Words on Words – November 2016

November has been a fairly effective microcosm of the 2016 as a whole. I have tried to remain apolitical in this series of posts, and to simply reflect on words which struck me as significant or memorable, and which I think deserve to be read. So I will not rage against the political and societal events of the past month; this is not the time nor the place. I will merely say this: this month, I was especially glad for my family, my beautiful fiancee, and the escape offered to me by a good book.

Here are the books I read in November, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#44

“That’s what’s different about kids: they believe everything can happen, and fully expect it to.” – The Troop by Nick Cutter

I read Nick Cutter’s second novel – The Deep – last summer, and was deeply enamoured with it. Cutter is often compared to early Stephen King, which is high praise in my eyes; high praise decidedly earned. The Troop is spooky. It gets under your skin in ways that will only become clear if you read the book. Cutter’s titular Scout troop check a lot of the boxes for classic adolescent tropes – the brain, the athlete, and the basket case at least are represented here. But in spite of their cliche character molds, the evolving group dynamics as the Troop confronts an unknowable horror are as appealing as the page-turning suspense. I read the whole thing in two marathon sessions, and was left, as I often am at the end of a King novel, wanting desperately to remain in the world the author had created.

But besides being a really, genuinely good story, Cutter’s novel is deeply insightful. A million books could be (and have been) written on the value of youth. Longing for perpetual youth, children succeeding where adults would fail, a child’s imagination illuminating the darkness surrounding a stodgy grown-up; all of these are well-trod paths in fiction. They are rich veins, surely (Peter Pan is my all-time favourite work of fiction), but many authors simply regurgitate what has been said time and again before. And often that still makes for engrossing literature. Cutter, however, manages to navigate the familiar roads while also laying down new brick. He adds something to the conversation around the inherent goodness (or lack thereof) of youth, and the peculiar ways in which the young are capable of so much more than adults allow.

The quotation above comes at the end of a longer passage, where the author essentially argues that children are able to confront horror in ways an adult never can because their minds are pliable enough to allow for the existence of horror along with good. Adults have set their mind like flint, and lost their imaginations; there are no monsters under the bed, no horrors populating their day-to-day. Thus, when confronted with horrifying realities, an adult’s brittle mind will break; but a child, forever fighting imagined monsters and vanquishing them, can face horror and triumph. The Troop may not be King’s IT, but it builds on the genre and tradition of that great book and for that alone it should be read and adored.

#45

“Unlike the presidents they served, whose every statement and movement was recorded and studied, very little was left behind to tell us about the lives of the slaves whose work allowed these men to reach for greatness through the wealth that human slavery brought them. Only by reading between the lines, and scouring letters, diaries, and documents left behind by their white masters, can we begin to piece together the lives of the enslaved African Americans who took care of the president and his family while the president took care of the United States. They deserve the attempt.” – The Invisibles: the untold story of African American slaves in the White House by Jesse J. Holland

The Invisibles promises a story begging to be told – the story of the slaves owned by pre-emancipation presidents of the United States. When I first saw this book advertised, months before its release, I immediately added it to my “to-read” list; as a history lover, and in light of current racial tensions and injustices, I was excited to dive into the lives and words of these forgotten men and women. The book does not quite deliver, however. It turns out that very few books and essays have been written about the subject because very few reliable primary sources exist to document the presidents’ slaves. The closer the book gets to the Civil War, the better records were kept at the time and the more sources are cited; however, the earliest parts of the book, and the parts that hold the most intrigue for me, personally, are based mostly on supposition and conjecture. Holland paints an interesting narrative picture of America during the Revolution and the subsequent generation-and-a-half, but the historical basis for these early chapters are shaky at best.

I still quite enjoyed the book, to be sure; it is an important essay, and has been made even more so since the U.S. presidential election. It is a demonstration of the importance of history, of looking back to look forward. And Holland himself admits in his conclusion that he hopes to find more sources and update the book for future versions, fleshing out the stories of these forgotten Americans. The book was highly readable, and I would certainly make time for an expanded edition, should one ever appear. The places in which the book falls short – primarily in its sourcing – are overcome by the intent: to tell the story of those who deserve, after all this time, to be remembered.

#46

“The subliminal mind has many dark, unhappy corners, after all. Imagine something loosening itself from one of those corners. Let’s call it a – a germ. And let’s say conditions prove right for that germ to develop  – to grow, like a child in the womb. What would this little stranger grow into? A sort of shadow-self perhaps: a Caliban, a Mr. Hyde. A creature motivated by all the nasty impulses and hungers the conscious mind had hoped to keep hidden away: things like envy, and malice, and frustration.” – The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

As a lover of classic noir fiction in the tradition of Stoker and Shelley, an admirer of English class drama a la Austen and Dickens, and a reveler in the delights of a good mystery from Christie or du Maurier, this book was a literary smorgasbord. Waters writes in a voice from the past, forgoing today’s popular colloquialisms for the refined English of 19th and early 20th century English writers. And it is this narrative voice that sets the tone for one of the best, most satisfying ghost stories I have ever read. Supernatural elements aside, the tragedy of the Ayres family’s fall from grace following WWII is an engrossing, fully explored look at the fall of the British aristocracy. It would be an engaging and worthwhile novel on its own. But the fact that Waters manages to wrap this countryside drama around a thoroughly unsettling tale of the shadow in the corner of your eye makes it as un-put-downable a book as I have read this year. The quotation above draws a lot of parallels, really, to a central theme of Cutter’s The Troop; the germination of a darkness, a disease of the body or of the spirit, until it becomes all-consuming. Waters is in no hurry to jump the shark – like the shadow-self, she is happy to let her dark tapestry weave itself slowly, until it covers you. This is one I will come back to again and again.

#47

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” – The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Upon hearing that this was the next book on my list, an old friend remarked that he couldn’t believe I hadn’t read it, being a Constant Reader of King’s other work. And to be honest, I am not sure why I have always been apprehensive about The Dark Tower. I am an avid fan of the author, and I read epic fantasy abundantly; but for some reason, I couldn’t imagine an amalgamation of the two. Silliness now, in retrospect. Of course King’s incredible storytelling ability (which is what I admire most in his darker work) is perfectly suited for the worldbuilding required of truly great dystopian fantasy. I loved The Gunslinger, and I am excited to hopefully have time to continue the series.

There is just so much GOOD STUFF here, starting with the very opening line, above. King so quickly establishes hero and antagonist, setting, tone, and pace. In twelve words, you are hooked. And like so many of King’s published works, you can read it episodically; the parts of the novel are connected but different, clearly first published in pieces and assembled later. Each part has a slightly different feel, different atmosphere, different tone, that all contribute to the growing realization of this world that is not quite our own. As in all great fantasy, there are larger questions being asked of morality and fate – questions that, judging by the length of the series and the amount of time it has taken to be written, will be fully explored by the time all is said and done.

King never fails to surprise, delight, capture, and satisfy, and this book is no different. I don’t know why I ever feared it might be.

*****

Eleven months down. One month and three books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – October 2016

October was about crossing off books that have lived on my “to-read” list for a very long time. Having jumped the shark a bit and read all my spooky books in September, I did not attempt to read on any particular theme. I suppose the books I read this month did differ in one essential way from the rest of the year; most of the books I have read to this point were those recommended by other people. As I have said before in this space, part of my reasoning for taking on this project has been to read more dangerously, to navigate uncharted waters by reading books that others have recommended, not necessarily ones I would choose to read myself. And that has been nearly universally rewarding. This month, though, I took a break to be selfish. Four of the five books I read in October were long residents of my wishlist and bookshelf. This project and the push to fifty gave me the perfect excuse, for better or worse, to read them.

Here are the books I read in October, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#39

“Even such is time, that takes in trust

Our youth, our joys, our all we have,

And pays us but with earth and dust;

Who, in the dark and silent grave,

When we have wandered all our ways,

Shuts up the story of our days:

But from this earth, this grave, this dust,

My God shall raise me up, I trust.” – Even Such Is Time by Sir Walter Raleigh

This book has been sitting around my parents’ house for longer than I have been alive. I figured I would meander my way through it, as I have come over the course of this year to enjoy poetry as I never have before.

I have made sounder choices.

This is not a well-curated anthology of poetry, as the other I have read this year have been. I have no doubt many of these poems are “immortal” – I have heard a great many of them before. But this particular collection, first published in 1952, leaves no question that it comes from a time of rote memorization and dry analysis in grammar school. There are certainly great poems scattered throughout, and all the players whom you would expect to be represented are here; nevertheless, it was quite a haul to get through. But get through I did.

Two themes that feature heavily in my own thinking and writing are “time” and “stories”. I am obsessed with what stories mean to the teller and the listener, with the way we reckon ourselves and our societies through the stories we tell. I love, too, a well-treated reflection on the nature and inevitability of time. And so Raleigh’s poem, though worn and often recycled, struck me as one of the more gravitational pieces in this collection. Time, the ultimate judge, shutting up the story of our days… Ironically, it is in writing words like these that Raleigh managed to escape the anonymity and crushing finality of time.

#40

“When I came here Lorne told me, ‘We don’t go on the air because the show’s ready, we go on because it’s eleven-thirty.'” – Darrell Hammond in Live From New York by James Andre Miller and Tom Shales

I have been watching Saturday Night Live for as long as I can remember. I can’t remember who hosted the first episode I ever watched, or even which cast of Not Ready For Prime Time Players filled the halls of Studio 8H at 30 Rock. I don’t even know how I managed to convince my parents to let me stay up so late on a Saturday night. But in the many, many years since, I have rarely missed an episode. I used to dream of one day appearing on that stage to deliver the iconic opening to the show: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!” Nowadays I watch with my fiancée and her family, whom I have infected with a delight and passion for the institution that is SNL. It is one of those rare universal experiences; even those who do not watch the show religiously (or at all) have a favourite sketch, a joke they have heard retold, an impersonation they found hysterical. Phrases like, “Isn’t that special?” or “More cowbell,” or “I’m Chevy Chase, and you’re not” are as much a part of North American pop culture as the contributions of any other singular creation, ever.

Live From New York claims to be a tell-all, an inside look, a story straight from the horse’s mouth. It was the book I had always wanted to read; a conversation I would never get to have in a million years with my comedic heroes. It is written entirely through interviews with the casts, producers, creators, and guests of every generation of SNL. It is as complete a picture of the show, right up through its 40th season, that anyone but those lucky few are ever going to get. There is nothing else like it – the show or the book. If you are a fan (and I know you are), this is a must-read.

#41

“I only know one story. But oftentimes small pieces seem to be stories themselves.”  – The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Do not get me wrong, I have enjoyed this reading project immensely – that being said, I will not be attempting to match the same number next year. Reading 50 books, especially when some of them, like The Name of the Wind, near 1000 pages in length, has been an exhausting effort. The problem I am already anticipating, however, is that this book marks the eighth first-in-a-series that I have read this year, and I know there will be at least one more to come. That means that, in spite of my best intentions, I am still setting myself up for an awful lot of reading in 2017.

The Name of the Wind is a titanic novel. It often draws comparisons to the Harry Potter series, the most well-known work of fantasy fiction of the 21^st century. These comparisons are high praise; perhaps only The Lord of the Rings has reached a wider audience of fantasy-enthusiasts and plebs alike. After reading the first installment of Rothfuss’ series, I can confirm that the comparison is earned. Rothfuss has done what so many strive to, but which so few are able; he has built a universe, complete and self-contained. His world is that perfect setting for fantasy – just familiar enough to make you feel at home, and just magical enough to make you believe anything is possible here. And speaking of magic, Rothfuss’ magical sympathy is one of the best developed, most totally realized systems of magic I have ever encountered in fiction.

There is so much to love here, but inevitably I am drawn to the author’s treatment of stories. The whole book, in a way, is about stories and their telling. The novel consists primarily of one character’s account of his life. Many of the people who figure most prominently in his story are storytellers themselves. His parents, his mentors, and his admirers all seek the truth in stories, in the way things are named and the ways in which they are remembered. Skarpi, an old man who holds court at a pub telling stories to urchins, and the character who speaks the line above, goes on to say, “All stories are true… But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” There is something deeply comforting about seeing the world in this way. All of our stories are mere verses in a longer song; sometimes a verse may sound a song all its own, but its melodies blend with all others in the symphony of creation.

#42

“She says isn’t it funny how every second, every minute, every day, month, year, is accounted for, capable of being named—when time, or life, is so unwieldy, so intangible and slippery? This makes her feel compassion toward the people who invented the concept of “telling time.” How hopeful, she says. How beautifully futile. How perfectly human.”  – All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

My fiancée, my mother, and I heard Miriam Toews read from this book a few years ago at The Guelph Lecture On Being Canadian, which I attend every year. I have wanted to read AMPS ever since; not only because the piece she had read, from the first chapter of the book, was engrossing and thought-catching, but because Toews herself seemed to speak the way she writes. She said so much by saying little. She let her ideas speak for themselves. She is discerning in her choice of what needs to be said and what is simply understood, and every word carries its weight. But in all of this, there is no exuberance or verbosity. Toews’ writing is as stark and uncompromising as the subject about which she writes. After all, when dealing with tragedy, where is the place for flowery language?

Hemingway once said, “All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorry, the people and the places and how the weather was.”

I lived and died with this book as I read it. It is honest and raw and personal; it does not promise hope where there is none, but neither does is revel in despair when there is beauty to be celebrated; it is a lantern burning the fuel of familial love; it is completely and unapologetically Canadian and feminist and semi-autobiographical and devastating and lovely and, as Toews says herself, “perfectly human”. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

#43

“Is that all you can say?” – Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

This book has been on my list since I read Patrick Ness’ “A Monster Calls,” which he wrote based on an idea that Siobhan Dowd had before she passed away from cancer in 2007. Ness said some lovely things about her as a writer of Young Adult fiction, and I adored “A Monster Calls,” so I was keen to read something by the woman herself.

What struck me most, having read Ness’ tribute to Dowd, was how well he was able to encapsulate her author’s voice. Dowd writes frankly and accessibly, inhabiting the mind and the times of her subject with a simple grace. It is by no means a faultless piece, and I think in this case the imitator surpasses the original, but I am glad I read it.

This novel contains multitudes, but in many ways it is about being young, and how we confront things when we are young that are so much bigger than our understanding. It is about how youth navigates the complex world of adult concerns. It is set against the backdrop of the tumultuous “Troubles” in Northern Ireland in the early 80s; Fergus, the young protagonist, must deal with the IRA, hunger strikes, domestic terrorism, and his fascination with the body of a murdered child. All of these are adult problems. They come from a place of adult understanding and conflict. Fergus has thoughts and feelings and ideas and understandings about the events taking place around him; however, time and again when he tries to express these complexities to the adults in his life, he is disheartened by their lack of response. “Is that all you can say?” he asks, when he seems to have a deeper caring and understanding of the harsh realities of his world than the supposed grown-ups. That Dowd gracefully and poignantly explores the core and the root of deep and difficult issues through the eyes of a boy on the verge of manhood, reminding the reader that children see and know much more than we give them credit for, is the triumph of this book.

*****

Ten months down. Two months and 7 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – September 2016

It is pretty clear, looking at the list of books I read this month, that I lacked intentionality here. 3 of the 4 books I read were clearly more “October books,” perfectly suited for Halloween and darkening days and creeping chills. Perhaps it is a byproduct of sticking almost entirely to books which have been recommended to me by others. So much of this has been a shot in the dark, an attempt at reading boldly and diversely, that I haven’t put much thought into when I should read each book on the list; I have preferred, instead, to read books as I am able to find them, and try to find interconnections of theme and tone about which to write after the fact. Maybe I am really bad at this. Maybe I went about this all wrong. Maybe it is not the way “the pros” would have done it. Ah, well. I have read them now, and I can’t very well undo what has been done.

Here are the books I read in September, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#35

“Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can’t exist without one.” – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a literary intersection. It exists where contemporary realism meets Latin American fiction, with an added blend of nerd culture and innuendo, all topped with biting comedy and crushing tragedy. It is as diverse a novel as the cultures it pays tribute to (and simultaneously lampoons). I laughed through some chapters and read others through a misty film of sorrow, but every page was a treat to read. The novels centers around the concept of fuku, a curse perceived to follow unfortunate Dominicans throughout their lives. The “curse” weighs on every aspect of the titular Oscar’s life, sometimes light, others impossibly heavy. Of all the quotable moments in this novel of misfortunes and failures, though, none rings more true to me than Diaz’s reflection on the true nature of failure, above. We only fail because we or some other perceives that we have failed. Failure is a nothing, it is the lack of success, just as darkness is the lack of light. But failure becomes a something because it is given power by people – by ourselves or our detractors. And knowing that is how we take away its power over us.

#36

“What is more basic than the need to be known? It is the entirety of intimacy, the elixir of love, this knowing.” – Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Her Fearful Symmetry is a book club book. It is a high school English independent study novel. It is a Top Ten Book To Read On Your Summer Holiday. It is all these things, and it also happens to be excellent. I say it is the others because it is written with intention; there are themes and motifs that beg to be picked at like a loose thread on the cuff of your sleeve, and characters that are easily contrasted with their almost-too-convenient parallels. I mean, the book has the word “symmetry” in the title. If you know any high schoolers looking for an independent study recommendation, this is that. But it is also well written, dark, often poetic, well-researched, and tremendously satisfying. It is a ghost story, a love story, an illness story, a domestic drama, and it is each of these unconventionally. I truly and sincerely recommend it.

The quote above is as succinct a summary on the theme of Niffenegger’s novel as can be found. The book, at its essence, is about the ways we know each other. Being known, feeling as if someone truly knows you as you are, imperfections and all, is the crux of love. Sometimes, though, we imagine we know more of someone than we do or ever can, and those whom we know and love most deeply can still surprise and hurt us. The novel questions whether love and closeness can blind us to truly seeing one another, to knowing one another in that most basic of ways, and if we truly want to know what lies in someone’s heart.

#37

“And as doors to the next world go, a bog ain’t a bad choice. It’s not quite water and it’s not quite land – it’s an in-between place.” – Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

I wanted to read this book before seeing the Tim Burton film adaptation – it has been on my list for a long time, and the film provided a good impetus to get it out of the way. In all, I found it overwhelmingly average. It was pretty standard young adult fare, with the only exceptional element being the inclusion of real found photos by which elements of the story were inspired. It wasn’t bad by any means – it was just predictable. It was run-of-the-mill. But as with so many unexceptional books by good authors (Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies and Lawrence Hill’s The Illegal come to mind), there are moments of literary beauty and joy which seem all the more precious for being a diamond in the rough. That was the joy I found when reading Riggs’ description of the bog. It is an insightful thought well expressed, and it immediately sent me spiraling through a list of other in-between places in fiction, linking our world to another. Narnia’s wardrobe, the Secret Garden’s gate, the titular bridge to Terabithia – all are in-between places, not quite one thing and not quite another, the links between what we know and what we dream. And of course, the greatest in-between place of all, the strongest link between our lived experience and our imagination, well… that would be a book, would it not?

#38

“Your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You’ll care only about the darkness and you’ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay.” – House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

House of Leaves might be the scariest book I have ever read. I am an avid fan of horror fiction; I have made no secret of my deep love of Stephen King, and on the whole I find the genre to be engaging beyond most others. House of Leaves, though, is not the fare of Stephen King. Stephen King intersperses (mostly) otherworldy horror with incredible character development and brilliant storytelling. He is almost more of a fantasist in his worldbuilding and dreamweaving. Sure, The Shining and IT still give me the most delicious creepy crawlies even after many readings, but on the whole I do not read Stephen King to be scared. I read him because I love his stories.

The story of House of Leaves hardly matters at all. What matters is Danielewski’s incredible use of language, typography, and unheard of literary devices to create a slow-building, all-encompassing, barely-perceptible-until-it-is-all-you-can-think-about terror that gnaws at you even when the book is tucked properly away. It predates most of the current fad of faux-documentary, first-person horror films, but it preys on the same parts of your psyche. It slowly exposes unexplainable terrors happening to people just like you. you know it is supposed to be scary, and you keep waiting for the ONE BIG SCARE to happen, only to realize it has been building in the back of your mind all along, and it already has you spooked. It was a reading experience like none I have encountered before.

And now I must be vigilant, lest I let the nightmares in.

*****

Nine months down. Three months and 12 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – August 2016

Disruption. A jarring scratch on the record of normality. A run in the fabric. A thing out of place. A refusal to accept things as they are, and a devotion to upsetting the balance. These are the ideas which came back to me time and again throughout my reading this month. I read four drastically different works of fiction, but each of them embodied and embraced a theme of disorder. They shared, though with varying levels of intentionality and success, a spirit of revolution – not merely in their subject matter, but in their very existence.

August kept me guessing. It kept me uncomfortable, in that hyper-productive way that never lets you settle into complacency and routine. I grappled with each of these works in a myriad of ways – grappled with them in a way I have not been forced to in a very long time. These books were disruptors. They shook me awake. This month may be the month that gets me through to the end of this project. It was becoming all to easy to just push through, to read for the sake of the page count, of hitting the goal. These books, each in their own way, refused to be trivialized. They each elicited strong responses from me, both positive and negative, and forced me to adjust my reading. It was, to understate the point, quite a month.

Here are the books I read in August, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#31

“Harry, there is never a perfect answer in this messy, emotional world. Perfection is beyond the reach of humankind, beyond the reach of magic. In every shining moment of happiness is that drop of poison: the knowledge that pain will come again. Be honest to those you love, show your pain. To suffer is as human as to breathe.” – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne

To set the record straight up front, I did not like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. In fact, I actively hated it. As a huge fan of the original series, I wished for nine years for a return to that world, for a story that revisited that place and those people. Upon finishing the script (for it is a script to a stage production, not a novel), I found myself wishing I could take it all back. I would rather have had nothing, to have never gone back to Rowling’s wizarding world, than to have had this become “canon”. But I am not here to rant and rave about my (extreme) dislike for what this work is. I want to talk about the words.

The quotation above disrupted my reading for a number of reasons. The writing throughout the play was, in my opinion, rather lacking in substance. There was no depth, no profundity. The characters brought forward from the original stories bore no resemblance to the well-developed characters of the novels, and the new characters lacked any… anything. That was why it was a revelation to suddenly come across Dumbledore speaking like Dumbledore. Finally, a character with something to say, sounding like the person they had been established to be over the course of seven novels. Just as I was ready to toss the novel across the room and shout at it for its utter lack of redeeming qualities, this wonderful disruption allowed me to buy back in, at least a little. The language, too, is disruptive. The imagery of a drop of black poison in a cup of golden happiness is jarring in all the right ways. This was, for me, a moment of blessed relief, and a disruption from an otherwise unpleasant reading experience.

#32

“My mentality, uncontrollable and wanton as always, whispered to me a scheme so magnificent and daring that I shrank from the very thought of what I was hearing. “Stop!” I cried imploringly to my god-like mind. “This is madness.” But still I listened to the counsel of my brain. It was offering me the opportunity to Save the World Through Degeneracy.”- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Boy do I wish I had read this book before I made my list of the funniest writing I had ever encountered. Like so many great comedic minds, Toole burned out fast and bright – he killed himself before his novel was even published. Fortunately for us, his work survived beyond his life, and we have been gifted this uproarious tale of the ULTIMATE disruptor – Ignatius J. Reilly. Ignatius, besides earning a place between Falstaff and Zaphod Beeblebrox in the pantheon of comedic characters, embodies disruption in everything he does. His devotion to counter-culture, his utter loathing of the time in which he lives, and his disdain for anyone who is not himself are the foundation of his inspired worldview. He uses verbosity and eloquence to confound his detractors and get out of performing any task which may accidentally become productive. He shirks responsibility in the name of good taste. He embraces degeneracy as the principle that will save the world – and by the end, we are not sure that we disagree with him. Like his hero, Batman, Ignatius may not be the hero we want, but he is certainly the disruptive, brilliant, hysterical hero we deserve.

#33

“He paused, undecided, tried to go back to the security of the rope, but he had lost his sense of direction, there are no stars in his white sky, and what could now be heard was the sergeant’s voice as it ordered those arguing over the containers to get back to the steps, for what he was saying could have been meant only for them, to arrive where you want to be, everything depends on where you are. There were no longer any blind internees holding on to the rope, all they had to do was to return the way they had come, and now they were waiting at the top of the steps for the others to arrive. The blind man who had lost his way did not dare to move from where he was. In a state of anguish, he let out a loud cry, Please, help me, unaware that the soldiers had their rifles trained on him as they waited for him to tread on that invisible line dividing life from death.” – Blindness by Jose Saramago

Just as Ignatius J. Reilly lives to disrupt the society around him, Jose Saramago writes to disrupt our reading. He writes without conventional breaks and pauses and punctuation, without distinguishing dialogue from exposition, without rhythm or tempo. He writes to make his reader as uncomfortable as his characters. The language is stark and cold, such that beautiful phrases like “there are no stars in his white sky” or “that invisible line dividing life from death” seem alien and strange. As the characters in the novel find themselves suddenly and inexplicably blind, thrust into a world that is familiar and yet utterly alien, the reader also finds themselves navigating a realm that has all the signs of the one they inhabit daily, but with everything just out of place. It is like walking into a room you have entered a thousand times, but finding that every piece of furniture has been nailed to the ceiling. It is thoroughly disruptive, and just as thoroughly effective. I read a lot of horror stories, but I don’t know if I have ever read a novel as haunting as this.

#34

“When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.” – Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Janie Crawford’s life is the very epitome of disruption. She is a disruptor: of societal norms; of racial biases; of accepted gender norms. But so too is she, herself, disrupted: her life is tumultuous and fraught with heartbreak, disappointment, and often danger. Janie’s pursuit of her personal horizon, of love, of self-actualization is no smoothly paved boulevard. It is a winding, broken path full of double-backs and unexpected detours. But the explanation Hurston offers here, not merely for why Janie pursues love and her place in the world but why we all do, is as stunning and beautiful a metaphor as I have ever come across. Hurston’s use of eloquent, entrancing prose in juxtaposition with raw and jarring dialect is disruptive in itself – a reflection, perhaps, on the distance between Janie and her horizon. I harbour no great love for most 20th century American classics, but this book deserves every ounce of praise it has ever received.

*****

Eight months down. Four months and 16 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – July 2016

Here are the books I read in July, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#28

“The worst—for me, at least—is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.” – Nightmares and Dreamscapes by Stephen King

I have stated before that Stephen King is, in my opinion, the greatest living storyteller, and this anthology continues to reinforce that belief. It is a curious collection of short(ish) stories ranging from the horrific to the fantastic, each of them filled with vividly imagined characters and all-too-familiar places. I particularly loved the melancholy beauty of ‘My Pretty Pony,’ the outright horror of ‘The Moving Finger,’ and the excellent crafting of ‘Sorry, Right Number.’ King’s narrative imagination is so vast, and each story differs so completely in voice and style from the next, that it is hard to imagine all of these stories springing from the same author. And while there were many moments within the stories that made me chuckle or tremble or gasp aloud, the line which spoke to me most deeply actually came from King’s introduction to the collection. Our imagination, he points out, allows us to make leaps of faith and become absorbed in stories, so absorbed that words on a page can frighten and alarm us in a very real way. But far more scary to him, the king of horror himself, is the idea that one day the imagination which allows us to dream up these horrors and fantasies, the imagination which allows us to believe in something so completely for 60 pages, will one day be silenced. The scariest thing of all would be to become irrelevant and detached, to lose our ability to tumble head-first into imagined worlds.

I must say I agree.

#29

“I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.” – The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

I devoured The Ocean at the End of the Lane in more or less one day, on the shores of Canisbay Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park. Just like last year, the right book seemed to fall into my lap at just the right time in that incredible place. Gaiman’s novel is razor-sharp. Like so many of my favourite stories, it cuts right to the core of some of the questions with which I grapple most every day: the comparative value of youthful wonder and adult knowledge; the question of evil; the nature of the self; the importance of stories in the way we interact with our world. It really is an incredible piece of writing.

One of the reasons I so look forward to my yearly pilgrimage to Algonquin Park is the opportunity to disconnect. The incredible beauty and devastating calm of the forests and lakes do not merely allow introspection – they almost force it upon you. Perhaps any book read there takes on a deeper nature, because the reader is inherently altered by their surroundings; I truly believe, however, that this book was a particularly perfect choice. Gaiman says many things well. So many lines and passages spoke to me as I lay in a hammock between two tall pines, looking out at passing loons floating in deep, clear water. How the goosebumps erupted on my arms when I read, “I wondered, as I wondered so often when I was that age, who I was, and what exactly was looking at the face in the mirror. If the face I was looking at wasn’t me, and I knew it wasn’t, because I would still be me whatever happened to my face, then what was me? And what was watching?” But most of all, I latched on to the simple statement above. Books, like my beloved Algonquin, are where I have always gone when the “real” world overwhelmed. And with books like this one, can you blame me?

#30

“Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.” – from The Song of the Wandering Aengus by W.B. Yeats

Though this collection did not match, in my opinion, the excellent composition of the Holdens’ Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, it was a nice collection of some of the most memorable verses in English poetry. Few of them were unknown to me, but I think the collection serves its purpose well – to provide a library of poems which are easy enough to memorize and recall from memory, on a variety of topics. Rote memorization is a lost art (though perhaps my grandparents’ generation would say “good riddance”), and I have always admired those who can pull snatches of poetry from thin air to fit the situation. Perhaps I may try to commit a few to memory myself?

Of all the poems in this short collection, Yeats’ was one I had never encountered, and its stirring imagery of young and old love tugs at my heartstrings and tear ducts. Here I have just included the final stanza, but it is worthwhile to read all three.

*****

Seven months down. Five months and 20 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – June 2016

This month marks the halfway point in this crazy adventure – six months down, six to go, and I am two books ahead of schedule. This project has become a valuable and reliable source of meaning for me. Each month, it seems, I am discovering new favourites, adding to the list of must-reads which I relentlessly push on friends and family. It has also been an exercise in self-discovery, and one for which I am extremely grateful. This month was no different; all three books I read in June caused me to reflect on meaning, both personal and universal. A great book will entertain you while also helping you to confront the greater questions of why and wherefore that we encounter every day. In that sense, all three of these were great books. All three have chipped away a few more chunks of the veneer in my mind, and brought me a small step closer to meaning. Thank you, those who have continued to read these thoughts; I hope they have created some sort of meaning for someone beyond myself.

Here are the books I read in June, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#25

“I’ve been thinking lately about immortality. What it means to be remembered, what I want to be remembered for, certain questions concerning memory and fame. I love watching old movies. I watch the faces of long-dead actors on the screen, and I think about how they’ll never truly die. I know that’s a cliché but it happens to be true. Not just the famous ones who everyone knows, the Clark Gables, the Ava Gardners, but the bit players, the maid carrying the tray, the butler, the cowboys in the bar, the third girl from the left in the nightclub. They’re all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.” – Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

In Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel has struck an incredible balance; it manages to be post-apocalyptic, literary, introspective, and undeniably Canadian, all without slipping into stereotypes from any of these genres. It is a book about art and beauty, fate and coincidence, prophecy and agency. Most of all, though, it is about who we are when everything else falls away, and all we have left is each other – the effects, both great and small, we have on the players who cross the stages of our lives. Mandel confronts the terrifying reality that nothing is permanent, that the things to which we dedicate our time, our passion, and our lives will eventually be forgotten. Questions of legacy and remembrance have always cut to the core of me; I am working on a story of my own centred around what it is to be remembered. Mandel spins an intricate and delicate web of cause and effect throughout her novel, but this quotation, I feel, sums it up rather beautifully. We all seek to leave an impression, to be remembered. We want our brief time on stage to make a mark – but no matter what mark we make, whether we are Gables and Gardners or just walk-ons, it will never outlast the inevitability of time. And maybe that is ok.

#26

“Let’s look on the bright side: we’re having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are.” – The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Princess Bride is another book which I regret having waited so long to read. Had I read it earlier, I certainly would have included it in my list of works of comedic genius. Goldman’s wit inspires some literally laugh-out-loud moments, and his unique approach to storytelling delivers on its promise of an epic romance-adventure without any of the boring bits. Most people are intimately familiar with the film version of the book, for which Goldman himself wrote the script, and I was delighted to discover that all of my favourite moments from the film were lifted directly from the pages of the novel. Goldman was terrifically loyal to his own work. If anything, seeing the characters, the jokes, and the delicious wordplay expanded upon and given depth (in the way that only a novel can) has just made me appreciate both film and book all the more. Just as in the film, Goldman tempers his undeniable hilarity with gentle poignancy. The book is ultimately a love letter to fiction, and a call to arms. Goldman invited the reader to step away from the distractions and get lost in a good book. He reminds us how fun it can be to get caught up in a good adventure, to fall in love with fictional characters, to laugh at their mishaps and cry for their tragedies. I could have chosen one of dozens of lines which made my sides hurt with laughter (“You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is ‘Never get involved in a land war in Asia,’ but only slightly less well known is this: ‘Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.'”), but instead I chose Inigo’s observation above to sum up my experience with this wonderful book. Reading, as life, is at its best when it is an adventure. How lucky are we who get to come along for the ride?

#27

“So why study history? Unlike physics or economics, history is not a means for making accurate predictions. We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.” – Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens is a rare thing. It is one of those books, for me at least, that will act as a marker, a signpost by which all other things will be measured. Without hyperbole, it has changed any and all preconceptions I had about creative nonfiction. It has created in my mind one of those indelible moments that contextualizes everything else. All nonfiction I have read, and all I will read henceforth, will be divided into two distinct periods: before Sapiens and after Sapiens.

Yuval Noah Harari has written what can only be described as the definitive history of our species. He has combined history, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, economics, linguistics, psychology, biology, and pretty well every other discipline into one accessible, coherent, and extraordinarily compelling narrative. It is the story of who we are, and how we came to be this way. It is as engaging as it is genius, which is to say very. I am convinced it should be required reading in every first-year university program in every discipline around the world. I flatter myself in that I like to consider myself reasonably intelligent; I think I have a pretty good grasp of the world and my place within it. After reading Harari’s account, I am faced with the uncomfortable reality of my own extreme ignorance. Thankfully, Harari’s book exists. I already know that my copy will become one of the most well-thumbed books on my shelves, as I revisit it again and again.

I took history in university, and so I am used to being asked the question which Harari addresses in the quotation above. I will let his answer speak for itself. I will say only this: you should read this book.

*****

Six months down. Six months and 23 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – May 2016

May was perhaps the most diverse month of reading I have ever done. Young adult fiction rubbed shoulders with Shakespeare, who led into sociological essays and an American classic, all to be wrapped up with one wickedly entertaining and one wickedly depressing novel. The contrasts between these various works made me appreciate each one more deeply. I have been overwhelmed, during this project, by the reality of just how much there is to read. There are times when I have considered slowing my pace, when I just don’t feel like reading, but what always keeps me going is the knowledge that there is still so much out there I have not read. Since beginning to consciously consider my reading choices and expand my horizons at the start of the year, it has become abundantly clear to me that I have been missing out on an awful lot. My prejudices and preferences would have kept me from reading so many of the books I have read already this year, including some of the ones I have enjoyed the most.

If you are at all interested, I would encourage you to make a list of the last 10 books you read, and see if you have fallen into similar patterns. Are you a niche reader, as I have been? Do you tend to stick with what is comfortable, what is familiar, and avoid the unknown? As you pick out the ever-popular “summer reading list”, I would encourage you to make at least one BOLD choice. Take a risk. Read dangerously. It just might be the best choice you can make.

Here are the books I read in May, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#19

“Truth be told, I liked that blurriness. That line where reality and fiction jutted up against each other. And when Dobson had said those ugly things, I’d lunged a him because he’d dragged Holmes kicking and screaming into this world, one where people left litter on the quad and had to leave a conversation to use the toilet, where assholes tormented a girl because she wouldn’t sleep with them.” – A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

The bottom line of Brittany Cavallaro’s Sherlock Holmes send-up is that it is just a lot of fun. It is a quick and easy caper with likable heroes and engaging twists, not too deep and never taking itself too seriously. But as with all good Young Adult fiction, there are moments of really fine writing and observation, which serve to add relevancy to the visions of idealized adolescence. One of the main themes running through A Study in Charlotte is one which has been addressed in many contemporary YA novels; that being the divide between the way we imagine the people in our lives and the reality of who they are. In this passage, Cavallaro sums up so well the ways in which we idealize the other, and also the ways in which real life forces us to confront that idolization.

I also appreciated Cavallaro’s obvious respect and love of her source material, that being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Holmes stories. I have stressed in this blog before how strongly I feel about truth and honour in adaptation. The author does an exceptional job of building on the universe and expanding the fiction without denying the original. I will be looking for the sequel!

#20

“There are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!” – Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

I felt a little guilty counting Much Ado as a book towards my goal of 50; I have read the Complete Works a few times, and a play is rarely the length of a proper novel. But I will not take it back. I read it, so it counts!

Lifting one line or one quotation from Much Ado proved difficult. It is not as “quotable” as many of the Bard’s plays, for the simple reason that much of the script’s brilliance comes from lengthy battles of wit between Beatrice and Bendick. To explain why the play is hysterically funny and holds up brilliantly 400 years later would get lost in the telling. Rather than extract a full scene (Act IV Scene I comes to mind), I will simply remark that I was stirred by the line above. I got engaged recently, and since have been blessed to be privy to many tears of joy. Leonato’s observation rings true to me. A face washed by happy tears is the truest face you will ever see.

#21

“Frequently when we see great performers doing what they do, it strikes us that they’ve practiced for so long, and done it so many times, they can just do it automatically. But in fact, what they have achieved is the ability to avoid doing it automatically.” – Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin

As I remarked when I read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, I do not set much store in sociology. I found Colvin’s book more engaging than Gladwell’s, certainly, though the margin was not wide. I will not delve into my dislike for sociology again. That has been well covered, I think. Talent Is Overrated redeems its inherent flaws, however, by covering a subject that is genuinely very interesting. How some people become prolific at one thing while thousands of other fail is a very intriguing premise. Colvin’s answer is what he calls “deliberate practice”, practice that is specifically designed for performance improvement. More intriguing to me was his definition of greatness, as in the quotation above. I had never given it much thought, but it is true: the GREATEST people at any task are not the ones who are so accustomed that they can do it in their sleep; they are the people who approach each instance with the freshness, effort, and attention of the first time, considering each detail and striving for excellence.

#22

“You can read every day where a dog saved the life of a drowning child, or lay down his life for his master. Some people call this loyalty. I don’t. I may be wrong, but I call it love–the deepest kind of love.” – Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

It has been 13 years or more since I read this book in elementary school. It is even sadder than I remembered. It is deceptive in its simplicity and brutal in its honesty. I will let this one speak for itself.

#23

“You can lie to yourself, say that you never had a choice, that you weren’t cut out for this. But deep down you’ll know. You’ll know that humans aren’t cut out for anything. We cut ourselves out. Slowly, like a rusty knife. Because otherwise, here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to die and you’re going to stand at the gates of judgement and you’re going to ask God what was the meaning of it all, and God will say, ‘I created the universe, you little shit. It was up to you to give it meaning.'” – Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits was a RIDE. The pacing is lightning fast, the humour is biting, and the writing is sharp and precise. It is a dystopian novel in the same way that Die Hard is a Christmas movie; it doesn’t follow many (if any) genre tropes, but instead uses dystopia as a backdrop for one of the most exciting, page-turning action stories I have ever read. The characters are larger than life – they exist almost beyond the point of empathy. But you don’t necessarily need to feel for them because you are too busy holding on for dear life as the plot races forward. It was utterly different, and I loved every page.

The quotation above demonstrates what was perhaps most refreshing about the book. So much of contemporary fiction is concerned with discovering the meaning of life, the meaning of love, and the meaning of suffering. It was an amazing change of pace to have an author essentially say, “Forget all that.” Life may not have inherent meaning. Maybe it is just what you make it. Instead of asking why bad things happen to good people, maybe we just need to accept that they do, and figure out what we are going to do to stick it to the bad things that come our way.

#24

“Yet there was something else, something different about her this time, like a room where someone has thrown out all the flowers while you were gone: a change in the interior you don’t even notice at first, not until you see the stems sticking out of the garbage.” – The Dinner by Herman Koch

Finally, a book about the brokenness of people and the base instincts that lie dangerously close to the surface of our society that doesn’t try to make it seem like it will all be ok. Sometimes it won’t all be ok. Some people go to extreme lengths to make peace with the darkness. Some people’s lives are irreversibly changed in the blink of an eye, and the rest of their lives are spent coping with that one moment, one decision that could have made things different.

Koch’s book is the ultimate in voyeurism. It gives the reader a glimpse into the private lives of people who are uncomfortably everyday, uncomfortably relatable. “This could be you. Aren’t you glad you are sitting one table over, listening in on their private horror instead of living it yourself?” I will say no more, in case you haven’t read it. But you should absolutely read it. Wow, should you ever.

*****

Five months down. Seven months and 26 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – April 2016

The march to 50 slowed considerably this past month; I only managed to read 3 books in April. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I got engaged, or the fact that two of the three books were 1000+ page epics, or perhaps I just hit a bit of a wall trying to keep up the pace. Whatever the reason, my reading slowed down a bit this month, and it turns out that is not such a bad thing.

I have always been a fast reader. For as long as I can remember, I have consumed books as quickly as I can, often sitting down to start a novel and not getting up until I finished. There is something undeniably delightful about immersing yourself so completely in the world of a novel that you are oblivious to the passage of time. For whatever reason, though, I just wasn’t able to do that this month. The business of living ate up a lot of time I would have spent reading. And as it turns out, short escapes into fiction snatched from the gnashing jaws of time can be just as sweet a release as binge-reading. Finding moments, ten minutes at a time, to slow down the hurtling spin of the earth and let your mind go is a delight as well.

I hope I get to go back to the binge – I do have a goal to reach, after all, and 3 books a month won’t get me there. But I am glad that circumstance intervened this month and forced me to slow down and enjoy these books, because I truly did enjoy all 3.

Here are the books I read in April, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#16

“What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?” – Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

I have to admit, I had ulterior motives in adding the first installment of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series of graphic novels to my list of books to read this year. In part it was in keeping with my goal to diversify and expand my reading from my usual fare; but somewhere in the back of my mind, I am certain I was thinking it would be an easy tally. I would limit myself to one graphic novel; one “gimme,” if you will. I mean, it is basically just a long comic book – I could probably knock it out in an hour or two and wam-bam-thank you ma’am, cross it off the list.

Wrong.

I have never been much into graphic novels. I mean, I read the popular ones that everyone was reading in high school – V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and the like – but I had forgotten how visceral and real a story can become using a literary-visual medium. The graphic novel is, in many ways, the ultimate test of a writer’s craft. They must essentially tell their story using as few words as possible. Like a poem, each word must be weighed carefully for efficacy and impact, because space is limited! Perhaps you may use fewer words for character description, as the characters become fully visualized for the audience in the illustrations; however, dialogue and motivation must be razor sharp and extremely efficient. I expected something light and easy to breeze through, but I discovered a challenging, thoughtful, expertly-crafted work of fantasy that completely blew me away.

Gaiman’s creation is not for kids. It is an adult story full of adult ideas. It tackles power dynamics, sexual abuse, mental illness, and philosophy. There are dozens of fascinating ideas introduced in this first volume alone, and I had a hard time picking just one. In the end I chose the perfectly phrased question above; in many ways, it is the ultimate question of morality. Does evil exist apart from good? Do we only understand suffering in comparison to euphoria? Is Hell merely the un-Heaven? Obviously entire libraries of books have been written on this topic; philosophical treatises, Master’s theses, and Young Adult novels have been tackling this question for hundreds of years, and we are probably no closer to a definitive answer than when it was first posed. But to find such a complex idea expressed so succinctly in a medium which I have wrongly been discounting for so many years was just the wake-up I deserved.

#17

“In twenty-four years of proofreading, flocks of words flew into my head through the windows of my soul. Some of them stayed on and built nests in there. Why should I not speak like a poet, with a commonwealth of language at my disposal, constantly invigorated by new arrivals?”

And

“His sentences poured out like perfect seams, holding the garment of his story together without calling attention to the stitches. Was he aware of ordering the events for her? Perhaps not—perhaps the very act of telling created a natural design. Perhaps it was a knack that humans had, for cleaning up their untidy existences—a hidden survival weapon, like antibodies in the bloodstream.” – A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

A Fine Balance was a hard book to read. If I hadn’t promised myself to finish every book I start on this crazy quest, I would have putt it down about 100 pages in. Heck, maybe even 300. I just didn’t like it. I couldn’t get into the writing style, I was alienated by the cultural references, and I was overwhelmingly bummed out by the extremely depressing subject matter. It was hard to make myself pick it up and keep going once I had put it down. But then, about halfway through the book, something changed. The something was not the book, mind you; it was still as difficult and depressing as ever. The something that changed was me. The book wore me down. The writing ingrained itself in my reading of the book, and became less of a distraction. Mistry holds his cards close to his chest, and character development is a long and drawn-out ordeal. You re given snippets and snapshots of the characters’ lives throughout the novel, instead of all at once at the beginning. And as their personal histories unfolded and began to weave together, I began to feel empathy such as I have very rarely felt for fictional characters. By the end of the book, I was weeping. I still wanted to stop reading, but now it was because I felt it too keenly. I was fully invested in the lives of these people, suffering in India’s oppressive caste system, looking for truth and beauty and love among the wreckage of their lives. It was transformative.

By the time I finished the book (and it is a long one), my list of marked passages and words to remember was longer than any other book I have read so far. It was so long, in fact, that I could not, in good conscience, pick just one. I finally settled on the two above.

The first is somewhat of a selfish choice, a bit of redemption and retaliation for times I was teased or ridiculed growing up. I pride myself on being well-read and well-spoken. I am a huge nerd. And I am proud of that, now. Growing up, though, it was not always easy to be the one kid who used bigger words and always had his nose in a book. I never lived through the serious bullying and other ordeals which many kids had to deal with, but my peer group was undoubtedly smaller because I was different. I liked to learn. I loved going to school. I read while other kids played sports and video games. Maybe I missed out on some things back then. But now? Now I can read 50 books a year. Now I can write clearly and confidently. Now I can speak with a comprehensive vocabulary, and hold my own in intellectual debates. And because I can, I should. I will not apologize for loving words. I will not apologize for using the biggest words I can think of, if they communicate my thoughts or accentuate my arguments. Love words, and use the words you love.

The second quotation speaks to my deepest passion, which is stories. Few things fascinate me more than the stories we tell and, more specifically, the ways we tell stories. Our own perspective within our own personal narrative shapes the way we tell the story of ourselves. Try as we might, we cannot separate ourselves from our story. Our agency affects the way we remember and recount the events of our lives. We are not always aware of the changes we make to our own narrative; we remember some times through rose-coloured glasses, and others we cast in cold, harsh light. We are all the main characters in our own stories, but we may only have a walk-on role in someone else’s. The important thing, though, is that the story continues to be told. Recounting the events of your life, both extraordinary and mundane, is the path to self-understanding. And often you can learn more about yourself from the way you remember your life than what it is you remember.

#18

“He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy’s song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.” – Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

After the heaviness of A Fine Balance, Susanna Clarke’s epic was pure bliss. It is, first and foremost, a fun novel. It is brimming with dry English wit in the tradition of Jane Austen, with just a hint of absurdism in the tradition of every British comedian ever. It is part Napoleonic war epic, part fairy tale, and part domestic countryside drama. It does not get bogged down with heavy ideas or trying to make a Greater Observation About The Nature Of Humanity. It is a great story, perfectly told. It is, in a word, delightful.

The only times throughout the novel where Clarke liberates her language and allows herself to drift away from dry observational wit and snappy dialogue are instances like the one above, wherein she describes the effects of magic. The novel is about two magicians, so you would think this would be common occurrences. However, the titular magicians spend most of the novel performing magic “like Englishmen;” Clarke is very self-deprecating in her depiction of the English. They are an uptight bunch who cannot do away with clearly defined rules and theories, even if it limits them in their pursuit of bringing magic back to England. By comparison, the description of fairy-magic above, the antithesis of English magic, is beautiful and mystical in a way that dry English magic could never be. It was a startling and effective change of pace to read it, and a tremendous use of language. Clarke has never written another novel, but I dearly hope she will.

*****

Four months down. Eight months and 32 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – March 2016

March was a month of extremes. Where I live in southern Ontario, we saw weather that hinted at an early summer, followed quickly by one of the worst ice storms in recent memory. American political discourse continues to be dominated by extremists on either end of the spectrum. Christian religions celebrated holy days of extreme sorrow and extreme joy. It is only fitting, then, that each book I read this month was extremely and utterly different than the last. My enjoyment of each was wide and varied as well, and for the first time since I began this project, I found a book hard to finish. But finish I did, as I promised myself I would. The literary world is rich with extremes, and as I explore the space off of my own beaten path, I am discovering new things to love and to forget. From time travel murder mystery to Romantic English poetry to travelogue, nothing I read this month fell into the amorphous middle.

Here are the books I read in March, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#10

“The future is not as loud as war, but it is relentless. It has a terrible fury all its own.” – The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls was a tremendously enjoyable read. It is a thumping good time travel story disguised as a murder mystery, and Beukes’ writing is absolutely engrossing. I don’t like to overplay the “couldn’t put it down” narrative, but it was true in this case. As is often the way with time travel stories, there were a few philosophical musings about the nature of time and the future, fate and free will; unlike many authors, though, Beukes does not come across as desperate or bumbling as she weaves these deeper ideas into her prose. She simply tells her story well, and lets the more profound observations come about naturally.

Such is the case with the quotation above. It is eloquent and beautiful in its simplicity. The terrible, cacophonous uncertainty of war is a tension I am fortunate not to have to worry about every day. But there is another cacophony which is constantly near me; it is the sound of all my possible futures colliding and coming apart, redefined in each moment of my present. It is always there, always changing, full of threat and promise.

#11

“That’s how things were out here in the wild, she was learning. Dangerous or beautiful. Or both.” – Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

It took a while for me to get into Uglies. As I have written on this blog before, there is a saturation of dystopian fiction among Young Adult novels. Some of these are worse and some better than Uglies. It probably took me until half way through the book to buy into the world that Westerfeld was building, but I am glad I stuck with it because it certainly got stronger as it progressed. It is a good alternative for any teacher to suggest you young teens when they don’t want to read another report on The Hunger Games, but it does not do anything that that book and a hundred others have not done. The novel is the first of a series of four; it depicts a world in which all conflict and sadness has been eradicated by giving everyone plastic surgery. Predictably, it takes a plucky teenage girl to fight back against the oppressive system and save the day. Despite this less-than-promising premise, however, Uglies has a few redeeming moments of clarity and good writing to reconcile itself to the reader.

The quotation above pretty neatly summarizes the two main theses of the story: that even beautiful things can be destructive, and that there is beauty in the discordant harmony of nature. Nature, and human nature, is rife with imperfection. Dangerously so. But that does not make it any less beautiful. In the same way, beautiful things and beautiful people are not without threat and pain and loss. Not the most life-changing revelation, perhaps, but a quietly important one.

#12

“They went out to the corral to be in the place where there were horses.” – Plainsong by Kent Haruf

Melancholy. That is the word for Kent Haruf’s Plainsong. Melancholy and beautiful. It is a small town story about small town people dealing with small town problems. It is about being good to one another. It is about the ways in which we make communities out of isolation. Haruf’s writing style is plain and straightforward. It is as efficient as any writing I have ever read; there is not one wasted word nor punctuation mark to be found. Yet in his exceedingly simple prose, Haruf finds ways to speak universal truths. He does not need flowery language or heavy metaphor to stir the reader deeply. Sometimes we are kind because we are kind. We help because if we do not, no one will. I wiped a tear away when I read the line above, and I do again writing about it now. Because sometimes you have no deeper motivation for a thing than the thing itself. You do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Sometimes, in moments of great strife, you go to the corral to be in the place where there are horses.

#13

“Every religion lies. Every moral precept is a delusion. Even the stars are a mirage. The truth is darkness, and the only thing that matters is making a statement before one enters it. Cutting the skin of the world and leaving a scar. That’s all history is, after all: scar tissue.” – Mr Mercedes by Stephen King

I am, as I have said before, a Constant Reader of Stephen King. I have also said that I believe he is the greatest living storyteller. In Mr Mercedes, he has written more of a procedural crime drama than his standard fantasy/horror fare, but the trademark excellence is still out in full force. It was a tense and gripping read, made even more so by a truly detestable villain. The antagonist, Brady Hartsfield, is creepy and vile in an almost-too-real way, while also being uncomfortably recognizable. The quotation above is an example of his thinking; it is a perverse and horrible way to think about the world, but have we not all thought that way from time to time? That we may never leave a mark unless it is a scar? That we may never be remembered except for the wrongs we do? That the world is set against us, and the only way we can control our own fate is to break? Thankfully, most of us only think that way in our darkest moments. But in typical Stephen King fashion, the scariest thing to confront is the worst version of yourself.

#14

“My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,

As if life’s business were a summer mood;

As if all needful things would come unsought

To genial faith, still rich in genial good;

But how can He expect that others should

Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?” – Resolution and Independence VI by William Wordsworth

If there is one thing I regret about the incredibly privileged education which I received growing up, it is the neglect of poetry. I am unspeakably fortunate to have had access to free, safe, comprehensive education delivered by, I am certain, some of the greatest teachers in history. And perhaps the curricula are too full of things which are deemed “useful” or “necessary”, things which students will use to become functioning and productive members of society, to give students a thorough grounding in English Romantic poetry. However, as I have come to appreciate and then to love poetry years later, I cannot help but wonder if I may have come to love it sooner if my exposure to it in school had gone beyond haiku and Shakespeare. What a waste, not to have read Wordsworth until now! But all is not lost – the catch-up has been a delight.

The stanza above, the sixth in a longer poem, begs one of the central questions of our existence: the question of suffering. Why do good people not receive what is surely owed to them for their goodness? Why do bad things happen to the virtuous? If there is a God, why does he not answer my prayers? Wordsworth does not necessarily have an answer, but he preaches a message of perseverance; all each of us can do is weather the storm, doing the things which it is appointed to us to do, and hope. The race is long, and the only way to lose is to stop running. It is a good message beautifully delivered. I am grateful for the length of the race. It means more time for poetry.

#15

“In the time between the two wars, a British colonial officer said that with the invention of the airplane the world has no secrets left. However, he said, there is one last mystery. There is a large country on the Roof of the World, where strange things happen. There are monks who have the ability to separate mind from body, shamans and oracles who make government decisions, and a God-King who lives in a skyscraper-like palace in the Forbidden City of Lhasa.” – Seven Years in Tibet by Heinrich Harrer

Overall, I found Seven Years In Tibet to be, well, dry. Somewhere near the two-thirds mark, I gave very strong consideration to just putting it down, crossing it off the list, and replacing it with something else. Perhaps something was lost in the translation from Harrer’s native German, or perhaps it is just the way he wrote, but the writing is about as flavourless as any I have ever read. The dull way in which Harrer relays the extraordinary events of his life stands in sharp contrast to the events themselves, and the mysterious and wondrous place in which they happened. He was the first European to truly explore and live in one of the most mysterious places on earth. He spent years tutoring the Dalai Lama. And yet, if you were to judge based on the writing, you would think he was relaying the story of tea with his stuffy Aunt Mildred. Do not misunderstand me – Harrer’s life story is fascinating. It is just that he isn’t very good at making it seem that way.

In 1996, however, he added an epilogue to his book, and it was in this epilogue that he finally hit his stride. It is as if, when he was writing the book with the events fresh in his mind, he was unable to appreciate how incredible they were. Only years later, when he was a much older man, could he look back on that time in his life and see it for the spectacle that it was. The quotation above, I feel, is the proper expression of awe which is owed to that extraordinary story, to Tibet, and to its people.

*****

Three months down. Nine months and 35 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!

Words on Words – February 2016

This idea, this commitment to read 50 books this year, has already paid dividends. The five books I read in February (books 5-9, overall) were more widely varied than I have read in a long time. Besides the sheer volume of reading I have set for myself, I wanted a few other things to come out of this project. One was to read books recommended by others, and the other was to read more widely than I would otherwise tend to. I have certainly carved a niche for myself in my reading over the last few years; this project has already introduced me to a few incredible books that I probably would not have even picked up otherwise. This project may be of no interest to anyone but myself, and perhaps these updates are merely self-serving, a reminder for myself in posterity. That is reason enough.

Here are the books I read in February, in order, and the words therein that stayed with me:

#5

“It was one of those moments, thankfully rare, when you can spot another person’s core needs, almost by accident – absolutely by accident since those needs are almost graphic when blatant, like seeing the musculature and tendon required to prop up hope.” – & Sons by David Gilbert

If I could have simply copied and pasted the entire manuscript of this novel as one quotation, I would have. & Sons (“Ampersand Sons”, not “And Sons”, for reasons which become apparent in the novel) is a testament to why writing is counted among the arts. Gilbert’s mastery of metaphor and his razor-sharp word choices often read more like poetry than prose. I consumed this book, as it consumed me. The story, about the relationships between and aging writer, his sons, and the family of his childhood friend, is as engrossing as I have read. It parts the curtain on the effect that success and genius can have on relationships, and the ways in which, rightly or wrongly, artists are seen as something more than human. The book is full of Important Questions and Deep Insights. But it was above all else the beauty of Gilbert’s writing, the care with which each sentence was crafted and fine-tuned, which completely took me in. The example above is just one of hundreds. How can you not become taken by a story which takes such a relatable moment, encountering another person in a moment of utter vulnerability, and makes it so visceral? “The musculature and tendon required to prop up hope” is one of the most strikingly beautiful phrases I have ever read. I could not recommend this book more highly.

#6

“Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.” – The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

As noted in last month’s round-up, I am a big fan of Patrick Ness. He has written some of the best contemporary Young Adult fiction out there, as well as the astonishingly beautiful The Crane Wife. This newest offering was fine, but in the context of the rest of his writing, it fell pretty flat for me. The premise is strong, and Ness uses a very entertaining device to deliver that premise effectively: the novel is about the lives of the secondary characters in teen science fiction stories, the ones to whom the crazy, world-saving events are NOT happening, and so each chapter is introduced as being about some incredible, fantastical event, and then proceeds to be about something else entirely. It is clever, it is fun. But the problem is that the story being told about these secondary characters is a flat one. The quotation above is the “aha” moment of the novel, and is a perfectly fine one as “aha ” moments go; most of us will never be extraordinary, and that is ok, so long as we do our ordinary things the best we can. But if that was the only thing you read in the entire book, I don’t feel like you would have gotten any less out of it than I did reading the whole thing.

#7

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair–the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.” – On Writing by Stephen King

On Writing has been on my list for a long time. A LONG time. King is, in my eyes, the greatest storyteller living today. A book on writing written by my favourite writer? Sounds too good to be true.

It was not. I am not treading any new ground by saying that On Writing is the quintessential book on the writer’s craft. It is accessible, honest, blunt, and inspirational. King approaches his role of professor with humility and grace, hoping to guide aspiring writers with his own successes and failures. This should be mandatory reading in every high school English class in the world. I have no doubt that my copy will become one of the most dog-eared books in my library as I thumb through to re-read flagged passages time and again, hoping to hone my own writing to something worth a reader’s time.

It is hard to pick one lesson which stood out among a master class, but the nugget above has certainly stuck with me. Write. Write what you know, and what you feel, and what you fear, and what you love. Do not try to isolate those things which are real from your writing. Writing cannot be done well if it is meaningless to you. If you take it lightly, so will your reader. Instead, harness all the meaning from your experience of life and let THAT be what drives your writing.

#8

“Violence harms the one who does it as much as the one who receives it. You could cut down a tree with an axe. The axe does violence to the tree, and escapes unharmed. Is that how you see it? Wood is soft compared to steel, but the sharp steel is dulled as it chops, and the sap of the tree will rust and pit it. The mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it. So it is with men, though the harm is in the spirit.” – The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

It took me a while to become invested in the gargantuan world which Robert Jordan has created. The Wheel of Time is one of the most widely read fantasy series ever published, and its scope is absolutely massive. Once I got past the initial, overwhelming exposure to this world, I was able to enjoy the story for what it was: an epic battle between good and evil which makes no attempt to hide its derivations from Tolkien, but walks its own path in the end. I will certainly read more of the series (thought perhaps not all of it, as there are twelve books and they are all encyclopedic), but not this year. No time, you understand.

The problem with choosing a quotation from this book was that it was virtually unquotable. The excellence in this book is the storytelling and the world-building, not the writing. The writing, especially in comparison to a titan of the genre such as Tolkien, is actually fairly simplistic. The quotation above, about the ways in which we hurt ourselves and others, is the diamond in the rough; it is the one time the author steps back to wax philosophical and make a larger observation about humanity. And it is a darn good observation, at that.

#9

“Make sure you tell the whole story.” – The Illegal by Lawrence Hill

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation holds the “Canada Reads” competition each year, celebrating excellence in Canadian writing through exploration of a certain theme. This year’s theme is “starting over,” and The Illegal is among the 5 finalists. It is the story of a marathon runner living as an illegal immigrant in the fictional nation of Freedom State. The novel is as timely as they come, with so much global attention focused on refugees and immigration issues. It was not a long read, nor quite in the same stratus as Hill’s hugely acclaimed The Book of Negroes, but it was a distinctly Canadian look at its central topic.

Like The Eye of the World, however, it was not an overly quotable novel. The line I chose comes from the end of the book, and deals with the standards to which we should hold media outlets and governments when presenting issues of national importance. In North America in particular, cultural consciousness is informed and inflamed by partisan media representing special interests instead of truth. The message of the novel is that every issue is complex, every story contains multitudes. Right and wrong, good and bad are rarely as simple as all that. Our duty as providers and consumers of media is to make sure that stories are told truthfully and responsibly.

*****

Two months down. Ten months and 41 books to go! Check back every month for more Words on Words and other thoughts on An Awfully Big Adventure!