O, Exaltation

I got the coolest book the other day. It’s not on the List because it’s a flipping-through-and-enjoying book, and one of my rules about the Book List Project was that only books that I sat down and read all the way through would make it. (I do tend to finish books, but sometimes I am defeated by boring writers and lazy copyeditors.) Really, it’s a practical restriction: I also flip through lots of knitting books and home interior books, and including those would artificially inflate the list. And you know, this is such a very important and serious project of mine that I have to put rules on it. But I’m not a control freak. Much.

Anyway. The book.

It’s called “An Exaltation of Larks” by some dude named James Lipton, who apparently is some kind of actor. The book itself, as you might be able to tell from the title, is a collection of … you guessed it…. Collective nouns! This book is a treasure trove for word freaks like myself. Not only does it include the usual “gaggle of geese” and “murder of crows” but also the amazingly lyrical “exaltation of larks” and “parliament of owls.” I’m also fond of “a worship of writers” (because Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary defined “patron” as “a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery”).

I’m hoping to work a few of these collectives into daily speech (as a means to get them back into common use – because English isn’t strange and wonderful enough already). Let’s see: I’ve been one of an “erudition of editors,” an “iamb of poets,” and “a conjunction of grammarians.”

I stand daily before “a failing of students” or “a dilation of pupils.” I am part of a “leap of overachievers” and sometimes I visit “a brood of researchers.”

I envy “a shush of librarians” who work in “a trove of libraries.”

How wonderful is that?

The Library as Fashion Statement

I remember the moment I figured it out.

It was one of those typical “ah-ha” moments so beloved of Oprah, as if the skies had opened and Enlightenment (or at least Awareness) descended.

It was junior high, a time I do not recall very fondly. The person who delivered this epiphany to my listening ears was called Nancy (I cannot for the life of me remember her last name) and she was fabulous. She was tall, she was pretty, she had curly red hair and adorable freckles; she was popular; she had boyfriends; she made the sports teams I was regularly cut from; she was everything I was not.

So of course I studied her. How did she know these things? Where did she get this ease, this instinctive knowledge of style and fashion? How did she know the exact moment when stirrup pants went OUT and something else came IN? (It was the eighties, people, cut me some slack.) How did she gauge shoes and skirt lengths and colours and the way to do one’s hair and how to apply makeup? Why was it that when I tried these things they just looked weird?

And then one day I overheard her talking to one of her friends (ever-so-slightly LESS cool, according to the junior high measurement of these essential things) and Nancy said the words that rocked me, a lament about the vagaries of fashion and how quickly styles change:

“You used to walk by Le Chateau and see nothing but black. Now all you see is white, white, white!”

It came to me then. THAT’s how they know! That’s how these girls know what’s in fashion and what isn’t! They look in the stores! It’s not a secret code, it’s not some weird genetic twist that I lack, it’s just that they go over to Market Mall and window shop and try things on and…look, I guess.

Sadly, this epiphany did not help my social life or my fashion sense. I never did care for Le Chateau, I never did crack the accessories code, and will always prefer flat and comfortable shoes to any other kind. Also, shopping is boring.

But that memory came to me the other day (my friend C. is getting married and my closet mysteriously shrunk the dress I was going to wear) in Market Mall, of all places, right about where Le Chateau used to be.

You don’t have to worry about getting things wrong in a library. Even if you don’t have the information you need, it’s not hard to find a book that will help you. The books are right there, where they are supposed to be. They don’t move around, changing black into white without any warning. The Dewey Decimal System, even if it is a little too much like math for my liking, is a wonder of exactitude and organization. A few years ago my own book collection got to the point where I needed to implement what one of my old professors used to call “An Organizational Principle.” It’s a quirky system and depends on an in-depth knowledge of an author’s nationality and the year in which the book was acquired, as well as when it was last read and the genre into which it fits, but I can still find the books I need.

I learned from Nancy that if you want to know what’s in style you should look in the stores where the young people shop. I now know that styles change and that the people you idolize in grade 8 are long gone from your consciousness a few years later on. I also know that I will never care for fashion or uncomfortable shoes, and that I will never understand the Secret of Accessories, nor will I ever be in possession of Good Hair.

But I do know where the libraries are, and how to find what I need inside a book.

The Kite Runner

I read The Kite Runner (book #116) on a hot day.

Some of my students right now are from Afganistan, and I’ve always felt that reading fiction about a place was a good way into the heart of that place – when I was a kid I read James Michener’s Caravans and fell head over heels in love with the idea of travelling, of going away, of being someone different. I never did that, and I regret it bitterly, but I do frequently seek out books about places I’m never likely to see. In February I read extensively about Italy, and it helped me through an exceptionally difficult month.

So, The Kite Runner.

I’m sad to say that it did not blow my mind. The plot was predictable (there was only one twist in the whole book that actually surprised me) and the author glossed over a lot of things in the narrator’s life. I hate it when writers say something like “and then he went to university and studied creative writing, even though his dad didn’t want him to, and before too long he had published two dozen books.” Seriously! That’s like saying “then on Tuesday he decided to climb Everest, but not until after lunch, which he ate at the Ritz with whoever the bony model du jour is.” I want the nitty gritty. I want the blood, the sweat, the tears, the agony of writing, the pain of going through school, the deprivation, the hunger (physical and emotional), the rejection slips, the slush piles. Give me something real!

Real, though, is what I got in the rest of the book. I particularly liked seeing what it’s like (or what it was like, I guess) in Afghanistan, and those glimpses of Afghan culture in America. I often wonder about the lives of my students, because they are so limited in what they can tell me – they can only tell about the things they have words for, and their words are quite few. And I know they have also had experiences in their pasts that there are no words for, and it breaks my heart to think of that.

Another teacher I know said that her Afghani students hated the book; they said it was completely unrealistic and did not reflect anything true about the Afghan experience. Here’s what I think about that (thank you for asking): we can only tell the truth as we see it. We can only say “this is how it was for me.” When I was taking a poetry workshop at Concordia during part of my mis-spent youth I wrote about how autumn leaves smelled like cinnamon when you walk through them. Well, so kill me, they DO! They do to my nose, anyway, and I’ll stick to that, but one of the Pretentious Poets in my class took offence at my description. Because there’s apparently some kind of inherent truth to the scent of fall leaves in Montreal and HEAVEN FORBID you should get it wrong.

But you’re the author. To the author goes the authority.

And the last word, too.

Vindication at Last

People are suspicious of readers. What, they wonder, could be so enthralling about the inside of a book? Especially with the delights of daily existence all around?

I’ve lost track of the times I’ve been accused of anti-social behaviour, of being out of touch with reality, of preferring books to people. (A soon-to-be-ex boyfriend nailed me with that one: “You don’t even want to be with me, you’d rather read a book.” If you had known the fellow in question you would have fled to fiction, too, believe me.)

Well, vindication arrived today, in the form of the Globe and Mail. “A group of Toronto researchers have compiled a body of evidence showing that bookworms have exceptionally strong people skills,” the article says. (I love it when science confirms something that I’ve experienced: it just lets me know that the world does, indeed, revolve around me.) “Readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than those who read non-fiction texts.”

I love books not because they are an escape from reality, but because they give me a different way of experiencing that reality. Instead of enduring the discomfort and inconvenience of a ride on Calgary’s public transit system (what non-readers call “real life”), I can have an adventure, meet new people, enjoy a completely different kind of existence, all without risking grease stains or a broken heart. Fiction is a way to understand the world.

Besides, in my experience reality is no great shakes. I’d rather be reading.

The Stone Angel

Margaret Laurence made me want to be a writer.

That’s not quite true; I wanted to be a writer a long time before that. I wrote my first short story in Grade 1 – it featured Edward (the name of a kid in my class whose nose dripped perpetually, and whom no one would sit with) who was involved in some sort of tragic mining accident. (Oh, I was an odd, odd six year old.) The books of Margaret Laurence made me realize what good writing could be; she showed me the craft of writing, she made me want to write like she did.

My mom bought me a boxed set of three Margaret Laurence novels for Christmas when I was eleven. The books (I still have them) are the New Canadian Library versions of The Prophet’s Camel-Bell, The Diviners, and The Stone Angel.

Now, one of the things I hold as being absolutely true in my life is that The Diviners is the greatest work of fiction in the history of mankind. Best opening lines, anyway: “The river flowed both ways. The current moved from north to south, but the wind usually came from the south, rippling the bronze-green water in the opposite direction.” A metaphor for the whole book, are those two sentences. Simple but brilliant: the bits that take place here and now (Morag, the main character, awaiting news of her daughter Pique) are told in the past tense, and the story of Morag’s unfolding life, her becoming who she is, is told in the present. Everything flows both ways. Present and past, family and self.

This was, as I’m sure you can imagine, completely lost on me at eleven. But damn, I recognized good writing, and good story telling, and the fact that The Diviners is one of those books that you read over and over again, each time discovering something new.

That’s one of the things I love about Laurence: every reading is richer than the one before. Back in March (book #63) I re-read The Fire-Dwellers and admired Stacy Cameron and that absolutely honest narrative about loneliness. Last week (book #121) I read The Stone Angel again.

This is a book that never made much impression on me, at least not in comparison to Laurence’s others. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about things like family dynamics, about the things we tell ourselves in order to keep on living and functioning as part of a larger group, and the way we do the most harm to those we love the most. That's what I noticed with this reading.

Hagar is over ninety and she’s dying. She’s losing her short-term memory and her other faculties, but there’s nothing wrong with her long-term memory or her spirit. Her son, in the last words we hear from him in the book, says to a nurse about his mother “She’s a holy terror.”

Hagar is a fabulous character. She can’t see herself clearly (who among us can?) and she damages all the people around her through carelessness and through a complete inability to accept who they are. She is responsible, almost directly, for the death of her favourite son and his fiance. She ignores and dislikes her other son, the one whose wife has cared for her for years. Hagar Shipley is all piss and vinegar, all old Scots and prairie pioneer and purely herself.

I read The Diviners to find out how to be a writer. I read The Fire-Dwellers to learn how to be lonely (or how to accept loneliness). I read The Stone Angel to learn how to live and how to get old. (Amazing that Laurence, who never got that old, was able to summon age and its indignities so clearly.)

I think that we tell stories to discover who we are. I think that we read stories to find little pieces of ourselves; to understand who we have become.

Margaret Laurence told the stories that made me who I am. What better reason for writing could there be than that?

Yeehaw! or even, Yahoo!

It was Stampede Parade day in my fair town, so the Boy and I went downtown to the rocking seats I scored, to watch all the action.

I do love a parade.

I love the marching bands, and the Mounties in their scarlet coats.

I love the soldiers and the fact that most people in the crowd have never been afraid to see soldiers in the street.

I loved that there was a float from the Calgary Public LIbrary! With people who were dressed as books! (I do believe I have found my tribe.)

I love that the parade shows Calgary's history as well as its diversity.

I even love the fact that you can see the former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein sitting in a chuckwagon not two feet away from you, and curse the fact that you have no rotten tomatoes to toss at him. (Schools -- and, more importantly, STUDENTS, are still suffering from the cuts to education that King Ralph implemented in the early 90s.)

And the Shriners, of course -- love them too. (Check out that guy's knees -- he must have needed a beer by the end of the parade.)

So the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth has begun, with a bang, and we were there, cheering.

Guilty as Charged

I found this on the internet, source of all that is wonderful.
How many of these apply to you?

1. I have read fiction when I was depressed or to cheer myself up.
2. I have gone on reading binges of an entire book or more in a day.
3. I read rapidly, often 'gulping' chapters.
4. I have sometimes read early in the morning or before work.
5. I have hidden books in different places to sneak a chapter without
being seen.
6. Sometimes I avoid friends or family obligations in order to read
novels.
7. Sometimes I re-write film or television dialog as the characters
speak.
8. I am unable to enjoy myself with others unless there is a book
nearby.
9. At a party, I will often slip off unnoticed to read.
10. Reading has made me seek haunts and companions which I would
otherwise avoid.
11. I have neglected personal hygiene or household chores until I
have finished a novel.
12. I have spent money meant for necessities on books instead.
13. I have attempted to check out more library books than permitted.
14. Most of my friends are heavy fiction readers.
15. I have sometimes passed out from a night of heavy reading.
16. I have suffered 'blackouts' or memory loss from a bout of reading.
17. I sometimes read without a donut in one hand.
18. I do crossword puzzles in pen when there isn't a pencil handy.
19. I have spent hours trying to program TiVO only to record Oprah
when it's her book club.
20. I eat biscotti at Borders, even though it tastes terrible, so
I can disguise my reading habit.
21. I have wept, become angry or irrational because of something
I read.
22. I have sometimes wished I did not read so much.
23. Sometimes I think my reading is out of control.
24. Amazon knows my credit card number.

Perhaps you have..... a book addiction!

Well there are worse things, if I may say so.

And, please, wherever you are, raise a glass to Canada's 141st birthday. Preferably a glass of decent beer (Wild Rose? Sleemans? You choose).