July 15th, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *Hamlet* by William Shakespeare, illustrated by Harold Copping

I won this book in a raffle two years, and was pleased, then put it on a shelf. Somewhere in the time the book spent on the shelf, I apparently decided it was a graphic novel of Hamlet, without ever bothering to check. I was excited to include it in the *Off the Shelf* challenge this year–wouldn’t a graphic novel of *Hamlet* be great?

Probably, but this isn’t one–it’s just the play with a few illustrations by Harold Copping, who according to the introduction was one of the most popular English illustrators of the late 19th and early 20th century. Probably, but I already have a pretty vivid mental image of how these characters looked, and as Copping’s image did not agree with mine, I really didn’t enjoy the illustrations.

I still read the play–it was part of my reading challenge for the year, and even on 5th or 6th read, there’s still plenty to be learned from the play (probably only 20th, too). I’m not going to bother to review it, though–if you don’t know that *Hamlet*’s pretty good, nothing I say is going to convince you.

I actually really hated the edition, not only because of the illustrations, which are probably appealing to those who haven’t already decided what they look like (Ethan Hawke ftw). But the book is 8.5 x 11 inches and hardback, which makes it very challenging to read on the bus or even put in my bag. I image this would be great for a school edition or some such. If anyone desires it more than I do, please message me at the “contact” button above, and if we can arrange a handoff it’s yours. Otherwise I’ll donate it to a charity bookdrive at the end of the year and return to my small, manageable, unillustrated paperback copy.

This is my 7th/July book for the To Be Read reading challenge. More to come!!

July 3rd, 2012

What happens when you self-search

Guys, I’m ashamed to admit it, but sometimes I enter my own name into search engines and go in 8 or 10 pages, just to see what comes up. I do this for a couple reasons–mainly to kill time when I’m feeling simultaneously vain and bored. But also because I’ve discovered that Google Alerts (yes, of course I have one–that’s not even vanity, just efficient) is not all that–it misses a lot of stuff. And while the good stuff will eventually make its way to me, no one ever passes on a really negative review–unless I make some more sadistic friends, it’s up to me to find the scathing ones.

Sometimes, however, my sad little searches turn up fun stuff. Often, it’s stuff I already knew about, only in a shiny new package. Like, I always knew the time and date of my reading at the Leacock Festival, so no one thought to tell me that it’s now up on slick event page (scroll down). And though I’ve already talked SO MUCH about the film “How to Keep Your Day Job” it’s still pretty awesome to see it has a little web presence. And sometimes folks even forget to tell me about a really lovely review (scroll down again). Also, did you know that someone with almost the same name as me is Dr. Date?

Finally, somehow I failed to attach my proper full name to my YouTube channel, so you can’t find it by searching me–I don’t think that’s a huge loss to anyone but I’m going to try to work this out. In the meantime, in case you couldn’t fine it otherwise, I’ll leave you with my favourite kitty video creation so far, Evan versus Gunter Grass.

June 17th, 2012

Not a real review of Jennifer Egan’s *A Visit from the Goon Squad*

I didn’t read Jennifer Egan’s *A Visit from the Goon Squad* when it first came out, even though I heard it was very good and won a lot of prizes. There’s just too many books that’s true of, and I didn’t know who Jennifer Egan was anyway.

Then I heard a rumour: even though *Goon Squad* had “a novel” on the front cover, that was a marketing move. The rumour had it that it was a short-story collection in disguise. But unlike short-story collections that sales considerations force into the guise of a novel, apparently this one didn’t semi-suck–everyone seemed to love it. I was intrigued.

As soon as I started reading, I realized I did in fact know who Jennifer Egan is–I had read three of the first four stories previously, when they were published in the *New Yorker*. And they were very very good stories, which had impressed me at the time and did even more so in the book. I blame the fact that I never noticed they were all by the same person is that the voices are so various.

The reason for the “even more” love in the book context is because the stories illuminate each other–there’s layers of facts, character and context from one that make the next make sense in different ways than it did standing alone. And as I say, they were pretty darn strong standing alone.

By the time I was four stories into the book, I had realized that *Goon Squad* wasn’t a book of stories, and it wasn’t a novel–it was genuinely and truly both, which is pretty much the equivalent of a plate made of spoons. Nothing the world necessarily needs, or so it thinks, but when you see it done well, it makes your eyes pop open, makes you think about at how you’ve always defined both the plate and the spoon and if both couldn’t do quite a bit more than those limited definitions.

If they’re Jennifer Egan’s plate and spoon, they can.

This book is fucking amazing. It is the best thing I’ve read in years, so good I stopped thinking about how it was working and had to go back and read bits again for the technical lessons I knew were hiding in there. So good I loved and hated the characters and actually teared up for Sasha at one point (I never do that) and always wanted Benny to do better and genuinely love these people.

This book is *bigger* than most novels–its reach is larger, extending from the late 70s to the mid 2020s (and with that future tilt, the tiniest touch of science fiction). But not just temporal reach–there are at least 15 fully fleshed, vivid, active characters–as opposed to the 2 or 3 you get in so many novels, surrounded by a cast of “secondaries” that too-obviously know their place. The real joy of this book is that no one is secondary–everyone is firmly ensconced in their own lives, living as best they can through each day, through each story.

No, no, the real joy of *Goon Squad* is that it is a new kind of book, one with various focii, various voices, enormous ambition and no consideration at all of what shelf at the bookstore it will sit on. It’s stunning, and both inspiring and deeply deeply daunting to those of us trying to write in a similarly fearless way.

June 13th, 2012

The words “interview” and “review” both have the word “view” in them

Huh.

Anyway, one review to post for you, with Ange Friessen at *The Toronto Review of Books* and one review of *The Big Dream
at The Quarterly Conversation. Both are viewpoints on me and my work, I guess. I’m still working through this linguistic discovery.

In less mind-bending but no less interesting news, Michael was in need of an easy rhubarb recipe and I sent him my mom’s, which he tried and blogged about. So few people appreciate rhubarb, so this is exciting. Also, judging by the photos, delicious.

June 8th, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *The Book of Other People*

I bought *The Book of Other People* (edited by Zadie Smith) in Blackwell’s Books in Oxford, because it is the best bookstore I’ve ever seen and I had to buy *something* but not more than one thing because I was in the midst of a long and thrifty trek around England, and anything I bought I had to haul upon my person.

I bought it partly because it seemed an apt souvenir of England–I’d heard Smith interviewed on the radio once so I know from the accent that she’s English, plus the price on the back was in pounds. But mainly, of course, I bought it because it looked like exactly the book I have been dreaming of all my life. I love character-based fiction–to me who people are is the essence of plot because it’s the essence of life–my brother once made me a t-shirt that says, “Character is destiny,” and I more or less believe it, with a few exceptions for happenstance, acts of gods, etc.

Mainly, I was right–*The Book of Other People* was a great pleasure, starting with a title second only to The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes for good titles I have known. The privilege of meeting a stranger, someone completely unknown and completely unlike me, is why I read fiction. I love other people.

And many of these people were fascinating folks. I truly felt for the pathos of Daniel Clowes’ pretentious film critic “Justin M. Damiano” (the characters’ names are, in most cases, the stories’ titles as well). The next story was in A. L. Kennedy’s much darker style, but her “Frank” still echoed Daniel’s pathos in an achingly sad say. I was charmed and horrified by Hari Kunzru’s “Magda Mandela”–it’s not quite so politically correct as it ought to be, certainly if this were a Canadian book, but somehow that allowed the full bawdy glory of it to be apparent. Vendala Vida, whose work I hadn’t encountered before, brought the full frustration of being 11 rushing back to me in “Soleil.”

In fact, there were actually very few pieces in this collection that I didn’t like. There was Chris Ware’s impenetrable “Jordan Wellington Lint,” but I never understand Chris Ware–I feel like we’ve sort of agreed to disagree over the years. Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Rhoda” was slight and stereotypical, with exactly one original moment–yet it was a stereotype I recognize and love, so I liked it. Miranda July’s “Roy Spivey” also struck me as pretty silly, though silliness I enjoyed, right up until the deeply heartfelt and mature ending. Who knew? Also, Nich Hornby and Posy Simmonds “J. Johnson” is surprisingly inane and, I think due to badly placed page break, incoherent.

So, yes, I enjoyed the book as I read, but after I finished a number of pieces I felt a bit ill-used. Can you guess why from what the words I’ve used above or, rather, the one I didn’t–story. The book jacket bumf doesn’t bother with that nicety–the back cover says, “A host of extraordinary characters in all-new stories by our best contemporary writers,” but “story” is certainly secondary to “character” there–the form is not made as much of as the content. In the introduction we see why–instructions were unclear. “The instruction was simple: make somebody up.” But Smith does use the word stories in her intro, seemingly as a catch-all for “piece of fiction under 20 pages.” “Magda Mandela” is a sketch not a story, albeit a brilliant one, as is Jonathan Lethem’s “Perkus Tooth.” Jonathan Safran Foer’s piece is too, without the brilliance.

Sure, those some of those pieces are great to read and might well be the gas that eventually powers a story with a tangible structure, plot, action, other characters, etc. But it seems unfair to compare them to the fully realized, complex and powerful stories like Edwidge Dandicat’s “Lele” (sorry, WordPress isn’t having the two accent aigu that word needs) or George Saunders stunning, devastating “Puppy.” If you are a fan of Saunders (I know some people can’t stand his work), this story stands up to the best he’s written. Zadie Smith herself contributes a story, though she, like many of the writers here, have no reputation in story-writing. Her “Hanwell Snr” is interesting but meandering, with the most interesting points petering out in gestures to another story not on the page. Which, though I haven’t read it, I think actually exists.

This is part of a larger tantrum I’m having over the fact even The New Yorker seems lately to think that readers can’t tell the difference between a self-contained story that provides action, insight, and a degree of resolution on one hand, and a random wad of prose of the same length on the other. If you follow that link you will get the *prologue* to Ian McEwan’s next novel, which TNY ran without any labelling as such, though clearly the excerpt is grossly unsatisfying on its own. IT MAKES ME INSANE–short stories get a bad enough rap for being enigmatic and open-ended without marketing chunks of novels as the same thing. AHHHHHH!

I digress. This is a fun book and pleasant reading, with a few genuine gems of stories (I will return to the Dandicat and the Saunders, I have not doubt). If it had just been marketed as a book of sketches and stories, or if I hadn’t overthought myself into a rage, this would be a glowing review.

*The Book of Other People* is the sixth/June book in my 2012 To Be Read Challenge.

May 31st, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *Little Eurekas* by Robyn Sarah

I have been trying to become a more astute reader of poetry lately. I have a very good literature degree, and can scan a poem pretty well, as well as read it with some seriousness and insight. But actually, sometimes not all that much insight. Even when I really love a poem, I often can’t articulate why. And then I lame out in that chickenish trap of feeling too stupid for poetry, like I should just give up and go watch a reality show about cakes.

I thought reading Robyn Sarah‘s collections of essays on poetry, Little Eurekas would help improve my confidence–I finished that degree a long time ago now. But I was actually so intimdated by the book–what if I’m too stupid for essays *about* poetry, too??–that it languished on my shelf for several years.

I’m really glad I got over myself and read it. Sarah is a careful and insightful reader–incredibly well-versed in the analytical language of poetry criticism, but also adamant that both poetry and criticism be accessible to all who care to read. My favourite sections were the middle three–Appreciations, Essay-Reviews, and Short Reviews. All three sections a focussed direct engagements with individual poems, suites of poems, or collections. Some are more positive than others (the Appreciations are only positive, obviously) but all explain carefully, analytically *why* Sarah feels the way she does about a poem. Also, she quotes liberally–sometimes entire poems. This is so incredibly helpful to a non-professional poetry-reader. For me, many poetry reviews are inscrutable and nigh on unreadable because the reviewer seems to assume the entire audience has read the book. What would I need a review for then? Sarah has an aura of trustworthiness, but she invites you test her judgments on your own by tossing you the poem for your very own. These essays are empowering and inspiring–you feel Sarah is sharing her intelligence with you to help you grow your own. Like sourdough. That metaphor fell apart.

I enjoyed the first and last sections less. The first chunk of the book is general essays on Canadian poetry and they’re actually fine–Sarah is far more reasonable and careful in her judgements than most of the people writing such essays these days. But general is always less interesting to me than specific, and the specific pieces in this text are so insightful–I felt smarter after reading them in a way that the intro pieces didn’t inspire. I did love the first essay, “I to my perils: How I fell for poetry”–one of the only truly personal pieces in the collection, it’s a perfect introduction. But a few of the others in this chunk had the creeping hell-in-a-handbasket-ism that smacks of the standard generational split: kids these days publish too much, too early; workshopping is a crutch and robs students of their voice, etc., etc.

The last section of the book I didn’t really enjoy, though through no fault of the author–it consists of dialogues (in letters, mainly) between Sarah and other poets. As dialogue between professionals usually does, these conversations use highly elevated vocabulary, and often spin around and around on abstract topics that I couldn’t really grasp. I imagine someone who is a poet or critic him/herself would enjoy this section more. But I was very disappointed not to be able to follow the conversation between Sarah and Dennis Lee about polyphony in poetry–literary polyphony is one of my obsessions, so you really think I’d’ve gotten something out of that piece. But no. Alas.

What I probably shouldn’t have done is read this collection cover to cover in a week–it’s not that sort of book. But because it isn’t indexed and the pieces aren’t dated, it would be hard to use as a reference book, either. To be honest, I think the text is probably intended for teachers of poetry, who will be able to read with more insight than I, and then pick and choose pieces to assign in the classroom. Which is darn good luck for the students–*Little Eurekas* is a powerful education.

This is my fifth/May book for the Off the Shelf challenge.

May 21st, 2012

All Kinds of Awesome

First and foremost, the word is now on the street that Mark’s second novel has been acquired by Dundurn Press and will be out in Spring 2014. It’s called *Sad Peninsula* and it’s pretty great, I have to say. Kvell!

In other awesomeness, I found this nice review of *The Big Dream* on Niranjana Iyer’s Brownpaper. I’ll eventually track down the hardcopy in *Herizons* if I can!

And finally, as promised, on Friday night I went to the cast-and-crew screening of the newly completed short film, *How to Keep Your Day Job* and it was absolutely incredible. I think at its core the film has a great deal in common with the story, but not everything–it is an inventive reimagining of the story, and that’s what makes it so exciting–I knew what would happen next but I didn’t know how. It’s also a visually beautiful film, something us writers are never going to create–the way the film looked in snippets on the playback screen onset is nothing like the way it looks woven together into a seamless final product.

As an experience for me, the *Day Job* film has already exceeded my wildest expectations, but I know the filmmakers have even bigger ones. I certainly endorse these, and think they deserve every accolade available out there. I hope to be able to tell you sometime in the fall when *How to Keep Your day Job* will be coming to a theatre near you.

May 7th, 2012

Rose-coloured reviews *A Nail in the Heart* by Ian Daffern

I am a text-based person–very used to getting all my information, entertainment, and general stimulus from words. My visual perception is not highly evolved. I do actually know what matches, clothing-wise, and when a page layout is poorly done, but it doesn’t bother me all that much–I have to force myself to notice.

So it’s an odd experience for me to read a graphic novel. I’m excited, I’m looking forward to it, but I’ll read a few pages without following too well, pause in confusion, then flip back and look at the images. Ah, I’ll say, that does make sense.

Graphic novels are not just novels with pictures in them–they are a completely other form of storytelling, where words and pictures are highly integrated and symbiotic–neither one could stand alone–telling a story in concert.

This is all a very long preamble to explain why, while I enjoyed *A Nail in the Heart* very much, I perhaps didn’t get everything out of it I could’ve. This short story collection by variously creative person (I can’t figure out how to say he’s active in a number of media–what is that term?) Ian Daffern has three short stories, each illustrated by a different artist. The affect is cool–it’s like a mixed tape, in that the modes and styles of the pieces are all different, but united by a single sensibility in the stories being told.

The stories being told, FYI, are horror, which is also something new for me. The first is “Bring Me the Head of Osama Bin Ladin!” The tone is noirish–a grizzled old fed on an errand for “Eagle One” to bring in proof that bin Ladin is actually dead–guess what kind of proof? Noel Tuazon’s art fits the tone and the gross, grim subject matter quite well. The lines blur slightly in the illustration, it seemed to be, giving the impression both of a dark night and secrets obscured. Very affective. As usual, I had trouble following, but once I’d worked it all out, the ending left me with a shiver.

“Bird of Paradise” and “Eyes in the Sky” were illustrated by Shari Chankhamma and Frank Fiorentino respectively. Both had a more realistic look to them–clearly drawn faces and backdrops, details like freckles on noses and buttons on shirts easy to pick up on. Despite this, both stories were very dark. My favourite piece was “Eyes in the Sky,” because it was the funniest–not just black irony like the other pieces, but some character and dialogue humour along the way. My sort of thing–even though the story ended very bleakly, it still made me smile.

It’s going to be a long journey for me to learn to understand the graphic genre, but I think it’s a worthwhile pursuit and *A Nail in the Heart* an excellent step in the right direction.

Since there are 12 books in my To Be Read Challenge, I thought it be easiest to remember if I simply do one a month. *A Nail in the Heart* is the April/4th book book.

April 22nd, 2012

Me, around

So it’s getting to be a post a week, these days–which is sad, but at least I’m busy with cool stuff. Well, some cool stuff–I also spent a good part of last week and the week before having a mental breakdown over my non-functional printer. This goes back over a year, when I accidentally mailed the power cord to my perfectly functional printer to Bell along with my modem when I stopped using it. Then my beloved bought me a new printer, which was not compatible with my operating system. Then I traded him for his printer, which was compatible, but promptly broke. Then the manufacturer offered to mail me a replacement printer as part of the warrenttee. That one was also broken. So was the replacement replacement printer. Here is pretty much where the breakdown happened. The third printer to arrive in the mail works, at least a little bit. My standards are pretty low at this point, I my advice is not to buy Kodak printers.

But I digress!! There’s way better stuff to talk about…like

–a nice review of The Big Dream in The Uptown. If you click on the link, you will see a headline of Don DiLillo’s *The Angel Esmerelda*, but if you scroll down the second half is the TBD review (which also draws on an interview I did out in Winnipeg last fall). Besides, DiLillo’s book really deserves 100% of the headline, anyway–if you haven’t read it, very recommended, by both the reviewer and me!

–Shawn Syms published an interesting article in *The Toronto Review* on fiction and social media, which referenced work by Zoe Whittal, Jessica Westhead and yours truly, among others. I’m in such good company these days.

–I’ll be taking a trip to Waterloo on Tuesday to speak to some high-school students about writing from real life (yeah, as if I know how!) and getting (I hope) to hear about what they are up to.

So yeah, RR 3, Printer 1. Well, that’s how I choose to score it.

April 15th, 2012

Prairie Fire Review…and Reviews in General

Tara at Biblioasis passed on a lovely review of *The Big Dream* from the current issue of Prairie Fire. It’s not online, but if you’re curious what TBD is like, it might be worth grabbing the print copy because I think Bob Armstrong does a really excellent job examining the book review. Yes, he also seems to like it a great deal–which obviously makes me happy–but his praise still makes it clear what kind of book it is, so people who don’t like that sort can steer clear. I really like to see a couple sentences like the following in a book review. “It’s located in an industrial park in Mississauga near pearson Airport…her stories focus on the people who work in the call centre, deal with tech support, oversee hiring and firing, or spend all day, on a good day, tweaking a new logo.” They shouldn’t be the whole thing, but some of every book/movie/tv/restaurant/hairstyle review should be just descriptive prose, no judgment implied. You can see how those exact words could’ve come from a very negative review, too. And you can also see how a careful Prairie Fire reader could read Armstrong’s whole review, including the wonderful line, “For readers who want fiction that engages with the world we live in, Rosenblum’s work matters” and still not want to read the book. Armstrong’s praise is wonderful, but I can still imagine reader who want that engagement in another way, and knowing to give my book a pass when they spot it on the shelf.

I think a good review does that–doesn’t *only* evaluate a book but also describes it accurately enough that a reader can make his/her own assessment. Which is why I am so happy about Armstrong’s review when others, which may have been equally positive–have made me a bit uncomfortable. This happened more with *Once* than *TBD*, so I’m not sure if it’s me or the reviewers who did better this time, but I felt…alarmed…by some of the praise I received for *Once*. I would never criticize someone’s reading of my work–once it’s in your brain, it is yours to interpret. But some interpretations, without adequate context or quotation, can lead readers to believe a book is something it isn’t. And that can give a writer heart-attacks–what if people who only like *this* sort of book buy it, and then hate it, when really the book was never intended to be *this* sort.”

The quick response to this is that I need to calm the heck down, and that would be a good one. But I am also trying to learn how to be a book reviewer my own self, looking very closely at the good ones and the bad ones, and trying to see why they are what they are. And I think one key is context–liberal quotation balanced with specific assessment. No matter what anyone says, a list of quotations does not make a review. But neither does an assessment entirely in the reviewer’s voice. Reviews need to be a balance of both evaluative and descriptive to work, I think.

What the exact balance is remains a mystery for me–I guess that’s the art of it.