Lilian Nattel's Blog, page 84
November 10, 2010
*The Big Lie
Artists should be grateful because they are doing something they love instead of a boring job, so they shouldn't expect to make a living at it, or get paid like other people (editors, gallery owners, caterers, janitors, speaker systems maintenance crew) who do the (presumably) boring jobs.
Corollary: Art isn't necessary or useful, unlike the work and products made or sold by people who are (presumably) bored.
Corollary 2: Bored and unhappy people need stuff to compensate them for their boredom and unhappiness, things like bigger houses, more electronics, lots of clothes and Imelda closets of shoes, because they don't get to work (for free) at things they love.
Corollary 3: Therefore, selling bigger houses, electronics, clothes, shoes and toys is necessary and practical work which ought to be well compensated unlike painting, dancing, writing, and so on.
Does anyone else see the flaw in this logic?
Filed under: Literature, Politics & Economy Tagged: assumptions
November 9, 2010
*Canada Reads
The top ten nominees, a good list:
The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
The Birth House by Ami McKay
The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
Bottle Rocket Hearts by Zoe Whittall
Essex County by Jeff Lemire
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden
Unless by Carol Shields
Filed under: Literature Tagged: top books
November 7, 2010
*The Queen's Residence
November 3, 2010
*Tenderness
My kids have their swimming lessons on Saturday mornings. It wouldn't be my first choice of times, but it's what worked out this fall. Last Saturday at 10:00 am I was sitting in the bleachers, watching as usual, when I noticed a man come into the pool area. This was puzzling because these are children's lessons. The only adults (other than instructors) are infant carrying moms and dads (mainly dads on Saturdays) who come at 10:30 for the parent-tot class.
He wore red swim trunks and carried a towel. He looked to be about 35 to 40 years old, half bald, on the shortish side for a man, chubby, hesitant. Maybe he'd made a mistake in the pool times, perhaps intending to come for recreational swim. I wondered if he was developmentally delayed. Something was different about his movements and his facial expression. As he looked at the board, uncertain, bewildered, one of the instructors glanced over his shoulder at the newcomer.
I watched as the instructor, F, himself a middle-aged man who'd come here from Mexico, where he'd been a swim coach, came over to the chubby guy (let's call him Paul). I couldn't hear their voices from where I sat, but F's face was gentle and kind as he spoke to Paul. After they talked, Paul came up to sit in the bleachers. It was clear now that he was, in fact, developmentally delayed. I smiled at him and he smiled back broadly. He held himself still, small hands on his lap, like my children might have when they were six years old and anxious.
When it was time for his lesson, he walked down the steps to meet his instructor, a young man, who, like F, had a kind and respectful expression on his face as he encouraged Paul into the pool. There must have been some reluctance because Paul sat on the edge of the deep end, his feet dangling in the water for a few minutes, gathering his courage. His instructor waited patiently, offering a blue "noodle". I heard Paul's voice for the first time.
"I'll count to three," he said. "One. Two. Three. Go!" He slipped into the water with a splash and came up, holding onto the noodle. How brave–and his instructor gave him a high five. Both of them smiled proudly.
There were tears in my eyes.
Filed under: My Life
November 1, 2010
*30 Great Rejection Stories
Here are some of my favourites:
Stephen King's first novel, Carrie, was rejected dozens of times. He nailed the slips to his bedroom wall.
One of the rejections stated: "We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell."
An editor forwarding to a colleague the ms of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold attached a note: "You're welcome to le Carré – he hasn't got any future."
The Diary of Anne Frank was rejected by 16 publishers. J.K. Rowling's first HP book was rejected by only half a dozen–but that was in an environment of post-mergers, leaving a smaller number of big publishers. It was a smaller press that took her on at first.
Tony Hillerman, famous for his series of mysteries featuring a Navajo detective, was advised by publishers "to get rid of all the Indian stuff." Oh how that one resonates!
e.e. cummings self-published his first book and dedicated it to the 15 publishers who'd rejected it.
One of my favourite children's books, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engel, was rejected by 26 publishers.
Read them all for yourself here, and I suspect you'll be smiling as broadly as I am.
h/t to Sandra Gulland for a timely reminder. Thanks Sandra!
Filed under: Literature
October 31, 2010
Monday Nov 1/10
A life of fullness, originally uploaded by Behzad Bagheri.
Filed under: A Monday Moment, Art & Photography Tagged: watercolour
October 30, 2010
October 28, 2010
*Jane Austen Couldn't Spell
In scrutinizing Austen's letters and one complete surviving manuscript, Persuasion, Prof Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University was interested in the fact that Austen couldn't spell, neglected punctuation, and ignored paragraphs–implying that an editor was heavily involved.
"She has this reputation for clear and elegant English but her writing was actually more interesting than that. She was a more experimental writer than we give her credit for. Her exchanges between characters don't separate out one speaker from another, but that can heighten the drama of a scene.
"It was closer to the style of Virginia Woolf. She was very much ahead of her time."
Either that, or like one of my children, she was just too engrossed in the story to bother.
According to Sutherland, an editor was heavily involved in the books that have been loved for 200 years, and she speculates with some evidence as to the editor's identity. It's all quite interesting, but if there is any subtext that the books aren't wholly Austen's, I disagree. Correcting spelling, adding commas and making paragraph breaks, while necessary, don't change anything substantive, unlike, say, the changes made by Raymond Carver's editor.
However it's wonderfully encouraging to me as the mom of a story-telling child who has an aversion to putting in periods (never mind commas!), and as a writer, I have to think that Austen wouldn't get published today. She wouldn't even get an agent to read past the first misspelled, paragraph-less page.
Amongst Austen's grammatical misdemeanours was an inability to master the 'i before e' rule. Her manuscripts are littered with distant 'veiws' and characters who 'recieve' guests.
Elsewhere, she wrote "tomatoes" as "tomatas" and "arraroot" for "arrowroot" – peculiarities of spelling that reflect Austen's regional accent, Prof Sutherland explained. "In some of her writing, her Hampshire accent is very strong. She had an Archers-like voice with a definite Hampshire burr."
See it for yourself; her handwritten pages are here.
Filed under: Literature Tagged: jane austen's handwriting
*Ancestors
On Tuesday I started First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton, and I finished it on Wednesday. It was a book I read as a child, and I wondered if I'd still like it and I did–very much–and it also made me think a lot, which I can't say about most children's books.
It's in the boarding school genre; there were many of those in my elementary school library; someone in charge of purchasing books (or a donor) must have liked them and so did I. In this series each novel represents one year of the six that the protagonist, Darrell Rivers, spends at the school. It starts with her boarding the special train that goes to the school from platform 7 at the station. There are four houses, each housed in a tower. The entrances reminds Darrell of a castle. Okay–you've got to wonder if J.K. Rowling read these as a kid, too, don't you?
The adults are scarce, appearing mainly to articulate the social values that permeate the book, rather like the adults in Louisa May Alcott's children's books. The values themselves are much like Alcott's of a hundred years earlier: character over achievement; honesty, openness, directness as against slyness, shrewdness or manipulation; sympathy but not enabling; courage especially the courage to overcome personal fears; not faultlessness but the open acknowledgment of fault and an effort at curbing and channelling it. As Darrell says of her father, he has a temper like hers but he reserves it for worthwhile things.
What surprised me in reading this book again was first of all, how much I simply enjoyed it–the girls' different personalities, their antics, their conflicts and what they learn, the sly girl's true colours revealed, the fearful girl's surprising bravery.
And it gave me pause to think because the values it espouses, like Alcott's, are much my own and not what I was raised with, where achievement and appearance trumped other concerns. I wonder whether my own values were innately different from my family's or whether some other forces were at work. Did I find in these books an articulation of what I felt to be true or did they shape my perception of truth?
I suspect that there was probably a combination of those. It's strange to think of myself at age 10 or 11 quietly reading and arriving at the values that inform my middle-age life and the way I raise my own children. We are our own ancestors; the lineage runs from me at 10 to me at 54. The lineage runs from Alcott in the mid 1800′s to Blyton in the mid 1900′s to Rowling in the 2000′s. There is more–I can't remember which blogger I follow mentioned this series recently. (Let me know please!) But that is what spurred me to read it. That post was the predecessor to this one.
Don't believe all the hype and fear mongering: such a lineage has too great a power. Books in whatever form, stories in whatever form, will carry on.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
- William Wordsworth
Filed under: Literature, My Life Tagged: Enid Blyton, values
October 25, 2010
*Irony
While conservative Calgary recently voted for a young, progressive mayor (visible minority, nominally Muslim), tolerant Toronto has voted in its most right wing mayor in my memory. I hope that his crew have sent a thank you note to Joe Pantalone, whose insistence on remaining in the mayorial race until the truly bitter end split the progressive/centre vote between him and George Smitherman.
I was a Joe fan–up until it became clear he couldn't win. George Smitherman was, for me, the lesser of two goods, someone who had a chance, who was neck and neck in the polls with Ford. I'm sorry the polls were wrong. I'm more sorry that Joe refused to see what everyone else saw, a city led by Rob Ford, a blustering man whose pals put up posters appealing to Muslims to vote for him, lest a gay, married father became mayor.
I have to thank God that at least the mayor only has one vote, just like any other city councilor. I have to hope that the councilors keep him in line.
Filed under: Canada, Politics & Economy Tagged: Toronto
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