Thursday, March 14, 2024

Drew Hayden Taylor's "Cold"

Cold / Drew Hayden Taylor
TO: McLelland & Stewart, c2024.
359 p.

This is a book I would not have normally picked up -- it's a horror/thriller with hockey, middle aged men, and gore. But, it's also by Drew Hayden Taylor. I've read quite a few of his books and usually enjoy them -- everything he does is leavened with humour, and I find his Indigenous themes are compelling and engaging. So I read it. 

It is a bit more horror-ish than I usually like, especially with the few explicitly gory scenes. But it is also horror-lite enough for this squeamish reader. The story has three character arcs, which begin to converge the further into the book you go. We start with a plane crash in Northern Ontario during a blizzard, where we meet journalist Fabiola Halan, who is originally from the Caribbean, and hates the cold. She and the pilot survive the crash, and a year or so later, Fabiola is on a Canada wide book tour with the story of her experience.

Now in Toronto, we meet Professor Elmore Trent, an Indigenous studies prof who is having an affair with a student while his marriage is falling apart. We also encounter Paul North, an aging hockey player in the IHL (Indigenous Hockey League) who is facing the end of his career. And Detective Ruby Birch, who is investigating a string of unusual murders, brings them all together. 

We uncover Indigenous folklore and monstrous creatures during this story, alongside social commentary and the individual story arcs of each character. There are ruminations and reflections on a variety of themes, whether Indigenous topics or questions of aging, relationship ethics, or the way that office politics shows up in academia and the sports world alike. I liked a lot in this story, including the way that Prof. Trent throws in references to other Indigenous writers throughout. Lots to follow up on! There were some interesting developments in the plot and some outrageously over the top scenes too. 

I did find that the writing was a bit dry in parts, for a thriller, and some editing issues that caught my attention (a copyedit eye is a curse sometimes!) I wasn't fully sold on the conclusion either; it made sense within the storyline but I didn't love it. But, it was fun and campy in parts, while also being dark and intriguing in others. It was creative and original, and could be one that a lot of different kinds of readers would enjoy. Worth a look!

 

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

The Skull

The Skull / Jon Klassen
Somerville, MA: Candlewick, c2023.
106 p.

This little middle grade read was recommended to me by a friend, and so I read it -- quickly, as it's barely 100 pages, with lots of illustration and minimal text. But it is quite odd and adorable, and I would pass on the recommendation to experience this story! 

It's a rewrite of a Tyrolean folk tale that Canadian writer Jon Klassen read in a collection once and when he went back to reread it, realized he had remembered it quite differently than the original. So he wrote a new version reflecting his own experience of the story.

This author has published quite a few picture books and his style is distinct. In this chapter book, he has more range for more illustrations, but it is all very recognizably his own. The story begins with young Otilla, who runs away from home through a dark forest, and comes upon a big old house in a clearing. It's inhabited by a skull. Otilla befriends the skull, and discovers that it is afraid of something that enters the house each night. But Otilla is fearless, and saves the day. And she finds her own kind of happy ending, with safety and friendship in her own manner. 

It's dark, and quiet, and sparely told, but very effective. Otilla's determination and quick thinking saves her multiple times in the story, and her character may encourage readers going through hard times. It has a folkloric charm that is really memorable. 


You can watch a talk with Jon Klassen about this book via the Winnipeg International Writers' Festival here: 

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

The Hearing Trumpet

 

The Hearing Trumpet / Leonora Carrington
Potter's Bar, UK: Naxos Audiobooks, 2017, c1974

This novel by Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington was certainly as surreal as her artwork! I didn't know much about it when I began listening to it in audio format, so it was quite an adventure. 

Marian Leatherby is an aged woman living with her son and his family somewhere in Mexico. She spends most of her days in her room or in the yard which she can access directly from her room. She is fairly satisfied, but her family is not. They feel that her mind is failing, that she needs to go into a home. Marian discovers the plan when her friend Carmela gives her an antique hearing trumpet as a gift; now she can actually hear people talking. 

This tool of illumination is a metaphor for Marian's beginning to understand more than just the speech of those around her. She is sent to a residence found by her daughter-in-law, an odd place in which all the individual homes are novelty shapes spread throughout a garden -- Marian is taken to a tower that's her new home. As she accustoms herself to her odd co-inhabitants and the cultish owners of the residence, she begins to undergo an illumination about the world and these new surroundings.

I found this book both fascinating and confusing. There is a portrait of a nun in their dining hall which Marian begins to fixate on, and part of the book jumps to a history of this very un-Christian nun and her witchy history. That history then ties into the situation Marian finds herself in when there is a disaster and the wider world basically ends. The women all form a coven, there is a giant ground-ship that arrives with a family of werewolves aboard, the Earth's poles change and her Mexican home becomes more like Lapland...this all happens very quickly and abruptly near the end. 

I couldn't stop listening to this strange and compelling book, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Lots of striking and memorable images, some humour, some satirical commentary. Certainly a much different take on a potential apocalyptic dystopia! It has feminist &anti-ageist themes that resonate, but it also includes moments of racism that jarred among the rest of the story. Not a perfect story, but intriguing in any case. 


Monday, March 11, 2024

The Future

The Future / Catherine Leroux
trans. from the French by Susan Ouriou
Windsor, ON : Biblioasis, c2023.
309 p.

The Future, which I read about a month ago, has just won this year's Canada Reads competition. I didn't think it would -- translations aren't always the most popular choices for things like Canada Reads. But it did, and I'm happy with that result. 

It's a dystopia of sorts; more of an exaggerated and hyperextended vision of the decline of civilization. This one's set in an alternate Detroit which was never surrendered to the Americans, and boasts a French community. Which also houses a wild band of ragged, self-governing children. I felt like this was a mix between Lord of the Flies and Peter Pan's Lost Boys, with a bit of Station Eleven mixed in for good measure. And perhaps tinges of Nalo Hopkinson's Brown Girl in the Ring as well. 

There are many, many characters to follow. We start with Gloria, who moves into the house where her daughter was recently murdered, looking for answers, and for her two missing granddaughters. She builds a friendship with the woman next door, and once Gloria encounters the band of children in the deep woods of a local park, they both try to build a tentative connection with the children. Gloria is sure that there is a link to her granddaughters somewhere among these children (and as it turns out she is right). 

There are houses that regenerate from ruins, community gardens built by a stubborn old gardener and his cohort of associates, wild children in various conclaves, poisoned rivers, hit and run tourism, and many more peculiar and unsettling elements to the story. It's a ride. You just have to let yourself sink in and follow the story as it goes. I'm not sure that there is a strong conclusion but there is a sense of hope as some of these children see a new future in cooperation with the adults who work to care for them. The world here is rather vaguely proposed so it's uncertain to me what will come after the end of the book, but there is a strong sense of communities helping themselves. 

I actually liked it much more than Leroux's first book which I read quite a while ago now, The Party Wall. I'm glad to have had the chance to try another book by this author. And I guess many Canadians will be reading it also, thanks to the Canada Reads effect. I hope it finds its audience!


Saturday, March 09, 2024

Snowglobe

 

Snowglobe / Soyoung Park
trans. from the Korean by Joungmin Lee Comfort
New York : Delacorte Press, 2024, c2020.
372 p.


This YA dystopia is set in a future Korea after climate disaster has reduced most of the world to constant sub-zero weather. We’re talking -50 on an ongoing basis. Chobahm lives in a small settlement with her mother, twin brother and grandma. Now that she is finished school, she works at the local plant – nearly everyone in every settlement spends their days generating electricity on a human hamster wheel. Other jobs are few and far between - some postal clerks, some train engineers but not much else.

 To keep people satisfied with their cold and meager lives, 24 hour-a-day reality tv is streamed from Snowglobe. That's a glittering city enclosed by a dome, with a temperate climate thanks to geothermal vents -- all run by one powerful family. Everyone in Snowglobe is either an actor or director, with actor’s full lives continually televised. Chobahm’s dream is to move to Snowglobe and become a director someday.

But Chobahm has a startling likeness to Goh Haeri, the star of her favourite show. And when Haeri disappears, her Director appears with a life-changing offer – Chobahm can accompany Director Cho to Snowglobe and take on Haeri’s role, with nobody else knowing there has been a change. But dreams can harbour dark sides, and Chobahm quickly finds out that Snowglobe is not as idyllic as she’d believed. Skewering reality tv, surveillance capitalism, and corrupt governing bodies, this fast paced novel is full of dramatic plotlines and strong characters. It ends with a cliffhanger – book two of the Snowglobe duology is due out next spring. I found it engaging, quick moving and creative. Very plot driven but with some fun characters to follow as well. 

Thursday, March 07, 2024

Marigold and Rose

 

Marigold and Rose / Louise Gluck 
New York : Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023, ©2022
55p.

This slim tale by poet Louise Gluck is a charming read. Marigold and Rose are twins, infant girls who don't yet have language but have rich inner lives. It is interested in words, language, time, identity -- sweet and yet thoughtful, it’s also melancholic in parts.

It's a quick read, short and plainly written. But there is so much in it, you can linger on lines and think about the deeper meaning in an apparently simple statement. Marigold is the quieter, more thoughtful twin, who wishes she could be appealing and worldly, like Rose. Meanwhile Rose thinks that she is all surface appeal and wishes she could have more of an inner life like Marigold.

Of course this is all a conceit; infants aren't pondering the philosophical depths of an alphabet book they can't actually read yet. But it's a lovely one, which highlights ideas of meaning and memory. Louise Gluck has said something like, "We observe life as children, all the rest is memory" and this is an examination of the looking part of existence. These infants, barely into the world, observe the incomprehensible and worry about aging, dying, loss, identity, meaning, even words themselves as a way to capture the world.

This is a delicate read, somewhere between prose and poetry - no plot really, more reflections and thoughts from an interior life. Is it a short story or a novella? Not quite certain, but it is a worthwhile read from a poet who has been reflecting on these issues her whole career.


Monday, February 26, 2024

The Ukraine

The Ukraine / Artem Chapeye
trans. from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins
NY: Seven Stories Press, c2024.
272 p.


This is a recent translation, a collection of fiction and non-fiction by Artem Chapeye. Zenia Tompkins of the translation agency TAULT is focusing on writing by those involved in the war this year, and this is one of those works. 

Chapeye is fairly well known as a journalist, but the title short story The Ukraine is one that was published previously in the New Yorker (in 2022). This fiction plays with "The", an article that is contentious in English -- he refers to "The" Ukraine as something shallow, surface; Ukraine as seen by outsiders, in stereotypical ways. It's a strong story, which finishes this collection. 

This book is made up of 26 short pieces, many of which mix the idea of fiction/non-fiction. Some of them are reportage, of Chapeye's many trips around regions of Ukraine on his motorbike. They all engage with the idea of Ukraine, with expectations, regional differences and the idea of one country. It's a really good read. 

The only thing I found a little difficult was the mix of fiction & non-fiction, from one piece to another. I would have like to see the non-fiction first, followed by stories. However, since some are a mix of each, perhaps that was too complicated. In any case, even if it isn't clearly indicated which is which, I did find that it was fairly easy to figure out as each began. And all of them were interesting and well worth reading. 

The new intro to this collection was written by Chapeye on his phone, while on the front lines. It's a perfect intro to his works on the idea of Ukraine, on the essence of Ukrainians. Recommended.