Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 11
March 15, 2013
Two Views of a Telephone Post
Shape and colour and reflected light. You have to imagine the smell of muddy grass, the sound of the camera clicking, which is itself an artifact, an imitation of shutter and film, since digital cameras don’t need to click. I saw a toddler with an IPad the other day. She was tapping and sliding geometric shapes intended to mimic a child’s blocks. I wondered whether she played with actual blocks. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Filed under: Interesting Tagged: urban photography
March 13, 2013
Starling
(click to enlarge)
This is a starling, not one of the nobility like eagle and hawk, but a common bird. I see them around here all the time. They’re extroverts, gregarious, noted for nothing more particular than their strong feet. But look at the sheen on the feathers, the gloss of purple, the blue feathers bordered in gold.
Filed under: Beautiful Tagged: starling, urban wildlife
March 12, 2013
Alice Munro’s Brilliance
I am reading Alice Munro because she is brilliant. In the mid 1990s, I studied her stories for “weather,” ie the external details that make a story come alive. In the margins of a book of her short stories, I wrote “clothing,” “smell”, “rain.” Then I added weather to the next draft of The River Midnight and it suddenly popped into the third dimension.
In my new novel the main character meets many minor characters who come and go, so there isn’t the time to develop them in the way of characters who remain throughout a novel. Hence I am studying Alice Munro to see how she quickly and deftly sketches a character. It’s a hard study because the stories are too absorbing; I forget to notice technique. In Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, what I am noticing are the sudden twists: surprising, shocking, brilliant.
Maybe I will learn something different than what I was looking for.
Filed under: Interesting, Literary
March 11, 2013
Looking Deeper
I was walking and saw a slight indentation in the sidewalk. It was the shape of an inverted V. I stood over it with my camera and took a series of pictures. As I bent closer, I noticed a crevice at the tip. Bending closer still, I crouched over it. With my nose practically inside what, from a distance, was a finger mark in cement, I saw treasure:
Writing is like that too. On intense examination, a crack opens into a cavern where there are treasures, which change everything. Structure, story line, the hero, the villain. And you know more about the world than you started out with.
Filed under: Interesting, Literary Tagged: urban photography, Writing Life
March 10, 2013
Wheat Sheaf Tavern
wheat sheaf tavern, est 1849 King St W, Toronto (click to enlarge)
Inside the upper window is a wide bottomed jar with yellow paint or yellow peppers, also a blue-green mural with a giant eye, which might be the reflection of something across the street, or a black and white lamp in front of a wall. I saw none of it from the corner where I took the picture; it became visible when I studied the image on my laptop, expanding it by holding it down under a mouse. That’s how it is with developing characters, too. I turn them this way and that, study them from close and far, guess at glimpses, make much of hints only to find out the hint was something else entirely. It takes time, study, humility. I will be wrong at first. I will think a lamp is an eye, that paint is peppers, that a reflection is an interior.
Filed under: Interesting Tagged: urban photography, Wheat Sheaf Tavern, Writing Life
January 28, 2013
Literature Trumps Erotica
The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler is #8 in the top 100 books on amazon.ca, surpassing all three Shades of Grey. I’ve loved The Imposter Bride since it came out last year. It’s a finely written novel about the relationship between an enigmatic mother and her daughter. A holocaust survivor, Lily Azerov immigrates to Montreal for an arranged marriage. But despite a loving husband, she can’t adjust and not long after her baby’s birth, disappears. The girl’s life is shaped by a search for the truth about her mother, armed only with the cryptic diary left behind.
This novel took 8 years to write; it was worth it. The story winds back and forth seamlessly through the twists and turns of time, need, and grief in the postwar period. I couldn’t put it down. The characters have stayed with me. It’s thrilling to see such a beautiful book bypass hype and that eternal best-seller, soft porn.
The Imposter Bride is now available in paperback and is coming out this week in the U.S. and the UK. Pick it up and have yourself a good read.
Jewish mother and child, Poland, Sept 1939
Filed under: Literary Tagged: Imposter Bride, Nancy Richler
January 21, 2013
January 16, 2013
In Memory of Esther Levin
There are words that people use at a time like this: “unexpected passing,” “beloved mother, sister, daughter, friend,” “after a short illness.” These words can be said electronically, but the virtual world must bow here to 3D. The reality of breath halted must be faced, its gravity given due honour. The body is interred. The mourners sit shiva. Friends and family come. Food is brought. Prayers are conducted in the old way.
My next door neighbour is suddenly gone. I won’t see her coming up the stairs. We won’t stand and talk on the porch anymore.
I knew her when she was pregnant, becoming a mom in her 40s. And later when her son was young, I asked her what it was like because life had taken twists and turns that hadn’t allowed me to become a mother at the age I’d expected. She encouraged me and I took it to heart. She led the way and I followed.
Our conversations, wherever they started, the roof, the street, always ended up with our children. I know that she was immensely proud of her son, Dana, and that she expected many more years with him, coming from a long-lived family as she did.
We are given words to say, routine words, because the weight of mortality otherwise would leave us speechless. She will be missed. She will be fondly remembered.
Filed under: Personal Tagged: memorium
January 15, 2013
New Delhi
This morning my younger daughter asked me if I was cross. I said no, then yes, and explained why. She told me to blog about it.
This is what I know about New Delhi. There are 20 telemarketing companies devoted to calling Canadian households about duct cleaning.
This is what I know about New Delhi. Women are raped on buses. The chief of police thinks that it’s fine if women are afraid to go out after dark because they should be at home taking care of their children, while men who are out and about can feel relaxed about it.
So what would happen if the mothers went on strike? What would happen if women left their jobs, their stalls, their homes, their schools and took over the buses?
via CTV news
Filed under: Concerning Tagged: women's rights
January 13, 2013
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