Wednesday, February 28, 2007

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.:)

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