Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 41
May 8, 2011
Mother's Day proclamation 1870
Julia Ward Howe 1861
Mother's Day Proclamation
by Julia Ward Howe
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Julia Ward Howe, age 89, click to enlarge
Filed under: Uplifting Tagged: first mention of Mother's Day
May 6, 2011
Stieg Larsson and Writing Advice
The other day I read a profile of Stieg Larsson in The Walrus. Much of the article concerned his magazines fight against the extreme right, the unique freedoms of the press in Sweden and protection of people who are their sources, which makes the plot of his crime fiction believable there and nowhere else. But what interested me was something else.
Imagine the advice that Larsson could have received from agents or editors reading his draft of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
"I am sorry but our publishing house (agency) doesn't see that your work fits for us at this time. However there is some power in it and we would consider reading the manuscript upon revision. It needs to be trimmed by half, irrelevancies cut away, and ideally a dead body should appear on the first page."
Then, I guess, 20 million copies wouldn't have sold in the first year, would it? But instead Norstedts, his Swedish publisher, accepted it.
(Okay, Larsson originally wanted to call the sequel, The Girl Who Fantasized About a Gasoline Can and a Match. Changing it was good advice.)
My point and one that puzzles me a lot, is how do you know when to take writing advice and when to ignore it? There isn't any way to predict success. Everyone tries, but I do think it's mainly a matter of chance. All I can do, as a writer, is my best. But even in that, how do you know when to listen and when to say push off?
What do you think?
Filed under: Literary, Personal Tagged: Stieg Larsson's original title
May 5, 2011
What I'm Reading
It never rains but it pours. After a drought of ebooks from the library, three came in at once. These are:
Nemesis by Philip Roth
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Small Beneath the Sky: A Prairie Memoir by Lorna Crozier.
In paper books, the library also sent me The Wisdom Books translated by Robert Alter (with comments about his word choices and explanations of the Hebrew words and meanings).
How can I just read one of these? I started Crozier's memoir and it's exquisite. I also read the introduction to Alter's translation and started Job. His discussion of the book's poetry and how it differs from other books in the bible is fascinating; the translation smooth, powerful.
As a quick example, let me tell you about what he did with Genesis (which I looked at in the library but didn't take home because the Five Books of Moses was too heavy a tome to carry on my walk). Looking for a translation for "tohu v'vohu" which in King James is "without form and void" as in the beginning, he explained that the second word is a nonsense rhyming word to intensify the sense of the first word which means emptiness, used sometimes to describe a desert. He came up with "welter and waste," using alliteration the way the Hebrew uses rhyme for intensification and getting at that particular sense of empty unproductive land. To find an equivalent to the Hebrew "adam" made from "adamah," which relies on punning, he used human created from humus. I thought it was brilliant.
Now I'm off to enjoy the sunshine. I'm catching my breath. I'll get back to my new book on Monday, and play with that until I get my editor's notes.
Filed under: Literary, Personal Tagged: memoir and translation
May 4, 2011
Harper majority step back for science?
David Ng counts the ways starting with a minister who waffles on evolution http://ow.ly/4MUxO
Filed under: Concerning Tagged: science in Canada
May 2, 2011
Ramble on the Railroad Tracks
On Saturday, in honour of sunshine, A and I went on a long walk. We followed the railroad tracks for about an hour and a half, and then moved onto paths and streets. Here is some of what I saw. (Click to enlarge.)
Filed under: Miscellany
A Date with Democracy
That was what A said as we walked to the polling station hand in hand. It always puts a lump in my throat, voting, the sight of people making a choice, old, young, moms with babies, immigrants. This is a privilege and it's an uncommon one in our world.
It was an old-fashioned process with pencil and paper. ID presented, my name was crossed off a sheet. The girl with pale green nails handed me a folded ballot. I took it into the booth (not curtained as in the google image today, but three sided cardboard on a table). I marked my X. I put the ballot in the box.
Nobody knows what the results will be. In our first past the post system, the percentages revealed by polls can't call it. I have my hopes. But whatever the outcome, I am grateful for the fact that we choose and in 4 years we can choose again.
Filed under: Personal, Uplifting Tagged: democracy in action, voting day
May 1, 2011
The Keeper of Lost Causes: A Review
Let me start by saying that this is a book of crime fiction that made me cry. I expect suspense in crime fiction, and Jussie Adler-Olsen delivered (my children looked at me as I was reading the last 100 pages saying over and over, "I can't stand it! Does she get rescued or not?"). I wouldn't even be surprised at the kind of tears that come from emotional manipulation. (I cry over telephone commercials.) But it was genuine, tender, true human feeling that had me weeping.
Jussie Adler-Olsen, the Danish author of The Keeper Lost Causes, is one of the best loved and best sold Nordic authors of crime fiction. In Denmark last year, one million of his novels were sold. That's right–last year–in a country with population 5.5 million. He's also a bestseller in Germany and Austria, rather larger countries.
I'm sure he's going to be here as well. I'm impressed and now also excited that his work is being translated into English, this novel the first of what I'm sure will be many, coming out August, 2011.
I'm gratified that I got an advanced reader's copy so that I can tout his abilities not only in this genre but plainly and simply as a writer. The major characters are brilliantly conceived as an investigating duo. Carl Morck is a grumpy, slovenly detective whose flaws had previously been overlooked if not forgiven by his colleagues because of his effectiveness. However, ever since an investigation gone wrong, where one team member died and another was paralyzed, Morck has been indifferent and depressed and annoying.
The deputy chief comes up with a brainstorm: promote Morck up and down simultaneously. He is to be put in charge of a new department, Department Q, which will handle cold cases that, for political reasons, need to be seen to be still active. Nobody expects him to actually do anything in his new office down in the basement. And he is just as happy with that situation.
His new assistant, however, is not. The mysterious Assad, a refugee from the Middle-East, brings Morck back to life with his strong coffee, irrepressible spirit, keenness of mind and unusual connections. The pair of them are irresistible as partners.
The case they investigate concerns the disappearance of Merete Lynggaard, a rising politician, young, beautiful, intelligent, who has been missing and presumed dead for five years. The novel follows 2 interwoven strands: the present day police investigation, and the sequence of events from Merete's point of view from prior to her disappearance onward.
It's expertly done. At nearly 500 pages, the book didn't feel long at all. I read it over a weekend, unwilling to put it down. And as the strands came closer and closer together in time, the suspense was almost unbearable. But more to the point, the novel isn't just driven forward by a desire to know what happens. The journey is just as gripping. The full cast of characters and their interactions with Morck and Assad are engaging, written with humour and compassion. Here's a small sample from the beginning of the partnership:
"Do you have a driver's license?" he asked Assad, hoping that Marcus Jacobsen had forgotten to take that detail into account. If so, the whole question of the man's employment could be taken up for discussion again.
"I have driven a taxi and a car and a truck and a T-55 tank and also a T-62 and armoured cars and motorcycles with and without sidecars."
That was when Carl suggested that for the next couple of hours Assad should sit quietly in his chair and read some of the books on the shelf behind him. He turned around and grabbed the nearest volume, which he handed to his assistant. Handbook for Crime Technicians by Police Detective A. Haslund. Sure, why not? "Pay attention to the sentence structure while you're reading, Assad. It can teach you a lot. Have your read much in Danish?"
"I have read all the newspapers and also the constitution and everything else."
"Everything else?" said Carl. This wasn't going to be easy. "So do you like solving Sudoku puzzles?" he asked, handing Assad the magazine.
If only you were here in person, I'd make tea and talk much more about this book, but as a second best option, I recommend you pre-order it.
Filed under: Literary Tagged: Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Keeper of Lost Causes
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