxy, and the pretty lil thing he picked up on earth, Tricia McMillan (whose name he has condensed, naturally, to Trillian). And their impossibly weird spaceship, the Heart of Gold, and Marvin the Paranoid Android, their robot. And the contented doors, and...oh, it's all so funny and silly and great.

I love all these characters so much that the nostalgia followed me into the present reading--it took me a while to start reading like my 31-year-old self. The first clue that I could be critical was when I noticed that Ford Prefect's name was explained twice (he's an alien seeking to blend in on earth, and chose a name that seemed to him common among dominant lifeform, but turned out to be the name of a British subcompact car). A little editorial drop that has survived 20 years of re-issues...or maybe Adams worried readers wouldn't catch the joke.

Whatevs. Adams is *such* an imaginative thinker that it's totally natural, no matter what your age, to fall under his spell. The flights of fancy are thrilling, like a ship that runs on an Infinite Improbability drive: in can do anything, provided it is told exactly how improbable that thing is. The book, *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* exists in this fictional world to calm and instruct the characters, but it is also a pretty top-heavy expositional device. Every time Adams wants to insert some new crazy planet/lifeform/foodstuff he just makes up, he has one of the characters read about it in the guide and the narrative reproduces the whole page of info. It's really funny, so one is often distracted from the fact that that's bit sloppy storytelling, doncha think?

Although this is a book by, for, and about adults, there is a ring of adolescent idyllicness and naivete here that I don't think I am importing. Everyone is always moments away from death, but no one (besides a sperm whale) dies onstage. Of course, all of earth and its inhabitants are destroyed, but this is treated as a rather larky bad moment rather than a soul-destroying tragedy for the two remaining Earthlings.

People occasionally make fun of me for taking *So Long...* as my favourite Hitchhikers' book. They dismiss it as the "romantic one", but the fact is it is the only book in the series in which man-woman relationships make even a touch of sense (this is not a critique, but just a note: everyone in this version of the galaxy appears to be heterosexual). In this first book (the one that I am ostensibly reviewing here, in case you forgot), Trillian is the woman who travels around with Zaphod and "tells him what she thinks of him." The relationship is left at that, but she did leave her home planet to be with him. I wonder if they're snogging?

But I am being pennyante--this isn't photorealist stuff, it's semi-satire. Not satire of science-fiction but using the form of sci-fi to satirize real-life (I think). It's sharp and believeable, within it's own parameters, with a few (not all) well-drawn characters. The only other complaint I could possibly level against the book is that because this first book was based on several in a series of radio plays, it doesn't quite have the structure of a self-contained book. The five books perhaps somewhat have a single structure, but not quite that either--they basically all blur into one hilarious episodic adventure.

I've already started reading the second book in the series, *The Restaurant at the End of the Universe* (always with the good titles, Adams--my favourite books of his are actually the Dirk Gently books: *Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency* and *The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul* [possible the best title in the history of books]). I'm finding as I try to write this review, I'm finding that bits of *Restaurant* are getting mixed up with the first book in my mind and I've got to be careful to reference the right book.

For example, I wanted to tell you that possible my favourite conversation-quashing line was in this book, but it's actually in *Restaurant*--I'll share it anway:

"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal."

Nuff said.
RR

In very brief

1) Montreal est magnificique! J'etais la pour un presentation des livres a Librairie Drawn & Quarterly avec Kathleen Winter et Amy Jones (on peut voir leurs perspectives sur notre presentations si on lit ses blogs. Notre publie Dan Wells a conduit son minivan, beaucoup des livres, Amy et moi (je pense qu'il y a un probleme de verb avec cette phrase, et peut-etre la plupart de cette paragraphe) et c'etait un adventure magnifique.

2) I was the Inconstant Muse for Hallowe'en! It was was awesome. Like most of my highly conceptual [confusing] costumes, this one requires some explanation: I picture the Muse a bit coquettish/flirty/slutty--she is all eager to hook up and give writers great ideas, but then she takes off and leaves you to execute the idea all alone. So my costume was a brief toga, some laurel leaves, and great first lines of books written in Sharpie all over my arms and legs. Conceptual, I tell you.

3) This hydro-metre thingy is the best: a way to be environmentally friendly in a vaguely competitive, entirely trackable way: you get to see your hour-to-hour, day-to-day energy use, and pinpoint where you are over-indulging in "peak" (ie., most expensive) energy. I don't have most of the big appliances (dishwasher, laundry/drier, air conditioner) so even at optimal efficiency my savings would still be minimal, but it is so attractive to see it all laid out in colourful drafts. I hope I don't get obsessed.

4) My post about TTC seating etiquette got picked up on the Maisonneuve blog. This is a silly thing to post here, as if you are a regular Rose-coloured reader, you've likely already read that piece, but I am chuffed the Maisonneuve-sters thought it was worth reposting, and Rose-coloured is for all things I'm chuffed about (except the post in question, actually, which is rather snarky).

5) Tomorrow night, I head for the hills, by which I mean Edmonton and the mountains beyond, as well as my incredible friend AMT. I'll only be gone 5 days, and likely there can be some remote posting, but whenever I leave my comfortable internet orbit, there is a risk of non-access, so you may not hear from me until next week. I'm sure you'll be just fine without me!

RR

Reminder

that Amy Jones, Kathleen Winter and I are reading tomorrow at the Drawn & Quarterly store in Montreal, 211 rue Bernard West, at 7pm. And that it's going to be awesome. And...yay!

I'm inarticulate because of being really really tired from Hallowe'en, which was also awesome, but went on an extra hour due to Daylight Savings, and then some, because my friends are cool and I try to keep up. I'm planning to sleep...now, pretty much, so I should be in better form by the time I'm in front of any audience tomorrow.

See you there?
RR

Autobiographical Fiction and the Spectre of Mary Sue

Though my stories use plenty from the purportedly "real" world, I don't write much autobiographical fiction. I know many authors use their lives on the page to brilliant effect, but the few times I've done it, the process made me miserable and took forever. It's very very hard to transform oneself and people one cares about into characters, and the reason (for me) is that I can't be as dispassionate, as clear-eyed and insightful about myself as I can about someone I made up, with whom I have no personal connection (because they are not a real person, and not available to form a connection).

Like um, this blog? In case you didn't know? It's really really biased. I avoid blogging anecdotes that make me look like (too much of) a moron, don't discuss complicated moral decisions I made and later regretted, or other ways in which I might have let people down.

Those are shortcuts that aren't available in fiction or at least not in the sort of fiction I (want to) write, I can't blink at the characters' flaws, let them get away with dubious actions, or valorize tepid behaviour. Even though the people aren't real, they have real flaws and failings, and I care about writing those carefully, honestly.

I care about being honest about my own failings, too, but I find that incredibly difficult to do in public, with an audience. When I attempt to render something that happened to me in fiction, I often wimp out without realizing it, and wind up writing something that lets the "me" character off the hook or else pushes her forward in an unearned "hero" role. I have long-since learned that no matter how much an author likes her characters, you can't have "favourites"--a really hard rule to enforce if a character is based on your brother, your beloved, or yourself.

A Mary Sue is a character in fiction that is (or the reader thinks is) a version of the author that is used a wish-fulfillment device in the story. It's the dowdy girl who turns out to be the only one who can repair the engine in time to return to battle--and that's when the sergeant notices her quiet yet tantalizing beauty. It's the nerdy boy who just happens to be there when the head cheerleader falls in the lake--and the only one who bothered to learn mouth-to-mouth, and the possessor of surprisingly soft yet firm lips.

The term "Mary Sue" comes from the land of fan fiction, which is stories written about characters from TV shows, books and movies by their fans, for personal enjoyment and sharing with friends (not publication, cause that's dubious copyright territory). But it applies in literary fiction too, I think--sometimes a fascinating event from real life doesn't work in fiction because there are too many surrounding personalities and emotions and tensions that the author can't manage on the page. Those things get edited out, and what we are left with a sublime perfect character who understands everything and everyone and never falls down in the parking lot.

I'm on this topic for a couple of reasons, not least the hysterical bit above from the Write Badly Well blog (thanks to AMT for the link). But more, it's hearing Carrie Snyder read some really amazing autobiographical fiction, at the launch for the new issue of The New Quarterly, which features same.

Snyder's story "Rat" is wonderful not only because it evokes the place and experience (a child emigrates with her family to Nicarauga) perfectly, but because the child's POV is supplemented by a more omniscient third-person narrator. Thus, we do not end up with one of contemporary literature's stock figures--the "wise beyond her years" "preternaturally intelligent" child-narrator. Sometimes this works beautifully, but often an author using remembered childhood incidents cannot help but load in adult insight and contextualizing, and we end up with an unrealisitically brilliant and insightful child--a character who knows more than all the others, and can do no wrong...a Mary Sue.

Snyder's central character, Juliet, is smart but not insanely so--she understands more than the adults think she does, but she still misses a lot. The 3rd person narrator fills in the gaps in insight in a striking, sometimes shocking way. I've only heard a condensed version of this story read aloud, and I'm really looking forward to reading it at leisure when my issue of TNQ shows up (c'mon, Canada Post).

It's always nice to reminded that although something is hard, it can be done extraordinarily well by an author with perspecitive and talent. Almost makes me want to try again myself...almost.

RR

Readings A-Go-Go

Heyas! I am doing a *semi-spontaneous* reading on Wednesday (in my world, three days notice counts as spontaneous!) at Art Word in Hamilton. It's part of Dave Pomfret's Artshare series, so if you make it out, expect process-talk from songwriters, playwrights, and page-writers like myself, as well as reading and maybe even music. Should be awesome.

Also, now the the Montreal reading that I'm doing next Monday has a poster:



Nice, isn't it?

RR