I've Moved

Kiss a cloud's new home is here.

Please update your readers, thanks.

Painting by Edward Hopper.

A Mercy

My head is light with the confusion of two things, hunger for you and scare if I am lost. Nothing frights me more than this errand and nothing is more temptation. From the day you disappear I dream and plot. To learn where you are and how to be there. I want to run across the trail through the beech and white pine but I am asking myself which way? Who will tell me? Who lives in the wilderness between this farm and you and will they help me or harm me? What about the boneless bears in the valley? Remember? How when they move their pelts sway as though there is nothing underneath? Their smell belying their beauty, their eyes knowing us from when we are beasts also. You telling me that is why it is fatal to look them in the eye. They will approach, run to us to love and play which we misread and give back fear and anger. [5]

How do I love Toni Morrison? Let me count the ways. Song of Solomon. Beloved. Sula. The Bluest Eye. Jazz. And now, A Mercy.

Because of its length (less than 200 pages) and limited scope, A Mercy gets the rap for being inferior to its predecessors. I agree that it doesn't have the magnificence of Beloved nor the brilliance of Song of Solomon; not the raw magnetism of Sula nor the artful innocence of The Bluest Eye, but I appreciate its own merits.

A Mercy doesn't claim to be a comprehensive novel on slavery in the 17th century. What it tries to do instead, and how I see it, is paint a picture of the dynamics between mothers and daughters, and how slavery affected this most basic and necessary familial construct.

Toni Morrison will always be an emotional experience for me. Less dazzling this time, perhaps, but not any less weighty.

Moby-Dick Update

Today marks the tenth week of Ti of Book Chatter's read-along of Moby-Dick or, The Whale, by Herman Melville. The idea is to read about four pages a day, but since I'm coming in late to the party I thought reading about ten pages a day might do until I caught up. I started reading the other night, however, and in two nights finished 144 pages. Can you tell I love it?

I know a few other participants didn't connect with the book and are finding it tedious, and have heard many not-so-good opinions about it before, so while I cherished the thought of reading a sea-faring yarn I still came into it with some reserve. But oh, from the very first sentence, the experience was only enjoyment, pure and absolute.

A little summary of the first 31 chapters (with *spoilers*):

Ishmael, previously a sailor of merchant ships, now decides to become a whaler. He goes to New Bedford to find a boat headed for Nantucket, where he plans to sail from, as he claims it the 'great original' whaling place. While waiting for the boat, he stops at an inn near the docks, in which he is forced to share a bed with another as the house is full. His bed-mate, a harpooner, is a heavily-tattooed 'savage' named Queequeg, who at first frightens him, but later discovers is a kind and gentle-hearted person. They form a bond and become bosom friends and decide to go whaling together.

They arrive in Nantucket and proceed to look for a ship to sail on. Ishmael decides on the Pequod, which is going on a three-year whaling voyage, led by the mysterious Captain Ahab. Ishmael and Queequeg apply to be boarded on the ship and are accepted; meet Captains Peleg and Bildad, owners of the ship. Necessary preparations are made for the ship's voyage; Ishmael has a number of dark forebodings (particularly a certain Elijah warning him about Ahab). When they set sail, we meet the characters on board with them: Starbuck the first mate, Stubb the second mate, and Flask the third mate; and their harpooners (apart from Queequeg), Tashtego and Daggoo. Finally, Captain Ahab, who at last comes out of his cabin and shows his face. (*Spoilers end*)

So that pretty much sums up the whole 31 chapters; seemingly only a prelude to the main adventure. However, the whole atmosphere of the book, the setting, characters, the language, all felt like an adventure from the beginning, to me.

While Ishmael's musings and deliberations might seem long-winding to some, I reveled in them. One of the most enlightening parts (probably my favourite) was Chapter 24 wherein he argues the significance and illustriousness of being a whaler in comparison to being a soldier.

In trying to come up with a proper way to describe the language, I searched online and found many different ways readers have defined it: metaphorical and stylized, labyrinthine and primordial. But the best description I've seen is this comment by Maurice S. Lee that Moby-Dick is "simultaneously traditional and inventive, simultaneously a part and ahead of its time."

I didn't think it fathomable to have found so many lovely passages in a book about whaling.

Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water . . . meditation and water are wedded for ever. [4]

Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face--at least to my taste--his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart . . . [55]

Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort. [66]

He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks on the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales. [70-71]

. . . let him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all--Presbyterians and Pagans alike--for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and sadly need mending. [90]

Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. [126]

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. [137]

Oh, and did I mention Melville had, in fact, a funny-bone?

Please visit Ti of Book Chatter for links to other participants. Also, I'd like to highlight Jill of Rhapsody in Books for her educational and highly entertaining updates.

Above illustration by Barry Moser.

Mrs Dalloway

I have just now finished reading Mrs Dalloway and not sure what's going to come out of this post. How to describe it? I don't think I'm capable. It's not that it overwhelmed me; I was surprised that Virginia Woolf's writing actually seemed friendlier than I thought it would. Rather, the flitting in-and-out of thoughts, memories, current states, while utterly beautiful, felt so intangible and impossible to grasp; hazy, like being blanketed in fog.

Rarely are books conducive to rereading but this is one of them. The plot is inconsequential compared to the insights gleaned along the way. My experience with this initial reading (for I plan to go back to it soon) was mainly getting to sample the delectable prose, gaining a general overview of the characters and the events of the day, faint glimpses into their past; the particular details quite lost on me. Which is okay, because, like I said, this is a book meant to be reread over and over. The kind which, with each rereading, opens up something new, like a rosebud blossoming a little with every visit. It will never grow old.

I saw Mrs Dalloway beyond being poetry in fiction. Initially, the sentence structure appeared to me more like a song, rather than a poem. The constant fluidity offered by her stream-of-consciousness writing flowed like music, a train of melodious reveries, a tune unrelenting to the end. But, in the introduction by Elaine Showalter in the Penguin Modern Classics edition, was a revelatory explanation:

Another major concern which Woolf shared with modernist thinkers and artists was the importance of perspective. Even concrete objects, the Cubists demonstrated, could only be partially represented from a single fixed perspective in the vocabulary of a realistic, mimetic painting. A Cubist painting attempted to render the object simultaneously from several points of view, and at several moments in time, combining these multiple perspectives in a kind of collage on the two-dimensional canvas plane. In the novel too, Proust had noted, there could be not only a two-dimensional 'plane psychology,' but also a depth 'psychology in space and time.' People are the product of their past as well as their present, the sum of multiple perspectives upon them, the ways that a variety of others perceive them. Thus it can be said that in trying to show us her characters from a variety of embedded viewpoints rather than from the fixed perspective of the omniscient narrator, Woolf 'breaks up the narrative plane . . . as the Cubists broke up the visual plane. [xxi]

I cannot even begin to go into detail about everything in this novel that made an impression on me. Peter Walsh and Clarissa's unspoken-of intimacy; Clarissa's choice in marrying consistent, constant Richard; Richard's inability to tell Clarissa he loved her; Miss Kilman and Clarissa's rather harsh but very precise opinions of each other.

But what struck me the most was the incongruousness and contrast between Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith. Peter kept saying Clarissa was 'so cold,' and she was encumbered by trivialities, such as her frivolous parties; while here was Septimus, unable to feel, only owing to the fact that he had been feeling so much he can hardly handle it, being burdened by larger, deeper things (war, death, human nature). I feel like I can see much more of Woolf herself in Septimus than in Clarissa. I haven't read any of her diaries or letters, but am getting the impression (only assuming) that Clarissa was a portrayal of her outer self that she thought shallow and petty, being a social object, thus caring nought about the afterlife, the soul; and Septimus a picture of her inner self, her struggles, as an artist, a citizen of the less-picturesque world and society, human, a soul.

Another thing that shone through here was the hopefulness of youth contrasted against the disappointments of old age and maturity. Clarissa's constant remembrance of her romance with Peter, the possibilities of it, even the possibilities of being married to Richard, in the end boils down to nothing much, just life in all its ordinary glory. This reminded me of de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, where adults were forever concerned about 'matters of consequence,' and not what's important--some things deeper, unseen, intangible--probably what Septimus was looking for.

Favourite passages:

As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls on London; and falls on the mind. Effort ceases. Time flaps on the mast. There we stop; there we stand. Rigid, the skeleton of habit alone upholds the human frame. Where there is nothing, Peter Walsh said to himself; feeling hollowed out, utterly empty within. Clarissa refused me, he thought. He stood there thinking, Clarissa refused me. [53-54]

What does the brain matter . . . compared with the heart? [213]

Please visit Sarah's blog for a round-up of other thoughts on Mrs Dalloway. Thank you to all reading along with us. In two weeks we meet up for discussions on To the Lighthouse over at Emily's blog, and in another two weeks for Orlando at Frances's blog. Finally, The Waves, by the end of February, right here.

Above painting: The Bottle of Wine by Pablo Picasso.

Northanger Abbey, etc.

. . If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad . . [7]

So begins the adventures of Catherine Morland, the heroine of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. When Catherine is invited to stay with her new friends at Northanger Abbey, she imagines all sorts of mysterious things going on at the place and with its inhabitants, as a result of her reading the Gothic romance The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. (For more reading habits of fictional characters, visit SFP's blog.)

And I don't want to say any more as I hate giving anything away. The enjoyment of a book largely lies on the discovery and revelation. I expected a darker read, as I've heard so many times that this was different from her other works and closer to a Gothic novel (true, but in quite a different way than I expected; actually a spoof, I didn't know). So it was a very nice surprise that I found it hilarious. Of course I loved it. Here was Austen at her humorous best.

I finished this and Sophie Dahl's Playing with the Grown-ups last week, but hadn't found the time to blog until now. Playing with the Grown-ups is a coming-of-age story, which I more often than not steer clear of now that I'm older, as I find it harder and harder to relate. However, I give favourite authors a chance, and so it was with Sophie Dahl, whose The Man with the Dancing Eyes I so adore. Also, the very inconstant childhood due to the free-spirited mother has sparks of my own childhood in it (only the good parts, yes).

Playing with the Grown-ups was entertaining and a page-turner. I really liked Dahl's voice (must be the influence of her grandfather Roald Dahl), even if I thought her a little pretentious. Even what the characters were reading reflected this: Daddy Long-Legs, The Great Gatsby, Madame Bovary, The Little Princess, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Jungle Book, The Bell Jar, Catch-22, Brideshead Revisited. Um. That reading list looks like it belongs to me.

I am now reading Mrs Dalloway and cannot wait to hear everyone's thoughts on Friday, when we meet up for the first Woolf in Winter session over at Sarah's blog.

Finally, the winners of my first blogiversary giveaway are Ti, who won The Woman in White, and Rebecca, who won Half of a Yellow Sun. Congratulations! And thank you to all who entered! Much love to my readers!

The View from Castle Rock

I don't know which book it was that I had picked up. I had read them all before, all the novels in that bookcase. There were not many. The Sun Is My Undoing. Gone with the Wind. The Robe. Sleep in Peace. My Son, My Son. Wuthering Heights. The Last Days of Pompeii. The selection did not reflect any particular taste, and in fact my parents often could not say how a certain book came to be there--whether it had been bought or borrowed or whether somebody had left it behind.

It must have meant something, though, that at this turn of my life I grabbed up a book. Because it was in books that I would find, for the next few years, my lovers. They were men, not boys. They were self-possessed and sardonic, with a ferocious streak in them, reserves of gloom. Not Edgar Linton, not Ashley Wilkes. Not one of them companionable or kind. [226]

SFP of pages turned is keeping track, this year, of what literary characters are reading. She's calling it The Reading Habits of Fictional Characters and inviting others to chime in. I love reading about what people in books are reading, so it was to my delight that Alice Munro's The View from Castle Rock peopled a host of characters who read quite a lot.

The unnamed protagonist (I personally call her Alice, after the author), besides Gone with the Wind and Wuthering Heights and others, as stated in the passage above, also mentioned reading Ulysses and Seven Gothic Tales, A.E. Coppard and John Galsworthy, and Maria Chapdelaine. Her father before her read James Fenimore Cooper. Her grandfather Blackstone, Macauley, Carlyle, Locke, Hume.

Canadians descended from Scottish immigrants, they were, for the most part, materially poor. Women who read were looked down upon. Those who had inclinations towards the creative life were considered odd, as did the protagonist who hid her profound affinity for nature, afraid of becoming the laughingstock.

The View from Castle Rock is an accomplished work of sublime maturity. No theatrics, just compassionate portrayals of the ordinary life. I initially thought this was a genealogical memoir, based on having browsed the first few chapters beforehand. It turns out this is actually a fictional collection of short stories where each story flows so seamlessly into the next that it reads like a whole novel. 

What sets this collection apart from Munro's other works is that these were, in fact, for the most part, inspired by her own family history and her own life. The first set of stories grew from the information she was able to gather of her ancestors from Scotland who later migrated to eastern and central Canada. The second set of stories she drew from personal experiences, though not always her own but also of people she knew.

Recommended to readers who appreciate stories where little happens but where enlightenments are revealed in certain subtle moments.

New Year Reading Plans

Happy new reading year!

The most exciting thing about every new year is having to start off with a clean slate, even with regards to reading. I have been enjoying everyone's posts on their reading plans for 2010 (yes, I've been faithful in reading your blogs but forgive me for the slack in commenting). I've also been contemplating on my own plans for quite some time now.

Firstly, I'm not joining any challenges. Last year I signed up for a few and, while I enjoyed them, realized they were holding me back. There were a lot of my old reading habits that I missed. For one, I usually like to read a single author's works one after the other. You'll be seeing a lot of that here from now on, beginning with Virginia Woolf. And another, I thrive on reading on a whim. While I also love making plans (like this) and lists, I prefer them short-termed, as to allow my mood to take precedence.

However, I will continue doing shared reads. Reading along with blogging friends is such a rewarding experience, being able to join in discussions, and gaining insights and different perspectives.

Secondly, I plan to fill in my reading gaps. This means more classics. Joyce, Wilde, Tolstoy, more Hemingway, more Steinbeck, more Maugham. Finish the rest of the novels of Austen and the Brontës that I haven't gotten to yet. More Dickens, more Collins, more Dostoyevsky, more Fitzgerald, etc. Finishing the last three volumes of Proust's In Search of Lost Time with Frances of Nonsuch Book and others.

This also means revisiting favourite authors more than discovering new ones. Bolaño, Saramago, García Márquez, Oe, Mishima, Eco, Calvino, Kundera, Morrison, Kincaid, Ishiguro, Rushdie, Ondaatje.

And, with all the talk going on about reading deliberately this year, which is exactly what I've been planning to do, this also means saying no to review copies, unless it's something by an author I trust, like the new Martel or the McEwan, the Carey or the Miguel Syjuco (hint, hint).

Finally, I plan on whittling the 80-ish to-be-read pile down to around ten. And keep it that way. For ever. This means a lot less acquisition. Prior to blogging, I had only a handful of books around that were unread. I loved that, after finishing a book, I could go out and pick the next read, not from my [stale] pile at home, but fresh from the bookstore (or the library), ready to be cracked open that very same day as soon as I got home. I miss doing that.

As for January, I would love to tackle the above pile, as pictured. Starting the year with Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, and Alice Munro's semi-fictional genealogical memoir The View from Castle Rock. Will be dipping a few pages a day into Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, for Ti of Book Chatter's read-along. 

A group of friends and I are celebrating shared reads of Woolf this winter, beginning with Mrs Dalloway, to be hosted by Sarah of what we have here is a failure to communicate, the middle of the month, and To the Lighthouse, to be hosted by Emily of evening all afternoon, at the end of the month. It's not too late to join. Everyone welcome.

I will also be reading Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor for the Japanese Literature Book Group hosted by Tanabata of In Spring it is the Dawn, near the end of the month. And if there's time, might squeeze in Sophie Dahl's Playing with the Grown-ups and Toni Morrison's A Mercy.

So many good books to look forward to. What a great year this is looking to be. Happy new 2010 once again and hope this year's reading is more fruitful for all of us!

xoxo