Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 83

*Is it Winter if Roses Bloom?

It snowed Saturday morning, the first snow of the season, and M and H were overjoyed. The snow was mostly gone by noon, but after their swim lessons, H made a snowball and carefully carried it home in her scarf to put it in the freezer. The sun came out, the sky was blue, though it wasn't much above freezing and I was looking for colour as I walked through Kensington Market, down to Queen St and through Chinatown with A, H and M. This is what I found. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

The last was in a Chinese bakery. That is H contemplating the selection. The buns were delicious.

Filed under: My Life Tagged: ramble

*Monday Nov 29/10

Starry Night, originally uploaded by James Neeley.

In honour of Ms. P's grade 3/4 class who studied the art of Vincent Van Gogh this month.

Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography, Music Tagged: Chyi Yu, Van Gogh

*Ministry of Stories

The Ministry of Stories is a shop in Hoxton. It looks like a monster shop, but inside the tins marked "the heebie-jeebies" are original stories by Nick Hornby, Zadie Smith and others, who are also volunteering in workshops. This is a project in London's impoverished East End to get kids excited about writing their own stories.

The project has its roots across the Atlantic where the author David Eggers established 826 Valencia, an after-school writing club for children…Local children who popped in to the ministry to put together a story about the Queen and a sentient microwave oven called Bob were definitely inspired…."I like writing my own stories, but sometimes I find it a bit hard, because I have loads of good ideas but I find it hard to put it down on paper," said one pupil.

Full story here.

The link to this news story came in my Writer's Union list serve today and it warmed my heart. This is what the creative endeavour is really about, to enliven and inspire each other.

Filed under: Literature Tagged: writing and children

*Right vs Legal

Here is some info for my non-Canadian friends to understand the video below. In Canada we have an elected House of Commons and an appointed Senate. Senators are appointed for life. It used to be jokingly called a retirement package for Liberals who often formed the government and hence appointed senators. For years people have been arguing about whether we need a Senate at all, whether it should be elected or left as is.

The Conservative (aka Tory) party purported to support an elected Senate. Funny enough now that the Tories are in power and the prime minister gets to appoint senators, his feelings have changed. Stephen Harper, our PM, is a scary guy and his appointees apparently reflect his anti-democratic autocratic high handed manner. Bill C-311, referred to below, is the Climate Change Accountability Act.

I want my Canada back, you know, the democratic progressive rational one?

Filed under: Canada, Politics & Economy Tagged: Bill C-311, Canadian Senate

*Open Office

I decided to try Open Office now that I'm starting a new book for a couple of reasons. For anyone not familiar with it, OO is free open source software, meaning that people work on it because they like to and its development is a collaborative cooperative project all over the world, supported by volunteers and donations, much like Wikipedia.

(Check out the Wikipedia founder's appeal here. Everyone in my house uses Wikipedia daily and so we donate what we can afford once a year.)

Back to Open Office. In principle I think free open source software is a magnificent alternative to giant corporate endeavours like Microsoft and Google and so I wanted to try it out. Practically speaking, I will need a new laptop eventually and I am not enthused about the prospect of buying another version of Word in that endless cycle of new computer/new system/bloat, ie bells and whistles nobody needs requiring new software with bloat.

Open Office can save documents in a number of formats, including Word's, and so far I've had no problem with that if I so wish it. It also comes with all the components that come with Microsoft Office, ie spreadsheet, power point, etc. So far I am just using it for writing, which is mostly how I used Office. (Though I did use a spread sheet in my last book to keep track of the balance of voices and as a scene summary).

I love OO! I like the layout, I like the icons, I like the colour schemes (though you can change that if you wish). I like the forums where people ask questions and answer them in terms an ordinary person can follow. I learned how to insert a date in the format I wanted, and to make a shortcut for it, in 2 minutes flat. No Microsoft agony or screen of death.

I like the flexibility, the responsiveness and the transparency of OO. It looks like Word and has the same menus and commands, eg control-P for print, but it works a whole lot better. Today I used numbering in a document to outline what I've come up with so far for the new book. The numbering actually worked and didn't drive me crazy! A toolbar popped up that was useful and easy to figure out! OMG! Who would have thunk it?

If you haven't tried it already, here's the link to Open Office. Have a go and let me know what you thnk.

Filed under: My Life Tagged: Word vs Open Office

*Monday Nov 22/10

Lamp-boy, originally uploaded by Hotdog Photography.

We all feel like this little guy sometimes. He also reminds me, as different a pup as he is, of Cate's Spencer in his cone of shame (have you seen Up?).

I'm off to write.

Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography Tagged: monday smile

*Room and The Long Song

In some ways these books couldn't be more different. The Long Song is set in Jamaica; Room in America. The Long Song is a historical novel; Room is contemporary. But what they have in common is more than the fact that I read them both last week, that they were both short-listed for the Booker (which Room won), or that I admired them both.

They deal with difficult subjects. Room is about a five year old boy and his mother, abducted seven years earlier. Ever since, they've lived in captivity, confined to an 11 by 11 foot room. How she keeps her son fit mentally and physically and how they adjust to the world outside make for a gripping narrative. The Long Song is about slavery in Jamaica, particularly around the time of several rebellions, just prior to abolition. I didn't know anything about this history, and found it fascinating.

But what makes these books outstanding and the difficult subject matter tolerable is the skillful, innovative use of first person narration.

Room's narrator is a little boy who is literate and numerate way beyond his years while at the same time naive, his perceptions skewed by living all his life with his mother in a single room. The choice of narrator is courageous and brilliant. It's courageous because a 5 year old narrator is limited in expressive skill and understanding. Emma Donoghue just manages to stay within the bounds of believability while pushing it for the sake of the story.

The narrator is a brilliant choice because his naivite works for the story. Sheltered from most details of his mom's abuse, he shelters the reader. Yet his view of captivity (all he's known, safe, warm, close to his mother) and his view of the world (strange, threatening, big, different) tell more about both than a lengthy discourse. Through his narration, Donoghue vividly portrays what he sees. Through his thoughts and reactions, she creates an endearing, poignant and full bodied character. I was astounded by how accurate this portrayal was in terms of getting at a child's reactions to captivity and freedom.

In The Long Song, Levy's narrator is an old Black woman who has been asked by her son, a successful publisher, to write her memoirs. The story alternates between her memoir of the 1830′s and her present day interactions with her son and his family. The narrator is poetic, tough, sly, funny and "unreliable." I put that in quotation marks because her lack of reliability is only in her literal statements; the truth shouts out between the lines and I would bet that the narrator knows it. She is such a vivid character that I find myself slipping into talking about her as if she were real, something that always makes me roll my eyes when friends or book club members do it.

Levy's narrator uses her privilege as memoirist and old lady to skip over horrors when she finds they're too much, and so Levy saves the reader from being overwhelmed. Yet the narrator's sharp and clever observations convey everything that needs to be conveyed. In her website Levy says:

[T]he last thing I wanted to do was to write a novel about slavery in Jamaica. Why? Because how could anyone write about slavery without it turning into a harrowing tale of violence and misery?

…But as soon as I began to reflect upon on the plain historical facts, I realised that slavery was much more than a two-act play; it was a massive social system – a society in the true sense – that endured for three hundred years….

[T]here are very few surviving documents and artefacts that I could find where enslaved people speak of and for themselves…This is where I believe that fiction comes in to it's own. Writing fiction is a way of putting back the voices that were left out. Not just the wails of anguish and victimhood that we are used to, although that is very much part of the story, but the chatter and clatter of people building their lives, families and communities, ducking, diving and conducting the businesses of life in appallingly difficult circumstances. Now THERE is a story.

And she wrote it brilliantly.

I have used the word "brilliant" several times in this post because these were both books and writers whose skill is impressive, subject matter difficult, and the end result beautiful.

Filed under: Literature Tagged: Andrea Levy, Emma Donoghue

*Recommendations please?

I've just finished two excellent novels about difficult subjects, slavery and abduction. I'd like to balance that reading with two excellent novels that are joyful, uplifting or funny. I'm not looking for fluff though fluff would be another way to balance, but wonderfully written stories. As I think about my next novel, before I dive into something heavy-duty again, I'd like to consider the possibility of something lighter. I need examples in literary fiction. Help, please–do you have any to recommend?

On a completely unrelated note, check out the amazing photos here.

Filed under: Literature, My Life Tagged: pleasurable reads

*Monday…oops Tuesday Nov 16/10

Day 14 – Visual Representation of a Reading List, originally uploaded by margolove.

I missed last Monday's photo altogether, so I figure I'm getting on top of things being only a day late. I'm behind in replying to comments and reading blogs. Though I've finished The Long Song and Room, and would like to talk about the first person narrators, I haven't yet written my posts.

However I am writing every day. I don't know yet where I'm going with it, but I'm writing. I just finished 3 1/2 hours of homework with children. I am going to play knights and other playmobil figures with H. (Just for your info, we are playing the Von Trapp family in the middle ages, H's invention. This is my first time. I hope I can keep up). M is watching a hockey game.

And that is why I am behind.

Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography, My Life Tagged: reading and writing

*Remembrance Day

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month–this is what I remember:

War is suffering and death and its necessity is debatable, but what is not debatable is that the young men and young women who serve as soldiers are not adequately taken care of upon their return. This is true today and it was true 65 years ago, when Bill Mauldin asked civilians to understand the pain and difficulties of returning veterans.

I remember that a Up Front by Bill Mauldin, a cartoonist who documented the ordinary soldier's life, sustained me through an embattled childhood.

I can't remember, because it was without my knowing, that while I was a grieving toddler, about 500 km away on the 11th day of the 11th month a baby was born. His eyes were blue. He grew up to be smart and tender and an awesome cook. He's in the other room while I type this.

Before birth I must have signed up for some pretty grim shit in this life, paying it insufficient heed, dazzled no doubt by the prospect of my honey, who would show up in my life (this time) in 1995. That I remember, and every November 11th since. Happy Birthday A!

And a shout out to J, who was born on the same day of the same month some 20 years before A.

Happy Birthday J and thanks for teaching me cross-overs in skating.

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month I ask us to honour peace and take care of those who have no idea what they give up when they go to war. I do not agree with Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, but those who have enjoined our young men and women to serve there should be called to account that our soldiers do not receive the care they need upon their return. This should and must be redressed.

On this day I remember that I love and am loved and this should be extended to all the wounded, whether in body or in soul.

Filed under: My Life, Politics & Economy