December 9th, 2008

Admirable Words (II)

I wanna take a streetcar downtown
Read Dostoyevsky* and wander around
Drink some Guinness from a tin
Because my UI cheque has just come in.
Aw, where you been?

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

You’ve been under my skin for more than 8 years
It’s been 8 years of laughter and 8 years of tears.
And I dunno what the future could hold or will do
For me and you
But I’m a much better man for having known you.
Yeah, you know that’s true.

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

Well, I’ve been told that there’s a sucker born every day.
Well, I wonder who, and I wonder who.
Maybe the one who doesn’t realize there’s a thousand shades of grey.
‘Cause I know that’s true, yes I do, yeah, I know it’s true.
Yeah, I know it’s true, how ’bout you?

They’ve been pickin’ up trash and they’re puttin’ down roads
They’re brokering stocks
The class struggle explodes
And I play this guitar just the best that I can
Yeah, maybe I’m not and maybe I am.
Aw, who gives a damn?

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

Well, I’ve kissed you in France and I’ve kissed you in Spain
(harmonica)
And I’ve kissed you in places I’d better not name
(harmonica)
And I’ve seen the sun go down on Sacre Coeur
(harmonica)
But I like it much better goin’ down on you.
Yeah, you know that’s true.

Because
Everything is coming up
Rosy & grey.
Yeah, the wind is cold but
The smell of snow
Warms me today
And your smile is fine
And it’s just like mine
And it won’t go away
Because everything is rosy & grey.

Yeah, rosy & grey!

–“Rosy & Grey” by The Lowest of the Low

*This is from the concert album, *Nothing Short of a Bullet.* On the studio album, *Shakespeare My Butt*, it’s Henry Miller. Take your pick.

Clod

I have an intense devotion to etiquette, brought on by a lot of underaged reading of Amy Vanderbilt and Emily Post. I have thoughts, which I try not to share, on how one should conduct oneself regarding coasters, hairpins, floral arrangements and divorce. The reason I do not share these things is that they are antiquated and unhelpful, and most people only find my rule-following annoying and compulsive, not, as it is meant to be, respectful and friendly.

And then when there is a rule that I could usefully follow, such as RSVP, I drop the ball. I have been corrupted by modernizing forces, aka Facebook–where RSVP is not the French acronym for the polite imperitive, respondez-vous, s’il vous plait but a vaguer suggestion, “respond if you want it to show up on your wall, if you want someone to save you a seat or a sandwich, or if you feel like it. No committment required; feel free to ignore if unavailable/uninterested.”

Such is the social climate of Facebook–that’s the way it works, and it is respectful to follow the rules of Rome when there. But Facebook is not the Governor General’s awards, and despite the fact that I felt very sad about not being about to go, it never occurred to me to call and tell anyone this, despite the swirly-script RSVP clearly printed on the invitation. So I now also feel very sad about making the nice GG people call me to find out that I will not, in fact, be there tomorrow.

I have learned a lot from this experience, and will be rereading my Post and Vanderbilt shortly. Until then, if you are going the GGs, or any of the attendent amazing events, have an extra good time on my behalf.

Stared at the grown-up feet while they danced and swayed
RR

December 8th, 2008

Dead-hot Workshop

Once, I wrote a story called, “In the Time of the Radio Gods,” about my usual favourite themes: love and awkwardness, death and music, ghosts and grad school. I did a couple drafts and then read it aloud to 20-odd other writers. Then everyone said what they liked and hated about the story, a teacher corralled some of the comments into usable form and added her own insights, and then I revised it again. That was my first workshop, in high school Writer’s Craft class, and I’ve been workshopping on and off (mainly on) ever since.

Workshops are not for everyone. I’m sort of infamous for wanting to do everything as a team sport–I’ve never seen why I should choose a narrative direction, a life course or an entree all alone when there are so many estimable opinions to be accounted for. Not everyone feels that way, and to have to face those 20-odd opinions when you really only want to sort out your own feelings about the work can be very hard. Workshopping too early, too much or with jerks can be very upsetting.

Nevertheless, I sort of feel that any writer who would like to publish ought to try workshopping once. Just to see how it feels to get other people’s opinions on your work, to learn how to discount opinions that don’t help and make use of the ones that do. I know there *are* writers who work perfectly in splendid isolation, who can produce work that resonates immediately and powerfully with no oustide help, but I do not think they are the majority. The rest of us need to know how our work will be read to help us write it.

I’ve actually seen some talented writers set themselves way back by slaving over work for ages, and then having the first person who reads it be the slush-reader who rejects it with a one-line form-letter (I’ve *been* that slush-reader). The year before that lovely workshop, I actually had a story published in a lit journal, and I found the editorial process devastating. The ed in question liked the work but want it to be better than it was, and he had no patience with my tiny 17-year-old feelings. He had a job to do, and that was create good writingl, not necessarily a good writer (though, honestly, the best editors do both). In a workshop, people have the time, energy and impetus (grades, the fact that you’ll be commenting on *their* work) to be thorough, tactful, and to try to say something you’ll actually be able to use. A good workshop leader will at least try to keep students on-task and thoughtful, and to push readers to go with the writer’s ambition wherever it might lead.

Of course, I’ve workshopped in not-so-ideal circumstances: profs who didn’t give a toss, colleagues who cried in the face of criticism, friends who felt awkward saying anything but, “It’s great!” Once, a class workshopped a rather good excerpt from a semi-autobiographical “mom-lit” novel. Then, at coffee break, I ran into said mom in the hallway with her coat on, car keys in hand. “Babysitter issues?” I asked her. “No,” she shrugged. “I just only like the part of class where we talk about *my* work.”

But I also got my first tastes of absinthe (blech) and Bukowski (well…) in workshop, got told my work was boring, poetic, post-modern and brilliant; made amazing friends, learned how to deal with rejection, learned how to write a query letter, learned a lot about sex (not all workshoppers want to talk about their sex lives, but a fair number do). My workshop leaders and colleauges have been some truly talented writers, some truly famous writers, a kitten named Chub-Chub and some genuine friends.

This post is sparked partially by having lunch yesterday with the leader of that first-ever workshop leader, Pam North. So many years later, I am still so grateful for her attention and insight, and so many years later, she is still giving that same attention and insight to class after class of maybe-writers-to-be. Also this week, I’ll probably be relying on the attention and insight of my writing-friend (a dear one, but no one who would ever so succumb to the urge to say “It’s great!” just to make me happy), Kerry. *Also* this week (this is quite a workshoppy week, I guess) my four-person monthly workshop will once again reach quorum, when our fourth member returns from the coast for a holiday cameo. I will thrilled to hear of her adventures and give her a hug, but I am also thrilled to be reading her work again. Following the path of other writers through their giant leaps forwards and occasional missteps is another reason to workshop–you learn where you might want to go.

My worst moment in a workshop was one a prof handed back a story without any comments at all and, when I asked what he thought, sighed and said, “Oh, Rebecca, I don’t care what you write.” Not awesome. But the fact is, most people don’t care what the writers are up to, and in a workshop there is an unusually high concentration of those who do. Which helps when, like after the moment above, you need a little honest feedback, a little genuine praise, and maybe a hug.

Alex never gets what she wants
RR

What a great idea!

Broken Pencil has listed *Once* in their Indie Holiday Shopping Guide. If you are in need of such things…

Doesn’t stop Jeanne from slumming with the musicians
RR

December 6th, 2008

The Gang

Last night in my mailbox: Diane Schoemperlen, K.D. Miller, Mark Anthony Jarman, Cynthia Flood and many more (including me–amazing) in Best Canadian Stories 08. So much awesome, all in one place!

Let me know if your heart’s still beating
RR

December 5th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews “Bookkeeping” by Harold Brodkey

This story is glittering, minute, precisely accurate, and very amusingly devastating. Can you say words like “amusing” and “glittering” about a story that concerns the psychological scars and ethnic alienation wrought by the legacy of World War II? Probably; in 2008, you can say most anything.

In 1968, when Harold Brodkey fisrt published this story in The New Yorker it might have been harder to have been so damn funny about anti-Semitism and LSD, not to mention terror-bombing. But then again, those things would also have been closer, more intimately relatable issues than in our own time; the story feels both dated and shocking in it’s head-on address of “drugs, Jews, and Germans”–the three search terms the *New Yorker* uses for it in it’s archive.

So let us lay out the Germans, the Jews and the drug-users: Avram is having his old, rich and generous friend, Louise, over for cocktails in order to meet her new husband, Ulrich. Avram is Jewish, Ulrich is German, Louise is midwestern and huffy. Early in the evening, another friend of Avram’s (unknown to the other two) named Annetje, calls: she is having a bad LSD trip, scared she will throw herself out a window, and Dutch. She wants Avram to come over and comfort her, but Avram is afraid Louise will feel “slighted” (this word comes up over and over) if he leaves her. He compromises by inviting Annetje to join the party and, when she balks, offering to walk the two blocks to her place and escort her back.

“Bookkeeping” is the third story in Brokey’s massive midcareer collection, Stories in an Almost Classical Mode. The first two are also about Americans who are perilously over-weighted with European history, but unlike the first two, this one isn’t set there, and thus there is (in my opinion) less paralysis, more action, and more relatability for a modern reader who finds herself curiously *un*freighted by European history.

Annetje endured terrible suffering in the Netherlands and then Italy during the Second World War, and since her post-war immigration, been a “temperamental coward,” at least in Avram’s eyes. Terribly beautiful, she can capture any man’s attention, but she wants only someone who will make her feel save and taken care of, without any risk.

The irony of the story is the “bookkeeping” of the title, the system of ethical deposits and withdrawals that Avram keeps with the universe: will he debit compassion or gratitude, choose Annetje’s terrible vulnerability or Louise’s polite tunnel-vision? Does Avram the American owe Annetje his time because she suffered in Europe, or does he owe Louise because she has leant him money? How immoral is it for him to try to have his cake and eat it too, to bring both women together for the benefit of (mainly) only himself?

We all do this in weak moments (at least, I hope we do): calculate who we can afford not to talk, to pay attention to, to be kind to. But Annetje’s suffering has both a social aspect, since she speaks out of bounds in this firmly repressed environment, and a historical one, since her Dutch suffering points up Ulrich’s German complicity and Louise’s American isolation…and Avram’s Jewish guilt.

Or does it? The story’s brilliance lies not in one-to-one correspondences of metaphor, but it complicated and disrupted metaphors, paradigms of national identity that may prove to be faulty, or ridiculous. Does the fact that Ulrich is an officious jerk have anything to do with his being German? Wouldn’t Louise still be alcholic and judgemental if she were born in Paraguay? Or do their environments strengthen the inborn characteristics? Or what?

Big questions, the lot of them, and a lot of ground covered for 20something pages (which qualifies for “long short-story” status, but is by no means one of Brodkey’s longer works). It’s an intense piece, but not a heavy one because, unlike the others mentioned here, there’s tonnes of dialogue, rapier-thin and rapier-sharp, to aerate all the soul-searching. I’ve actually never seen anything like this:

….[Avram] pointed his finger savagely. “What are you afraid of? Why are you jealous of Annetje experimenting with self-illumination?”

“I am not jealous.”

“Oh, you do not want this experience,” Annetje said vaguely. “It is terrible. My teeth burn like little fires.”

“I am not jealous or defensive. I am protesting this trampling on what it means to be a responsible human being.”

“Except when drunk,” Avram said, slyly relentless.

“Except what when drunk, please?” Ulrich asked. Annetje was staring into space.

“Responsible, darling,” Louise said to him.

“Yes, I believe in that,” Ulrich said.

“Even for crimes during the war?” Avram demanded, turning on him.

“And what of Vietnam?” Ulrich replied instantly.

“You can compare Vietname, deplorable as it is, to the camps?”

“The camps?” said Annetje, terrified.

“I am sick of the camps,” Lousie said.

“Bad conscience,” Avram said. “If I had any backbone, I would refuse to speak to you ever.”

“You do not look Jewish,” Ulrich said.

What a really inglorious evening, Avram thought. He said, “Isn’t that wonderful? But you can tell I’m Jewish because I’m so brilliant.”

“Oh, yes,” Ulrich said agreeably.

!!

There are four people in this room and everyone’s talking, everyone’s alive and miserable and full of their own personal histories and hates. It’s wretched and it’s funny, and the way these characters only believe in the realities they can cope with makes me wonder about the nature of human morality.

Which every story doesn’t accomplish, I don’t think.

This story is dated, certainly, but because the emotional sleight-of-hand is so carefully nuanced, and the dialogue so sharp, both still ring true. And with those paths into the story, we can begin to understand these characters and their milieu, to learn both how far we’ve come since then, and how far we haven’t.

Yeah you gotta help me out / don’t you put me on the back burner
RR

December 4th, 2008

December Reading

No, I don’t know why the print is so tiny. Blogger hates me!! On this illegible but actually quite nice poster, what it actually says is that

On December 18, Anvil Press is launching Jim Christy’s book *Scalawags*, and me and Pamela Stewart are going to read too, to add to the excitement.

Thursday December 18, 7:30 PM
This Ain’t the Rosedale Library
NEWISH LOCATION: 86 Nassau Street, Toronto, Kensington Market

Should be awesome. No direct festive-season link, but some of us may be sporting some festive glitter.

In the night / I will hide away my fortunate one
RR

December 2nd, 2008

Reviews anew

2.5 months and 10 or so reviews into my life as an author of a book, I can’t be said to have exactly calmed down or anything, but I do have a little bit of perspective on how it feels to have one’s work read by strangers. I have been lucky that the *Once* reviews have been mainly thoughtful and intelligent in both their praise and their criticism. Of course, other people’s readings are not always coincidental with mine, but that’s the great thing about writing fiction: if you do it well enough, myriad interpretations are possible and, indeed, can co-exist quite happily within a single story. I am always thrilled to hear about an understanding of my writing that I’ve never thought of, and sometimes I even like it better than what I originally meant.

People have been generous in sharing their thoughts with me outside of formal reviews. I feel lucky to have so many emails and face-to-face conversations with friends, acquaintances and strangers about my work. One way to become a better writer is to try to find out how much of what you mean is getting through, whether people are getting jokes, what’s pissing them off and what’s making them think. I really do learn when people tell me that stuff, good and bad. It also simply helps, when I sit down to write, to know there’s an engaged and interested set of readers beyond my keyboard.

Ok, so a review can also be an evisceration, and if I were a stronger woman I’d provide an example (but I’m not). Even that sort of thing, though, hasn’t upset me as much as I thought it might. You’ve got to figure, if every book has its ideal reader–the person who is interested in and moved by exactly the sorts of language and event that the book contains–there’s got to be a least-ideal reader, too, who hates all those things. And that person is still going to be legitimite in his or her tastes, much as I might suffer from the occasional bout of hurt feelings.

But to hear from a reader–at a party, via Facebook, or in a review–that he or she *gets* it, understands the story and felt it and thought about it–is amazing enough to trump most anything. And I’ve had so much of that this fall that…well, it’s amazing. Like this:

“In ‘Linh Lai’, and ‘Pho Mi 99’, you get the sense that Rosenblum, winner of the Metcalf-Rooke Award, really worked and suffered to create a thoughtful and authentic separation of state between her the conscious creator, and the non-existing cerebral core of her characters.”
From Peter Davidson’s review at The Danforth Review

I want to see you in the light of morning
RR

The Short Story’s Moment of Mystic Expansion

“The short story concentrates on its grain of sand, in the fierce belief that there — right there, in the palm of its hand — lies the universe. It seeks to know that grain of sand the way a lover seeks to know the face of the beloved. It looks for the moment when the grain of sand reveals its true nature. In that moment of mystic expansion, when the macrocosmic flower bursts from the microcosmic seed, the short story feels its power. It becomes bigger than itself.

–From Steven Millhauser’s *NYT Book Review* essay, The Ambition of the Short Story

This essay was part of Bruce Johnstone’s presentation at the Waterloo reading last week, and it was joyful news indeed. The writing little high flown at times (takes a few swipes at the novel, a perfectly respectable form of prose) but it also reminds a story reader and/or writer of the possibilities and responsibilities of this beautiful form. I don’t understand the picture of the cow, actually. Do you?

When Johnny saw the numbers he lied
RR

December 1st, 2008

So much stuff

*Once* gets an honourable mention in the Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books, in Jim Bartley’s (first fiction) top five section. My story “Hello Hello” (which is not in my book, if you are keeping track of these things) is in the current issue of Rampike Magazine, on choicer newsstands now. And, back to *Once*, it got a lovely review in Simon Fraiser University’s The Peak. Oh, and more pictures from the Windsor readings over at Thirsty.

Wow. All this, and it’s raining? Doesn’t seem to suit the mood, now, does it?

Tonight you’re doing something / this fix is more important / than you are
RR