I have long said “I don’t do novels”. A friend asked why. I think it is an unquestioned rule, vestigial prejudice from fundamentalist Christianity days when anything but the Bible is a lie. Even nature can be planted with red herrings. Partly I held fast to resenting the idea of willingly submitting to being manipulated by a fictional roller coaster. At the same time I shunned novels, also movies and secular music for a decade or so. Some things broke thru. Poetry’s wedge could get in because it was prayer and praise and hooked on to other things. But that all is long ago. And yet I still resisted novels. Why? When I tried I felt unchanged for reading them. I felt irritated because the sentences were baggy, thoughts sentimental and poorly formed. The characters were thin caricatures. But could it not be the choice of novels, rather than the genre. And so I began again.
143. Autumn Quail by Naguib Mahfouz (Anchor, 1985)
A compelling interesting novel taking place in the 1950s revolution in Egypt. I couldn’t put it down and didn’t until it was done. I don’t now if this is a literary novel or popular novel but it was structured excellently. It opened with walking through a revolution, wondering who was safe. It was carefully chosen for words so that the reader can understand without being given adverbial instructions. It was pretty subtle.
144. Stories from the Iliad and Odyssey by G. Chandon trans from French by Barbara Whelpton (Burke London, 1964)
Well then, it a very short version fitting both epics in under 190 pages. If you tell 5%, which part? It gives the thumbnail but what was cut? Where Penelope speaks and tells the suitor-lot to stop singing for x-reason. Where Helen speaks and recognizes Ulysses in his son. Where Helen is in the conversation circle, her references to the women herbalists of Egypt. Where Penelope is crying and getting comforted by her maids.
Curious consistency about what is essential. How do the seals get killed? Not by the Goddess in this account but the men. So, women are nearly excised entirely and speaking roles passed to men. Whatever were these authors up to? Making it more palatable for the era?
145. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (Dial Press, Random House, 1969)
Trippy. When people say they liked his writing, I didn’t expect funny.
If you say it is a story about POW camps and racism and an old man patronized by his daughter, it doesn’t seem to add up to humour. But there’s such sharp social commentary on commercial society and war. It looks like it’s random as shuffled cards in structure, but there’s movement and feels like a satire of novels. Everyone is related. Except, no one is there for a purpose. It’s like Waiting for Godot except violent and random things happen and yet I kept reading. I can’t tell you why. Partly his odd twisted humour I suppose. And the intercutting. Anything can be endured for half a page. And there is movement. And spectacular phrases at times. It is very odd. Oddness appeals.
And I like the novelist sitting in the character, breaking the 4th wall at times.
146. Up the Gatineau, edited by Carol Martin (The Historical Society of the Gatineau, 1995)
Getting grounded again in concrete history, which is its own country as well.
A local history chapbook/booklet with photos and essays by members. Fascinating things I knew no bit of about dam building and The Club that got exclusive right for the Old Boys Club at 31 Mile Lake that extended to Prime Ministers and dignitaries to go bond over guns and fishing rods. Women weren’t allowed on the grounds. The natives weren’t on the map, despite there being first nations reserves all over that area. No one but the rich out of town boys were allowed fishing or hunting rights, hiring guides to take them to their exclusive place. It’s a pretty recent decade than anyone can buy land there. Part of it is still Crown Land.
A curious note on the foreman saying they had to import workers for dam building because otherwise they’d lose thousands a day. Local farmers would bugger off if the weather was good for whatever and whole teams would domino to a standstill because the farm workers were unreliable. Funny. Farm workers consider themselves the most reliable of workers who never get a minute off, except are seasonal workers in a way that construction isn’t exactly.
147. The 176 Stupidest Things Ever Done by Ross and Kathryn Petras (Doubleday, 1996)
Women are ugly. Athletes are dumb. Thieves don’t plan. Har, har. Yes?
The book’s working poor paranoia bias: presumes taxes are to rip you off and science is there to steal your tax money, laws are useless busy work to harass the population. But then it’s premise is to scoff at stupidity so what can you expect. Mostly a parade of dumb thieves, hunters who shot themselves then tried to do a shot in the air to call for help and shot the other foot.
Anyone know about this event?
I suppose that I finished the rot means a couple things, this is how sit-coms continue, and I must pace myself better to not be so tired with so many hours left before a reasonable bedtime.
148. Stormy Weather by Carol Hiaasen (Warner Books, 1995)
I have never read a thriller before. It’s messed up. It was compelling. It was complex, intricately interwoven and with sharp social criticism that was rather funny. Brutal and many characters are followed to death. There’s a huge number of characters but it wasn’t confusing but fascinating. A character born of KKK parents see Jim as generic black man. Edie sees muscles, the way he moves, his injured leg, his uniform. Colour doesn’t register. The Colonel sees a glimpse of his face in the dark and relaxes at seeing his friend. The morgue worker sees man, badge. One signal and character by character as they enter Augustine’s place for their own reasons and trajectory see his wall of skulls or him juggling them and react in kind. The trail of it may crop up anytime. Augustine falling asleep camping out on the run, recalls Bonnie’s reaction as being unlike other girlfriends. Every character was an opportunity to show their perceptions and self by perceptions.
Despite the rule that I read that head-hopping is 19th century, it was contemporary and works. It doesn’t hop within scene. The point of view characters weren’t even central or major characters. A life synopsis for minor characters from omniscient view that would cut in every now and then. All these life paths intersected each other or missed by minutes at the same places and fed each other’s plots. What was fleshed out with a minor character would move later quickly since the groundwork was laid of the bridge, or the view, or what things are near. It’s mapped and implications are mapped. A minor character from a gun family could not hit the side of a barn if we were locked inside it. He as a teen took off his dad’s ear. For pages that followed and how his life was forming him. When someone else later gets part of an ear shot off 300 pages later, nothing needs to be unpacked. We know what that causes. Every mention is for a reason but how to predict how it would figure in again for who. What a complex weaving.