Tag: canada

Orange Fish

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Shields, Carol. The Orange Fish. The Fourth Estate, 2004.

Reason read: June is short story month.

  • Orange Fish – a couple finds their marriage saved by a lithograph of a fish.
  • Chemistry – a group of people join the YMCA Winter Enrichment Program to learn the recorder.
  • Hazel – after her philandering husband dies of a heart attack, Hazel learns to live again. As an aside, my father was the same age as Brian when he died, at fifty-five.
  • Today is the Day – the planting of the blisterlily.
  • Hinterland – Meg and Roy Sloan of Milwaukie, Missouri travel to France.
  • Block Out – Meershank has writers block so travels to Portugal with his wife, looking for inspiration.
  • Collision – Marta is waiting for Malcolm Brownstone, the Recreation and Resort Consultant, to arrive.
  • Good Manners – Georgia Willow oversees instructing people on Canadian manners.
  • Times of Sickness and Health – Kay is surrounded by people always telling her what to do.
  • Family Secrets – when family secrets are all that you have, you tend to protect them.
  • Fuel for the Fire – a daughter lets her aging and widower father burn anything he can find in her glorious fireplace.
  • Milk Bread Beer Ice – Barbara and Peter Cormin are a sad couple with nothing to say after thirty-plus years of marriage.

Author fact: I found a Carol Shields Literary Trust website here. Really cool site.

Book trivia: Orange Fish is comprised of twelve short stories about friendships and relationships and won the Marian Engel Award in 1990.

Quote to quote, “How was he to know she would mistake a random disruption for lasting attachment?” (p 136).

Confessional: I just lost my Papa-in-law last week. When the protagonist of Orange Fish confessed that he wanted to run a dude ranch, I thought of Papa. He, too, had cowboy fantasies.

Setlist: Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Handel, and Vivaldi.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Carol Shields: Too Good To Miss” (p 197).

Year of Lesser

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Bergen, David. A Year of Lesser. Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.

Reason read: Canada Day is in July. A Year of Lesser takes place outside Winnipeg in a small town called Lesser.

Orbital relationships. At the center is Johnny. What is it about this man that has women lining up to act the fool for him? His wife, Charlene, is never on the same page about wanting or not wanting children. His mistress is already a mother with a teenaged son. Both slobber over him despite the fact he is a man-child who can’t decide between love and lust. He works for a feed store and runs a drop-in center for teens. It’s complicated.
No question Johnny worships women. He observes them through a detailed and hungry lens. He notices the soles of their feet, their popped-pregnant belly buttons, the curve of an upturned nose. Yet, Johnny is a God-fearing, born again and again, Bible reading religious man. It’s complicated.
I felt bad for Charlene. What is she supposed to do about a husband who admits he is having a child with another woman? The whole town knows about Johnny and Loraine. Then I felt bad for Loraine. Pregnant with Johnny’s child and yet, he stops coming around. Rumors like smoke from a fire start to swirl about Johnny and a teenaged girl. It’s complicated.

Detail I had trouble with: Johnny is trying to quit smoking. You don’t readily carry cigarettes if you are trying to quit. How then can Johnny so easily offer Loraine a smoke?

Author fact: Bergen has written a bunch and Nancy said he is one of her favorites, but I’m only reading The Year of Lesser for the Challenge.

Line I liked, “He’s trying to weigh time and desire” (p 7).

Playlist: Led Zeppelin, Peter Tosh, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and the Rankin Family,

Nancy said: Pearl said the author was a favorite of hers.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Canadian Fiction” (p 51).

Cat’s Eye

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Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. Read by Kimberly Far. Random House Audio, 2011.
Atwood, Margaret. Cat’s Eye. Anchor Books, 1998.

Reason read: Atwood was born in the month of November. Read in her honor.

Atwood is clever in describing typical friendships between girls with the simple line, “we think we are all friends”. Young Elaine Risley has all the angst of a young girl growing up in the bullseye of bullying; something that haunts the adult Elaine when she returns back to her childhood city of Toronto to put on an art show. Elaine confronts the painful memories of the various traumas of her childhood with every passing landmark. Most prominent from her childhood are three girls who at turns tormented and loved Elaine with equal parts malice and warmth. As with all young friendships, Elaine was an easy target. She was desperate to please; bullied into thinking she was never good enough for the friendships she begged to have. One of the saddest moments for me was when Elaine contemplated suicide, not because she wanted to end her life, but because she knew how much her death would please an enemy.
As a teenager, Elaine discovered she had a sharp tongue which becomes her best defense and her most valuable weapon. Her enemies fall away not because they leave her, but because she lets them go.
As an adult, Elaine learns that the monsters of our youth can shrink to the harmless size of dust balls under the bed; their teeth and claws can dull upon adult scrutiny. But not all of them go away, especially when you do not want them to.

As an aside, Atwood seems to have an affinity for the nail polish color, “Fire and Ice”. Several different characters wear it.

Simple yet devastating lines, “She thinks I am happy” (p 161), “Murder ought to be a more ceremonial occasion” (p 266), and “There’s too much old time here” (p 453).

Author fact: Margaret Atwood has long been one of my favorite authors.

Book trivia: Cat’s Eye is a type of marble design. Back in the day everyone had marbles. Elaine carried one as a talisman.

Setlist: “Skye Boat Song”, “Scots Wha’ Hae”, Frank Sinatra, Betty Hutton, “Hearts Made of Stone”, “Moonlight Sonata”, and “There Will Always Be an England”.

Nancy said: Pearl describes the plot of Cat’s Eye.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Women’s Friendships” (p 247).

Bear

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Engel, Marian. Bear. McClelland and Stewart, 1976.

Reason read: October is Animal Month.

Lou, an archivist for an Institute is sent to a remote Ottawan island to catalog the estate of Colonel Joycelyn Cary. The institute has acquired the Pennarth Estate’s books, journals, and other ephemera. Admittedly, I had to go into this story with an extremely open mind. From everything I heard, the only detail that stuck out to me was that the protagonist has sexual feelings for, and tries to copulate with, a bear. Say what now? The second thing people said, as if to follow up on that statement, was that Engel writes in such a way that a relationship between a woman and a bear is totally plausible. My first indication of realism comes when, even though Lou and the bear have a growing friendship, Lou is constantly reminding herself he is a bear that weighs over 300 pounds with claws and teeth. Bears are predators that are attracted to the emanating odors of blood and fear. To be sure, the writing is beautiful. The treatment of women in society (in the 70s) is accurately articulated. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that Lou’s choices for male companionship were so wretched that she had to settle for an animal. The end.

Author fact: Engel passed in 1985.

Book trivia: Bear is a ridiculously short book of less that 150 pages (at least my copy was).

Lines I liked, “It took the curse off his warnings about the bear” (p 75),

Playlist: “Old Black Joe”.

Nancy said: Pearl called Bear odd and strange and a gem. The cool thing is that she also mentioned it has been long out of print, but I was able to find it in a local library. Yay for public libraries!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Animal Love” (p 13). I’d say.

Unless

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Shields, Carol. Unless. Read by Joan Allen. Harper Collins, 2002.

Reason read: Shields celebrates a birthday in June. Read in her honor.

How do you carry on with your life when one of your children is mentally ill and choosing to live on the streets for no apparent reason? I read a review where someone called Unless whiney and self-indulgent. I’m sorry but if I had a loved one “lost” like that, I too would be fixated on their wellbeing. Are they getting enough food to eat? Where are they going to go when the temperatures are minus ten degrees (not including wind chill factor) or one hundred and two (in the shade)? Reta Winters is trying to be a mother to her two other teenage daughters while thinking these things about a third, her eldest. She is a wife going through the motions with her trilobite-obsessed husband. She is a translator while trying to write her own second novel. She is an aging woman, trying to stay relevant in the youth-obsessed world around her.
There is a little trickery going on with Unless. Like mirrors angled so images are reflected to infinity, Unless is a story about a woman writing about a woman writer who is writing about a woman writer. The nesting dolls of feminism. Then there is the carefully disguised biography of her mentor, Danielle. Danielle is at once a strong holocaust survivor and a fragile French woman who relies on Reta for writing support. Finally, there is the mystery of why eldest daughter, Nora, insists on sitting out on a street corner with a sign that simply reads “Goodness.”

Author fact: Shields died when she was only 68 years old, shortly after Unless was published. My audio had an interview with Ms. Shields and I was struck by how oddly she spoke. I have to wonder if she was ill at the time of the interview.

Book trivia: Chapters are titled with adverbs and conjunctions. If I read more carefully I probably would have seen how each word tied back into the storyline.
Audio trivia: at the end of the reading of Unless Carol Shields answers some questions. I have to admit I was distracted by her strange manner of halting speech.

Playlist: Mozart, Sinatra, Beethoven, and Bach.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Unless.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Carol Shields: Too Good To Miss” (p 197).

Forty Words for Sorrow

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Blunt, Giles. Forty Words for Sorrow. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2001.

Reason read: Stories about serial killers scare me. Maybe it is the thought that once a person kills it can become easier and easier for them to do. Maybe Sting was onto something when he sang, “murder by numbers, it’s as easy as one, two, three.” For Halloween, I chose to read Forty Words for Sorrow. In addition, I needed a book with an emotion in the title for the Portland Public Library Reading challenge.

The title comes from a comparison to the Eskimo language. If there are forty words for snow, surely somewhere out there there are forty words that mean sorrow. John Cardinal is a flawed small town Canadian cop fixated on solving the mystery of the disappearance of a teenager girl. Maybe it was the thought of his own daughter that originally drove him, but Cardinal’s obsession to solve the case depleted department resources and ultimately got him transferred out of homicide and into the burglary and petty crimes division. Meanwhile, another teenager goes missing. Then another. Suddenly, Cardinal’s obsession, thirteen year old Katie Pine’s remains are found. Maybe he was onto something after all? Is this the work of a serial killer? This time John is back on the case with a rookie for a partner (is it Lise or Lisa?) who might be investigating him.
This all would be a typical story of a dedicated office with an I-told-you-so attitude but Cardinal is a cop with a complicated life and a dirty secret his partner is determined to uncover. Can he solve the crime(s) before his personal life crashes down around him? His daughter is attending Yale on illegal funds, his wife’s mental instability has landed her in an expensive in-patient hospital, and yet another individual has been found murdered. John asks again, is there a serial killer operating out of the tiny town of Algonquin Bay? Can Cardinal close the case before his colleagues close in on him?
Not a spoiler alert: I appreciate that Blunt leaves the ending open. Cardinal’s crimes are not wrapped up in an all-is-forgiven-because-you-are-a-hero bow. There is room for Cardinal to make a comeback and face his demons.

Author fact: Giles Blunt and I share a birthday.

Book trivia: this could have been a movie.

Playlist: Backstreet Boys, Tupac Shakur, Puff Daddy, Aerosmith, Madonna, Pretenders, Bryan Adams, Neil Young, “Good Morning Little School Girl”, Bach, Pearl Jam, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, “Abide with Me”, Rolling Stones, Anne Murray, and Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”.

Nancy said: Pearl said Blunt’s writing is gripping and that Forty Words for Sorrow was one of her favorites.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Canada, O Canada” (p 51).

Halfway to Schist

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Bridgford, Peter. Halfway to Schist. Black Rose Writing, 2022.

Reason read: As a reviewer for the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I occassionally get to review books from people I like.

Using an escape to a remote Point au Baril fishing lodge as a means for recovery for a recent widower and his only teenage daughter, Bridgford sets the stage for exploration into how a mother’s suicide, an uprooted existence, and various difficult relationships impact a young girl’s life. Opal Ethelred “Red” Rogers has her whole life shaken time and time again. I agree with another reviewer that some “adult” reactions to Red’s experiences are unexpected, but the narrative rings true even if it is a little repetitious. The best part of Bridgford’s writing is the descriptive imagery. The use of scientific geologic terminology juxtaposed with gorgeous narrative was stunning. The deliberate placement of words was like carefully laying beautiful stones for an ornate patio. The end result is not only solid as rock, but beautiful as well.Told from the perspective teenage girl. Like how A Great and Terrible Beauty was about a girl who lost her mother at an any early, so does the first person protagonist, Red in Halfway to Schist; only, their widowed fathers take different paths when trying to decide how to care for their coming of age daughters. One father sends his daughter off to boarding school while Halfway to Schist’s father takes Red to a remote island to rebuild a derelict camp. Like all girls in a similar situation, Red dreams of her mother and tries to make the best of her post-mom life. That is where the similarities end. The father in A Great and Terrible Beauty disconnects from his daughter and the story turns into a fantasy. In Halfway to Schist Red and her father are emotionally synched and grounded in a very real universe. Father and daughter sigh at the same time, they hold their collective breath at the same time. Despite this closeness, the summer of 1955 brings an end to innocence and childhood. Serious events occur in Red’s young teenage life; too serious for someone so young. As an adult looking back, she is able to tell the story of a near rape, racial prejudice, and a murder with near unemotional stoicism.

As an aside, Bridgford was so specific about a pair of shoes I had to look them up: Converse Blue Lapel Bosey boots. They are actually pretty cool.

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

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Munro, Alice. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories. Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

Reason read: Munro’s birth month is in July. Read in her honor.

Munro has a way with words, as everyone knows. Here are four words I never thought I would see stitched together, “bug-eyed pickle ass”. Go figure.
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is a collection of short stories with a common theme: relationships:

  1. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage – a childish prank backfires.
  2. Floating Bridge – a woman deals with positive news concerning her cancer.
  3. Family Furnishings – a college student learns about a secret her aunt was keeping.
  4. Comfort – the suicide of a husband.
  5. Nettles – childhood taunts.
  6. Post and Beam – when a house is more than a house.
  7. What Is Remembered – the memory of an affair with a pilot lingers long after the romance has died.
  8. Queenie – A sister’s abandonment.
  9. The Bear Came Over the Mountain – An adultery gets his comeuppance.

Lines I really liked, “Her teeth were crowded to the front of her mouth as if they were ready for an argument” (p 3), “See the conquering hero comes” (p 125), “A stealthy, considering, almost married glance, its masquerade and its bland intimacy arousing to those who were after all not married” (p 233), and “As if he dared anybody to breathe while he was in there” (p 252).

Author fact: Munro has won a bunch of awards for her writing including the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Book trivia: I have six different Munro books to read on my list. I have already read Friend of My Youth and The Love of a Good Woman.

Nancy said: Pearl said Munro is among the authors who have “distinctly evoked sense of place that distinguishes Canadian fiction” (Book Lust, p 50).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Canadian Fiction” (p 50).

Toronto

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Charles Rawlings-Way and Natalie Karneef. Toronto: City Guide. Melbourne: Lonely Planet, 2007.

This travel guide of Toronto is mostly black and white; a no nonsense kind of guide. It doesn’t need to show off with lots of glossy photos and trivial details. Only eight pages are dedicated to artistic shots around town and, in fact, is the only section that isn’t all that informative. The contents of the guide are well organized into various activities. If you are in town on business and only have time for finding restaurants, page 91 is where you want to start. I appreciated the little blue boxes with extra tidbits of information. In the History section (p 38) you will find a box that talks about the ghosts that haunt the Elgin Theatre and Old City Hall. Sign me up! The only drawback to this guide is the map section. Instead of a fold-out map showing the entire city, the maps are page by page like an atlas. There is overlap between downtown north and downtown south so that you can make the necessary connections but it would have been easier to have the map all on one page. But, to be fair, with everyone having gps on their smartphones, I doubt a printed map really matters anymore.

Reason read: Natalie Merchant performing in Toronto in May 2015.

Book trivia: I really enjoyed the inclusion of the subway map. Very cool.

 

Student of Weather

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Hay, Elizabeth. A Student of Weather. Washington D.C.: Counterpoint, 2000.

A Student of Weather is a car without brakes. No. A Student of Weather is a car without brakes set at the top of a very tall hill. No. A Student of Weather is a car without brakes set at the top of a very tall hill…and someone gives it a push. This is what is was like to read Elizabeth Hay’s first novel. It started off easy enough, slow enough, gentle enough, harmless enough. Then, without any warning at all it is careening crazily almost out of control. Impossible to stop. Stopping the read proved impossible, too. I seriously couldn’t put it down.

As mentioned before, the story starts out simply. Maurice Dove is a researcher, come to study the weather of Saskatchewan. He stays with the Hardy family – Ernest and his two daughters Lucinda and Norma-Joyce. Both daughters, despite being very young, fall in love with Mr. Dove. From there, simplicity comes to a halt.  A Student of Weather is a novel full of contrasting themes. While Lucinda is fair-haired, beautiful and virtuous Norma-Joyce is dark-haired, impulsive and outspoken. While both sisters find ways to fall in love with their visitor, both also find ways to hate each other. Even the landscapes within the story are contrasting. Norma-Joyce’s childhood prairie home cannot compare to the bustling city of her adulthood, New York City. As time progresses and Norma-Jean grows to be a woman with a child of her own, even her child is a conflicted in personality – both shy and loud simultaneously.

On the surface this seems like a love story – two sisters vying for the affections of a traveling man who loves neither of them. Digging deeper it is a story of betrayal and survival. It is the story of pain and loss and the idea that not every broken heart gets mended.

There were many, many, many favorite lines. Here are some of the best:
“Had she been able to , she would have kept the water he washed in, the skin that flaked away, the warm breath that hovered in the cold air above his head, his footprints in the snow” (p 96). I love how each item becomes something less obtainable. Had I written the line I would have reversed the order of the last two items.
“Maybe that’s all anyone wants in the end, to be remembered rather than overlooked’ (p 112). Simple line, but I loved it.
“She understood that you can pass from summer to winter in someone’s mind without even leaving the room” (p 172). Tragically beautiful. Been there, but who hasn’t?
“But returning is never easy, and nor is September” (p 283). Since I can add a car accident and a death to September sadness, I agree. Completely.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters. In ” Canadian Fiction” (p 50) and again in “First Novels” (p88).