Sic vita est

Time flies. With three children in the house and two courses on the go, my reading has lapsed. This isn't to say that I haven't read; in fact, considering everything, I've probably done pretty well. Mostly, I've picked up titles that I could read in a very short time and postponed longer titles for the not-too-distant future.

In spite of myself, I did read Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years. Sue Townsend could leave the series here and not feel guilty about it. He's grown; hell, he's old (40ish, like me) and we've seen him mature and/or resign to his lot in life. It is a rather bleak tale without as much of the humour as I've come to expect from the series. At any rate, I think he and I will part ways here. Really, it's over. I'm not going back. And, truthfully, I think it's him, not me.

Graphic novels are a great sanctuary for me -- especially those in the memoir or journalistic vein -- and I surprised myself this week by reading Nylon Road by Parsua Bashi. Why surprised? Because it -- the graphic novelization as much as the subject itself -- is not exactly a new idea: a journey from girlhood to womanhood during Iran's revolution. But it was fresh and original and, of course, inevitably linked in my mind to Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis series from frame to frame.

Three days ago, I read 9/11 Emergency Relief, a graphic novel anthology compiled in aid of the American Red Cross. I'd picked it up used for about five dollars at my favourite comic/graphic novel store last summer because I thought it would be an interesting read. It ended up being a surprising array of talent and an excellent opportunity to sample the graphic wares of dozens of artists/writers. (I've burrowed through quite a few graphic novels over the years and I'm always impressed by the originality of the inking, colouring, and lettering styles of each artist.)

The day before yesterday, it was Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds. I think I understand why it was received with such critical acclaim. The story -- both mystery and romance, set in Tel Aviv -- is very moving and it flows seamlessly. I loved the plot twists. This g-novel won the 2008 Eisner Award.  (I really enjoyed her graphic blogging, Mixed Emotions, on The New York Times website in 2007).  The next stop for me where this author is concerned is Jamilti -- I almost finished it, several times.  It's not that I'm not interested; I just keep putting it aside right next to Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli.

Last night, I sped through Clubbing (Andi Watson/Josh Howard) -- 176 pages -- a graphic novel for the Young Adult audience.  There isn't much to say about it: breezy, brief, and enjoyable.

And I have no idea where I'm headed next.

And the winner is . . .

Pippi Longstocking.

Having finished Mary Poppins -- and enjoying the solitude afforded me by my weekly babysitter for Molly -- I intrepidly approached the basement stairs a few Wednesdays ago.  At the bottom lay one of dozens of bins containing children's books and I had the enjoyable yet daunting task of selecting a range of books from which Devyn (mostly) would choose our next read. My pile included:

Pippi Longstocking
Beezus and Ramona
The Prince and the Pauper
The Littles

So, as I sorted through the now dusty lot, it occurred to me that I hadn't read many of the classics in grade school. Why not? Why weren't they in the curriculum from year to year? They were available in the school libraries and we could discover them or be directed to them occasionally; but they weren't emphasized in my primary classes.

Just as importantly, why weren't the classics read to us on a regular basis? Etched into my brain somewhere is an image of myself as a grade one student sitting cross-legged in the library while listening to the outrageous behaviour of the Herdman children in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson). I later revisited that book over and over again (though I sometimes mistakenly remember it as The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever, and, if you've ever read it, you'll know why). Only a couple of other periods of being read to in school -- once in grade five, another in grade ten -- really stand out.  I want my children to end up with more memories than I have in this regard.

I want to foster an appreciation of reading but I also want to give the girls a literary foundation before they enter secondary school. It doesn't have to take the fun out of reading; fun is built into the experience: Devyn speaks about and looks forward to our reading sessions before bed; the end of one book promises the beginning (and selection) of another; we spend one-on-one time together which is very special to us.

What I really like is the idea that, over the years, story after story, the girls will recognize that books tend to "speak" to one another long after they're read: associations arise, alternative interpretations occur to us, light shines on areas that we hadn't noticed before. I've found that while reading Middle Eastern/South Asian literature, The Arabian Nights (and all the variations of the title) has been of great value to me.

And doesn't narrative just seem to work its way into our lives? How much of our reading to this point in our lives is affected by our early exposure to, for example, Alice in Wonderland? The expressions in popular culture that derive from this story abound. (I fondly recall that the parallels between Homer's Odyssey and the Star Wars phenomenon, as well as other cultural events, was a favourite topic of one my late professors.) I hope that this endeavour of mine to ensure that the girls inherit many of the classics enriches their lives as adults.

In general, and not that Dora doesn't have her place, I want the girls to have more sources of cultural information in addition to what they receive via media, school, and peers.  Clearly, I can't control the messages that they receive through media and peer exposure (though I firmly believe even stemming the flow and limiting sources is possible and that it helps), but I can exchange one channel of information for another and mitigate the influences. So, this summer, but for a few isolated events, I turned off the television and introduced Devyn to another form of entertainment that went beyond the few minutes of bedtime stories that children expect; and, we often read for hours because we just can't wait to find out what happens in the next chapter . . .

So, my resolve strengthened, I realized, after carrying my little pile of books upstairs:  Devyn and I (and later, Molly and I) would read the classics of children's literature; not exclusively, not consecutively, but consistently.

So, Pippi.  One of my favourite childhood characters.  I actually remembered little of her except the lopsided braids.  How appropriate, considering the time of year, that, tomorrow, Pippi goes to school.

__

Astrid Lindgren - Official site (English)
Astrid Lindgren - Wikipedia
Pippi Longstocking

Astrid Lindgren's World

Mary, Mary . . .

Despite time constraints, Devyn and I have almost finished Mary Poppins.

The omniscient third-person narration is divided into chapter-sectioned anecdotes. She's a woman who has access to the unwritten laws of the world; she really does know more than the average nanny and more than the average person; she is exciting, if not a little intimidating, to be around. 

In her presence, animals and infants can speak with each other; actual journeys into pictures occur where imagination is tangible; relationships that require little conventional conversation transpire.

She may be an efficient nanny but Mary P. is also arrogant and possesses a sharp tongue.  This surprised me.  I think we'll have to watch the movie this week once we've actually finished the novel.

And so we've decided . . .

As soon as the shape was inside the gate the wind seemed to catch her up into the air and fling her at the house. It was as though it had flung her first at the gate, waited for her to open it, and then had lifted and thrown her, bag and all, at the front door.  The watching children heard a terrific bang, and as she landed the whole house shook.

Devyn loved the magic of Mary Poppins once she realized that the woman could slide up railings and pull endless items out of an ostensibly empty bag.

What enhanced my experience of the reading was that we have a particularly old copy of the book.Plus, serendipity being what it is, I found a packet of Certs (original flavour) just as I was about to read and gladly allowed her to have her first one.

She cuddled me, watched me as I read, closed her eyes and allowed herself to be drawn into the narrative. 

But today wasn't about Mary Poppins until the end.  Before this, as Devyn attended a pottery day camp at the local art school, Molly and I headed to the library.  There, she pulled book after book for me to read; in all, there were 19 books most of which were pretty short. Her selections aren't always so short but today I was pretty grateful that they were and, thankfully, as I grew tired, she decided to play and didn't choose a 20th title.

I thought it funny that people commented on the number of books that Molly wanted me to read to her since the place was crowded with children and parents participating in some sort of read-for-prizes club. But it might have been the rapid-fire pace with which the process of choosing, sitting, and reading, took place that drew attention to us.

At any rate, I declined to participate in the reading club this year, not knowing if I would actually have to list each book then and there and have Molly recount all 19 stories.  She gladly would have done it but it was, as I say, crowded, noisy, and chaotic to the degree that even Molly remarked on this and asked if we could leave.

Jon, Flora and the Odd-Eyed Cat by Stella Pevsner

Devyn and I love reading novels together.  Last night, we finished Jon, Flora and the Odd-Eyed Cat.

I loved reading with Devyn.  The book itself was disappointing, especially the end.

But Devyn loved it. I recall that, as we were selecting a book to read from one of our bins, she wanted to read it because she adored the cover.  She now thinks it is the most interesting story she's ever read. She especially enjoyed the variety of characters. She wishes she herself could be Flora.

I've proposed reading Mary Poppins next but Devyn would like to examine our options before agreeing.  Fair enough.

Review: The Breakwater House

A while back -- in December -- I won an ARC from Anansi Review Crew (House of Anansi): Pascale Quiviger's The Breakwater House.  I only just thought to check the website to see my review (February)posted and it's there.  This is how behind I am on the List of Things to Follow Up.

(It's funny because, more recently, in March, I tweeted a review to CBC (140 characters) of this book and won a copy of The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy by Jill MacLean.  This, in turn, led me to tweet a review of another book -- can't remember which -- and I won a copy of Edith's War by Andrew Smith.)

I enjoyed reviewing The Breakwater House for several reasons but I'll have to add the elaboration to my List of Things to Follow Up.

Ghosts and Lightning - Trevor Byrne

Sisyphus by Titian, 1549

I needed to finish Ghosts and Lightning by Trevor Byrne. When I began reading it, I found it so easy to set it aside in favour of another and I did so several times. (I think there’s something to be said about a book to which you can so easily return after long absences.)

Set in Dublin, modern day, the first-person narrative of the life of a twenty-something man is disturbing and sad. Denny Cullen wallows: drugs, alcohol, and unemployment; violence, bigotry, and death; suicide, loneliness, and poverty as well as filth and grief. But this isn’t dystopia; it's simply an ugly reality.

This man needs a change. In fact, each character in the novel, to varying degrees of awareness, needs change. Only Pajo, a longstanding friend of the narrator, seems positive about his situation. At least, he isn’t as despondent as Denny and his relentless pursuit of the religious experience counterbalances Denny’s godlessness.

Not surprisingly, Pajo both annoys and inspires awe in his friend:

He’s mad into this kind o thing; life after death, ghosts, yetis, any and all religions. Basically, anythin there’s fuck all proof for, Pajo’ll believe it. Almost like he’s definin himself against the world in some way.

I think Pajo’s belief-seeking faith provides him with a certitude that Denny does respect even if he doesn’t believe that he could have it for himself.

Denny, in contrast, finds little by way of supernatural motivation or guidance and certainly no comfort. When we consider the appearance of a stuttering priest at a funeral (his message makes no sense to our narrator) and the fact that Pajo’s relentless, religious optimism bothers Denny, then we are as certain as he that nobody’s god will scoop him up to safety, either.

And Denny often muses, unpretentiously, about the nature of stories and the function of narrative in our lives. Mostly, there’s the sense that stories and their sources are to be questioned but the possibility that some stories ring true objectively – ghosts, gods? -- is never entirely discounted, either.

But it seems to me that narrative in itself is a transcendent experience and individual story might be a form of mysticism or mystical experience. I don’t know if Trevor Byrne agrees, but when Denny explains:

Stories though, man. The way they work on yeh. They’re a kind of spell, aren’t they? Or a prayer, maybe, some o them. An article of faith. How the fuck else can yeh make sense o things, like?

It sounds like transcendence to me.

Conversations about fairies, banshees, and the wee folk abound as do the legends of pre-Christian Ireland in Cúchulainn and Finn MacCumhail (McCool); Buddhism and Catholicism are also dominant. I love the appearance of so many kinds of stories. In addition to the above Irish and specifically religious ones, gossip, drinking tales, jokes and even Jack Frost, appear. And, as Denny says, “Stories don’t ever actually end, do they? They go on.”

But there is the sense that the author wants us to examine our tales in a philosophical context. We need stories – and Denny says so -- but why?

It’s not just all fuckin . . . like . . . evolution or wharrever. Cells and impulses. There’s got to be stories as well. This happened and then this happened and then this happened. And it all meant this. It all meant this.

The stories in our lives – those told to ourselves, to others and those that just seem to have followed us all our lives – give life meaning which, our narrator seems to sense, is otherwise lacking.

We find, consequently, strong themes: personal responsibility, action, the necessity of defining ourselves and isolation. We decide which stories make the most sense to us as well as who – and where -- we want to be; and we decide that we are, ultimately, alone in determining these things.

The novel’s messages call to mind Sartre and Camus and make me want to revisit Being and Nothingness and Myth of Sisyphus, respectively, as two decades have lapsed since I last read these. They also remind me of Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game which I read at the end of 2009 (in which Camus’s work actually explicitly appears).

I love this novel but love it in retrospect. I strongly suspect that there’s so much more to it that I haven’t here mentioned or even considered yet. I think it bears thinking about for some time.

There's seamlessness and everything hangs together so well that I have to admire the final product even if it isn't exactly what I wanted. In fact, there isn't anything about the characters that I could not believe: The strength of Denny's own voice is unwavering throughout and each character eventually confronts the future and the question of personal responsibility in his own way.

Nujood, divorced

I am always amazed by how misleading the term Middle East is: there are vast sociocultural differences from country to country and even from region to region within the same country. The most immediately perceived common thread is the religion of Islam but it would be a mistake to draw any conclusions about a country without studying its history, political structure, geography, languages, etc.

That being said, I knew nothing of it and still know nothing about Yemen except what a little girl and her biographer, Delphine Minoui, have told me in I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced: men are the primary decision makers in family matters that pertain to the perception of honour; women are veiled and wear niqab, are not secluded but segregated according to the laws that seem to govern the protection of male honour (women appearing in public alone, men and women who are not related spending unchaperoned time together, etc.) There is abject poverty, especially in but not limited to the rural villages. Women may be educated. Child marriage is more common in the rural parts of Yemen.

Anyway, Nujood -- a ten-year-old girl in a suburb of Sana'a (Yemen's capital) whose father gives her in marriage to a man three times her age.  She manages to escape her abuser and fights for a divorce through the court system.  See how ridiculously simple that sounds when you read it?  She pushes back against the mores and laws that govern her behaviour and she is aware that she is doing so.  What she does not anticipate is the media coverage of her actions and the fallout of such.

But as a result of her bravery, other children since have sought and obtained divorces in Yemen -- and in Saudi Arabia, no less.  She is one of Glamour magazine's 2008 Women of the Year recipients, alongside Hilary Clinton.  

In the original CNN article of July 2008, she speaks of wanting to help raise the legal marriage age of women in Yemen.  But in August 2009, in a follow-up story, Paula Newton of CNN writes of a changed Nujood:

We find her at the family's two-room house in an impoverished suburb of the city where Nujood is angry, combative and yelling. Tension surrounds the home like a noose . . .

[S]he thought the divorce would be the end of her struggle and she's still angry that it turned out to be just the beginning.


and the young girl's own words:

'There is no change at all since going on television. I hoped there was someone to help us, but we didn't find anyone to help us. It hasn't changed a thing. They said they were going to help me and no one has helped me. I wish I had never spoken to the media,' Nujood says bitterly.

I am moved by the reported change in her disposition. Disillusionment and disappointment.  I feel protective as if this should be the realm of adults but it is not and, as if this is not sad enough, this month brings another story of a child bride -- also from Yemen -- and this one did not survive.

But Nujood accomplished something and I am glad that I read her story.

***

There are countless articles and reviews. Child marriage is a daunting subject that encompasses many countries. Where would you start if you wanted to learn more?


Wikipedia

Child Brides: The Problem of Early, Forced Marriage
Unicef's Innoenti Research, Italy --  Early Marriage: Child Spouses (pdf)
 
Glamour Magazine's Women of the Year

The growing pains of Adrian Mole

If I had known beforehand that last night would be so windy, so stormy, I would have imagined myself reading something equally as moody as the weather -- a gothic novel such as Walpole's The Castle of Otranto or, as I have intended for years, Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolfo.

But, no. There I was reading The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole: 1999-2001 -- and I did not want to read it.  The day before,  I had intentionally abandoned my rule of alloting only twenty-five pages to a book for which I have developed a distaste.

Sometimes, I just cannot resist the pull of the past and the very name, Adrian Mole, takes me back to reading the The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, the first book in the series, in 1988 or so.

A misguided teen in the middle of England, Adrian has the sense that he should have a better life but lacks the adult tools with which to build one for himself at the time.  He believes that he knows what people in higher socio-economic classes do -- they read classic literature, they live in big houses with manicured lawns and they aspire to lofty professions -- but he does his homework by candlelight when the electricity is turned off in his council flat and his writing lacks the weight of actual experience.  We always feel compassion for him and for his family. It is an enjoyable read with credible characters and waves of humour so frequent that respite is necessary.  I am similarly disposed to the sequel, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

But in the books that follow, from The Wilderness Years on, Adrian is a man and the personality traits that we find endearing while he is a teenager are neither excusable nor acceptable in his adulthood.  So, while our compassion for Adrian's plight -- he cannot see the error of his ways, he cannot escape poverty, he cannot achieve his career goals -- remains, it is tempered by disdain for his personality.

There are other, more minor problems. Some of Adrian's seemingly delusional beliefs are not, well, believable.  I am also uncomfortable with his awareness of Sue Townsend.  When an author appears in a novel, I am upset by the intersection of the real and the fictional.  It wounds my sense of justice somehow as if I feel entitled to escape reality for a while.

So, I did not enjoy the book but, strangely, the questions remain:  Will I read Adrian Mole The Prostrate Years and complete (hopefully) a series because I just might enjoy the book, or because I have a vague sense of loyalty? Or will I simply say that enough is enough and revert to my twenty-five pages rule?

***

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982)

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984)

The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)

Adrian Mole From Minor to Major (1991) - omnibus including Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians.

Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993)

Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004)

The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001 (2008)

Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (2009)

Notes / Reading

I recently found a store that caters to my every need in graphic novel reading and while browsing -- one eye on the shelf, the other on Molly -- I found Baraka and Black Magic in Morocco by Rick Smith.

Because no reading list would be complete for me without its share of graphic novels, I bought it and spent much energy trying to get a chance to read it throughout the week.

But, frankly, I expected more than a mere illustration of a few weeks spent travelling.  I kept thinking: What is the point? The author, travelling with his wife and a few friends that they have collected in their travels, does not really say anything other than that he and, especially, his wife, had a bad time.  Perhaps the author thought that, because complaining about difficulty adjusting to cultural differences can be uncomfortable, his experiences were worth publishing.  I don't know.  I found the illustration confusing and, consequently, the narrative difficult to follow. I welcome any insight.  Maybe there is no point other than that the trip happened.

Then, the next day, I read Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story by Ari Folman and David Polonsky -- a graphic novel based on the film of the same title.  When a journey to the truth about oneself is, at least, as difficult as the events that necessitate the trip . . .  It is a potent and disturbingly beautiful narrative and it can be read in an hour or so.  I look forward to watching the movie.