Carpe Diem

We interrupt this Book Meme to bring you...

Beaujolais Nouveau

These fruity french wines with the oh-so-captivating labels grace the stores for only a few short weeks, and should be drunk while young - within a few months! They are light, easy swilling wines, the kind to share on a casual Saturday evening.

I went out and bought some the other day. A couple are for a friend whose newly renovated house is just about ready for her to move in and I wanted to buy her the first wines for her shiny new kitchen wine rack. I bought extra so we could share a bottle while I'm there. Because more than anything, these wines are for friendship.

It could be that this is a construct of my own, this friendship thing, stemming from my days in Halifax where I was first introduced to Beaujolais Nouveau by an amazing woman who insisted on buying them every November. I went along with her because 1) they were bottles of wine; 2) that's what friends do; and 3) they were bottles of wine. But to her, they were more than wine, they were representative of her "seize the day" philosophy. We have to drink them while they are available, she would say. She also used to say, We should eat now, because you never know when the chance will come again.

Used to being the sad part. As it turned out, she was right. She died at 38 of cancer. And ever since then, I continue to buy the Beaujolais Nouveau. I don't love them that much, but they are metaphorical now, a symbol of friendship and of carpe diem. A reminder to me that we should eat, drink and be merry while we have the chance.

Slainte!

Books I'd Like To Read Again For The First Time

You know the kind of book that kept you up all night, or that made you think in a whole new way. Maybe you still love it, but it's lost that first read feeling, or maybe you have read it again years later and wonder sadly why it no longer resonates. But here's my list of books that I wish I could read for the very first time all over again:

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Read this huge huge book in one night, unable to go to bed with it unfinished. I recall watching the sun come up through the windows and realizing I would have to go to my university classes soon, but being so mesmerized by the way she brought the Arthurian legend to life, that I really didn;t care.

Howard's End by EM Forster - This introduced me to the intellectual world of the Shlegel sisters and the way their world danced in and out of reality before colliding with it struck me qith some force. Also, I love the old house, Howard's End itself, and wonder if that is part of the reason I live where I do?

Flambards by KM PEyton - Horse mad at 8, I devoured these books feeling so grown up and sophisticated reading about what seemed to me to be the glamourous life of Christina and the decaying mansion she called home as the Great War approached.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding - Started this maybe for a grade 8 class and finished it in one go, sitting so long my hands were cold and stiff and when I looked up I was surprised to find darkness had fallen. I went downstairs seeking family, warmth and familiarity...anything to get rid of the strange feeling that lingered after the book was done.

Anne of Green Gables/Emily of New Moon by LM Montgomery - I went on an Anne/Emily kick in the summer of 1982, when my best friend for the UK came for a visit and we went to PEI for two weeks. I was 12, Anne was new to me, and the two trilogies were an easy way to while away the evenings in a tent.

Atonement by Ian McEwan. You can never recapture the first time you read this languidly deceptive book. Sent chills down my spine.

To Serve Them All My Days by RF Delderfield - One of my first "grown up" books that started my love affair with the whole Edwardian period of rural Britain

The Princess Bride by William Goldman - Witty and clever, it was the movie and more (a rarity too in that I saw the movie first, and love both equally).

The Sunne In Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman - Richard III, need I say more.

Honourable Mentions: The Wine of Angels (Merrily Watkins detective series), The Road (except I won't read it again - too much for me, but brilliant), The Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter. Also some books that were among my early reads and got right into my soul so I can't recall a time without them ie: King Arthur legends, Robin Hood.

The Classics

Ever since I first read Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist, as a matter of fact), I've been in love with the classics. Like Canadian fiction, I went though a phase where these were all I read, and as a result, went off them for a number of years. Oh, I still pick up Dickens and Austen regularly, but there are so many other great classics out there. Our society today favours fast-paced action and characters who we get to know immediately, so sometimes the cadence and pace of these older writers is difficult to get past, and their descriptions seem to go on for pages and pages (largely because they do in fact go on for pages and pages), but they are well worth the attempt. Here are some of my favourites:

Dickens - I love A Tale of Two Cities. It's by far by favourite Dickens, but not the one I most recommend. For that I go to Oliver Twist or David Copperfield, both of which are very readable and which really capture Dickens' social conscience.

Austen - Sadly, these books have enjoyed a revitaliaztion which I think has stopped people from taking them seriously. Jane Austen is perhaps the greatest writer in terms of style I have ever read. Reading her books (Sense and Sensibility is my favourite) is like listening to Julie Andrews talk - the perfect dicton and tone leaps out at every turn.

George Eliot - Adam Bede

Thomas Hardy - The Return of the Native

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre (classic Gothic masterpiece)

Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

Boris Pasternek - Doctor Zhivaco

DH Lawrence - Lady Chatterley's Lover

EM Forster - Howards End and A Room With a View

Mathew Lewis - The Monk

Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White

Canadian Literature

Today I am reviewing some of the Canadian Literature I have read and that I recommend. This list is not complete...even as I write books, new ones spring to mind. But this will do for a start.

Must Reads:
As For Me and My House - Sinclair Ross
The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence
Short Stories (any collection) - Alice Munro
Two Solitudes - Hugh Maclennan
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
The Wars - Timothy Findley
The Rebel Angels - Robertson Davies
Roughing It In The Bush - Susanna Moodie

Modern Classics
The Best Laid Plans - Terry Fallis
Fall On Your Knees -Ann Marie MacDonald
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams - Wayne Johnston
Away - Jane Urquhart
The Law of Dreams - Peter Behrens
The Book of Negroes - Lawrence Hill

My Current To Be Read/Re-read Pile
Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugan
The Virgin Cure - Ami Mackay
Garbo Laughs - Elizabeth Hay

Not to Be Left Out
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
Burden of Desire - Robert MacNeil


What have I missed that you have loved?

Apologia: CanLit

The other day at a luncheon, I made a careless sweeping statement.

I used to love Canadian Literature, I said. But now I find it boring.

What a generalizing, broad, unfair thing to say. And it's not true, not really.  Here then is my apologia - in defence of my words and with an explanation of perhaps what I really meant.

I studied Canadian Literature in university. In particular, I was fascinated by the role landscape plays so often, how it is (understandably) a major force that drives our literary heritage. From Susannah Moodie, to Margaret Atwood, from WO Mitchell to Jane Urquhart, from EJ Pratt to Anne Compton (ahem, my 18th century lit prof, I might add, though that is not why I include her here), the geography and vastness of this land is part and parcel of how we define ourselves and our artistic expression has always included these elements (Group of Seven, anyone?).

Landscape is character, I have argued countless times, often to anyone who even looks like they might be interested. Landscape engulfed some early writers (Roughing it in the Bush is Moodie's attempt to keep the frightening, unfamiliar landscape at bay), was co-opted by others (Mitchell, one of  our great Prairie writers, used it to underscore the turmoil of the inner landscape of human beings), and has been intimately embraced by writers such as Urquhart and Elizabeth Hay.

But somewhere along my reading journey, these great landscapes, mirrors of the internal struggles humanity faces, and beautifully, poetically crafted in so much Canadian literature, began to muddle together. I had this growing sense of homogeneity that sifted through the novels I was reading so that I was no longer able to recognize and differentiate the stories. At the same time, I began to crave character-driven narratives, to move away from subtlety into action and a more direct style of writing. I felt Canadian literature no longer gave me what I needed and instead I jumped with both feet headlong into historical fiction, an old love, and into genre fiction which fit into my busy lifestyle . These booksgave me what I wanted in small, compact, neatly packaged doses of mystery, romance, suspense, history...all with a happy ending, which so much Canadian fiction, ever true to the realities of life, did not provide.

After my bold proclamation at lunch, I felt cheap, like I had said something for effect, rather than because it was true. The tide is ever shifting, and what I said made me realize that it's time to revisit Canada's literary landcape once again. Not from my mired in the muck perspective, not from my nonchalent dismissive perspective, but from a balanced one that appreciates the nuances of Canadian fiction and what it offers.

Stay tuned tomorrow as I launch my literature review: Books I recommend and Books I plan on reading. I'm starting with Canadian Fiction. What are YOU reading?

Weekends...

Weekends go so fast!

This weekend included editing, a book signing downtown, chinese dinner with friends and kid sleepovers, a tartan extravaganza this morning with pipes, fiddles, and dancing, and an afternoon of crafts at a friends.

Now it's Sunday night, and I'm getting ready for another week.

Whew!

Frisky Zebra

Don't you find there is something a little odd....

About a wine that refers to itself in third person?