The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Mordecai Richler
(Penguin Canada, Toronto: 1995)

First published by Penguin Canada in 1964.

READ: January - February 2008

As someone who professes to love Canadian literature, I have been a little embarrassed to admit that I have never read any Mordecai Richler. So when I had a chance to pick up a nice copy of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, I jumped. (I haven't even seen the movie.)

I can see why the book is as lauded as it is; however, I hate it when I finish a book and still dislike the main character as much as I did upon starting. Still, there's something about this book that grabs you, and I can understand why it's endured as it has. The writing is, of course, excellent, and Richler really did a good job of developing the story. Still, the characters were a little one-dimensional, and that's probably why I disliked Duddy as much as I did. I had no starting-ground in common with him from which I might attempt to try to put myself in his shoes.

That being said, I am looking forward to reading more Richler.

Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland

Hey Nostradamus!
Douglas Coupland
(Random House of Canada, Toronto: 2004)

READ: January 2008

Possibly the most puzzling Douglas Coupland I have ever read. For a book I'm not even sure I liked, it really grabbed me - I couldn't put it down, and I couldn't stop thinking about it whenever I wasn't reading it, and even now that I'm done.

As a general rule, I like Coupland. He is, mostly, brilliant: witness Jpod, Microserfs, Generation X, and Life After God, to name a few. But then he'll fall into a dismal hole of ... well, I don't even know how to describe it. Girlfriend in a Coma, which I read years and years ago, was one of those abysmal moments. In fact, it turned me off Coupland altogether for about 3 years. From what I actually managed to read of it, Polaroids from the Dead was another. It's as if, every now and then, Coupland just becomes too self-aware of his brilliance, and he just inputs too many of his conventions and his what-it-is-that-makes-him-brilliance (his je ne sais quoi, as it were), and the result is overloaded and heavy.

But Hey Nostradamus! doesn't quite do that. It tries to - it tries very hard to be too self-aware and too Couplandesque - but it never quite manages it. And so you end up with this: a book that ought to be terrible, but isn't. Damn you, Coupland, for writing a book I want to dislike but can't!

2008 Booklist

1. Hard-to-Answer Questions About Japan by Uchiike Hisataka and Michael Brase


2. Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy, ed. Douglas A. Anderson


3. Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland


4. Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement by Kenneth Christian


5. The Annotated Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, annotated by Douglas A. Anderson


6. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler


7. Islam: Art & Architecture, ed. Marcus Hattstein and Peter Delius (unfinished)


8. Next by Michael Crichton


9. The World's Greatest Art : Asian Art by Michael Kerrigan (re-read)


10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins


11. What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh Baldwin


12. Journeys of Frodo by Barbara Strachey


13. The Bells of Nagasaki by Takashi Nagai


14. Vintage Ondaatje by Michael Ondaatje


15. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky


16. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks


17. Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky


18. Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook by Debbie Stoller


19. You Grow, Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening by Gayla Trail


20. Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy by Noam Chomsky


21. Not on the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate by Felicity Lawrence


22. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini


23. Les Enquêtes de Vipérine Maltais: Mortels Noëls by Sylvie Brien


24. First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea by Paul Woodruff


25. The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel


26. The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat


27. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan


28. The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't Be Jammed by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter


29. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick


30. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester


31. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan


32. Butterfly Mind: Revolution, Recovery, and One Reporter's Road to Understanding China by Patrick Brown


33. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman


34. 20,000 lieues sous les mers by Jules Verne


35. What Just Happened by James Gleick


36. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway


37. Discoveries: Van Gogh: The Passionate Eye by Pascal Bonafoux


38. Van Gogh by Keith Wheldon


39. Guide: Van Gogh Museum from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam

Who is Frances Rain? by Margaret Buffie

Who is Frances Rain?
Margaret Buffie
(University of Toronto Press, Toronto: 1987)

READ: December 2007

Back in the days of Scholastic book fliers, I ordered this (gr. 5? gr. 6?). I've read it a few times since then, and it remains one of my favourite childhood books.

Elizabeth is going to her grandmother's cottage on Rain Lake, north of Winnipeg, for the summer, like she does every summer. Although this time, instead of it being just her, her little sister, and older brother, her mother and her mother's new husband have decided to come along. In an attempt to avoid the family strife, Elizabeth goes wandering, and she stumbles across a haunted island, of sorts, with a mystery to be solved.

It's a wonderful, short read, and while I can now see more clearly the gaps in the plot and the short-cuts sometimes taken by the author to meet certain conventions of the genre, it remains a magical, fantastical, and riveting story sure to impress and inspire kids. I highly recommend it.

Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now by Jan Wong

Red China Blues : My Long March from Mao to Now
Jan Wong
(Doubleday Canada, Toronto: 1998)

READ: December 2007

For those of you who, like me, always thought Jan Wong was just a writer of fluffy, though amusing, columns in the Globe & Mail (lunch with Jan Wong, anyone?), this will set you straight.

I stumbled across this book in a second-hand shop in Ottawa, when I'd walked in intending to get something nice and light-hearted to read over lunch one day. Remembering how fascinated and curious I'd been to learn more after reading Ian Johnson's Wild Grass, I decided to pick this up. And - WOW! It's an amazing book. It's eye-opening, elucidating, and entertaining. Or to put it more bluntly, it will knock your socks off.

I don't think I can hook you any better than by posting here the publisher's blurb (from the Chapters website):

Jan Wong, a Canadian of Chinese descent, went to China as a starry-eyed Maoist in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution. A true believer -- and one of only two Westerners permitted to enroll at Beijing University -- her education included wielding a pneumatic drill at the Number One Machine Tool Factory. In the name of the Revolution, she renounced rock and roll, hauled pig manure in the paddy fields, and turned in a fellow student who sought her help in getting to the United States. She also met and married the only American draft dodger from the Vietnam War to seek asylum in China.

Red China Blues begins as Wong's startling -- and ironic -- memoir of her rocky six-year romance with Maoism that began to sour as she became aware of the harsh realities of Chinese communism and led to her eventual repatriation to the West. Returning to China in the late eighties as a journalist, she covered both the brutal Tiananmen Square crackdown and the tumultuous era of capitalist reforms under Deng Xiaoping. In a wry, absorbing, and often surreal narrative, she relates the horrors that led to her disillusionment with the "worker's paradise." And through the stories of the people -- an unhappy young woman who was sold into marriage, China's most famous dissident, a doctor who lengthens penises -- Wong creates an extraordinary portrait of the world's most populous nation. In setting out to show readers in the Western world what life is like in China, and why we should care, Wong reacquaints herself with the old friends -- and enemies -- of her radical past, and comes to terms with the legacies of her ancestral homeland.

Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go to your nearest bookstore or library and read this book. You won't be sorry.

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games
Iain M. Banks
(Orbit, London: 1989)

A Culture Novel

READ: November-December 2007

I picked this up, mostly out of curiosity because Randal has been singing Iain M. Banks' praises for a while now. Though when he found out I was reading it, he said he would have recommended others of his books, rather than this one.

It was fine, but for someone who is only moderately familiar with the genre, Banks' particular mix of science fiction and fantasy, at least in this book, didn't really do it for me. The Player of Games tells the story of Gurgeh, a renowned game-player from the Culture, a super-advanced galactic civilization. He is sent, through a strange set of circumstances, to the Empire of Azad to participate in the Empire's ultimate tournament, a series of games which, for Azadians, determine job positions and social ranks.

While it was an interesting read, I found it a little long and ponderous at times. The story did have many parallels in today's world, especially in how its overall "point" (so to speak) was about racism and sexism, but I found it handled a little clumsily at times. Randal says I need to read more books in the genre to gain a better appreciation of what SF&F authors may be trying to do in similar cases, and he's probably right. That said, I'd be interested in reading more Banks because I can tell he has better things to offer.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson
(Anchor Canada (Random House), Toronto?: 2004)

READ: November 2007

I'd been wanting to read this book for months now, and boy, was it worth the wait. In his Short History, Bryson explains everything from the beginnings of life on our planet, to astrophysics, natural disasters, dinosaurs, and Einstein's theory of relativity, in plain, simple language. Well-known as a travel writer, Bryson brings his particular brand of humour to these, and many other questions of scientific import. Entertaining and elucidating, it's one of those books I should have taken notes on while reading. Well-documented, and well-thought out, this is one of the most entertaining and informative reads I've had in a while. My first Bryson book, but definitely not my last.

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories edited by Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories
Roald Dahl, ed.
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 1983)

Originally published in the United Kingdom in 1983.

READ: August-November 2007

In the late 1950s, Roald Dahl started collecting ghost stories. He was looking for the best of the best, the cream of the crop, with the intention of making a television series based on these stories. The series died after the pilot episode, but it left Dahl with an appreciation for the difficulties in finding truly good ghost stories:

The best ghost stories don't have ghosts in them. At least you don't see the ghost. Instead you see only the result of his actions. Occasionally you can feel it brushing past you, or you are made aware of its presence by subtle means. [...] If a story does permit a ghost to be seen, then he doesn't look like one. He looks like an ordinary person.

In preparation for the ill-fated television series, Dahl read over 700 ghost stories. He published this collection almost 25 years later, adding a few stories he hadn't included in his original list, and removing some others. The result isn't the scariest book ever. You can't pick up this book expecting to be scared out of your boots. Many of these stories are, to be honest, not very scary. But they are all well-written, and many of them were quite successful at making me feel fairly unnerved. A few positively rose the hairs on the back of my neck. I still think, for example, of Harry by Rosemary Timperley with a chill and a shudder. Others are just clever; for example, W.S. by L. P. Hartley and Playmates by A. M. Burrage. The bulk of the stories are from the first half of the 20th century, so the writing style may not be to everyone's liking, but overall, the stories are fairly entertaining and interesting, and it's a fairly worthwhile read.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden
Francis Hodgson Burnett
(Wordsworth Editions Limited, Ware (Hertfordshire): 1993)

New introduction and notes added in 2000. First published in 1909.

READ: October-November 2007

Though it's a classic of children's lit, I'd never read this before, and now I know why it is so highly thought of. I don't know how I missed it. What a fantastic, amazing book. You can always tell, with a really good book like this, why exactly it is the classic it became. The Secret Garden tells the story of Mary Lennox, a spoiled, selfish little girl, who is sent to live in Yorkshire with her hunchback uncle after the death of her parents in India. After discovering a secret garden, a transformation comes over her and the inhabitants of the Yorkshire mansion that perhaps can't be explained by anything other than magic. It sounds a little hokey, perhaps, but the writing is charming and sure to win you over. It charmed me from page one, and I was sad to put it down.

Obasan by Joy Kogawa

Obasan
Joy Kogawa
(Penguin Books, Markham (Ont.): 1983)

First published by Lester & Orpen Dennys Ltd., 1981

READ: October-November 2007

I first read this in my second-year university course in Canadian literature and, looking for something to read on my bookshelves at my parents' house, decided it was time for a re-read.

I had forgotten how compelling a story it is. Obasan tells the story of the displacement of the Japanese Canadians in WWII through the eyes of a child. Naomi has never been to Japan, and doesn't really understand what is happening when her own family gets broken up because of the war. She has never thought of herself as different, and continues to live in some sort of denial of that fact, until many years later, after the death of her uncle who helped raise her, when she starts to become more aware of the true extent of the injustice and prejudice that had been levelled against Japanese Canadians for so many years.

To be sure, I have a better appreciation now for the Japanese culture, and also WWII events, that I did not have when I first read this. It's a really poignant story, and, given the heady nature of its subject matter, does a surprisingly good job of not being too heavy-handed, with one or two exceptions. Kogawa really captures the sense of a child, bewildered by the changes around her but, in the way of children, easily adaptable to whatever circumstances are thrown her way. The writing is very accessible, and the story, while sometimes glossed over in history books, is one that every Canadian ought to know.