September 23, 2016 · 2:51 pm
Some people really like Heather O’Neill (e.g. apparently all of Canadian media and award committees). I am not one of those readers. Lullabies for Little Criminals predates the blog, but I remember thinking it was a bit overwrought. Enter The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, O’Neill’s second novel and a repeat effort to make me feel something profound by way of Serious last sentences for every chapter. These sentences have a kind of formula: Feeling/Abstract Noun + unusual metaphor + adjective + reference to a cat. I think these sentences feel pretty good about themselves. Continue reading →
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Filed under Book Club, Canadian Literature, Fiction, Giller prize, Prize Winner
Tagged as Canada Reads, canadian literature, Francophone, Giller prize, Heather O'Neill, orphans, Quebec, Quebec separatism, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, twins
September 22, 2016 · 8:17 pm
You read a book like Octavia Butler’s Kindred and you get to thinking some bleak thoughts. Published in the 1970s, the ‘fantasy’ novel follows Dana through a time travelling slave narrative. Opening in the 1970s the reader is immediately hooked as Dana travels back in time to the pre-civil war South and finds herself – a black woman – among slavery. The mechanics of time travel in the novel are explained by virtue of the ‘kindred’ connection between Dana and her 1800something ancestor, Rufus: Dana is called back to the past each time Rufus is in danger of dying so that she can save his life; Dana is called back to the present each time her own life is in danger. Continue reading →
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Filed under American literature, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Uncategorized
Tagged as Books recommended, fantasy, feminism, gender, historical fiction, Hugo, Kindred, labour, Nebula Award, Octavia Butler, prize winner, race, racism, Slave narrative, slavery, time travel
September 15, 2016 · 1:40 pm
To believe in the power of art to create or change politics (for the better) is no small thing. Such belief requires an implicit optimism that the despair and risks of the political moment (of now or any time) has difficulty supporting. Cynicism is a logical, rational response to the political moment of Trump, or in the case of Julian Barnes’ The Noise of Time : Stalin. The personal danger of resisting the cynical impulse by creating art is the question of the novel. Continue reading →
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Filed under Fiction, New York Times Notable, Prize Winner, Reader Request
Tagged as art, books, composers, Donald Trump, Julian Barnes, literature, music, optimism, reading, Russia, Stalin, The Noise of Time, USSR
September 7, 2016 · 2:12 pm
Here’s the thing. When you’re feeling feelings the best approach is to repress, ignore, and eat. It is not to confront these feelings by way of literary engagement. Right? Right. So what was I thinking in reading Ian McEwan’s new novel, Nutshell? The book is narrated by a fetus. A fucking fetus. Continue reading →
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Filed under Book Club, British literature, Fiction, Reader Request
Tagged as babies, contrived, fetus, Ian McEwen, murder, Nutshell, patricide, pregnancy, Random House Canada
