Kate's Book Blog

I may have gotten carried away at the book sale today...

2011-09-24T19:50:00.021-04:00

The only authors whose books I was specifically looking for were Louis Auchincloss (a lawyer-writer about whose work I intend to write a paper) and Charles de Lint (a fantasy writer whose novels and short stories about the fictional city of Newford I’ve recently fallen head-over-heels for), and I did well on both counts: The House of the Prophet and Fellow Passengers by the former; and Tapping the Dream Tree, Muse and Reverie, and Spirits in the Wires by the latter.

While I was searching the “A” section for Auchincloss, I stumbled upon a pair of Chinua Achebe novels of which I already own copies, Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, but how could I resist a matched set of classic paperback Penguin editions?

Then I found my way to the literary criticism and biography section and I was done for. Because, the thing I enjoy most about big second hand book sales is stumbling upon obscure works of literary criticism, and difficult-to-find copies or cool editions of books by or about writers that I already love or that I’m curious to know more about. I picked up a ridiculous number of books during a lengthy browse but, after persuading myself to relinquish two-thirds of them, these are the ones that I actually bought and brought home:

Oscar Wilde, De Profundis (for my research on writers’ trials);

A.B. McKillop, The Spinster & The Prophet (another story of a literary trial, this one about a 1925 plagiarism suit brought against H.G. Wells by Canadian scholar Florence Deeks);

Hazel Holt, A Lot to Ask: A Life of Barbara Pym (Barbara Pym!);

Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being (her much-lauded letters);

Donald Stevens, Bliss Carman (Carman shared a U.S. publisher with L.M. Montgomery⎯the nefarious Lewis Page⎯, so I’ve been reading about him for a bit more context); and,

Surviving: The Uncollected Writings of Henry Green (it’s always exciting to come across anything by Henry Green!).

All in all, not a bad day’s work.

International Crime Fiction: Shamini Flint’s Inspector Singh Series

2011-08-24T22:58:00.002-04:00

(cross-posted from law.arts.culture)

“International crime fiction” can be an unhelpful label, given how often people use it simply to denote the crime fiction of any country other than their own, so as to indicate border crossing by readers rather than sleuths. But it is an apt one for Shamini Flint’s series featuring Inspector Singh whose investigations cut a wide swath across Southeast Asia. Inspector Singh is a detective in the Singapore police force, but it seems that his superiors are keen to take advantage of any opportunity to send him on distant, unpalatable assignments. In the first installment of the series, he is sent to Kuala Lumpur to ensure that a Singaporean woman accused of murder is fairly treated by the Malaysian police. In the second, he finds himself on secondment in Bali to assist with anti-terrorism efforts in the wake of a bomb exploding, and in the fourth he is sent to Cambodia as an observer to the international war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh. (In the third, he stays home in Singapore, but even there it seems that there’s an international dimension given that the murder at the centre of the plot occurs at an international law firm.)

The first book in the series, Inspector Singh Investigates: A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, amply illustrates the richness that such cross-cultural and individually diverse settings can afford. In it, the shared colonial histories of Singapore and Malaysia are highlighted, and current tensions between the countries⎯political, cultural, and religious⎯are mirrored in the interaction between the Singaporean Sikh Inspector Singh, and his Malaysian Moslem counterpart Inspector Mohammad, and also in the details of the case that they must cooperate to solve: the murder of a wealthy Malaysian businessman of which his estranged Singaporean wife, a former model who grew up in poverty, stands accused.

The author of the series, Shamini Flint, is a former lawyer who practiced for ten years with an international firm in Singapore and Malaysia before opting to write full time, and she makes excellent use of her legal knowledge in this book. The inner workings of the Malaysian criminal justice system are explored, as are Malaysia’s plural legal regimes, the latter providing a crucial plot point when the murdered man suddenly converted to Islam in order to have a bitter custody battle transferred to Syariah court in the hope of thwarting his wife’s seemingly imminent victory in the secular courts.

These facets effectively combine to evoke the strong sense of place that distinguishes much of the best crime fiction, and make for extremely interesting reading. The most appealing feature of the book, though, is Inspector Singh himself. One of the back cover blurbs draws a parallel between him and Precious Ramotswe of Alexander McCall Smith’s Ladies Detective Agency series. I can see why the publishers would stress such a comparison given the enormous popularity of that series. But the comparison is all wrong. Inspector Singh has much more in common with his police procedural brethren such as Martin Beck and Kurt Wallander (methodical, glum, portly and wheezing, at odds with his wife), John Rebus (at odds with his superiors), or even, if we can step into the realm of television for a moment, Lieutenant Columbo (rumpled and underestimated). In her characterization of Inspector Singh, Flint strikes the perfect balance: sufficient familiarity to meet genre expectations, and sufficient novelty to make it feel altogether fresh.

I have only read the first book so far and I recommend it enthusiastically. I fully expect that, on further investigation (ha ha), Inspector Singh will join my pantheon of favourite fictional sleuths.

The Lawyers of Children's Literature

2011-07-14T22:52:00.002-04:00

(cross-posted from law.arts.culture)

I recently reconnected with a childhood friend on Facebook, and she reminded me that, at the age of ten, I was already telling anyone who asked that I was going to be a lawyer when I grew up. As it turns out, I became a law professor, but I remain a paid-up (albeit non-practicing) member of the Saskatchewan Bar, so mission accomplished, more or less. The focus of this post, though, is not the attainment of the goal but what inspired it. Where did I get the idea that a lawyer was a thing to be, and what sort of work did I envision a lawyer doing?

There are two of us now, but back then there were no lawyers in my family, or even in my family history. (Recent genealogical research has confirmed the latter perception. I’ve turned up shepherds, coalminers, steelworkers, carpenters, calico printers, tailors, domestic servants, schoolteachers, and even one errant phrenologist, but no lawyers.) Nor were there any lawyers amongst the family members of my friends. My childhood pre-dated the heyday of television legal dramas, so I don’t think that I can locate the inspiration there. I might have caught the odd Perry Mason rerun, but I was already in law school by the time L.A. Law and Street Legal arrived on the small screen.

So I can only conclude that, as is true of many of my good ideas, it came from books. But which books? Who are the lawyers of children’s literature? I have thought long and hard about my childhood reading, particularly beloved repeat reads, and I can recall only two fictional lawyers that got more than a passing mention.

The first appears in From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg. The novel details the adventures of eleven-year-old Claudia Kincaid when, feeling underappreciated, she runs away from her suburban Connecticut home with her nine-year-old brother Jamie in tow, and takes up residence in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. But the tale is not told by either of the youthful protagonists; the book is narrated by Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, an elderly, eccentric patron of the arts, in the form of a letter to Saxonberg, her lawyer of 41 years, instructing him to change her will and explaining why she wishes him to do so. Throughout, Mrs. Frankweiler represents Saxonberg as no friend of the arts. He’s dull and boring, caring only for law, taxes, and his grandchildren. He’s “never set [his] well-polished toe inside that museum,” and is “altogether unconscious of the magic of Michelangelo.” Though it is apparent by the end that this is not an entirely accurate picture, it nevertheless renders Saxonberg an unlikely role model for my ten-year-old self who had artistic as well as legal aspirations. I might credit the book with stoking my interest in museums and art galleries, and certainly with contributing to the fascination that New York City held for me decades before I ever traveled there. But I rule it out as an early impetus to pursue a legal career.

That leaves Carson Drew, “well-known lawyer,” and father to teenage sleuth Nancy Drew. But surely, I thought, Carson Drew played only a bit part in the series, keeping well in the background as parents are wont to do in children's literature to accord child characters plenty of room for independent action. Not so, I found after a bit of rereading. Certainly he doesn't get in the way of Nancy's independence⎯she whisks about the countryside in that enviable blue convertible with his blessing. But he's a solid presence and his legal work is far from an incidental detail. On the first page of the first installment of the series, The Secret of the Old Clock, we're told that he "frequently discussed puzzling aspects of cases with [Nancy]," and thereafter we find that her investigations are sometimes undertaken to assist in his work. Even when her cases are not connected with his, they tend to focus on legal matters (wills, trusts, contracts, and patents, alongside the more readily anticipated counterfeiting, theft, and kidnapping), and legal information or advice from him or one of his colleagues often proves pivotal in solving the mysteries. Further, when her father praises her investigative prowess, the compliments are sometimes couched in legal terms. "'You sound like a trial lawyer, the way you cross-examine me,' Mr. Drew protested, but with evident enjoyment." And later: "Excellent deducting."

Perhaps, then, I fancied that lawyers' work involved Nancy Drew style investigation but with a paycheque attached, and I really ought to have set my sights on a career as a private detective. If it was Nancy rather than Carson Drew who served as primary role model and inspiration, then I'm in good legal company, standing with the likes of U.S. Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor. Still, I can't help but think that for me, and perhaps for them too, the legal aspect contributed to the allure.

But the notable lawyers of children's literature must number more than two. Who have I missed? Please share any names that occur to you in the comments section below.

The Very Brief Legal Career of Robert Louis Stevenson

2011-06-23T22:43:00.003-04:00

(cross-posted from law.arts.culture)

In a previous post, I wrote of lawyer-writers who successfully pursued simultaneous legal and literary careers. Robert Louis Stevenson was not one of them. Indeed, despite years of legal study at the University of Edinburgh, admittance as an advocate after passing his Scots Bar examinations “with credit,” and the above bewigged photograph (taken to please his mother), I don’t think that Stevenson can rightfully be claimed for the law at all.

Law wasn’t even his second choice after literature, but his second second choice. He came from a famous family of engineers, known as the Lighthouse Stevensons, and he began in that field. But, according to biographer Claire Harman, after "four years studying at the university" and "three summers on the works," including stints "in a carpenter's shop, a foundry and a timberyard," Stevenson "still couldn't tell one kind of wood from another or make the most basic calculations." Even his father Thomas, who so dearly wished it otherwise, had to concede that Stevenson wasn’t cut out for the family business. That is not to say, however, that he was prepared to endorse a literary career for his son.

Stevenson’s cousin Etta tells the story thus:

I happened to be in the house when Lou told his father he did not want to continue to be a civil engineer. This was a great blow and a terrible disappointment to Uncle Tom, as for generations the Stevensons had all been very clever civil engineers; and already Lou had gained medals for certain inventions of his in connection with lighthouses. And Uncle Tom was more disappointed still when Lou declared that he wanted to go in for a literary life, as Uncle Tom thought he would make nothing at that⎯in fact that it was just a sort of excuse for leading a lazy life! Eventually it was well talked over, and Uncle Tom said that if he agreed to read for the Bar in order to become an advocate, after passing the examination, if he still persisted in wishing to go in for literature, he would not prevent it, for then he would have a good sound profession at his back.

Alas, Stevenson was as indifferent a student of law as he had been of engineering. His friend Charles Guthrie (later Lord Guthrie) recalled, “we did not look for Louis at law lectures, except when the weather was bad.” Harman elaborates: “A notebook that survives from his law studies is peppered with caricatures and doodles, and the few notes there are on Roman citizenship segue with comical readiness into a much more engaging daydream containing lines of a later poem.” Andrew Murray (later Lord Dunedin), stated bluntly that, although he and Stevenson were “very good friends,” they “did not really see much of each other” even as fellow law students, for: “I was interested in my profession⎯a profession which he frankly cared nothing about.”

If, in the words of another friend, John Geddie, Stevenson paid only "desultory attention" in his law classes, he did buckle down to study for the Bar examinations. But this study awakened no new interest in the subject, and it interfered with the work that really mattered to him. In a letter to Fanny Sitwell (later his wife), dated April 1875, he lamented: “I had no time to write, and, as it is, am strangely incapable. [...] I have been reading such lots of law, and it seems to take away the power of writing from me. From morning to night, so often as I have a spare moment, I am in the embrace of a law book - barren embraces."

Stevenson passed the examinations and was admitted to the Bar on July 14th, 1875. For a time thereafter, as was the custom, he "walk[ed] about the Parliament House five forenoons a week, in wig and gown," seeking work from solicitors with cases before the Courts. He was not altogether unsuccessful in this endeavour. Guthrie recounted: "I do indeed remember one morning in the Parliament House, when he came dancing up to me waving a bundle of legal papers in great glee: 'Guthrie, that simpleton So-and-so has actually sent me a case! Now I have tasted blood, idle fellows like you will see what I can do!'" But he was not offered many briefs, and he accepted even fewer. Guthrie made reference to only "four complimentary pieces of employment [Stevenson] is said to have received, the fees for which did not run into two figures."

Stevenson wrote to Fanny that he found it "a great pleasure to sit and hear cases argued or advised,” but nevertheless bemoaned the fact that: "I lose all my forenoons at Court!" Before long, he gave up the charade and devoted himself full time to writing. The brass nameplate engraved "R.L. Stevenson, Advocate" that his parents had affixed to the door of their home at 17 Heriot Row remained, but Stevenson no longer walked the halls of Parliament House in wig and gown. In fact, he soon quitted Edinburgh, and Scotland, altogether.

Stevenson "had no natural taste for the law," Guthrie concluded. Nor, it seems to have been generally agreed among his legal friends, did he have any particular talent for it. So Stevenson's defection was no great loss to the law. But it was a great gain to literature. And his keen readers, among whom I count myself, can be grateful that, in the end, he chose a literary life.

Sources:

Sidney Colvin, ed., The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson (1900).

Lord Guthrie, Robert Louis Stevenson: Some Personal Recollections (1920).

Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography (2005).

Rosaline Massin, ed., I Can Remember Robert Louis Stevenson (1922).

* The above photo of Robert Louis Stevenson as an advocate is from the digital collection of the National Library of Scotland.

Poetry & Law: M. NourbeSe Philip's Zong!

2011-06-19T22:35:00.000-04:00

(cross-posted from law.arts.culture)

Poetry and law may seem to some as incommensurable as dancing and architecture. Not so, according to M. NourbeSe Philip: “Law and poetry both share an inexorable concern with language⎯the “right” use of the “right” words, phrases, or even marks of punctuation; precision of expression is the goal shared by both.” But language may be used to very different ends in each realm: “The law uses language as a tool for ordering; in the instant case, however, I want poetry to disassemble the ordered, to create disorder and mayhem so as to release the story that cannot be told, but which, through not-telling, will tell itself.”

The story that cannot be told, the subject of Philip's most recent collection of poems, is that of the Zong massacre. In September 1781, the slave ship Zong set sail from the east coast of Africa bound for Jamaica under the stewardship of Captain Luke Collingwood. The "cargo" consisted of 470 Africans. The voyage should have taken six to nine weeks but, due to navigational errors, stretched into four months. By the end of November, sixty Africans had died "for want of water for sustenance," and forty more had thrown themselves into the sea "through thirst and frenzy thereby occasioned." A further 150 Africans were then flung into the sea to their deaths on the orders of the Captain who believed that if they died on board by "natural causes," the owners would have to bear the loss, whereas if they died by drowning, the loss would be covered by the owners' insurance policy as attributable to "the perils of the sea."

Back home in England, a famous case resulted: Gregson v. Gilbert. It was not a murder trial, since the Africans who had been killed were regarded as chattels not as human beings, but rather a legal dispute that turned on the finer points of insurance law. The insurers refused to pay the owners' claim, and the owners challenged that refusal in court. The owners won in the initial trial, but the jury's decision was overturned on appeal by the Court of King's Bench.

Philip describes that King's Bench decision, the only part of the litigation to make its way into the law reports, as "the tombstone, the one public marker of the murder of those Africans on board the Zong," and she opts to limit herself to that text, using it as "a word store" for the composition of her book-length sequence of poems. She literally deconstructs the decision, pulling apart the words with which it is composed, then rearranging them to construct her own text. Through the alchemy of poetry, she also thereby reconstructs the African passengers, so present aboard the ship, yet peculiarly absent from the legal decision. "In Zong!," Philip writes, "the African, transformed into a thing by the law, is re-transformed, miraculously, back into human."

These are poems in which the placement of the words on the page is as important as the meaning that those words convey. In the early poems, the words are spread thinly across the page, the spaces making visible the absence of African bodies and voices. But as the sequence continues, the poems become denser and denser, the words tumbling over one another, sometimes scoring one another out. The effect is disorienting, disturbing, and, ultimately, extremely powerful.

I recommend reading the book at least twice, the first time approaching the poems fresh, taking them on their own terms. Then again after having read the material appended at the end (Philip's essay on the writing of the book, from which I've quoted above, and a copy of the Gregson v. Gilbert decision) to more fully appreciate how Philip has illuminated injustice by making poetry out of law.

"What must it have been like to have been curious, intelligent, and a woman in 1815?"

2011-05-23T12:27:00.005-04:00

The following excerpt from a letter written by Rosana Beecher (nee Foote, mother of Harriet Beecher Stowe & 12 other children) to her sister-in-law prompted biographer Joan Hedrick to ask the poignant question: "What must it have been like to have been curious, intelligent, and a woman in 1815? (And Rosana Foote was among the privileged⎯what of Zillah and Rachel in the kitchen)?":

Would now write you a long letter, if it were not for several vexing circumstances, such as the weather extremely cold, storm violent, and no wood cut; Mr. Beecher gone; and Sabbath day, with company⎯a clergyman, a stranger; Catharine sick; George almost so; Rachel's finger cut off, and she crying and groaning with the pain. Mr. Beecher is gone to preach at New Hartford, and did not provide us wood enough to last, seeing the weather has grown so exceedingly cold....As for reading, I average perhaps one page a week, besides what I do on Sundays. I expect to be obliged to be contented (if I can) with the stock of knowledge I already possess, except what I can glean from the conversation of others....Mary has, I suppose, told you of the discovery that the fixed alkalies are metallic oxyds. I first saw the notice in the "Christian Observer." I have since seen it in an "Edinburgh Review." The former mentioned that the metals have been obtained by means of the galvanic battery; the latter mentions another, and, they say, better mode. I think that is all the knowledge I have obtained in the whole circle of arts and sciences of late; if you have been more fortunate, pray let me reap the benefit.

Roxana died a year later of tuberculosis at the age of forty-one.

(From Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (1994). The illustration that accompanies this post is of the Hartford Female Seminary, founded by Harriet's elder sister Catharine in 1823, an important institution in the history of women's education in the United States.)

Robert Louis Stevenson and Edinburgh

2011-03-24T15:02:00.003-04:00

Edmund Gosse on Robert Louis Stevenson and Edinburgh:

Stevenson was not very happy in Edinburgh, and yet not perfectly happy anywhere else. He was severe on the climate and architecture of Edinburgh, but when Glasgow people rejoiced he told them to wait a while, for he had not written his book about Glasgow yet. Stevenson told me that, as a youth, he used to hang over the Waverley Bridge watching the trains start southward and longing to start too. He shrank from the cold for he was delicate; and he shrank from the somewhat excessive piety that surrounded him. But he loved Edinburgh with a passionate love, and in the tropical atmosphere of Samoa he was always longing to go back to the Gray Metropolis of the North.

(From Rosaline Massin, ed., I Can Remember Robert Louis Stevenson, 1922.)

The book obliquely referred to above is doubtless Stevenson's Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes, one of my favourites. For some choice quotations from it, the city in Stevenson's own words, click here.

Edgar Allan Poe on Charles Dickens

2011-03-18T12:15:00.010-04:00

Edgar Allan Poe was well-known as a savage literary critic, but he had high praise for Charles Dickens. Here are a couple of paragraphs from his 1841 review in Graham's Magazine of Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop:

It embodies more originality in every point, but in character especially, than any single work within our knowledge. There is the grandfather⎯a truly profound conception; the gentle and lovely Nelly⎯we have discoursed of her before; Quilp, with mouth like that of the panting dog (a bold idea which the engraver has neglected to embody), with his hilarious antics, his cowardice, and his very petty and spoilt-child-like malevolence; Dick Swiveller, that prince of good-hearted, good-for-nothing, lazy, luxurious, poetical, brave, romantically generous, gallant, affectionate, and not over-and-above honest, "glorious Apollos"; the marchioness, his bride; Tom Codlin and his partner; Miss Sally Brass, that "fine fellow"; the pony that had an opinion of its own; the boy that stood upon his head; the sexton; the man at the forge; not forgetting the dancing dogs and baby Nubbles. There are other, admirably drawn characters; but we note these for their remarkable originality, as well as their wonderful keeping, and the glowing colours in which they are painted. We have heard some of them called caricatures, but the charge is grossly ill-founded. No critical principle is more firmly based in reason than that a certain amount of exaggeration is essential in the proper depicting of truth itself. We do not paint an object to be true, but to appear true to the beholder. Were we to copy nature with accuracy, the object copied would seem unnatural.

[...]

In truth, the great feature of the "Curiosity Shop" is its chaste, vigorous, and glorious imagination. This is the one charm, all potent, which alone would suffice to compensate for a world more of error than Mr. Dickens ever committed. It is not only seen in the conception, and general handling of the story, or in the invention of character; but it pervades every sentence of the book. We recognize its prodigious influence in every inspired word. It is this which induces the reader, who is at all ideal, to pause frequently, to reread the occasionally quaint phrases, to muse in uncontrollable delight over the thoughts which, while he wonders he has never hit upon them before, he yet admits that he never has encountered. In fact, it is the wand of the enchanter.

It counters the standard vision of Poe nicely, does it not, to think of him chuckling over Dickens?

(Poe's review is reproduced in Robert L. Hough, ed., The Literary Criticism of Edgar Allan Poe, 1965.)

A Foray into Italian Crime Fiction: Gianrico Carofiglio's Involuntary Witness

2011-03-16T14:33:00.002-04:00

(cross-posted from my new blog, law.arts.culture)

A couple of months ago, when I tweeted a link to an article in the Observer that heralded “a new wave of Italian crime writers,” I quickly received a flurry of replies insisting that, of the writers mentioned therein, Gianrico Carofiglio was the one whose work I must sample without delay. One of my correspondents went so far as to dub Guido Guerrieri, the character at the centre of Carofiglio’s series of legal thrillers, “an Italian Philip Marlowe.”

Intrigued as I was by this description, it initially struck me as unlikely, given how thoroughly a product of 1930s and 40s Los Angeles Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe seems to me to be. But even if Marlowe is rooted in his time and place, noir certainly travels. The success of Akashic Books’ marvelous noir anthologies which serve up hardboiled crime stories from every corner of the globe amply demonstrates that point. It was undoubtedly the noir quality of Carofiglio’s books which my correspondent was lauding and, having now read Involuntary Witness, the first book featuring world-weary criminal defense lawyer Guido Guerrieri, I can echo the recommendation of him as a most intriguing noir antihero.

At the beginning of the book, Guerrieri’s wife leaves him and, despite the fact that he hadn’t seemed particularly invested in his marriage, this provokes something of a breakdown. It’s an existential crisis. Guerrieri hasn’t lost his life’s purpose so much as the illusion that he had a purpose in life. Work provides no counter-balance to his unraveling personal life for, there too, he realizes he has long been deluding himself. He had not become a lawyer out of a passion for justice as he had sometimes tried to convince himself. Rather, he “had become a lawyer by sheer chance, because [he] had found nothing better to do or wasn’t up to looking for it.” He had just been marking time in practice, “waiting for [his] ideas to clarify.” His wife’s departure brings a now unwelcome clarity: “Then the lid blew off and from the pan emerged a lot of things I had never imagined and didn’t want to see. That no one would want to see.”

But in the end, it is his work as a lawyer that brings him back to himself and into the world, when he is engaged to defend Abdou Thiam, a 31-year-old Senegalese pedlar who has been charged with the murder of a 9-year-old Italian boy. Thiam had been seen speaking to the boy on the beach on a number of occasions, and has been found to have a photo of him as well as some children’s books among his possessions. A bar owner has said that he witnessed Thiam walking towards the boy’s grandparents’ home on the day in question, and one of his fellow pedlars has said that he saw Thiam washing his car the day after. This tissue of circumstantial evidence, through the lens of the racism of witnesses, police, lawyers, and judges, is thought to add up to an airtight case. Guerrieri has no faith in his capacity to counter it, and initially advises Thiam to opt for “the shortened procedure” which would rule out an acquittal but perhaps lead to something less than a life sentence. But Thiam protests his innocence and wants to fight for an acquittal. Guerrieri’s growing belief in and sense of responsibility to his client, and the challenge of the trial gradually bring him back to life.

This is not a mystery novel. No attempt is made to get to the bottom of the question of who committed the murder. All of the suspense relates to the outcome of the trial. Following the process from beginning to end offers some fascinating glimpses into the Italian legal system. (The author served for many years as an anti-mafia prosecutor in Bari, the same southern Italian city in which the novel is set, so I’m confident that the depiction of the operation of Italian criminal law is an accurate one.) One facet of the novel that I particularly appreciated that Carofiglio has in common with some of my favourite Scandanavian crime writers is that he eschews the Hollywood version in favour of what seems a more realistic portrayal of the progress of a case through the justice system, adeptly conveying its plodding pace and bureaucratic nature without thereby producing a plodding read.

I was quickly caught up in Guerrieri’s life, and in Thiam’s fate, and found Involuntary Witness overall to be an always interesting, sometimes riveting, and ultimately very satisfying read. Carofiglio has written four novels featuring Guerrieri as the central character, three of which have so far been published in English translation, with the final one due out later this year. I am very much looking forward to continuing on to read the rest.

Lawyer-Writers: Louis Auchincloss's Compromise

2011-03-08T09:09:00.002-05:00

(Cross-posted from my new blog, law.arts.culture)

The first fiction that I assign in my Law and Literature class each year is a couple of stories by lawyer-writers. I do this partly to provide inspiration to students who are writers and who fear that embarking on a legal career will mean abandoning their literary aspirations. But mostly, because it seems to me that one of the best ways to begin an exploration of the connections and tensions between law and literature is in the company of guides who straddle the boundary. On both counts, Louis Auchincloss fits the bill perfectly.

Auchincloss, who died last year at the age of ninety-two, spent forty years practicing law in a Wall Street firm, and also published more than sixty books in his lifetime, including forty-seven works of fiction. His star has never burned as brightly in the literary firmament as those of fellow New Yorkers Edith Wharton and Henry James, but his work garners sufficient respect that his name is sometimes mentioned alongside theirs.

As he revealed in his 1964 memoir, A Writer’s Capital, by virtue of his family, Auchincloss felt himself situated at the intersection of law and literature almost from birth. His father practiced corporate law at a single New York firm for fifty-seven years, and his mother was “an omnivorous reader” whose “literary opinions were pungent, incisive, always interesting,” and she was a skilled storyteller besides.

That’s not to say that law and literature fell into an easy accord for Auchincloss in adulthood. He spent many years zigzagging between the two pursuits. Initially, he doubted his literary powers, and was all but resigned to the idea that it was his destiny to follow his father into the legal profession: “I believed … that a man born to the responsibilities of a brownstone bourgeois world could only be an artist or writer if he were a genius, that he should not kick over the traces unless a resounding artistic success, universally recognized, should justify his otherwise ridiculous deviation. The world might need second-class lawyers and doctors; it did not need a second-class artist.” Perhaps it's not surprising then that when his first novel, written as a Yale undergraduate, was rejected, he promptly enrolled in law school.

Auchincloss found, to his surprise, that he enjoyed the study of law: “For what was a case but a short story? What was the law but language?” For a time, his duties on law review served as a satisfying substitute for fiction writing. But once he’d graduated and taken a job in practice, the fiction bug bit again. He spent all his spare time writing and before long he had a couple of published novels under his belt. It didn't interfere with his legal work and the partners at his firm regarded his writing good-naturedly as an interesting quirk. But if the writing didn’t interfere with his legal work, he feared that the same could not be said in reverse: “I was increasingly bothered by a nagging apprehension that I might be slighting my literary muse by not devoting myself full time to her.”

Once again, Auchincloss felt he must choose and this time he chose literature. He resigned from the firm to write full time. But after only a couple of years, he realized that this was a failed experiment: “To sum up the account of my nonlegal years, they added nothing to my stature as a writer. The main thing about them, of course, was to have been time, but even that proved an undependable friend. My writing hours increased, but both the quantity and quality of my writing remained the same.”

Auchincloss continued to write but also returned to practice: “People ask me how I manage to write and practice…. All I can say is that a great step was taken when I ceased to think of myself as a ‘lawyer’ or a ‘writer.’ I simply was doing what I was doing when I did it.” He termed this a “compromise” but it seems to me that it was something more than that. For it wasn’t simply a matter of allowing the two to co-exist, but of recognizing that both were of central importance to him and that, ultimately, they fed each other. He chose to practice in an area of law rich in human drama that offered inspiration for his fiction: "It is probably not a coincidence that my work has been largely with people and personal problems: planning of wills, of estates, setting up trusts, handling marital separations, divorces, as opposed to the more impersonal matters of corporate or municipal financing." And in several of his novels and stories, he shone a light back on his legal milieu, creating incisive portraits of law firms and lawyers.

Much of Auchincloss's fiction has no overt legal content, including the novel that many critics regard as his best, The Rector of Justin. (Although even here there is a legal footnote, as Auchincloss once revealed that he based the main character on Judge Learned Hand⎯yes, he of the formula that still lies at the heart of negligence law.) If you've not yet encountered Auchincloss's work, you may wish to start there. But if you're interested in his legal stories, I recommend the suite of stories in Tales of Manhattan about the firm of Arnold and Degener; the "loose-leaf novel" The Partners; and his final novel, Last of the Old Guard.

* The photograph of Louis Auchincloss that heads this post is taken from the cover of his posthumously published memoir, A Voice From Old New York.

Charles Dickens' 1844 Copyright Suit

2011-02-16T18:33:00.002-05:00

(Cross-posted from my new blog law.arts.culture)

In January 1844, Charles Dickens launched a copyright suit in the Court of Chancery against printers and publishers Richard Egan Lee and John Haddock.

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol had been published on December 19, 1843, and not quite three weeks later, on January 6th, Lee & Haddock’s version, “re-originated” by Henry Hewitt, had appeared for sale under the title A Christmas Ghost Story. An outraged Dickens instructed his solicitor to “stop the Vagabonds” at once. Over a whirlwind three days, his bill of complaint was filed, and an interim injunction sought and obtained.

Dickens was known to be an advocate of copyright, having caused quite a stir during his 1842 visit to the U.S. with speeches agitating for an international agreement. But despite having been a frequent victim of domestic piracy, he had never before taken legal action to enforce the copyright protection available to him at home.

Why, then, did he act with such alacrity in January 1844? Perhaps because his hopes for A Christmas Carol were so high. Dickens had attained enormous success by this time, but his fortunes appeared to be on the wane. Critics had not been enthusiastic about his most recent books, and sales had dropped so precipitously that his publishers were poised to invoke a contractual clause that entitled them to reduce their payments to him accordingly. Indeed, their faith in the marketability of his work had soured to the extent that they rejected A Christmas Carol. Dickens had to self-publish, taking all of the responsibility and the risks upon himself. But he did not hesitate to do so, so convinced was he that the book would revive his critical status and earn him a quick profit as well.

Dickens’ confidence proved well founded. The reviews were raves; even William Thackeray, usually his harshest critic, had nothing negative to say, pronouncing A Christmas Carol to be "a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness." The book went through three printings in two weeks, with 15,000 copies sold in that space of time ⎯extraordinary numbers given the steep price of 5 shillings charged for each lavishly produced volume. But that lavishness, particularly the inclusion of colour plates, rendered the profit margin very slim, so runaway success though it was, many more copies would have to be sold before Dickens could pocket the “thousand pounds clear” on which he had set his heart.

Thus Dickens’ concern over the potential undercutting of sales by Lee & Haddock’s penny edition was understandable. But if bringing suit against them was initially a business decision, the affidavits they filed in support of their motion to dissolve the interim injunction transformed it into a matter of personal honour.

Lee & Haddock maintained that A Christmas Ghost Story was not simply a copy of A Christmas Carol, but a considerable improvement upon it, and hence an original work. Henry Hewitt had, it was averred, “tastefully remedied” the “defects and inconsistencies” in Dickens’ work, and supplemented it with “a more artistical style of expression” and “large original additions.” For example, Lee pointed out, where Dickens had made only a brief mention of Tiny Tim singing a song about a child lost in the snow, Hewitt had penned an original song of sixty lines that was “replete with pathos and poetry.” They went further to allege that Dickens was in fact indebted to Hewitt, having obtained “the germs of many of his works” from the “hints” and “criticisms” contained in Hewitt’s earlier re-originations of The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge, both also procured, published and sold by Lee & Haddock. Finally, Hewitt himself claimed that Dickens owed more “to the works of an author named Washington Irving for the material of his Christmas Carol” than Hewitt did to Dickens for his Christmas Ghost Story.

Judge Knight Bruce, before whom the motion to dissolve the interim injunction was heard on January 18th, was not convinced. He opined: “The defendant has printed and published a novel, of which the fable, the persons, the names of persons, the characters, the age and time, and scene and country, are wholly the same. The style of language in which the story is told is in some instances identical, and in all similar.” He concluded that, in his view, the defendants’ publication was “plainly colourable,” and, on that basis, he upheld the injunction.

Dickens was ebullient, declaring: “The pirates are beaten flat. They are bruised, bloody, battered, smashed, squelched, and utterly undone.” Of course, these were only preliminary motions. For a final resolution from the courts, Dickens would have to bring the matter to trial. But given the decisiveness of the judge’s rejection of the defendants’ arguments, Dickens suspected that a trial would not be necessary, and so it proved. After some hedging, the defendants accepted Dickens’ terms, agreeing to apologize for their affidavits and to pay all of Dickens’ costs.

Alas for Dickens, it did not end there. Lee & Haddock promptly declared bankruptcy, thereby evading their obligation to pay his costs and leaving him on the hook for a substantial sum. In the end, Dickens’ costs swallowed nearly all the profits that A Christmas Carol had generated, leaving him feeling much scarred by the experience. Some years later, when it was suggested that he take action against another instance of piracy, Dickens recalled “the expense, and anxiety and horrible injustice of the Carol case,” and declined to proceed. He concluded that “it is better to suffer a great wrong than to have recourse to the much greater wrong of the law.”

If Dickens obtained neither justice nor financial recompense from his foray into the Court of Chancery, the experience did provide direct inspiration for one of his finest novels, Bleak House. For that, I can’t help but think it was worth every bit of “the mental trouble and disturbance” he had to endure.

Sources:

Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853).

E.T. Jaques, Charles Dickens in Chancery (1914).

Les Standiford, The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits (2008).

Kathleen Tillotson, ed., The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume 4 1844-1846 (1977).

* The above illustration is The Court of Chancery, drawn by Augustus Charles Pugin & Thomas Rowlandson for Ackermann’s Microcosm of London (1808-11).

Maggie Gee's My Animal Life

2010-12-17T20:41:00.004-05:00

I'm currently reading Maggie Gee's memoir, My Animal Life, with great pleasure. Here are a couple of passages from early in the book to give you a sense of Gee's voice and the terrain that she covers:

Why call this book My Animal Life?
Not to degrade my life, but to celebrate it. To join it, tiny though it is, to all the life in the universe. To the brown small-headed pheasant running by the lake in Coolham. To my grandparents and parents, and my great grandparents who like most people in the British Isles of their generation wore big boots, even for the rare occasions of photographs, and lived on the clayey land, and have returned their bones to it, joining the bones of cattle, horses, foxes. To the blind out-of-season bee bombing the glass of this window. To link, in a way I only learned to do in my thirties, my mental life to the body I love and enjoy, to my secret sexual life and my life as a mother.

And a bit further on:

     I am writing this book to ask questions—to which I do not know the answer. How can we be happy? What do men want? What do women want? What do children need from us?
     Can I save my belief in the soul from my love of science?
     How can we bear to lose those we love most?
     How do we recover from our mistakes—our many mistakes?
     How do we forgive ourselves? And our parents?
     Why do we need art? Why are we driven to make it?
     And class: Can we ever really change it?

I've been reading a lot of nonfiction this year, in part because I've been writing a lot of nonfiction, and I've been on a bit of a quest to figure out what, beyond interesting content, makes good nonfiction good. Suffice it to say that, so far, on that front, My Animal Life is a model and an inspiration.

An Interview with Robert J. Wiersema About His New Novel Bedtime Story

2010-11-11T07:27:00.004-05:00

Robert J. Wiersema's new novel, Bedtime Story, was one of the books that I most eagerly anticipated this publishing season, and it fully lived up to my expectations. It's a book about being swept away by reading, the reading of which utterly swept me away. I won't say any more than that by way of preamble, as I don't want to give away a single plot twist, but I'm confident that you'll find much to pique your interest in it in my interview with Robert below.

KS: Bedtime Story very viscerally evokes the intensity of childhood reading experiences. What books did you read as a child that provided that kind of magic for you?

RJW: My whole childhood, I think, was a wonderland of books. To say I was a bookish kid doesn't really do it justice. I was born with a clubfoot, and an inborn aversion to sports, so books were my world. Worlds, actually. Because everything I read took me away from myself and the world I knew. Which wasn't difficult: I grew up in a one-stoplight town; everything was elsewhere. I started off reading non-fiction. I was fascinated with dinosaurs, and space travel, and arcane secrets. Once I realized the power of fiction, though, I was completely gone. Books like Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and The Wind in the Door, which transported me across dimensions. John Bellairs' The House With A Clock In Its Walls, which terrified me then, and still does now. Thinking about it, the last book I can remember working that sort of magic for me as a child was Geoffrey Trease's Cue For Treason. That book took me away, back into Elizabethan England, back into the orbit of Shakespeare. Written in 1940, it's very much a Boy's Own Story, but it got me. Right in the heart. That's the book that inspired the book within Bedtime Story, though they're absolutely nothing alike.

KS: Being read to, and not just reading, is of central importance in the novel. Christopher Knox continues to read to his son David past his eleventh birthday, an age by which many parents would have stopped. This is partly because of the dyslexia that prevents David from reading easily on his own, but there are deeper reasons for continuing the ritual. Can you reflect a bit on the nature of the bond that creates, and if there are ways that we might wish to carry the experience of being read to into adulthood?

I think there's nothing more intimate (well…) than the bond created over a book. I'm biased, of course, as a writer, bookseller and reviewer. In a lot of ways, my whole life is based around that belief. Whether it's writing a book, or handselling a book, or recommending a book, there’s a level of intimate exchange: you're trusting someone with a piece of yourself – whether they're your own words, or someone else's – and trusting them to recognize that it's a gift, and not to scorn it. Which sounds, now that I read it back, a bit overdramatic, but it's not. At least, it’s not for me. With reading to a child, it's an extension of the other nourishment that parents provide. You’re feeding them, mind and soul. But it’s more than that, I think. The act of reading to a child creates a deep bond, a moment (at bedtime especially) of connection, of meeting across someone else's words. Cori does the bedtime reading in our house most of the time, and I get to watch, from the bedroom door, the sheer power of that bond, and just how important it is. That's where Chris and David's bedtime ritual comes from. And I think that bond can exist for adults as well, though, naturally, without the parental overtones. There's something so intimate about sharing a book. Reading a book aloud to someone? Transcends the intimate and tumbles headlong into the sensual. That might just be me. I don’t think it is, though.

KS: Bedtime Story is a Russian doll of book, containing stories inside stories inside stories. What was it like to write so many stories at once, particularly, to write the book within the book, writing in the literary voice of Lazarus Took? Did you have any performance anxiety around creating a text that was presented as having such power? (Very clever of you, incidentally, to lower expectations by quoting from Took's Wikipedia entry which described him as "a purveyor of clichéd, derivative, post-Second World War British fantasy"! But I hasten to add that it worked for me—I was as thoroughly swept away by the excerpts from Took's To The Four Directions as I was by the rest of Bedtime Story.)

RJW: Well, to say there was performance anxiety would be an understatement. I'm thrilled to hear that it worked. And yes, that note? Totally a safety net. But no one was supposed to pick up on it! I wrote the two storylines separately to maintain their distinction and try to avoid blurring of voices. My feeling was that I wanted both of them to stand on their own, and thus have double the power when they were combined. The combining of the stories was fun. Physically fun. I printed the contemporary storyline on white paper, the fantasy storyline on orange, and physically put the book together in a HUGE whopping stack before going back to the computer. Back to voice, though: the voice of To the Four Directions was tricky, because it needed to shift. My concept, and I'm not sure how it came through, was that the book molded itself around its readers. Thus, the voice becomes clearer, less period, as David is drawn in. But I'll stop there, for fear of spoilers.

KS: I enjoyed the depiction of Chris researching the life and work of Lazarus Took, and the lovely esoteric details that he turned up, some of which must have been the product of your own research. I'm thinking, for example, of the references to W.B. Yeats and the Golden Dawn which very effectively anchored the fictional Lazarus Took in a factual history. What sort of research was required to get that verisimilitude-producing balance of fiction and fact just right?

RJW: A lot of it was drawing on things that I knew, both personally and through popular culture. I dabbled with wicca as an undergrad, and I've spent some time with tarot cards and such. I've got a good personal background in those worlds which I tapped into. At the same time, books like Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which I adore, tap into those (and other) worlds as well. That’s where the inspiration for Took's history came from, and its opposition as well, the mother and daughter in the magic shop. From there it was a matter of grounding myself in details, but not too many. Aleister Crowley was definitely an inspiration, but it was important that he not figure in the book. With a true life figure like that, there's too much baggage, too much potential for unintended resonances, so it was important to get the history in, and then mess with it. To have my cake and eat it, too.

KS: Bedtime Story seems to me to be a book that gleefully embraces genre fiction (in celebrating the likes of Lazarus Took) but, at the same time, one that defies categorization. It's fantasy; it’s literary; it engages with children's literature; there's a bit of a detective story woven in. Does it matter to you how people categorize it?

RJW: As a bookseller, it matters, yes. As a writer? Not so much. I don't actually believe in genre, past a certain point. I mean, there are deliberate, to-design genre books, lots of them. And that’s fine. I have every respect for that. I read them. But beyond that point, I think genre classifications only have to do with marketing and navigating your way around a bookstore or website. And I don’t think that's a good thing. I think it actually hinders the reading experience for people, and keeps people from finding things they would take to. Let's take a step back for an example. Television. My mother hates science fiction, and will, if forced, treat it with patient condescension. That's just the way she's wired. Loves mysteries, hates sci-fi. Except... she loved Lost. Devoted herself to it, for years. Given the elements of time travel, other dimensions, doomsday devices and the like, what's the deal? Well, it wasn't called sci-fi. It was a show about a struggle for survival, with deep mysteries, and some weirdness, so she could watch it. If exactly the same show had been marketed as sci-fi she wouldn’t have been interested in it. I tend not to think of books, especially my own, in terms of genre at all. It's like trying to nail down Jello. "Well, it's a domestic realist family drama that shifts into a child-in-medical peril novel that becomes a literary detective story that shifts into an outright thriller. Oh, but there's this whole high-fantasy storyline as well that's played straight, until it becomes self-aware partway through." Nah, screw it. I write stories. They take the shape they need to take, and that's the only consideration, as far as I'm concerned.

KS: Bad things happen to children in your books. I know that you're a father, and I can imagine that going to those dark places in your fiction involves facing some deep fears. Can you write a little about what it takes to go to those dark places, and what is to be gained (as a writer and a reader) from the journey?

RJW: In a very real way, I write out of fear. My nightmares drive my work. Back in December of 1998, Cori told me we were pregnant. I took a moment to respond, and then I spiraled. Downward. I'm a glass-half-empty kind of guy at the best of times, but the idea of having a child (and we had been working toward having one, so it's not like it came as any sort of surprise) terrified me. My mind began to spin worst-case scenarios, all around the loss of a child. I sat down at my desk in early January, and I wrote Before I Woke in the next three months, in a white heat of fear. The World More Full of Weeping was written, well, when I was supposed to be writing Bedtime Story. In a way, it's a miniature of the novel, a different path through similar woods. Both TWMFoW and BS deal with the inevitable loss of a child, the moment when a child steps out on his or her own, when they start to distance themselves from their parents. Writing out of fear... It allows me to hold it up to the light, to look at it from all angles, to push things to extremes and deal with the consequences, if only in my head. I'd say it was therapeutic, were it not for my clear and continued need for therapy. Strangely, I seem to be preemptively fearful: BIW, written when Cori was pregnant, features a fear for a child 2.5-3 years old. TWMFOW and BS, written when Xander was 7 and 8, features a fear for a child 11 years old. The next novel, which I'm starting now, when Xander is 11, has as its protagonist a 15 year old girl. I hadn't realized that, until just this moment. Seems I'm right on schedule.

KS: It was a bold move to write a second novel that features a writer who is having trouble completing his second novel. Were you ever afraid that you might jinx yourself?

RJW: Remember what I said about writing about what I fear? I think it applies to my treatment of Chris, too. He’s working on his second novel, almost a DECADE after his first one. That was the fear, especially when Bedtime Story proved...resistant... to my first clumsy attempts. I think I wrote the opening of the book almost two dozen times, experimenting with different voices, different tenses, different POVs. There was a long, long time when I just couldn't make it work. Thankfully, I managed to find my way in. Even more thankfully, I managed to find my way out. And now, unlike Chris, I've got a second novel. That's pretty sweet.

Thank you Robert, for your generous answers to my questions. (And remind me when next we meet that I have a traumatic story to tell you about Cue For Treason.)

For more details about Bedtime Story, click here, and about Robert and his other books, here.

New Reading Chair, Desktop Talismans, & A Sadly Inadequate Filing System

2010-10-29T10:55:00.006-04:00

Call for Presentations: L.M. Montgomery and the Leaskdale Years (1911-1926)

2010-10-17T20:03:00.003-04:00

The Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario is hosting a three-day celebration in October 2011 to mark the centenary of L.M. Montgomery's arrival in Leaskdale, Ontario from Prince Edward Island. You can see from the above poster that they've already got a number of speakers lined up for the event (yes, I'm giddy to be included on the list among so many of my LMM scholar heroes!). But they're also putting out a general call for proposals for 20-minute presentations that focus on Montgomery in the Leaskdale years (1911-1926). Proposals of 200-250 words should be sent to lclement@lakeheadu.ca by January 5, 2011.

Talk: L.M. Montgomery's Legal Battles with Her Publisher

2010-09-19T13:27:00.002-04:00

I'll be giving a talk on Friday afternoon at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, in Toronto on L.M. Montgomery's legal battles with her first U.S. publisher, L.C. Page and Company. The event is the first Feminist Friday of the year, part of a series hosted by Osgoode's Institute for Feminist Legal Studies. It's open to the public, and I expect it will be good fun, so please come if you're in Toronto and you're interested in hearing me and my colleague Shelley Kierstead speak. Also, I understand that Osgoode's new dean, Lorne Sossin, has graciously agreed to serve as commentator. You can find all the details on the poster below:

And if you need help finding Osgoode Hall Law School on the York University campus, maps are available here.

Jane Austen's Fight Club

2010-07-25T00:30:00.001-04:00

Jane Austen's Fight Club: "No corsets, no hatpins, and no crying."

(via Jezebel)

An Interview with Kathleen Winter About Her New Novel Annabel

2010-07-07T16:12:00.005-04:00

Annabel is the story of an intersex baby, born in a Labrador village in 1968. Mother Jacinta and her friend Thomasina, also present at the birth, initially avoid assigning the baby a pronoun, wanting to keep all possibilities open. But father Treadway decides that the baby will be raised as a boy, Wayne. Medical intervention and relentless socialization by Treadway in the very masculine hunting culture of Labrador render Wayne visibly male. But Jacinta and Thomasina quietly nurture Wayne's hidden female self, Thomasina even bestowing on Wayne the name of the daughter she has recently lost, Annabel. The novel spans twenty years, tracing Wayne's sometimes harrowing voyage of self-discovery, and also those of Jacinta, Thomasina, and Treadway as they come to terms with Wayne's identity and their own.

Annabel is a very powerful and thought-provoking novel. I have not stopped pondering it since I finished reading, so I was very pleased when author Kathleen Winter agreed to answer some of my questions. My interview with her is posted below.

KS: One of the epigraphs with which the novel opens is from Virginia Woolf's Orlando. That’s one of my favourite books, and I think I would have thought of it as I read even without the epigraph given that you explore some of the same questions about gender identity across time and space in Annabel. Can you tell me about some of the influences or inspirations, literary or otherwise, behind Annabel?

KW: I have had a lot of literary inspiration: Heinrich Boll, for his tenderness and humanity in books like The Bread of those Early Years; Virginia Woolf for her novels but also her diaries; E.M. Forster for his explorations of the barricades of class and gender; Roald Dahl for his explosive insistence on dark truth with one hairline fracture of golden light; Katherine Mansfield for her attention to detail and, again, her tenderness – I'm thinking here of "I seen the little lamp" in Mansfield's The Doll's House.

KS: Annabel is deeply rooted in the Labrador landscape. There's a lovely line near the beginning about the relationship of people to land there: "No one minded being an extra in the land's story." What drew you to this landscape in your writing?

KW: In Annabel I depicted the Labrador landscape as a magnetic force that gives off its own energy and seems to have visible light emanating from the ground. This is what I saw when I was there. I also saw people who are expansive in their thinking, and I think the big land and sky and rock and water are inside the people in a way that doesn't happen everywhere. And the land is generous. If you go there you can partake of this breathing between flesh, spirit and ground, if you are open to it. I felt this when I was there, and I tried to put it in the book.

KS: That rootedness notwithstanding, there's a lot of travel in Annabel, with characters moving between Labrador, St. John's, Boston and Europe. Travel often represents reinvention in literature, but nearly all of the characters in Annabel seem to become more themselves away from home. Every journey is somehow an inward one. Can you reflect a bit on the connection drawn here between travel and self-knowledge?

KW: I hadn't thought of this consciously but I guess Wayne, Thomasina and Treadway do become more themselves away from home. It isn't that they don't change – they shift their inner cogs considerably – but you are right, those shifts are shifts toward greater self-expression, not towards something unlikely or discontinuous with their earlier selves. I have traveled a lot so maybe this is a facet of travel that has entered the writing unbeknownst to myself. Maybe I'd have to go on a trip and read the book to see it!

KS: There's a reference early in Wayne's childhood to his knowledge of his authentic self as contrasted with the child that his father requires him to be. (Of course, this is sorely tested later.) Do you think all children begin with a sense of authentic self, or is Wayne unique in this, developing it in response to the unusually intense pressure he's under to assume a rigid, ill-fitting identity?

KW: I think each child is fiercely authentic from the beginning and that it is up to the people around that child to find out who has come into the world by listening as well as through insightful teaching. Of course this doesn't always happen, and we suppress whole generations of children through ineffective methods of socialization. But the authentic self in each person is very strong, and sometimes it survives and even flourishes, and that individual becomes a blessing to others.

KS: Later, Wayne seeks not authenticity but wholeness. Is that another word for the same thing, or is it something different?

KW: For me authenticity happens within the individual and includes things like the development of talents and the ability to speak one's truth anywhere. Wholeness would include authenticity but would also encompass the health of the physical and the emotional body; the ability to feel and receive love, and to have a sense of belonging.

KS: Annabel is your first novel, but your previously published work includes a novella, short stories, and creative non-fiction. How does your writing process change (or does it) as you move across genres?

KW: I think my writing process changes as I gain more life experience, and maybe that is part of how I have moved through shorter to longer genres. It has taken me many years to be able to write a novel that shows the points of view of people of different ages and personalities. I like that Madeleine L'Engle has said the great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. But I remain thrilled about the radical possibilities of short stories.

Thanks to Kathleen for her generous and illuminating responses to my questions!

I highly recommend Annabel. You can learn more about it and about Kathleen Winter at the Anansi website here.

Rereading Anne of Ingleside

2010-07-03T22:20:00.004-04:00

After this latest reread, Anne of Ingleside remains my least favourite Anne book, and my least favourite but one L.M. Montgomery novel. Anne's children are noxiously cute and her perfect motherhood cloying. But I'm glad to have dipped back into it all the same for the dark undercurrent in it that intrigues me. I remembered the story of Peter Kirk's funeral, and of Anne and Gilbert's anniversary reunion with Christine Stuart as strong points of the book. But I don't think that I'd noticed before that most of the rest of the episodes in it, even the cutesy kid ones, are also tales of disillusionment. I'm looking forward to reading The Blythes are Quoted with this fresh in my mind and thinking about these books together as examplars of what editor Benjamin Lefebvre terms Montgomery's "late style." Also, speaking of style, this time around I appreciated how well structured Anne of Ingleside is, weaving deftly through seasons and years and in and out of key moments in different characters' lives, and thereby painting a rich picture of the Blythe household and the broader Glen St. Mary community. Finally, the meeting of Susan Baker and Rebecca Dew, two of my favourite characters in Montgomery's oeuvre and indeed in literature generally, is in itself worth the price of admission. What fun Montgomery must have had writing that bit of dialogue and the correspondence that followed. On now to a reread of Rainbow Valley.

National Divisions Hide More than They Reveal

2010-04-04T12:50:00.003-04:00

Another passage from Nick Mount's When Canadian Literature Moved to New York that I can't resist sharing:

But however legitimate a concern for cultural nationalists, for the literary historian, national divisions hide more than they reveal. A national focus was essential for recognizing Canadian literature's arrival, and it remains essential for periodically reaffirming its health, but it cannot explain the actual circumstances of much of that literature's production. No national model can account for [Bliss] Carman writing the first of his Vagabondia poems after reading an English law book in a New York library, or for Palmer Cox creating his Brownies by combining the Scottish legends he heard as a child in Quebec with the skills he acquired as a cartoonist in California, or for Ernest Thompson Seton submitting his career-launching story about a New Mexico wolf to a New York magazine because he was urged to do so by a Toronto economist⎯or indeed for the circumstances that produced any literary work, in any literature.

Late 19th century focus notwithstanding, this still resonates today. For a bit more on Mount's book, see my post below.

A Continental Literary Culture

2010-04-04T10:13:00.004-04:00

An interesting snippet from one of my current reads, Nick Mount's When Canadian Literature Moved to New York, a book that traces the roots of what ultimately became a canonical Canadian literature to "the cafés, publishing offices, and boarding houses of late-nineteenth-century New York":

The problems confronting domestic literary production were real, but the domestic market was not the only option for Canadian writers of this generation: they also had access by mail or in person to the much larger American market, a market that by this time included Canada. Canadians had few home-grown literary models, but the flood of American magazines and American books into Canada provided models for them, models that had become features of a North American literary landscape. At a professional level, the decision by so many Canadian writers of these years to move to American cities wasn't about giving up one national literary culture for another; it was about moving from the margins to the centres of a continental literary culture.

My primary interest in this literary period is in L.M. Montgomery, one of the few Canadian writers who stayed at home. But the expatriates whose late 19th century exodus to the United States preoccupies Mount were Montgomery's precursors and contemporaries, her role models and her colleagues. Their markets were her markets. She may have stayed home physically, resisting the lure of New York as did her writer-character Emily Byrd Starr, but she built her career on the publication of stories in U.S. magazines and of novels by U.S. publishing houses. So Mount's book provides a context that I think will prove very helpful in developing a fuller understanding of Montgomery's career, even though she herself receives only a few passing mentions in it. As you can imagine from the passage quoted above though, the book also offers much food for thought in considering Canadian literature more broadly, now as then evolving in a global context. So far, a most intriguing read.

Barbara Ehrenreich's Critique of Positive Thinking

2010-03-23T20:55:00.004-04:00

Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided is a funny, fierce, and effective critique of positive thinking.

She takes it on in a number of contexts chapter by chapter: for example, in breast cancer treatment and the rhetoric that has grown up around it ("Smile or Die: The Bright Side of Cancer"), in business and the dissolution of business ("Motivating Business and the Business of Motivation"), and in an influential strand of evangelical Christianity ("God Wants You to Be Rich"). And she brings it all masterfully together in a final chapter that traces how positive thinking in all of these guises contributed to the current economic crisis.

A particularly crucial insight that emerges again and again is the way in which positive thinking while seeming to offer empowerment may actually block meaningful action. It seems to give people something to do, a way forward at moments of crisis when they feel altogether powerless⎯a woman facing down a terminal breast cancer diagnosis, or a worker newly down-sized from his or her job. But in fact its relentlessly inward focus, the personal "work" on attitude and outlook that it demands, inevitably ends with blaming the victim and letting the persons and institutions who are truly responsible off the hook. Concerted action for change is neatly diverted. Further, the delusions that positive thinking can foster at an individual and a broader level can be downright dangerous.

I didn't agree with Ehrenreich's analysis every step of the way but even then, indeed perhaps especially then, I found Bright-Sided to be a bracing read.

"The Eye That Never Sleeps": Frank Morn's History of the Pinkerton Detective Agency

2010-03-21T16:10:00.000-04:00

"The Eye That Never Sleeps" by Frank Morn is the first history that I've read in my newfound quest to learn all there is to know about the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and I was a bit disappointed. There are so many extraordinary characters and stories associated with the Pinkertons, and Morn covers the ground, but there could have been greater pleasure in the reading if he'd brought more storytelling flair to the narrative. Particularly in the first half of the book, it sometimes felt like harder going than it ought to have been.

Also, there were gaps. Most notable for me was the absence of women. Morn notes early on that "women were an important part of the detective agency throughout the founder's life" and, later, that "female detectives assumed an important place in the Pinkerton story." Yet he accords them only eight sentences including the two I just quoted. I wanted to know more. I also would have liked a bit more detail on founder Alan Pinkerton's eldest son William. Morn includes enough about him to suggest that he may have been the most interesting member of the Pinkerton family⎯he who was known simply as "the Eye" and was apparently beloved of many underworld figures and police chiefs alike. But he doesn't get nearly as much space in the narrative as his younger brother Robert, Alan Pinkerton's more highly favoured son and heir.

I concede, however, that the above critique is an idiosyncratic one and, my personal quibbles aside, "The Eye That Never Sleeps" is an impressive and valuable work of scholarship. It's packed with interesting detail and is clearly the product of rigorous archival research. When I was moved to follow through to the footnotes, more often than not they were citations to letters and documents from the Pinkerton archives. This suggests to me that much of the information Morn has gathered in his history won't be readily accessible anywhere else. Morn also provides a lengthy bibliography which provides plenty of leads on where I might learn more about the Pinkerton-related topics that particularly intrigue me.

Finally, a great strength of the book is that Morn doesn't stop at providing a thorough and informative history of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. He also sets that history firmly in the context of U.S. history more broadly and, particularly, in the context of the development of both private and public policing in the U.S. and Europe. So I recommend it as an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the Pinkerton Detective Agency and also as a useful resource for those interested in the history of policing more broadly.

Tove Jansson on the Creative Process (via the Moomintrolls)

2010-03-20T22:38:00.005-04:00

I've reread six of Tove Jansson's Moomintroll books now, the children's series for which she's best known. Once I've made my way through the final two, I'm planning an omnibus review in which I'll try to convey the magic that has me loving them even more as an adult than I did as a child. (Perhaps that should come as no surprise given that it was my recent forays into her extraordinary adult fiction that sent me off on this voyage of rediscovery⎯if you've not yet read Jansson's most recently translated adult novel, The True Deceiver, go and get yourself a copy immediately!) In the meantime, though, I wanted to share a bit of the Moomin universe with you, by way of a couple of paragraphs from "The Spring Tune," the first story in Tales From Moominvalley:

     "It's the right evening for a tune," Snufkin thought. A new tune, one part expectation, two parts spring sadness, and for the rest just the great delight of walking alone and liking it.
     He had kept this tune under his hat for several days, but hadn't quite dared to take it out yet. It had to grow into a kind of happy conviction. Then he would simply have to put his lips to the mouth organ, and all the notes would jump instantly into their places.
     If he released them too soon, they might get stuck crossways and make only a half-good tune, or he might lose them altogether and never be in the right mood to get hold of them again. Tunes are serious things, especially if they have to be jolly and sad at the same time.
     But this evening Snufkin felt rather sure of his tune. It was there, waiting, nearly full-grown⎯and it was going to be the best he ever made.

Though it's about song writing rather than story writing, it's a depiction of the creative process, and the solitude within which it often best unfolds, that resonates with me. "The great delight of walking alone and liking it." How delightful is that? Is it any wonder that I love these books?

The End of Publishing

2010-03-15T18:05:00.002-04:00

I encountered this video via Penguin USA's Twitter feed. You can read more about it here.

P.D. James on Dorothy L. Sayers

2010-03-11T12:11:00.004-05:00

P.D. James on my favourite Dorothy L. Sayers novel, Gaudy Night:

For me Gaudy Night is one of the most successful marriages of the puzzle with the novel of social realism and serious purpose. It tells me, as a writer of today, that it is possible to construct a credible and enthralling mystery and marry it successfully to a theme of psychological subtlety, and this is perhaps the most important of Dorothy L. Sayers's legacies to writers and readers.

From P.D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction (2009).

P.D. James on the Potentially Liberating Effect of the Constraints and Conventions of the Detective Story

2010-03-10T11:09:00.010-05:00

P.D. James neatly refutes the dismissal of detective stories as "mere formula writing" as follows in her new book, Talking About Detective Fiction:

One of the criticisms of the detective story is that this imposed pattern is mere formula writing, that it binds the novelist in a straitjacket which is inimical to the artistic freedom which is essential to creativity and that subtlety of characterization, a setting which comes alive for the reader and even credibility are sacrificed to the dominance of structure and plot. But what I find fascinating is the extraordinary variety of books and writers which this so-called formula has been able to accommodate, and how many authors have found the constraints and conventions of the detective story liberating rather than inhibiting of their creative imagination. To say that one cannot produce a good novel within the discipline of a formal structure is as foolish as to say that no sonnet can be great poetry since a sonnet is restricted to fourteen lines⎯an octave and a sestet⎯and a strict rhyming sequence.

James explores that extraordinary variety through the rest of the book which is essentially an idiosyncratic history of detective fiction with occasional musings about her own writing process thrown in. It makes for most interesting reading for devotees of crime fiction.

L.M. Montgomery's Toronto House

2010-03-04T22:55:00.000-05:00

Ever since I moved to Toronto, I've been meaning to seek out the house that L.M. Montgomery lived in here from 1935 until her death in 1942, and today I finally did. Those were not happy years for Montgomery, but she loved that house⎯the only one of her beloved homes that she actually owned⎯and the Toronto neighbourhood in which it is located. After snapping a couple of pictures of the house, I wandered down to the river that runs along the ravine behind it, and I could easily imagine Montgomery taking solace in that landscape during difficult times. See my photos of the house and the river below.

Raymond Chandler on Literature

2010-02-16T21:11:00.005-05:00

Raymond Chandler on literature:

When a book, any sort of book reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball. Every page throws the hook for the next. I call this a kind of genius.

(From a letter by Raymond Chandler to Earl Stanley Gardner.)

Immersing Myself in Muriel Spark's Life and Work

2010-02-11T15:57:00.003-05:00

I read Muriel Spark: The Biography by Martin Stannard over the course of the last couple of weeks with much pleasure.

It's not a great biography. Stannard's tendency to skip back and forth in time and to shift between first and last names when referring to the vast cast of characters made it difficult at times to figure out what exactly happened between who when. And he had theories about Spark that he sometimes presented as fact. I've got no objection to biographers putting forth theories⎯that's part of what makes biographies interesting to me⎯but I do object to those theories being presented as fact.

But as the first full biography of Spark it is a must-read for fans of her work, and it is an impressive work of scholarship that is packed full of interesting detail, much of it new to me despite having read most of Spark's books and followed her career with interest for decades. Most importantly, Spark's writing, both process and product, is the central focus of the biography throughout. Stannard's thorough and thoughtful commentary on Spark's novels and stories did for me just what a good literary biography ought to do⎯send the reader back to the work itself.

I've begun a grand re/read with the intention of working my way through all 22 of Spark's novels in the order in which they were published, and finishing up with the collected stories. Stay tuned for many Spark-inspired posts along the way.

Working at the Speed of E-mail

2010-02-05T19:49:00.002-05:00

John Freeman on how e-mail has changed our working lives:

Working at the speed of e-mail is like trying to gain a topographic understanding of our daily landscape from a speeding train--and the consequences for us as workers are profound. Interrupted every thirty seconds or so, our attention spans are fractured into a thousand tiny fragments. The mind is denied the experience of deep flow, when creative ideas flourish and complicated thinking occurs. We become task-oriented, tetchy, terrible at listening as we try to keep up with the computer. The e-mail inbox turns our mental to-do list into a palimpsest--there's always something new and even more urgent erasing what we originally thought was the day's priority. Incoming mail arrives on several different channels--via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, instant message--and in this era of backup we're sure that we should keep records of our participation in all these conversations. The result is that at the end of the day we have a few hundred or even a few thousand e-mails still sitting in our inbox.

From John Freeman, The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox (2009).

Virgina Woolf Speaking on the Radio

2010-02-03T10:37:00.002-05:00

I borrowed this marvelous clip from Condalmo. It's Virginia Woolf speaking on a 1937 BBC radio program.

"...the short story and the novel have completely different DNA"

2010-01-26T16:49:00.004-05:00

Gil Adamson on the short story and the novel:

Keep in mind that the short story and the novel have completely different DNA. The reader's experience of the two forms might be similar. But at the nuts-and-bolts level, they share almost nothing. This, in my opinion, will explain why Alice Munro has never made the "obvious" jump to novels. The two forms are not as similar as they seem. To steal a joke from Mitch Hedberg (who was asked to write sitcoms just because he was a funny guy) it's like someone saying: "Oh, you're a chef? Well, can you farm?"

The Austere Pleasures of Nordic Crime Fiction

2010-01-16T13:48:00.005-05:00

Laura Miller on Nordic Crime Fiction:

Despite the existential malaise that frequently afflicts the characters of Nordic noir, the stern, bare-bones simplicity of its problem-solving methods is one of the form's austere pleasures. Like the arctic cold, the rigor is bracing. It transports us to a world where charm and glamor barely exist and count for little when they do, a world refreshingly free of flimflam, hype or irrational exuberance. What matters is putting one foot in front of the other and not stopping. There's something reassuring about this faith in sheer perseverance when your surroundings are in a state of bewildering flux. It's the kind of calm you get from the simple act of sitting down to make a to-do list in the wake of an incalculable loss.

For the rest of the article, in which Miller traces the form back through current stars such as Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, to pioneers Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, all the way back to Old Norse sagas, click here.

The Girl Who Hated Books

2010-01-09T10:26:00.002-05:00

I saw this marvelous animated short over on Kerry's blog, and couldn't resist posting it here as well. It's about ten minutes long, and well worth watching.

To Be Surprised Every Day

2010-01-06T09:44:00.004-05:00

Daniel Burgoyne on Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden (one of my all time favourite poetry books):

Nominated for the 2008 Griffin poetry prize, Why Are You So Sad? is the most compelling book of poetry I have read this past year. These are poems that invite perpetual rereading, alive in each instant and open upon return. "To be surprised every day" might have been a better title for the selected poems of a writer whose daily produce seems so effortless and unpretentious, whose constant innovation with the line, with voicing, with the very idea of a poem yields astonishment with the turn of almost every page.

To read the rest of Burgoyne's review, click here.

2009 Reading Roundup & 2010 Reading Resolutions

2010-01-01T12:21:00.006-05:00

The Numbers

I read 112 books in 2009.

95 of those books were fiction and 17 were non-fiction. The fiction included 93 novels and only 2 short story collections. The genre breakdown was as follows: 45 mysteries, 8 fantasy, and 42 literary or general fiction. As far as age-range goes, 43 would be classified as YA or children's literature, and 52 as adult fiction. The non-fiction titles covered a range of topics including literary criticism, biography, memoir, essays, history, politics, food, and running.

61 were published in the 21st century, 21 of those in 2009. 51 were published in the 20th century, only 19 of those pre-1950. None were published before 1900.

73 were written by female authors, 32 by male authors, and 7 were co-authored by a combination of men and women.

24 were translations, mostly of books originally written in Swedish, but also of books written in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Icelandic. Those originally written in English were by Canadian, U.S., Scottish, English, and Irish authors.

79 were books I borrowed from the library; 33 were books I'd recently bought or already owned.

32 were rereads.

Shifts, Continuing Trends, and Gaps to be Addressed

There is much more of an emphasis here on YA/children's literature than is ordinarily the case for me, and there are more rereads than usual. But neither of these developments is surprising given that I've been writing essays on my childhood reading and have, in connection with them, been revisiting many old favourites. This will continue in the new year. What is surprising is the paltry number of short story collections that I read and the absence of a single poetry book. But I'm going to assume that those are temporary aberrations that will correct themselves rather than actual trends that require conscious reversal.

It's good to see that the genre of fantasy has maintained a bit of a foothold, after I laboured under the misperception for so many years that it just wasn't my sort of thing. And it's not all Pratchett this time either⎯in 2009 I belatedly discovered Neil Gaiman and also steam punk, and I plan to read a good deal more of both.

I'm pleased to see 24 translations on my list. In 2006, I read only one work in translation. In 2007, I set out to up that number with my "Reading Across Borders" Challenge and, as a result, my year-end tally included 11 translations. Since then, that number has continued to rise every year without much conscious effort on my part. Long may that trend continue.

Of course, that's not to say that my reading list couldn't use further diversification. It includes more translations than it used to, yes, but it remains dominated by North American and European works and I'd like to change that. Also, it has a resolutely contemporary tilt that I'd like to shift at least a bit. So, on to the resolutions...

Reading Resolutions for 2010

Last year I eschewed resolutions opting instead to read at whim. That generally works out pretty well for me and, for the most part, I'll continue to read that way. But sometimes I need to push myself to expand my reading horizons and I plan to do that to fill some of the aforementioned gaps. So, at a general level, my resolutions for 2010 are to expand my reading beyond the borders of North America and Europe, and to delve back into the 19th century and earlier. My concrete plans for realizing these goals include a challenge, a couple of big reads, and a rereading project.

Dorte's 2010 Global Reading Challenge is the perfect vehicle to expand the continental scope of my reading. I'm opting for the "Medium Challenge" that involves reading two novels each from six continents (spanning 12 different countries).

As for the big reads, there are a few weighty, classic tomes I've long been meaning to read. Indeed, I've resolved to read them before and not made good on the resolutions. But in 2010, I'm having another go. The books in question are Cervantes' Don Quixote, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Isaac Babel's Collected Stories. I've enjoyed dipping into all three but in each instance got distracted well before I reached the end. So, wish me perseverance this time round!

And finally, the rereading project⎯I like to periodically revisit favourite authors in a sustained way and this year it's going to be Louisa May Alcott. Not just Little Women and other beloved books from my childhood, but also her adult works (last read 20 or so years ago), her journals (which I'm not sure I've ever read though I do own them), and a biography or two for supplementary reading.

I'm in for an interesting reading year, I think.

Stay tuned for a post within the next couple of days detailing my ten favourite reads of 2009, and then it will be on to the new!

Reviving the Short Story Reading Challenge for 2010

2009-12-30T19:50:00.002-05:00

I hosted the initial incarnation of the Short Story Reading Challenge in 2008 and was thrilled at the number of readers that I encountered through it who proved to be already devotees of or who were willing to embrace the short story form. I took a year off from challenges this past year, but after several expressions of interest in another round, I'm feeling enthusiastic about a revival of the Short Story Reading Challenge for 2010. So here goes. The challenge could take a number of different forms depending on your level of familiarity with short stories and on the amount of reading time you expect to have at your disposal in the coming year.

Options 1 & 2: If you're short on time, you can simply commit to reading ten short stories by ten different authors over the course of 2010. If you're relatively new to reading short stories, any ten will do. If you’ve already got a lot of short stories under your belt, make it ten short stories by ten writers whose work you have not yet read. How about that—a year long challenge that you could conceivably complete in the course of a day! Of course, I would encourage you not to do that but rather to heed the words of Mavis Gallant, short story writer extraordinaire, who advises:

Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.

Completing this version of the challenge could be as simple as participating in the short story discussions at A Curious Singularity throughout the year (after a lengthy hiatus, A Curious Singularity is also slated for revival in 2010⎯stay tuned for an announcement about that). Or picking up a short story anthology, whether of classic or contemporary stories, or of stories of a particular genre or on a particular theme, and slowly working your way through at least ten of the stories contained within. Of course, my hope is that once you get started you’ll get hooked and you’ll spiral out into other stories by those writers and more!

Options 3 & 4: If you've got a bit more time to devote to this endeavour, you can commit to reading between five and ten short story collections over the course of 2010. Again, if you're a short story novice, the world is your oyster as far as selection is concerned. But if you're a seasoned short story reader, you'll want to choose collections by writers whose short stories you have not yet encountered.

Option 5: This is the custom option under the rubric of which you can tailor your reading list to best meet your personal reading aspirations. You might wish to craft a list that focuses on a particular place, or era, or genre. Or you might wish to include reading about short stories as well as of short stories, for example, such works as Frank O'Connor's The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story. It's entirely up to you.

The blog dedicated to this challenge can be found here. On it, participants can post reading lists, recommendations, and reviews of specific short stories and short story collections, as well as ruminations on and links related to the short story form more generally. If you'd like to participate in the challenge, let me know in the comments section below or via e-mail. Even if you don't plan to participate in the challenge, please post the titles of some of your favourite shorts stories or the names of your favourite short story writers below so that participants in the challenge can benefit from your recommendations.

First Lines Meme

2009-12-27T14:15:00.002-05:00

I've borrowed the First Lines Meme from Melanie. The idea is to reproduce the first line from the first post of each month from the past year and to thereby create a collage that represents your blogging year. I altered it a little by skipping over posts that were quotations and also, after the first one, my ubiquitous library loot posts. If I included all of the latter the result would be awfully repetitive and you would be left with the impression that I spent the entire year lugging enormous stacks of books home from the library. Oh, wait, that's exactly how I spent the year. No matter, on with the slightly revised meme…

January
I stopped in at the library on my way home today and found a tantalizing haul awaiting me on the hold shelf.

February
Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is part memoir, part treatise/meditation on sustainable agriculture and ethical eating.

March
George Orwell's Books v. cigarettes is a recent volume in Penguin's "Great Ideas" series.

April
It's a good thing that so many people raved to me about Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; otherwise, I might not have persevered beyond the first thirty pages.

May
I'm stealing a moment from my end-of-term grading to pop in here and give a quick heads up to fellow North American fans of Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels.

June
I fear that Penelope Fitzgerald and I are not meant for one another.

July
I'm off on a pilgrimage to Mankato (aka Deep Valley), Minnesota to attend the Betsy-Tacy Convention.

August
My jaunt to Sweden began with five days in Uppsala and continues with five days in Stockholm.

September
The first book listed by Nancy Pearl in her recent NPR feature on “Mysteries You Might Have Missed Along the Way” is Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection.

October
With the release last week of new double-volume editions of the final six books in the series, all of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books are back in print.

November
I count myself among the L.M. Montgomery fans who feel a great sense of kinship with Anne Shirley but little or no affinity for Anne Blythe.

December
I began my grand Nancy Drew reread with a visit to the bookstore and, I confess, I felt my heart beat a little faster at first sight of the row of familiar yellow hardbacks on a shelf in the children's section.

The exercise presents an altogether accurate picture of my year in reading, beginning with a focus on food, ending with ambitious rereads of childhood favourites, and covering much else in the middle but with an emphasis on Swedish crime fiction⎯and of course, the summer highlights of my attendance at the Betsy-Tacy Convention in Mankato in July, and my trip to Sweden in August. A good year!

If you're a fellow blogger, why not have a go at the meme and see what it reveals about your reading year?

Talking About Books on the Radio

2009-12-23T15:50:00.003-05:00

I was a guest yesterday on CKLN's "In Other Words" talking with host Jennifer LoveGrove about our favourite reads and some noteworthy literary happenings of 2009. My picks included Their Finest Hour and a Half, The Manual of Detection, Bright-Sided, the Betsy-Tacy reissues, The Blythes are Quoted, and more. You can listen to a recording of the show by clicking on the play button on the player below.

Ursula Le Guin on Tove Jansson

2009-12-12T23:01:00.003-05:00

Ursula Le Guin on Tove Jansson:

Anyone familiar with Jansson knows it would be unwise to dismiss her or patronise her work on any grounds. Her books for children are complex, subtle, psychologically tricky, funny and unnerving; their morality, though never compromised, is never simple. Thus her transition to adult fiction involved no great change. Her everyday Swedes are quite as strange as trolls, and her Swedish village in winter is as beautiful and dangerous as any forest of fantasy.

To read the rest of Le Guin's article, a review of a new translation of Jansson's novel The True Deceiver, click here.

Thackeray on Dickens's A Christmas Carol

2009-12-10T10:25:00.000-05:00

In his introduction to The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits, Les Standiford notes:

Dickens's contemporary, William Makepeace Thackeray, as scathing a critic as ever walked the streets of London, once said of [A Christmas Carol], "Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness."

Standiford's book is full of interesting tidbits like this. I'm a quarter of the way into it now and finding it to be a fascinating bit of literary scholarship. I will no doubt write more about it here when I've reached the end.

A Nancy Drew Mini-Challenge

2009-12-05T14:00:00.001-05:00

I began my grand Nancy Drew reread with a visit to the bookstore and, I confess, I felt my heart beat a little faster at first sight of the row of familiar yellow hardbacks on a shelf in the children's section. However, on closer examination, they were not quite so familiar. Yes, they bore the same cover illustrations that I remembered from my childhood copies on yellow boards. But the contemporary editions are a more garish shade of yellow and the surface is glossy rather than matte. More of a concern though was a copyright date of 1987 inside. Might the changes be more than cosmetic? I suddenly recalled having read about an update of Nancy Drew in the 1980s, and I wondered if I would encounter an altogether different Nancy between these glossy, neon covers than the one I remembered. I decided I ought to do little research before making any purchases. After all, if the point was to revisit my childhood reading, nothing but the original text would do.

I soon learned that a 1980s update had indeed occurred, but that it had not involved any change to existing volumes. The 1980s Nancy who traded in her blue roadster for a Mustang convertible and embraced designer jeans and shopping malls was destined for a new series (The Nancy Drew Files) that launched in 1986, not for retroactive appearances in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories of my youth. So the contemporary editions of the latter would serve my purposes.

But that was not the end of the matter. For along the way I discovered that the Nancy Drew books that I first encountered in the 1970s were not the originals that I fondly believed them to be, but rather a 1960s update of the original volumes from the 1930s and 40s. The impetus for that update was complaints from parents about racial stereotypes, but the revision process went well beyond attempts to eliminate those stereotypes. Beginning in 1959, a substantial overhaul of the first 34 volumes in the series occurred that involved paring down the books by as much as five chapters, to eliminate period details that would date them, and to heighten suspense. Some have argued that these revisions not only denuded the books of much of their atmosphere and hence their charm, but also changed the character of Nancy, and not for the better. The new Nancy, some opined, was less independent, more modest and ladylike, and more respectful of authority.

Now, for my part, as a child reader I found my 1970s Nancy to be an independent, adventurous, and courageous heroine. And, as noted, the point of my current reread is to revisit that Nancy to find out what I make of her from an adult vantage point. But, in light of the above, distraction though it may be, how can I resist investigating the original Nancy? 1930s and 40s editions are not so difficult to come by in thrift shops and second hand bookstores (the illustrations above are scans of the cover and endpapers of one of my recent finds). And Applewood Books has reissued facsimile editions of many of them. So, armed with some of these, I'm poised to engage in a compare and contrast exercise.

This brings me to my mini-challenge. I encourage anyone who's interested in doing so to join me in comparing and contrasting at least two versions of Nancy Drew. That could mean reading two different versions of the same book, for example, the 1930 and the 1959 versions of The Secret of the Old Clock. Or it could mean reading installments from the Nancy Drew series of different eras: the original or the revised Nancy from the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, the 1980s Nancy from the Nancy Drew Files, the grade school Nancy from the Nancy Drew Notebooks, the college Nancy from Nancy Drew on Campus, the up-to-the minute Nancy from the Girl Detective series who apparently drives a hybrid car and wields a cell phone, or, most recently, the manga-style Nancy of the Papercutz Nancy Drew Graphic Novels. There's no deadline for this mini-challenge. All it requires is selecting and reading at least two different versions of Nancy Drew, and posting your thoughts on how they compare. Who's in?

For those interested in reading more about the ever evolving Nancy Drew, I recommend:

Melanie Rehak, Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her;

Carolyn Stewart Dyer & Nancy Tillman Romalov (eds.), Rediscovering Nancy Drew; and,

Michael G. Cornelius & Melanie E. Gregg (eds.), Nancy Drew and Her Sister Sleuths: Essays on the Fiction of Girl Detectives.

Random Thoughts on Paula Danziger's Can You Sue Your Parents For Malpractice?

2009-11-27T14:46:00.006-05:00

Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? held up to rereading much better than the other Danziger books I've revisited of late. It deals with many of the same themes as The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, but more subtly and more effectively. The characters (teachers, parents, cool kids, and rebels) are more complex and believable and, perhaps as a consequence, the family and school dynamics rang truer to me.

I also note that this is one of the few children's/YA books I've come across that portrays lawyers in a positive light. Perhaps it was one of the heretofore elusive sources of my own legal ambitions?

Finally, I must share the following passage because, holy dream date for the bookish girl:

     "Remember when you said you already knew about me?"
     He nods.
     "Well how did you? Was it my charm, wit, and stunning appearance?" I pretend to model.
     He grins. "No, actually it was books."
     "Books?"
     "Yeah, books. I moved here during a vacation and didn't know people. So I spent most of my time reading books from the library. Almost every book I picked out had your name in it. Same with the school library. I figured we probably had the same interests. So I checked up on you a little. If I hadn't run into you and Bonnie that day, I would have met you some other way.
     Books. I can't believe it. Books.

Sadly, that scene will be nearly incomprehensible to contemporary readers who didn't experience a time when one signed books out from the library by writing one's name on the card in the pocket affixed to the inside front cover of the book. (And can I just say that I miss the history lost to us with the shift to a computerized system, although at the same time I can recall the embarrassment that that public paper trail could cause on occasion.)

So, a happy rereading experience all in all, not just for the book itself, but because it rehabilitates Danziger for me somewhat after my disappointment on my recent reread of The Cat Ate My Gymsuit.

Rereading Anne's House of Dreams & Reconciling with the Adult Anne

2009-11-23T23:00:00.004-05:00

I count myself among the L.M. Montgomery fans who feel a great sense of kinship with Anne Shirley but little or no affinity for Anne Blythe. Yet Anne's House of Dreams, which marks the transition from one to the other, has long been one of my favourite books in the series. It was the first one that I owned a copy of, a chunky Canadian Favourites paperback edition that I received for Christmas at age eleven, and its battered state is a testament to the number of times I've read it in the intervening years. Thus I've always fancied it wasn't until the next book, Anne of Ingleside, that Anne and I parted ways. On my latest reread though, it became clear to me that while there are a multitude of reasons that I love Anne's House of Dreams, it was within its pages that my estrangement from Anne occurred. But perhaps along with that realization comes the perspective necessary for reconciliation.

I'll begin with the positive. What is it that makes Anne's House of Dreams one of my favourites?

The Sea: I've often wondered why Anne, who seems to thrill to every other aspect of the natural world, scarcely seems to notice the sea in Avonlea despite living within spitting distance of it. No matter, that lack is more than made up for by its pervasive presence in this book, once Anne and Gilbert arrive in Four Winds. Indeed, in a passage that I had forgotten, Anne muses on this shift:

There was a certain tang of romance and adventure in the atmosphere of their new home which Anne had never found in Avonlea. There, although she had lived within sight of the sea, it had not entered intimately into her life. In Four Winds it surrounded her and called to her constantly. From every window of her new home she saw some varying aspect of it. Its haunting murmur was ever in her ears. Vessels sailed up the harbour every day to the wharf at the Glen, or sailed out again through the sunset, bound for ports that might be half way round the globe. Fishing boats went white-winged down the channel in the mornings, and returned laden in the evenings. Sailors and fisher-folk traveled the red, winding harbour roads, light-hearted and content. There was always a sense of things going to happen⎯of adventures and farings-forth. The ways of Four Winds were less staid and settled and grooved than those of Avonlea; winds of change blew over them; the sea called ever to the dwellers on shore, and even those who might not answer its call felt the thrill and unrest and mystery and possibilities of it.

I'm the sort of impatient reader who usually skips past descriptions of nature, but I linger over and delight in every mention of the sea in this book⎯yes, "the thrill and unrest and mystery and possibilities of it." I'm quite sure that it was thanks to Anne's House of Dreams that I first fell in love with the landscape of Prince Edward Island.

Leslie Moore: I'm ducking as I write this, but I've always found Diana Barry to be an awfully bland character. She's a loyal and good-hearted person, and she certainly provides a rapt audience for Anne's imaginings and escapades. But Anne and Diana have never struck me as having much in common and I've never understood the source of their enduring connection. Whereas, I have no trouble understanding why Anne is drawn to the vivid and complicated Leslie Moore. At one point it's noted: "There was a certain tang and savour to the conversation when Leslie was present that they missed when she was absent." Exactly. She gives that tang and savour to the whole book.

Miss Cornelia: Another of my favourite characters in the series, Miss Cornelia Bryant, is introduced in this book. Like Mrs. Lynde in the earlier books, she's a reliable provider of comic relief (and given the tragedy that threads through the plot, that comic relief has perhaps never been more necessary). But she's no pale imitation of Mrs. Lynde; she's her own woman⎯a true original and an altogether delightful character.

The Plot: Many of Montgomery's books tend toward the episodic but not this one. It's one of her most tightly plotted and suspenseful novels. Admittedly aspects of the plot are melodramatic and there are moments when it's difficult, especially as an adult reader, to maintain one's suspension of disbelief. Nevertheless, I relish the shift and the demonstration of Montgomery's writerly range that it represents.

With so much to recommend it, what is it in this book that caused the rift between the once beloved Anne and me?

Exhibit A: Anne in reply to Paul Irving's mention of seeing some of her work in magazines:

"No. I know what I can do. I can write pretty fanciful little sketches that children love and editors send welcome cheques for. But I can do nothing big. My only chance for earthly immortality is a corner in your Memoirs."

Exhibit B: Anne in response to Gilbert's suggestion that she try her hand at writing up Captain Jim's life-book:

"No. I only wish I could. But it's not in the power of my gift. You know what my forte is, Gilbert⎯the fanciful, the fairylike, the pretty. To write Captain Jim's life-book as it should be written one should be a master of vigorous yet subtle style, a keen psychologist, a born humourist and a born tragedian. A rare combination of gifts is needed. Paul might do it if he were older."

Exhibit C: Anne in response to Owen Ford's mention that he'd been told she's a fellow writer:

"Oh, I do little things for children. I haven't done much since I was married. And I have no designs on the great Canadian novel," laughed Anne. "That is quite beyond me."

Not just a belittling of her own talents, but an assumption on each occasion that a male writer is better suited than she is to the task of writing something substantial and important. Anne was my first writing role model, and this has always felt like betrayal times three. But is it really?

The foregoing statements would be a betrayal of Anne's writing ambitions only if she has writing ambitions. Perhaps she doesn't. Perhaps Anne isn't a writer at all. I found this idea startling when Katrine Poe posited it in an essay on Anne in Nancy Drew and Company: Culture, Gender, and Girls' Series (edited by Sherrie A. Inness). But the more I thought about it, the more I agreed with her. Anne writes stories in Anne of Green Gables as part of the story club that she starts with Diana, Jane, and Ruby. She attempts to write a magazine-worthy story in Anne of Avonlea but, diligently though she works at it, the endeavour doesn't seem to move her much beyond the melodramatic plots and purple prose of her story club efforts. And thereafter, she confines herself to occasional sketches such as the dialogue between flowers that she composes while awaiting rescue from the Copp girls' hen house on the Tory Road. Each instance seems to represent a momentary enthusiasm, not a driving passion to write. Think of the grit and determination with which Anne pursues and achieves the things she really wants: an education, a home, a family. If she had a passion to write, she would write. Her imaginative life is of continuing importance to her, but putting any of it down on paper seems more or less incidental.

If this is true, then the source of the sense of betrayal that this book generates in me is not identification with Anne, but misidentification with Anne. In which case, I ought to be able to let it go, or rather, to let Anne let it go without taking it personally. (And, after all, it's not as if losing Anne as a writing role model in my youth left me bereft. I still had Jo March, and Emily Byrd Starr, and Betsy Ray to sustain me.) So I leave this rereading of Anne's House of Dreams prepared to let Anne be herself, rather than who I wanted her to be when I was a twelve-year-old aspiring writer. Can I maintain this live-and-let-live attitude through Anne of Ingleside, hands down the Anne book I like least, and the rest of the series, and on into the newly published The Blythes Are Quoted? We'll see…

Aritha van Herk on L.M. Montgomery's The Blythes Are Quoted

2009-11-14T10:12:00.003-05:00

Aritha van Herk on what's new about the new L.M. Montgomery book:

The Blythes are Quoted collects 27 short stories about different characters from communities that we recognize as part of Montgomery's map of Prince Edward Island. They are interspersed with poems "authored" by Anne Blythe and her son, Walter Blythe, and accompanied by vignette-like commentaries on those poems from members of Anne's family. These dialogues reflect the Blythe family's memories and cognizance, thus recording an intimate conversation that resonates beyond their circle. More important, they shape this book into an allegory channelled by the medium of sorrow.

[...]

It is Walter's poetic voice, alongside Anne's, that frames this collection, making it less a sunny-side-up Anne redux than a multifaceted ghost story, and a subtle condemnation of the destructiveness of war.

To read the rest of van Herk's excellent review, click here.

"Librarians love good readers..."

2009-11-13T10:40:00.001-05:00

From Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg (a marvelous book which I somehow missed in childhood despite having loved others by Konigsburg):

So it happened that we got to meeting in the library every Saturday morning "at 10:00 a.m. o'clock of the morning," as Jennifer said. We'd check out our books. I usually took out one book besides renewing The Black Book of Witchcraft. Jennifer always took out seven books. I could tell that the librarian liked Jennifer even though Jennifer never said "hello" or "good-bye" or "please" or "thank you." Librarians love good readers, and Jennifer was that. In fact, Jennifer wasn't just a good reader, Jennifer was a serious reader.

Here's hoping that the librarians at my local branch feel the same way about me despite my penchant for requesting all manner of books from far flung branches and hogging a large section of the hold shelf on a regular basis...

Shelf Discovery Challenge

2009-10-27T13:35:00.001-04:00

I've been successfully resisting participation in reading challenges all year, feeling that I needed a bit of respite after getting carried away with them in previous years and thereby transforming my pleasure reading into a source of stress. But Booking Mama's Shelf Discovery Challenge dovetails so nicely with my current project of revisiting the books that mattered most to me in childhood that there's no way I'm going to pass this one up! The challenge simply involves choosing six of the books featured in Lizzie Skurnick's Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, and reading and posting about them between November 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010. Here are my choices:

Judy Blume, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret;
Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy;
E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler;
Beverly Cleary, Fifteen;
Bette Greene, Summer of My German Solider; and,
Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

I'm looking forward to revisiting each of these books, and to comparing notes on the experience with other participants in the challenge.

Book Sale Finds

2009-10-24T21:45:00.000-04:00

I didn't get carried away at today's book sale, but I did come away with some good finds, each just a dollar or two apiece:

C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism;
Alain Robbe-Grillet, For a New Novel: essays on fiction;
Jeffrey Meyers (ed.), The Craft of Literary Biography;
Eve Garnett, Further Adventures of the Family from One End Street;
E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; and,
Carolyn Keene, The Clue in the Diary.

An odd mix of weighty litcrit tomes and kidlit classics that nicely reflects my current preoccupations.

Why I Still Love Encyclopedia Brown

2009-10-21T06:00:00.001-04:00

I've just reread the first of Donald J. Sobol's Encylopedia Brown books, Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, and it is readily apparent to me why I loved these books as a kid, and why kids today continue to embrace them. Here are some of the reasons:

1. Ten-year-old Encyclopedia Brown is an irresistible character. Sobol introduces him thus: "Leroy Brown's head was like an encyclopedia. It was filled with facts he had learned from books. He was like a complete library walking around in sneakers." People are always asking him questions. For example, old ladies stop him in the street to ask his assistance with crossword clues. He always knows the answer, but he pauses a moment before offering it up because he's afraid people won't like him if he comes off as too smart. When Encyclopedia uses logic to help his Police Chief father to solve a case for the first time, his mother suggests that he could be a detective when he grows up. But Encyclopedia figures there's no time like the present and he puts out his shingle immediately. He sets up the Brown Detective Agency in his family’s garage, offering his services for 25 cents a day "plus expenses." Just like that, he transforms what could be a social liability⎯his intelligence and his bookishness⎯into a source of power, not just for himself, but also in service of other kids who are the targets of local bullies Bugs Meaney and his gang.

2. I don't like Bugs Meaney⎯he's a nasty piece of work⎯but I do like his name, and I like that Encyclopedia has an archenemy with whom he does battle.

3. When you make a habit of besting the biggest bully in town, you need protection, so Encyclopedia acquires as a bodyguard the strongest person in Idaville below the age of twelve. That person? Sally Kimball. But brawny though she is, she's no bully. She too uses her powers for good, protecting younger, smaller kids from Bugs Meaney, and also, together with a team of fifth-grade girls, devastating Bugs and his gang in a girls-against-the-boys game of softball. And besides her physical toughness and athletic prowess, Sally is also pretty and smart (almost, but not quite smart enough to stump Encyclopedia with a logical puzzle of her own devising). So she becomes not just Encyclopedia's bodyguard, but also his partner in the detective agency. That's a lot of stereotypes about girls and their capabilities sent tumbling via the character of Sally Kimball, particularly in 1963 when the book was first published.

4. But the greatest pleasure of the book is, just as I recalled in my previous post, the opportunity to follow the clues and solve the cases (10 contained in each book) alongside Encyclopedia. When his mother asks him, after his first success, how he went about it, he explains: "I got it from a book I read about a great detective and his methods of observation." This is a nod to Sherlock Holmes, I think. In any event, a combination of close observation and deductive reasoning is certainly the secret of Encyclopedia's success, and the key to the same for the reader who aspires to solve the cases him or herself before flipping to the back of the book where the solutions are revealed. Some of you know that I'm a lawyer and a law professor. Much is made of the mystical process by which students learn in first year law school how to "think like a lawyer." On reflection it occurs to me, with apologies to my first year law professors, that I may in fact have received my earliest lessons in how to think like a lawyer from Encyclopedia Brown. At the time I couldn't have connected Encyclopedia's brand of logic with the work that lawyers do (I think I may have to credit Nancy Drew with making that connection explicit for me⎯another current reread). But in all likelihood it would have been in the solving of those puzzles that I first developed the taste and talent for logical reasoning that ultimately led me to pursue a legal career.

I'll stop there, but stay tuned for a follow up post on Nancy Drew, and possibly a forthcoming law review article: "Learning to Think Like a Lawyer from Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew". . .

Childhood Reading: Mysteries

2009-10-17T22:00:00.001-04:00

A number of recent experiences/events have conspired to propel me into a new writing project: a series of essays on my childhood reading. The last thing I need is a new writing project, what with so many others (at last count, two novels-in-progress and two substantially researched and partially written legal monographs) already underway. But this excavation of my childhood reading is enormous fun and, as I have as yet attached no particular expectations to it, rather liberating. So I'm running with it.

My current preoccupation is with the mysteries I read as a child. I think that my first mysteries were Donald J. Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown books. My recollection of these is rather hazy. I know that I read many of them but I doubt that I reread them the way I did other favourite series. In retrospect, I realize that Sobol must have been having fun playing off the conventions of adult P.I. novels, with Encyclopedia Brown, "boy detective," setting up a detective agency in his family's garage. If I recall correctly, each book contained a number of mini-mysteries for readers to solve, so the chief pleasure of them was not a sustained narrative, but the puzzle-solving exercise⎯an aspect of adult mysteries that still appeals to me.

I think that from there it was on to Nancy Drew. Again, my recollection of these is hazy, although I know I read many of them and, indeed, even owned several. Enid Blyton's Famous Five novels followed shortly thereafter. I remember my brother and I purchasing stacks of these and sharing them back and forth on our summer trips to Scotland to visit my grandparents.

Of course, there was also Lousie Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy, one of my childhood favourites. But I'm inclined to think of Harriet more as an aspiring writer than an aspiring sleuth, the whole spy thing notwithstanding. Still, I'm going to reread it together with some Encyclopedia Browns, and Nancy Drews, and Famous Fives, to see if it fits somehow. For that's what I'm doing now in service of my essay on this topic⎯rereading several of each. You can see why I'm having such fun with this! There are eight Encyclopedia Brown books, and two Nancy Drews already making their way to me via my public library's hold system. And I have several of those battered paperback Famous Five novels still on my shelves, handy for revisiting.

When did I make the leap to adult mysteries, and where did I begin with those? I'm going to have to think a bit longer to pinpoint the when, but I'm quite sure it was straight from the foregoing children's mysteries to Agatha Christie. I remember that a friend from camp loaned me some Ellery Queen books at one point, but I don't think they hooked me the way that the Christies did.

Did you read mysteries in childhood? Which ones and why those? If you moved on from there to adult mysteries, which ones did you sample first?

Betsy-Tacy Giveaway Results!

2009-10-16T13:30:00.001-04:00

My apologies for being so slow to draw names for this giveaway. I was waiting for the copies of the books that I'd ordered to arrive so that I would be able to mail them off immediately to the lucky winners. As you can see from the above photo, they have indeed arrived. They make an impressive looking stack, do they not?

I'm pleased that so many people are interested in reading these books, and I wish that I had a copy to give to everyone who entered. Alas, I had to narrow it down to four. I did so using an online fruit machine thingy to randomly pick names from the list of entrants. And without further ado, the four winners are:

Suko
A Bookshelf Monstrosity
Chicklit
Dorothy W.

Please email your mailing address to me at katesbookblog@yahoo.ca and I will pop your book in the mail pronto. Enjoy!

A New Discworld Novel

2009-10-13T12:45:00.005-04:00

Today is the Canadian release date for Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel, Unseen Academicals, and I confess to being positively giddy at the prospect of getting my hands on a copy. (It came out in the US last week and in the UK the week before that, so wherever you are, there's a good chance that you too can obtain a copy.) In it, apparently, the wizards of Ankh Morpork's Unseen University are compelled by Lord Vetinari to revive their ancient football tradition and, what's more, they must win the big game without the aid of magic. An irresistible premise, no? My very favourite Discworld novels are the ones that centre on the City Watch. And the novels featuring the witches are a close second. But as an academic and a football fan, I'm confident that I'll find this latest Discworld installment highly entertaining as well.

That's the UK/Canadian cover on the left, and the US one on the right. I think I prefer the former. And you?

The Charms of Anne of Windy Poplars

2009-10-09T09:36:00.002-04:00

I've heard many people over the years name Anne of Windy Poplars as their least favourite book in L.M. Montgomery's Anne series. I run hot and cold on Anne; there are a number of installments in the series that I love, and others that I skip over now on every reread. But I believe I go against the grain in counting Windy Poplars among the loves.

Windy Poplars covers the three years that elapse between Anne and Gilbert's engagement at the end of Anne of the Island and their wedding at the beginning of Anne's House of Dreams. They're apart for these years, with Gilbert at medical school in Kingsport, and Anne serving as Principal of Summerside High School, and the novel is comprised entirely of letters from Anne to Gilbert. They're not love letters⎯whenever Anne is feeling romantic, we get only suggestive ellipses⎯but chatty, thoughtful, and humorous descriptions of this new place and the new people she encounters there.

For those for whom the Anne/Gilbert romance is a central attraction of the series, this is just wasted time. I'm not one of those people. I confess that I've always found Gilbert rather dull⎯truth to tell, the only one of Montgomery's romantic leads that I've got any time for is Barney Snaith in The Blue Castle. But, major caveat here, the tenor of the correspondence in Windy Poplars, even though we get only one side of it, makes me like Gilbert more, because it so clearly conveys the depth of their friendship. It convinces me that Gilbert truly is the one for her.

Because it's a novel in letters, Anne is the narrator of the tale, and this is Anne's voice as we've not heard it before. Anne's over-exuberance in the earlier books can make her a bit exhausting at times. But here, although she's still that spirited Anne, we get her in contemplative moments, and we see her having a sense of humour about herself and those around her. And, we get to witness Anne's facility with her pen first hand. If she had employed these storytelling skills in her public writing rather than ultimately selling herself short, on the eve of her wedding, as one who "can write pretty, fanciful little sketches that children love" but "nothing big," then she might well have had a successful writing career echoing that of her creator.

Finally it's the humour in this book that is the major draw for me. In previous books Montgomery has depicted the adult shenanigans of small communities with the same sharp-eyed insight and wit, but mostly as a backdrop to the doings of precocious children. Here, it's front and centre in a book which therefore strikes me as a very adult one. I relish the depiction of the inner working of Summerside society, in particular the role within it of the ruling family, the Pringles, who initially do their best shut Anne out. And although the cast of characters is large, all are fully realized and altogether loveable or pleasurably hateable or an intriguing in between.

I'm particularly fond of the widows (Aunt Chatty and Aunt Kate) and the inimitable Rebecca Dew with whom Anne boards at Windy Poplars. And so, I leave you with a description of them from near the beginning of the book as Anne is just settling in to her new digs:

"The widows are going to wear well. Every day I like them better. Aunt Kate doesn't believe in reading novels, but informs me that she does not propose to censor my reading-matter. Aunt Chatty loves novels. She has a 'hidy-hole' where she keeps them ... she smuggles them in from the town library ... together with a pack of cards for solitaire and anything else she doesn't want Aunt Kate to see. It is in a chair seat which nobody but Aunt Chatty knows is more than a chair seat. She has shared the secret with me, because, I strongly suspect, she wants me to aid and abet her in the aforesaid smuggling. There shouldn't really be any need for hidy-holes at Windy Poplars, for I never saw a house with so many mysterious cupboards. Though to be sure, Rebecca Dew won't let them be mysterious. She is always cleaning them out ferociously. 'A house can't keep itself clean,' she says sorrowfully when either of the widows protests. I am sure she would make short work of a novel or a pack of cards if she found them. They are both a horror to her orthodox soul. Rebecca Dew says cards are the devil's books and novels even worse. The only things Rebecca ever reads, apart from her Bible, are the society columns of the Montreal Guardian. She loves to pore over the houses and furniture and doings of millionaires.

Are there any other Windy Poplars fans among you?

Betsy-Tacy Fans and the Great World

2009-10-07T06:00:00.009-04:00

Betsy and the Great World is the ninth book in Maud Hart Lovelace's ten volume Betsy-Tacy series. It begins in January 1914 with 21-year-old Betsy Ray starting up the gangplank to the S.S. Columbic, then docked in Boston harbor but shortly bound for Europe. Two and a half years have passed since the end of the preceding book, Betsy and Joe, and much has changed. Most startling on first reading for fans of the series is finding Betsy embarking on this adventure alone. Best friend Tacy is conspicuously absent, as are Tib and Carney and the rest of Betsy's Deep Valley Crowd. And the devoted Ray family⎯parents Bob and Jule, and sisters Julia and Margaret⎯is nowhere in evidence.

But we soon learn that these characters are as supportive of Betsy as ever, albeit now from a distance. Indeed, the trip to Europe was her father's idea. He could see that Betsy had gotten off on the wrong foot at college, that she hadn't been happy there, and concluded that perhaps a different sort of education would serve her better. Initially he suggested the sort of guided tour that her older sister had taken a few years previously, but Betsy persuaded him otherwise:

"No, Papa!" Betsy knelt beside him, her hands on his knee. "Guided tours are all right for some people, but not for a writer. I ought to stay in just two or three places. Really live in them, learn them. Then if I want to mention London, for example, in a story, I would know the names of the streets and how they run and the buildings and the atmosphere of the city. I could move a character around in London just as though it were Minneapolis. I don't want to hurry from place to place with a party the way Julia did."

And this is just what Betsy does, settling in for a time in Munich, then Venice, then Paris, and finally London (where the start of WWI ultimately cuts her travels short), meeting new people, making the most of every experience, and collecting story material all the while.

Fans of the earlier books can't help but miss Tacy and the Crowd and the Ray family. After all, the fun and the warmth of these friendships and this family is a major part of the appeal of the Betsy-Tacy series as a whole. But at the same time, it's exhilarating to witness Betsy becoming increasingly independent and ever more confident in her abilities as a writer. Betsy's journey in this book, both literal and emotional, was a great source of inspiration to me as a young reader and remains so still. As a world traveler, an independent woman, and a writer dedicated to her craft, Betsy was and is a heroine to emulate. This is why Betsy and the Great World is my favourite installment in the Betsy-Tacy series. And it doesn't hurt that it has one of the most satisfying endings that I've encountered in any book. I cry every time.

I'm not alone in taking inspiration from Betsy's travels. I canvassed the membership of Maud-L on this point and learned that a number of my friends and fellow Betsy-Tacy fans had been emboldened by Betsy to embark on similar adventures, some following directly in Betsy's footsteps, others traveling to destinations of their own but feeling a kinship with Betsy while doing so, and even adopting Betsyish turns of phrase in describing their adventures to loved ones back home. Here are some of the travel tales they generously shared with me:

Sallie K.: "My first trip to Europe in 1967 was greatly influenced by Betsy's trip in 1914. I wanted to go by ship, and there were still passenger ships plying the Atlantic Ocean in 1967, so I booked passage on the Queen Mary (yep, the same one that now resides in Long Beach CA). Before I left for New York City, my sister who had introduced me to the Betsy Tacy book series, gave me a package that included different presents to be opened each day of my voyage to Southampton England. The first was a small, leather-bound journal entitled "My Trip" - almost like Betsy's from Julia and Paige - and in which I wrote all during my stay in Great Britain. I didn't do as much traveling that first trip as Betsy did, but spent my whole 6 months in Great Britain exploring it from the tip of Cornwall to the top of John O'Groats in Scotland. On a later trip, also by ship, I visited Munich and Oberammergau in memory of Maud Hart Lovelace and her fictional character, Betsy Ray."

Wendy reports having visited all of the Betsy and the Great World sites in Munich, most of them in Venice, and some in London, and she singles out as highlights "seeing Marco's choir stalls at San Giorgio Maggiore and going to Sonneberg." Of the latter she writes: "Even in 1999, I was delighted to find that solo lady tourists in Sonneberg were so rare that people would pop their heads out of their houses to stare at me as I walked by."

Margaret: "Somehow, in reading all the Betsy-Tacy books, I had missed out on Betsy and The Great World. When I finally read it, it immediately became one of my favorites in the series, and I have probably reread it the most. I like to travel, and I have been to Paris more than once. One of my favorite memories of the city is the time a friend of mine and I were just wandering around the streets, shopping and looking at things. We turned a corner and unexpectedly there it was-- onze rue Scribe, the AMEX office. 'That's where Betsy went!' I said excitedly to my friend, who had no idea what I was talking about."

Jen: "I sent the following e-mail to my beloved husband after my day in Athens, pretending to be Betsy in the Great World: 'Our deck is full of drying underpants. Don't ask. Mom got us kicked out of our room this morning. Don't ask. At an outdoor cafe, a handsome Greek man put his hand in my hair and stroked my head. Ask all you want, I won't tell.' :) Travel is SO broadening!"

Ruth: "I took my very first cruise this summer (I'm almost 58) to Alaska. It was wonderful because I was partially raised there and was going back more or less. Also got to see my uncle. But my Betsy experience was sitting out on the deck chair on my balcony on the ship in the cold air, with a woolen deck blanket over me! (It took me a day to figure out that the nice 'afghans' on the couch were actually deck blankets!) And they were much appreciated! So I sat there and felt like Betsy on the Columbic and thought how wonderful it was to be there!"

Susann: "What I most love about Betsy and the Great World is that we get to see Betsy traveling ALONE. She makes friends and has companions for part of her journey but, really, Betsy is on her own, literally and metaphorically navigating her own course. Much as I enjoy traveling with friends and family, I also love to set out by myself. You see things differently when you're on your own. Betsy's solo trip to Sonneberg reminds me of my trip to Salzburg, when I was a 19-year-old student spending a semester in London. Just as Betsy indulged her inner child to visit the 'doll center of the world,' I knew that I couldn't leave Europe without paying homage to The Sound of Music. Folks thought I was a little nuts to head all the way to Austria, just for a Julie Andrews movie. But I was so excited to set off on my 'crazy expedition,' follow my heart's desire, and see one more corner of the Great World."

It's irresistible, is it not, a book that makes you want to travel the world?

(Thanks to TLC Book Tours for inviting me to participate in the Betsy-Tacy blog tour.)

Betsy-Tacy High School Books Giveaway!

2009-10-06T13:30:00.001-04:00

With the release last week of new double-volume editions of the final six books in the series, all of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy Tacy books are back in print.

The series begins with Betsy's fifth birthday in Minnesota circa 1897 and, in ten volumes, documents her childhood and high school years, her early struggles to establish herself as a writer, her solo trip into the Great World (Germany, Italy, France, and England), and finally her wedding and the beginning of her married life. The books become steadily more sophisticated in style and content as Betsy matures, thereby continuing to appeal to young readers as they grow up alongside Betsy and her friends.

If you're a regular visitor to this blog, you'll know that these books were childhood favourites of mine, and that I continue to love them beyond reason. The early books, which are utterly charming reads for children, have been more or less continually in print in recent years. But, until now, not so the high school books and beyond. And, while I'm fond of the early books, the later ones have a special place in my head and my heart. They are the ones that I revisit again and again as an adult. So, it makes me extraordinarily happy to see them back in print and available in stores for other readers to discover and, hopefully, embrace as I and countless others have done.

The new editions consist of three double volumes, each containing two installments in the series. This doubling up is a good thing given the addictive quality of the series--very hard to stop after just one! And it gives each volume a satisfying heft which, I like to think, will be appealing to young readers who have grown up on Harry Potter and the Twilight series and expect a lot of book in their books. The covers feature the same charming Vera Neville drawings that graced the originals. And, as added bonuses, each volume also features a foreword by a famous fan (Laura Lippman, Meg Cabot, and Anna Quindlen respectively) and an afterword that provides some background information on the real people and places that the fictional characters and settings are based on.

There is much to celebrate here, and I'm celebrating with a giveaway! I've purchased a few extra copies of the first volume, Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself which takes Betsy through her freshman and sophomore years of high school, to give to readers of this blog. Are you interested in receiving a copy? Are you a neophyte, ready to embark on your first ever read of a Betsy-Tacy book? Or perhaps you'd like a copy not for yourself but for a daughter, granddaughter, niece, or young friend who you think would enjoy these books? Don't worry about starting in the middle of the series if you've not read the early books. The high school books can stand on their own and I actually think they're a better introduction to the series for older readers. But perhaps you have read the early books, and you're now keen to encounter the high school Betsy? Or maybe you loved the series as a child and would like to take this opportunity revisit your old friends in Deep Valley? Whatever the source of your interest, let me know in the comments section below if you'd like a copy of this book. If more people express an interest than I've got copies, I'll draw names on Friday night.

Good luck! And stay tuned for another Betsy-Tacy post tomorrow, this one focused on my favourite book in the series, Betsy and the Great World, as part of a Betsy-Tacy blog tour which is currently underway.

UPDATE: You can find the list of winners here.

Latest Library Loot

2009-10-03T22:50:00.001-04:00

I found this marvellous lot of books awaiting me on the library hold shelf today (I'm too lazy to think of clever ways to describe books I haven't yet read, so I'll just paste a few paragraphs from the publishers' catalogue copy below to give you an idea of what delights I'm in for):

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt: "The Children's Book is the absorbing story of the close of what has been called the Edwardian summer: the deceptively languid, blissful period that ended with the cataclysmic destruction of World War I. In this compelling novel, A.S. Byatt summons up a whole era, revealing that beneath its golden surface lay tensions that would explode into war, revolution and unbelievable change — for the generation that came of age before 1914 and, most of all, for their children. The novel centres around Olive Wellwood, a fairy tale writer, and her circle, which includes the brilliant, erratic craftsman Benedict Fludd and his apprentice Phillip Warren, a runaway from the poverty of the Potteries; Prosper Cain, the soldier who directs what will become the Victoria and Albert Museum; Olive's brother-in-law Basil Wellwood, an officer of the Bank of England; and many others from every layer of society. A.S. Byatt traces their lives in intimate detail and moves between generations, following the children who must choose whether to follow the roles expected of them or stand up to their parents' 'porcelain socialism.'"

Brooklyn by Colm Toíbín: "It is Enniscorthy in the southeast of Ireland in the early 1950s. Eilis Lacey is one among many of her generation who cannot find work at home. Thus when a job is offered in America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving her family and country, Eilis heads for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady’s intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen her isolation. Slowly, however, the pain of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of her new life — until she begins to realize that she has found a sort of happiness. As she falls in love, news comes from home that forces her back to Enniscorthy, not to the constrictions of her old life, but to new possibilities which conflict deeply with the life she has left behind in Brooklyn."

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall: "Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong."

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker: "The Anthologist is narrated by Paul Chowder -- a once-in-a-while-published kind of poet who is writing the introduction to a new anthology of poetry. He's having a hard time getting started because his career is floundering, his girlfriend Roz has recently left him, and he is thinking about the great poets throughout history who have suffered far worse and deserve to feel sorry for themselves. He has also promised to reveal many wonderful secrets and tips and tricks about poetry, and it looks like the introduction will be a little longer than he'd thought. What unfolds is a wholly entertaining and beguiling love story about poetry: from Tennyson, Swinburne, and Yeats to the moderns (Roethke, Bogan, Merwin) to the staff of The New Yorker, what Paul reveals is astonishing and makes one realize how incredibly important poetry is to our lives. At the same time, Paul barely manages to realize all of this himself, and the result is a tenderly romantic, hilarious, and inspired novel."

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore: "Set just after the events of September 2001, it is a story about Tassie Keltjin, a twenty-year-old making her way in a new world and coming of age. Tassie is a “smile-less” girl from the plains of the mid-west. She has come to a university town, her brain on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, and Simone de Beauvoir. In between semesters, she takes a part-time job as a nanny for a family that seems mysterious and glamorous to her. Though her liking for children tends to dwindle into boredom, Tassie begins to care for, and protect, their newly adopted little girl as her own. As the year unfolds, she is drawn even deeper into the world of the child and her hovering parents, and her own life back home becomes alien to her. As life reveals itself dramatically and shockingly, Tassie finds herself forever changed — less the person she once was, and more and more the stranger she feels herself to be."

The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling: "1855: The Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven cybernetic Engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time. And three extraordinary characters race toward a rendezvous with history - and the future: Sybil Gerard - fallen woman, politicians tart, daughter of a Luddite agitator; Edward "Leviathan" Mallory - explorer and paleontologist. Laurence Oliphant - diplomat, mystic, and spy. Their adventure begins with the discovery of a box of punched Engine cards of unknown origin and purpose. Cards someone wants badly enough to kill for..."

Add to these a couple of DVDs of Inspector Lewis episodes, and you can see that I'm in for some excellent Fall entertainment courtesy of my local library.

Paul Auster on Samuel Beckett

2009-09-06T13:14:00.003-04:00

Paul Auster on Samuel Beckett & literary mentorship:

"We weren't friends at all," he says. "I mean, you can't call it friendship, it was hardly even an acquaintanceship, but there was some feeling of solidarity, I felt, from him towards me, and I appreciated it very much. And I think now that I'm an old fellow and I see young writers, you know, there is always this feeling of tenderness and fear that you have for them.

For the rest of the Auster profile in the Irish Times from whence this snippet comes, click here.

Symposium on Book Blogging

2009-09-06T11:17:00.005-04:00

There's a very thought-provoking symposium under way on "The Function of Book Blogging at the Present Time," conceived and hosted by D.G. Myers of A Commonplace Blog and Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence. Myers & Kurp have put a series of questions designed to provoke reflection on "the past, present, and future of this youngest of literary genres" to a number of book bloggers. Six responses have now been posted, and I understand that there are more to come.

You can find Myers' introduction to the symposium here, and the first six responses from participating bloggers at the links below:

Miriam Burstein (The Little Professor);
Frank Wilson (Books, Inq.);
Benjamin Stein (Turmsegler);
Michael Gilleland (Laudator Temporis Acti);
Mark Athitakis (American Fiction Notes); and,
Walter Aske (Elberry’s Ghost).

The symposium has me mulling afresh over some of the big questions of book blogging and has also exposed me to some bloggers of whom I hadn't previously been aware and whose blogs I'm now keen to read. If you haven't already, I encourage you to stop by A Commonplace Blog and Anecdotal Evidence to read the contributions of the participants and to chime in with your own views in the comments sections.

The Art of Selective Subtraction

2009-09-05T18:57:00.003-04:00

Will Ferguson on the distinction between fiction and travel writing:

I've always said that fiction and travel writing are comparable to two types of sculpturing. Fiction is like working with clay; you build something up from a single character, an image, a scent. It's the art of addition. Nonfiction, and travel writing in particular, is like working in stone, cutting away everything that doesn't fit. You start big and pare down, reducing the mass of possibilities, trying to decide what matters, what doesn't. Any destination might conjure up a number of vastly different books, even from the same author. Focus on one through-line instead of another and the book – like the journey – will suddenly veer off, leading you in startlingly new directions. Or over the edge of a cliff. Travel writing is the art of selective subtraction.

Click here to read the rest.

Neil Gaiman's Library

2009-09-04T10:52:00.003-04:00

Click here to check out Neil Gaiman's bookshelves at shelfari. I am overwhelmed with envy and admiration. I wouldn't dare put my books in the basement for fear of the damp, but I want just such a library somewhere in my house!

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry

2009-09-01T11:10:00.004-04:00

The first book listed by Nancy Pearl in her recent NPR feature on Mysteries You Might Have Missed Along the Way is Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection. I didn't miss that one⎯it was one of my favourite reads of the year so far. But I did miss telling you about it, so I'm going to piggyback on Pearl's recommendation to do so belatedly now. Pearl beautifully sums up this very difficult to sum up book as follows:

Jedediah Berry's The Manual of Detection is the sort of novel that is impossible to characterize with any accuracy. An amalgamation of literary fiction, fantasy and mystery, it echoes with tributes to the writing of Borges, Calvino, Auster and Kafka. But for all that it may resemble, The Manual of Detection is entirely original. Set in a building known only as The Agency in an unknown, somewhat eerie city, the novel features Charles Unwin, a finicky, routine-driven clerk who works for a famous detective named Sivart.

One day, everything in Unwin's ordered life is thrown into disarray when Sivart's boss is murdered, Sivart disappears and Unwin is unwillingly promoted to detective from his lowly position as a clerk (a job he looks forward to every day). The only way Unwin can get his beloved clerkship back is to find Sivart, but while trying to do so, he uncovers the existence of a dastardly plot to take over the world by an organization bent on infiltrating people's dreams.

It sounds promising, does it not? And that promise is fully realized in the novel. Here's a list of overlapping reasons why I loved The Manual of Detection:

1. The plot is crazily inventive. There were moments when it was all so surreal that I just let myself drift (dreamlike) and didn't even try to follow the thread of the plot. But then some connection would spark for me and I'd be fiercely puzzling it all out again. The latter mode of reading was a cerebral pleasure, and the former, just a pleasure.

2. The novel is marvelously atmospheric. The universe that Berry has created here is one that I relished inhabiting. I didn't want to leave it at the end. (For a taste of it, click over to the book's website which somehow conjures up the same mood.)

3. The novel both is The Manual of Detection and is about The Manual Detection. I'm a sucker for books within books, and this one is framed very cleverly and with a deeply satisfying attention to detail. For example, early on one of the characters makes reference to page 96 of the Manual. I immediately turned to page 96 of the novel and was pleased by what I found there.

4. It is full of arresting images that have stuck with me weeks afterward, chief among them, our reluctant hero Charles Unwin bicycling in the rain under an umbrella ingeniously hooked to his handlebars.

I can't wait to see what fabulous book next emerges from the fertile brain of Jedediah Berry. In the meantime, I'll likely reread this one a time or two.

Library Loot 9: Borrowing from Afar

2009-08-30T12:15:00.002-04:00

Last Wednesday, I blogged from Sweden about historical figures in whom my interest had been piqued by museum visits. I kept an eye out for further information on them as I browsed Stockholm's bookstores, but, being unable to read Swedish, my options were limited. So I also flipped open my trusty netbook and browsed the Toronto Public Library catalogue from afar. Sure enough, there were some tomes listed there that seemed likely to satisfy my curiosity, and I placed a few holds. Less than a week later, I arrived back home to find three of those books already awaiting me on the hold shelf. Is it any wonder that I love the library? Here are the titles and authors, along with a descriptive paragraph from each book jacket:

Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World by David King: "What do Zeus, Apollo, and the gods of Mount Olympus have in common with Odin, Thor, and the gods of Valhalla? What do these, in turn, have to do with the shades of Hades, the pharaohs of Egypt, and the glories of fabled Atlantis? In 1679, Olof Rudbeck stunned the world with the answer: They could all be traced to an ancient lost civilization that once thrived in the far north of Rudbeck’s native Sweden. He would spend the last thirty years of his life hunting for the evidence that would prove this extraordinary theory." (I'm already a third of the way into this one, and finding Rudbeck's life and his theories every bit as fascinating as I anticipated.)

Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric by Veronica Buckley: "She was born on a bitterly cold December night in 1626 and, in the candlelight, mistakenly declared a boy. On her father's death six years later, she inherited the Swedish throne. She was tutored by Descartes, yet could swear like the roughest soldier. She was painted a lesbian, a prostitute, a hermaphrodite, and an atheist; in that tumultuous age, it is hard to determine which was the most damning label. She was learned but restless, progressive yet self-indulgent; her leadership was erratic, her character unpredictable. Sweden was too narrow for her ambition. No sooner had she enjoyed the lavish celebrations of her official coronation at twenty-three than she abdicated, converting to Catholicism (an act of almost foolhardy independence and political challenge) and leaving her cold homeland behind for an extravagant new life in Rome. Christina, Queen of Sweden, longed fatally for adventure."

Strindberg: A Biography by Michael Meyer: "Called 'that greatest genius of all modern dramatists' by Eugene O'Neill, Strindberg was one of the founders of the modern theater--a prolific author whose works prefigured those of Pinter, Beckett, and Ionesco. Yet, despite their admiration by such contemporaries as Ibsen, Chekhov, and George Bernard Shaw, Strindberg's works were misunderstood and rejected by his fellow Swedes, who throughout his life considered him a crank and a failure. In this definitive biography, Michael Meyer, the foremost translator of Strindberg's plays into English, presents a full and honest portrait of Strindberg as man and artist."

So, I'm back home in Toronto, but my education on Swedish history and literature continues.

Life According to Literature Meme

2009-08-29T12:05:00.000-04:00

I couldn't resist borrowing this one from Dorothy. Like her, I didn't find it so difficult. My reading list so far this year provided multiple possible responses to most of the questions. Being a mystery aficionado, I had an especially broad range of choices for the types of death one! You can see that I took the easy way out there...

Here are the instructions: "Using only books you have read this year (2009), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It's a lot harder than you think!"

Describe yourself: Lonely Werewolf Girl (Martin Millar).

How do you feel: The First Person & Other Stories (Ali Smith).

Describe where you currently live: Toronto Places (Mark Baraness).

If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Betsy and The Great World (Maud Hart Lovelace).

Your favorite form of transportation: Why We Run (Bernd Heinrich).

Your best friend is: Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren).

You and your friends are: Human Voices (Penelope Fitzgerald).

What's the weather like: Arctic Chill (Arnaldur Indridason).

You fear: The Abominable Man (Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo).

What is the best advice you have to give: What to Eat: An Aisle-By-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating (Marion Nestle).

Thought for the day: Heaven is Small (Emily Schultz).

How you would like to die: Sweet Death, Kind Death (Amanda Cross).

My soul's present condition: A Hat Full of Sky (Terry Pratchett).

If you fancy having a go at this one, consider yourself tagged!

"...one good fragment for every 500 nails..."

2009-08-28T21:00:00.000-04:00

Andrew Brown on becoming an English writer while living in Sweden:

In the busy banging solitude of the factory I taught myself to write English. I hardly spoke it to anybody then. I worked in Swedish, I was married in Swedish; I thought and dreamed in Swedish too: it's still the language in which I think of fishing technicalities. But I still read mostly English books, and I wanted to become an English writer. The first thing I bought when we got married was an ancient office typewriter, with its base machined from solid brass, which went on an old desk borrowed from Anita's younger sister. I knew nothing about myself and very little about the world so it was hard to find a subject. But as I worked with the planks, hauling and banging and building the boxes, phrases would appear to me. If they were good, I grabbed the thick pencil used for marking wood and scribbled them on the cardboard dividers from the cases of nails. This allowed me one good fragment for every 500 nails I fired in. When I came home, the breast pocket of my overalls might have half a dozen of these bits inside it: sawdust would fall from the seams as I pulled out the cardboard strips and placed them beside the typewriter.

From Andrew Brown, Fishing in Utopia: Sweden and the Future that Disappeared (2008).

Travels in Sweden (Actual and Literary)

2009-08-26T03:57:00.004-04:00

My jaunt to Sweden began with five days in Uppsala and continues with five days in Stockholm. As far as reading in Sweden goes, in Uppsala, my mind turned primarily to biography thanks to some extraordinary tales I heard from a museum guide. Queen Kristina (1626-1689), for example, sounds like quite a character, a queen who consorted with philosophers and scientists, was very supportive of the university, and ultimately abdicated the throne to follow her religious convictions. I'd like to learn more about her. And then there was a pair of Uppsala professors who were highly accomplished and also extremely eccentric. First to capture my imagination was Olof Rudbeck (1630-1702), simultaneously professor of something like nine different subjects as disparate as medicine, music, mathematics, and history. He was the builder of the extraordinary Anatomical Theatre where public autopsies were conducted for the edification of medical students and the entertainment of tourists. I'd like to read a biography of him and also some of his own writing. I wonder if his final work in which he posited Sweden as the cradle of civilization has been translated into English? And also Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), father of modern botany, travel writer, and self-marketer extraordinaire. I'd like to learn something of his life, and also to read his account of his travels in Lapland. However, possibly the coolest thing that I saw in an Uppsala museum put me in mind of an English rather than a Swedish writer. I couldn't help wondering if the amazing Augsburg Art Cabinet served as the inspiration for Terry Pratchett's Cabinet of Curiosities. Click over to a virtual tour of it, and see for yourself.

In Stockholm, my literary preoccupation is fiction. I'm dashing about looking for English translations of Swedish crime writers whose books are difficult to come by in North America. And I'm also stocking up on translations of such Swedish classics as August Strindberg's The Red Room, Kerstin Ekman's Witches' Rings, and Hjalmar Soderberg's Martin Birck's Youth. Incidentally, the picture that heads this post is a portrait of August Strindberg painted by Edvard Munch which I had the pleasure of viewing in the Moderna Museet yesterday. And in keeping with the theme, today I'm planning a trip to Strindberg's house.

I'll post a fuller account of my travels when I get back home to Toronto. But in the meantime, I may post the odd quotation here from my new Swedish books.

L.M. Montgomery on the Short Story

2009-08-13T20:26:00.002-04:00

From a journal entry by L.M. Montgomery dated January 17, 1911:

...I tried to do a little at revising a short story this evening. Mr. Page wants to bring out a volume of short stories sometime and I am re-writing such of them as are worth including in such a volume. I think very few of them are. Most of my short stories were written as "pot-boilers." I should like to write some good short stories. I consider it a very high form of art. It is easier to write a good novel than a good short story...

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume II: 1910-1921 (edited by Mary Rubio & Elizabeth Waterston).

Learning's Best Justification

2009-08-11T15:03:00.004-04:00

From Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels:

I knew I was going to like Prof. the Rev. Darcourt. He seemed to think learning could be amusing, and that heavy people needed stirring up. Like Rabelais, of whom even educated people like Parlabane had such a stupid opinion. Rabelais was gloriously learned because learning amused him, and so far as I am concerned that is learning's best justification. Not the only one, but the best.

As you might gather, I've begun a reread of The Rebel Angels and am thoroughly enjoying it...

15 Toronto Books in 15 Minutes

2009-08-09T23:00:00.003-04:00

I did a general version of this meme a while back, but Amy Lavender Harris, valiant champion of Toronto literature, tagged me with this Toronto-centric version on Facebook, and of course I can't resist.

Here are her instructions:

"NB: I've altered this meme to focus on Toronto literature and tagged 15 people.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag some friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose."

And here is my selectively annotated response:

1. L.M. Montgomery, Jane of Lantern Hill.

This novel probably provided my first encounter with Toronto. It is often described as if the portrait of Toronto in it is unremittingly negative, simply a foil to the delights of Prince Edward Island. But even at its most negative, Grandmother's crumbling gothic Toronto, it is rather compelling. And let's not forget that Jane does find a Toronto neighbourhood, and house, to love at the end (apparently one modeled on LMM's own house in Swansea).

2. Morley Callaghan, Such is My Beloved.
3. Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels.

I don't think Toronto is explicitly named as the setting in either of these novels, and reading them before having been here, I didn't recognize the city. But both are old favourites and I'm keen to reread them now that I know Toronto well.

4. William Burrill, Hemingway: The Toronto Years.

I also read this one before setting foot in Toronto, and read it to learn about Hemingway not about Toronto, being totally caught up in the lost generation at the time. Again though, I'd like to reread it for the insights it has to offer into Toronto in that period.

5. Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride.
6. Dennis Lee, Civil Elegies.
7. Katherine Govier, Fables of Brunswick Avenue.
8. Russell Smith, How Insensitive.

I like to get acquainted with a new city through its literature and for that reason I sought out a lot of Toronto books shortly after I moved here. These four (two novels, a story collection, and a book of poetry) were standouts.

9. Rosemary Sullivan, Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen.
10. Rosemary Sullivan, The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out.
11. Douglas Fetherling, Way Down in the Belly of the Beast: A Memoir of the Seventies.

I read these two biographies and this memoir when doing a bit of research into literary Toronto in the sixties and seventies. Each brought different aspects of that time, place, and subculture vividly to life.

12. Maureen Jennings, Except the Dying.
13. Pat Capponi, Last Stop Sunnyside.

Good crime fiction is often lauded for the sense of place it evokes. These two, each the first in a series, illuminate very different Torontos: Victorian Toronto in Jennings' Inspector Murdoch mysteries, and contemporary Toronto (particularly Parkdale) from the perspective of those disenfranchised by poverty and mental illness in Capponi's Dana Leoni series.

14. David Gilmour, A Perfect Night to Go to China.
15. Howard Akler, The City Man.

And finally two recent Toronto novels that I particularly liked and admired. I wrote about the former here, and the latter here.

I won't tag anyone, but I do invite my Toronto friends to join in and list their favourites. And for those of you from elsewhere who are perhaps not so familiar with Toronto literature, how about adapting the meme to showcase the literature of your city or region for the benefit of those of us who like to travel through books?

Joyce Maynard on Betsy-Tacy

2009-08-03T14:06:00.002-04:00

Joyce Maynard on her love of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books:

One other element of the Betsy-Tacy story I loved had to do with Betsy's aspiration to be a writer. She carried a little notebook around with her, and wrote stories all the time, which she read out loud to Tacy and their other friend, Tib. Back in those days, children in children's books usually did things like play baseball or ride horses. I loved it that finally I had found a character who did something I did.

To read the rest of Maynard's essay, click here.

(via Book Club Girl)

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and the Little House Books

2009-08-03T09:35:00.003-04:00

For a very interesting article in The New Yorker by Judith Thurman on Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and the Little House Books, click here.

Alex Good on Negative Reviews

2009-08-01T11:29:00.001-04:00

Alex Good on negative reviews:

The spectre of criticism becoming nothing but advertising and propaganda raises another question. What is it about books that makes us think they should be held immune from negative reviews? Do people complain about negative film reviewing? Should every movie, even that one with all the robots, get a thumbs-up, or at least be rated four stars out of five? Expanding the list of cultural products, should car columnists be warned against writing negative car reviews? After all, we might have saved a lot of good manufacturing jobs in our auto industry if we had only raved about the latest offerings from GM.

To read the whole of Good's article, click here.

Library Loot 8: A Sampling of Mysteries

2009-07-30T22:20:00.001-04:00

I went for a browse at the library this evening and came home with a sampling of mysteries:

Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves: I've read a couple of Cleeves' Shetland mysteries, but this series, set in England and featuring Inspector Vera Stanhope, is new to me. I picked it up because I liked the sound of Vera. Here's a snippet about her from the author's website: "Hidden Depths is the third book to feature Inspector Vera Stanhope, yet Ann Cleeves told Shots Magazine that The Crow Trap (the first Vera Stanhope novel, now back in print) was originally intended as a standalone novel. But 'I liked Vera Stanhope so much that I brought her back, first in Telling Tales and now in Hidden Depths. She developed because I was so cross with even feminist writers writing female central characters who were young, fit and beautiful. Vera isn't any of those things. She's overweight and middle-aged.' – 'more Nero Wolfe than V.I. Warshawski', as Jake Kerridge put it in The Telegraph!"

Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow by Patricia Harwin: This is the second in Harwin's Far Wychwood series. I read the first ages ago, liked it and planned to look out for the second, then promptly forgot the name of the author. So I was very happy to randomly stumble on it tonight. The premise of the series is a cozy standard — a middle aged American woman sleuthing about an English village. But as I recall it was well written and I liked the sleuth. She's a very spirited sixty-something former librarian making a new life for herself post-divorce. And from the back cover description it appears that this installment takes place in an academic setting, and my recent Amanda Cross reread has whetted my appetite for another academic mystery.

A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin: I've been rationing my Rebuses knowing that I'll soon run out (this one is third from the last in the series). But with a new Rankin novel due out in the Fall which may well be the beginning of a new series, perhaps it's time for me to finish the Rebuses and move on...

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers: I'm a great Sayers fan but there are still a few Peter Wimsey novels I haven't read and I'm pretty sure this is one of them.

Now which of these shall I start with? Police procedural or cozy? The seamy side of Edinburgh or a quaint English village? Old friend or new acquaintance? Choices, choices...

Religion in Children's Literature

2009-07-29T13:20:00.002-04:00

For a most interesting article by Beth Davies-Stofka on religion in the Betsy-Tacy books and in children's literature more generally, click here.

Betsy-Tacy Sites in Mankato, Part II

2009-07-23T21:52:00.000-04:00

The Train Station

     "The speed of the train swallowed up the prairie. In no time at all the river came into sight. They passed a waterfall she recognized; then the train descended along the side of a bluff.
     The brakeman called, 'Deep Valley!' and at once the car was in confusion. Hats were pinned on; small bonnets tied; all traces of banana wiped away. Valises and suit cases were dragged down from the rack. The train slowed to a stop.
     Holding her valise in one hand and the package from Willard's Emporium in the other, Betsy found Mr. Thumbler's hack.
     'Good afternoon Mr. Thumbler,' she said. '333 Hill Street, please.'"
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

Carney Sibley's House and Side Lawn

"It was to develop later that the younger high school crowd had the most indoor fun at the Ray house and the most outdoor fun at the Sibleys ... on the wide, trampled side lawn, and the porch running across the front and around the side of the house. The porch was unscreened and shaded by vines, now turning red. It was broad enough to hold a hammock and some chairs and a table, but nothing too good, nothing rain would hurt."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

Christian Endeavor

     "The Presbyterian Church stood on a corner of Broad Street. It was built of white stone with a pointed steeple and a round stained glass window on one side. But no colored light flowed from this window in the early Sunday evening when Cab, Herbert and Betsy approached to attend Christian Endeavor.
     'Christian Endeavor’s held in the Sunday School room,' Cab explained, heading for the side door."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

Murmuring Lake

"... she loved this trip to Murmuring Lake. They took it in all seasons; the Inn was a favourite vacation ground. But the October anniversary trip was the nicest. [...] The Inn with its flock of cottages looked like a hen surrounded by chicks, and there was an excellent dinner in which a real hen was served with dumplings. For dessert there were two kinds of pie, ice cream and cake. You could have all four if you wished; and after they had eaten to contentment and beyond, and Mr. Ray had smoked a cigar and Old Mag had had a chance to eat and rest, they drove around the lake to Mrs. Ray's old home."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

The Bay Window

"'This is the bay window where we stood when we were married,' Mrs. Ray said as usual. 'There never was a happier marriage made.'"
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

The Oak Tree Under Which Mr. Ray Proposed

"'This is the oak tree she hooked me under,' Mr. Ray said, leading the way across the lawn, ankle deep in leaves, to an oak with leaves the color of Mrs. Ray’s hair."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

Mrs. Ray's Brass Bowl

     "It was joyful, as always, to walk with locked arms along a snowy Front Street, gay with its decorations of evergreen and holly boughs, and the merry jingle of sleigh bells. Betsy drew Tacy to a stop before Dodd and Storer's window.
     'Mamma has her heart set on that brass bowl,' she said.
     'It looks just like Mrs.Ray,' said Tacy.
     'That's what she says,' answered Betsy. 'I don't believe Papa's going to buy it for her though. He hasn't told us, but I believe he's bought the mink fur piece she was teasing for before she saw the bowl.'"
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

The Rays' Baptist Church

     "'Bettina,' she said. 'I love the Episcopal Church. I want to be an Episcopalian.'
     'Julia!' cried Betsy, hardly believing her ears.
     'I don't think I was ever cut out to be a Baptist,' Julia said.
     Betsy was genuinely shocked. It had not occurred to her that one could change one's church any more than one could change one's skin. She was silent, and Julia went on:
     'Just because Papa and Mamma are Baptists is no reason I should be a Baptist. People are different. I'm myself.'"
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

The Coffee Pot

"'Now,' said Mr. Ray. 'I'd better go put the coffee pot on.' For that was what the family always did in moments of stress. Margaret didn't drink coffee, of course, and Betsy's Sunday cup was mostly cream and sugar. Yet they understood what their father meant when he moved with a competent tread toward the kitchen."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Heaven to Betsy.)

Betsy-Tacy Sites in Mankato, Part I

2009-07-23T12:00:00.002-04:00

Betsy's House and Tacy's House

"Hill Street was rightfully named. It ran straight up into a green hill and stopped. The name of the town was Deep Valley, and a town named Deep Valley naturally had plenty of hills. Betsy's house, a small yellow cottage, was the last house on her side of Hill Street, and the rambling white house opposite was the last house on that side."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy.)

The Ray Piano

"They marched around and around the house and in and out of the parlor and the back parlor. Betsy's mother loved to play the piano; she came down hard and joyously on the keys. Every once in a while Tacy would look at Betsy sideways through her curls. Her bright blue eyes were dancing in her little freckled face, as though to say, 'Isn't this fun?' They marched and they marched, and at last they were told to lead the way to the dining room. There the cake was shining with all its five candles, and a dish of ice cream was set out for every child."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy.)

The Bench

"That summer they started having picnics. At first the picnics were not real picnics, not the kind you take out in a basket. Betsy's father, serving the plates at the head of the table, would fill Betsy's plate with scrambled eggs and bread and butter and strawberries, or whatever they had for supper. Tacy's father would do the same. Holding the plate in one hand and a glass of milk in the other, each little girl would walk carefully out of her house and down the porch steps and out to the middle of the road. Than they would walk up the hill to that bench where Tacy had stood the first night she came. And there they would eat supper together."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy.)

Mrs. Chubbock's Store

     "They crossed the street and turned the corner and came to a little store.
     'That's Mrs. Chubbock's store,' Julia explained.'That's where you go to buy gum drops and chocolate men if anyone's given you a penny.'
     'I wish that someone had given me a penny. Don't you Tacy?' Betsy asked.
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy.)

Tib's Chocolate Colored House

     "'Tacy,' said Betsy, "I never yet saw anybody around this chocolate-colored house.'
     'Neither did I,' said Tacy.
     They looked at it a moment before they climbed to the door.
     It sat like a big plump chocolate drop on the big square corner lot. There weren't many trees around it; just a green lawn with flower beds on either side of the white cement walk which led to the porch steps.
     Betsy and Tacy walked up that walk and climbed the porch steps.
     They rang the bell and waited.
     While they were waiting they looked around. The tower jutted right out on the porch. It had windows in it, but all the shades were pulled down. The pane of colored glass over the front door shone ruby red in the sunlight."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy.)

Lincoln Park

     "'Well, I don’t want you to go too far away,' said Mrs. Ray. 'How far do you think they should be allowed to go, Bob?'
     'Not beyond Lincoln Park,' said Mr. Ray.
     Lincoln Park was a pie-shaped wedge of lawn with a giant elm tree and a fountain on it. Hill Street turned into Broad Street there. It was the end of the neighborhood."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill.)

The Carnegie Library

     "'But if you're going to be a writer,' he went on, 'you've go to read. Good books. Great books. The Classics. And fortunately ... that's what I'm driving at ... Deep Valley has a new Carnegie Library, almost ready to open. White marble building, sunny, spick and span, just full of books.'
     'I know,' Betsy said.
     'That library,' her father continued, 'is going to be just what you need. And your mother and I want you to get acquainted with it. Of course it's way downtown, but you're old enough now to go downtown alone.'"
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown.)

The Children's Room

"The Children's Room was exactly right for children. The tables and chairs were low. Low bookshelves lined the walls, and tempting-looking books with plenty of illustrations were open on the tables. There was a big fireplace in the room, with a fire throwing up flames and making crackling noises. Above it was the painting of a rocky island with a temple on it, called The Isle of Delos."
(From Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown.)

A Literary Pilgrimage to Mankato

2009-07-17T00:15:00.001-04:00

I'm off on a pilgrimage to Mankato (aka Deep Valley), Minnesota to attend the Betsy-Tacy Convention. Perhaps I'll see some of you there? If you're not able to attend but are curious about the festivities, rest assured there will be much electronic communication from me and from other attendees. I'll be tweeting from the midst of it, and blogging about it afterward. I'm quite giddy at the prospect of seeing up close the places and spaces that Maud Hart Lovelace immortalized in her books, especially the Carnegie Library where Betsy learned to love the classics. It's still there, although it's no longer a library, and so too are Betsy's and Tacy's Hill Street houses, and Tib's chocolate colored house, and Carney's house complete with sleeping porch, and, well, you get the idea!

Ibi Kaslik on Alexandra Leggat's Animal

2009-07-11T11:17:00.004-04:00

There's a great review by Ibi Kaslik of Alexandra Leggat's brilliant new short story collection, Animal, in the Globe and Mail today. The final paragraphs sum it up nicely:

Troubling and deep, these quickly unfolding stories are elliptically drawn, tense with action and dark humour. Leggat is a shape-shifting writer: The styles and narrators in this collection are ever changing, yet the stories are connected by Leggat's quirky eye for viscerally striking detail. She provides just enough imagery to draw the reader inside these very individual worlds, while also preserving a carefully constructed sense of the absurd. It is as though the author never wants the reader to become too intimate or comfortable in the primal and transient world that is both grotesque and beautiful in its brutality. As one fisherman tells another in Mandible, "Nature's fucking frightening and it'll only let you in so far."

On the cover of Animal, there is a drawing of an opossum holding an amorphous animal in its hand; whether the animal is holding its own offspring or has stolen the fetus from another animal's nest is ambiguous; whether the animal is hunting or being hunted is also unclear. Deceptively simple, like Leggat's stories, it is an arresting and atavistic image, reminiscent of a picture from an ancient book of fables. The cover of Leggat's third story collection is significant on many levels, but mostly because it highlights the way this unique and gifted writer has taken an old form and made it new again.

To read the whole review, click here.

On Not Writing a Novel

2009-07-07T21:28:00.004-04:00

I just came across a great New York Times article by Ann Patchett about avoiding writing her next novel. The article is from 2002, but brand new to me thanks to a mention by Trish on Twitter. No doubt Patchett has already written the novel of which she speaks in the article, and perhaps a few more besides, but what she says about the writing process continues to resonate. I particularly like this bit:

For a long time before I start to write a novel, anywhere from one year to two, I make it up. This is the happiest time I have with my books. The novel in my imagination travels with me like a small lavender moth making loopy circles around my head. It is a truly gorgeous thing, its unpredictable flight patterns, the amethyst light on its wings. I think of my characters as I wander through the grocery store. I write out their names like a teenage girl dreaming of marriage.

In these early pre-text days my story has more promise, more beauty, than I have ever seen in any novel ever written, because, sadly, this novel is not written. Then the time comes when I have to begin to translate ideas into words, a process akin to reaching into the air, grabbing my little friend (crushing its wings slightly in my thick hand), holding it down on a cork board and running it though with a pin. It is there that the lovely thing in my head dies.

Click here to read the whole of Patchett's article.

Blog Birthday: The First Four Years

2009-06-23T19:30:00.001-04:00

I made my first blog post exactly four years ago today. Here are a few paragraphs from that first post that explained my motivation and outlined my intentions:

I started a book journal in January of this year. I was inspired by the "Best Books of 2004" lists that several people posted on listservs to which I subscribe. I would have liked to have been able to contribute my own best reads of 2004 but I could barely remember what I'd read the week before, let alone a whole year's worth of books. I resolved not to find myself in the same position at the end of 2005. I also thought that keeping a book journal might compel me to slow down, to linger a bit over each book rather than blazing through at lightning speed. It doesn't seem fair to the authors who have sweated over each sentence not to pause now and again to appreciate the craft of their work.

Alas, my book journal didn't slow me down or render me a more contemplative reader. It's just a list of titles, authors and dates with the odd asterisk or three-word commentary to indicate which books I particularly liked and why. To begin with, this format may even have had me reading faster just to get the sense of accomplishment that came from adding another book to the list. It also had the unforeseen effect of making me feel like I had to finish every book I started, a mindset from which I thought I'd liberated myself long ago. Apparently I can still be motivated by a few more construction paper discs to add to my bookworm.

Hence this book blog. I intend for it to be both narrower and deeper than my book journal. I won't list every book I read here but I'll ruminate a bit on the ones that make me think. I'll write about good books and not-so-good books (for me, what doesn't work in an unsuccessful book can be as thought-provoking as what does work in a successful one), about books I couldn’t put down, and books I couldn't bring myself to finish. I will also occasionally post excerpts from old diaries about books that I found particularly intriguing or inspiring at other points in my life.

I have pretty much followed that template for the last four years, and the practice of blogging has had the intended effect of slowing me down and making me a more thoughtful reader. That much I anticipated.

What I didn't anticipate was the entry point that blogging would offer into a glorious community of readers. The only book blogs that I was familiar with then were a couple of personal blogs maintained by friends. I thought that those friends might read my posts, along with a handful of other friends and family members with whom I was already in the habit of exchanging book recommendations. I was thinking small and mostly doing it for myself. In short order, however, a few strangers dropped by, and I followed the links back to their blogs, then began working my way through their blog rolls. I was very excited and, frankly, awed by the wealth of book blogs that I found once I started looking. What joy to encounter legions of keen readers from all over the world and to be privy to their interesting, entertaining, and insightful commentary about an eclectic range of books without so much as leaving my office. And, of course, that wealth of book blogs has increased at an exponential rate in the intervening years.

The best books make me think, and so too do the many fine book blogs that I read. I regularly find myself prompted by blog posts to seek out books that I hadn't previously heard of, or that I hadn't thought I'd be interested in, to reconsider my assessments of books and writers, whether recent reads or old favourites, and generally to think more deeply about my reading and writing practices. I've had the good fortune to meet some of my favourite bloggers in person. And I've come to think of a number of fellow bloggers as friends.

My blogging has ebbed and flowed over the first four years, and I have no doubt that it will continue to do so in accordance with what I'm reading and how I'm responding it, with the degree to which I'm immersed in my writing, and with whatever else is going on in my life. But I can't imagine giving up blogging altogether. Because the discipline of writing about what I read is rewarding in and of itself. But most of all because I relish being a participant in this vibrant world. I want to thank those who stop by to read what I write here, and those who comment on my posts. And I want to express my deep gratitude to those who generously share their reading experiences on their own blogs and in comments on other blogs, and who have thereby enriched my reading life immensely.

Books That Travel With You

2009-06-22T22:09:00.003-04:00

I'm leading a group read of Betsy and the Great World over at Maud-L at the moment. I've read this novel countless times and I find myself focusing on different aspects of it each time and sometimes noticing things that I've never noticed before, particularly this time through as I read it with a view to thinking up questions to generate discussion among fellow Betsy-Tacy fans. One of my current preoccupations is books mentioned within books, so this time round a passage describing the books that Betsy took with her to Europe (first stop: Munich) jumped out at me:

Opposite, beyond the door, were ranged the wardrobe and a table covered with a spread on which were pictures of Julia and Paige, Bob Barhydt, Tacy and Tib. Mr. Burton's chocolates (what was left of them) sat there and her books: The Beloved Vagabond, Little Women, Emerson's Essays, some Dickens, Thackeray, and Dumas, and The Oxford Book of English Verse. Joe Willard had sent her that from Cambridge. There was another book Joe had given her, a limp leather copy of As You Like It.

Perhaps that sounds like rather a lot of books, but remember that this is early 1914 and Betsy is anticipating spending a year in Europe, so she's traveling with a hefty trunk. Mind you, sometimes I find myself tempted to carry just as many on a weekend away, simply because I can't make up my mind what I might feel like reading in advance. Which brings me to my question for you. If you were going away for a lengthy trip, which books would you take with you? Are there particular volumes that you couldn't do without?

"... it's a question of weaving the net of coincidence as fine as possible."

2009-06-18T22:35:00.004-04:00

Martin Beck's philosophy of police work in a nutshell:

Police work is built on realism, routine, stubbornness and system. It's true that a lot of difficult cases are cleared up by coincidence, but it's equally true that coincidence is an elastic concept that mustn't be confused with luck or accident. In a criminal investigation, it's a question of weaving the net of coincidence as fine as possible. And experience and industry play a larger role there than brilliant inspiration. A good memory and ordinary common sense are more valuable qualities than intellectual brilliance.

From Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, The Abominable Man (Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal) (1972).

"He's no deid at the end..."

2009-06-15T14:34:00.005-04:00

Ian Rankin on whether the protagonist of his forthcoming novel, one DI Malcolm Fox, is likely to become a recurring character:

"Well, I like him and he's no deid at the end, well not at the end of the second draft," said Ian. "But I do like him. He's an engaging and likeable character and someone I have enjoyed spending time with, so you never know."

The Complaints is due out in September, and I can't wait to read it.

(Thanks to Donna for the link.)

Alexandra Leggat's Animal Launches in Toronto on Friday Night

2009-06-15T13:07:00.004-04:00

If you're in Toronto on Friday night, you won't want to miss this. For more about the book, click here.

Final Thoughts on The Fire Engine that Disappeared

2009-06-15T09:40:00.005-04:00

I'm always curious as to how other readers' impressions of a book align with or differ from my own. When I reached the end of The Fire Engine that Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, I did a quick scan of review sites and found that other readers had expressed disappointment in it, opining that it didn't measure up to the rest of the Martin Beck series, particularly the book that immediately preceded it, The Laughing Policeman. Well, I must confess that I haven't yet acquired a copy of The Laughing Policeman and, as a consequence, I skipped straight from #3 (The Man on the Balcony) to #5. And without The Laughing Policeman—which is by many accounts the standout of the series—looming over it, The Fire Engine that Disappeared held up just fine. Indeed, my impression of the series, as expressed in yesterday's post, is that it gets better and better with each book.

I was thoroughly puzzled by the mystery at the heart of The Fire Engine that Disappeared—the links between a disparate group of small-time crooks and their connection to the big, shocking, and seemingly professional crime that occurs at the start of the novel—and enjoyed unraveling it alongside Martin Beck and his team. The accent truly is on team here, as the reader witnesses not just Martin Beck and his usual colleagues working together, but also their assistance from and cooperation with other branches of the Stockholm police, a laconic Malmö detective, and a counterpart of his in Copenhagen, as the case takes on an international dimension. I felt that I got to know Martin Beck much better in this installment, and I also relished learning more about the thoroughly unpleasant but very intriguing Gunvald Larsson. The only negative for me is that there seemed to be more in this book of an element in the series of which I am wearying—a string of minor female characters who appear to be willing to sleep with anyone at the drop of a hat. Could this be an accurate reflection of sexual mores in Sweden in the late 1960s? Or is a nod to hard-boiled crime fiction convention? Regardless, it feels out of step with what otherwise seems to be a realistic portrayal of 1960s Sweden. That's a minor annoyance however and my enthusiasm for the series continues unabated.

How are things going?

2009-06-14T22:35:00.001-04:00

A snippet from The Fire Engine that Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö:

     On the Monday after Ascension Day, Martin Beck called up Malmö and asked how things were going.
     Hammar was standing 6 feet away from him and had just said: "Call up Malmö and ask how things are going."
     He regretted asking the moment he heard Månsson's voice, for suddenly he remembered the innumerable times over the years when he himself had been the recipient of the same idiotic question. From people in more senior Positions. From the press. From his wife. From foolish colleagues. From inquisitive acquaintances. How are things going?
     Nevertheless, he cleared his throat and said:
     "Hi. How are things going?"

The Fire Engine that Disappeared is the fifth installment in the Martin Beck series which, I'm finding, gets better and better with each book. I quote the foregoing passage because it exemplifies the tone of the whole series and that—as much as the riveting plots, the intriguing cast of characters, and the penetrating glimpses into 1960s and 70s Swedish society—is what has me so thoroughly captivated by these books.

Penelope Fitzgerald's Human Voices

2009-06-09T11:45:00.003-04:00

I fear that Penelope Fitzgerald and I are not meant for one another. Human Voices was highly recommended by friends whose opinions I trust and whose tastes I often share. It's set in WWII London, where I've chosen to spend a good deal of my reading time lately. And it's about the BBC, an institution for which I have a great fondness. It ought to have been perfect for me, but, alas, it was not.

There was something about the style that Fitzgerald employed in the novel that scattered my attention. I didn't dislike reading it, but nothing made a sufficient impression to stick with me after I closed the book—not the characters or the setting or the various incidents that studded the narrative. If I made the mistake of putting it down without marking my place, I was lost as, even minutes later, I couldn't remember which bit I'd already read and which I hadn't.

My inability to distinguish between the characters was a particular problem. The senior staffers were generally referred to not by their names but by acronyms of their job titles: the RPD and the DPP, and I kept forgetting what jobs the acronyms denoted and which man held which job. (I've just gone back and looked them up—the RPD is the Director of the Department of Recorded Programmes, and the DPP is the Director of Programme Planning.) The junior staffers (RPAs—assistants to the RPD), were more often referred to by their names (Lise, Vi, Teddy, Willie, and so on) but, even so, I had trouble telling some of them apart. I'm sure that this was quite deliberate—the senior men being so completely identified with their jobs that they scarcely needed names, and the junior staffers being viewed as largely interchangeable by the senior men. In the abstract, this seems to me very clever, but the ultimate effect was that the novel slid past me without leaving much of an impression, either positive or negative.

As I noted above though, other readers have responded very differently, and I can't help but think that this is a case not of a flawed book or of a flawed reader but of a mismatch between reader and book. So those of you who loved Human Voices, please offer up a counterpoint to my view with a comment below or, if you've written about the book elsewhere, with a link to your post/review. And I'd be grateful too if fans of Fitzgerald's work more broadly could tell me if you see this book as representative of her style as a whole, or if there are others of her books that you would recommend I try despite not having been much taken with this one.

Library Loot 7: Still Under the Influence

2009-06-08T23:30:00.005-04:00

This week's haul has me once again following up on recommendations from fellow bloggers as well as pals from goodreads and Maud-L.

Lenz by Georg Büchner (translated by Richard Sieburth): Litlove wrote an eloquent post about this one recently that sparked my interest. Here's a bit of the cover copy description: "Lenz, Georg Büchner's visionary exploration of an 18th-century playwright's descent into madness, has been called the inception of European modernist prose. Elias Canetti considered this short novella to be one of the seminal reading experiences of his entire life, and writers as various as Paul Celan, Christa Wolff and Peter Schneider have paid homage to it in their works. Published posthumously in 1839, Lenz is a taut case study of three weeks in the life of a schizophrenic, perhaps the first third-person text ever to be written from the 'inside' of insanity." And the lovely archipelago books edition that I've borrowed has the German text on one side and the English translation on the facing page in the style of some poetry translations, and it includes some of the source material from which Büchner worked. I fully expect that I'll soon be buying myself a copy to keep.

Tell Me: 30 Stories by Mary Robinson: A guest post at Maud Newton by Carrie Spell prompted me to seek out some of Robinson's work. I put three of her books on hold, and this collection of her short stories was the first to arrive. From the back cover: "These stories—sharp, cool, and astringently funny—confirm Mary Robinson's place as one of our most original writers and led Richard Yates to comment, 'Robinson writes like an avenging angel, and I think she may be a genius.'"

Havana Red by Leonardo Padura (translated by Peter Bush): You may have noticed that my crime fiction reading has had a decidedly Scandinavian flavour of late. When I came across a mention of Padura's Havana quartet on PBS's Spotlight on World Mysteries, I thought perhaps it was time for a change of climate. From the back cover: "The first of the Havana quartet featuring Lieutenant Mario Conde, a tropical Marlowe. A body is found in a Havana park. A young transvestite dressed in a beautiful red evening dress, strangled. The victim had fled his family, finding refuge with Marqués, a forgotten man in his own country, an author and theatre director once condemned by his government for being a 'heretical homosexual,' living alone surrounded only by books, his house in ruins. In the baking heat of the Havana summer Conde moves through a Cuban reality where nothing is what it seems, a dark, fascinating world of men and women born in the Revolution who live without dreaming of exile and seek their identity in the midst of disaster."

The Ark by Margot Benary-Isbert (translated by Clara and Richard Winston): This is a YA novel that tells the tale of a family struggling to get by in post-WWII Germany. My friend Melody recommended it highly on goodreads, particularly to fans of the Betsy-Tacy series.

The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane by William Holtz: This one came to my attention via goodreads as well, this time courtesy of Melissa, another Maud-L pal. Rose Wilder Lane was the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and, according to this biography, had a fraught relationship with her mother, and also a substantial role in the shaping of her mother’s books. I've been curious about Lane ever since reading somewhere that the character Mrs. Main-Whittaker in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy and the Great World is based on her, and now seems like a fine time to learn more about her.

Exchange by Paul Magrs: I spotted this one on Melanie's latest library loot list. After clicking through to the publisher's description, I felt that I must read the book immediately: "Following the death of his parents, 16-year-old Simon moves into his grandparents' claustrophobic bungalow, which quickly becomes a refuge from his bullying peers. United by their voracious appetite for books, Simon and his grandmother stumble across the Great Big Book Exchange—a bookshop with a difference. There they meet impulsive, gothic Kelly and her boss, Terrance—and the friendships forged in the Great Big Book Exchange result in startling and unsettling consequences for all of them."

I seem to be doing awfully well here with recommendations from friends whose names begin with "M." Dial "M" for books?

New Short Fiction to Celebrate

2009-05-30T12:36:00.004-04:00

Just a quick heads up for those who live in or near Vancouver. Tonight (Saturday, May 30th), two of my favourite writers (and favourite people!), Stuart Ross and Alexandra Leggat, are launching new collections of short fiction at Café Montmartre (4362 Main Street, Vancouver, at 7 pm).

Stuart's book, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog, first sent out into the world at its Toronto launch on April 1st, has been racking up sales and laudatory reviews ever since. In Now Magazine, Susan Cole writes: "Ross doesn't waste a word, and the impact is often breathtaking. He knows how to extend a metaphor so that even the most absurd or hallucinatory episodes – and there are many of these – convey deep meaning." In the Vancouver Sun, M.A.C. Farrant writes: "A writer with an original sensibility, he's got a gazillion curious, funny and disturbing things to say about our lives and our world. Read this book – you'll see." And in The Walrus, Mark Medley sums it up thus: "His fiction is often bold, sometimes infuriating, and always rewarding."

For Alexandra's book, Animal, tonight marks not just the Vancouver launch but the launch proper, so as of yet I can't point you to any reviews. But, judging by her previous work, and having had the pleasure of hearing her read a few of the stories from the new book while it was in progress, I have no doubt that it will be brilliant. Read the title story, "Animal," online here and see for yourself.

Of course, for those of us who are nowhere near Vancouver, though we can't celebrate tonight with the authors, we still have access to the best part, the books! Why not mark the final weekend of Short Story Month by ordering yourself a copy of each?

Maj Sjöwall Interview

2009-05-30T12:30:00.000-04:00

After nattering on at length about Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's excellent Martin Beck novels in recent posts (here and here), I would be remiss not to provide you with a link to a recent interview of Sjöwall in the Wall Street Journal. Here's an excerpt:

Back then, Ms. Sjöwall writes by email from Sweden, "Swedish crime-writers wrote Agatha Christie-like books and seldom had policemen as main characters. Crime novels were considered pulp-literature in those days. Intellectuals rarely admitted to reading those kinds of books. We wanted to contribute to improving the linguistic quality, and to changing the way media treated that type of literature." The couple were writing entertainment, "but our intention was also to describe and criticize certain changes in our society and the politics of that decade."

For the rest, click here.

(Thanks to Maxine at Petrona for the link.)

The New Betsy-Tacy Covers

2009-05-29T09:50:00.000-04:00

If you're a regular reader of this blog, it will be apparent to you from my frequent references to them that I am a devoted fan of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books. I read and reread them countless times as a child and, along with only a handful of other childhood favourites, I have carried them with me into my adult life, continuing to reread them at regular intervals. The series begins with Betsy's fifth birthday in Minnesota circa 1897 and, in ten volumes, documents her childhood and high school years, her early struggles to establish herself as a writer, her solo trip into the Great World (Germany, Italy, France, and England), and finally her wedding and the early years of her married life. The books become steadily more sophisticated in style and content as Betsy matures, thereby continuing to appeal to young readers as they grow up alongside Betsy and her friends.

I love the whole series, but I am particularly partial to the high school books and beyond. So I am extremely happy that these books, which have fallen out of print in recent years, are to be reissued by HarperCollins this fall. And I was positively giddy to learn today, upon following a link to a preview of the new covers at the Betsy-Tacy Society website, that the new editions will feature some of the same Vera Neville artwork that appeared on the covers of the original hardback editions that I borrowed from the library as a child. There have been at least two reissues of the entire series in the intervening years—in the mid-1990s and again in 2000—and while on both occasions I was very pleased that the books were available once again, the less said about their cover art the better. I understand the quest for a modern look to appeal to contemporary readers. But I've always thought that the Vera Neville illustrations have an enduring charm which would appeal to contemporary girls as well as to nostalgic adult readers like me. And, it seems that this time around someone at HarperCollins agrees with me! I love the new covers (reproduced above). Betsy and the Great World is my very favourite of the ten books in the series, and I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see that Vera Neville drawing of a windblown Betsy on the deck of the S.S. Columbic en route to Europe back on the cover of a book. (For an earlier post of mine about Betsy and the Great World, headed by a reproduction of the original cover, click here.)

If you take a close look at the new covers above, you will note that each of the three volumes contains two novels, which seems to me a clever way to get readers hooked on the series. And each volume includes a foreword penned by a famous fan of the Betsy-Tacy books: Laura Lippman, Meg Cabot, and Anna Quindlen respectively. (I'm in good company in my fandom, am I not?)

I hope that the new covers will catch the eyes of many new readers when the books appear on bookstore shelves this fall. If you're already a fan of the series, this will be an excellent opportunity to revisit it. And if you haven't yet encountered it, do give the books a try. Of course, you may forget all about them between now and their release date. But, fear not, I will remind you again closer to the time!

The Zone of Freedom

2009-05-27T09:17:00.003-04:00

Susan Sontag on literature as freedom:

To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of imperfect destinies and bad luck. Literature was the passport to enter a larger life, that is, the zone of freedom.

Literature was freedom. Especially in a time in which the values of reading and inwardness are so strenuously challenged, literature is freedom.

From Susan Sontag, "Literature Is Freedom" in At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches (2007).

Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days

2009-05-25T14:50:00.002-04:00

Book of a Thousand Days is another fairy tale brought vividly to life by Shannon Hale. At the centre of the story is Dashti, a mucker girl from the Steppes, who finds her way into the city and takes a vow to serve as lady's maid to Lady Saren just in time to be confined alongside her in a tower for seven years—punishment for Saren's refusal to obey her father's order to marry the brutal Lord Khasar, ruler of a neighbouring realm. The lady in the tower is, of course, a fairy tale standard. But there's nothing conventional about telling the story from the point of view of the lady's maid, a character who gets only a passing reference in the Grimms' tale that first sparked Hale's imagination. And the rich universe that Hale creates as a setting for that fragmentary tale—partly inspired by her reading on medieval Mongolia, and partly her own creation—feels wholly fresh and original.

I won't say any more about the plot than I already have, as I don't want to give too much away. Suffice it to say that Dashti proves herself in a myriad of unexpected ways over the course of the book and, in so doing, earns a place among my very favourite strong and resourceful heroines of contemporary children's and YA fiction (alongside the likes of Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching). I will tell you also that, much as I was enjoying the story, midway through I felt considerable unease, as I couldn't figure out how Hale could possibly end it in a way that would be both emotionally satisfying and true to the universe that she had created. Yet she did, and so I loved the book from beginning to end.

With this one, as with Shannon Hale's first novel The Goose Girl, rather than reading the book, I listened to the audio version produced by Full Cast Audio, and I must heap praise upon them again here. It's an unabridged reading, not an adapted dramatization. But the reading is performed using different actors to voice the narrator and the other characters in dialogue which avoids any confusion while listening and heightens the drama of tale. This made for a very enjoyable listening experience. So I highly recommend not just the book, but also the Full Cast Audio version of it.

Library Loot 6: Under the Influence of Fellow Bloggers

2009-05-22T12:55:00.004-04:00

Nearly all of this week's selections were prompted by posts from fellow bloggers. Click on the names of the blogs or bloggers below to link to the posts that piqued my interest in each of these tantalizing books.

Borkmann’s Point and The Return by Håkan Nesser: These are the second and third books in Nesser's Inspector Van Veeteren series (my library doesn't yet have copies of the first, Mind's Eye, which was translated into English more recently than the others). Recent posts at Crime Scraps, Detectives Beyond Borders, and Djs Krimiblog quickly shifted Nesser from the "I'd like to read him someday," into the "I must read him now" category for me.

Blind Justice and Murder in Grub Street by Bruce Alexander: These are the first two books in a mystery series featuring a pair of sleuths, one a fictionalized version of historical figure Sir John Fielding (an 18th Century judge credited as co-founder of London's first police force and, incidentally, also half-brother of novelist Henry Fielding), and the other, Jeremy Proctor, a thirteen-year-old orphan newly arrived in the city and working as a typesetter's assistant on Grub Street. Julie's compelling posts about both (here and here) prompted me to seek them out.

Greenery Street by Denis Mackail: Danielle's post about this one made it sound like a quality comfort read, not necessarily similar in content or style to the likes of Enchanted April and Miss Buncle's Book, but perhaps generating the same sort of reading experience. And the fact that Persephone Books has recently reprinted it adds to the weight of Danielle's recommendation.

A Start in Life by Anita Brookner: This is Brookner’s first novel. I've not read any of her books and, honestly, haven't felt any compulsion to do so. But Mark Thwaite's recent post about his regard for her work made me rethink that.

The Odd Women by George Gissing: From the back cover description: "Five odd women—women without husbands—are the subject of this powerful novel, set in Victorian London, by a writer whose perceptions about people, particularly women, would be remarkable in any age and are extraordinary in the 1890s." It was a recent post by Dorothy that piqued my interest in this one.

Unseen by Mari Jungstedt and Lewi's Journey by Per Olov Enquist: Two very different books by very different authors. The former is the first in a mystery series set on the Swedish island of Gotland, the latter a historical novel by one of Sweden's foremost writers of literary fiction. What they have in common is that they're both translated by Tiina Nunnally and they were both recommended by Reg in response to my recent post seeking suggestions of novels which would expand my acquaintance with Swedish literature (and who better to get such recommendations from than the translator of some of my favourite Swedish writers including Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson?).

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih: Maud Newton’s appreciation of this Sudanese novel highlighted its status as one of the few classics of Arabic literature readily available in English translation and sent me racing out for a copy.

Lost at Sea by Bryan Lee O'Malley: I've been making a few forays into the realm of graphic novels of late, and Nymeth's post about this one made it sound irresistible.

And finally, a couple that I came up with all on my own: A Concise History of Sweden by Neil Kent (more background for my upcoming trip to Sweden), and Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg (a debut crime novel by a well-known Canadian lawyer which is said to bring vividly to life the sights and sounds of Toronto, my current home).

It's a tribute to the glories of my local libraries, is it not, that I have all of these books in hand so soon after resolving to read them? (That's the Toronto Public Library, with occasional side trips to the York University Library, in case you’re wondering.) I love the library.

The Enduring Influence of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

2009-05-21T12:50:00.003-04:00

In my post last week about Roseanna, the first in the Martin Beck series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, I quoted from Henning Mankell's introduction to the new edition and remarked on some parallels between Martin Beck and Mankell's Kurt Wallander. Now that I'm into the second in the series, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, I'm entertaining myself by pursuing another link between the respective oeuvres of these crime fiction greats. In The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, Beck leaves his familiar Stockholm stomping grounds to search for a Swedish journalist who has disappeared in Budapest. The search has him wandering about Eastern Europe, caught up in international intrigue at the height of the cold war. Those familiar with Mankell's work may remember that the second book in the Wallander series, The Dogs of Riga, has a similar international dimension. The novel opens with the discovery of two murder victims who have washed up on the beaches of Wallander's hometown of Ystad, Sweden. The victims are traced to the Baltic state of Latvia, and when Wallander travels there to continue his investigation, he finds himself unwittingly entangled in the violent political turmoil then flowing from the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

I've been thinking as well about Stieg Larsson's ambitious plan for a ten-book series beginning with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, sadly cut short at three books by his premature death, and wondering if he took some inspiration from his fellow journalists turned crime writers, Sjöwall and Wahlöö, who began their Beck novels with an overarching plan for a ten book series already in mind. A count of ten is a superficial link, of course, but Larsson can certainly be regarded as an heir to Sjöwall and Wahlöö in his use of the crime fiction genre as a vehicle for a sophisticated exploration of the social issues confronting Swedish society.

It's not necessary to engage in such speculation to chart the enduring influence of Sjöwall and Wahlöö however, as many contemporary authors have publicly expressed their admiration for the Martin Beck novels and written of the impact that reading them has had on their own writing and on crime fiction more broadly. One need look no further than the introductions to the new Vintage Crime/Black Lizard reprints for this. I already noted that Henning Mankell wrote the introduction to Roseanna. For the second installment, The Man Who Went Up in Smoke, Val McDermid does the honours. In her introduction, she identifies a number of elements that have become standard in police procedurals but that felt almost revolutionary when Sjöwall and Wahlöö originated them. This is the bit that particularly stood out for me:

The police procedural was home to a singular hero. There was no room to share the limelight. The books of Sjöwall and Wahlöö are different. Although they are generally referred to as the Martin Beck novels, they're not really about an individual. They're ensemble pieces. […] [Beck] is part of a team, each member of which is a fully realized character. His strengths and weaknesses are balanced by those of his colleagues. He relies on them as they rely on him. This is a world where ideas are kicked around, where no individual has the monopoly on shafts of brilliant insight. Nor are the repetitive tedious tasks carried out offstage by minor minions. Both action and routine are shared between Beck and his underlings. Friendships and enmities are equally tested in the course of the ten books, and everyone is portrayed as an individual who has virtues and vices in distinct measure.

And what comes next? The introductions to the reprints of books three and four, The Man on the Balcony and The Laughing Policeman, are provided by Jo Nesbø and Jonathan Franzen respectively. And for books five and six, The Fire Engine that Disappeared and Murder at the Savoy, due out in early June, it will be Colin Dexter and Arne Dahl. I can't wait to see who the publishers have got lined up for the rest. The main draw is the books themselves of course, but these introductions definitely add an extra layer of interest for me.

The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas

2009-05-18T20:40:00.000-04:00

The Chalk Circle Man is the fifth of Fred Vargas's Commissaire Adamsberg novels to be translated into English, but it's actually the first in the series. Readers like me who are already committed fans will relish the opportunity it offers to explore Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg's origins—the beginning of his career on the Paris police force, the evolution of his partnership with his favourite inspector (and mine), Adrien Danglard, and some background to his one-time relationship with the elusive Camille and its continuing effect on him. And those new to the series have the option now of beginning at the beginning and reading the books in order.

Commissaire Adamsberg is a police detective like no other. Of course there are many fictional detectives who use their intuition, but Adamsberg is all intuition. Rather than doggedly searching for answers, it's as if he simply drifts about until answers find him. You wouldn't think this would be a popular approach with the investigators who find themselves working under his supervision. But Adamsberg's reputation precedes him, and within weeks of his arrival in Paris they witness some of his successes first hand, so they soon begin to embrace the man and his methods. When the mysterious blue chalk circles that have been appearing overnight in various districts of Paris prove to be not a prank but something more sinister, as Adamsberg alone suspected, and he and his team go out to investigate, we see this gradual embrace through the eyes of the more methodical and conventional Danglard:

Adamsberg had spoken without haste. It was the first time Danglard had seen him giving orders. He did so without seeming either self-important or apologetic about doing so. It was an odd thing, but all the inspectors seemed to be becoming porous, letting Adamsberg's way of behaving seep into them. It was like being caught in the rain when your jacket can't help absorbing water. The inspectors were becoming damp and without realizing it they were imitating Adamsberg; their movements were slower, they smiled more, and were absent-minded. The one most altered was Castreau, who as a rule liked the gruff, manly responses their previous commissaire had expected of them, the military commands barked out without any superfluous commentary, the ban on looking to either side, the slamming of car doors, the fists clenched in the tunic pockets. Today, Danglard hardly recognized Castreau. He was leafing through the victim’s pocket diary, quietly reading out sentences to himself, glancing attentively at Adamsberg, apparently considering every word.

Though the other police officers provide something of a contrast to Adamsberg, he is by no means the only eccentric character in the novels. The whole of Vargas's fictional Paris is a bit off kilter, full of odd characters and esoteric detail. In The Chalk Circle Man, prime among them is Mathilde Forestier, a famous oceanographer, who lives her life according to a rather original theory of the breakdown of the days of the week, and spends a good bit of her time tailing strangers around the city taking notes on their activities. She is drawn into the plot when one of the subjects of her scrutiny turns out to be the chalk circle man of the title.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of this, but I have to concede that The Chalk Circle Man is not as strong as subsequent books in the series. It suffers a bit from the first-in-a-series tendency to fill in the background with a lot of description, and I would rather simply watch Adamsberg's unorthodox methods of detection in action than be told about how his mind works. Also, although, given those unorthodox methods, logic and believability are rarely central concerns, the plot doesn't come together as convincingly or conclude as satisfyingly as in later installments. In fact, I'd say there's a gaping hole in the resolution of the central mystery. Nevertheless, I still recommend it. Even when not at her best, Vargas is still awfully good. And wherever you enter into it, her Comissaire Adamsberg novels comprise an excellent series that is well worth reading.

Library Loot 5: A Decidedly Swedish Flavour

2009-05-15T14:20:00.000-04:00

This summer, I'll be visiting Sweden for the first time and, as I like to make at least a preliminary acquaintance with the literature of a new destination before embarking, Swedish titles are beginning to dominate my reading list.

I'm already quite well versed in Swedish crime fiction, and on the children's literature front, Astrid Lindgren is an old friend. But I want to venture into other literary realms as well and I thought that Literature in Sweden, a slim paperback reference volume, would give me some ideas. Here's the back cover description: "What's going on in contemporary Swedish literature? Are there any clearly marked trends or tendencies? What themes interest Swedish authors? This book presents a selection of contemporary authors with the emphasis on the 1980s and 1990s. In separate sections, three writers give their view of contemporary poetry, prose and drama."

I also consulted an online survey of Swedish literature that delves further back, and the name that jumped out at me was Hjalmar Söderberg. He's described as "one of Scandinavia's most prominent modernist authors" and the back covers of his novels are peppered with such words as stark, brooding, bitter, and tragic. How could I resist? I've chosen The Serious Game ("Set against the bustling cafés, newspaper offices, parks and hotels of Sweden’s capital city at the turn of the last century, The Serious Game tells a compelling story of love and delusion, passion and despair.") and Doctor Glas ("A masterpiece of enduring power, Doctor Glas confronts a chilling moral quandary with gripping intensity.") as my entry points into Söderberg’s oeuvre.

Back in the realm of crime fiction, I also picked up Kerstin Ekman's Blackwater ("On Midsummer's Eve, 1974, Annie Raft arrives with her daughter Mia in the remote Swedish village of Blackwater to join her lover Dan on a nearby commune. On her journey through the deep forest, she stumbles upon the site of a grisly double murder—a crime that will remain unsolved for nearly twenty years, until the day Annie sees her grown daughter in the arms of one man she glimpsed in the forest that eerie midsummer night."). This was the first of Ekman's novels to be translated into English (in 1995) but by then she had already been well known and her books much lauded in Sweden for decades, and I'm curious to check out some of her earlier books as well.

And finally, another crime novel: Camilla Läckberg's The Ice Princess, and I've ordered a copy of the follow-up, The Preacher, as well. Läckberg was already on my radar, but it was Dorte H. who rocketed her books back to the top of my TBR list when she mentioned that Läckberg is another Swedish writer who has referenced an Astrid Lindgren character (Ronia this time) in a contemporary crime novel.

I've got plenty to work with for the moment, but I would be very happy to receive recommendations of other Swedish writers whose work I ought to include in my admittedly sketchy and idiosyncratic crash course in Swedish literature in the months leading up to my trip.

The Trick of It

2009-05-13T16:40:00.007-04:00

I generally like to sort out my feelings about a book before posting on it here, but Michael Frayn's The Trick of It is due back at the library today, so this time you're getting my immediate response in all its ambivalence.

I found the premise of the novel irresistible: a young scholar meets and marries the novelist whose work is the primary focus of his academic career. This seemed to me a very clever way to explore the vexing interrelationship between fiction, biography, and literary criticism. And it was. But I'm not sure that the book ever transcended its premise to become something more than a clever idea.

Part of the problem may have been the structure of the novel. It takes the form of a series of letters from the narrator, who teaches at a university in England, to a friend and fellow literary scholar in Australia. So we are privy only to the narrator's version of events, indeed, only to the particular version of events he crafts for the benefit of a friend who he clearly seeks to impress and entertain. We never get an independent glimpse of JL, his novelist wife, or of their interaction with one another. As a consequence, neither she nor the narrator ever became fully realized characters in my mind.

But then—and here's where I begin to vacillate wildly in my assessment—perhaps that is as it should be. For if they were fully fleshed out, then the focus would be on them as individual characters and on their particular relationship rather than on the broader categories of literary scholar/critic and novelist which would surely dull the novel's satiric edge. Also, that the narrator's story of his relationship with JL is abroad in the world in the form of letters becomes important later when the spectre of biography arises.

Another facet of the book which could be regarded as a strength or a weakness is the humour. It's very funny at some points. By way of illustration let me offer up a paragraph that follows upon the initial seduction:

No, I shall certainly not post this letter. Now I know that you will never read it I can be completely frank. Because the terrible truth is this. It seemed to me, even as I broke it, that I had discovered a new taboo governing mankind, one which must have existed unknown since the dawn of time until I stumbled upon it yesterday evening — a taboo against intercourse with an author on your own reading-list. New to me, at any rate. I never heard lewd references to it in the changing-rooms at school, not even from Tony Gleat, who made obscene references to his own and other people's mothers. I have never come across it in Sophocles or the News of the World. This is worse than the love that dare not speak its name; this is the love that doesn't even have a name to speak. Somewhere in common or statute law there must be a distant parallel; illicit sexual relations with a reigning monarch, perhaps. Is it a taboo that you have ever come across? You have probably considered it no more than I ever did. Less, in fact, since your chances of sharing a glass of water late at night on a narrow guest-room bed with Goethe or Mörike down there in Melbourne are so remote. But when you think about it (as you suddenly are at this present moment, surely), when you think of your hand (yes, that hand, it doesn’t matter which — either of the hands with which you were so recently typing Goethe’s name in reverential tones) — feeling the irresistible smoothness of his knee … now sliding under his skirt … now reaching the lace trimming along the edge of his knickers ... then at once you feel (am I right?) the authentic shock of sheer moral horror.

But at other points the humour is so strongly reminiscent of such classic comic novels as Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim or David Lodge's Changing Places, that I found myself checking the publication date thinking it must be from an earlier decade. Now Frayn's characters are literary fellows of course, and a couple of times the narrator even refers to himself as "a comic novel." So perhaps these echoes are deliberate homage. Then again, perhaps they're just overly derivative.

So, I'm left undecided on the overall merit of The Trick of It. Nevertheless, I don't hesitate to recommend it. I found it very funny at some points, as I said, and surprisingly disturbing at others, but consistently thought provoking throughout.

Meeting Martin Beck

2009-05-11T14:30:00.003-04:00

With their Martin Beck novels—a ten book police procedural series published between 1965 and 1975— husband and wife writing team Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö have been credited as the originators of contemporary Swedish crime fiction. Of course Sjöwall and Wahlöö weren't first to this genre in Sweden. But apparently their books marked a decisive shift from the British-style puzzle mysteries then predominant to a new kind of detective story in which the characters were more complexly human, the police work more realistic, and the plots focused on, and illuminating of, current social problems.

Having just read Roseanna, the first in the series, I can already understand why Sjöwall and Wahlöö hold this exalted status. Although, as noted above, it was originally published in 1965, it feels like an altogether modern read. It's clear from the details that it's set in another time—the men wear hats, everybody smokes everywhere, transatlantic communication is slow, and a good bit of the final resolution of the case involves waiting next to a telephone. But Martin Beck, the melancholic police inspector at the centre of the action, could easily have walked out of a 21st century crime novel. Of course, that familiarity is a testament to his influence and he's no less intriguing a character for it.

Interestingly, in an introduction to the edition that I read, Henning Mankell praises Beck and the books in which he features for the same qualities that I praised Mankell's Kurt Wallander series when I first encountered it. Mankell emphasizes Martin Beck's humanness and fallibility:

I haven't counted how many times Martin Beck feels sick in Roseanna, but it happens a lot. He can't eat breakfast because he doesn't feel good. Cigarettes and train rides make him sick. His personal life also makes him ill. In Roseanna the homicide investigators emerge as ordinary human beings. There is nothing at all heroic about them. They do their job, and they get sick.

He also remarks on the innovative use of time in Roseanna:

...let me say that it's probably one of the first crime novels in which time clearly plays a major role. There are long periods during which nothing happens, when the investigation into who murdered Roseanna and threw her into the Göta Canal seems to be standing still; then it may move a few centimetres before coming to a halt again. It's quite clear that for Martin Beck and his colleagues, the passage of time is both frustrating and a necessary evil.

This facet of the book really struck me as well. It seems to me a very difficult thing to convey the intermittent, slow, sometimes plodding quality of investigative work in realistic fashion without generating a slow and plodding reading experience. Yet Sjöwall and Wahlöö have accomplished the former here in a taut, gripping novel of little more than 200 pages.

Roseanna proved an excellent read, and I can't wait to begin on the other nine books in the series. I borrowed Roseanna from the library, but I've resolved to buy myself a copy of it and of the rest of the series as well, as I'm already quite sure that these are books that I'm going to want to own. Happily they all are, or soon will be, readily available in lovely paperback reprint Vintage Crime/Black Lizard editions, complete with introductions by such luminaries as Mankell (quoted above), Val McDermid, and Jo Nesbø.