Few authors are able to move me the way Jhumpa Lahiri does. Her words are simple; her language neither fancy nor elegant. Yet she is somehow able to capture the essence of everyday existence in each story who writes. “A Temporary Matter” is the first piece in her Pulitzer Prize winning short story collection The Interpreter of Maladies. In this story she provides us with a poignant yet eloquent depiction of couple’s unraveling relationship. Lahiri relays Shoba and Shukumar’s story simply and without judgement; it just is. For me, this is the mark of a good story, and especially a good short story, where unlike a novel, the author has only a few scant pages to create something beautiful, relevant and believable all at once, and all without ramming a moral or obviously biased viewpoint down the reader’s throat. Lahiri succeeds on all counts, telling us a beautiful tale that is painfully familiar on multiple levels. Then simply and without any fuss, she leaves her readers to process the story on their own, without further direction or guidance from her. I personally have always struggled with constructing succinct, well-written conclusions, be it in MA level essays or a short e-mail to a friend, so perhaps it is small wonder that one of my favourite things about Lahiri’s writing style is her ability to conclude her stories with an elegant, well-stated final phrase of few words that rolls of the tongue in perfect cadence, and in one tidy sentence both summarizes her story and queues the reader’s own interpretation of the tale. I see her title The Interpreter of Maladies as a metaphor for the reader of the her collection as a whole. In each story, Lahiri presents us with a kind of human malady, but rather than solving the problem for us, she allows her reader to interpret these maladies of their own accord. We do not know if she sides with Shoba or Shukumar; we do not know if either party is more or less to blame for the disintegrating marriage. We are not even told whether or not a troubled marriage is a good or a bad thing; it might be either depending on the reader’s own biases and perspective. We are only presented with the malady and the emotions and circumstances surrounding that malady and then allowed to interpret it as we see most fit.

“They wept together, for the things they now knew.”

The author has a pleasant, almost soothing tone that I enjoyed, but her plot and characterizations are a bit of a mess. The secondary characters were actually fairly well fleshed out, realistic, believable and sympathetic. Something however, went sorely amiss with the main character Amina, around whom the novel revolves. She is clearly flawed, but not in a sympathetic or relatable way that is necessary for a properly constructed central character. For every mistake she made, my connection to her weakened while my connection to the other characters increased. I felt myself judging her severely and unable to muster even the slightest bit of empathy for her character. Somehow, I don’t think this is what Freudenbeger was going for. Surprisingly, it was Kim, Amina’s unstable, hippy cousin-in-law and eventually even boring middle-class husband George who I found myself most interested in and empathizing with the most.

Plotwise, there was almost too much going on. The books reads like a Lahiri book at first, with simple, fluid language that led me to believe the story and characters would steal into my heart just from there everyday thoughts and actions. Unfortunately, Freudenberger seems to feel the need to throw in random and very unpredictable plot twists repeatedly throughout the book, to the point where I really didn’t feel any of the event were especially believable and it soured my opinion of the entire situation and the characters involved int he situations. This is a pleasant read to start, but by the second half of the book, I found myself quite irritated with Amina in particular and wishing the book would draw to an end. There was little redemption by the end of the book – Amina’s sense of entitlement compounded with with her generally annoying, nosey, self-absorbed character tarnishes the fluidity of the prose and puts a damper on what otherwise might have been a pleasant, if not especially thought provoking read.

Do you know what friendship is?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “It is like being brother and sister—two souls meeting without mingling, like two fingers of the same hand.”
“And love?” continued the poet.
“Oh, love!” she said, and her voice trembled, and her eyes beamed. “That is to be two, and yet one. A man and a woman joined, as into an angel; that is heaven!

Notre Dame, by Charles Marville

One of my favourite poems of all time is Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night”, originally published in 1951 by the literary journal Botteghe Oscure. I love the fact that although the poem is a villanelle, the very restrictive poetic form never interferes with the flow and rythm of the poem. Just in case you are not up to date on rarely used poetic forms or have forgotten the 10 minute lecture you got on villanelles in 2nd year poetics (I fall into the later category – if we are being completely honest, I had to Google it prior to writing this, just to refresh my memory) the villanelle is a notoriously difficult poetic form that uses only two rhyming lines (the first and the third lines of the first stanza) and rotates these two lines as the final line of each three line stanza, until the final four line stanza, where the two rhyming sentences are used consecutively to form the closing couplet for the entire poem. Confusing, right? I won’t go into further detail because the more I say, the more confusing it will get for both of u

Almost all the villanelles I have read are very awkward and I am very consciouce of the poet is struggling with the very particular demands of the poetic form. I always end up focusing on the form and counting out the lines to see if they made a mistake and as a result, the poem itself is completely lost on me. Not so with Dylan Thomas’s poem; it is so well executed and the form so inobtrusive that one hardly even notices the villanelle structure or how difficult it usually is to employ; it just flows along wrapping you up the the beauty of the language. When you realize he’s doing all this effortlessly through the medium of one of the most difficult poetic forms of all time, the poem becomes even more incredible. For me, this is what good poetry is supposed to do.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Related Media
Dylan Thomas reading “Do not go gentle…”

Anthony Hopkins reading “Do not go gentle…”

Simon & Garfunkle, “A Simple Desultory Philippic”

Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”

For further information on the Villanelle form, see this lovely description on what appears to be the website component of one of that fabulous university poetics courses.

For more information about Dylan Thomas, see his official website.

It is always refreshing to find truly well-rounded and likeable literary characters, even in the work of a seasoned author, however it is a real treat to find such characters in the pages of a first-time novelist. When reading Major Pettigrew I never got the feeling that Simonson was good, but still developing her voice, which I often feel when reading the early work of many authors. Her written voice is a mature and confident, well-paced and witty. Each and every character Ms. Simonson introduces is surprisingly and refreshingly realistic and believeable. Each has his or her own unique charm, from Mrs. Ali to the uber-modern, somewhat irritating, but ultimately sympathetic Roger. Major Pettigrew in particular is an extremely well-rounded, delightful character whom the reader cannot help but fall in love with, warts and all. When I finished the book this afternoon, I felt that I had known him all my life and was quite reluctant to tuck him and Mrs. Ali away in my bookcase.

My major qualm with this novel was some unexpected drama that Simonson tosses in right near the end. Without giving anything away, I felt that this particular bit of drama didn’t mesh well with the novel before or after that particular point. The happenings were out of character and out of place; I found it difficult to believe any of the characters would behave in such a way. I’m being picky and overall, this does not affect the novel as whole too terrible. All the same, I would have gathered something more in keeping witht he general tone of the novel.

Overall though, I enjoyed the simple, honest company of Major Pettigrew and his friends far more than the company most of the other literary characters I have encountered this year – or real-life company, for that matter. That’s not to say my friends aren’t all lovely, it’s just that the Major is really and truly delightful. I look forward to pulling him off the shelf again in the near future to reacquaint myself.

Please check out Helen Simonson’s web site for more information about Major Pettigrew.

I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…

I last read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby when I was completing my OAC year in high school. I recently dusted it off again, wondering if it was actually as good as I remembered it being, back in the day. Often books that I thought were fantastic as a teenager lose a lot of their lustre when re-read as an adult. Conversely, some books only get better: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, for example, told mesmerizing fairy tales when I was a kid, but reading them now, as an adult, I have discovered a host of subtleties woven into their prose that I completely missed as a child. Bilbo’s “eleventy-first” birthday, really? Why didn’t I find that funny when I was 13?

But getting back to Gatsby, I was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) to find Gatsby as wonderful as it was back in high school. It’s always so deflating when something one remembers as being epic, great, life changing, etc. turns out to be less-than-wonderful when revisited later in life. However, although Gatsby-the-novel proven to be as wonderful as ever, my sympathies have definitely changed. In high school, I related strongly to the moralizing narrator Nick Carraway and partially to the ill-fated James Gatz. The above quote, by a disillusioned Nick at the end of the novel, resonated with me, providing a base for my intense dislike of Daisy and Tom. Today, I still find Nick’s words powerful, but more as a realistic comment on life. The fact is, many of us are very much like Daisy and Tom, whether we like it or not. Dreamers like Gatsby have a tendency to get run over and left behind. Throughout the novel, I had an intense desire to shake Jay and tell him to get over the girl! Like Macbeth, Gatsby doesn’t seem to use his head. His actions are so driven by passion and romance that he doesn’t take enough time to rationally think that perhaps he should invest his time in something tangible, attainable and non-fleeting. Nick, on the other hand, is more of a Hamlet-figure. He’s so straight-laced and moralizing that he has to over-think everything and pass judgement on everyone. The Buchanans are more like Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. They are selfish, but realistic. They enjoy life and get what they want out of it. It wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere down the line, Tom left Daisy à la Rhett Butler (or vice versa). For some reason, I respect them for this selfishness and their ability to survive and go one with life, regardless of the scraps they get themselves into. Perhaps it’s because as an adult, I’m much more pragmatic, and less romantic and less moralistic than I used to be in high school. When Bonnie Blue Butler is tragically killed in a riding accident, the insightful Mammy informs Melanie Wilkes:

“Miss Melly, this here done broke her heart but I didn’t fetch you here on Miss Scarlett’s account. What that child got to stand, the good Lord give her strength to stand.”

The Buchanans, like Scarlett O’Hara, are strong people, able to withstand life and still wring enjoyment and pleasure out of it, regardless of what cards they are dealt. For these qualities, I admire them and take my hat off to them.

But despite all of this, I have to confess I wasn’t overly crazy about Room. I initially gave it two stars on Good Reads, but then thought that in all fairness it should get three if only for it’s entertainment value – it was at least engaging enough for me to finish in less than a week (not something that can be said for Annie Proulx’s Postcards, which took me about 6 months to finish). So why didn’t I like it? Yes, I found the book highly interesting, original and well-written. But the truth is, it’s not something I am likely to read again or put in a top 10 list. I certainly don’t think, like John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas), that it is “one of the most profoundly affecting books I’ve read in a long time” nor do I completely share Michael Cunningham’s (The Hours) opinion that it is “potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory.” I thought it was entertaining and better written than the majority of contemporary novels I’ve read this year, but that is about it. For me, the primary problem was the portrayal of the central characters. Try as I might, I just couldn’t relate Ma and Jack. Obviously, their situation is intended to shock and horrify the reader (which it does) but I personally felt them to be very distant from me at best and irritating at worst.

I must confess Jack really irked me at times! I know I am intended to feel sorry for him, but I kind of think he’s a brat. The five-year-old voice get a bit tiresome as the novel progresses. It’s an original way to approach the story at first, but after a while, one gets a bit tired of hearing the world described through the eyes of a child. The adult character Ma doesn’t provide much relief. I felt that she victimizes herself and Jack to the extreme and expects sympathy from not only her peers, rescuers and support systems, but also the reader. It’s difficult to feel badly for someone who expects you to feel badly for them! Furthermore, I was not entirely moved by the relationship between mother and son. Author Anne Giardini comments that the horror in Room is “leavened by one of the most convincing portrayals of love [she] has come across in literature or in the outside world.” I didn’t find it especially convincing. I felt they both acted the way any other mother and child probably would if they happened to find themselves in the same unfortunate circumstances.

You will certainly not be bored if you pick up Room but don’t expect to be blown away either. Despite an original plot and and unique approach to a difficult theme, the character just weren’t developed enough for me to feel strongly attached to them. It’s not that they are flat – they are fairly well developed – they’re just irritating. I don’t know about you, but it’s impossible for me to fall in love with a book without also falling loving the character, or even loving to hate them. Ideally though, strong literary characters should evoke feelings other than intense irritation – unless that’s the primary emotion the author is going for, which I don’t think is the case in Room.

http://www.rozchast.com/cartoons.shtml

Funny Ladies analyzes the evolution of the woman cartoonist of The New Yorker. Donnelly, herself, was one of only three female cartoonists when she first started submitting to The New Yorker in 1977 (keep in mind, this is after first- and second-wave feminism swept the United States!). Donnelly’s book captures the core group of women who have shaped the essence of The New Yorker’s cartoons. Not only does Donnelly’s book offer an array of funny cartoons by this group of women, it shapes the narrative of the American woman and what it was like to see society through a woman’s eyes. These New Yorker cartoons offer a way for readers to trace the history of the American woman.

http://www.lizadonnelly.com/

I remember a presentation Donnelly gave where she said that the primary rules, or “code”, of society is passed along by women, as if they were part of our genetic makeup. These rules tell us who to be and how to be it and are founded on the traditions of society. Well, Donnelly said, humor relies on the traditions of a society. What happens when you add women to this equation, she asked? Well, women + humor = change. Cartoons are a way for people to think about the rules we are following and how they might shift. As I read through the book and carefully examined the drawings of women New Yorker cartoonists from as early as the 1920s, I wasn’t just laughing along with them; I was participating in a history shaped by generations of women before me. I subliminally examined the “codes” of what it means and what it has meant to be a woman in a society founded on the dominant role of men. Through a simple process of reading about women cartoonists, I was shaping a future of women to come, not just in the United States but around the world. This book is must for anyone wanting to participate in this conversation! (Check out http://www.lizadonnelly.com/ for more of her fabulous cartoons).

What I loved most about Walls was her ability to bring out the many different complexities of the human race. In literature a well-rounded character is a necessarily element of a good book. In real life, it is all too easy to have our “good” characters and our “bad” characters clearly separated and labeled. We tend to see our friends and loved ones through rose coloured glasses, while vilifying those public figures we dislike. Walls reminds us that even “bad” people – alcoholics, homeless, and domestic abusers, to name a few – also have their good qualities. In the same way that no one is purely good, neither are they purely evil. Walls’ parents are the understated heros of this family history. Her father, Rex, is a paranoid dreamer/drunk who is at times physically abusive to his wife and regularly fails to meet even the basic needs of his four children. Her mother, Rose Mary, is a wildly creative woman, often out-of-touch with reality, who has a passion for life and art – a passion that often overrides her ability to keep her children clothes and cared for. But in spite of all of this, they love each other. After a drunken scuffle, he affectionately asks his wife “you love this old drunk, don’t you?” And they do. The Walls grown-ups go through some difficult times, but the obviously love each other and their four children enormously.

Jeannette and her siblings grow up in absolute squalor and poverty, picking lunches out of trash cans and wearing their coats in the house to keep from freezing. All four of them take off to make their fortunes in New York City as soon as is humanly possible. And yet, despite their neglected upbringing, all four make something of themselves and grow up to be intelligent, educated productive members of society. I found it interested that a lot of the online reviewers commented that the story made them angry and that such parents didn’t deserve to have one child, let alone four, and that it should be illegal for them to reproduce. I’m not going to say that I think her parents always made wise choices, but I am willing to bet that the Walls kids turned out to be more successful than many a yuppy mommy’s kids will ever be. I think their success must largely be attributed to their upbringing. Sure, their parents failed to provide what many of us consider to be essential needs for any child, but, they did foster a love of reading and learning in their children. They taught them to be curious and generous and loving. And despite Rex and Rose Mary’s own inability to hold down steady jobs, somehow they taught their kids the importance of working hard. Their refusal to go on welfare or accept hand outs instilled in their children a self-respect, self-reliance and pride that is lacking in many more affluent children. I was constantly impressed by how hard all of the kids worked to ultimately get where they wanted to go. None of them was willing to just sit back and blame fate for a bad hand of cards; instead they work their tails off to change their circumstances.

Jeannette Walls memoir is difficult to read at times – stories of children living in abject poverty are never easy – but overall, she tells a heart warming tale (all the more so because it is a real) about family and about growing up. Her pages are filled with humour anecdotes and inspiring tales of four kids growing up poor in America. She never blames her difficult past on anyone, and never does she give the impression that she feels sorry for herself or her family. She says in later interviews that the only thing she would change about her childhood was her father’s alcoholism. I finished the book thinking that if someone with Jeannette Walls background and disadvantages came become a highly successful and highly respected journalist, what’s stopping me from doing the things I want to in life? It also made me appreciate my parents a lot more. Parents, no matter what kind, shape us into the mature adults we become. Thanks to Jeannette Walls for sharing with us what her parents did for her.

Chua’s parenting techniques may seem harsh to the Western ear, but to me her perspective seems quite realistic. Chua is instilling a strong work ethic in her daughters and while she is obviously not perfect (what parent is?) she seems to be doing a pretty good job. In our entitled society, people want the best of everything; in fact, they feel that they and their children deserve the best of everything, that it’s their right. Realistically though, harbouring these fantasies will get you nowhere if you aren’t willing to work. While waiting for one of my own piano lessons to start (Tiger Mother inspired me to practice a LOT harder!) I began reading about a recent project the University of Ottawa music grad students had put together. The study compared the piano practicing habits of Asian students and Caucasian students. Surprisingly, the parents of white children believed that their kids were intrinsically more gifted than the average student, while the parents of Asian children believed that their kids were in fact not anymore gifted than their peers. Asian parents believed their children should practice longer and work harder than their peers if they wanted to be successful pianists while the white parents just thought that their kids were better and didn’t need to practice any more than anyone else. Asian parents also were exponentially more likely to attend lessons and help their children practice at home.

I am obviously in favour of Amy Chua’s strict parenting style and her dedicating to instilling a strong work ethic in her children. I respect the fact that she is unafraid discuss her flaws and shortcomings so candidly, and I appreciate her realistic approach to life: if you want to be the best at anything, you have to work their hardest. The same goes if you want to be even moderately successful, never mind the best! However, what really made me love the Tiger Mother was her engaging writing, honest writing style peppered with her sharp wit and good sense of humour. Those who know me might know that I have mixed feelings about parenting. Chua more than any other parent I have come across (in books or in person) really made me excited to be a parent in the future. It was so good to read an educated, honest and humourous account of what being a parent is like. Her memoir really touched me. Being a half-Chinese child myself, I related to to her daughters and even to her, crazy though she might be at times. Despite the ups and down, it is obvious that she values her children and family above everything else. Although parenting might involve a lot of scream, yelling, tears and tantrums (from both parent and children!) I for one am finally starting to get excited about the possibility. I won’t lie, I will probably be employing some of the Tiger Mother’s techniques!

Additional reading:
The original WSJ essay
Chinese vs Western Mothers: Q&A with Amy Chua
Tiger Mom Amy Chua Taps Into America’s Growing China Complex
Tiger Moms: Is Tough Parenting Really the Answer?