Tag: Canadian

Books, Quotes, Reading Events

Book 151: Annabel – Kathleen Winter

Geoff W

This is definitely one of the top three most beautiful books I have read this year. Not only is it well written, but it is well researched and really makes you think without making you struggle to do so. As I haven’t read any of the award winners for which this book was nominated, I can’t say my theory holds that the nominees are generally better than the winners, but that’s still my gut response.

Not that you would want to, because the book is fairly deceptively complicated, but if you had to sum it up in one line it would be the following:

“Sometimes you had to be who you were and endure what happened to you, and to you alone, before you could understand the first thing about it.” (67)

This is definitely one of the themes of the book, along with acceptance and surviving and any other number of things. And it doesn’t just have to do with Wayne/Annabel, but with Thomasina, Wally, Jacinta, and Treadway. And any of the other countless people who lived in Croydon Harbor and are survivors.

Click here to continue reading.

2012 Challenges, Books

Book 89: Hood – Emma Donoghue

Geoff W

Hood is the first of the 40 books I’ve committed to in Reading Challenges for 2012. It comes from the Mount TBR Reading Challenge and it feels good to cross one book off those three lists. And as mentioned sometime in the past, this is one of the novels my boss brought in for me to read – and it was interesting, not sure I would want to talk about it with her – see my reaction in the last paragraph before the recommendation. But regardless, on to the review!

Written by the author of Room and Slammerkin, Hood is a moving story of love and loss. Taking place during the week of Cara Wall’s funeral, the reader finds themselves at the mercy of Pen O’Grady’s, Cara’s lover of 13 years, sometimes tumultuous, most of the time lacking emotions. Using flashbacks and the days of the week, Donoghue tells the story of Pen and Cara’s relationship while showing Pen’s coping (or lack thereof) with Cara’s death.

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Books

Book 66: The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje

Geoff W

I could be predictable and say the story is about the English patient, as the title suggests, or any of the main characters, but it’s not. It’s not even about living through World War II. To me this novel is about survival.

It is about surviving the inner demons that haunt each of us. Although the brutal acts of the war make appearances, and the heinous acts against humanity in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provide a hauntingly severe backdrop to the novel’s conclusion, the story focuses more on the internal struggle of the four characters. And to this effect, there is a quote in From Boys to Men that sums up my thoughts on this book: “I always remind myself: stories haunt you, and memories. Not people.” (252)

Click here to continue reading and for quotes from the novel.

Books

Book 56: Slammerkin – Emma Donoghue

Geoff W

What a stark contrast to Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. I’m not sure if this is because a woman wrote this novel, or if it’s because she wrote it over 60 years later. The handling of rough trade/prostitution and women in this novel is miles beyond the poor treatment and overt misogyny of Miller’s novel. Donoghue also empowers her female characters so much so that they seem to control their own destiny, and definitely their own choices regardless of whether they choose the easy road or not, on various occasions.

Set in 17th century London, Slammerkin is the story of Mary Saunders and her short-lived life. It is about passion/desire/lust for beautiful things and a better existence. An incredibly bright and intelligent child, Mary at the age of 14 does something incredibly stupid and short-minded. She has sex with a ribbon peddler for a ribbon and winds up pregnant. Disowned by her family and raped by a battalion of soldiers, Doll, the very same prostitute which caught Mary’s imagination with the red ribbon, rescues her from the ditch and certain death. The two are inseparable until Mary comes down with a deathly cough and Doll forces her to go to a charity hospital. While in the hospital Mary learns needlework, embroidery and stitchery, ironically the same trade/skills her mother wanted to teach her.

Click here for the recommendation, quotes and rest of the review…

Books

Book 48: The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington – Brian Francis

Geoff W

The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington - Brian FrancisWhen I picked up this novel the back cover read as follows, “Peter Paddington is your typical thirteen-year-old paperboy with a few exceptions. He’s 204 pounds, at the mercy of an overactive imagination, and his only friend is a trash-talking beauty queen reject from across the street. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Peter’s nipples pop out one day and begin speaking to him threatening to expose his private fantasies to an unkind world.”

So of course I had to purchase it and at only $2.99 it was a bargain.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend going out of your way to find a copy, but if you stumble across it and it’s cheap you might enjoy reading it. It was a fun book to read, especially if you’re a ‘fat kid’ questioning your sexuality, or once were. And although my imagination is nowhere near as overactive as Peter’s and my nipples never talked to me, I couldn’t help but identify with Peter’s struggles and triumphs.

Click here to read the review…