Divisadero and The Road. What do they have in common? A few things. They were both written by men who are extremely famous writers with many accolades to their credit. They both are populated by stark dialogue and overall sparse prose. And, they both won an award in 2007. Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje(MY FAVORITE! NOT!) won this year's Governor General award, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy won this year's Pulitzer Prize. Both books also held their share of surprises. But, even though Ondaatje's book won later in the year(November), I want to talk about him first, since I owe a blog about him(my blog about Anil's Ghost was unfortunately lost by blogger in a combination with firefox) to the blog.
Michael Ondaatje. I am not a big fan. I've been thinking lately about why that is. Perhaps it's because he's one of the only Canadian writers that Americans are familiar with and that makes me just a little bit bitter because there are so many other fabulous Canadian writers out there. Also, I know that he and Margaret Atwood are always linked together as the "Margaret Ondaatje" phenomenon(at least her name comes first)and yet though I think she is both a better novelist AND poet, he always seems to clean up at the big awards. I don't like the feeling that I get when I open an Ondaatje book(and I feel I can be a pretty good judge of this, I've read 4 of his novels and two books of poetry)I feel like I should be basking in this overwhelming sense of AWE. I feel like when I open the book this voice speaks to me that says "YOU ARE READING A MICHAEL ONDAATJE NOVEL, WRITTEN BY ONE OF THE GREATEST CANADIAN WRITERS, NO, WORLD WRITERS, EVER. JUST TRY AND UNDERSTAND WHAT WILL BE THE MOST AWE-INSPIRING READING EXPERIENCE YOU HAVE EVER HAD. YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO UNDERSTAND, BECAUSE CLEARLY YOU ARE NOT MICHAEL ONDAATJE, THE GREATEST WRITER, EVER." A book, no matter in what esteem I hold it in, is still a book. I don't want anyone, especially an author, making me feel like a book is going to be a certain way before I even get past page 5. Let ME read it and see what I think. That being said, I am, to an extent, a fan of Ondaatje's poetry. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is still one of my favorite poetry books, because I love the combination of words and use of found poetry, as well as Ondaatje's pursuit of the outlaw theme that runs rampant through Canadian literature. However, with his novels, I've had a little bit different experience. Though the books are interesting enough at the time, I have never found one to be particularly memorable. Ironically, I CAN remember what was going on in my life whenever I read one of his books, and that WAS memorable, so perhaps that is why his books don't cling to me as much. The English Patient I read the summer I had major jaw surgery. I was so doped up it was hard for me to focus on anything, and Ondaatje's elongated prose poem style of writing, not to mention the fact that the main character was also heavily medicated, made the book a challenge to follow at times. I thought it was an interesting read, but wasn't compelled to read any more of his novels. In the Skin of a Lion I read because of someone, which is what made that memorable. I met a guy, through a friend at school, and began dating him. The reason I was dating him was because I found out that my two best friends had fallen in love, and I was supremely jealous and freaked out because I wasn't sure that I was gay(I knew I was, but I was still in denial)and I wanted to prove that I wasn't. In the Skin of a Lion was one of his favorite books. I bought it because of him and read it much later(the relationship was extremely short-lived for a few reasons). I don't remember much about that book either except that it involves a bridge and immigrants. Out of the 4 Ondaatje books I've read, it's also the one that hasn't won a Governor General. Anil's Ghost I read this past summer(2007). It wasn't as terrible as I'd heard it to be, but it wasn't that great either. It doesn't help that I was depressed much of that time because Keren was in NZ and I was lonely and work was super stressful. I spent much of my free time watching Gilmore Girls episodes and any book that I read kind of got the shaft in terms of my attention commitment level. I just felt a major MEH when I read it, perhaps it's some anticlimactic reflex from the build-up of reading an ONDAATJE(can't you just hear some deep announcer voice saying his name and the room vibrating?)novel. So, since my experiences with his novels have not been super great, you can only imagine my chagrin when he won this year for Divisadero, his latest novel. Chagrin doesn't begin to describe it. I was PISSED. First of all, I was looking forward to the announcement, like counting down the days, of who would be the winner of this year's GG award for fiction. I was also crossing my fingers because I didn't want him to win. Not only because I was tired of reading Michael Ondaatje novels, but also because there were quite a few new novelists(Heather O'Neill for example)who I wanted to win to spread the wealth and bring in some new blood. The day of the announcement I was SOOOO excited and then subsequently SOOOOO disappointed. I had a gloomy face for a few days and if anyone asked why, they were sorry, because I told them. So, I put a hold on it at the library(it was extremely popular) so that it would be a long time before I would read it....Someone at the library must hate me because I got it only a few weeks later. Kate thinks it's because everyone who was on the list found out how shitty it was and took their names off the list. Ha. Well, I read it, started and finished it on my trip back to Seattle from Vermont, when I visited my parents this year for a birthday surprise for my mom. Yet again, even though I just finished the book a little over a week ago, the trip is memorable, the book is not so much. I remember liking it while reading it, surprisingly, but not being overly drawn to any of the characters. Ondaatje's writing style is so, poetic, which I do admire, and the book was short, which was helpful. I finished it going, what was the point of that? The first part was about three people(even four if you include the father)and their interconnected lives and how the past continues to haunt them, the part about the writer in France, that one of the protagonists is studying, I'm not sure where exactly that fits in, and especially since the book ends with that writer's point of view and just seems to stop, I felt like I was left hanging. I flipped back through the book for clues, and the one that I found was perhaps in reference to the choice of title....It's a thought line of a character, but it could be interpreted as straight from the author's mouth: "This is where I learned that sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us. Just as there is, in the real landscape of Paris in Les Miserables, that small fictional street Victor Hugo provides for Jean Valjean to slip into, in which to hide from his pursuers. What was that fictional street's name? I no longer remember. I come from Divisadero Street. Divisadero, from the Spanish word for 'division,' the street that at one time was the dividing line between San Francisco and the fields of the Presidio. Or it might derive from the word divisar, meaning 'to gaze at something from a distance.' (There is a 'height' nearby called El Divisadero.) Thus a point from which you can look far into the distance. [paragraph break] It is what I do with my work, I suppose. I look into the distance for those I have lost, so that I see them everywhere. Even here, in Demu, where Lucien Segura existed, where I 'transcribe a substitution/like the accidental folds of a scarf.'" (142-143) He's a beautiful writer, don't get me wrong, but perhaps, now reading the quote that I chose over again, the reason why I'm not is biggest fan is because I feel he DOES create that distance, and it separates me as the reader from the book with a wall of either inability to understand, or not enough to depth in character to make me want to.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy, on the other hand, can be considered one of my SURPRISE!s of 2008(even though 2008 is still very young). The premise of the book did not interest me at all. It's about a man and son traveling west in the post-apocalyptic US. I can't think of anything in that description that would make me put the book on my must-read list. I am so glad I did. The book's prose is stark, dialogue sparse against the page, but the relationship between father and son is so compelling possibly because there is nothing else to focus on for them but survival(survival for their physical but also relationship health). These two men are working so hard to get to the West Coast, why, it is never really explained, but one hopes/assumes that it is in the desire to find something better...The road they travel is full of possibilities for scariness and threat of death but still they persevere. What is interesting to note too is that the son still has, even though this is the only kind of world in which he has lived, a sense of looking out for the good guys and helping people along the way...he still maintains some sort of innocent samaritan-ness. It is he who has to convince the father to help out the few that they do along the way and who thinks constantly about the ones that they choose not to help, wondering where they ended up. The father, though possessed with his own pre-apocalypse memories has such amazing love for his son, despite the fact that he is a jaded adult who for his own survival must focus exclusively on his and his son's life. The only thing I didn't like about the book is that the world is so bleak and hopeless in so many ways, that I had terrible nightmares at night over the three nights or so that I read it. I could only contribute it to the book because the horrific landscape always figured in somehow. It is totally a worthwhile read, though, it really made me think about how I would respond in a situation like that, what would I do, where would I go. You have no way of knowing if anyone else you know is alive or dead, there is absolutely no way to communicate, the entire US is full of blackened, burnt landscape and long-abandoned homes. In reading the novel, you assume that things have been like this for quite awhile due to the character's comments. Remember that movie 28 Days? It's kind of like that except imagine that the world has now calmed down a little and now you're just left in the wreckage, the open, empty wreckage. Like Ondaatje's book the prose was extremely sparse, but it made sense given the landscape and the character's situation. It actually drew me to them much more. I couldn't put it down. I'm actually happy this won, because maybe people will read it and it will encourage them to think. Isn't that what the Pulitzer is is all about? I could have bought this at a store in Port Gamble on my birthday this year(first edition hardcover)but I didn't. Too bad. But, I guess I have enough books as it is. GG's-33, PP's-34.

It's a new year, a new look at the Pulitzers and Governor Generals.  I realize, as I did towards the end of last year(wow, that's a weird thing to say), that I still have a long ways to go, and like everyone who has their New Year's resolutions, I too, have mine.  I think the plan has always been to complete these lists as soon as I could; this morning I woke up and decided to try to complete them before I turn 30.  That's only about 2 1/2 more years to go.  And, if I want to write a book about all of this as an experiential review/memoir, I'd like to do that sooner rather than later as well...Mmm...Since I last wrote in this blog, I've read 2 Pulitzer Prize winners: Katherine Anne Porter's Collected Stories back in the middle of December, and Bernard Malamud's The Fixer.  Malamud's book I finished just yesterday now, my mom's birthday.  

  Katherine Anne Porter's book is interesting in the sense that it took me almost 5 months to finally finish.  I started it back when Keren went to New Zealand.  But, I was lonely and distracted from so much work, that I couldn't get through the around 500 page book.  I put it down and resolved to read it another time.  I finally picked it up again around Thanksgiving and just persevered through it.  I ended up not hating it as much as I did in the beginning, but I'm still not totally sold on the book.  I did however, like the story "Noon Wine" a lot, it was engaging and the characters(a husband and wife, their hired man and an encounter with an outsider)were absolutely fascinating.  That was a story I couldn't put down.  The rest of the stories were interesting, but not gripping.  I think that so far the short story collections that are my favorites are The Roaring Girl and The Interpreter of Maladies.  But, I read it, I've now been exposed to another author that I wouldn't have normally read, since I no longer take classes in English literature, and I have another book off the list.  This book also is important to note because it and A Jest of God won in the same year, 1966.  There were only 3 times in the entire history of both awards that two women won in the same year(PP and GG).  It's also a book that I picked up while Chris and I were on our two day nine movie marathon that we had for his birthday almost two years ago.  It's one of the many books I've picked up in this quest that until now had gathered a bit of dust on my shelf.  

  Bernard Malamud's The Fixer was a much different experience.  I started reading The Fixer when I was waiting for blood work at Swedish Hospital in Ballard, after a physical, way back in October.  But, I didn't really feel like reading it then.  It has languished on my shelf all this time, until I picked up again last week.  It was due at the Seattle Public Library back in early December.  I may have amassed the most amount of overdue fines yet for this particular book, but I didn't want to give it up, postponing the reading of something that was in my grasp for so long.  So of course literally I will have to pay the price.:)  It was a great book.  I was really surprised, because the premise was not something that I thought I was going to enjoy.  It's about a Jewish man who is wrongfully accused of murder during the last few years of Tsar Nicholas II's reign when anti-semitism was rampant and disgustingly tortuous and frightening.  Yakov Bok spends the nearly the entire book in jail, awaiting his INDICTMENT, which takes forever to come.  It's a HELLISH purgatory, waiting, wondering, losing his mind, but never ever does he deny his innocence, regardless of what is put before him in the form of tortures or promises of release if he confesses.  This book made me sick to my stomach and very proud.  I was sick because of all the horrible things that Yakov has to face, but proud because he continues to stay his ground and never waver.  Yakov's thoughts are what take prominence in this book and there were some very amazing quotes:  "Nobody can burn an idea even if they burn the man" (61).  "'There's something cursed, it seems to me, about a country where men have owned men as property.  The stink of that corruption never escapes the soul, and it is the stink of future evil'" (172).  I find this quote to be particularly interesting because not only was slavery commonplace in Russia before the Emancipation of the Serfs, but of course slavery plays a HUGELY prominent role in US history.  This quote to me seems extremely prophetic for our future as well.  The only difference in the case of the US vs. Russia is the color of the persecuted's skin.  The final quote makes reference to Jews, which in this particular novel is very salient, but I think applies more generally to all who are in some state of persecution or discrimination.  "Why? Because no Jew was innocent in a corrupt state, the most visible sign of its corruption its fear and hatred of those it persecuted.  Ostrovsky had reminded him that there was much more wrong with Russian than its anti-Semitism.  Those who persecute the innocent were themselves never free" (315).  This book is about humans and human rights.  I agree with the writer of the introduction, it makes you want to DO something about all of the injustice in the world, and interestingly enough, the novel, even though at times it seems so terribly bleak, offers hope for some of the members of humankind.  This is one of the books that makes me glad I do this project.  I'm glad that it is the first winner of the new year that I have read.  I was so moved by it that I told my mother(I'm home in Vermont now for my mom's birthday, I surprised her:))about it, and she's expressed a desire to read it.:)  We'll see.  It's not exactly a light read, but a very rewarding one.  PPs-33, GGs-31.