But I finished reading Lolita yesterday, so now I am reading Forms of Devotion by Diane Schoemperlen.
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I assume that the majority of people who come here and continue to read my writing are supporters of freedom of expression. Not just supporters but active participants in freedom of expression. No matter how many ways or for what reasons we might censor our writing, people who maintain blogs exercise the privilege to express as they see fit whatever scampers through the brain on a given day. This is magnificent and ought to be celebrated often.
This week is Canada’s Freedom to Read Week. While, as a rule, my reading list includes challenged or banned books, I like to make a point of reading something during this week in particular that has been frequently challenged or banned at some point in history. Admittedly, Canada is pretty laid-back when it comes to the content of books. The national boards in charge of censorship tend not to get in a twist about controversial content. The school curricula seem to recognize the importance of reading difficult books in the development of critical thinkers (and there are plenty of schools that encourage the development of critical thought). Nevertheless, there are books that come under pressure from parents, teachers, and generally concerned citizens.
What flakes my fingernails about people who challenge books is that they are largely not interested in wrestling with complex content. The offending points of the written material are taken out of context or not properly treated within context. It is easier to shove the book out of view than come to terms with it in any mature sense. Or to teach a child to treat it with any maturity. How can a child learn to be properly horrified by the realities of racism or to subvert true injustices if they are never exposed to such concepts in a way that can be internalized? Too much cannot be said about the benefits of vicarious experience. Where else will we learn understanding outside our own lives if we don’t become submerged in another’s story?
My life as a literate adult can hardly be called oppressed. As much as possible, I choose what I put in my brain, and I like to think I do so with reason and intelligence. But I didn’t become this way because I was protected from controversial reading material. I was allowed to read and encouraged to think about the content. This cannot be taken for granted. We owe it to ourselves as reasonable, intelligent people to continue to explore the reasons behind the controversy. To confront dangerous ideas fearlessly and allow them to be gloriously dangerous.
This banner links to the Freedom to Read website, which contains a list of frequently challenged material in Canada and ways to become involved in Freedom to Read activities.
I throw my hands up: I am done with Harry Potter forever. It was with immense relief that I snapped the book shut at 12:30 last night. Not because of the contents of the book; it ended in the general way I thought it would, without offering any real surprises, which is really what you want in a young adult series. No, I was relieved because I will never have to read another Harry Potter book. That requires some explanation.
I have enjoyed reading the series, but I’ve never read it without ambivalence. I get so caught up in the books that I can barely do anything until I’m finished with whichever one I’m reading. But, afterwards, I feel completely drained. The story takes without giving anything back to me. Like eating only potato chips for a couple of days. You feel sick and bloated afterwards. And — here’s where it comes together — you never want to eat potato chips again.
So kudos to J.K. Rowling for becoming richer than the Queen and creating an international phenomenon. I’ll dust it from my hands and mind and turn to more nourishing reading material. May it be many years before I pick up anything that has to do with the world of Harry Potter.
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When I get into voracious reading mode, I rarely take time to digest books after I’ve finished them. Close the last page of one book, pick up the next one in the queue — which is blessedly neverending, Reading Challenges or not. So no sooner had I finished Swiss Sonata than I picked up Douglas Glover’s Elle, the GG winner for 2003. Which was a hard gear shift. So I’ll be taking a minor break from Canadiana before I dive into the list again.
Elle takes place in the sixteenth century with a focus on the French discovering the New World. So far, A-okay. The main character is a libidinous young Frenchwoman, Elle, handed over to her father’s cousin for her refusal to curb her passions or get married or submit herself to a convent. The cousin is on his way to Canada to find a way through it to China and show up Monsieur Jacques Cartier. Elle’s lover joins her on the journey, and the two are ratted out for having sex multiple times on the voyage. She alone is punished for her “chronic recidivism” and banished to an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Her lover heroically/foolishly throws his lot in with her, as well as Elle’s nurse, and the three of them struggle to survive in the Canadian wild with their minor French nobility knowledge and education.
That is just the set up. On the island, she discovers she is pregnant. They eat books to stay alive and kill slow, stupid birds for meat when they can. She flashes back and forth between her life in France and her current situation. As starvation and winter begin to set in, the author takes us into her delusions and delerium. Eventually, the Natives find her and help her in the ways they can, but her mental state never seems to fully recover. As a reader, you spend most of the book trying to figure out what’s going on, which is in line with the main character’s struggle.
The writing itself is rich but slippery. The same mental texture as water that’s too soft. Glover’s extensive vocabulary is an unexpected relief for a wordsmith like me. The writing flowed and it was a quick read, but for the life of me, I could not get my head wrapped around over half of what was going on in the story. It could have been that I was trying to read too fast to process everything (which happens often), or it could have been that Glover got so caught up in the flow of words that he forgot to involve the reader in the meaning (of which, I’m sure you know, I am also guilty). Either way, there were moments that I was able to pause and savour a phrase or a word, which will help me forgive some of the aspects of the book I didn’t enjoy.
I think there are two pitfalls to writing historical novels: 1) they become infused with modern perspectives, which makes the characters implausible; or 2) the author does all the research he/she can on the psychology of the time but can’t weave the knowledge into the characters enough to keep the attitudes from screaming out “HEY! PEOPLE DON’T THINK LIKE THIS ANYMORE!” The second one is especially dangerous when your intent/focus is to avoid the first pitfall at all costs. Glover definitely did his research; there is not a single modern attitude in the whole book. There were, however, times when the explanations seemed extraneous to the story. It was information that was interesting, but perhaps could have remained as backstory.
I’m also not exactly sure what this book did that set it apart from other Canadian novels in 2003. Yes, it focused on Canada. Yes, it was much better than a lot of the drivel (Canadian and otherwise) that gets published. I’m not sure I would have voted to give it a high Canadian literary honor. It was adequate, and perhaps I will pick it up again someday to reevaluate my opinion. But it won’t be for a long time. Certainly not until I’ve forgotten more about it.
Final rating: 5.5/10
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