My sister gave me the award-winning The Marrow Thieves for Christmas, knowing how keenly I feel about Indigenous issues. I was about a quarter of the way through when I heard a snippet on CBC saying that Jully Black would be defending this book for Canada Reads! So I felt cool by association (with Canada’s national bibliophilic geek-out). Jully and The Marrow Thieves made it through the first day’s vote… I’m rooting for them to win!
Other works by this author: The novels Red Rooms and The Girl Who Grew A Galaxy, and the short story collection A Gentle Habit, as well as the story “Seven Gifts for Cedar.”
Recommended by: My sister, I guess! And maybe the Governor General, considering that The Marrow Thieves won that award for English-language children’s literature in 2017.
Genre: Futuristic dystopian forest-trekking YA fiction.
Main characters: Frenchie (the narrator), and the cobbled-together family of fellow fugitives he travels with, including leader/Elder Miigwans and love interest Rose.
Plot intro: After the climate-change apocalypse, most North Americans have lost the ability to dream, and are hunting Indigenous people for their bone marrow, said to restore dreaming.
Opinions: I first heard about this book during a carpool, from a guy who kinda liked it but was rather dismissive. Since I found most of what he said during the ride to be arrogant and/or wrong, I had a hunch it would be a great book. 🙂 And I was right!
A quotation I liked: Most of my favourite moments in this book would be spoilers. I will say that Dimaline writes beautifully, treading the unlikely line between imagistic poetry and careless teenage speech. Also, this book contains what might just be the sexiest non-sex scene I’ve ever read.
What sticks with me: How much I want to shift this future. Not just the environmental catastrophe part, though of course I’m hoping we can avoid such collapse. And I’m not worried that the bone marrow harvest will actually be a thing. But Canada – and Turtle Island in general – are at a turning point right now, in which all of us need to understand what Canada did to Indigenous Peoples, so as not to repeat history. Not just residential schools, but extermination and marginalization of all kinds, the Sixties Scoop, the current child apprehension crisis, and of course the racism that has lasted from the moment of first contact to the present day.
Recommended to: All of us sharing this continent – but especially Canadian youth. We can take Indigenous-Canadian relations somewhere new and better.
To sum up: Gorgeously written with joy and tragedy, suspense and humour, and a lot of love for its beautiful characters. (I gave it five stars on Goodreads.)
Other works:The Shell Collector, About Grace, Memory Wall, Four Seasons in Rome
Recommended by: This was a book club pick, but it was also one that my book-savvy husband had heard great things about. Also, the fact that it won a Pulitzer recommends it rather well.
Genre: Historical fiction, World War II drama
Main characters: Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl; Werner Pfennig, a German boy.
Opinions: Our book club was divided. One member came to the meeting calling it “brutal” because she’d just finished it and spent a good chunk of the end of it crying. Some thought it was hard to get into, but good after a while. Some thought the language was too flowery, and some don’t really get into historical fiction much.
I think I was the only person there who love love loved it. The writing didn’t feel flowery to me, just gorgeous. The author skilfully made every character real and human – even the heinous ones. The two main characters are particularly beautiful, and the way their lives gradually converge had me totally hooked. I read considerably past my bedtime on many occasions.
A quotation I liked: My very favourite moments, the ones I had to go back and re-read, would be too long, and are spoilers anyway. But there were so many lines full of wisdom or insight that I found exquisite. For example,
“There is the humility of being a father to someone so powerful, as if he were only a narrow conduit for another, greater thing. That’s how it feels right now, he thinks, kneeling beside her, rinsing her hair: as though his love for his daughter will outstrip the limits of his body. The walls could fall away, even the whole city, and the brightness of that feeling would not wane.”
What sticks with me: Fascinating portrayal of a blind person’s perspective – the sounds, smells, and strategies. But even more, the depth of feeling, rendered with zero melodrama. Lots and lots of writers have placed their stories during WWII, so you’ve gotta be good to make sure your story hasn’t been already told in some form, and that it’s worth telling. This one made me feel the same way Atonement did: very sad, but uplifted by so many forms of love. Moved by humanity’s capacity for beauty, even during the ugliest times in our history.
Recommended to: War buffs, gemstone buffs, Jules Verne buffs, marine biology buffs, and those who don’t mind a heartrending story in the service of love.
To sum up: I will definitely be re-reading All The Light We Cannot See when I have the chance.
Our book club read The Couple Next Door only a few months ago, so I clearly remember how I felt about it.
Author: Shari Lapena
Other works:Things Go Flying, Happiness Economics
Recommended by: Book Club, and several people I heard discussing it on the radio.
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Main characters: Anne and Marco Conti, and their kidnapped baby daughter Cora. And some iffy neighbours and in-laws. And a world-weary detective.
Opinions: The book club was divided – some found it quite engaging and exciting, and some found it annoying. I have to admit, I am one of the latter. I wanted to like it; after all, the author is a Canadian English teacher, yay! Good on her for writing a very successful book. Listening to other reviews, people are like, “It’s full of twists! I couldn’t put it down! Page-turner from start to finish!” I, on the other hand, was like, “It’s full of gimmicks! I couldn’t relate to any of the characters! Cringeable writing from start to finish!” I didn’t hate it – it wasn’t boring – I finished it with no problem. I did want to know what happened. But honestly, if you’re planning, as an author, to wrench readers’ heartstrings by featuring a missing infant, you need to back that up with grounded plot lines and realistic parents we can care about. (In my opinion.) In this case, it felt like plot-twist experimentation, as in, “Let’s see if they’ll swallow THIS one!” Especially at the end.
A quotation I liked: Sorry… nothing that moved me. The writing was part of my problem with the book in general – I couldn’t make myself stop noticing the awkwardness of a third-person narrative in the present tense.
What sticks with me: That awful idea of coming in to see your baby – and her being gone.
Recommended to: Readers who love a surprising, suspenseful plot and don’t mind so much about underdeveloped characters.
To sum up: I’m not a fan of The Couple Next Door, but you might be!
Title: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – A Year of Food Life
READ ME
Author: Barbara Kingsolver, with Stephen L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
Other works: (by Barbara) The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, Small Wonder, The Lacuna, The Bean Trees, etc.
Recommended by: Book Club! I also find that Kingsolver’s work recommends more of itself to be read.
Genre: Non-fiction/Cooking/Poetry (because honestly, everything she writes is full of poetic gorgeousness)
Main Characters: Her family – she, her husband, and two daughters – and the FOOD.
Opinions: I adored this book, as I expected to. I had read a bunch of her fiction, as well as non-fiction essays; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle has the added practical advice, recipes, and lots of horticulture that make it useful and educational, as well as just beautiful. I don’t remember all the opinions from the Book Club meeting, but it gets 4/5 on Goodreads.
A quotation I liked: “Human manners are wildly inconsistent; plenty of people have said so. But this one takes the cake: the manner in which we’re allowed to steal from future generations, while commanding them not to do that to us, and rolling our eyes at anyone who is tediously PC enough to point that out. The conspicious consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spirtual error, or even bad manners.”
What sticks with me: This book is not preachy, but it says a lot about sustainability and the realities of our food culture, especially in North America. It makes me think all the more often about where my food has come from, and whether I want to support the way it’s grown or exported. I also really really want to have dinner with the author.
Recommended to: Farmers, Gardeners, Foodies, Environmentalists, Poets, and people who don’t cook but want to start.
To sum up: Inspiring. Sometimes depressing, but mostly uplifting. Barbara’s writing is always full of compassion for humanity, and this book makes you feel like a friend in her warm kitchen.
Other works: Eat, Pray, Love, The Signature of All Things, etc.
Recommended by: Glennon at Momastery (again). I’ll pretty much try anything she says. Also, I’d already read Eat, Pray, Love, and although it wasn’t dramatically life-changing for me, it was fascinating and memorable and contained a few moments that really moved me.
Main Characters: Mostly you, the reader. And Liz. And a few other creative people with profound things to say.
Opinions: It was a pretty quick and relatively light read. It could incite soul-searching, but also it could just be read as a go-get-’em pick-me-up. I found it comforting on many levels, and funny too.
A quotation I liked: “Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred. What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all. We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits. We are terrified, and we are brave. Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege. Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us. Make space for all these paradoxes to be equally true inside your soul, and I promise—you can make anything. So please calm down now and get back to work, okay? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.”
What sticks with me: 1) All people possess creativity; 2) Ideas are active and animate and will go about knocking on people’s doors until they get someone to bring them to life; 3) The suffering artist thing does not have to be a thing – if it makes you suffer that much, it’s really not what you should be doing; 4) folks need to give themselves permission to feel entitled to the time it takes to make their art – yes, it is worth doing. (Even if you’re a blogger with a very small audience, or a composer who only composes something every 5 years. 😉 )
Recommended to: People who have ideas stewing but never feel validated enough to make them happen; people who think they’re not creative; people who know they ARE creative.
To sum up: I liked it a lot! And I’ve already lent it to someone, but you can borrow it if you want, when I get it back.
Sakes alive, it’s been ages since I officially reviewed a book! More than three years, actually.
Pourquoi? I started to explain, but I’ve decided it doesn’t matter! I do want to write about books, but I don’t have time to wax philosophical, and you may well not have time to read such blither-blather either.
Hence — The Two-Minute Book Review. I’m excited about this concept.
(I actually have no idea if this will take two minutes to read. We all read at different speeds, after all. And with widely varying levels of mental imagery – more on that later.)
First book that came to mind that I’ve read in the past three years is actually NOT from Book Club, but no matter.
AND GO.
Title: The Gifts of Imperfection – Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Author: Brené Brown
Other works: Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, and I Thought It Was Just Me, etc., as well as several TED Talks (my first exposure was this wonderful talk, which I looked up after reading about Brené on Momastery.
Genre: Self-improvement… Spirituality… Life journeys…
Recommended by: My hairdresser, who had just come to a place in her life where she was feeling truly happy with herself in her life. She glowed with it.
Main characters: Brené, her many unnamed research subjects, her family, and especially you, the reader.
Opinions: My hairdresser found it really helped her to be happy with herself and thus to move forward with her goals. She was hoping to convince her husband to read it, because he was feeling stuck in a place of insecurity on many fronts. (I’ll need to get a haircut for an update.) Personally, I found it to be an interesting, comforting, thought-provoking read. Not a difficult or jargon-y book whatsoever. Brené is a professional researcher, and she’s also a very human human.
A quotation I liked: “The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.” I really, really relate to this statement.
What sticks with me: The concept of living “whole-heartedly,” with all the things you and your heart are together, including the painful parts and the vulnerability to let them be seen. Also the statistics that indicate that one of the factors associated with happiness and contentment is belief in something greater/larger than ourselves, whether it be God or love or global connectedness or something else altogether.
Recommended to: Anyone struggling with self-acceptance, anyone wishing to be forgiven, anyone beating themselves up about stuff too often.
To sum up: I liked The Gifts of Imperfection a lot. It didn’t change my life drastically, but I can see how it would for some. And I’d like to read ALL of Brené.
My dear dance friend Mary nominated me, well over a year ago, for the 5-Day Artist Challenge on Facebook, in which you post a photo or so every day for five days, along with some interesting information or anecdote, to share with others the role of art in your life.
I did not manage to do this at that time, despite my best intentions. I forget what silly thing sidetracked me.
Because really, what’s more important than art? Art is bread for the soul – EVERY kind of bread: the white, the brown, the seedy, the fluffy, the cheesy, the crusty, the glutinous AND the gluten-free. I profoundly believe that we all need art to live.
This post was supposed to be Day 1. But I just have to tell you something before I start. I’m reeling a little, for two reasons that have nothing to do with the title of this piece.
Firstly, my beloved MacBook just came back from the shop. It had a several-days-long medical episode in which it was only sometimes taking a charge, and then it stopped charging altogether (!!) and went deep into computer-sleep. And then the good lad at the repair shop (their designated “Mac guy”) made it work again.
Everything seems back to beautiful normal in laptop-land… except that at least two almost-finished blog post drafts are GONE. Including a lengthy comparison of Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake as weekend getaway options. Disappeared! Except for this one partial title: “5-” Which frankly I could have managed to remember anyway.
Skye: I swear that this is true.
So that’s a bit traumatic. But EVEN WORSE.
My second shock has to do with Harry Potter. As you know, I am a Level 5 Harry Potter Fan with a tendency to geek out on the subject, sometimes at the expense of a small child. I just finished reading the entire series to one-and-a-half of my children (i.e., my 7-year-old listened avidly to every word, and my almost-4-year-old was asleep for at least half of it). It took us many months, and although I know there are those who would judge me for reading all seven books to such young’uns (believe me, I did not take the exposure lightly – I did fret about certain themes, and very occasionally edited small things out), my kids were great about it. They loved it, and I loved it. (So much that I did voices – WITH accents.)
Such an amazing story. It just gets better with every reading. The kids were almost never scared, and E took everything in stride. When we finished the series, he immediately asked, “Can we start at the beginning and read it again?” And to be honest, it’s been handy being able to refer to HP when questions come up about difficult things (war, politics, love, death, bullying, etc.).
I also, of course, bought The Cursed Child and read it (to myself only) after we finished The Deathly Hallows. (I haven’t told E we own it, otherwise he’d insist on hearing it, and I just don’t fancy reading a play aloud to him.)
And I enjoyed it, especially the quirkiness of the new characters, although it felt very weird to read it as a play, and without Rowling’s unique voice. I’ll have to mull over and re-read to know how I really feel about it.
But anyway. Back to my trauma. My identity crisis.
I mentioned in my geek-out that I’d been sorted into Ravenclaw a couple of times, but that was years ago and I don’t even remember how. Then I became a member of the beta version of Pottermore, where they have an actual genuine virtual Sorting Hat, and I was sorted into Hufflepuff. When you become a Hufflepuff, you learn all the things that make Hufflepuff life so great, and I really did relate to it, and embraced the identity.
Then, just recently, after I started reading HP to the kids, I got curious to see if I’d changed over the years, and did another test on gotoquiz.com – the one with “all possible questions” – and it sorted me into… Gryffindor. That was a shock to me – not unwelcome, exactly, but startling to say the least. Was it possible that I’d gotten braver with age? But I said to myself, this is not Pottermore. The only way to know FOR SURE is to get re-sorted on Pottermore, because it’s the real deal.
I finally did that today, with my newly happy laptop, doing my best to consider each answer carefully and honestly. Because this is crucial. And what did I get?? Effing Slytherin. I still can’t believe it. Seriously, friends, is there ANYTHING dark about me?? Other than the fact that I do actually rather like snakes… What am I missing? Where did I take this turn?? (It’s probably The Cursed Child‘s fault, come to think of it. It’s trying to teach me a lesson.)
If you ever see me sacrificing my friendships for the sake of my ambition, just smack me, please.
Because this is an emergency, just to keep me from tossing and turning all night, I just did the “shockingly accurate” Buzzfeed quiz for hybrid houses. Good ol’ Buzzfeed. Now I can go to bed. Not sure I can ever go to Pottermore again, though.
{Tra la, this post was supposed to be finished and posted OVER A WEEK AGO. Ridonculous. Had several rough nights with congested baby, also working on E methodically testing every boundary he can think of, especially the one where he tries to get us to do his bidding by being a whine-meister. Boo, excuses.}
Sooo… You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t posted any GGG book club reviews for a while. I got behind by a few, and then they just piled right up. You know, like books.
Ergo, I’m going to catch myself up, shorterness style: Four Bullets Only Per Book. !!! ONLY.
1. One Day, by David Nicholls.
A love story in which we follow the relationship of our protagonists for one day per year (St. Swithin’s Day) for twenty years. A neat idea, though it makes for a (deliberately) disjointed story.
Very readable, smart, interesting, but if you’re expecting a light, fun summer read, look elsewhere. This book has quite a bit of sad/depressing/frustrating stuff along with the romance.
It’s set in the U.K., written by an English author, and therefore contains cute words you don’t read in North American books. I enjoy them generally, but I noticed certain ones (such as as “raffish” and “larky”) came up too many times to remain charming.
One Day has the distinction of being the first book I ever read on my Kobo (e-reader). I loved its portability, but the editing was wonky: there were well over a dozen instances where the second letter was missing in words starting with F, so “flatly” became “fatly” and “frightened” became “fightened”, etc. At first it made me chuckle, and then I thought it was a weird joke I wasn’t getting, and then it made me unreasonably annoyed.
1.1 We watched the movie at our book club meeting, because obviously. (I get an extra set of bullets for that. Since it’s my blog and I say so.)
I think I actually liked the movie better. *gasp.* The embodied characters were more endearing, probably because I liked the actors.
I finally saw the appeal of Jim Sturgess, who didn’t do anything for me in Across The Universe. Somehow, he was cuter and charminger in this – maybe I just don’t like him in Beatles-y hair.
Anne Hathaway was great, as usual, though her pronunciation (I think it’s supposed to be a Manchester accent) was unstable. AND, they actually made her look full-on frumpy in one scene. Impressive.
If I remember rightly, I got kinda choked up at the end. In a good way. (Whereas at the end of the book I was more like, “HUH???”)
2. Falling Backwards, by Jann Arden
Memoir of Jann Arden’s journey from (sorta) normal Canadian childhood to successful music career.
This lady is FUNNY. Also bizarre and disarmingly candid. I laughed out loud, many times.
She’s also a really good writer – very honest and unaffected, with occasional profound phrases that seem to pop up out of nowhere.
And she did some crazy stuff in her life. Alcoholic father, very troubled brother, and personal illnesses aside, she had adventures in fields and woods, rivers and high seas – and the urban jungle. Not exaggerating.
3. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley.
Eleven-year-old detective Flavia de Luce narrates a tale of murder-mystery-solving, and gets herself into some serious escapades.
This character drives the book. She’s mischievous and smart and sassy and a little vulnerable sometimes, and I relished her.
She makes you want to learn chemistry. (That’s where much of her Sherlock-ability lies.)
There are more books about her! Someday I’ll have time for those. (But don’t worry, unlike SOME books, this one has its own gratifying ending.)
4. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig
Classic (1974) philosophical novel about a guy who takes a motorcycle road trip with his son and some friends, and lets his deeper mind do most of the talking.
This book was ground-breaking, life-changing, when it came out. (As indicated above.) My own parents have referred to it in such terms.
For us, it was not as thrilling as we’d hoped. Many (though not all) of the ruminations on technology are obsolete, and some bits seem kinda naive. Most of the GGG found it dense slogging, to the point of groanishness. I found some parts quite interesting, but to be honest, I haven’t finished it. I do plan to… someday.
I now associate it with the horribly sweet neon-orange beverage I had to drink during the 3.5-hour glucose test I did while pregnant with Baby AB, because Zen and TAOMM was how I passed the wait.
One extra point! to state that later editions have a bonus ending section that is not part of the original! Yes, I’m saying that if you haven’t read this since the 70s… THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY. (See how it makes sense that I get an extra bullet? Boo-yah, loophole.)
5. The Colour of Tea, by Hannah Tunnicliffe
Grace moves to China for her husband’s work and is left listless by news of her infertility. Eventually, she picks up her bootstraps (or whatever the phrase is) and starts a new life as a café owner.
The heroine irritated me for the first few chapters (even though I could hardly blame her for her torpor), but I ended up liking her a lot.
The descriptions of the city of Macau are vivid and interesting, but not as much as the mouthwatering descriptions of the café food, especially the macarons of different flavours. (NOT macaroons – these are more like gourmet meringue sandwich cookies, as pictured on the cover. Our host procured some for the book club meeting, because obviously we were dying to try some, but I missed it. 🙁 )
The synergistic ending was one I (and probably many others) saw coming from a mile away… but it was still satisfying.
6. The Knife Of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness
In the land where there are no female humans – and the males can all hear each other’s thoughts – all the time – one young boy must escape. Things are not as they seem. Dun dun dunnnn.
Really interesting, thought-provoking concept. I think all of us enjoyed the way this alternate world was imagined, and were fairly carried away by the plot and flinty characters.
We were unanimously annoyed by the deliberate wrong spellings, though, since they only partially made sense. Maybe they appeal more to the (intended) YA audience.
Warning: it’s not over at the end! In fact, I was somewhat ticked off at the end. HUGE… BUILDUP… CRESCENDO… OMG CAN WE PLEASE JUST KNOW HOW IT ENDS?? And then it’s over, but nothing’s wrapped up because go read Book Two, people. Hmph.
7. White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
An unlikely bunch of people in London are connected, practically as family, by a strange history and even stranger present events (present being mostly the 70s in this case).
I was fully impressed by the confidence with which Zadie Smith, at age 25, wrote this debut novel. The writing is quirky and opinionated and speaks brashly about all kinds of topics where I’d be tiptoeing. Evidently the rest of the world was also impressed, because it became an immediate bestseller and won a bunch of awards.
Some in the group found it kinda hard to get into. I found it mostly interesting, full of characters that were engaging if not completely likeable, but it helps that I was reading it on a very lightweight device, as it was apparently a very large book. The absorption-to-weight ratio matters.
There was one part in particular about a young black girl going to great lengths to achieve straight, silky hair. It is now branded on my memory forever, because shortly after finishing the book, I watched the documentary “Good Hair” on Netflix. It’s true and it’s crazy, y’all.
8. The Story of Beautiful Girl, by Rachel Simon
Where do a deaf black man and a woman with Down Syndrome find true love together? At the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded.
This is an amazing and lovely story, written sensitively and beautifully through the POVs of several different people. We were all moved by it.
The author’s note at the end was great, too. She wrote humbly about not wanting to appropriate voices that weren’t hers, but needing to write about this, and give these characters a more joyful story than the real ones on which it’s based.
This book, like The Help, makes you shudder. This kind of treatment of differently-abled people was only a few decades ago (or less? could still be happening?) in the United States (and probably here in Canada, too). How scarily, horribly recent. How outrageously shameful.
9. Something Fierce, by Carmen Aguirre
Memoir of a young adulthood spent as a (daughter of a) revolutionary in South America, particularly Pinochet’s Chile; winner of Canada Reads in 2012.
One of those books that makes your jaw drop. Seriously?? She did all that stuff? At WHAT age? How was she this brave??
It reminds you that concentration camps and everyday danger are not limited to the WWII Holocaust. As the author points out, we have a sheltered, relatively naive existence here in Canada.
Despite all this, the book is not as harrowing or depressing as you might imagine. It’s written with a dark humour and frankness, and the evolution of Aguirre’s 11-year-old self to her adult self, under crazy circumstances, is fascinating.
Alors, voilà!
There are (I think) three books missing from this list (namely Animal Vegetable Miracle, Quiet, and Gold), which I will be reviewing individually, because the five-bullet rule was just not going to work for me in those cases. Please stay tuned.
I had a grand plan to craft a beautiful essay, rife with linkativity, proving the essential similarity of these three items:
Glennon Doyle Melton’s book Carry On, Warrior,
A great read.
Vampire Weekend’s new album “Modern Vampires of the City”,
A great listen.
And Iron Man 3.
A great flick.
You see, this one time, in high school, I got perfect on an essay. Yep. My English teacher could find nothing wrong with it. (I am STILL proud of this, eighteen years later.) But I’m actually a little rusty, believe it or not. My skills have gone soft from too many bullet points.
Lacking the essay chops, I was gonna say something short but insightful about the use of irony or alliteration or metaphor, and the role of artistry in our modern lives. Then I thought that might cause a few too many folks to go Uggghhhh Dilovely, you’re scraping bottom, and proceed over here to cry with laughter.
Instead, we’re going to try a News Bites formula. For fun, because what could be funner than news bites? They’re like Fritos, without the fat content.
Blogger’s Book Insanely Popular Even Before Being Read
Glennon Doyle Melton is the creator/author of Momastery.com, a personal blog that exploded into the online world in January 2012 and became a community for people who passionately agreed with Glennon’s messages, including but not limited to “Love wins,” “Life is brutiful,” and “We can do hard things.” (I have been reading Momastery since then, and although I don’t usually participate in the comments, I have read some, and I am always gratified by the respectful, loving, open approach of those who identify themselves as “Monkees”.) I bought Glennon’s book, Carry On, Warrior, for myself and my mom on Mother’s Day. It contains some of her most popular blog posts and lots of new essays, forming a quasi-life-story that’s fascinating. Frankly, I ate it up. Loved it. Didn’t want it to be over as soon as it was. It’s funny, heartbreaking, wise, and deep without being heavy. Makes you want to be a better person, whilst also making you feel better about the kind of person you already are. WORD.
Household Attacked by Vampires
“Modern Vampires of the City” is the third album of one of our household’s fave bands, Vampire Weekend. We are listening to it obsessively around here, ever since Sean got it for me for my birthday. It’s a departure from their Africanesque/world sound; at first listen, it seems a bit more mainstream. Most of the lyrics are not as overtly oddball as those of the first two albums. But now that it’s becoming ingrained in the fibre of our lives, I can assure you, it’s just as original as ever. Maybe even more so. Their sound is simple but not. The lyrics completely baffle me but I love them anyway. As with the last album, Contra, my favourite song changes every day. (Currently it’s “Everlasting Arms”, but “Diane Young” is best for dancing to and “Unbelievers” is best for singing along to and “Yeah Hey” is the catchiest.)
Tony Stark Rendered Speechless by Pepper Potts
Sean wisely had me watch Iron Man and Iron Man 2 before we went to see Iron Man 3. They are all pretty epic and exciting, filled with witty deadpan remarks (mostly delivered by Robert Downey Jr.) at times of great stress and suspense. All the movies were good – I enjoy the scientific conscience and moral questions, as well as the effects so cool that you’re more than happy to suspend your disbelief. I think I have a bit of a crush on Tony Stark’s talking computer, Jarvis. But really, it’s all about RDJ and how he manages to portray an egomaniacal jerk who is also a heroic person with a lot of love in his precarious heart. This movie had it all: some slapstick, some suspense, some acrobatic midair humanitarianism, some laugh-out-loud moments, a small but great part for Rebecca Hall (whom I love), an evil part for Guy Pearce (who doesn’t love a Guy Pearce villain?), Gwyneth Paltrow kicking ass, a spunky little fatherless kid… And, forget about Gandhi. THIS is Ben Kingsley’s best role ever. Plus, the ending was very satisfying. {N.B.: I think there were just four of us left in the theatre by the time the post-credits joke scene came up. All those early leavers missed out on a good chuckle.}
Vampire Baby is Also Child Prodigy
So, not long ago, Baby AB cut her first two top teeth, and both were second incisors. If you got a view of her upper gums, she looked like a vampire baby. (Too much Vampire Weekend, undoubtedly.) Now, tooth #5 is coming in between those two, so she’ll just look like she was in hockey fight instead. BUT! The important thing is, she is totally talking, at eight months of age. When she’s in the mood (which is all the time except when you’re taking a video or otherwise trying to show her off) she waves her arm and says “Hi!” And I’m virtually certain she knows I’m “Mama” and Daddy is “Dada”, based on the frequency of those syllables in relation to who’s holding her. So she’s pretty much got the language thing in the bag. Amazing, yes??
Four-Year-Old Boy Becomes Father
E’s big birthday present from us, upon turning four, was a baby doll, as he had expressed interest in having one, specifically one whose clothes he could change. The search for, and subsequent giving of, that baby is gonna be its own whole blog post, but for now let me say: Awwwww.
Whole Family Flies Through the Air
On Thursday, my dad’s whole side of the family shall converge upon New Mexico (near Albuquerque) for my cousin’s wedding! First plane trip for the kids! (Trying not to think about how stressful that might turn out to be. I’m sure it’ll be nothing but fun, right? Especially the layovers.) We actually have passports for all of us! (Baby passport = ridiculously cute.) CAN’T WAIT to see the clan!! Two more sleeps, you guys!!!
So I finally got to see the new Les Mis movie in mid-February, when it had been in theatres for a month and a half.
Just learned this awesome word: “oscarisé”. This director has been previously Oscarized. Way to go, Tom Hooper.
This is rather a travesty. I’m a musical geek. I could sing you most of the soundtracks for about a dozen different musicals.* I was also a French major; I studied much French lit, loved the Romantics, and I’ve even been to the Victor Hugo museum.
As you can imagine, this movie gave me a lot of feelings.
First, some back story. (Victor Hugo would want me to include this.)
Dilovely’s first exposure to Les Mis in any form was on a visit to family friends in Toronto. She was about 11. This family had the piano music for the Schönberg-Boublil-Kretzmer musical, and the dad was playing it while another friend, a girl around my age, swished her long skirt around and sang “Master of the House” and “On My Own”. She knew all the words. Mini-Di wished she were like this girl: confident, knowledgeable, able to sing in front of people. And the music… it was compelling. There was obviously great drama behind it.
It was the spring of 1990 when a copy of the Original Broadway Cast Recording, with Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean, came into Mini-Di’s household, via her aunt. It was a home recording, on cassette tape, of course.
She and her sister Emily became totally obsessed. ‘Twas in the days before lyrics.com (or anything .com), so Em transcribed the lyrics by hand in a little spiral-bound notebook, and Mini-Di read them and listened for the parts she couldn’t get. They knew every word – and every inflection, every quirk of accent, every nuance of instrumentation. They were of an age where they understood the concepts of poverty, prostitution, homeless people, revolution, and death – but only superficially. Suddenly this story, with its gorgeously sad music, was making tragedy real.
Soon, Dilovely would see the musical live at the Royal Alexandra Theatre – twice – and receive a Les Mis T-shirt for her birthday.
Fast-forward ten years. [That’s a Hugo tactic too.] In 2000, Dilovely was in France, having finished her French degree during which she was, inevitably, moved by Victor Hugo’s poetry. That year, the musical version of Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris was a wild success in Paris, starring Canadian Pierre Garand (a.k.a. Garou) as Quasimodo.
Dilovely found a copy of Les Misérables in the original French at Dunkerque’s Virgin Records store: two hefty paperback volumes totalling 1,948 pages (not counting appendices). She decided to make it her Everest.
“Cosette Sweeping” by Emile Bayard, 1862.
She spent over three months reading this chef-d’oeuvre (in between teaching and gallivanting), with her French-English dictionary close at hand. She adored it. She cried frequently over the story. When it was over, she mourned its finishing and missed the characters terribly. They had become family.
As you can imagine, she was rather stoked to find out that there would be a new movie of Les Mis, the first to incorporate the music from the musical, and the first movie-musical to use live (rather than pre-recorded and lip-synched) singing by the actors. She anticipated great things.
Then, poor Dilovely wasn’t sure she would even make it to see the movie in theatres.
It ended up being almost a covert op: get baby to sleep just in the nick of time, leave the house in a hurry to arrive less than two minutes before the opening scene, keep phone in bra for whole movie in case of emergency text from Auntie Em, return home as swiftly as possible once the movie is over, before baby remembers that she doesn’t know how to drink from the bottle. (She was chewing on the nipple happily enough when we came in, so it was better than nothing.)
So, here are my thoughts as a francophile/Les-Mis-devotee.
Firstly, A Note About The Book:
To be honest, after I’d read Les Misérables, I returned to the musical’s soundtrack and found it lacking. The book is incredibly rich, teeming with history both real and imagined.** Every character, major or minor, is endowed with a superbly crafted, heart-wrenching personal history. And Victor Hugo knew what he was doing; though I haven’t been able to find it for you, I remember reading a quotation from him in which he admitted that he strove to evoke powerful emotions in his readers – something on the order of “If y’all don’t cry reading this book, I’ll eat my hat,” but in erudite, Romantic French.
It was gratifying to see the movie and realize it recaptures some of the depth that was lost in the stage play.
General Notes:
This movie thoroughly impressed me: the performances, the singing abilities, the method acting, the sensitivity of the adaptation, the sound mixing (bonjour, Oscar!), the makeup (Oscar again), the costumes, the set design, the overall vision.
This movie contains some of the most raw acting I’ve ever seen. And I don’t mean raw as in under-done – I mean naked, harrowing, bare-your-soul-to-the-camera acting.
The main actors are apparently all Les Mis geeks, for whom playing these roles is a dream come true.
Their dedication to their roles is remarkable. For example:
Hugh Jackman drank no water for 36 hours prior to filming his convict scenes, to achieve the “gaunt” look;
Eddie Redmayne sang 21 takes of “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” to be satisfied with his work, even though the director was happy with take #12;
and Anne Hathaway had them actually cut off her real hair, on camera.
Sean, without previous exposure to the music, was not as thrilled with the movie. There were many scenes where he felt it would have been better if they’d spoken the dialogue instead of singing. I think that’s an unsolvable issue with movie musicals: when you put them onscreen, it’s just kinda strange that they’re singing. The same is true of Rent: when it’s a movie, you expect them to speak their dialogue, not sing it.
To combat this, I recommend listening repeatedly to the soundtrack until it’s part of the fabric of your being. Then it doesn’t seem incongruous at all.
While watching, I had occasional glimpses of how the movie might seem to an outsider, how it could be perceived as maudlin. I mean, the pathos is so thick you can chew on it. But that’s part of why we love it. I believe Hugo would have approved.
Comparison to the Stage Musical (spoiler warning, if you don’t already know the story… but who doesn’t?):
I noticed every time the music differed from the soundtrack in my head – alternate lyrics, more delicate instrumentation, and lots of abridged songs. (“Dog Eats Dog” was all but eliminated.)
The grit and sordidness of the time and place really come through on film. From the dizzying nosebleed section of the Royal Alex, you can’t fully appreciate how filthy everyone is. (Teeth especially.) On a movie set, one can achieve truly repulsive squalor. “Look Down”, “Lovely Ladies” and “Master of the House” are outstanding examples of this.
Similarly, the intimacy of film allows for plot subtleties that aren’t possible in stage format. Suddenly certain realities are clear:
Fantine’s dawning acceptance, as her hallucinations dissipate, of the fact that she is dying and must give up care of her daughter;
the poignant youth and naïveté of the students;
Valjean’s jealousy and panic when he realizes Cosette will not always be his;
the gendarme’s regret after shooting Gavroche;
the pathetic haphazardness of the barricade, and indeed the “revolution” as a whole.
I loved the new song, “Suddenly”, sung by Valjean when he takes little Cosette into his care. This was one of the book’s plot points missing entirely from the musical: rescuing Cosette completely changes Valjean’s outlook and priorities. His love for her is immediate, intense, beautiful, and drives basically all of his subsequent actions. He is fiercely protective and fearful at the same time, as parents are. I was very glad they reincorporated this element.
Specific Notes:
The opening scene blew me away. “Goosebumps” doesn’t remotely cover it.
Hugh Jackman made me cry, especially in the Soliloquy at the beginning. I loved almost every aspect of his performance.
My only quibble was that I wished “Bring Him Home” were more wistful/delicate. But it’s, like, one of the hardest solos in the world, and he sang admirably.
Anne Hathaway made me cry multiple times, even though her character lasts for less than half the movie. I’m glad she won the Oscar.
I’d been warned that Amanda Seyfried as Cosette sings like a Chipmunk. I understood the reference immediately – it’s true that her vibrato is very trembly and the part is written super-high – but her pitch is right on and I thought she did a good job overall.
I was also warned that Russell Crowe as Javert was the weak link. I can’t disagree; his singing – especially his consonants – were tentative where they should have been full of conviction (no pun intended). His performance was lacklustre. But again, his pitch was good, and his duet with Jackman was solid – especially the low note on “Monsieur le maire, you wear a different chain” – so I forgive him.
Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham-Carter as the Thénardiers were appropriately gaudy and repellent, although I didn’t love Sacha’s constantly mutating accent. But I guess accents are his thing.
Eddie Redmayne is totally endearing as Marius. Earnest and freckly and boyish. He completely won me over with his delivery of the line, “I’m doing everything all wrong.”
Colm Wilkinson! Was in it! As the Bishop of Digne. I didn’t even recognize him – or his voice – while I was watching… so I guess I’ll have to see it again.
I appreciated the parts that recreated certain stage moments, like Valjean’s burdened silhouette in the sewer, and the angle at which Enjolras dies. My inner geek-self was tickled. (If you’re thinking, Um, Dilovely, what other self do you have? then yeah. Touché.)
I also appreciated the bits that gave us information from the book that was not in the stage version; for example:
we get to see the elephant statue that, in the book, is home to Gavroche and a bunch of other urchins.
we also catch sight of young Cosette’s doll that looks like a bundle of rags tied together; readers know she has wrapped up a little lead knife to be her doll. (I KNOW – how heartbreaking is that??)
I was confused for a moment by the enormous barricade that appears in the finale, with the whole cast singing atop it. I guess it’s probably reminding us that less than 20 years after the end of the story, in 1848, the French people would rise up for real and force King Louis-Philippe to abdicate – using a MUCH bigger barricade.
Notes on Revisiting the Story After Many Years:
As my understanding of the world increases, this story seems more and more relevant – and sad. There are people all over the world who still face tragic circumstances like those in Les Misérables, even though as a species, we should know better.
Fantine’s story touches me more now that I’m a mom. The idea of being obliged to give my child to someone else to look after and just hoping for the best, yearning for her all the time… Furthermore, knowing I’m going to leave the mortal plane and never hold her again… Just awful.
Hugo’s own story also hits home a lot more. His firstborn son died in infancy, and his second child Léopoldine drowned at age 19, shortly after being married. He knew all about pain, and also about passion, and politics. And he observed poverty all around him – the conditions he describes in the Les Misérables were not imagined. No wonder it’s an amazing book.
I need to read it again someday, even though it would probably take me… an embarrassingly long time.
And if you enjoyed the musical or the movie or even just the plot, I highly recommend reading it yourself.
***
BONUS Factoid/Recommendation:
La Liberté guidant le peuple, by Eugène Delacroix.
This is one of my favourite Romantic paintings, commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 in Paris. The little boy right beside Lady Liberty is said to have inspired Hugo’s Gavroche. I fell in love with this after seeing it discussed on video by Sister Wendy, and later had the privilege of seeing it at the Louvre. Sister Wendy is amazing and so is the painting.
***
*West Side Story, Showboat, Cats, Evita, Les Mis, Joseph, Miss Saigon, Assassins, Falsettos, A New Brain, Once On This Island, Rent, Parade… Sisters, what am I forgetting?
**For example, there is a section entitled “Waterloo”, a gruesome 70-page depiction of battle and its remains, related to the story only as historical context – and a vehicle to introduce Thénardier in the last few pages. I wrote a paper on it, about Hugo’s manipulation of time, during my M.A. That’s how much I love Hugo.
