So, I'm not sure how I feel about war novels. I don't think that I've read a war novel, other than Gone with the Wind that I've ever actually LOVED. I think, though, that war books by men are not particularly my scene. I get bored, I get distracted, mostly with all the writing about maneuvers and planes and boats and weapons. Maybe I'm just a total girl, but that part is just so dry to me, my eyes and mind both tend to wander. The one thing I do like about war books are the people and their experiences. I remember when I was younger(maybe late high school early college) I read Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. In case you haven't read it (which you probably haven't, since who would read Tom Clancy who wasn't a male war vet?) it's about World War III between Russia and the United States. THE ENTIRE BOOK is about planes AND bombs AND ships AND MANEUVERS. BOOOOORRRRIINNNGGG. But, one of the side plots of the book is this story line about two American soldiers in Iceland who have rescued an Icelandic woman who was raped and spend the rest of the book trying to get back to safety with her. In between all of the war crap, I kept hoping that they would get back to the small group in Iceland. That's a bit how I felt about James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, Pulitzer prize winner in 1948. First of all, I was a bit skeptical because all of Michener's books, though bestsellers, are gi-freakin-normous, and I've been told, are full of DESCRIPTION. I wasn't sure about this one, since it was less than 400 pages and his first book, I was hoping he hadn't gotten long winded...yet. Well, overall I think I enjoyed it. What is interesting to note here, too, is the musical South Pacific was supposedly based on the book. Funny, but when I think "Inspiration for a musical," this book does NOT come to mind. However, when I think "book most likely to be made into a television series/movie like MASH", this book DOES come to mind. The characters in this book are what make it great. Michener can write great characters, I'll give him that. I also liked the fact that the stories were interconnected, so some of your favorite characters come back again and again, viewed through a different narrator's eyes. Being on the front lines of a battlefield is something that I hope I never have to experience, but I think Michener, who himself was a veteran of the 2nd World War(the war which the book is about), gave an accurate picture not only of the men while in battle(though ironically for me that was the boring part), but of the longing, for home, women and for action on the warfront, and then all the activities that ensued. I had a lot of stories that I really loved, "Passion" was probably my favorite, though. It's about a doctor who is trying to write a letter to his wife about how he's feeling playing his part in the war, and also how he feels about her. He's having a really hard time doing it, when he's interrupted by someone who wants a second opinion on how to censor a Navy mechanic's letter. When he reads the letter, he is overcome by the passion that this man conveys to his wife, in such explicit detail. Then, he reads another letter, that of the person who wanted the second opinion. He's been cheating on his wife the whole time he's been in the South Pacific, but he uses a mundane outing in a boat in an extremely elaborate form(basically creates a nonexistent battle)to show his love for his wife. These men both make the doctor rethink the proprieties that bind him and he ends up writing a much more "from the heart" letter. It's great, and reminds me of one of my favorite songs, a song from The Civil War soundtrack, called Ashokan Farewell. In one of the versions of the song, a soldier, dead after the first battle of Bull Run, writes the most powerful, loving letter to his wife, not knowing if it would be the last one he would ever pen. It almost makes me cry every time. Another story that's amazing is "Fo' Dolla'" about a Lt. Joe Cable and his love for the daughter of a foul-mouthed female Tonkinese street hustler, who will sell anything to the GIs and often scream at them in the inappropriate language they themselves taught her, if they don't buy from her. Her daughter is sweet, beautiful and intelligent, but the relationship between her and the Lieutenant is doomed because he cannot bring himself to marry outside of his race...There definitely were a lot of boring stories, too, but I was definitely surprised that I wasn't groaning the whole time. The other thing that was cool about this book was that even though it's a Reader's Digest version, it is the original complete text AND has beautiful color illustrations. AND I picked up at Jean's church book sale for only two dollars Canadian(which is now like $6 US!)! Well, as Queen says "Another one bites the dust." It's a tie: 31-31. I still have a helluva ways to go.

The other night I couldn't get to sleep for a few minutes, not because I was stressed about work(which I am), or money, or anything like that, but because I feel like I've made relatively slow progress on this project thus far. Yesterday, I finished The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos(winner of the PP in 1990), but I've decided that even though I've read 47 books this year, only 20 have been Pulitzer Prize or Governor General winners. That means I've got a lot of ground to make up before January 1. There are two more months left in the year, let's see how much further I can get. Mambo Kings brings my total thus far up to 30 Pulitzer Prize winners, 31 Governor General winners. Today I was trying to pick out what I want to read next and I have a TON of the prize-winning books at home on my shelf, not to mention one more from the public library that I'm sitting on(The Fixer by Bernard Malamud), so I have no excuses due to lack of access or anything. I've been working actively on this project for a little over a year and a half and sometimes it's depressing. I still have quite a ways to go. But, I suppose I also have to look at how far I've come. I've read more of these lists than certainly anyone else I know, and that's a pretty decent accomplishment, as well as the fact that this WILL be relatively impressive when it is all said and done. Well, enough of the personal pep talk. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos was a conundrum of a book for me. I think, overall, that I enjoyed it, it was a great read, but I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone that I know, certainly not any of the female readers. Mambo is about two brothers who play Cuban dance music in the mid-20th century, how they come to the U.S., their lives that ensue and also all the memory that they left behind. It is told for the most part through the eyes of the older of the two brothers, Cesar(Nestor, the younger also has his story told at various flashback-style points)who is a complete and total chauvinist, very driven by his penis. It was unbelievable the amount of raw, rough, male-driven sex that was described in this novel. At first it made me somewhat uncomfortable, and even a bit queasy, and this is coming from the girl who was reading dirty books at the age of 15!!! I think what bothered me the most was that the sex was so much about domination and showing how much of a man this guy was and how good he was at getting women to do what he wanted, whether they wanted to or not(emphasis on the last part). What makes this book good, though and also complex, is that the character is human. He has partied too hard in his heyday and is now in a somewhat humiliating decline. So, as the reader, you are disgusted by him at times, but you also pity him. Oftentimes in the book you are reminded of the fact that this man is reliving his own life story, while having one last boozefest in a hotel room that was a favorite place for him to stay with his lady friends when he was successful. A room that, like its occupant, has seen better days. Cesar Castillo is the poster child for poor planning for retirement. He would strut his stuff on the dance floor in front of an orchestra crooning Latin love songs, drinking too much, womanizing too much, and now is dying with a few albums to his credit, but no money, a job as a super, and failing bodily organs. He outlives his brother Nestor by at least a few decades. Nestor's soul died of a broken heart long before his body did, and he would use violent sex with his wife to replace the void in his heart of the woman who left him long ago in Cuba. I've talked about this before in postings, but these men show, yet again, how we all carry around so much historical baggage regarding our lives/memories. For them, it's not just an accessory, it's a truck. The women in the novel, the few that are actually discussed, are shown to be strong in a backhanded sort of way, for they are the ones who witness the downfall of their men and make the decision to leave to save themselves or they, in the case of Nestor's widow, wait until the appropriate time to fulfill their needs. What is also quite fascinating here is how the men in the novel use the women as a crutch to fill whatever is missing in their lives, almost frantically holding onto them, claiming value through them, all the time(esp. in the case of Cesar)claiming to be men who can do what they want with "their women." Despite all of the characters shortcomings, though, the book was enjoyable, a glimpse into a era and lifestyle of which I know so little. the life of dance halls, fast feet and Latin music. Also, the really cool thing was that Nestor and Cesar's big life moment was when they went on the I Love Lucy show after meeting Desi Arnaz while out performing one night. Their 15 minutes of fame immortalized them forever on the television and made one song of theirs "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" at least somewhat famous, captivating their neighbors and the Latin community while tying them forever to probably the most famous Cuban after Castro. This book was turned into a movie AND ALSO a musical. I kept trying to think how they had made it into a musical(Hijuelos, the author, wrote the libretto, I believe)for the book is intensely complex(and long! like 448 pages!), but I suppose I would have to travel to NY to find that out. I think that the next book that I read(I'm pretty sure I've decided to read James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific), was ALSO a musical, the basis for South Pacific. It's a novel that is a collection of interconnected short stories that take place in where else? the South Pacific, during WW2. I'm tired of writing, I'm going to watch Biggest Loser.:) PPs-30, GGs 31.

A few hours ago, I finished Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Talk about a novel that has built up for me over the years, and NOT in a good way. Everyone that I've ever talked to about it that has actually read it, has told me it is the most boring, anti-climactic piece of shit on the planet. Well, to tell the truth, it wasn't that bad. Thankfully it was only 93 pages, and this edition had pictures! Now, if I had had to put up with hundreds of pages of it(which believe me, with this project I've already had my fair share of boring and I'm sure there's plenty more where that came from), then I might be whistling a different tune, but it was a pretty quick read, and an easy way to move myself up into 29 Pulitzers(I have two more Pulitzers from the library that are waiting for me, so yet again, we'll be tied on the lists pretty soon). I'm not a huge fan of Hemingway. I guess I just don't see why he's SOOO GREAT. I mean, really, they even gave him a Nobel Prize for his "contribution to literature." His style is so simplistic, which I guess works for some(obviously not me), which makes it easy to read, but I don't find him very engaging at all. Even A Moveable Feast which I read in the hopes of having a great food memoir combined with narratives about Gertrude Stein and her lover Alice B. Toklas was a bit disappointing. There are some great descriptions of Paris, but I find Hemingway to be extremely, well, MALE, and not something easy to relate to for me. I suppose it doesn't help that Hemingway is one of an ex-roommate of mine's favorite authors, so every time I read him(which thankfully isn't often)I'm reminded of her. I find a lot of hopelessness in Hemingway's characters, including the title character in The Old Man, or hope that is extinguished in some way. In the case of The Old Man and the Sea, this guy is trying to bring in this mammoth of a fish, the Moby Dick of marlins, overcoming physical impediments due to his age, only to lose his prize to sharks at the very end(I'm not spoiling it, who out of the three people that read this blog is ACTUALLY GOING TO READ THIS BOOK, especially when I just gave you the jist), hauling into the Cuban coast a skeleton of the majestic fish, I guess a metaphor in itself for the old man himself, who was at one time a strong able-bodied fisherman. I spent most of, if not all of the book looking for some kind of a deeper meaning, because there HAD to be more to the novel than just a guy on a boat fishing. Which of course there is, it is an elongated metaphor for life struggle and the hopelessness in that(I don't believe it, but remember, Hemingway did end his own life). I don't have much more to say about Hemingway except for that now, I don't have to read anything else by him unless I want to.:) GG's 31, PP's 29.

About 7 years ago(June 19th 2000), I read Margaret Laurence for the first time. I can tell you exactly what I was doing, where I was reading it, how I felt. I felt extremely overwhelmed, I remember that. I was taking 3 summer school classes at the same time, a feat I had only managed to accomplish because I begged and pleaded with the powers that be, so that I could finish simultaneous bachelor's quicker than had been anticipated. I was having an internal struggle that I told very few people about, if anyone...I was worried about the future and struggles I would have to go through to get all of my coursework done. I was extremely depressed, at that time I was very very thin, the thinnest I've ever been, school stressed me out, my family stressed me out...I was staying in Montreal the whole summer in order to get away from them, my sister was on a downward spiral, and I was caught in the middle. I was trying to figure out my sexuality, even then, scared of what all of it might mean. I remember going to see a doctor because I was so depressed and I couldn't even talk to her, just looking at her I burst into tears. I was put on antidepressants for the first time that summer. My one solace, as it has always been, was reading. I used to have a spot, right in front of the Arts building, on top of a slab of concrete that I absolutely loved because it was so warm...I would lie on my back and read for a couple of hours before I would go home and do my homework. I read The Fire-Dwellers that summer. It was not the most uplifting novel, but I did like it quite a bit. Laurence is one of those great writers who no one knows about in the United States, highly feminist, writing about what women in the sixties and seventies really felt like, putting their internal thoughts and feelings on the page for all to see. It's been a while since I read her(7 years!!!), but she's been on my list, not only because The Diviners is one of Kate's favorite books, but also because, of course, Margaret Laurence is one of the few women to win the Governor General, and she won it twice, for The Diviners and A Jest of God. A Jest of God is what I just finished this afternoon. I was a bit excited because it was supposed to have a theme of homosexuality in it, and of course it does a bit. Rachel, the main character, has a friend(if you could call it that, Rachel doesn't really have any friends in the small town that she lives in, she is very much apart in terms of how she interacts with people)Calla, who comes onto her at the beginning(very risque for 1966!)and who Rachel, uncomfortable, distances herself from for the rest of the novel, until the end, when she needs to turn to someone, and they are able to resolve things as best as they can be. Rachel is 34 years old, lives with her ailing mother, who is quite overbearing in a very passive aggressive kind of way, and has never had sex or really a boyfriend to speak of. She is in danger of being a spinster(has all the qualifications, esp. being a TEACHER as was almost stereotypical, unfortunately at that time)until she meets Nick, a man who has returned to his aging parents for the summer. She has repeated sexual encounters with him, but, it seems, mostly because she wants to feel close to someone, not necessarily because the sex is actually any good. The one thing Laurence writes VERY WELL is loneliness. I was a bit afraid to read it now given the fact that I've been a bit lonely lately, but it was very well written, a great first novel. But, what is it with loneliness and MANITOBA? That's all I'm going to say about that. This book was turned into a movie, directed by Paul Newman, starring Joanne Woodward, called Rachel, Rachel. Wondering what that would be like, perhaps a rental at some point. I felt a bit of flashback coming on when I read this book though, back to the times when I read that first Laurence. Therefore, I read it quickly to be done with it. It wasn't really necessary, it was still a good book and didn't affect me as deeply as the previous book I read did(Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle), about how rape affected a family, but the slight paranoia in the character's internal monologue sometimes was a bit disturbing, because I sometimes think that way and wonder what I would be like at 34 if I had been single forever. The book actually reminded me quite a bit of Clara Callan, Richard B. Wright's GG winner, with the single spinster having intercourse for the first time, getting pregnant, etc. That book also had homosexuality themes...and some pretty open sex scenes. What is it with Canadians writing openly about sex? I mean it's great, but so different from the U.S., which of course is so Puritanical...The next book I'm going to read is The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter. This is for a few reasons, one because it won the Pulitzer and I'm trying to keep things balanced, two it's written by a woman which is also good because I want to keep reading women's work, but the thing that's really interesting is that 1966, the year that A Jest of God won is also the year that The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter won the Pulitzer. Only 2 other times in the combined histories of the awards did two women win in the same year. The first time was 1937, when Laura G. Salverson and Margaret Mitchell won, for The Dark Weaver and Gone With the Wind, respectively. Both books I've already read, both large-scale epics. The second time was 1966, and the third time was in 1985, the year that The Handmaid's Tale and Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie won. There were quite a few male-female combos and a TON of male-male combos, but since women make up only about a third of the winners of the prizes(and in Canada quite a few of the women were multiple award winners, like Gabrielle Roy(won twice), the aforementioned Laurence(won twice), Alice Munro(three time winner)...so the actual number of women who won is smaller(not to mention the US award has been around since 1918)...I'm rambling. Time to call it quits. Team Leader dinner was tonight, I talked about the books some, always feel kind of impressive and also like a big dork too, but of course the latter is something I'm quite used to...:) GGs-27, Pulitzers-27.

So, I finally finished Independence Day by Richard Ford. And no, it very much unfortunately has NOTHING TO DO with the Will Smith movie of the same title. I think I'm done with Ford's novels for a while(until, perhaps I'm fifty and have more to relate to him about). Richard Ford wrote a trilogy starting with The Sportswriter. The second book in the trilogy is Independence Day and it is the one that won the Pulitzer in 1996. I was worried about starting this 451 page tome right before Keren left and then, of course began, her trip in New Zealand. Why? Because The Sportswriter was highly depressing and I read it during that rough patch that we hit back at the end of April. I was anticipating that Independence Day would be more of the same, and I was unfortunately correct. It was, like before, good writing, but I don't really have anything in common with a divorced middle-aged white man living in New Jersey. The third book just came out this spring, but I'm not thinking it's going to be anywhere near the top of my list. I don't think I really have anything more to say...I kept waiting and waiting for something really interesting to happen, but perhaps that was the point of the novel. Frank Bascombe's son has a tragedy towards the end of the novel and it still doesn't create too many waves in his mind except perhaps to further his dreaminess and introspectiveness. I'll be off the lists for a couple of books I think, until I blast through one more library book, a lesbian romance novel and probably a Jodi Picoult novel from an employee of mine. Not to mention the fact that I need to start reading the new Michael Chabon book so that Gina and I can talk about it!!!!
GGs-26, PPs-27.

Suffice it to say, I read a lot of books, we all know this to be a fact. The past 5 monthes or so(almost 6 I guess), I've read approximately 21(my book list isn't currently on me)novels. This project has forced me to read a lot too, and I definitely have had my fair share of surprises when it comes to how I like certain of the novels I've encountered. However, this year, I've faced a lot of "meh, that was oh-kay"s, and nothing that really made me say "THIS IS WHY I FUCKING READ!!!!" Well, I think I've found my FAVORITE BOOK OF 2007 thus far. It's March by Geraldine Brooks. Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer prize, I had it via the hold list through the Seattle Public Library. I was reading it purely because it won an award, not necessarily because it held any super important interest to me, though it does have an interesting premise. In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the March girls and their mother struggle to to stay strong and support themselves while their father is absent in the Civil War. Brooks' novel takes threads from Alcott's novel and weaves them into an entirely different story, the imagined one of the March girls' father as he is away from his loved ones. I've read so many books lately with male protagonists, I wasn't that eager to read yet another one. But, Brooks' prose is astonishing, and the character of Mr. March is so fascinatingly human, I found myself holding my breath because I was too enraptured to let it go. We are introduced to a slightly soul shattered Captain March, after one of his fellow soldiers drowns while they are trying to, together, escape the enemy, it is only a beginning of the atrocities of war that he is forced to witness throughout the course of the work. We then begin to learn about Mr. March's stance on slavery and his ideals and how they brought him into the war, his self-described failings leading him to take part in this confused national conflict so as to almost make up for what he has lost. What he realizes of course, in the course of the novel, is that despite all of one person's efforts, s/he is only one person and is thus gravely limited. And, while coming to terms with this, he is constantly plagued by memory AND a great deal of guilt. Brooks' main character is a man, but a very sensitive one, a vegetarian(almost entirely vegan actually, which at this time period must have been at the very least EXTREMELY difficult and not necessarily healthy) at pretty much all levels because he does not believe in the harming of animals at all, that everything that is a product of them, whether it be flesh, milk or even wool is the property of the animal from whence it came. That was impressive. The character himself has flaws, though; in an effort to protect his very outspoken and feminist(yay!) wife, he tries to curb her outbursts, and is upset when she does not appear to be the model wife and lady, even when those outbursts and passionate embraces of the issues were what drew him to her in the first place. And, Mr. March's head is so wrapped up in his books and so far up in the clouds that when he finally has to encounter reality it is so very painful to read about. Brooks' prose depicts such atrocities of slavery and war that make them real, sickeningly so, but worth it to remind us not only how far we have come, but how much further we need to go. What was definitely disheartening but of course at the time probably all too true, was Brooks' depiction of the Union soldiers...March expected them all to believe in the emancipation of the slaves as much as he did, but when he encounters as much prejudice and lack of assistance with his cause as he did in antebellum South, it is a harsh wake-up call not only to him but to the reader as well. History books tend to romanticize the Civil War, making the North to be the good guys who could do no wrong, who were fighting for what was right. The truth is far different. Images in the novel swirled in my imagination as I tried to sleep this whole(fittingly)Memorial Day weekend, images that I would love to forget, but need to remember. The other thing that I found kind of fun about this book, is that much of March's memory refers back to his home life in Concord, Mass. Emily, Chris and I went there last summer as part of our National Park rendezvous. It was amazing to see the landscape come alive through my own memory. One of the national parks (Minuteman) bordered the Alcott's property. I found out at the end of the novel, that the author(as described in the afterword) based the character of Mr. March on Louisa May Alcott's father, Bronson Alcott, so to have seen the town of Concord and the lands surrounding Alcott's property became a relevant part of my book project without me even knowing it at the time. I'm sure this coincidence will happen again and again as I visit more national parks and read more Pulitzer prize winners, since the Pulitzer is an award given to a book that depicts an "American experience." And Marmee, who in Louisa May's book is depicted as this perfect self-sacrificing mother is not so in Brooks' light...she too is all too human. Yes! There is also much discussed of how time can change a relationship and how a desire not to hurt that whom you truly love can also unfortunately sometimes create distance. All of this crammed into a 280 page novel. Maybe now you'll have a glimpse as to why I was so impressed. I love books that make me think, but also make me cry out for characters, become worried, and so emotionally attached to the work that I am felt drained at the end. That is a great literary experience. Before I went to bed last night I thought hard about the book and what it meant, how it portrayed things etc. It reminded me of a quote that I love by Abraham Lincoln. He said "If you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will." That unfortunately is too hopeful even for a great leader. Brooks' novel reminded me of the truly bitter truth that evil is everywhere, you don't even have to go looking. Something that Mr. March learns as well. It is a hard lesson his wife learns as well, especially when she sees her ruined(emotionally and physically) husband in the hospital. A quote that I loved from the book comes from Marmee after she has seen her husband again for the first time in almost a year. "But I said none of this a year ago, when it might have mattered. It was easy then to convince one's conscience that the war would be over in ninety days, as the president said; to reason that the price paid in blood would justify the great good we were so sure we would obtain. To lift the heel of cruel oppression from the necks of the suffering! Ninety days of war seemed a fair payment. What a corrupt accounting it was. I still believe that removing the stain of slavery is worth some suffering--but whose? If our forefathers make the world awry, must our children be the ones who pay to right it? (Brooks 210)" My other favorite quote comes from the black woman from March's past who he has quite the obsession with. He meets up with her before he is reunited with his family, claiming that he can't go home because he is so ashamed of all the wrongs that have been committed as a result of some poor choices on his part. She in turn tells him of things that have befallen because of choices she made and how she too has "experience with a conscience that flays [her] alive, every waking day". She says to him "I do not ask your absolution, I simply ask you to see that there is only one thing to do when we fall, and that is to get up, and go on with the life that is set in front of us, and try to do the good of which our hands are capable for the people who come in our way. That, at least, has been my path" (Brooks 268). Mr. Lincoln, I say you can't help the bad in mankind, but you can try with your measly two hands to assuage whatever wounds with a small measure of kindness. READ THIS BOOK. IT'S WONDERFUL, and VERY DESERVING OF THE PRIZE. THANK GOD. Pulitzers-26, GGs-26.

So, I haven't had the time to write for a while, sadly enough...I've been behind in my reading, busy with the new job, Keren's bday, a wedding(yay!)and the thus necessary trip to Victoria. But in only about a week, I finished two books, both wonderful, both needed to be read for the project that this blog is dedicated to...I finished Richard Ford's The Sportswriter last week and today(only a few minutes ago actually) I finished Peter Behrens' The Law of Dreams. I realized last night, while at the tail end of Behrens' book(the 2006 winner of the Governor General), it's been a really long time since I've read a book by a woman (in 8 books as a matter of fact)! Though, the next one I read(pretty sure it will be March by Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer winner in 2006). The Sportswriter is the first in a trilogy by Richard Ford, the second book was the one that won the Pulitzer...I had to read The Sportswriter first, of course to know what the second one would be all about...Ford is an amazing writer, even about a topic that I wasn't sure I would be into...Middle-aged male angst, dreaminess, restlessness. What I thought at the time, though, and still do(though I have yet to read the second book), is that Ford's main character, Frank Bascombe, is like a male version of me in so many aspects...His dreaminess, lost in thought constantly, people watcher, impromptu person to whom one feels compelled to confess(a neighbor confesses his gay affair and then kills himself, directing his only correspondence to the outside world to Frank, though that kind of blows the end). Frank is constantly in self-reflection, self-meditation(ironically or not, similar to the character of Fergus in Behrens' novel), and his outlook, inspired mostly by his sheer loneliness(also something that Fergus shares) reminds me so much of my own thoughts...In both novels, I found so many human truths, put into words either through the thoughts or spoken words of the characters via the authors' tones. There was so much in Ford's book that was marvelous, though the last page was what was fabulous(and I'm excited to read the 2nd book, too)..."I walked out of the condos onto the flat lithesome beach this morning, and took a walk in my swimming trunks and no shirt on. And I thought that one natural effect of life is to cover you in a thin layer of...what? A film? A residue or skin of all the things you've done and been and said and erred at? I'm not sure. But you are under it, and for a long time, and only rarely do you know it, except that for some unexpected reason or opportunity you come out--for an hour or even for a moment--and you suddenly feel pretty good. And in that magical instant you realize how long it's been since you felt just that way. Have you been ill, you ask. Is life itself an illness or a syndrome? Who knows? We've all felt that way, I'm confident, since there's no way that I could feel what hundreds of millions of other citizens haven't. [paragraph break] Only suddenly, then, you are out of it--that film, that skin of life--as when you were a kid. And you think: this must've been the way it was once in my life, though you didn't know it then, and don't really even remember it--a feeling of wind on your cheeks and your arms, of being released, let loose, of being the light-floater. And since that is not how it has been for a long time, you want, this time, to make it last, this glistening one moment, this cool air, this new living, so that you can preserve a feeling of it, inasmuch as when it comes again it may just be too late. You may just be too old. And in truth, of course, this may be the last time that you will ever feel this way again(Ford 374-5)." And Behrens' book, oh my freakin' God, what a surprising joy, even though it was rough and full of a sad life that was a struggle for everyone...it's about one character in particular, Fergus, and his journey from the potato famine-stricken Ireland, to the bush of Canada, and of all the people he meets in between...Very much an Irish Odyssey. Behrens' book is compared to Ondaatje's work, which may be true due to a feeling of somewhat epic sweeping, but it's better than that, a more direct clear narrative. And, I'm not a big fan of Ondaatje...There is so much about horses, too, and their mistreatment, and I think too, that Behrens is drawing a parallel between the horse, wild, mistreated by society, looking for some kind of kindness, and Fergus himself, a boy who never lived in a room, only a shabbily built cabin on top of an Irish farmer's mountain(also, the horses that died so terribly in the building of English railways, reminded me with their human-like characteristics of Faulkner's horses in As I Lay Dying). It was great, and also full of good quotes, since the author, through the protagonist's thoughts, is constantly plagued by the thought of dreams and not being able to escape the past, or the dead...Two quotes I loved..."Stories always started this way, suddenly, and set within a strange world. Patience is required, to let the stories unroll. This is how people explain their lives" (Behrens 289). This was how I felt the book was, a bit slow to get started, but it unrolled into a vast experience, spanning 4 countries, two continents...And the last quote..."Is courage just the awareness that gestures, journeys, lives have intrinsic shape, and must, one way or another, be completed? That there is a path to be followed, literally to the death? Awareness is harsh but better than being unaware, never sensing a path. Better than a life of stunts, false starts, dead ends. Better than the irredeemable ugliness of the halfhearted. Better than feeling there is no shape to anything--there is. The world knows itself" (Behrens 356). This novel actually reminded me a bit of A Fine Balance in its sweeping nature, but dare I say it? I liked this just as well, maybe a tad better? Not as long, and I've always had a weird penchant for Irish literature...A story of how a man's journey leads him to Canada, not unlike so many others, I think...:) PPs-25, GGs-26.

Steven Millhauser's Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer is the book that I just finished...besides seeing it on my long list of books to read, I first heard about it from the book snob at the independent bookstore on top of Queen Anne Hill. She said to me, when I told her I was doing this project(a project that offers me at least a small bit of pride), "Well, there are some great books on the list but a ton of terrible ones. Have you gotten to Martin Dressler yet?" What's interesting, is that I read another book on recommendation of hers The Winter Queen, a boring tome, the time which it took to read it being a week of reading time that I WILL NEVER GET BACK. So, why I thought she might be right with Dressler I have no idea. So, the book didn't suck. It was actually pretty interesting or at least engaging enough for me to blow through it pretty quickly. However, it wasn't really that memorable. It was kind of like eating white bread with butter, it tastes pretty good but it isn't that flavorful. Martin Dressler, the title character builds an empire in New York City, based on his dreams, but makes a fair share of mistakes along the way, showing his humanness. His wife is a mentally ill self-centered bee-yotch, he should have married the less attractive but far more intelligent sister...He has higher expectations for the hotel-occupying public than what actually occurs. But, we all make mistakes, right? I probably won't forget what I thought about Martin Dressler for a long time because of what that woman said to me and the context of our conversation, but otherwise, it would totally have gone into the pile of novels that I read and then file in the back of the rolodex of my brain...Now we're all tied up: Pulitzers 25, GGs 25...:)

So, this is the quote(it's really really long), that I loved from The Hours(finding it also particularly relevant to me) and I wanted to document it before I returned the book..."Yes, Clarissa thinks, it's time for the day to be over. We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep--it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children(and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.[paragraph break] Heaven only knows why we love it so" (Cunningham 225-226). This quote is from the second to last and last page of the book. It's not my favorite book, by far, but it's pretty amazing.:)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I'm not really, though I do admit to not caring for her writing too much. I was wondering how I would like The Hours, because it focuses around Virginia Woolf and promised to be similar in writing style as Woolf's novels. I've read A Room of One's Own, Jacob's Room, and Mrs. Dalloway, the book upon which The Hours was based, and Virginia is not really my style. But after reading The Hours, I don't know why...I can't really figure it out. I felt like Cunningham's Virginia was a woman I could very easily relate to, as were the other women in the book. I feel often, like Virginia, that I'm outside of my body, looking in on my own life, exploring my own grief, frustrations, and the internal voices that speak to me almost as if I am a bystander. That sounds super odd, I guess, but I do feel that way at times. Also, the preoccupation with death of both the Laura Brown character and Virginia, how the suicidal thoughts were described reminded me of my years in college where I battled depression. I wanted to check into a hotel room(remember my Veronica entry?) much like Laura Brown did for those few hours, to escape, for certainly at that time, which was before I came to terms with what I wanted to do and my homosexuality, I was constantly feeling like I was losing touch with reality, like I wasn't a part of my own present. The Hours was a fabulous book, giving me hope for the Pulitzer prize system, a book about characters who are homosexual, male and female, living lives as openly gay, as well as the characters who are trying to sort out their own budding sexualities. The Canadians have done it, not only having a book with openly gay characters in it, but also being on the whole less conservative about what they chose to give the GG to, so, even though the American awards tend to be more conservative AND this was a book about lesbians written by a man, at least it's still A HOPE. His style is so cinematic in span, I do admit that I wonder what the movie would be like, especially since in the beginning Clarissa sees a woman that she thinks is a movie star that could be Meryl Streep, when I know that in the movie Clarissa's character is played by Meryl Streep. How ironic.:) There's a quote at the end about the bittersweet-ness of life, but I don't have the book on me while I'm typing this, so I can't add it until possibly later. However, it's all good, I guess.:) What I must say is it's really nice to have 45 minute lunch breaks(even though at times they feel a bit forced) because I can get A LOT of reading done.:) I feel like I've read so many books by men lately, but that's not really the case I guess, I just checked, it's only been 4 in a row. When I get up to 10 books in a row, then I'll have to go back to reading the ladies. Not like I'm lacking in books by them either. Pulitzers 24, GGs 25.

So, I just finished Philip Roth's American Pastoral. Hmmm...when I think of "pastoral," I think of Beethoven's 6th symphony, pretty cute cupids flying around, hearts and flowers(yay Fantasia!), of peaceful things like trickling streams...That, of course is the irony of Roth's title...his character Seymour "Swede" Levov is living the peaceful American life: he is a blond-haired Jew, who has fulfilled his bargain in the American dream; he was a sports star in high school, went to college and did very well, inherited his father's business, ran it successfully, married Miss New Jersey(who albeit it is a Catholic) and had a beautiful baby girl. Unfortunately, this bouncing baby girl grew up to build a bomb at the age of 16 and blow up the local post office/convenience store, killing the local doctor. Then the girl disappears, going underground to avoid capture by the FBI...The book is mainly about Swede and his inability to deal with the loss of his daughter and the following destruction of his marriage and his sanity. He is filled with a great deal of hindsight, all the what ifs...it reminds me a lot of my parents, especially my mom, who always seems to propose those kinds of questions, though unlike the Swede who carries out the dialogue internally, my mother asks these questions directly of me, the culprit...You see, it is I who now carries the much tossed around crown of being the black sheep of the family...my sister used to wear it proudly, causing a rift in the family not unlike what will happen to California if we get that really huge earthquake that the scientists are promising...but now that she's cleaned herself up and become the upstanding heterosexual "Jenny from the block" so to speak, it's my job to be the black sheep...my mother is constantly full of the what ifs: What if I had done this differently? Would you be straight? What if I had done that differently? Would you be a lawyer? How annoying is that? Also, she seems to be ignoring who I am and only focusing on the "what should have been." Seymour Levov does much of the same, for over 400 pages. What he seems to not get, even by the end, is the fact that so much of our lives and the ones that touch our own, is completely out of our control, especially when it comes to raising children. We are at the mercy of what we give birth to, it is unfortunately not the other way around. And, giving birth to children is the ultimate Russian roulette...This book portrays an interesting snapshot of America during the Vietnam war and how people may or may not have reacted and how divided the country was. Merry(Levov's daughter) acts before she is legal on her beliefs and protests the war, like many did at the time, in all kinds of different ways. Okay, enough of the plot summary...Philip Roth has written a lot of books(this is his 22nd book), and obviously someone out there likes him, because he's been published...I've heard through the grapevine that his early books include a lot of scenes of male masturbation, so he's never really been high on my list of people to read(because you know how men turn me on;)), and now that I've read American Pastoral, I think I'm okay with not reading any of his others(unless they come highly recommended). The biggest problem with was that to me it seemed like a really good idea for a book that could have been written way better. It dragged on A LOT. It got better by the end, and I can't say I hated it, because I really liked some of the parallels to Milton(the section headings, and the fact that Levov is so figuratively blind to the world around him, much like Milton was literally blind), but I mean, really...The first section is told from the point of view of an unreliable, biased(stars in his eyes) kind of narrator who "imagines" this man's life after he finds out about the terrorist daughter and then proceeds to write a "novel" about it. It took to long to get to the "novel" part. The other thing I was thinking about constantly was how would I react to this book if I was a boy? Would I like it any better? I'm finding that I like books written by men less than books written by women...Overall, I would like to think that I'm pretty even across the board in terms of favorites by both sexes, but lately I've been reading my fair share of books by men and have not really been feeling it. I think if I was a father, maybe with this novel I would have more to relate to(or at the very least a middle-aged male, of which I'm neither of course). My favorite part of the book oddly enough was when, in a flashback, Levov's then to-be wife and his father get into a discussion of religion and how a grandchild will be raised...it's super funny because it's all done negotiation style...and the grandfather to-be insists that his grandchild is not going to "EAT JESUS" over and over again. This, unfortunately came towards the end of the book. So, final verdict on American Pastoral? Meh...Perhaps I'll do better with The Hours. GG's 25, Pulitzers 23...

I love Canada. Perhaps it's because I just returned from it with a ton of books for CHEAP, and because I have great friends there, and a whole bunch of other things, but right now I love Canada for Clara Callan. It was a great read, with lesbian characters at the forefront, the lesbian character of note, Evelyn, talking openly in letters about her relationships with the recipients being totally okay with it(and the book takes place in the mid-1930s!). And, Evelyn is cool, she's a writer for radio shows and later film who dispenses advice with a hefty dose of sarcasm and wit. First I thought Canada was cool because I lived there, and then I thought it was cool because Marian Engel's The Bear won the GG in 1976 and it was a novel about a woman's sexual experience with a real wild bear. The Pulitzers are usually so much more demure, and though they offer up an American experience of sorts, it's more mainstream, I find. Canadians seem to push the envelope a little more. Kroetsch's The Studhorse Man is another example of a novel that was a little off-the-map that won. I mean seriously, in Kroetsch's The Seed Catalogue, a book of poetry written around the same time, he writes about fucking a pumpkin...Though Kroetsch is one of Canada's most famous writers, he is far from mainstream...but, I digress. Clara Callan. I got it for a present from Kate and Jean back when I think they were still in Toronto and I was still in culinary school. Kate raved about it, but I hadn't gotten a chance to read it until now...It was so beautifully done, reminding me in terms of its readability of Sandra Gulland's Josephine B. series. Wright's words are fabulous, and his title character reminded me a lot of myself. I liked how the title character was a big reader and into music, and I like how the author situated the characters in the literature and popular culture of the time...talking about the Andy Hardy movies, Gone with the Wind premiering both as a book and movie, the building of the radio business and its prominence in everyday life. I don't have any quotes that I liked because all the prose was so great(and because the one page I dog-eared I can't find now, the dog ear must not have held...)...I also must say though, that I'm surprised that I was able to finish this whilst on my "vacation," during which I also watched 4 movies in the theater! It helped that Chris made me eat dinner in his restaurant AND WAIT FOR HIM FOR ALMOST 4 HOURS, so I managed to plow through this 415 page tome then and finished it between two 1 1/2 hour(3 hours total) ferry rides. I've read a few more of the GG's than the Pulitzer, but I think I like the Canadian choices better overall. Though I still haven't read The Wars, The Tin Flute, and Anil's Ghost...so I may be whistling a different tune soon. I totally fell off the bandwagon today especially with the book purchasing, picking up 8 or 9(I lost count), but all but one have either won a Pulitzer or Governor General(the overwhelming # GG's that my library doesn't even have)so...you know, if I read only 7 more specific books from the GG list, I will have read everything that's won the GG in Canada from present day through 1983(that's Keren's birth year!!)...I still have a lot more to go, though...hmmm...GG's 25, Pulitzers 22...

I have to say it. Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies is one of, if not the best short story collection that I've ever read. Normally I'm not a big fan of short stories and with Keren gone so far away for the week I was looking for some kind of escape reading...I wasn't sure about Lahiri's collection because from the outset it didn't appear to be something that I would be excited about(Indians living both in their home country and as expatriates in the states), but since it won the Pulitzer in 2000, it was necessary reading for me. Boy, was I surprised! It was fucking fabulous. All of the stories were so diverse and each one(only at most like 25 pages)felt like its own well-developed novel. Unlike other entries this one will be pretty short regarding the book, only because I'm almost speechless regarding it. The stories were ALL good, there wasn't one in particular that I liked more than the others. What characters, what descriptions! And what a nice escape during a really busy past few days! As of today I am now officially done at the hell job! And, I'm officially on the payroll and a card-carrying team member of Whole Foods! WHHHHHOOOOO HOOOOOOO! And I'm going to go to Canada and see some people!!!!WHHHHHHOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!! 24 GGs, 22 Pulitzers...

I just finished(yesterday, that is), Winifred Bambrick's Continental Revue, which won the GG in 1946, only a year after the war at the onset of which the book takes place. (Wow, grammar anyone?) Anyway, this book has all kinds of interesting things surrounding it which I feel compelled to document in case this "project" of mine ever becomes bigger than me being a thorn in the library's side...(they tell me that they find it fascinating, yeah, at least someone does;)). First, I got an edition that was actually published as Continental Revue, which is how it was published in Canada and other places than the US. There is a US edition of the book called Keller's Continental Revue...which is kind of like that whole Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone deal. But, that's not the end of the somewhat interesting/boring sidenotes to this book. Other notes to remember: this book I received via interlibrary loan, and it came from the furthest away(the book that claimed this title before Laura Salverson's The Dark Weaver, which traveled all the way from Kent, Ohio). Revue came from the University of Pennsylvania library(ironic since I got in there, visited, and chose McGill over it); it was a first edition, and the last person to check it out besides me was someone in 1972! It has been in STORAGE all this time. It's really kind of neat to think that I have the ability to get a book out of storage just for my not always so little of a project.:) Everyone at work et al has told me that I have officially achieved higher dork status than before due to my excitement over the distance this book traveled and the fact that I'm probably going to be one of the only people in this vast country to read this novel this year and possibly the only one to have read it in decades...I don't understand why(the dorkiness, yes, I totally am and I'm even proud of it:)), and it brings up this debate that I've been wrestling with in my head for a long time, one that seems especially relevant given my project. Who decides what books remain in a literary canon? What is the criteria? I ask because due to my interest in these prize winners, I've read both really boring books and really interesting ones. There are some really good and interesting ones that are either out-of-print or really hard to find, and there are some really boring ones that seem to be ubiquitous. I guess, my question is, what makes a book worthy according to the population? And is it the literary population(e.g., people who read voluminously) or is it the general population? There are a few authors that I've read that I scratch my head and say "This person is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of American/Canadian lit...Why?" Hemingway would be a good example of that. He's okay, and I've certainly tried reading him(I finished The Sun Also Rises, A Moveable Feast, and have been subjected to a few short stories), but I don't see what all of the fuss is about. Catcher in the Rye is another fine example of a book that leaves me going, "why is this significant?" It's a decent novel, don't get me wrong, but...My mom once said that she thinks it has something to do with the times, which of course is something I've also heard from college professors...And there are some books that withstand that aspect(the miserableness of the rich in The Great Gatsby to me is a prime example of a situation that though relevant to the time period in which it was written is also particularly salient to any time)...I also must admit that there are books that I absolutely adore that no one else seems to, so maybe we can't just allow my opinion to count for EVERYTHING, (though it should;)) however I know I'm not the only one who dislikes strongly the overly masculine long-winded Heart of Darkness(I did see the point of it, sort of). Okay, I should stop now...I know I'm well-read and pretty democratic about how I approach literature, and I guess that's why there's other prizes out there(the more recent, more pushing the envelope-if you can do that with a national prize-Giller prize comes to mind) to read and be aware of...I can also choose to say FUCK the prizes! But, I've already started, so...All right, Winifred Bambrick and The Continental Revue. Winifred Bambrick was cool, I looked her up while I was trying to hunt down the book. She was a professional harpist who amongst other things, traveled playing for a revue/circus for a few years. Her GG winning novel was, it has been assumed, based at least slightly upon that experience. It was a pretty good book(kind of scary to read because the pages were so freakin' thin), about a traveling circus troupe of around 300 people from all different nationalities, living their lives and performing in pre-WW2 Europe. The book was published in 1946, so it was written when the war was either going on or just completed...and is interesting because it starts with events in 1938 and works forward through until 1940. When this book was published everything was still so fresh. In that regard, it reminds me of Swiss Sonata, which wrote about pre-war events whilst the war was going on. Revue and Sonata were both Canadian award winners, remember. The year that Sonata won (1938), in the States The Late George Apley won, a book about a Bostonian man. The year that Revue won(1946), the Pulitzer committee didn't even give out a prize for fiction...The GG's seem to carry about a little bit of political-ness, and are directed towards that at times. I think that the Pulitzer is highly AMERICAN and it's definitely about an AMERICAN experience, though it definitely favors the white male experience. I believe less than 1/3 of the winners of the Pulitzer are women. The GG's are slightly more women-focused, having 1/3 of the prizes won be by women, however interestingly enough, the GG's have a tendency to award to the same people numerous prizes(Margaret Laurence 2, Gabrielle Roy 2, Alice Munro 3), so I'm not really sure what that says. Okay...needing to wrap this up. Continental Revue took me a really long time to read for me(like over 2 weeks) because of the looking/interviewing for a new job...Auf weidersehen to the crappy one! Though it wasn't because it wasn't good, it wasn't that gripping either, but oh well...Bambrick did a bit of a microcosm of the world with her novel and the fact that there were all kinds of people living in a fantasy world about the upcoming war at that time(not only circus performers, pretty much all of planet Earth)becomes apparent as well. I can't say I was particularly drawn to any of the characters, but they did remind me of types of people that I know...All the acts were interesting too, and to think that at that time it was actually affordable for the everyman to see a show like that(Cirque du Soleil is really pricey)definitely makes one a teensy bit nostalgic. And, the other thing that makes one wistful is that the whole world lost its innocence then(even more than the first war), and we have never been the same as a society since, to be reminded of that through a myriad of circus performers, people who make a living out of creating a show, was at the very least ironic. One quote I particularly liked was a comment made by one of the most "I'm living in la-la land" performers, Mario. He says "'Life is like the weather. It cannot all be nice' (Bambrick 294)." And Bambrick's last line of the novel is good too..."One show is ended, but another is always beginning" (Bambrick 351). Hmmmmmm.....GGs 24, Pulitzers 21...

23 GG's(out of 69), 21 Pulitzers(out of 80)...44/149...I'm approximately 1/3 of the way there.:)

Since this is meant to be some kind of journal and/or documentation of my life as I finish the Governor Generals and the Pulitzers, I have to do some kind of writing on A Song for Nettie Johnson and The Luck of Ginger Coffey, both Governor General winners...Nettie in 2002, Ginger in 1960. I read Gloria Sawai's Nettie Johnson this past weekend while I was on my vacation from work...it was a very good book, full of well written short stories about people in Saskatchewan...It reminded me a bit of W.O. Mitchell's Who Has Seen the Wind?, which is still one of my favorite Canadian novels. Canadian prairie novels are always a little bit depressing(or a lot, depending on who you're reading), but Sawai's book was rather light, though not at the same time...Her story "The Day I Sat with Jesus on the Sundeck and a Wind Came Up and Blew My Kimono Open and He Saw My Breasts," had a great title and was funny...though I liked that the rest of her stories, like with my hero Faulkner, had characters from the same town that flowed in and out(only one other, "Hosea's Children" I believe, did not have characters from all of the other stories). I like seeing people in a different narrative positions, it makes for interesting observation...So, the book was good, great writing, interesting stories, but not that memorable...It could be that it was because I was on "vacation," in which I went out on a (real!)date with my girl, and got mesmerized by the pretty Oscars dresses all Sunday...I started Ginger Sunday night, a novel about an Irish immigrant to Montreal(looked forward to reading about one of my favorite cities;)), and just barely finished it. It was also very good, and kind of apt, since the title character spends the entire novel trying to find a job that will make him a success, that will save his marriage, his family and not force him to move back to Ireland. I have been feeling the push myself of course to find a new job and move my career upwards, and like the title character, have also had my string of bad luck lately(car, anyone?), though my position is definitely not as dire as his. Brian Moore is a great writer...If I wasn't currently bogged down in what is rapidly appearing to be a possible library hell, coupled with an overwhelming amount of books at my own and Keren's house that I haven't even touched yet, then I would possibly look to read some of his other novels, but alas...that will be a long time off...It was a rapid, engaging read. I just hope with my current prospects, I'll be better off that even he was at the end of the novel shortly(which is likely...:)). Both books are recommended, not boring or stupid at all...I seem, as of late, to be loving the GG's more than the Pulitzers, but I have yet to read The Tin Flute and The Wars so perhaps shortly I'll be whistling a different tune. (By the by, Nettie came from WWU library, in Bellingham, WA where Meghan went to school...Ginger came as the result of a used bookstore romp that I took through old Vancouver...it was a find at $2.50 Canadian, and I could afford it because I was given a copy of Gwendolyn MacEwan poems that I absolutely coveted at another used bookstore, the poems were $8, and I was able to buy a few novels at another bookstore because it was $8 that I didn't have to spend...but that's a big long story for another time...:)) Don't remember where I'm at with the lists, I'm not on my computer and need to look at the database...but I know the GG's are winning again.:)

Veronica…the cover is of a woman’s upturned face, rain pouring down…I got into the car today to do some grocery shopping, feeling the rain on my body, on my cheeks, looking out into the grey sky…feeling sadness envelope me, but thankfully only for a moment, while I was reading the book, I felt like sadness was pressing against my chest, suffocating me, making me nauseous with despair and loneliness…Like I said, it was only for a moment…not a lifetime, like the character feels in the novel, and not like those years in college when I battled depression so much. Like The Bell Jar, and Of Mice and Men, this novel affected me very deeply; wonderful writing, but touching me so deeply that I felt compelled to finish as soon as possible to push it out of my system. Let me say, Mary Gaitskill is an absolutely phenomenal writer. She reminds me a lot of Lynn Crosbie with her use of metaphor, sharp jarring metaphors…I told someone while I was reading the book that her metaphors were like shards of glass made beautiful by the designs dripping blood make upon them. I heard about this book when I dragged Keren to a queer lit talk at Bumbershoot this past year. The two lesbian writers interviewed were asked what book they were reading/read recently that they really liked/found inspiring. Both of them said without a doubt, Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica. I waited for a long time and through the Seattle Public Library system, I found it last week while I was doing my “Wednesday morning wandering” while Keren goes to her supervision in Madrona Park. There’s a super cute and TINY library in Madrona that I browsed through for a while. I picked up a copy of Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain” and Veronica. I haven’t written in this blog in forever, mostly due to sheer lack of time and I do readily admit it, laziness. But, this book compelled me to write again. I have all these private feelings that washed over me in tidal waves when I read this book and the style of the book reminded me so much of how I think myself…Veronica is narrated by a woman named Alison, a former runway model who is now at the minimum in her early to mid-40s, and sick with Hepatitis-C. She remembers her life in flashback form, snippets of memory, while she is moving through her heartbreakingly lonely life. It seems that Veronica, a woman of whom Alison boldly describes all faults: bisexual boyfriend who will eventually give her AIDS, ugly face with a gash of a mouth, bad haircut, terrible clothes, interesting but often not-so-great social skills, is her closest friend. However dysfunctional the bond, and no matter Alison’s level of disgust she is drawn to Veronica, so drawn to her that her memories are framed by this woman and constantly return to her. This unlikely relationship seems to have been so important to both women, Alison being one of the only people who is truly there for Veronica as she dies. Bleakness definitely runs rampant throughout this novel, something that the jacket doesn’t really address, but it isn’t as much sadness as a perpetual feeling that both of the main characters are lost and cannot find their way. They stumble through their lives, blind to error until it slaps them in the face, and ruins them, but makes them stronger as well. It is also peripheral characters in the novel that are “lost”…Sara, one of Alison’s sisters, spends years in a basement self-ostracized from society, watching television and withdrawing inwards…All this seems so superficial in terms of description, though. What got me the most is all the memory that came back to me as I stumbled through especially my early years in college, but also how I cope with what feels like my own perpetual sadness. Not ever having really figured out where it came from, I often felt lost in college, before I became an English major…I remember leaving my last business school classes in the early evening, darkness having already fallen, being assaulted by the harsh cold or the freezing rain or snow…The rain, I felt(and perhaps this is why Seattle fits so well for me), fit my feelings at the time…matching the tears that I had already shed all morning before I gathered myself together and went to class…My eyes were dry at this point, though my throat was hoarse from too much crying…I remember just wanting to disappear, wondering if someone would even notice. I wanted to check myself into a hotel at one point anonymously to just sleep and sleep and sleep…But, like they say in Hotel California, you can check out, but you can never leave. That’s what happens with Alison’s memory too, it never leaves her. Perhaps what makes this book so wonderful for me is that I feel like Gaitskill writes humans really well, her characters are so real. She, for me is like Faulkner and Alice Munro and other authors who I can’t remember right now, though I’m sure I can pull them up from my brain at some point. I think that my sadness, the nauseating sadness of which I spoke earlier, also stems from all my current problems with work, my desire to quit and my self-consciousness regarding the search for a new job. It’s a particularly hard time for me emotionally right now, I’m getting over my rage at my work, and battling all my fears about not getting hired…but, I’m working on all of this, processing and accepting…The other thing about the book that I found really interesting is Alison’s relationship to music, and how she even views others’ relationships to music as well, especially her father’s. He lives in his music, she almost tries to emulate the music, wanting to live like it, or in it, but it is different than her father who is attempting to lose himself in song. Alison, now the age her father was in the majority of her flashbacks, is more lost in thought than music anymore. Perhaps the music fails her, as her modeling career crashes and burns, like a phoenix she rises again, only to be destroyed again. It all reminds me of a Heart lyric: “Love me like music, and I’ll be your song...” Interestingly enough too, both Alison’s friend Veronica and her boyfriend recommend the movie A Star Is Born, one of Judy Garland’s arguably most autobiographical films…it’s a movie that comes up more than once in conversation in the novel, but ironically is a movie that Alison never sees…there are parallels between Judy and Alison, lost innocence at the hands of people who eventually ruin her…All I know is by the end of the book I felt supremely lucky. Lucky that my feelings of perpetual sadness and loneliness I am able to live with, they are accepted friends of mine, I try not to let these demons get the better of me, though unfortunately sometimes it can’t be helped. Alison is like this too, she is living through all of her stuff as well, she has to in order to survive. What I am lucky to have though, is an amazing support system…multiple friends who care about me, a family that no matter how much they piss me off I still know love me very much(and the pissing off factor has been quite high as of late), and a wonderful partner who despite being totally asleep the other night, woke up in the middle of the night to comfort me and my uncontrollable sobbing…Alison’s life is empty of close ties, has been for many years, a former lover is kind to her and she has some other friends, but there is much emptiness…my co-worker commented on that for her life the other day too, which depressed me greatly. I feel very rich and almost guilty for being so rich in my interpersonal relationships, but the feeling is too fulfilling to ever want to lose it of course…Perhaps I’m not that unhappy or lonely, or perhaps I feel like I don’t have a right to be, or perhaps sadness and loneliness are just such natural human characteristics, since they run through all of literature, that I’m not alone, and that unites me with both fictional and real people…