Strained approach to teenage relationships...

Just finished reading The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton and was hooked from the beginning but disappointed overall.  This first novel tells the story of Abbey Grange, an all-girls high school where it has been discovered that a male teacher has taken advantage of a student.  As the story progresses, the freshman class at a local drama school decides to perform their version of this local news story as their first play.

One of the things I loved about this novel also proved to be a weakness: the narrative style.  Catton relies on an omniscient narration that shifts between the drama school and the girls of Abbey Grange as seen through the eyes of the unnamed saxophone instructor.  Sounds simple enough, yes?  The drama school chapters use months of the year; while the Abbey Grange chapters are days of the week.  However, each chapter may jump back and forth in time or have several viewpoints from the same day.  It can become confusing.  Added to this is the unnamed saxophone instructor.  She is the novel’s downfall.

Having been both an educator and a music student, I am troubled by this enigmatic character (hereafter referred to as “she”).  She asks questions to learn more about her students’ lives; actually, she asks questions to attempt control of her students’ lives.  She is especially interested in the characters of Julia and Isolde and encouraging a lesbian relationship between them which parallels the implied one she has with her former instructor, Patsy.  But Patsy is now married, and their past relationship is unclear because what we hear from she is sometimes questionable.  This ambiguity reaches a climax in Chapter 13 when a conversation between Julia and Isolde ends with this confusing passage:

Julia steps forward and kisses her on the mouth, and all in an instant they’re back in the smoky fug of the bar, and the last number is playing, the last song…Patsy turns to the saxophone teacher to say something but whatever she was going to say dies on her lips.  Her eyes flicker down to the saxophone teacher’s mouth, and then the saxophone teacher leans over and kisses her, her gloved fingertips against the other woman’s cheek. (297-8)

Initially I felt it was bad editing; “they’re” must refer to the saxophone teacher and Patsy.  In her mind she is back with Patsy at a bar; however, an earlier passage when Julia drives Isolde home from a concert ends with confusion over what really happened.  There is the possibility that Julia snuck the underage Isolde into a bar.

She also has the most bizarre conversations with the mothers of her students.  Most of what she says to the mothers is insulting or totally inappropriate.  At times it states that she wishes to say something but only thinks it; other times this is not stated.  I do not feel Eleanor Catton has any concept of what a professional educator would or would not say.

Other scenes, however, are beautifully written.  One of my favorites is when a young drama student, Stanley, is experiencing sex for the first time.  “Was he supposed to undress her first, or wait to be undressed?...He had imagined this moment many times previously, but Stanley realized now that he had imagined the scene mostly in close-up, arching and rearing and heavy breathing and skin” (255).  When envisioning something it is natural to imagine from the outside looking in.  How is every sex scene shown in a movie?  There is a sweetness to this scene that is very real.

Will I look for more novels by Eleanor Catton?  Yes, there are strengths in her writing to admire.  I’d like to see if she is able to work with those more.  But this first novel did not satisfy me.  I was left with too many questions that I believe to be unintentional.

 Catton, Eleanor. The Rehearsal. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010. Print

Viola Di Grado...a new author of great promise.

I finished reading 70% Acrylic 30% Wool by Viola Di Grado on 14 February; it is powerful and darkly disturbing.  Although I have continued to read from A Voice From the Attic, finished listening to Sissy Spacek reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and started listening to Team of Rivals, I have not been able to begin reading another novel.  I do not like to begin reading a novel until I have written about the one just finished.  Writing about Di Grado’s novel is difficult…challenging…painful.

Many of my friends do not like reading dark or disturbing books; they explain the need to read for escape, for enjoyment…they want to get away from the real world.  I value any reason for reading, and there are as many reasons for reading as there are readers; however, I read to experience the lives of other minds, other worlds, other times.  I know what my world is like; it is not a world of whirlwind romances, passionate sex, or happily ever after marriages.  From my friends I’ve learned that marriages work because the partners work together.  I want realism in my reading – not dream worlds.

The world of Camelia in 70% Acrylic 30% Wool is the world of an Italian woman living in Leeds, England.  The weather seems to be a never-ending winter.  Her father died in a car accident, and her mother no longer speaks; Camelia and her mother “speak” through facial expressions.  They are suffering from verbal anorexia.  There are many strands to analyze in this novel:  hatred towards the father/husband, violation of women, multi-lingual communication – Italian, English, Chinese, verbal and nonverbal plus the language of clothing, and sex as a form of communication. 

Despite the hope that breaks through at moments, the ending of the novel is dark.  Camelia says, “…if you wanted a story where everything sounds right…You can fuck a story like that all night and have yourself another one…Use it to mop the bathroom, that story of yours, or I don’t know, to line the hamster’s cage” (199).  In his NY Times review, Stephen Heyman writes, “Your comfort does not interest her” and quotes Viola Di Grado as saying, “If someone reads the book before bed and then can fall asleep, I think I failed; literature has to make you stop sleeping.”

I did not finish reading this book before bed, and it left me feeling respect for the author but needing to keep my thoughts focused on Camelia’s world for some time.  That is the mark of excellent writing in my world.  Viola Di Grado was awarded the Campiello Prize (First Novel) in 2011 and short-listed for Italy’s most important literary award, the Strega.  This book drew me to the publisher’s webpage http://www.europaeditions.com/ searching for more works by Di Grado, and led me to explore books by other authors.  I have learned that some publishers never disappoint me.  House of Anansi, a Canadian publisher, http://www.houseofanansi.com/ was the first I began to respect as I read more and more of their books.  I believe Europa will also become a publisher to rely on for new authors.

 

Di Grado, Viola. 70% Acrylic 30% Wool. translated by Michael Reynolds. New York: Europa Editions,   2012. Print

Heyman, Stephen. "Pale Fire." NYTimes.com. NY Times, 21 Oct. 2012. Web. 7 Feb. 2013.

How do I "read" a book...let me count the ways

It is the 21st Century and my access to literature has never been easier or more varied; however, I am still a product of the early second half of the 20th Century. And since reading from Robertson Davies' A Voice From the Attic, I declare myself as a member of the Clerisy.

I have the freedom to pick up a book, listen to a recording of a book on CD, or use an electronic reader or computer. I may purchase a book at a bookstore, in a supermarket or practically any other type of store, buy hard copies of books online and have them shipped to my home, or download a book on my electronic reader. I may borrow books from Nook owners.  A library card allows me access to paper copies of books, recorded books in various media, films, etc.  For those of us not living in third world countries, there is no excuse for not having access to books.  That little girl taking monthly walks to the Fairfield Branch of the Erie County Public Library system back in the early 1960s had no idea how her world would change.

I own thousands of books.  There...I've said it.  The first step in a 12 Step program, however, I have no desire to reform.  I know when my obsession with acquiring books began; it began when Kathy Stiffler got her first library card and was escorted to the library, one Saturday each month, by one or both of her older sisters.  The Fairfield Library was literally a religious experience: it was a former church.  Entering the library, I was confronted with the vast desk, centered in the building, with the women possessing the power to loan books to me.  (No male librarians at our branch...I was blessed with women of power).  Behind the desk, four steps up to another level, was the adult fiction.  I asked one of my sisters why those books were "up there;" her response, "that used to be the altar."  Wow...you wanted to whisper in awe.

I remember lugging home piles of picture books, but my true memories begin when I started to read the chapter books - the books without pictures.  I would give myself goals; I remember one year thinking I would read all the children's fiction in the order they were on the shelf - alphabetically by author's last name.  I did not make it through the A's.  Why?  Because I discovered Enid Blyton and was obsessed with these four British kids who vacationed every year with very little adult supervision.  I returned month after month trying to read all seven of the books; some of them never appeared on the shelf.  That was the beginning of my dream...when I had money, I'd buy my own books.  Yes, I read other books but never felt satisfied because of the missing Blyton books.

And so here I am...a half century later and always looking for ways to decorate with books.  And one more confession...I still prefer a hard cover book.  The larger size "trade" paperbacks are fine, and driving back and forth to work would be impossible without a book on CD, but oh the feel of a hard cover between my hands...there is nothing like it.  I have mixed feelings about my e-reader.  It is nice for reading in the dark because no light is necessary but not conducive to the annotating reader.  The traditional paperback is hard to keep open, and sometimes the print is cramped on the page.

Finally...what books am I reading right now?

• A Voice From the Attic by Robertson Davies
• 70% Acrylic 30% Wool by Viola Di Grado
• and listening to Sissy Spacek read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - one of my all time favorite novels that I return to whenever I need some comfort reading.  SPLENDID NARRATION!

And I'll be back soon because I know you are just dying to know what it means to be a member of the Clerisy.

Don't Underestimate Quoyle!

In 1994 I purchased a copy of The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx to read with a book group sponsored by the local teacher center.  I know that I started to read it because of my annotations in the margins; beyond those, I had no recollection of this novel when I started reading it nine days ago.  Now it has etched its way into my memory.  This novel was awarded the Pulitzer and the National Book Award...well-deserved.

Quoyle is 36 and a "third-rate newspaperman” in a small town when his wife is killed in a car accident while running off with one of her lovers.  Quoyle's aunt suggests returning to the family property in Newfoundland and off they go with his two young daughters, Bunny and Sunshine.  Things do not go well for Quoyle; they fall into place...he takes orders from his aunt, finds a job writing for a local paper - The Gammy Bird, and plods through life.  If I had to find a verb to describe Quoyle for most of the novel, plod would be the verb.

Quoyle was devoted to his cheating wife and loved her when she obviously had no love for him. After moving to Quoyle's Point, he continues to think about his dead wife, Petal, as the love of his life.  I felt great empathy for this man - this great lump of a man pining away for a woman who did not love him.  But as Quoyle plods along - this man who has followed his aunt to one of the most remote coastal villages of Newfoundland - we discover he hates the water and wants nothing to do with boating, and Proulx creates a cast of characters all carrying their own burdens of secrets and pain:

• His aunt, Agnis Hamm, a ship/nautical upholsterer and her female dog named Warren...named for her late lover.
• Tert Card, managing editor of the paper.
• Mr. Jack Buggit, owner who spends most of his time fishing.
• Mrs. Buggit, his wife.
• Nutbeem, Billy Pretty...both "characters" who work at the paper.
• Wavey Prowse and her son Herry.

The list could go on...and on...but I AM trying to keep this to one page.  And the stories of all these characters are bound together with an extended metaphor of nautical knots (and yes, I love this pun).  Proulx credits "the inspiration of Clifford W. Ashley's wonderful 1944 work, The Ashley Book of Knots" in her Acknowledgements.

It is about halfway through the novel in Chapter 24, "Berry Picking," that Quoyle finally makes moves on Wavey.  She tells him how her husband was lost at sea; she thinks of him whenever she walks along the coast.  So much for Quoyle's romantic coast walk moment.  But Quoyle is no longer plodding; in the next chapter, he speaks up at work when Tert has completely changed one of his pieces, and then while walking along the cliffs near his home:

The waters, thought Quoyle, haunted by lost ships, fishermen, explorers gurgled down into sea holes as black as a dog’s throat.  Bawling into salt broth.  Vikings down the cracking winds, steering through fog by the polarized light of sun-stones.  The Inuit in skin boats, breathing, rhythmic suck of frigid air, iced paddles dipping, spray freezing, sleek back rising, jostle, the boat torn, spiraling down.  Millennial bergs from the glaciers, morbid, silent except for waves breaking on their flanks, the deceiving sound of shoreline where there was no shore.  Foghorns, smothered gun reports along the coast.  Ice welding land to sea.  Frost smoke.  Clouds mottled by reflections of water holes in the plains of ice.  The glare of ice erasing dimension, distance, subjecting senses to mirage and illusion.  A rare place.  (209)

  Quoyle suddenly understands the sea...understands the Quoyle homestead as he never has before and as he must to do more than plod along the path he has chosen.

Finally when Wavey is ready for Quoyle, he hesitates, "For Quoyle, who equated misery with love.  All he felt with Wavey was comfort and a modest joy" (304).   once Quoyle had the strength to make a decision, the real darkness was lifted and at the end a sense of catharsis is reached:  "And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery" (337).

This is a novel that I wanted to finish reading but hated to see end.

Proulx, E. Annie. The Shipping News. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1993.