Used books in Montreal

"Walk into a good second-hand book shop, and there's an interesting selection made by a person, not a committee."

"It's the human aspect that's fun," Raymond says, "because the shop takes on the colour of your neighbourhood." Mount Royal Ave., home to a string of used-book shops is "a very human-level street. You wouldn't have that kind of success in, say, Brossard where it's all cars. Used-book shops don't work as drive-throughs. But if there were a couple in each neighbourhood, you'd find a lot of very different shops, and books."

The girl and the cat

It's taken almost 5 years, but she's finally bigger than the cat.



The cat is not particularly enamored of this turn of events, but he's shown more patience this last month — heck, the whole 5 years — than I ever thought possible.

You know, life

(In which the verb "to feel" is used to excess.)

Aurgh. This happens every so often: so much to say, no time to say it. All these glorious jewels and lumps of coal losing their immediacy, and amounting to nothing much, really.

See, even that paragraph above — I wrote it 4 days ago.

Umm.

Reading. I've done some. I feel like I'm in a slump. Nothing I pick up quite grabs me, with the notable exception of Michael Ondaatje's Coming through Slaughter, which has sat in a stack for years, a gift I simply had no interest in, but one evening I just picked it up, opened it, and started reading. Very poetic. It took a while to find the rhythm; in typical Ondaatje fashion, it's not entirely chronological, and not always obvious whose story is being told. But find a rhythm I did, and whether I understood what was happening didn't matter much, I was along for the ride, but then the last portion felt like a different book entirely, and then it was over, and again nothing I pick up quite grabs me.

The Post-Birthday World (Lionel Shriver) I read weeks ago. While I expected it to devastate me, it didn't. It was compelling enough, but kind of ugly. The language, the characters. If you haven't already heard, basically it follows two trajectories from a critical decision point (a kiss!) in the protagonist's life. Great concept for a novel, but none of the characters apart from Irina felt real, which maybe isn't a flaw, the point being made that we really are the heroes of our own lives, all the others merely bit players. I felt distanced (deliberately?) And of course, it's kind of the point that neither path has an entirely satisfactory conclusion, but it was more depressing than that — just ugly. It made me feel dirty even, to dare to consider the "what if," which I'm not sure was the point or has to be the case. I feel scolded for considering that things, banal things, could be any different than they are. Or maybe that ugliness isn't really there in the book — I'm juxtaposing it from some other part of my life (but where?) onto what I read, or expected to read. There's a different kind of discomfort with this book than with Kevin, and I can't put my finger on it. Maybe identifying that discomfort is the point.

I'm trying to read The Railway, by Hamid Ismailov, but I'm getting nowhere.

I'm trying to read The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. I'd had it in the back of my mind to get to this someday, and one day there it was in front of me, a used copy with a dark, sketchy cover and great illustrations within. It felt like a sign, finding it that day, when I was at loose ends for what to read. But. Maybe I'd appreciate it better in the dead of winter.

Yikes. Is that all I've read (been trying to read) lately?

I've picked up Danielewski's Only Revolutions off the stack countless times, but I get hung up over which end to start reading from first, and that's just too hard for now.

I read, a month ago already, Patrick Hamilton's Unknown Assailant, being the last part of the Gorse Trilogy (the first two bits of which I read about a year ago, and this third having been not previously available). I had things to say about it, I think, and I'm stunned to discover I didn't document those thoughts here. It's decidedly weaker than Hamilton's other books, but still there was insight into character, less Gorse's than that of his victims (and I think that's a strength).

I'm starting to worry that this slump, this mood, might colour whatever book I choose to pick up next, that the next book if read at any other time might be the greatest novel ever, but in current conditions might go unrecognized by me.

So there you have it. Blah.

Work is a bit trying these days, for various reasons but a major one being the office just moved to a new location. And while it thrills most of my coworkers, it bothers me that we're now on top of a shopping centre with its massive food court giving the illusion of choice and I have to walk through the mall to and from the metro, threading my way between glassy-eyed shoppers who don't know the rules of escalator usage, and I've yet to settle on a coffee spot, and when I do, I'll still have months of training the barista to know to start my espresso, allongé 3/4, as soon as he sees me coming. All of which makes me feel angry.

The long drive to see my mother for Thanksgiving, and the long drive home, with near intolerable sleeping arrangements in between.

And I feel sick. My head won't stop hurting, partly for inadequate sleep, partly for the noises and fumes of the final renovations of the new office space and the fact that the temperature is not yet balanced (ie, it's fucking cold). And now I'm just whining. How pathetic.

I'm just not altogether here.

The girl, though, through all this is fabulous. And I feel remiss for not documenting her full fabulosity. I will try harder.

And my cat is amazing.

I did find a book this week. By accident. I'd never heard of it. I brought home Letty Fox: Her Luck, by Christina Stead. From the opening page, it feels perfect. (Does it qualify as chick lit, I wonder.) I feel a little bad for leaving other books unfinished (it's out of character, besides), but I think I'm going to go read it now.

"Fourth-rate science fiction"

Doris Lessing is a favourite of mine, and today she won the Nobel prize for literature.

The veteran US literary critic Harold Bloom has so far provided the only voice of dissent. Describing the academy's decision as "pure political correctness", he said to the Associated Press today that "although Ms Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable ... fourth-rate science fiction."

I was introduced to the work of Doris Lessing almost 20 years ago, in a class on dystopian literature: we studied The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five.

The Fifth Child made me dread having children. I think of this book often; when I look at my child and think how lucky I am, I am choked by the realization — the sense Lessing imparted in that slim novel — of how little control I have over who my child is.

I happened to be reading The Good Terrorist in the early part of September 2001. It's the banality of the protagonist's life that stunned me.

Mara and Dann is, for its fairy-tale quality, my favourite, from which I learned to play the game: What Did You See?

All of these affected me quite profoundly.

And there were others in between.

I read The Golden Notebook just a couple years ago. I haven't yet managed to write about it. The best books are the hardest to write about. Even the preface had me crying out, "Yes."

From "Problems, Myths and Stories," in Time Bites:

...when you belong to a reading generation, there is a whole web or map of references, information, knowledge that you have taken for granted; you realise that reading has been a parallel education, filling and extending what education you in fact did have. With contemporaries you talk from inside this web, or net, or reference,...

From "A Reissue of The Golden Notebook," in Time Bites:

I have to conclude that fiction is better at "the truth" than a factual record.

I quite agree.

Give me fourth-rate science fiction any day.

"Humanity entered a new space age"

"I say without hesitation and without excuse that this is a turning point in history. Never has the threat of Soviet Communism been so great, or the need for countries to organize themselves against it."

— British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, November 1957.

Sputnik, launched 50 years ago today.

You are here:

Radio, televised

WireTap — still funny.

Click!

"Finding Patrick Hamilton feels somewhat like joining a secret society."

(Thanks, Tom.)

Ah, to live life as a not-quite-5-year-old

Me: "You're always singing. Why are you always singing?"
Helena: "Because I love singing."

The girl is always singing. Most days I adore the constant chatter, the voice experimenation, the musical nonsense, the running commentary of her day put to song. It puts a smile on my face.

Some days I wish she'd shut up already. But she sounds so... so happy.

Me: "How come you're so happy?"
Helena, with a roll of her eyes at the obvious: "Because it's fun."

Things I discovered while browsing in the magazine shop during my lunch break

1. Tim Parks reviews That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana, by Carlo Emilio Gadda, in the London Review of Books. And still he thinks very little of William Weaver's ability as a translator. (I haven't read That Awful Mess, but I really, really want to.)

2. The Insufferable Gaucho, by Roberto Bolaño, in The New Yorker.

In spite of everything, his life was happy. It's hard not to be happy, he used to say, in Buenos Aires, which is a perfect blend of Paris and Berlin, although if you look closely it's more like a perfect blend of Lyons and Prague. Every day, he got up at the same time as his children, had breakfast with them, and dropped them off at school. He spent the rest of the morning reading at least two newspapers; and, after a snack at eleven (consisting basically of cold cuts and sausage on buttered French bread and two or three little glasses of Argentine or Chilean wine, except on special occasions, when the wine was, naturally, French), he took a siesta until one. His lunch, which he ate on his own in an enormous, empty dining room while reading a book under the absentminded gaze of the elderly maid, and the black-and-white gaze of his deceased wife looking out from photographs in ornate silver frames, was light: soup and a small portion of fish and mashed potatoes, some of which he would allow to go cold. In the afternoon, he helped his children with their homework, or sat through Cuca's piano lessons in silence, or Bebe's English and French classes, given by two teachers with Italian surnames, who came to the house. Sometimes, when Cuca had learned to play a whole piece, the maid and the cook would come to listen, too, and the lawyer, filled with pride, would hear them murmur words of praise, which struck him at first as excessive, but then, on reflection, seemed perfectly apt. After saying good night to his children and reminding his domestic staff for the umpteenth time not to open the door to anyone, he went to his favorite café, on Corrientes, where he would stay until one at the very latest, listening to his friends or friends of theirs discussing issues that he suspected he would find supremely boring if he knew anything about them, after which he went back home, where everyone was asleep.

Ah, life.

A trick of the light

In the evening we went to see "Angel Street," which I recommend to anyone who wants to be absorbed and taken out of his daily round of interests. You sit on the edge of your chair most of the time and it is really a grand mystery story. Every member of the cast is excellent.

The handsome villain is so well played that the audience hisses him, and the old detective is a joy. But the part which seems to me incredibly hard to play, night after night, is that of the wife, who is slowly being driven insane by her husband — a very fine piece of acting.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

Angel Street, by Patrick Hamilton. Or Gaslight as it is perhaps better known (in large part thanks to the 1944 film adaptation starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotten, and introducing Angela Lansbury).

Earlier this summer, I watched the movie, and the British film that came before it. While thoroughly enjoyable, and with more similarities than differences, apart from telling a great, thrilling, suspenseful mystery story, they didn't wow me. I'd seen the Hollywood movie years ago, so I knew the basic plot. I dozed off a few times during the British movie, so I'm not sure I'm not lying when I say I've watched this one too. I watched them dutifully, as a completist, to find the Patrick Hamilton in them. I found a little: mostly in the maid, her aspiring beyond her station. There wasn't the drink and thoughtless cruelty I've come to associate with Hamilton, though there was cruelty, deliberate and purposeful — Hamilton does seem to have an interest in the mechanisms of cruelty of all kinds. And madness — certainly madness is central to Hangover Square, but most of Hamilton's characters are one way or another driven out of their minds (in a much looser sense), usually through a fog of drink, by desperate circumstances (does tedium count?).

So, what of the play? How much liberty had been taken with the films? How much Hamilton was in them really? I hunted, pinpointed, and purchased a copy of the play, in a charming shop.

I've mentioned before that I'm not one much for reading plays — they're meant to be seen, after all — but this was a wholly engrossing reading experience. (Maybe I should read more plays.)

It speaks to Ingrid Bergman's screen presence, if not her performance (for which she received an Oscar), that I couldn't help but picture her as I began reading the first act. It speaks to the strength of Hamilton's writing that by the end of that act that picture had entirely vanished.

The play is — as plays ought to be, I guess — tighter, without superfluous backstory or unnecessary complications. Hollywood added a layer of coincidences, which I now see for the distractions they are. Here, every word — and, I imagine, every look — counts. Here, everything cuts to the chase.

Mrs Manningham. But I'm married to him. You must go. I must think this out. You must go. I must cling to the man I married. Mustn't I?

Rough. Indeed, cling to him by all means, but do not imagine you are the only piece of ivy, on the garden wall. You can cling to him if you desire, as his fancy women in the low resorts of the town cling to him. This is the sort of wall you have to cling to, Ma'am.

*****

Gaslight has returned to the stage this past summer. The director of the London production makes the point that it is quite a modern play, and a good play.

"It actually calls for stylish and truthful acting. There's no way you could play it with your hand on your chest. There's no requirement to be histrionic. The tone of it is too well-written and in that sense it's a 1930s play, not a pastiche 1880s play. In actual Victorian melodrama, the situations were much more extreme and bloody than they are here."

...

"It's difficult to talk about it, because it doesn't pretend to be anything other than a thriller in the Victorian manner, but it's a thriller written by someone who can really write. He pitches you into the situation between the husband and wife within three lines of the opening. You don't know how you get into the terror — it just happens after about three sentences."

Far from being passé, the play, he believes, was ahead of its time. "Without wishing to sound too portentous about it, you can see the hint of a play that, in a different world, in a different theatre, he might have written — about sex."

The flirtatious relationship that Manningham has with his maid-servant, one of the many means by which he sadistically undermines his wife, is telling: "The maid is very important in creating the atmosphere of the play, suggesting the kind of middle-class marriage where the wife is neurotic and not available to her husband. Gaslight is not a feminist play but it's a marvellous portrait of a desolate marriage. It's hetero-hell."

The play as written on the page turned out to be a good deal steamier than either film version, the innuendo more blatant.

*****

A little history of Hamilton translated to film:

Putting aside the novels and coming back to the films, I saw them with fresh eyes. The key Hamilton terms are missing: cement, plains, pleasure. Those three words recur endlessly, as he describes the slate and limestone city of Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky. Hard, unyielding surfaces. Snot-grey grass. Miserable hotels. Crowded bars. But Hollywood doesn't do cement or pleasure (as Hamilton understood it). It specialises in fake surfaces, overblack shadows that follow actors across trembling walls.

(I'm not sure I agree. Hamilton is full of fake surfaces, though they be not the facades of buildings but the manners of people.)

*****

Sean French, Hamilton's biographer, on what went wrong on Hamilton's path to success and on the recent revival of his work.

Sometimes I think the only answer is to forget literary criticism — just push a book into people's hands and say: "You'll enjoy this. Now go away and read it."

In the time it's taken you to read this far, you might've already read, or viewed, or enacted in your head — experienced — Act One.

Cavalier

Another new book by one of my favourite dead authors!

I'd been awaiting Alexandre Dumas's The Last Cavalier Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon for months, but its publication date came and went with Amazon showing it unavailable. I'd stopped checking, but I'm heartened to find it's finally made an appearance, as swashbuckling a one as ever there was.

Michael Dirda:

...Claude Schopp — France's pre-eminent Dumas scholar — discovered that, during the very last year of his life, the novelist, though ill, suffering and out of critical favor, had somehow turned out a daily newspaper serial about "the adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the age of Napoleon." Because of Dumas's death, the novel was never finished and consequently never published in book form. So Schopp assembled all the newspaper installments and edited them. Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine appeared in France in 2005 and is now brought out in an excellent English translation by Lauren Yoder as The Last Cavalier. It's absolutely wonderful.

Yes, it's full of melodrama and coincidence, shamelessly studded with every possible romantic cliche and period flourish, and old-fashioned enough in its storytelling to wander into lengthy historical and biographical digressions. What's more, we only possess the first third or so of the original mammoth saga envisioned by its author. (A letter exists outlining the entire plot.) No matter.

Bourbon loyalists! Shopping bills! A witch's prophecy! Malay pirates! Tigers and pythons! The battle of Trafalgar!

Dumas with the help of research assistants produced 300 volumes. I have so much more to look forward to...

Say "Uncle"

"Uncle is an elephant. He's immensely rich, and he's a B.A."

Uncle, by JP Martin and illustrated by Quentin Blake, is amazing. Imagine the Moomintrolls living in Gormenghast, only more urban.

Moat and drawbridge, of course. There are stairways and elevators and waterfalls and chutes and tunnels, and a bathing pool in a secret location that defies the logic of space. There are towers, so many towers, one of them haunted. There are 2 stores: one where things are impossibly cheap and one where they are outrageously expensive, in which Uncle found an artificial pineapple for 33 pounds and bought it at once. "Uncle is the last person in the world to put artificial fruit on the sideboard, but he can't resist anything that is capable of being thrown."

But it's an episode about shoes that made me a convert — not for the shoes in themselves but for the depiction of the politics surrounding them.

The Old Monkey's uncle is called the Muncle and he's a very nice person, but seems to live for footwear. Uncle likes him, but thinks he is a bit too fussy about shoes.

However, he told the Old Monkey that the Muncle would be welcome, and, about half an hour later, just as he had settled down to his paper, the Muncle arrived. He was wearing an enormous pair of travelling boots. These have electric motors in their soles so that they can run along with him, and they come up so high that he can lean on the top edges. He always keeps a lot of stuff in them, including several pairs of smaller boots and shoes.

He came scooting over the drawbridge with an anxious expression, then drew up with a joyous shout. "Not a spot of mud on them!"

He is always terribly afraid, when he comes to visit Uncle, that Beaver Hateman, the leader of the Badfort crowd, may splash his boots with mud. Beaver Hatemean always tries to. But today he had seen nothing of him.

He sat down by the open window with a smiling face.

"So glad to see you, sir, and also my nephew. He looks well, though I am sorry to see his shoes are dusty. Nephew, open the right-side compartment in my travelling boots and you'll find a pair of dove-coloured visiting shoes. Ah, that's a relief. My travelling boots are rather heavy."

Then he looked keenly at Uncle and said: "Excuse my saying so, sir, but your shoes are somewhat shabby. I wonder if you'd gratify me by putting on a really nice pair?"

Uncle said to the Old Monkey:

"Just look in my number eight shoe saloon, and on the fourth shelf to the left you'll find a pair of red ones; I rather think it's the sixty-ninth pair from the door. Bring them here."

The Muncle seemed deeply impressed by this speech. He had never imagined that even Uncle possessed such a vast stock. He was still more deeply moved when the Old Monkey appeared with an exquisitely shaped pair of elephant's morning shoes of a deep red colour.

"Oh, those look very well, sir!" he cried, in a rather envious voice. He was thinking hard how he might regain his lost ground as shoe expert.

Then he pulls some poems out of his pocket, and Beaver Hateman comes by and ruins the Muncle's shoes and it's decided they should give him a new pair from the store. And we never hear of the Muncle again.

It's a strange world Uncle lives in, but one that I have no trouble accepting — my 4-year-old's imagination devises similar joys and evils, where complications and near magical solutions are a matter of course. The child's logic reigns supreme here.

For example, the school room is immensely long, and the teacher is railed in, but beside their desks the boys can access the many underground passages that lead up into the teacher's compartment.

The Economist wonders whatever happened to Uncle:

Much of the humour in "Uncle" is so quirky and understated that it is more likely to appeal to an adult than a child. For example, in most successful children's literature, a haunted tower would be genuinely spooky. In Uncle's castle, however, it is a great disappointment. One room is said to be inhabited by a ghost known as the White Terror. But the phantom turns out to be only a foot high, and stands on a bedside table, muttering monotonously, "I did it! I took the strawberry jam!" Quentin Blake, the book's illustrator, muses that "The books have always had terrific fans, but they have never attracted a mass following because they are so eccentric." Charlie Sheppard at Random House agrees that "there just may not be enough truly eccentric children out there." Even the most ardent Uncle fans would probably also concede that the stories suffer from a certain lack of narrative structure.

Nothing much happens. I mean, lots of stuff happens, but there's no plot to speak of. Uncle keeps pace with a child's attention span and concept of cool.

I'll be scouring the shelves of the second-hand shops for more Uncle titles.

Fans of Uncle: sinister cabal.
Looking for Uncle: a plea for reissues.

Next fall, NYRB publishes the second volume of Uncle's tales, Uncle Cleans Up.

Tales from Homeward: Uncle is alive and well and maintains a blog.

The end of our journey

It was around six in the evening, and light the colour of opal, pierced by the golden rays of the autumn sun, spread over a bluish sea.

The heat of the day had gradually expired and one was starting to feel that light breeze which seems like the breath of nature awaking after the burning midday siesta: that delicious breath that cools the Mediterranean coast and carries the scent of trees from shore to shore, mingled with the acrid scent of the sea.

Over the huge lake that extends from Gibraltar to the Dardanelles and from Tunis to Venice, a light yacht, cleanly and elegantly shaped, was slipping through the first mists of evening. Its movement was that of a swan opening its wings to the wind and appearing to glide across the water. At once swift and graceful, it advanced, leaving behind a phosphorescent wake.

Bit by bit, the sun, whose last rays we were describing, fell below the western horizon; but, as though confirming the brilliant fantasies of mythology, its prying flames reappeared at the crest of every wave as if to reveal that the god of fire had just hidden his face in the bosom of Amphitrite, who tried in vain to hide her lover in the folds of her azure robe.

Though there was apparently not enough wind to lift the ringlets on a girl's head, the yacht was travelling fast. Standing in its bow, a tall, bronzed man was staring wide-eyed at the dark, conical mass of land rising from the midst of the waves like a Catalan hat.

"Is that Monte Cristo?" asked the traveller, who appeared to be in command of the yacht, in a grave and melancholy voice.

"Yes, Excellency, " said the master. "We are just reaching the end of our journey."

"The end of our journey" the traveller muttered, with an indefinable note of dejection. Then he added under his breath: "Yes, this is port." And he relapsed into thoughts that expressed themselves in a smile sadder than tears.

— from The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.

I know that smile.

This book has everything: Sailors! Napoleonic sympathizers! Corsicans! Assassins! A purloined letter! An island fortress prison! Hidden treasure! Hashish dreams! A suspicion of vampires! Family secrets! Italian masquerades! Bandits! Illicit love affairs! A long-lost son! Traitors! An oriental princess sold into slavery! Shame and dishonour! Optical telegraphs! Cross-dressing lesbians! Opera! A challenge to a duel! Gunplay! Poison! Courtroom drama! Really a lot of poison! Vengeance! Justice! And love!

(Not necessarily in that order.)

Oh, I hope I didn't just ruin it for anyone.

Although, I do think the Count goes too far in the end, with Maximilien. "You must needs have wished to die, to know how good it is to live." That was a bit much.

But really great book! Way better than television!

Back from nowhere

Saturday, J-F and I got in the car and drove. Without a destination, without a plan, and, for the most part, without worries. We had it in our heads to head for Quebec City, not to stay there — we'd done that before — but to explore the villages in its environs. But early on we accidentally followed a road over a bridge to the south shore of the Saint Lawrence. We toyed with the idea of ferrying back across, but the one sign we passed indicated the ferry was closed (other options would've been available further up the road, but that would've involved scheduling). We followed the river on its south side.

Highlights:

The best pizza since we'd moved to Montreal, in a tiny diner called Le Villageois, in a village we don't recall the name of. Not as good as Ottawa's Colonnade, but closer (not too far out of town, and still on the seaway's north shore, I believe), although I doubt we'd be able to find it again. With green peppers still crunchy.

Kamouraska. When I saw it was lying directly in our path, I insisted we stop there, because of its literary connection (to a book I've never read and I've never had an interest reading, but which I'm now intent on tracking down), but mostly because I just think the name is very cool, evoking something exotically romantic and Russian, the exact opposite of the sense I have of Nowhere, Quebec (in fact the name is Algonquin for "bulrushes by the water"). Anne Hébert novelized a love triangle and real-life murder that took place there in 1839, to which the tiny village owes much of its fame. But it's pretty (in a way no photo could ever capture), in such a stark, cruel way. On the shore is a plaque quoting from Hébert's book; the character describes the view from her house, which opens up onto the river, and captures both the harshness of the living conditions and the beauty and hope in the peculiar light that is cast over the landscape. I wish I could cite that passage here, but I didn't copy it down, so that will have to wait till I someday encounter it in context.

A tasty Trois Pistoles ale, in Trois Pistoles. The place is apparently riddled with legends (which I'm endeavouring to learn more about), commemorated in the names of the town itself, its church, and other landmark sites, as well as in the imagery on the beer's label (the devil came in the guise of a black stallion to help raise the church).

A fine romantic dinner in a hotel restaurant in Rimouski. I had lamb rolled in tea and chocolate and exotic spices, on cranberry quinoa.

The village of Estcourt, at the tip of Lake Pohénégamook. A frontier town, bordering Maine, with a distinguished history of bootlegging and border disputes. Several concrete obelisks mark the current US–Canada border. We amused ourselves by circling these and, like Homer, weaving from one country to another, or more ominously proclaiming things like, "My shadow falls across two nations." A few house actually straddle the line. A rickety wooden bridge crosses the border where it veers to split the river; care is taken to maintain it, as, were it ever to entirely collapse, it could not be rebuilt under the current terms of the border treaty.

The fact that our entire journey was somewhat coloured by our having watched Inland Empire the night before we set out. I'm not sure what I mean exactly, and I certainly don't know what the movie means, but our backroad roadstops felt, well, Lynchian — whatever that means — but in a good way if that's possible.

Telegraph

Claude Chappe invented an optical telegraph network that operated in France from 1792 through 1846. It was instrumental in Napoleon's succees. It appears it may figure prominently in the Count of Monte Cristo's vengeance.

"Yes, indeed, the very thing: a telegraph. Often, at the end of a road, on a hilltop, in the sunshine, I have seen those folding black arms extended lke the legs of some giant beetle, and I promise you, those bizarre signals so accurately travelling through the air, carrying the unknown wishes of a man sitting behind one table to another man sitting at the far end of the line behind another table, three hundred leagues away, were written against the greyness of the clouds or the blue of the sky by the sole will of that all-powerful master. Then I have thought of genies, sylphs, gnomes and other occult forces, and laughed. Never did I wish to go over and examine these great insects with their white bellies and slender black legs, because I was afraid that under their stone wings I would find the human genie, cramped, pedantic, stuffed with arcane science and sorcery. Then, one fine morning, I discovered that the motor that drives every telegraph is a poor devil of a clerk who earns twelve hundred francs a year and — instead of watching the sky like an astronomer, or the water like a fisherman, or the landscape like an idler — spends the whole day staring at the insect with the white belly and black legs that corresponds to his own and is sited some four or five leagues away. At this, I became curious to study this living chrysalis from close up and to watch the dumbshow that it offers from the bottom of its shell to that other chrysalis, by pulling bits of string one after the other."

"So that is where you are going?"

"It is."

"To which telegraph? The one belonging to the Ministry of the Interior, or the observatory?"

"No, certainly not. There I should find people who would try to force me to understand things of which I would prefer to remain ignorant, and insist on trying to explain a mystery that is beyond their grasp. Come! I want to keep my illusions about insects; it is enough to have lost those I had about human beings. So I shall not go either to the telegraph at the Ministry of the Interior, or to the one at the observatory. What I need is a telegraph in the open countryside, so I can see the fellow fixed in his tower and in his pure state."

— from The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.

A ghost in the machine.

1799: Napoleon seizes power. Sends the message "Paris is quiet and the good citizens are content."

Disorder

In books
Recently read:
Moral Disorder, Margaret Atwood — I'm not much for short stories, and wouldn't've searched this book out, but given me as a gift, once day it struck me as perfect commute reading. And it was. On every page something poignant or clever, or downright sad or funny, or just plain true. Most of the stories are interconnected, weaving through characters' lives over decades, and I much preferred these stories to the ones that didn't have these characters in common (though it could be said they were loosely thematically related), which just goes to show that my preference for novels over short stories extends to works with novel-like qualities and the short story in itself still has a long way to rise in my estimation.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Jonathan Stroud — It's very good. "Young adult" stuff. I'd dogeared some pages to quote here, but that was long ago and the desire has left me and the books are shelved. There was a mystical passage, about The Other Place, the land of the djinn and other spirit creatures, a place of a kind of oneness and nothingness of being, which was pretty mind-blowing, and I'd love to know what an 11 year old would make of it. I think Stroud knows and respects his audience: he's not afraid to use big words or complicated sentences, and he explores some very dark themes and nasty character traits.

Currently reading: The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas. I'm not quite halfway yet, but this book? This book is awesome! It's like a thousand books rolled into one. There's even vampires!

I'm trying to find time to read the following, copies of which are floating around my space:

Only Revolutions, Mark Z Danielewski

The Railway, Hamid Ismailov

The Post Birthday World, Lionel Shriver — Found brand new for $5. I don't understand why. I'm a little scared to read this actually. I expect it'll rip my heart apart.

Uncle, JP Martin — This one's Helena's, but it's still a little beyond her level of interest — it matches my level perfectly though: "the silly and skewed world of Uncle, a fabulously rich Elephant who oversees the denizens of his labyrinthine estate and fends off the attacks of his enemies, the hapless Badfort crowd."

Angel Street, Patrick Hamilton — Of course. Waiting only for the perfect day, a free day, in which my brain will be unhampered and can consider it with its full attention.

For vegetables
Just when I thought all was lost, I found a new vegetable peeler. I haven't actually used it for peeling vegetables yet, but it's been put to good use the last week perching on my kitchen shelf making me smile. It's sure to work divinely — I can tell by the feel of it.

(This picture was available on the internet. It is in no way meant to represent my actual kitchen workspace.)

Of the child
Things she says — has always said, but I don't think I ever noted:
pantynose
hairycut

Umm, I meant to write something about Helena here, but I've entirely forgotten what. Something about how much she's grown or learned. How sweet she is or strong-willed. How she's always singing. Always.

I glimpsed her future self the other day. We were at the park; I gave her warning that we'd be leaving in five. And suddenly she was someone else — herself, but older maybe. Not a fuzzy outline of a person, but for a moment firmly drawn and complete. Something in her manner and her mannerisms. Something exuding from her face and her fingerips. She walked toward me, "But, mom." No argument came. A grimace of a pause in her expression. "I don't know how to explain." But I could tell she wanted to. "I don't have the words." She jumps up onto the bench, seating herself on the tabletop. Her hair falls over her eyes; her hands palms up on her knees reaching for answers. Like a college girl. She lies back on the picnic table, flinging her legs up, resting her right ankle on her left knee. She glances at me but talks to the sky. "I don't know how to explain, mama, but it just doesn't feel that it's time to go."

That's not what I meant to write at all.

What keeps

Stories keep. Good ones, anyway.

Ideas... Some ideas keep better than others.

I've been keeping quiet, keeping a low profile, keeping things to myself, storing up uninteresting anecdotes. Days go by without my writing anything, and it doesn't seem to matter. Everything eventually fades into the background.

I read The Keep some weeks ago, by Jennifer Egan. I really enjoyed it on the level of solid entertainment. Mine was a review copy, as it's just recently out in paperback, and the timing couldn't've been more perfect. It was a great summer read, but its quasi-Gothic feel makes it well-suited to the cool season ahead.

As I mentioned previously, it hints at being deep without being demandingly deep. Sometimes I find that annoying in a book — sometimes it makes me hate a book — but this time it worked for me.

Here's a meaningless comparison: it reminds me of Lev Grossman's Codex. Meaningless cuz nearly nobody's read Codex. And further meaningless cuz I can't really articulate why. The juxtaposition of gothic over thoroughly modern times. Thematically, that old question of reality; the extent to which we are the author's of our own adventures (heroes of our lives), or bit players in someone else's plot. And if it comes to that, I much preferred Codex, which was just, you know, cool.

The Keep has a story (within a fortress, or keep) within a story (within a prison, or keep) within another story (whose destination is the keep). This outermost story was really weak, with a voice insufficiently different from those of the other narrators and that didn't ring true.

Still, the story, as a whole, was kind of cool.

A couple things stick with me.

One is the guy's (the guy in the fortress story) obsession with his cellphone, his satellite, his need to be connected. Because I've felt it too. I think Egan is passing judgement (though I may be wrong), and I'm not sure I agree. We all need to feel connected, and that connection is as valid no matter by what means it takes place, technological or spiritual.

The other is this word KEEP.

1 a archaic : CUSTODY, CHARGE b : MAINTENANCE
2 : one that keeps or protects: as a : FORTRESS, CASTLE; specifically : the strongest and securest part of a medieval castle b : one whose job is to keep or tend c : PRISON, JAIL
3 : the means or provisions by which one is kept

To keep things out like a fortress. To keep things in like a jail.

The thing you take care of. The thing that keeps you going.

And that's the thing I've kept from The Keep — that thing. What's that thing that keeps you going? That drives you.

Love? Truth and honour? My child.

That thing I keep in my keep — it changes. Some days it's the secrets of my past. Some days it's my hopes for the future.

1 : to take notice of by appropriate conduct : FULFILL: as a : to be faithful to b : to act fittingly in relation to c : to conform to in habits or conduct d : to stay in accord with (a beat)
2 : PRESERVE, MAINTAIN: as a : to watch over and defend b (1) : to take care of : TEND (2) : SUPPORT (3) : to maintain in a good, fitting, or orderly condition — usually used with up c : to continue to maintain d (1) : to cause to remain in a given place, situation, or condition (2) : to preserve (food) in an unspoiled condition e (1) : to have or maintain in an established position or relationship — often used with on (2) : to lodge or feed for pay f (1) : to maintain a record in (2) : to enter in a book g : to have customarily in stock for sale
3 a : to restrain from departure or removal : DETAIN b : HOLD BACK, RESTRAIN c : SAVE, RESERVE d : to refrain from revealing
4 a : to retain in one's possession or power b : to refrain from granting, giving, or allowing c : to have in control
5 : to confine oneself to
6 a : to stay or continue in b : to stay or remain on or in usually against opposition : HOLD
7 : CONDUCT, MANAGE
intransitive verb
1 chiefly British : LIVE, LODGE
2 a : to maintain a course, direction, or progress b : to continue usually without interruption c : to persist in a practice
3 : STAY, REMAIN : as a : to stay even — usually used with up b : to remain in good condition c : to remain secret d : to call for no immediate action
4 : ABSTAIN, REFRAIN < can't keep from talking >
5 : to be in session
6 of a quarterback : to retain possession of a football especially after faking a handoff
- keep an eye on : WATCH
- keep at : to persist in doing or concerning oneself with
- keep company : to go together as frequent companions or in courtship
- keep house : to manage a household
- keep one's distance or keep at a distance : to stay aloof : maintain a reserved attitude
- keep one's eyes open or keep one's eyes peeled : to be on the alert : be watchful
- keep one's hand in : to keep in practice
- keep one's head down : to avoid attracting notice
- keep one's nose clean : to avoid trouble especially through good behavior
- keep pace : to stay even; also : KEEP UP 1
- keep step : to keep in step
- keep to
1 a : to stay in b : to limit oneself to
2 : to abide by
- keep to oneself
1 : to keep secret
2 : to remain solitary or apart from other people

I have worms in my fridge.

The problem of the narrator

Bedtime stories this week were plagued with difficult questions: Who's saying that? Where does it say that? Then is it the dog saying that? Why not? How do you know it's not the dog saying that? But if it's not the dog and not the boy, who's telling the story? Why can't we see him?

I considered telling Helena that it's Dr Seuss who said it — he's the one telling the story. I could show her his photo again. But strictly speaking, it's not true. First, the book was authored by Theo LeSieg; while they're the same person, is it true to say they're the same writer? More pertinently, neither Seuss nor his personas is telling the story. He has written the story down, but it's told by an anonymous, omniscient 3rd-person narrator. Which is what I told Helena. Which was met with a blank stare.

Prepositional thinking

A Spaniard is inferior to a Frenchman in one respect: your Spaniard thinks things over, but your Frenchman thinks them up.

— from The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas.

On my walls

The date of the first draft of this post is August 21, 2004 — almost 3 years ago.

I meant to share with you one of my "collections," as many people were doing at the time. I year or so later I meant to resurrect that draft, to share with you, as many people were doing at the time, what's on my walls. I'm reinspired to share.

My walls have changed since then. But the things on them are not so different; although, wall space being limited, some of these images are in rotation.

Currently on my walls:
Bal, Andrzej Pagowski (above left)
A Passage to India, Wiktor Sadowski (left)
The Bear, Mieczyslaw Wasilewski (below)
Trzynasta Narzeczona dla Ksiecia, Andrzej Pagowski

In my closet, waiting their turn (pictured throughout):
The Captive Mind, Stasys Eidrigevicius
The Dogs of War, Waldemar Swierzy
Don Juan, Wiktor Sadowski
Wherever You Are, Stasys Eidrigevicius
Zycze Wewnetrzne, Andrzej Pagowski



The first Polish poster I bought was to decorate my room in residence at university. (The Dogs of War, Waldemar Swierzy.) I paid $8. It's worth considerably more than that now, though it's been sitting in my closet for about 18 years. I don't exactly know what the appeal was; this particular image seemed to hold a bit of antiestablishment shock value, but beyond that I recognized in it an ineffable Polishness I wanted to connect with.

Somewhat curiously, I have not seen a single of these movies. I have no sentimental draw to any of them beyond that inspired by the poster art itself. (Some of these, however, were not my first picks for acquisition, but rather served as consolation prizes in eBay auctions that didn't go my way.)

The Art of the Poster

American films have always been very willingly watched by the Poles not only because of their quality but also due to the role that USA played in the consciousness of an average Polish citizen living in a communist country. Many went to see American movies to become acquainted with the country that was meant to counteract, both culturally and politically, the Soviet Union. These were the times when only few people were allowed to travel, so western films and American in particular, showed different patterns of social and cultural behaviour. They influenced fashion, the choice of music and provided an instant trip to a different world. The attitudes caused by American films raised the concern of the communist establishment, to such an extend, that for almost ten years/1949-1957/American movies disappeared from Polish screens. In the late fifties/the era of political metamorphosis set off by Stalin's death/American films were back, this time to stay for good. We have a great pleasure in presenting these posters to you. They were made in the period 1947-1992 and they are a part of "The Art of Poster's" collection consisting of over five hundred American films' titles from the period 1947-1999.

(Above left, a poster by Stasys Eidrigevicius for The Captive Mind, a theatrical presentation of the work by Czeslaw Milosz. This is neither film nor American, but it is certainly the most political representation to be found in my closet.)

Others call this bullshit.

A lot of patronizing drivel had been written about the 'Polish School' of poster design being a 'product' of a 'resistance to Communism' or some such (and by extension, of an overwhelming desire to breathe free under the learned guidance of a Bushmonkey-on-a-cheney). That view, espoused by Western writers who don't know any better, and Polish ones (who should know better) has been omnipresent lately. No matter that the idea of art as an expression of political circumstance is par excellence a classic communist one.

In fact, quite the opposite seems to be true : free from commercial stranglehold, these artists produced brilliant works over an extended period of time. A lot of talented people found themselves in the right place at the right time. Like any artistic movement (or 'school'), it had its own dynamics, peaks and valleys. Indeed, some of the most accomplished works were political (pro-socialist). And now the fact that Polish film poster is dead (and had been so since 1989 when the film distribution was privatized) is further evidence of that.

Resources
Freedom on the Fence — a digital documentary project

The Art of Poster
Classic Polish Film Posters
Kinoart.net
Polish Poster Gallery
Polish Posters Shop

Andrzej Pagowski — official website. (I haven't consciously favoured any one artist over another, but a survey of my likes and dislikes gives Pagowski an edge.)

"Thank you, and be happy for the rest of your life."

Lunchtime: Lebanese food, which I love as much for the gallant service, the blessings liberally yet judiciously bestowed, as for the tang. It makes me smile.

A trip to a used bookstore. Found: Five Short Novels by Stendhal. It's not a book I was looking for, nor even knew existed, and I can't say I'm particularly eager to read it. It's just the cover made me smile. An Edward Gorey illustration — in white outlined on a raspberry background. (This cover, among others, can be seen here.)

Also found: John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. Which made me jump up and down and squeal with glee. I've been looking for it since Christmas, for J-F, though I'm curious about it myself. Sure, I could've ordered a copy — a discard that fell into some weirdo's bathtub — online from an anonymous bookseller, but that would've denied me the thrill of the hunt and of today's ultimate discovery. I meant to share this find with the world and plead that you not tell J-F, as I'd intended to save the book for an appropriate gift-giving occasion, but when I came home this evening, he asked if I've given thought to what reading material I'd be bringing to the cottage this weekend (I have, but inconclusively) and he mentioned having to dig something up for himself to read, I presented it to him then and there.

We're off to his Mom's cottage this weekend. I'm considering bringing Infinite Jest again, but am afraid that doing so would only be reinforcing both the novel and the cottage with negative associations.

I'm still reading the same 2 books I was reading at this time last week. A week ago I was somewhat awed by the fact that I was reading 3 books at the same time, and it made me feel readerly and productive. But I've since finished only 1 of them, and my progress through the others feels negligible; it's discouraging. I look forward to returning to my usual one-book-at-a-time ways.

We had a storm earlier this week. Thunder cracked just as Helena and I were leaving the house to catch the metro. And then the rain fell. We two, we were stopped in our tracks, still under cover of our building's entranceway. Helena said she was scared. I'm not certain she was genuinely scared or just trying "scared" on for size, but either way I felt moving forward risked traumatizing the child, so we went back inside. We waited. And waited. I called into work that I'd be late. We waited some more. The rain didn't let up, but the thunder and lightning seemed to have moved on. We went forth with our trusty umbrellas, singing.

Yesterday, I wore new shoes. Black square-toed, fat-heeled Hush Puppies on sale for $30 — the kind of sensible shoe I'd been looking for. It turns out they're much higher than I'm used to; or at least, the rise is steeper. I spent the morning walking slowly, trying not to walk at all if I could help it, to keep the left shoe from falling off. By late afternoon, I was wondering how they could be pried off. Today, my feet hurt.

I find myself wanting to be the kind of woman who wears a certain type of shoe. I just haven't decided on the shoe.

I still lust after, and occasionally visit, the $785 Roberto del Carlo shoes in the shop around the corner from my office. I bet they're very comfortable.

Hollow

The other week, the following lines were quoted in Doctor Who (the episode entitled "The Lazarus Experiment"):

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

It's from The Hollow Men, by TS Eliot. I've studied Eliot more than any other poet, but not this poem in particular.

I'll be reading it more carefully in days to come. It seems, these days, I'm encountering the Shadow every way I turn.

Molière in the park

Coming this weekend to a park near me: Molière's Scapin! the Schemer, presented by Repercussion Theatre.



(Trailer.)

The week so far

1. Monday morning, on my way to work, I almost miss my metro stop. Because I was reading. While this could be construed as a good thing (lost in a book — The Keep, by Jennifer Egan, by the way), mostly I'm disturbed that something's awry with my inner sense of timing, that feeling, when you just know it's time to look up. Lucky for me all our stops were unusually long ones, but it meant having to scramble and, worse, feeling stupid.

2. Helena decides to affix her train (construction-paper "cars" variously coloured and pasted together) to the "Christmas tree" (a large yucca-type floor plant I'd temporarily moved from its usual location for a thorough watering and wiping down) — with glue.

3. I leave the room for a moment while Helena is brushing her teeth (Monday bedtime preparations). Her sobs bring me back fast. She has cut her nose and upper lip with the disposable razor that was lying on the counter, her face dusted with tiny bits of hair. The middle portion of her left eyebrow is missing. (This evening, she faces the mirror and delivers a grand speech on the evils of said razor, while wielding it before her imaginary audience. "Friends! Never touch the razor, for it is dangerous.")

4. I come up from the metro on my way home. It's not really a station; it's a secondary exit/entrance, never manned, fully automated (and closer to home). The "station" is barely larger than our master bathroom. The doors slide open, I turn left as is my habit. But there is something wrong with the picture. On the floor to my right is a television set; I want to say it's old — it's clunky enough to be of the previous decade. It is plugged into the wall under the phone. It is on, and broadcasting something between snow and modern blue screen. It doesn't seem to belong to anybody. In fact, nobody else seems to register its presence. A girl casually steps around it to use the phone.

5. It's only Tuesday.

Worth remembering

The look of delighted astonishment on Helena's face when, during last week's episode, the Doctor exclaimed, "Allons-y!"

Gasp. "Doctor Who can speak French?!"

Real

"Tell me one last thing," said Harry, "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"

[...]

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

— from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling.

Curses!

1. My Harry Potter book arrived last Saturday afternoon (delivered by a large man who looked suspiciously like Hagrid), and I've barely had any time to read it. I've passed the halfway point (see #7 below). If only there were more time in a day...

2. I stayed up late that last Friday to finish up the other books I'd been reading, so as to clear my plate for Harry. I finished Jonathan Stroud's book 2 of the Bartimaeus Trilogy, The Golem's Eye, which was highly entertaining (not much to it in terms of plot, but some very good character development). And I'd been reading The Portrait, by Iain Pears, which, well — will I write more about it? I don't know — while full of interesting ideas, felt contrived. I had to stay up, to keep reading, to see how it ended, but it was less than satisfying in the end.

3. I lost my vegetable peeler. Its absence was noted about 2 weeks ago, and the last I recalled using it was about a week before. I loved that peeler — a sleek curve of perfectly weighted acrylic; it looked like a bending raindrop. I paid an outrageous $8 for it (for a vegetable peeler!) some 6 or 8 years ago. And now it's gone. Maybe slipped far under the fridge. Maybe scooped among discarded vegetable matter into the garbage. I'd seen such a peeler in recent months in a little kitchenwares shop on Mont-Royal; I'd even considered purchasing a backup as I'd detected a crack in mine — a purely aesthetic disruption. I made a detour this week to pick one up (maybe in translucent orange this time, I thought), but allegedly, this particular design has been discontinued. I hold out hope that the sales clerk was mistaken and in fact had no idea what I was talking about, a likelihood borne out by her tossing out brand names that didn't ring a bell and Google searches of which do not produce the desired result. I cannot find my vegetable peeler on the internet.

"Ergonomic" peelers such as Good Grips tend to have handles wide in the same plane the blade spans; my peeler handle was wide in the other direction, perpendicular to the blade edge. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? I should just draw a picture. Do you know my peeler? Do you know where I can get one?

4. I made the mistake of purchasing the first season of Doctor Who on DVD. It was too good a price to pass up, and it was something I'd been thinking about acquiring as a birthday or Christmas treat, but it's a mistake right now, because I have a ton of work to do (honouring an ongoing pre-full-time-employment freelance contract). If I'd been thinking clearly, I would've set it up as reward, not to be opened until the job was delivered, but I wasn't thinking clearly, so I opened it. Helena's been watching it (she's never known the Doctor as Christopher Eccleston); I've been working and being distracted by it, alternately watching it and feeling guilty for not working. This is a less than satisfying arrangement.

5. I don't understand Facebook. I mean, what does it actually do?

6. I fell in love with a $785 pair of shoes this week. It's remarkable — there's no seam between the sole and the upper. Oh, they're gorgeous. I want them.

7. I'd started writing this entry Wednesday. I've since finished the Potter book (just this morning) — I'm looking forward to poking around those blogs I know to be talking about it. Also, now I can get on with Bartimaeus book 3. Phew. And maybe now I can email all those people I've been meaning to write, and blog a little, and finish that freelance job, and get a decent night's sleep. Maybe.

Angel and W 40th

I had the sense to do a little research before I headed to New York for the day, to confirm the address of the office, to check what was to be had, beheld, within a few blocks' radius of it if I had a few spare minutes before meetings, or if I could sneak away at lunch, or before making haste for the airport again at day's end. Sadly, I had none of those opportunities; but I did have a 15-minute coffeebreak, a break I stretched to 20 (which, fortunately, amused my coworkers, rather than brought their disdain).

The Drama Book Shop, a mere 5 blocks away, was known (by me, what with my careful and indepth investigation techniques) to house 5 copies of Patrick Hamilton's Angel Street, otherwise known as Gaslight, though I'm confused now as to which was the original title. (Oh, right there on the copyright page, originally "under the title 'Gas Light'.") I'm delighted to say that the Drama Book Shop now has one copy less.

On my coffeebreak. I ran. I found the shop. Confused by why some plays would be shelved alphabetically by author and others by title, and against my natural impulse to 1. browse and 2. figure things out for myself, I asked at the information desk. Filed by title, this one — well, one of its titles. There it was. I grabbed a copy, and paid — just a little more than the price of a fancy coffee. Then I ran back.

Within the front matter, a copy of the program of the first performance of the play in New York announces the role of our villain is played by Vincent Price.

I'm not much for reading plays (Shakespeare included), as I feel they're meant more to be seen, experienced, rather than read. But for Patrick Hamilton I will make an exception.

Tomorrow in Manhattan

Tomorrow: Isabella in Manhattan.

Tomorrow evening: Daleks in Manhattan.

Coincidence?

I won't be able to watch Doctor Who as it airs, but full episodes of season 3 are now available online.

"How do you stop from dreaming?"

asked Helena at bedtime.

I ask her if she dreams a lot. Yes. Every night. It wakes her up. (Me, my dreams rarely, barely register with me.)

Helena doesn't want to dream about monsters in her closet, she tells me. I suggest she think about nicer things as she's falling asleep; maybe she'll have nicer dreams.

Jellybeans, she decides. She's thinking of jellybeans; maybe she'll dream she comes home with Papa and the house will be full of jellybeans, all over the floor, the sofa, over the stairs, she'll jump in jellybeans, and then I'll come home and jump in jellybeans with her.

But then she remembers. She doesn't want to dream. Not about monsters in her closet. She doesn't want to dream at all. How do you stop? she asks again.

I suggest that if she should start to dream, pretend it's a television program, and just turn it off.

She says she'll press the button. She presses her finger to her nose and giggles.

Blurrier

[I]f I'd studied a thing in school I assumed it was general knowledge. I hadn't yet discovered that I lived in a sort of transparent balloon, drifting over the world without making much contact with it, and that the people I knew appeared to me at a different angle from the one at which they appeared to themselves; and that the reverse was also true. I was smaller to others, up there in my balloon, than I was to myself. I was also blurrier.

— from Moral Disorder, by Margaret Atwood.

Have you ever...

Have you ever, on a long, cold, melancholy winter night — alone with your thoughts and the wind whistling through the hallways, the rain pounding against the windows — have you ever leaned your forehead against the mantel, absently watching sparks dance on the hearth, and longed to flee our wet and muddy Paris for some enchanted oasis? Somewhere fresh and carpeted in green, where you could lie in the shade of a riverside palm tree and doze off without a care in the world?

Well, the paradise of your dreams exists! Eden awaits you; the water flows clear and bright there, falling and surging up in bright dust; the palm fronds wave gently in the soft sea breeze like feathers in a genie’s cap. The jambosa trees, laden with iridescent fruit, stand ready to offer you their sweetly scented shade. Come, follow me now.

So begins Georges, by Alexandre Dumas. Who can resist following?

I love that I can have "new" books from this long-dead author, in lost manuscripts or fresh translations of forgotten stories.

I picked up this novel because it's Dumas! I'm not sure I would have done so on the basis of a synopsis alone. But what a fine, swashbuckling adventure it was. I'll comment more on this, but first I must read a little more about Dumas as well as the history of Mauritius.

Our swashbuckling hero,

name drawn out of the proverbial hat (plumed, of course), winner of Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Perez-Reverte, is Tim of Geistweg.

(Tim: send me an email with your mailing address.)

Thanks to everyone for playing along. I'm keeping your thoughts on the subject in mind as I proceed to work my way through Dumas.

There will be swordplay!

(and the winner gets a book!)

(Originally posted the afternoon of July 4. This post will be sticky.)

Recently I read Purity of Blood, the second volume in the adventures of Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Perez-Reverte. What fun!

The plot in itself is not very complicated: The Captain's services are bought to help rescue a girl from convent, for some reason or other — it doesn't really matter why. But surprise! it's a trap! Alatriste doesn't get caught, but his young charge (our narrator) does, so Alatriste must rescue him and set things right. The politics behind all the trap-setting is a bit harder to follow.

Blinded as I was by adrenaline, the details of the back-alley dealings were a bit too shrouded in shadow for me to make out clearly. But it doesn't matter! There is swordplay! Near death! Twirling moustaches! Obscene hyperbole! Eyes glinting from beneath the brims of ostentatiously plumed hats! A treacherous young woman! Inappropriate gallantry! Bad poetry! And the Spanish Inquisition!

Excerpt.
Review.

Our young narrator early makes the observation: "Never trust a man who reads only one book." Since the time I first read it, I've already quoted this line often. Of course, he means this in the context of the religious clashes on his country's soil, their proponents' absurd notion of purity.

But on a more literal level, I'd like to ensure that at least one more person reads just one more book...

I'm offering up a brand-new copy of Captain Alatriste, the first in the series (don't worry — the story in this novel stands alone). (For the record, I really enjoyed it.)

To be eligible to be entered into the drawing, leave a comment telling me what, in your opinion, is the most essential feature of a swashbuckling tale.

(International responses are both welcome and eligible. I'll accept entries until midnight, July 10.)

Random

Yesterday
we set out to sample green ice cream. Pistachio wins out over chocolate mint, in both our opinions. Helena and I would eat it in a box; we would eat it with a fox. But I had but the merest hint of a taste of it. Somehow I got saddled with eating the losing flavour, but I guess there are worse things to do on a sunny afternoon. Next up: green tea ice cream versus lime sorbet.

Tomorrow
we will watch Doctor Who. We're only two episodes into season 3, but we like Martha, even while we miss Rose. We loved the Shakespeare episode, Helena for the witches, me for the idea of the power of words, old magic, the naming of things (which fit really nicely with the book I was reading at the time (The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud)). We both chuckled at the Harry Potter references.

(I'm amazed that Helena is even aware of the phenomenon. We did catch a portion of the third movie on tv some time ago. I'd all but forgotten about it but Helena is quick to notice his image anywhere. Apparently one of her classmates is a big fan, which I find odd for a 4-year-old, but hey, here I am telling you about our Doctor Who adventures. It's the cutest thing, though, that Helena now refers to him in French, that is, with her accent: 'Arrie Poterre. Yes, I pre-ordered a copy.)

So Helena learned a little bit about Shakespeare being a writer (who wrote about witches!), and she was very pleased to realize that now she knows about two writers: Shakespeare and Dr Seuss. But she knows more than that, I had to remind her, and I had time only to say "Dumas" and could not go on with my list as she was already proclaiming "Tous pour un, et un pour tous!" and she was running off to tell her grandmother (we were at her house when the Shakespeare episode aired) about the musketeers' capes and hats. Ah, yes, the power of words.

(I love this play-by-play from other young fans.) (Season 3 is barely under way here, and already there's news of next season's shakeups.)

Lately
I've been watching Gaslight (with J-F, not with Helena). I'd seen it (the Ingrid Bergman version) many, many years ago, but I have fresh interest in it now knowing that it was based on the play by Patrick Hamilton. Certainly I'm recognizing traits and themes that are present in his other work. We've not yet viewed the earlier, British film adaptation. (I'll have more to say about it in weeks to come.) I'm drawing out the viewing actually, as I'm impatiently awaiting delivery of (along with a "guide" to Hamilton that suddenly appears not to be available till 2009) The Gorse Trilogy, the third part of which I've not yet read. (And of course, I've yet to read Hamilton's actual play, Gaslight, for which I've not yet placed an order. — Why am I waiting to do that, exactly?) And still I search the same second-hand shops regularly hoping that a Hamilton I haven't read will crop up.

Next week
I travel to New York City, for my job. Sadly, it's just for the day. Sadly, it will interfere with my usual Doctor Who watching. Weirdly, the thing I'm agonizing most over regarding the trip (even more than having to have my passport application expedited) is what to wear. I'm aflutter at the prospect of maybe, just maybe, having some time at lunch to shop for shoes. I'm aflutter at the prospect that maybe I'll have to fly in again some time.

Key reasons I like working for the private sector: 1. Sometimes the company orders pizza for lunch, for everybody, just because. 2. The other week we had a visit from Ben & Jerry — carting their cart around the office to ensure everyone had an ice cream cone that fine summer day. 3. Oh! I have to go to New York.

Professional help

"So what's for dinner?"

"Food," said his mother. "Followed by dessert."

Milrose stared at her with admiration. His moth—reer was one of the few people on the planet with an even greater gift for sacasm than his own.

"Isn't dessert a kind of food?"

"Not this desesrt. I've decided to poison you."

"Mm. Will it at least taste good?"

"For a minute. And then you will fall into it, face first."

"Are you sure you want ot murder your only son?"

"Quite sure, darling. Woulk you set the table, please?"

As he set the table, Milrose realized that his mother had succeeded in cheering him up. All of those mothers out there who read books by specialists — witless books about how to bring up perfect children — probably never threatened to poison their offspring. His mother, on the other hand, never read these books — and in fact held them in contempt — as a result of which she knew how to make him happy when he was annoyed.

— from Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help, by Douglas Anthony Cooper.

Milrose Munce sees ghosts. His school is full of them. But the Administration would rather keep this quiet, so they need to keep Milrose quiet.

There's more attitude in this book than there is anything of substance; although, I do love how the jock ghosts and the science geek ghosts keep to their separate floors, and that many of them died horrid deaths.

The book's not meaty enough to charm most adults, but I'm sure it's a pleasant enough diversion for its intended age-group.

"The Great Bolaño"

In The New York Review of Books:

When Julio Cortázar, in Hopscotch, portrayed young Latin Americans in Paris, one implication was that Paris was where they had to go to find personal freedom and an interesting and modern way of life. Bolaño has frequently acknowledged a debt to Cortázar's novel, but the Mexico City of The Savage Detectives, for all its local character and danger, has more in common, at least in the manner that the book's comparatively sophisticated and bohemian young characters inhabit it, with cities like New York or Paris than with any traditional Latin American setting. The novel depicts Mexico City during the very years, ironically, that the rest of the world was discovering One Hundred Years of Solitude in translation, a book whose global success had the consequences, which its author could never have foreseen, of creating folksy stereotypes of Latin American life and the association of Latin American literature almost exclusively with magic realism that has endured for nearly forty years.

See my thoughts on Last Evenings on Earth, with excerpts (1, 2).

Madame Fleur

How the bricks fell

Hard.

This is why I generally don't go in for reading challenges: because I fail! I won't commit to anything much unless my careful weighing of the situation shows the prospect of success to be likely, and even then, well, it seems I can still fail.

The Chunkster Challenge, hosted by Bookfoolery and Babble, was this: to read books of intimidating length, between January 1 and June 30, 2007, with "chunkster" defined as anything over 400 pages.

My self-inflicted variation of the challenge was to read 6 books of at least 600 pages. I named 5 books, reserving a few options for the 6th. Here's how I did:

Dickens, Charles: David Copperfield (pb, 750 p).
I read it, read it fast, thoroughly enjoyed it. Am currently mulling over which Dickens to set myelf for next winter (one a year is plenty, I think).

Powers, Richard: The Gold Bug Variations (pb, 639 p).
Read it, loved it. Quite possibly the best book I've ever read.

Wallace, David Foster: Infinite Jest (hc, 1079 p).
I started it, and it bored me. My bookmark is placed at page 85. I still intend to read it, as I still want to understand what all the fuss is about. But life events have not been conducive to my wallowing in a glut of postmodern nonsense. That'll have to wait a couple more months.

Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo (1276 p, including notes).
Purchased. That's a step in the right direction. I made the mistake of thinking I'd warm up to it by reading a slimmer, recently released retranslation of Dumas (Georges). I haven't even gotten very far with that one, though I am picking away at it, and in combination with the swashbuckling tale I read last week (Purity of Blood, by Arturo Perez-Reverte), I'm building up a huge appetite for The Count. This will be my big summer read. I start next week. Or maybe the week after.

Stephenson, Neal: Quicksilver, The Baroque Cycle, Volume I (hc, 944 p).
Umm. I know where it is in my house. Along with the rest of the Cycle.

So that means I've read, uh, 2.

To my credit, I note the successful completion of the following "chunksters":
Mieville, China: Un Lun Dun (448 p).
Hamilton, Patrick: Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (527 p), which is amazing. (Really. Amazing!)

Also,
Stroud, Jonathan: The Amulet of Samarkand (462 p), although I haven't exactly finished it, but I did pass page 400 yesterday, and I can't imagine being able to sleep tonight before I know how it ends.

Oh, never mind. I'm not sure about counting kids' books either.

But I'm willing to credit myself with half a challenge completed, even amid gruelling work contracts, and weird diseases, and the general upheaval of my life (why do I so desperately feel the need to justify myself?), and give myself the second half of the year to finish.

See how everyone else fared.