My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Thirteen

John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

Perhaps it's because I read it between my third and fourth years at university, when I reading a great deal about Christianity and forms of belief, that this novel was so resonant for me. The plot follows two boys, John and Owen, from their childhood to their mature lives. John is the present-day narrator, having left the United States to settle in Toronto. Owen believes he is an instrument of God, born to enact a divine purpose; while the story follows this direction, there is much else going on as well. While there are many familiar Irving-esque themes in the book, there are also some particular ideas and explorations that raise the book above Irving's earlier absurd and sometimes simply comic interests.

To be fair, I should also list The Cider House Rules as one of my five-star books, but Owen Meany reaches slightly beyond Cider House for me because of the character of Owen Meany himself. The Cider House Rules is a novel about extraordinary circumstances with a cast of unusual characters. And for that matter, I might list The Hotel New Hampshire, too, although it's not really a five-star novel despite giving me a long-standing creative motif. For me, A Prayer for Owen Meany is the story of the formation of an unusual character. If you haven't read this book and love character-driven narrative, you should really enjoy this novel.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Twelve

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

While I love all of this novel, what made it a five-star book for me is a line of description of Tea Cake, one of the characters the protagonist marries. It begins, "Ready with his grin." Something about this passage sticks with me even now, years after reading this novel.

But there are many reasons to read Their Eyes Were Watching God. The language is certainly one of them: it's dazzling. Most of the novel is presented in dialect, so acutely captured I can imagine voices speaking the story. It is a Modernist novel, although it defies the sterile and emotionless wasteland that had by the 1930s largely become the Modernist space; Their Eyes is sensual in a wide-ranging way, far beyond sex and sexuality. Their Eyes is also something of a romance, albeit involving a very complicated series of relationships, some of them bleak. Most importantly, it is the text of a black woman writer from an era that would happily have silenced her voice, and simply to read her story is to experience a world that we might never otherwise have known.

This book was not well received on its original publication; apparently the novel required feminist rediscovery and the rise of race studies in the 1980s and 1990s to find its real place in the canon (assuming, of course, that there is such a thing). Another reviewer succinctly captures my wish for this book: "Just read it. Please." Indeed.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Eleven

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Keri Hulme, The Bone People

I read this novel in a course about popular literature and had no idea at the time that it was a prize-winning or important book. What I remember about my initial reading of this book was that it was dazzling, horrifying, and captivating.

The Bone People is the story of Kerewin, an artist who has isolated herself in a tower; Simon, a wild child with a mysterious past; and Joe, the man who is raising Simon despite troubled circumstances. The novel is about various kinds of love that persists despite brutal happenings. It is also a novel about the Maori and the power of myth, story, and language.

At the time I first read this novel, I knew almost nothing about post-colonial discourse or the resistant colonial writer. You don't need this knowledge to enjoy this novel. It is not an easy text to read; you will likely feel the pain these characters endure, and the ending will not necessarily bring resolution. But reading this novel may open our eyes to other ways of being, to other configurations of family, and to other ways of understanding the world.

An assignment I regularly ask my students to complete is an investigation of various literary prizes; I ask them to consider the value of such prizes in the configuration of the literary field, the reputation of the author (and his/her consequent Author Function), and the fortunes of the physical object of the book itself (that is, whether it sells better as a result of the award). The Bone People leaves me intrigued today with many ideas for academic writing; but here I want to convey how I much enjoyed this novel as an undergraduate. In giving me, a sheltered nineteen-year-old Canadian female, a larger, violent but magical view of life, this novel certainly changed my world.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Ten

Janette Turner Hospital, Charades

I didn't realize how privileged I was to attend the University of Alberta in the late 1980s, when abundant Canada Council funds meant that I could attend a reading from a Canadian writer almost every week of my undergrad life. One of these readers was Janette Turner Hospital, who on that occasion read from Charades (note that the second A is pronounced AH: sha-rahdz). The passage the author read was well selected: tense, unusual, disturbing, full of strange religion and difficult family relationships. I bought the novel a short time later and devoured it, and have reread it several times since graduation. I have also read other novels by Hospital, but none has stuck with me like Charades.

The novel follows a young Australian woman named Charade Ryan, who is searching for her father. Coming from an unusual family, she is acutely aware of language and deliciously tangled in story. Her narrative is by turns erotically coy, brutal, and insightful. Its themes resonated for me at so many levels. Charades is set in Australia and Canada, and ranges from the Holocaust to classical music to theoretical physics. It is exquisitely constructed and very smart, but also emotionally shocking.

Just writing about it now, I want to dig up the book out and read it again. This is a book I give as a gift when I can find it, although it is apparently out of print at this time. If you find it used or in the library, read it. The thousand and one moments of this novel are sure to stay with you.

Oh, not again

So, it must have been a really, really, really slow news day to generate this story.

Really? The whole Habitat for Humanity thing wasn't enough? This former "alderman" felt he needed more press time? OMG.

So glad I don't live in St Albert any longer, so I don't have to be associated with the idiocy of some people who do.

 

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Nine

David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism

As the writing of my dissertation went on and on (and on and on), my focus began to shift from the English Language Arts curriculum per se to the construction of class identity through the politicization of text. One of the most important sources for my specific focus on Alberta political economy was A Brief History of Neoliberalism. If you want to understand concepts like the shrinking of the middle class, the growing gap between rich and poor, and the destruction of the so-called Nanny State, you need this book. It will help you recognize both the specific political entity that is neoliberalism and the historical and philosophical contexts that brought it into being — and that allow it to remain strong. The retrenchment of economic survival of the fittest following the systemic weakening of the welfare state is not an accident, he explains: it is a deliberate and calculated effort to protect the interests of the power elite around the world.

David Harvey is really, really smart. He doesn't just make a claim; he makes an argument, and he knows what he's talking about. He's critical. His analysis of the political economy of developed and some developing countries is acute (look Harvey up on Youtube if you want to see/hear him in action). This book, as well of some of his others, gave me both a model to describe what I perceived in my own location and had read about in other texts and the analytical tools for situating and connecting various forms of neoliberal thought. Given my theoretical orientation, the careful parsing of classical liberal, contemporary liberal, and neoliberal (and of conservative and neoconservative) is crucial. Harvey's text was, and remains, an important basis for explaining the significance of my dissertation topic.

But there's another layer to Harvey's book. Following the familiar paraphrasing of Marx, Harvey does not merely explain the world; he seeks to change it. He is not arguing for the sake of argument; he is arguing to spark, to rally, to mobilize. We are best prepared to struggle for change when we can recognize that this world is structured to benefit one group at the expense of another and that another world is possible. This perspective is perhaps the greater lesson of this book, and Harvey provides strong, global systemic analysis to support your local, specific resistance.

OK, you probably won't read this book. It's dense and difficult, and many political philosophers have moved beyond class analysis in the aftermath of George W. Bush and the War on Terror. But I promise you, this text is worth the effort you'll put into it. And just having it on your bookshelf may make you feel smarter and stronger — and may remind you that fair change is possible.

If I had my own call number

          
So there's this thing called a Dewey Decimal Quiz that will categorize you with just a few keystrokes. I like my theoretical call number — it seems rather apt! Now, what would I be in the LOC system, I wonder?


           

           

                La's Dewey Decimal Section:

                175 Ethics of recreation & leisure

                L—— V—— = 2592952583558 = 259+295+258+355+8 = 1175

               
Class:
100 Philosophy & Psychology


                Contains:
Books on metaphysics, logic, ethics and philosophy.
               


                What it says about you:
You're a careful thinker, but your life can be complicated and hard for others to understand at times.  You try to explain things and strive to express yourself.
           

            Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com
           

           

Want to find out your own Dewey Decimal call number? Click here   and follow the steps.

Glory of the Eighties

(I've been such a busy bee, working working working and editing editing editing. Will get back to posting my five-star books soon. In the meantime, here's something that's been tumbling around in my head.)

So it would seem that the Eighties are another long decade. Somehow the Seventies contracted, allowing the Eighties to begin in late 1978 or early 1979; the Nineties graciously reciprocated by allowing the Eighties to continue until the release of Nevermind in late 1991. In much the way that we refer to "the Sixties" to evoke the period from the Summer of Love to the break-up of the Beatles, today's young writers and editors refer to the Eighties to evoke the period of crass consumerism, allegedly bad fashion, neon colours, and big hair. Hmm, that sounds pretty familiar to — well, to the life we live today — and maybe that's why so many people now find the Eighties so evocative. The Eighties may offer a touchstone to help us understand what we're going through in the 2010s. That's kind of glorious, right?

Or maybe just depressing. That whole thing about history repeating itself... Hmm.

Then again, I kinda liked the hair...

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Eight

Jeff Gailus, The Grizzly Manifesto: In Defence of the Great Bear

If you know me at all, you know I have a fascination with bears. Jeff Gailus' book makes an intellectually fierce and personally impassioned argument for paying attention to the fate of the grizzly bear. For its topic alone, the book would have my attention; but for its insights, its argumentation, and its voice, it has a position as one of my five-star books.

Bears are culturally fascinating because of their intelligence, their strength, and their behaviours; and the grizzly, with its huge range and towering stature, is a mythic creature living in our midst. Unfortunately, living in the midst of modern humans has set the grizzly on its downfall: most of what we read about grizzlies today has to do with attacks on humans, deaths of bears on railway tracks, or lotteries for hunting permits. Grizzlies in Canada are in peril, and Gailus' book explains why. Interestingly, he offers a trans-national perspective for bear management, suggesting provocatively that — gasp! — the United States may, in Yellowstone Park, at least, be doing a better job than Canada in managing its grizzlies and other large carnivores. Given that the bears' natural range extends from the Arctic tundra to far south of the forty-ninth parallel and that the bears don't notice national boundaries, we must start thinking internationally if we hope to keep grizzly populations viable.

But there is the pivotal point: do we have the will to keep these large carnivores alive when our continued social wealth depends on moving increasingly into the bears' remaining habitats? If we examine Alberta headlines from the last ten years, we might conclude the answer is no. Gailus provides a strong reason for that answer to be yes.

This slim book should be required reading for both environmentalists and policy-makers. If you live in Alberta or British Columbia; if you visit Canada's mountain parks; if you care about the fate of North American ecosystems, read this book and discover how you are implicated in the death of grizzlies and how you can change the fate of the grizzlies that remain. I promise you, this book is worth your time.

Saturday's Playlist

"The going water and the gone..." This is the way the world revealed itself to me on a warm weekend night.

1. Melissa Etheridge, "Angels Would Fall"

2. Tori Amos, "Happy Phantom"

3. Stevie Nicks, "Edge of Seventeen"

4. Kim Wilde, "You Keep Me Hangin' On"

5. Oh Susanna, "You'll Always Be"

6. Eurythmics, "Sex Crime"

7. Tears for Fears, "Mad World"

8. Lady Gaga, "Poker Face"

9. Hawksley Workman, "Smoke Baby"

10. Robbie Robertson, "Somewhere Down the Crazy River"

11. U2, "With or Without You"

12. Aerosmith, "Remember (Walking in the Sand)"

13. U2, "Hawkmoon 269"

14. Suzanne Vega, "Marlene on the Wall"

15. Kate Bush, "Leave It Open"

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Seven

Garret Freymann-Weyr, Stay with Me

There is absolutely no reason this book should be one of my favourites. It's a YA novel about an exceptionally privileged daughter of an exceptional family, the kind of people I would not know in my real life. But this book is written sensitively and beautifully, and tackles issues not commonly discussed in this genre.

After Leila's sister kills herself, Leila tries to heal from the loss. Her healing is complicated by the unique way she perceives the world because of a learning disability. Leila eventually begins a relationship with someone significantly older than herself, a troubling decision for some people around her (and for many readers). Through this journey, she discovers more about who she is, why people leave us, why love matters, and how she can go on. I found it a poignant, touching story.

Garret Freymann-Weyr writes YA novels about subjects and from perspectives that most of us don't consider; I think this point is one of the reasons I like Stay with Me. Another reviewer describes the book as "challenging, strange, intelligent" and these words too explain why I was so deeply moved by it. This book may sneak up on you; trust it, let it reveal itself to you, and you may enjoy the experience as much as I did.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Six

Timothy Findley, Famous Last Words

One of my favourite Canadian writers. A character imagined by an important Modernist poet. Combine the two and you have a fascinating and beautiful literary thriller about World War Two, the British Crown, and fascism. This is how history might have been, and the idea is chilling.

I read this novel between my third and fourth years of university. At that point, I was just beginning my serious study of Modernist poetry and knew little of Ezra Pound. Earlier that year I had read Not Wanted on the Voyage, after another student gave a presentation on it in one of our seminars. (That subsequently became one of my mother's favourite books.) Suddenly I was on a Timothy Findley roll, reading everything of Findley's I could get my hands on. Famous Last Words stands out for me, though, for its powerful images and curious imagining.

Some of Findley's work is overblown. Some of his novels are profoundly bleak. I didn't really care for The Wars, and there is one novel of Findley's that I still haven't read. (And I should acknowledge really enjoying his short fiction and his memoirs.) But this novel (along with The Piano-Man's Daughter, which should also be on this list) worked perfectly for me.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Five

Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction

It was with the reading of this book that I grew up intellectually.

Terry Eagleton is an astonishing critic. An inspired Marxist and breath-taking intellectual, he writes incisively and clearly about literature — text — as it affects our lived reality. You may think literature doesn't affect your lived reality. You are wrong, and Terry Eagleton will explain why — definitively, authoritatively.

The discipline of English — the realm that has held my conscious attention for nearly thirty years, and likely much longer than that at an unconscious level — is a construct. Prior to the late nineteenth century, the idea of seriously studying English — the poor man's classics — was laughable. Within a few decades — and here I paraphrase Eagleton — the idea of not studying English was laughable. What the construction of English as a discipline has meant, and what emerges from the way that discipline understands and talks about texts, affects our political economy in far-reaching, profound ways that I am still discovering. A lifetime of potential scholarship has sprung, in part, from this book.

As undergraduates in Honours English, we were required to take a fourth-year seminar in literary theory. For many of us, this course was a slog. Week after week after dreary week, we met to discuss yet another theorist, yet another theory; for many of my classmates — and for me at the time — this seminar was simply a requirement to fulfill. Looking back, though, I recognize how important literary theory has been to my academic work and even to my professional work. Today I am grateful I took that seminar, and even moreso that I discovered Literary Theory: An Introduction a few years later. Its twenty-fifth–anniversary edition was published a few years ago, so others too must feel it is a significant book.

With my doctorate finally completed, I can point to this book as one that truly changed my life.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Four

Roddy Doyle, A Star Called Henry

Do most people remember the circumstances of their first time reading a book that changed their lives? I read this one on a houseboat vacation in northern Saskatchewan, and despite the spectacular scenery and astonishing late-summer weather, I was captivated by this book.

A Star Called Henry is a phenomenally engaging retelling of recent Irish history, narrated by one of the most outrageous and compelling characters in modern fiction. I adore Henry Smart! Absolutely larger than life, he is a prodigious liar, a smashing ladies' man, a dubious hero, and the owner of an unforgettable narrative style. Once you've met Henry, you will never forget him — and you may fall in love with him.

Some of my favourite literature endures for me because of the characters. As they do for many people, memorable characters — like Samuel Hamilton in East of Eden or Amanda Ziller in Another Roadside Attraction — feel real to me, like people I've known. Henry Smart is someone I'd likely be terrified to meet but would love to know. He is surrounded by other quirky and fierce personalities that make him shine all the brighter. And this book has even more: romance, adventure, tragedy, history... It is a rollicking novel that will make you laugh aloud and may move you to tears.

This book changed my life with its reach, its shimmer, and its point of view. It inspired me to remember my love of reading, writing, and learning. And perhaps to ride my bicycle more often.

If you enjoy A Star Called Henry, there are two more books featuring Henry Smart: Oh, Play That Thing! and The Dead Republic (another book I loved, although it didn't make my five-star list). I hope you'll read them all.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Three

Judy Blume, Tiger Eyes

It seems that most girls of my generation read at least one Judy Blume novel. Tiger Eyes wasn't the most popular choice, though; Forever... generally was, with its explicit language, discussion of sexuality, and sometimes-comical references to anatomy. (Of course, there was also Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. But that's a different story...) And while Forever... is, for its own many reasons, an important novel, Tiger Eyes really changed my adolescent life.

Tiger Eyes is the story of Davey, whose father is murdered during a corner-store robbery. Her mother moves the family to New Mexico, where Davey tries to reintegrate into school and "normal" life. She starts spending time in the nearby canyon, where she meets Wolf, a young Hispanic man; she also starts volunteering in a hospital, where she meets a variety of patients. With these relationships, Davey begins to work through the grief, anger, and guilt surrounding her father's killing.

This is absolutely a young-adult novel: it deals extensively with issues of identity, sexuality, and individuation. It also persists for me in ways that other Blume books did not. The setting in Los Alamos allows the author to contrast Davey's personal emotional realm with the larger issues associated with nuclear weapons and the military–industrial complex. However, it is Davey's outsider status that I responded to most, and in particular I drew hope from her fraught relationship with Wolf. The tiger's eye stone at the centre of that relationship became a poignant, personal symbol for me.

There is much about this book that is forgettable. Some of the family by-play is quite silly relative to the introspection of Davey's moments in the canyon, and some of the themes are too much of the moment (e.g., the slogan "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"). But for me, being able to identify with the general experience of alienation and grief (even through very different circumstances) was important to getting through some difficult moments of growing up. I hope everyone who needed books to help them through growing up found a book like this one.

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part Two

 

Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Those of you who know me well know that I normally read only hand-picked, highly recommended Speculative Fiction. For whatever reason, very little under the umbrella of this genre appeals to me. The Handmaid's Tale, however, is a speculative fiction that I would recommend to anyone. And, regrettably, as the years go by, elements of Atwood's imagined world are realized in our own world more and more frequently.

The brief plot summary is this: much of the United States, now called Gilead, has been taken over by extreme Christian fundamentalists. Women's rights (along with the rights of non-whites, gays and lesbians, and other people identified as undesirables by the leaders of Gilead) have been quashed, and a caste system has emerged among women, due to widespread infertility as a result of environmental toxins. The story of the regime change is told by a handmaid now named Offred; through her telling we learn about what led to the change, how life continues under the new regime, and what potential exists for resistance under fanatical rulers. The novel is exquisitely written, rich with word play and images that linger.

I read this book in my first year of university. I bought it one Saturday afternoon, started reading it as soon as I got home, and did not move from my seat until I finished it about ten hours later. It was completely transfixing, particularly for a reader who did know many of the conventions of the genre.

Then again, the genre is to some degree irrelevant in this text. There are feminist themes; there is political critique; there are questions about religion and ritual; there are questions about the construction of class, order, and power. But most importantly, Atwood was a poet before she turned to novel-writing, and language play — serious work in this dystopian world — forms the core of the text. This book opened my sixteen-year-old eyes to the potential of contemporary fiction; by the following year, I had changed my faculty and major, and started on the trajectory that has brought me to today.

I have re-read this book several times, and it always impresses and frightens me. An essential text in my personal canon.

***

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Some fifteen years after first reading The Handmaid's Tale, I read The Blind Assassin. This is a densely layered story within a story within a story. Once again, I read this text very quickly, although not completely in one sitting, as the structure of my life no longer permits such luxuries. It is, however, transfixing to peel back the layers of this telling and observe how intricately structured and clever it is.

What does it mean to write? Whose truth is true? How do we go on when what we believe is revealed to be a lie? These are some of the questions raised by this novel, told in retrospective pieces by Iris, now an elderly woman. Her life has been marked by fame and loss, power and intrigue; at the end of her life, she has decided to set her story straight, thereby overturning decades of "knowing" and the comfort of conformity. Like many of Atwood's strong woman characters, Iris is complicated, contrary, sometimes cruel, sometimes disturbing. And then there is the book at the centre of the novel, the science fiction text "The Blind Assassin." From the question of what it means to write, we are also invited to ask what it means to read. The art of creation is never innocent, and it is particularly troubled in this intersection of texts, lives, and lives-as-texts.

I believe I respond to this book particularly because of the period it evokes — I still love the Modernists! But there is so much going on in this text: mystery, betrayal, love, violence, courage, and, as always, Atwood's sumptuous writing. The book rewards re-reading, and as I write this about I'm thinking of reading the book again. While it is a very different experience from that of reading The Handmaid's Tale, The Blind Assassin will captivate, frustrate, and unsettle you. The feeling of this book remains with me. I hope you will experience it, too!

My Five-Star Bookshelf, Part One

I am a devoted fan of LibraryThing (LT). Other people check their Facebooks daily; I check LT. I have more than three thousand books listed on LT at present, with more added every week. If you love books, LT is a great place to catalogue them, talk about them, learn about them, and share them with others.

On my LT profile, I've explained how I rate books, noting that a five-star book is one that "changed my life." So I've decided, as a writing exercise, to discuss the twenty-nine books (to date) that I've rated at five stars. Over the coming weeks, I will post a brief and personal book talk for each of the titles on my five-star list. I am posting them in alphabetical order by author last name, not in chronological order of reading.

As a disclaimer, I would note that my list is, not unexpectedly, idiosyncratic and strongly Canadian. I'm certainly interested to know what you think about these books, too, and if you haven't read some of them, I strongly encourage you to do so.

Happy reading!

***

Carmen Aguirre, Something Fierce

I am delighted to have read this book long before it was the Canada Reads 2012 winner. I learned about this book from hearing a tiny excerpt from Aguirre's play, The Refugee Hotel, on CBC. A short time later, I read a review of Something Fierce and ordered the book immediately (despite that the review was negative). I am so glad I read this book; reading it was a transformative experience.

Something Fierce is a memoir of resisting the Pinochet military dictatorship, told through the eyes of a child and young woman. Aguirre is the daughter of Chilean revolutionaries and eventually worked for the resistance herself. Her story is astonishing. She describes what her family went through to escape Chile, how her family members and friends were tortured for their beliefs, how her family lived in exile for years, how she attempted to live as a "typical" teen, her work in the resistance, and how she decided to continue the fight for social justice in South America and in Canada.

You may not agree with her politics (I do), but Aguirre writes with such passion, integrity, and courage that it is impossible not to be moved by her book. The people are real; some of their stories are heart breaking. The telling reveals how violence, treachery, and injustice work in ways both large and subtle. Yet moments of terror, paranoia, frustration, and anguish are relieved by moments of humour, beauty, and joy. The ending is not happy, but it is hopeful. This book may change the way you think about all we in Canada take for granted. I hope you will read it.

And by the way, the published script of The Refugee Hotel is also very good.

Lest we remember

I love this article on the federal Conservative government's sense of history.

Thank goodness there are still a few sensible journalists on the Hill.

L

Ten days to go!

Here's what I am ruminating over.

Celtic Cross:

Significator: Queen of Cups

Theme of reading: 8 Swords: "damned if you do; damned if you don't"

Crosses (for or against): 10 Swords: "the worst has been done"

The future: 7 Swords: "be on your guard" (thievery)

The foundation: Justice: "excesses have consequences"

What precedes it: 1 Pentacles: "effort for prosperity"

What is to come: 1 Swords: "the mind awakening for new challenges"

Immediacy (effect on significator): High Priestess: "take time to listen to inner voice"

Context: Page of Cups: "matters of the heart"

Hopes and fears: Sun: "day in the sun"

Outcome of the reading: 6 Cups: "a known joy"

Hmm.

But not for me

So, if I needed another reason not to vote Tory in the upcoming election, here it is.

This story announces that the Tories can promise $650 million to certain Calgary universities, but not to Edmonton universities.

Huh. I guess we're already too smart up in here in Edmonton. Certainly too smart to vote PC again, anyway.

Anything else you'd like to do to shoot yourself in the foot, Ms Redford?