September 8th, 2008
Eden Mills Recap
Yesterday morning, Kerry Clare and I set off for the Eden Mills Writers Festival, to listen to the readings, buy the books, be short-listed for the Eden Mills Literary Contest (KC’s story “Stillborn Friends”) and to read at the Mill (RR’s story “ContEd”). It didn’t start to rain until we were at the rental car place, and it didn’t start to pour until we hit the 401. I’m actually a fine driver (far better than you’d think if you know me socially, I’d say) but the 401 becomes whitewater in a downpour, and I am not that much *better* than fine. At least white-knuckling the highway took my mind off my terror about doing the reading.
But we didn’t die under the wheels of a semi, and instead arrived in the still-pouring downpour, and sloshed into the, you guessed it, outdoor festival venue. By the time I’d signed in, it was pretty close to my cue to read, but there was of course still time to sneak by the Biblioasis tent and see, for the first time ever, my book.
I knew what it looked like, since I spent three years writing the thing and saw every version of it, and the cover mock-ups, the advanced reading copies, etc. I knew it would be there, since Dan (Wells, Biblioasis publisher) had promised to bring copies. It really should’ve been a zero-suspense moment, but, um, it was absolutely thrilling. There was *Once*, out in the world, separate from me and all the people who have been working so hard on it–a big stack, looking pretty much perfect, and ready to be taken away and read. Something about the thought that the book is now fully self-contained, that anyone, strangers can read it if they feel like it, is what really hit me at that moment, I think.
Dan put a copy in my hands and hugged me and a photographer took my picture, and someone asked me to sign a copy, and my mentor Leon Rooke suddenly appeared to congratulate me, and I hugged him, and hugged Kerry, and somehow got out from under my umbrella and got wet…
I think, once in a while, something can be exactly as good as you dreamt it would be.
And then I went down to the Mill, which is a lovely setting to read in. There is a hill facing the water, a natural amphitheatre looking out across a tiny inlet to another spit of land where the stage-tent and microphones were set up. Of course, with the downpour ever increasing, all that surrounding water seemed a bit much, and I was rather alarmed crossing the slick-boarded bridge to the stage. But fellow readers Elspeth Cameron and David Chariandy were spell-binding enough to make me forget all the splashing and chill under my umbrella. Almost more amazing than anything was the fact that people stayed to hear me, the last reader. After 40 minutes in the deluge, when I walked to to the podium, perhaps 50 or 60 soggy people peered at me through the curtain of water, waiting patiently to hear what I had to say.
And I didn’t die under the wheels of a semi! Or fall into the water, or make any egregious stumbles in my reading. It was probably the most audible reading I’ve ever given–I’m getting louder! And…and…I read it out of the actual book! Hooray!
Whew. It was all gleeful after that. Stars of the afternoon included Mariko Tamaki, Paul Quarrington, Shari Lapena, Laurence Hill and, of course, Leon Rooke. Another star: the sun! It came out and was lovely warm for most of the afternoonn. My clothes got dry, even my feet. And we were fed dinner in the community centre, served by adorable children so eager in their work that they would sometimes watch you take the final bite of your salad with their hands on the rim of the plate. Hilarious!
And then, after getting briefly stuck in the mud of the parking area, we drove home. I was very very tired and over-stimulated, a state in which it is my preference to drive 20 kilometres under the speed limit. And it is a testament to Kerry Clare’s truly wonderful spirit that she neither attempted to decapitate me with one of our Eden Mills Mix cds (which would’ve been a tragic loss of both me and music), nor closed her eyes and let me get away with disrupting traffic. And we didn’t die under the wheels of a semi, or even ding the rental car, thanks mainly to Kerry’s gentle guidance, and then we were home.
I am very lucky in my friends, and in many things.
My best friend Leslie said / oh she’s just being Miley
RR
August 28th, 2008
Talking Salon (again, still)
Thirsty (in response to the Globe)
Resurrected / livin in a lighthouse
RR
August 18th, 2008
You might wanna
1) Attend the launch of the book in the preceeding post–this advertisement was supposed to come at the end of my *The Killing Circle* review, but in my excitement I forgot. See the link for full deets, but quickly, it’s tomorrow night at 8:30 at the Gladstone, and it’s gonna be awesome.
2) Donate school supplies to kids in need via the Salvation Army and Sleep Country. It’s always good to give, but this is especially fun because it enables the school-deprived to indulge in coloured pencils and theme binders, and to finally find a good home for the very expensive scientific calculators we were forced to buy in grade 11 (it’s official: logarithms are no longer relevant to my life).
We can reach the sea / they won’t follow me
RR
August 17th, 2008
Rose-coloured Reviews The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper
In this review, I *will* make an effort, but my feints at objectivity are probably going to be even lamer than usual. For something actually insightful, try The Walrus or Pickle Me This.
Though I’m not much of a reader of serial-killer thrillers, I did really love this book for craft of language, for plotting, definitely for voice. But if Mr. Pyper started experimenting in the former of toaster-oven instruction manuals, I’d probably take at least an interest in that, too. I’ve been a fan since I read his first book, a collection of short stories called Kiss Me (click on the link just to see the book cover, my favourite book cover ever), way back in 2000 (it came out in 1996–I’m always behind). In truth that collection of literary fiction remained my favourite of his for a long time, as the mystery/thrillers he wrote after, though very very good, never resonated with me as deeply. Until The Killing Circle came along and blew everything else out of the water.
Full disclosure: when I found that this novel centres on a writing group and their teacher, I was very very alarmed. I love writing about writing and about learning to write (ooh, Lynn Coady’s Mean Boy), but I also love *learning to write,* and to this end, once took a class *from* Andrew Pyper. He was a great great teacher, and my work came really far in those three months, but there were still a lot of moments in that class that could easily be parodied, if one were searching for material. I’ve stayed in a wonderful writing circle with three of my classmates, and we all thought, uh-oh.
Of course not. Although this book is about the profound ambiguity between story and life, it’s also about the trouble that lies in store for (or from) those who cannot tell the difference. The authors *in* the story lie to themselves and to others about the definition of fiction, but the author *of* the story has an amazingly assured hand.
Much has been made about this book being a roman a clef to media politics in this city and this country. The central character, Patrick Rush, works at *The National Star* and the leader of the writing circle is “Conrad White”–hee? I don’t know much about newspapering and I never did figure out who the snippily successful managing editor at the paper was, let alone Mr. White. Easier to enjoy were some of the broader jokes, about “The Quotidian Award…awarded to a the work of fiction that ‘best reflects the domestic heritage of Canadian family life’…A rainy-day parade of stolid farmers and fishermen’s widows,” as well as the endless reality programming about transforming your neighbours’ homes.
Those sort of jokes are quite fun, but parodies and veilings of reality are, in this book, far less interesting than the stuff that’s simply real: things about the city of Toronto, and how writing works. Pyper wrote a groovy article in the Star about city as character in this book, and it truly is one. The alleys that Patrick runs down away from shadowy figures are not just scary-novel devices but actually real alleyways I know and love, off Queen near Palmerston, others closer to the lake. The Rosedale subway station and the nearby ravine. Kensington. All these places are both instantly recognizable and suddenly terrifying as they make their transition from real-world to fictional-world.
And that’s the brilliant thing about the book–it’s actually about that process, how writers bring bits and pieces of reality to fiction and transform it into something not more or less but entirely different from the sum of its parts. Writing is a huge act of faith, I think it is and I guess you sort of have to in order to do it. Author Pyper gives the writer his or her due, but character Patrick gives the writer far more, something close to godlike incantatory powers–“Waiting for a way to tell the one true story that might bring back the dead.” And it is in this obsessive over-estimation of the lessons on writing that put the book into terror territory.
It’s wrenching, I gotta say. Gory, but also psychologically very very weird and disturbingly intimate. The central character is not violent, but he’s not a lovely person at all times, either, and the crimes for which he is culpable, and his justifications for them, give us weird insight into the mind of the murderer. And that freaked me the hell out. If the prose weren’t so good (and, just when you’re white-knuckling the spine, so funny) and the story so tightly plotted and surprising, I would not have made it to the dark dark ending. This isn’t “my kind” of novel, but the really good writing is beyond genre, and I think *The Killing Circle* qualifies.
I can’t talk much about the plot, because most everything is a twist or a turn that affects everything but you don’t see it coming. Or at least, I didn’t see *anything* coming; possibly if you are more familiar with serial-killer fiction (I hear there’s lots) you might not be so startled by everything. I can’t necessarily recommend this book to you; it’s creepy and sad and certainly does not redeem one’s faith in mankind. It’s gripping, though, and you could learn a good bit about writing by reading it.
Maybe try only reading it during the day.
Don’t wanna see it on my windowsill
RR
June 29th, 2008
Rebecca Reviews Muriella Pent
Note on the reviewer–I have for some time being trying to write a real book review. I have a *lot* of trouble expressing opinions. This is not to say I’m not opinionated, but I get stuck fast, especially when I feel I might be judged or, horrors, argued with. I generally avoid making objective statements about things that are important to me, and here you know we’re talking about books. I think books are one of the most important things in the universe, and I greatly fear getting them wrong.
*However*, books are stronger than I am, I’m sure–they can stand a little misjudgement. And if I would presume to write them, I would presume also to understand something about how they work, and by what criteria they might operate. So I wanted to try a review, and I’ve been on the lookout for a book I thought I might be able to work with. I chose Russell Smith’s Muriella Pent for a few reasons, mainly that I liked it a lot. I thought it would be easier to find interesting, witty, insightful things to say about a piece of fiction that is itself interesting, witty, and insightful. That’s a cheat, and I know real reviewers don’t have that perogative–one of the many reasons why I am not one. I also thought it’d be useful to review something by a writer whose back-catalogue I’m familiar with. I’ve actually read *all* Smith’s other fiction books (though not his fashion writing) and am likely by any standards a fan. So this whole process is wildly biased, but hey, it’s a start.
Ok, a review of *Muriella Pent* in 1500 words of semi-astuteness. Ok. Ok, go!
Muriella Pent is a wealthy fiftyish widow. Her children are grown, and she lives alone in a stuffy gated community, trying to fill her days with gardening, which proves unsatisfying, and the local arts council. Muriella once had some artistic ambitions, and she sees the council as an opportunity to learn as well as help.
Besides Muriella, there are three other points of view: Brian, a fellow council member who has just finished his BA in English; Julia, the daughter of one of Muriella’s friends, who also knows Brian from school; and Marcus Royston, a poet from the Caribbean that the council brings to Toronto for an artistic residency. Due to funding cuts, the only actual residence available for the residency is in the maid’s quarters of Muriella’s enormous house.
There’s the premise, and it has a fair amount of interest. Marcus, who has lived through a revolution, and its grinding bureaucratic aftermath, still believes in the purity of the artistic impulse. His journal writing and poems—inserted between chapters—convince the reader that he is the real deal, but his drinking, womanizing, and disrespect of political agendas quickly alienates the desperately policitically correct council. Royston—and, one can imagine, Smith—is disgusted by the idea that artistic quality can only be measured its usefulness in achieving social aims: “building community” and “giving voice to the voiceless” are some of the disdained ideas.
There’s a lot of ideas in this book. Debates at meetings of the embattled council, bantering between honour students, diary entries of urban observation are disturbing and hilarious, by turns or in tandem, but they don’t move the plot at any great clip. A set piece of a public library press conference features a homeless man eating all the cheese (“The man had a raincoat which was still largely coherent…”), a paraphrase of comments that Jane Jacobs made, and one more nail in unpopular poet’s coffin, but in terms of pure plotting the book could have done without it. In terms of pure plotting, the book could have done without most of its best moments, actually.
So MP is not a plot-drive n book then. I think it is on the razor-sharp edge between satire and emotional realism, and I think that’s why it’s awesome. To write a decent satire, you have to both love and hate your subject—a straight lampoon is one laugh only. The characters in MP are intellectually and sensually vivid, in contrast with the world they live in, which is full of pretension, posturing, aggression and stupidity. The wild and wide digressions are the best bits, full of bite and sympathy both. Early on, we have a car full of people so tense they are vibrating, all snarking and vying for attention while poor Muriella struggles to merge on the 401 in rush hour. Later, the horror of running into someone you know at the video store and being judged by whatever you happened to have in your hand:
“I like Catherine Deneuve,” she said softly.
“Why?” said Jason.
“Why? I don’t know. Why do you like any actors?”
“Well, usually when we like things,” Jason said a little too loudly, “we are able to articulate some reason…”
The characters are the heart of the book, and I think most of them are remarkable achievements. Before reading, it wasn’t the scathing commentary on arts funding that worried me, but rather the idea that a white, fortyish guy would be writing from the POV of a middle-aged woman, a twentyish woman, and a Caribbean-born man of mixed race. I think Smith does a credible job on all counts, though not flawless. Muriella is probably the most diverse, most sympathetic character he ever created—she’s sweet and self-conscious and not without irony, yet she’s obsessed with her clothes and she calls people lovey (I didn’t think people other than Mrs. Thurston Howell did that). When Smith re-released his pornographic novel, Diana, I heard him speak about how he wrote that book in part to learn about writing about women from within a female body, about sex from a woman’s point of view. You can see those lessons put to good use here—Muriella fully inhabits her body, fully wears her clothes. She even feels her grief over her husband’s death in her body. Sometimes it’s too much, though, this embrace of female physicality, especially with Julia’s character. She’s so so so beautiful, and every other character wants to sleep with her, so she doesn’t get a lot of other characteristics. Actually, that’s not fair—her intelligence and willful self-neglect, self-destructiveness, are evident, but given short shrift. Julia actually quotes from her own diary at one point, which is an unenjoyable narrative shorthand for she’s very bright and insightful, see?
I could have used a little more time on Julia’s mind instead of so much on her nipples—“She did not put on a bra…to show off a little,” “The top was thin as film, and tight across her small breasts,” etc. Neither Julia nor Muriella wears a bra. In fact, no woman in this novel who neither morbidly obese nor a tool of the patriarchy chooses to be so “unencumbered.” This is fantasy: Toronto is the most over air-conditioned place I’ve ever been, and the subways are crowded—and I found it distracting.
Marcus Royston is a complicated and nuanced creation. He’s pathetic and sympathetic, passive aggressive and irresponsible. You like him, but he drinks too much and sleeps with everybody and calls himself a poet while writing little poetry. His sad patience (he winks at his favourite prostitute as he walks towards his boss’s office the day he knows he’ll be fired) and his observations on the seasons (end of October: “baths are drawn, doors are closed”) show a real poet at work, and the actual poems here are pretty damn good. But there isn’t enough of his point of view for me, especially in the second half of the book. It’s more Muriella’s story all along, and Brian and Julia take up more and more space. Marcus kind of gets shifted to the side, a catalyst spent in causation, burning out. We don’t know what his life entailed before coming to Toronto—people don’t ask him a lot of questions, and his note-taking is limited to present-day observation, and poetic musing.
The fourth POV character is Smith’s stock-in-trade—Brian, the literature and video-game loving, pretentious, self-conscious jerk/sweetheart who sees “nothing but humiliation” in pretty girls, and wants to write “such a novel of sadness and devastation” as revenge for that humiliation. He’s funny and awful and totally familiar, especially when bantering with his best (only?) friend, Jason. If I could write young men this well, I don’t know that I’d ever bother doing anything else. You don’t see Tiger Woods knocking himself out on the soccer field, you know? Listen to this, and I mean really, read it aloud and listen:
“Why are you wearing that hat?”
“What’s wrong with my hat?” Jason touched it front and back without both hands as if straightening it in a mirror. He looked very serious and Brian laughed.
“Does it come with spurs and chaps, or a little badge? Is it Halloween?”
“What’s your ambient name?”
“I have other hats, you know, you could wear, like a medieval helmet, with a visor, it comes with a whole suit or armour, and a shield, you could walk around like that if you liked. Or how about a hobo costume, with overalls and the stick and the little bundle in a red handkerchief?”
“Shut up,” said Jason. “Chicks like hats like this.”
I know boys like that, though honestly, most of them are not quite as funny.
Four points of view, two countries, one mansion, two basement apartments, a drunken party, some sexual dalliances, some cameos from previous Russell Smith books (yep, am a fan), too much booze and a lot intellectual posturing: could you forgive me for saying that I think this novel is a beautiful tribute to Canadian ideals not quite working out? We Canadians haven’t quite nailed down what our literature or our country should look like, what we actually mean when we say “Cultural Mosaic,” or why we keep segregating ourselves culturally—the comments on “Little Malta” are pretty emblematic—when we like the idea of unity so much. The way these characters ebb and flow and refuse to define themselves is very definitely Canadian to me. And by the end of the book, all characters are shaken and surprised and, mainly, expanded by the mixing up that comes from going beyond cultural definitions and engaging in real life. Pretty impressive for a work of fiction.
Oh my goodness, reviewers work hard. I’m spent.
That’s not my name
RR
June 26th, 2008
Joy
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about short stories, which *may* have had a “persecuted” air to it. Which was in reaction to things I’d read and heard, but that was also somewhat selective listening. Obviously, short stories have many defenders and protectors–thanks to all who wrote to me to say so! I felt much better, and more inclined to look on the bright side.
And there is much brightness, including the speech Lynn Coady made at Luminato, pointing out the artistic experimentation permitted in short stories (I wish I could reproduce it, but of course I can’t. This is why everything in the universe should be written down.) And then there is Emily Schultz’s new pro-story website, Joyland. Commmitted to keeping the living art of short story, and international, and cool, Joyland’s first story is actually one of Coady’s (and it is alive, and cool, and very funny and weird). One of mine, “Black-and-White Man”, will actually run there in September–I feel priviledged to be a part of the party.
Other joyful news from the land of writing, though not particularly story-focused:
–novelist, book-reviewer, cat-lover, friend-of-mine Lauren Kirshner writes as beautifully and warmly on her new blog as we all knew she would.
–writing, reader, friend to all things bookish Julie Wilson is bringing her crazy-cool literary voyeurism to the youths with Seen Writing, a workshop for teens with poetry readings, on-the-spot writing exercises, and reader models that (cough) you might know. This event is part of the The Scream Literary Festival, which has too many great events to name.
Obviously, the fate of literature, in its myriad forms, is in little danger. Not that we shouldn’t all be vigilant and all…
He could not know another tiger
RR
April 28th, 2008
Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere
Who knew that there was such a title, although it’s clear to me now that it’s an important role. I’m so delighted that there is such an election, because that means there’s lots of people blogging about poetry and the world in poetic terms, as there should be. But for me, there’s only one poetic blogger on my radar, and that’s rob mclennan. So no disparagement meant to the other nominees, who are probably also quite brilliant.
But if there’s someone who has got to speak for poets in the blogosphere, I hope it can be rob, because I’ve never seen a blog that creates such a sense of commitment and community, such wide-ranging and warm interest and encouragement. It speaks to the blog’s space of generosity that a fiction writer such as myself never feels out of place there. rob’s blog makes it feel like writing is worthwhile, whatever your form.
I’m sure these things don’t matter *that* much in the scheme of life, but it *is* national poetry month, so if you are so inclined, maybe vote?
I could kick your ass / yeah, you in the looking glass
RR
March 4th, 2008
Fair’s Fair
1. What was the last Canadian book you recall reading?
Diana: A Diary in the Second Person by Russell Smith
2. Where did you find out about it, and where do you find out about Canadian books to read in general, if in fact you do?
I found out it was available again when the This Is Not a Reading Series launch was announced, but there’s been rumours about this book for years. That’s atypical, though—in general, I read on recommendation–I don’t listen to every recommendation, but nor do I very often read without when.
3. Where did you get the book, and where do get Canadian books in general, if in fact you do?
I bought that book at the launch, as I wont to do if I go to a launch, but that’s not that often. In general, I read books from the library or receive them as gifts. If I want to make a point of buying a particular book, I often order direct from the publisher.
4. Who is your favourite Canadian author? Bonus points–Why?
This is a fairly inane question, I know, I know–depends on the day, the genre, the mood. But it does give an idea when I say Munro, Pyper, Smith, Atwood, Rooke, Lyon, Copeland, doesn’t it?
A thousand different voices,
RR
PS–I’m using these answers to try to pull together something coherent to say at a CanLit-y panel tomorrow. When in doubt, ask your friends!!
March 3rd, 2008
CanLit Queries
If you felt like answering some or all of these quicky queries about CanLit, it would really be helpful, and interesting, to me!
1. What was the last Canadian book you recall reading?
2. Where did you find out about it, and where do you find out about Canadian books to read in general, if in fact you do?
3. Where did you get the book, and where do get Canadian books in general, if in fact you do?
4. Who is your favourite Canadian author? Bonus points–Why?
Thanks!
RR
February 25th, 2008
Panel in Peterborough
I know that most (both?) Rose-coloured readers are, like me, carless people who don’t live in Peterborough. However, if you are there a week Tuesday, you might consider stopping at Trent to hear a panel discuss Shut Up He Explained, by John Metcalf, and how it fits/shapes the future of Canadian writing.
As an “emerging writer” in Canada who was deeply affected/inspired by that book, as well as being edited by it’s author, I am part of said panel. How exciting, and how terrifying. I hope to have come up with some modest insights to share by next week.
Even if I don’t, the discussion will still likely be great, and even if you can’t make it, I urge to check out the book. On it’s own, *Shut Up* will still tell you a great deal about where CanLit is, has been, and might go.
Below are the details. Sorry I can’t duplicate the nice poster sent to me by Trent, just cut’n’paste the text.
Roundtable with John Metcalf ~
Library ~ Champlain Writer in Residence
Emerging Scholars on
The Future of Writing in Canada:
Life After “Shut Up He Explained”
Tuesday, March 4th 2008
~ 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ~
A.J.M. Smith Room, Bata Library
Jonathan Bennett ~ Christopher Dummitt
Michael Fralic ~ Lewis MacLeod
Rebecca Rosenblum ~ Dan Wells
Moderated by Adrian Kelly
Anyway anyway anyway / you wanna
RR
Buy the book: