Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.

                                                                                   - Flaubert

1. Ten Books On My 2012 To Read List
   

(not necessarily appearing in this order)

1. 1.Michael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table (McClelland & Stewart, 2011). A birthday prezzie I have yet to crack open. According to the book jacket Ondaatje is “at the height of his powers.”
   

2. 2.W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage. (Hazel Watson & Viney Ltd., 1915). A classic I’ve been meaning to read and happened to acquire recently at a used book sale.
   

3. 3.A. D. Miller, Snowdrops, (HarperCollins, 2010). Yummy hardcover Christmas prezzie - Moscow murder mystery said to be “a story of love and moral freefall...”
   

4. 4.Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer. (HarperCollins, 2006). This one is a re-read. In fact I read it once a year cover to cover. I love Prose’s approach to creative writing, love hearing her voice in my head.
   

5. 5.Kathleen Winter, Annabel. (House of Anansi, 2010). In 2011, I only made it to page 34. But I think I’ll try again.
   

6. 6.Stella Tillyard, Tides of War: a novel of the peninsular war. (Chatto & Windus, 2011). This book was passed along to me by a friend of a friend with the impression that historical fiction is, to quote the immortal Austin Powers, “my bag baby.”
   

7. 7.Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending. (Random House Canada, 2011). Looking forward to “meeting” this distinguished author and reading his prize-winning fiction.
   

8. 8.Rudolf Steiner, Agriculture Course: birth of the biodynamic method. (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1958). Another prezzie. I don’t know anything about biodynamic farming...yet.
   

9. 9.Mikhail Bahktin, Four Russian Novelists. Lately I’ve had a hankering for some more literary theory and I’d like to reacquaint myself with the revolutionary Bahktin.
   

10. 10. Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island. (Bantam Classic, 1883). I ordered this little pocket book classic as something to read my children and realized I’d never read it myself.
    

+ To be Continued Pile

Books I’m still finishing...God I wish I wasn’t such a slow reader!

---Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Becoming Dickens: the invention of a novelist. Check out my “Literary Deaths” piece below, where I rave about this book.

---Charles Fishman, The Wal-Mart Effect. (Penguin Books, 2007). Good read, actually. Just got sidetracked temporarily.

---Bob Dylan, Chronicles, volume one. (Simon & Schuster, 2004). In true Dylan style, I’m still rambling along here, with just enough interest in which celebrity is going to turn up next to keep going.

**My To Read List is inspired by a recent blog post at Romance and Beyond. Thanks for sharing, Sherry!***

1. ‘Tis the Season. What are you giving your charac-ters this Christmas?
   

I spend as much time with these people as I do my actual friends and family, so wouldn’t it be churlish to walk away when it comes to gift-giving? Don’t worry, I’m not expecting anything in return. That would be loony.

To Big Dog, who wants a new kidney for Christmas. I happen to know that Little Boris is “giving” you that (or at least he’s supposed to be) and so, here, I have chosen a nice set of sushi plates and chopsticks and those little dipping bowls.

To Little Boris, my young Russian friend. You are so indecisive! Cash is always a good option, though, dollars not roubles, and since the money is virtual, I’ve splurged.

To Skye, darling girl. I couldn’t decide--you would enjoy so many things. Crystals? Fancy tea? Neil Young CD? Clothes for the baby - wink, wink -? Actually I settled on a one-hour massage. You’ve been so stressed lately.

Vasily gets two bottles of vodka; for Sid I’ve purchased a commemorative box set of the Rocky series; Glen I have high hopes you don’t already own this book about global capital flows. Kolya, I saw one of those dental floss dispensers made to look like a little man and it just screamed you. Eileen, check out this serving tray...

1. We’re Good Enough, We’re Smart Enough, and We’re All Canadian Enough
   

Canadians angsting over whether they are Canadian enough? Could this be true? Snort snort. In a recent Globe & Mail article, John Barber poses the question ‘Are Canadian writers ‘Canadian’ enough?’ The scare-quotes here are revealing--in a literary context how should we measure Canadianness?

Setting has been the traditional and most obvious tool. It turns out that more and more writers who are themselves Canadian (i.e. living and writing in Canada) are contriving stories set in far off places like Italy, California and the Pacific Ocean. We still have to count these novels as ‘Canadian‘ because their authors are Canadian; some of these novels are even winning Canadian literary awards. Egads.

How about point of view? If setting is a nonstarter, perhaps there’s a distinctly ‘Canadian‘ point of view reflected in Canada’s literature? Canadian Literature scholar Faye Hamill of the University of Strathclyde (Scotland) suggests “a distinctive inside-outside perspective on the world” and others point out that Canada has long been “open” and multicultural. I think it’s a tall order to define a single perspective from which our authors write. Instead perhaps we ought to ask: what is the purpose of privileging one conception of Canadiana over any other? 

Identity-formation occurs in relation to others--part of understanding who one is knowing who one is not. But this is a notoriously fraught process and quite frankly I don’t want Martel, Ondaatje, Edugyan, deWitt or the rest of those creative types to worry about it. Just write. Write!

Fear of not knowing quite who we are is a national past-time in this country. (Hockey, yes, a distant second.) Dare I say that it is this continued self-questioning, this slightly neurotic second-guessing that comes closest to an identifiable national trait. It’s why Barber’s article had to be written, why I had to blog about it, why you are still reading, and why, now that we’ve clung together in mini-crisis, we ought to just ignore ourselves and our gosh darn Canadian (‘Canadian’) hang-ups and continue to make fine art and literature. We’re good enough, we’re smart enough, and we’re all Canadian enough. 

1. Literary Deaths, Victorian Style
   

These examples are owing to the fascinating and impeccable research of Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Becoming Dickens: the invention of a novelist (Harvard University Press). Meet:

Angus Reach, who worked sixteen hour days as a shorthand reporter, comic writer, and novelist. Died of “softening of the brain” at age 35.

Robert Bowles, an out-of-work law writer who starved to death in a freezing apartment just off Fleet Street, January 1827. When his corpse was found it was completely covered with vermin. “He had scratched the skin off almost every part of his body...”

Two writers who clearly did not become Dickenses, though they were perhaps no less talented. These days budding authors are slightly less likely to be foiled by brain softening and vermin. More likely to succumb to work commitments, Twitteritis, or, after repeated rejection by third tier journals, become Bingo addicts. Perhaps that is the “other book” to match Dickens’ fascination with other selves... Becoming Bingo: the invention of a failed novelist.

G.K. Chesterton wrote that “the greatest mystery about almost any great writer is why he was ever allowed to write at all.” Imagine what Chesterton had to say about merely decent writers.

Still, before I return to pondering the pleasures of the triumph of Dickens, I propose a toast to Angus Reach and Robert Bowles, whom, decent or not, nobody much remembers. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8781850/The-Sparkler-of-Albion-The-Many-Faces-of-Charles-Dickens.html

http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2011/10/charles-dickens-lives-fiction