Aspects of Vegetarianism

Dewey's latest challenge, though I'm coming to it late, nearly at the end of the week, was to pick a social issue that you are interested in and post some relevant books on topic. They don't have to be books you've read; they can be ones you are simply interested in reading. I have chosen vegetarianism as my topic, as it is a big part of my life and has been for the past 15 years. Though it may not seem like a big deal, compared to things like human trafficking , I see many issues tied to being a vegetarian, all of which concern me. (and there are food-based reasons for child slavery) There are moral elements, the question of animal rights, of health, of environmental impact, of equitable distribution of the world's resources... so I'll point out a few books on a few of these subjects. These are some I like; there are countless others!


First up is one I have had on my TBR for a very long time, but have not sat down to systematically go through, yet. It's a look at the philosophy & ethics of vegetarianism, The Case for Vegetarianism: Philosophy for a Small Planet by John Lawrence Hill. (University Press of America, 1996) It covers different related issues in each chapter, and gives a solid philosophical ground for abstaining from meat.





And then one from a more personal viewpoint, former cattle rancher Howard Lyman's Mad Cowboy. This is a fascinating look at how the conditions in commercial cattle farming led a fourth-generation rancher to become an evangelist for the vegetarian lifestyle. This is the writer whose book shocked Oprah and caused the infamous lawsuit brought by Texas cattle ranchers.





The Bloodless Revolution: a cultural history of Vegetarianism from 1600 to modern times / Tristram Stuart -- this is a book that I recently purchased and am loving. It should properly be called a history of vegetarianism IN ENGLAND however, as it's very British. But it's great fun, full of historical anecdotes that would make good dinner table conversation, plus it ties religion and empire, fashion, and aesthetic motivations into the many reasons for eating the meatless way.






Two books which can be depended on if you're interested in going vegetarian or even vegan for your health are Brenda Davis & Vesanto Melina's Becoming Vegetarian and Becoming Vegan. Both have tons of information to allay any family concerns that you're going to waste away to nothing, and to ensure that you are eating healthily and knowledgeably.






John Robbins' The Food Revolution is a good look at all of the issues you can have an effect upon simply by becoming vegetarian. As the Publishers Weekly review of this one says,

What can we do to help stop global warming, feed the hungry, prevent cruelty to animals, avoid genetically modified foods, be healthier and live longer? Eat vegetarian, Robbins argues. Noting the massive changes in the environment, food-production methods, and technology over the last two decades, he lambastes contemporary factory-farming methods and demonstrates that individual dietary choices can be both empowering and have a broader impact. Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream empire (he rejected it to live according to his values), takes on fad diets, the meat industry, food irradiation, hormone and antibiotic use in animals, cruel animal husbandry practices, the economics of meat consumption, biotechnology and the prevalence of salmonella and E. Coli.




And just for fun, a vegetarian friendly novel which takes on the meat industry:

My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki. I really enjoyed this book when I first read it, as it features an American woman of Japanese descent who is hired to make a tv program featuring American meats, to air in the Japanese market. She is supposed to highlight All-American families cooking with beef, but ends up learning more and more and as a result moving farther and farther away from her instructions -- until the last family she highlights is a lesbian, vegetarian couple.

From Three Worlds

I've been reading quite a lot of Ukrainian writing, in preparation for my trip to Ukraine, coming up in a few weeks. I've read a few collections of historical fiction, some history, and looked through travel guides and language cds. Here is some modern Ukrainian writing I discovered through serendipity -- and I've just finished: From Three Worlds : New Ukrainian Writing (Somerville, MA : Zephyr Press, c1996.) It's part of a series of collected Soviet writing, thus the title; influences come from the 3 worlds of Ukrainian, Russian, and Western/English literature. It's a great collection, full of stories of all types, traditional, surreal, serious, blackly humorous, as well as photo essays and quite a lot of poetry.

This is the book which held the story I mentioned in my last review, another story dealing with the Ukrainian Holodomor. This story, Yevhen Pashkovsky's Five Loaves and Two Fishes, differs from the others I've read recently, in that it is set in the present. It features an old woman copying out lines from the bible, and as she does so, the scripture triggers memories of that period of history; rather than comfort, the scriptures bring traumatic recollections. This is a brief tale, seven pages long, but extremely chilling and mesmerizing reading. The writing itself, the way one sentence shifts between present, past, and biblical phrasing is admirably done. The momentum of the structure carries you from the horrors of memory to the basic complaints of her modern grandson, very minor indeed in comparison. I was very impressed by this story; the entwined elements work in a way that a straightforward historical document does not. I don't think I'll forget this one. It begins:

Every evening Baba Maria took her grandson Pavlo's thick workbook to the shrine in the corner of the room, lit the votive light beneath the icon and, opening the Bible, taught herself to write, tracing each letter onto the blank page. The reflections from the icon gilded her age-freckled hands, the moon blazed wildly above the orchard, its rim chipped by an apple tree -- and she remembered her childhood: the path from the earthen stoop to the stable warmed by the cherry redness of fallen leaves, the white horsehair on a nail by the door, two horseshoes, the little sac of bile to treat the horses for horse-fly bites, there came in those days prophets from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one rose among them by the name of Ahab and through the Spirit prophesied that there would come a great famine throughout the whole world, as was once in the time of Claudius. In the fall military transports snaked through the village, everyone knew that this did not bode well, as they took our horses, collectivized the land, plowed up the graveyard so that we had to break the corpses' knees with a blow to lay them properly in their coffins....

It's a stunning story, by an author who has since won Ukraine's literary Shevchenko Prize.

And as for the poetry, there are also different styles by different poets included, but one I liked seems inspired partly by another element in the Ukrainian psyche, Chernobyl. It is penned by the well-known author Oksana Zabuzhko. I was taken with the imagery in this poem.


Letter From the Summer House

Hello, dear! The land is all rusty again
with acid rain: blackened cucumber vines
jut from the earth like burnt wires.
I'm not sure about the orchard this year.
I've been meaning to get in there and clean it up,
but to tell you the truth, I'm scared of those trees.
I get this feeling when I walk between them
that I'm very close to a place in the grass
where a corpse lies, something teeming with worms,
something hot and laughing.
And I get nervous over sounds.
The day before last, a cry rose up from deep in the garden,
like a meowing or a single grating branch
or a goose being strangled.
It had that despair --
do you remember the elm? Summers ago?
The one that was struck by lightning, and stood there,
a gigantic charred bone?
Sometimes I think it still lords over everything,
infecting the plants with rabid madness.
I don't know how crazy trees act --
maybe they shake off their roots and run amok.
In any case, I keep an axe by the bed.
At least the butterflies are mating. We should see
caterpillars soon. The neighbour's daughter across the way
gave birth -- a boy, long overdue. He had hair
and teeth already;
maybe he's a mutant too, because yesterday,
nine days old, he shouted, "Shut off the sky!"
Then he grew quiet, hasn't said a word since. Otherwise,
he's the picture of health.
So there it is. If you get a chance
to come this weekend, maybe Sunday? bring me
something to read, in a language I don't know.
The ones I call mine are exhausted.

Oksana Zabuzhko

(her only story online can be found in Words without Borders)


A little more Ukrainian-influenced lit will follow shortly, this time Canadian (the end bits of John's Canadian Book Challenge). Somehow this week is just getting away from me; it's been absolutely freezing here, so I've been snuggling up and reading in the evenings, and also doing a bit of baking to warm up the house! Do you need to ask? Chocolate cupcakes, of course. :)

It's Victoria Day!

Since it's Victoria Day here in Canada, a long weekend celebrating Queen Victoria's birthday (well, sort of, at least it's a long weekend!) I have the perfect book to share with you: Jamaica Holiday: The secret life of Queen Victoria by Jonathan Routh (London: Harmony Hall, 1984). This is a large picture book, purporting to be the true journal of Victoria's lost holiday in Jamaica. It's quite hilarious and the illustrations have the perfectly coiffed and fichued Queen doing all sorts of holiday things, such as waterskiing, and painting grafitti on cabin doors -- "God save the Queen", of course! It is a lovely and odd book I got at a library sale, and it has certainly entertained me. I've seen it mentioned by a Victoriana blogger, who notes the wonderfully eccentric index, but even if you aren't a Queen Victoria fan, this is a wonderful find. Enjoy!

Book Reviews : How and Why

Last week, quite by chance, I picked up a collection of essays by A.C. Grayling. Why? I've never even heard of the fellow, but the title, The Reason of Things : living with philosophy, was intriguing. Plus, it was only a buck.

So: A.C. Grayling seems to be a British philosopher and Academic Extraordinaire. He was also a Booker judge in 2003. He writes a weekly column for the Times Saturday review, of which this book appears to be a collection. Not even having looked at the table of contents (okay, it was an impulse buy) I was pleasantly surprised to open it at random to an essay entitled Reading and Reviewing. Whew, I felt some relief that it had been a loonie well spent! Actually, and seriously, it was a fascinating essay, with many statements relevant to those of us slogging away on our literary-fixated blogs. I thought I would just share a couple that I found thought-provoking. Something to ponder, at least!


Cynics ascribe the popularity of book reviews to the laziness of those who want to know about new books without the fatigue of reading them, perhaps in order to appear knowledgeable at cocktail parties. No doubt there are such folk; but it is a safe bet that book reviews are popular for at least two dozen reasons besides, not least among them being -- odd as it may seem -- a genuine interest in books. ...
Still, a certain suspicion attaches to the enterprise of reviewing, as if it is neither quite a serious nor quite a worthy endeavour -- definitely subordinate to the main task, frequently cheap in the doing and the result, and invariably parasitic, a "louse on the locks of literature", in Tennyson's phrase.


Honesty is the key. One can praise a book because one likes it, but one can not dispraise it because one dislikes it -- still less if, merely, one dislikes its author -- unless one gives reasons, and makes a case for saying it is bad.... From all points of view a book does best to get mixed reviews, for then the reviews do not stand in any reader's way.


Reading reviews is a pragmatic exercise for the majority of those who do it. Browsers of book pages can be turned into buyers by a reviewer's enthusiasm, which is often what readers themselves hope will happen. Writing reviews might also, for some, be a pragmatic exercise; in the past aspiring novelists eked a living thereby, though it is hard to see anyone doing it now. But for others it is a pleasure, even a passion and a delight. Part of the reason is that reviewing is highly educative. It makes one read far more, and far more widely, than is usual even among bibliophiles. And one does it with the special watchful intent required by the duty to engage and respond, to make a judgement and a case for that judgement.

Blackouts

Blackouts / Craig Boyko

Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, c2008.

This is the author's first story collection, and I have been looking forward to it, as I've read many of his stories in various literary journals over the last few years. This collection of 11 stories was worth waiting for; all of the stories are good, but a few have that ineffable spark of originality found in a great writer. Highlights for me include OZY, a wonderful story which has just won this year's Journey Prize, a richly deserved reward for this tale of a young boy's summer obsession with a video game. It is absolutely amazing how Boyko can take the quest for the highest score in a game called Ballistic Obliteration and turn it into a meditation on childhood, on self realization, on excellence. It's a stunning story. Here's an excerpt:

Every message is a message to the future. The feverish, grandiloquent billet doux stashed with trembling hand in the coat pocket of the girl you're in love with; the casual note to your wife jotted in haste and posted to the fridge before you leave in the morning; the drunken, desultory jeremiad left on your ex's answering machine -- they will be read or listened to, if they are read or listened to at all, by people of the future. Even the thought scribbled carelessly in the margin of whatever novel you're reading is a variety of time travel. Every mark we make, every trace we leave is a broadcast sent out into forever. We think of our footsteps as receding behind us, but really they are beacons sent out before us.

The last two stories in the book, Black Ink & Past Lives, are also extraordinary. Their quiet searching of memory and of sorrow really affected me, and I found myself copying out some of the lines from these ones as well.

Boyko is from Saskatchewan, and that fact, along with his last name, makes me suspect that there is some Ukrainian in his background. One of the stories in this collection, Nadeshda Pavlovna, is almost certainly set in Ukraine during the Holodomor, or Stalin-induced Great Famine. (and just one picky point -- in many reviews as well as the publisher's own website they state that this story takes place in "Stalinist Russia". No, it does not. It takes place in Stalinist Ukraine, through all circumstantial evidence.) Nearly every Ukrainian writer I know is compelled to face up to this event in some way, and here is Boyko's take. It's a brief tale of an official who is moved by the power of art (represented by gramophone recordings) to question his blind allegiance to a corrupt power regime and his ability to make others suffer. I found it very interesting, especially as it came on the heels of another collection of short stories I've just finished, in the Language Lanterns series. Titled A Hunger Most Cruel:The Human Face of the 1932-1933 Terror-Famine in Soviet Ukraine, it presented literature from Ukraine by 3 authors writing only twenty or thirty years after the events. It was horrifying and yet necessary to read. Boyko's story uses some of the same elements but in a more 'literary' way. While I didn't really find it as striking as the ones I'd just been reading, perhaps that was because I was awash in the depressing subject already. I've also just read another by a modern Ukrainian writer, but that will have to wait for a forthcoming review.

A few of the stories I've seen celebrated in other reviews, such as Assistance (about a man who clones himself in order to escape his miserable life) or The Problem of Pleasure (a young jealous computer geek surreptiously videos his girlfriend in the bedroom), were just okay for me. I mean, they were well constructed, interesting and unique, but didn't speak to me the same way the others did; perhaps because they felt a little cerebral, like a successful exercise rather than an emotionally driven story. Many reviewers have stated that he takes on any voice he pleases in these eleven stories; while I agree that the stories differ in narration and setting (wartime London, a vague futuristic world, small Canadian town, ocean liner), I don't think that they are all equally successful. It is obvious that he CAN do nearly anything, but I'm not convinced each story is being told in his true voice. Still, he is very talented and I will certainly be watching out for more of his work. One difficulty I had was with the title. It confused me a little, as there wasn't a story by that name in the collection, and I couldn't really see the direct tie-in between all the stories. However, here are a few explanations:

(from the Toronto Star) In several stories, the word "blackout" has a literal connection. Two tales take place during the London Blitz in World War II, when Nazi bombers were targeting the city and residents covered their windows with blackout curtains to avoid any leakage of light. But Boyko extends the implications of the term to fascinating psychological territory...In two stories, the protagonists (one an empiricist out to debunk a parapsychologist's ESP experiments, the other a dogmatic Marxist despite his privileged upbringing) are so certain of their worldviews that, in effect, they're wearing blinders – which are, of course, a form of blackout.

(from What's on Winnipeg) Each of the 11 stories shines light upon those moments -- blackouts, perhaps -- when we realize how difficult it is to accept ourselves.

And from the author himself:

“I started out with the rough theme, basically the title, then started brainstorming around that. … Originally, I think I thought that the way to make a book seem more like a cohesive piece would be to write a collection of interconnected short stories. These aren't quite interconnected – but they are, at least, along theme; they have some of the same ideas. If nothing else,” he laughs, “the word ‘black' appears more than in the average book.”

So overall, I'd rate this collection not a blackout, but a knockout. Well worth reading, and if you read literary journals you will probably have the pleasure of reading more of his work before the next book comes to fruition -- because it is evident that this author will be publishing more and more.

Weekly Geeks & Childhood Books

When I saw that Dewey's challenge this week was to talk about one of your favourite childhood books, I wasn't quite sure which to choose! There are so many books I have very fond memories of reading; I posted a list of five of my favourites, some time ago. So to choose more is difficult! But, since I love book lists and I have many other children's books to share, here is another list.



1. Emily of New Moon / L.M. Montgomery

It is the 100th year since the publication of Anne of Green Gables, and because I so love LM Montgomery, most of her books are favourites! But I'll choose this one, which my aunt gave me on my 12th birthday, and which influenced me greatly. Emily is an orphan (lots of those in LMM's work), who is sent to live with her two aunts, stern Elizabeth and meek and gentle Laura. Throughout the trilogy (Emily Climbs and Emily's Quest) we see her experiencing a difficult childhood as a gifted, imaginative girl who becomes a writer. Once again, LMM's genius at describing lonely, eccentric people stifled by small town conformity shines through! The characters of Emily, her family, and her 3 close friends are marvellous and I reread this one so very often.

2. This Can't be Happening at Macdonald Hall / Gordon Korman

This Canadian classic is the first book by this author, written when he was in Grade 7. Sigh. It's hilarious, and my sister and I read it to each other quite a few times as kids. We had it nearly memorized! It's full of the antic adventures of Bruno and Boots, residents of a boys school, "east of Toronto, just off Highway 48". Due to their misbehaviour they are assigned new roomates (both very odd), and there is also that girls school just across the highway... It is very, very funny.

3. The Ghosts who went to School / Judith Spearing

Wilbur and Mortimer Snodgrass just want to go to school. The problem is, they are Victorian ghosts. Finally they get their wish and attend the local school where Wilbur starts Grade 3, and Mortimer fulfills his dream of playing the glockenspiel in the school band. A charming read.

4. The Blueberry Pie Elf / Jane Thayer

Sadly out of print, this is a picture book which was read to me in the school library, sometime in elementary school. I fell in love with this shy little elf who loved blueberry pie. He was invisible so could not ask for blueberry, but ate whatever pie the lady of the house made -- and there were many, it is obvious this book is from the Era of the Housewife. The endpapers were great, all the pies displayed for viewing. Finally he cleverly traces out his request in cherry pie filling, and gets his wish, leaving behind a "Thank you" tracked in blueberry juice. Really cute, and it always reminded me of my Ukrainian grandmother, who made pies constantly. (as Brett Butt has joked, she was the kind of Ukrainian grandmother who would say, "Only 3 pies for dessert today, I was tired.")

5. Magic Elizabeth / Norma Kassirer

I loved, loved, loved this story about little Sally, having to go and stay with her old, dour Aunt Sarah in a big creaking old house. She sees a portrait of another Sally, in old-fashioned dress, who is holding a doll, Magic Elizabeth; she finds the doll in the attic, and travels in time to meet the girl in the portrait. The illustrations, simple pen sketches, are so charming, reminding me a bit of The Borrowers, with the little girls in long frocks and ribbons. I read this many, many times, and on rereading as an adult I feel the same way about it. I read it first at a cabin at the lake, and the copy belonged to the girl living there. Regretfully, I basically stole it from her, because I still have it 30 years later... oops. This inspired me so much that I rewrote the first chapter into my own story for the "Writing Club" I ran for a year when I was 13. My first run-in with plagiarism! :)

6. Tuck Everlasting / Natalie Babbitt

A simply exquisite book about the preciousness of our lives, day to day, and how death makes life worth living. It has romance, drama, poignancy, and I would recommend it to anyone, anytime. The recent movie did not capture the magic at all, so read the book and ignore the film!

7. Watership Down / Richard Adams

I could go on for a fairly long time on this theme, so I'll finish up with this one. This was the first book I ever bought for myself, in Grade 4 after I'd won a gift certificate in a reading challenge at school. The shop owner didn't seem to want to sell it to me; not sure if she thought I was too young, or what. But I persevered, and read it, and loved it, even if I didn't quite catch everything at that time. I've always liked the feeling of not quite understanding what I was reading, knowing there was something there I'd have to reach for, and might understand on the next reading. I did read this again a couple of times after that, the last time when in high school. I think it may just be time for a reread of this gorgeous story of rabbits seeking freedom in communal life, on the downs of England. I hope it holds up to memory!




And speaking of holding up to memory, there are a couple of books I really liked as a child, but had only misty memories of as an adult. I searched out two of these books over the past few years, which were, sadly, disappointments in the rereading.


The first, only slightly disappointing, was Mary Calhoun's The House of Thirty Cats. I recall being enchanted by this idea, but on reading it again as an adult, I am horrified at the squalor in which Miss Tabitha lives with her 30 cats, some indoor, some outdoor, none spayed or neutered and breeding madly. I'd have to say, as an adult, I side more with the neighbours and animal control officials who order her to get rid of most of them; Sarah, the heroine, was a little girl who found homes for them all. That part I still liked!

The second, which left me wondering how I'd so misread it, was Wilson Gage's Miss Osborne the Mop. I think what I loved about it was Jody, the little girl, whose glasses are magical and bring to life things looked at through them. She and her cousin Dill look at a chocolate cake in a magazine and then eat it -- the descriptions of food are great! But when they bring to life Miss Osborne, a mop, to clean up their secret hideout for them, the whole book turns into a paean to housecleaning!! AAAARGH! What kind of normal kids would spend their entire summer holiday, WITH magic glasses available, housecleaning?? As my husband can attest, there is almost nothing I dislike more than cleaning!


That's all, for the moment anyhow. This has been an enjoyable nostalgic Weekly Geeks. I'm looking forward to reading others' memories, too.

A Disturbing Atmosphere

Atmospheric Disturbances / Rivka Galchen
Toronto : HarperCollins, c2008.
To Be Released May 27/08
(read as ARC)


This discombobulating first novel by Rivka Galchen is a striking portrait of a man suffering from a break with "consensual reality". It reminded me a little of the found poetry I was recently discussing, especially Karen Solie's science based poems, probably because I was reading both at the same time. In addition, however, part of the plot relies on the messages the characters think they are being sent within the academic papers of the late Dr. Tzvi Gal-Chen, a meteorologist. Hidden meanings are discovered in an otherwise innocuous text.

It starts out with psychiatrist Leo Liebenstein, who is convinced that the woman who has just entered his apartment is not really his wife, but a simulacrum. The first lines are:

Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife. This woman casually closed the door behind her. In an oversized pale blue purse—Rema’s purse—she was carrying a russet puppy. I did not know the puppy. And the real Rema, she doesn’t greet dogs on the sidewalk, she doesn’t like dogs at all. The hayfeverishly fresh scent of Rema’s shampoo was filling the air and through that brashness I squinted at this woman, and at that small dog, acknowledging to myself only that something was extraordinarily wrong.

The back story is slowly fleshed out for us, through the very unreliable narration of Dr. Leo himself. Leo has been counselling a patient named Harvey (shades of Chumley's Rest Home??) who suffers under the delusion that he can control the weather, as a secret agent for the Royal Society of Meteorology. Harvey also believes there is an underground guerilla group, the Quantum 49, trying to wrest power from the Society. Harvey disappeared frequently, to be found wandering about in other cities, alarming his mother and other family members. Since this occurred when he was 'given instruction' by the Society who sent him messages via page 6 of the New York Post, Dr. Leo (with the assistance of his wife Rema) comes up with a plan. They will choose a specific scientist to give Harvey instructions to stay in New York and keep an eye on the weather there. They choose, randomly, Dr. Tzvi Gal-Chen,whose name they have seen in a list of fellows of the Royal Society. Leo and Rema start to act as Dr. Gal-Chen, but it all goes awry as Leo starts to believe in his patient's delusion, and then to question Rema's existence as well. Leo flees to South America, believing Harvey has gone there. Rema tracks him down at her mother's home in Argentina to attempt to convince him to come home.

This novel is extremely clever and well written, though it does demand concentration and full immersion in the ever increasing fantasies of Dr. Leo. I found it uncomfortable to read once Leo's perceptions became more warped and Rema's reactions were those of loyalty but also of helplessness at not being able to get through to Leo, to convince him that it was indeed the real Rema before him and not his cherished simulacrum. I could feel her exhaustion in the face of his assurance of being right, though to readers it is clear that something is not computing.

The novel has some self-referential quirks to it; Dr. Gal-Chen is actually the author's deceased father, who was a respected meterologist in life. There is a family photo included in the text as well. The ARC has blurbs from writers connected with Dave Eggers' The Believer, which didn't surprise me, as this novel reads as very much within that ethos. It's a good first novel, very intricate, with all its parts slowly revealing how they fit together. As for judging a book by its cover, I have to be honest, I really don't like this cover, it looks dreary and high schoolish to me. Don't let it put you off, though, this novel is provocative and unsettling, and worth a read.

Introducing.... the Olympyjama!

Thanks to Great White North for pointing this out to me; as you might be able to tell, I'm not a very sports oriented person. But even I feel sorry for the poor Olympians who've been stuck with this official Canadian Olympic Uniform. He he he. Great job, Hudson's Bay Co. :)

Love and a Fine Hand

I have sooooo many reviews to catch up on I'll just jump in and start with one I reread in my month of poetry. More to follow, soon I hope!

The Calligrapher / Edward Docx

New York: Houghton Mifflin, c2003.

I first read this one when it was new, and was inspired to go back to it for a couple of reasons; first, Docx has a new book out (Self Help) which brought him to the forefront of my mind again, and second, The Calligrapher is a story intertwined with John Donne's sonnets. And those have obviously been on my mind lately! The Donne connection is carried further in the name of the main character: Jasper Jackson (Jasper was also the name of one of John Donne's uncles).

This could be classed as "lad lit"; Jasper is the kind of man the never-do-well heroines of chick lit would fall for. He's bright, fairly charming even if cynical, eternally unable to commit, and yet strangely able to attract whatever woman he sets eyes on. Really, quite a lot to put you off, but he is an engaging narrator. Jasper is a freelance calligrapher, rare but they do exist. At the beginning of his story he invokes the patron demon of calligraphers, Titivillus.

I might as well confess up front that I am in league with the Devil. It's not a big deal -- a stint of social nihilism here, a stretch of marital sabotage there -- and I'm afraid it goes with the job. Seek for long enough and you will find that most human pursuits have a patron saint, but of all the arts in the world, only calligraphy has a patron demon. His name is Titivillus. And he is a malicious little bastard.

Jasper is currently working on transcribing and illuminating Donne's "Songs and Sonnets" for a rich American patron, but alongside this arcane and highly intellectual pursuit, Jasper follows some of Donne's other predilictions, namely, womanizing. In the novel's opening pages, he picks up a skanky French woman while at a gallery WITH his long-suffering girlfriend, Lucy. A few days later she catches him out, and they break up. Jasper then espies a gorgeous blonde from the window of his calligraphy studio, and begins a new relationship, one in which he starts to fall hard. He always feels there is something slightly odd about this new girl, and we discover just what that is in the end. Sadly, the conclusion of the book is rushed and a bit over the top; it doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the book. Perhaps because in most books of this sort, there is character growth throughout, and the main character changes in some essential way, leading us to a natural conclusion. Jasper, however, does not change. Despite all his asinine behaviour, we get the feeling that he doesn't actually think he's all that bad. With no self-knowledge revealed, the author has painted himself into a corner, and thus the ending feels a bit out of place and redolent with movie-like wackiness. Also, the revenge plot hatched by Lucy & friends seems a bit byzantine, and really, would an ex of someone like Jasper really go to such lengths considering what they'd lost? Ah, well, a good first novel anyway.

What I really liked about it was:

1. Each chapter is set alongside a poem by Donne, and the description of calligraphic technique is lovely. Also, Docx is well-versed in Donne's poetry and gives us an explanation of each piece, allowing the chapter's action to follow the verses, which provide the structure. This could be why some of the events feel a bit forced, but overall it is very interesting to follow.

2. Despite all the reasons not to like Jasper, he is a great narrator. Snobby, Oxfordian, misanthropic, but nevertheless entertaining to listen to.

If you like the more bookish chick-lit novels of late (ie: Literacy and Longing in LA) or even Nick Hornby (ie: About a Boy) you'll probably find this one of interest. His newest novel sounds very different, very serious, and very good. I'll have to read it someday!

1001 List

Everyone is by now very familiar with the1001 Books to Read before you die list, which can be found here (this is mostly for future reference for myself). I'm going to note here which of the few from the list I've read so far. As lists always are, this one is skewed to the compilers' tastes, and some are widely divergent from mine. Still, there are more than ten unread titles which appeal to me.

The 1% Challenge based on this list has been tempting me, but with the ongoing Russian Reading challenge and the Canadian Book Challenge, both of which I'm loving, I don't really want any more 'scheduled' reading in my future. Danielle has mentioned how attractive this challenge is, however, and has made a list of possible reads even if she isn't officially signing up. I like that idea!

So my hope is to read 10 of the multitudinous books on this list that I haven't cracked open as yet. I may still sign up officially if I ever feel capable of participating, but for now I'm just going to list 10 possibles (and a couple of alternates) from the list that I hope to read in the next 10 months. We'll just see how it goes.

Already Read:

The Double – José Saramago
Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Atonement – Ian McEwan
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
Silk – Alessandro Baricco
Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker
Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
Written on the Body – Jeanette Winterson
Possession – A.S. Byatt
Sexing the Cherry – Jeanette Winterson
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Surfacing – Margaret Atwood
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Memento Mori – Muriel Spark
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Animal Farm – George Orwell
The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
The House in Paris – Elizabeth Bowen
Miss Lonelyhearts – Nathanael West
The Waves – Virginia Woolf
Remembrance of Things Past – Marcel Proust
To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
Night and Day – Virginia Woolf
Summer – Edith Wharton
The Golden Bowl – Henry James
The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
The Turn of the Screw – Henry James
Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Diary of a Nobody – George & Weedon Grossmith
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
The Death of Ivan Ilyich – Leo Tolstoy
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy
Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Our Mutual Friend – Charles Dickens
North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
Walden – Henry David Thoreau
Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mary Barton – Elizabeth Gaskell
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
The Purloined Letter – Edgar Allan Poe
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Persuasion – Jane Austen
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Candide – Voltaire
A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift
Metamorphoses – Ovid
Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

Thinking of Reading Soon:

The Golden Notebook / Doris Lessing (also up for Annie's What's in a name Challenge)

The Master & Margarita / Bulgakov (one I'd like to read for the Russian Reading Challenge)

Dead Souls / Gogol (ditto)

The Go-Between / L.P. Hartley (I've been planning to read this FOR EVER)

Nights at the Circus / Angela Carter (great writer)

Anagrams / Lorrie Moore (I'm continually being told to read her, already!)

Miss Pettigrew lives for a day / Winifred Watson (charming book & movie, or so I've heard)

The Last September / Elizabeth Bowen (since reading The House in Paris for the Outmoded Authors challenge, I've wanted to read more, especially this book)

Embers / Sandor Marai (my husband loves this one)

We / Yevgeny Zamyatin (I have to read this dystopian classic this year of reading Russian)

and then maybe just for fun:

The Riddle of the Sands / Erskine Childers

She / Rider Haggard

The Third Man / Graham Greene (I adore the film)

That's 93 read, or around 9%. Not too bad, I guess, but there are many more to tackle. To feel more well-read, perhaps I should be looking at this book -- even if I have read fewer of her suggestions.