Chorus of Mushrooms (Hiromi Goto)

Dirty Havana Trilogy (Pedro Juan Gutierrez)

Sex. About 75% of this novel is sex. Not passionate love-making sex, but dirty, vulgar, abusive, find-the-nearest-warm-body sex.

In Gutierrez's version of Cuba during the 1990's, there is no room for love, or cleanliness, or human goodness. There is only filth and poverty.

Dirty Havana Trilogy, which was originally published in Spanish in 1996,  is referred to as the anti-communist manifesto. Gutierrez shows us the corruption, the black markets, the unemployment, the poverty, the hopelessness, and ration lines of Cuba in the 90's.

As a work of literature, it's a fascinating piece. I enjoyed it, but it did seem to drag on and on after a while. It was worth the read, but it's not something I would pick up and read again.

Exceptional Circumstances (James Bartleman)

Bookshelf Tour: Part 3

Bookshelf Tour: Part 2

In My Mailbox Today

Bookshelf Tour: Part 1

Here is the first video in my Bookshelf tour. I'm going to make a few of these to share all my books. 

On Heroes and Tombs (Ernesto Sabato)

On Heroes and Tombs is a massive book, not because it's almost 500 pages long, but because in 479 pages Sabato covers so much. 

Argentinian writer Ernesto Sabato wrote three major novels over the span of his career. His first novel El Túnel (The Tunnel) was published in 1948. On Heroes and Tombs, his second novel (published originally in Spanish as Sobre héroes y tumbas) appeared in 1961, but wasn't translated into English until 1981. It appears that no new English printings have been produced since the 1980s.

As I said, Sabato covers a lot in this novel.

We are confronted, immediately, in the Forward with the news that a woman named Alejandra has killed her father and taken her own life. The Foreword, which takes the form of an excerpt from a police report, mentions a "Report on the Blind" and casts doubt on the murder/suicide being "an act of madness."

In Part One at first,on the surface, things seem simple. It is a story about a young man (Martin) who meets an unusual young woman (Alejandra) and falls in love with her. Events subtly take a turn towards the strange as we learn more and more about Alejandra and experience her unusual and concerning behaviour. She is prone to drastic mood swings and feels that she is one the edge of something cataclysmic

Just when we think we've got a grasp on the tone and style of the book, we reach Part Three: Report on the Blind, which drastically shifts the tone and rocks our perception of what we believed the book to be.

Part Three of this novel could almost be a novel on its own. It's a mysterious, baffling, amusing and somewhat chilling story of conspiracy in which we must constantly question the reliability of the narrator. At times it seems surreal. Yet, it is completely essential to the novel as a whole. It, in all its strangeness, provides the explanation for so many events within the other portions of the novel.

In the midst of this complexly crafted story, Sabato also manages to comment on Argentinian national literature,and political and historical events in a seamless way.

In My Mailbox Today: May 21st 2015

Leaven of Malice (Robertson Davies)

Leaven of Malice is the second book in Robertson Davies' Salterton Trilogy. It was first published in 1954, and it won the Leacock Award for Humour. Although I enjoyed it, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as Tempest Tost, the first novel in the trilogy.

The events of this novel are spurred by the appearance of a false engagement notice in the local paper, the Evening Bellman. Pearl Veronica Vambrace and Solomon Bridgetower, two minor characters we meet in Tempest Tost  are according to the notice, engaged to be married on November 31st, a date that does not even exist.

Pearl's father threatens legal action against the newspaper and the newspaper tries to find the culprit who placed the false ad. Pearl and Solomon--who barely know each other--try to decide what they will do.

This book had me smiling from start to finish, and I LOVED the ending. Although it's part of a trilogy, it can easily stand alone.

Bone & Bread (Saleema Nawaz)

Tempest Tost (Robertson Davies)

Two Solitudes (Hugh MacLennan)

I reread my favourite novel this week. 

Each Man's Son (Hugh MacLennan)

When I closed the back cover of Each Man's Son I felt a little sad. I have now read all of Hugh MacLennan's novels. I will never again open a new one and discover his prose for the first time. There are, of course, essay collections that I can read, but essays are not novels. Now I can only re-explore the ground that I have already tread upon. 

Each Man's Son was originally published in 1951 and is MacLennan's fourth novel. Set primarily in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the story focuses on Mollie MacNeil and her son Alan. At the opening of the novel Mollie has been waiting four years for her husband Archie, a prize fighter who has abandoned her and gone to the United States, to return. 

Mollie's loyalty to her absent husband is complicated by the attention of Louis Camire, a Frenchman who chose to stay on the island after a ship-wreak, and by the attention that the local Doctor, Daniel Ainslie shows to her son Alan. 

Archie's eventual return to Nova Scotia results in a violent confrontation, which drastically and permanently alters the lives of those closet to Mollie MacNeil. 

Although Each Man's Son is by no means MacLennan's best novel, it is not bad. I gave it three stars of goodreads. I liked it. In comparison, I've given all six of MacLennan's other novels five stars. This one didn't blow me away. 

When I read Two Solitudes and The Precipice I frequently found myself stopping to read passages aloud to myself, to underline, or to just take in the beauty and significance of MacLennan's prose. With Each Man's Son there wasn't a single moment when I did this. It was a good story. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't amazing. 

All I Know Now (Carrie Hope Fletcher)

Released on April 23rd 2015, All I Know Now: Wonderings and Reflections On Growing up Gracefully is the first book by British YouTuber and actress Carrie Hope Fletcher. Although she prefers to think of herself as primarily an actress, Fletcher has amassed more than half a million followers on her YouTube channel "ItsWayPastMyBedTime." 

While many books released by YouTubers take the form of memoirs, All I Know Now is more of a guide or advice book for her teenage viewers. Fletcher organizes her book like a play, with an Overture, eight acts, a finale, and a curtain call. Each "Act" deals with different subject matter. She deals with everything from making to friend, to internet etiquette ("Internetiquette"), sex, relationships and life goals.

Underneath the dust jacket, the front board of the book shows the definition of hopeful,
 a quality Fletcher strives to embody 

Although I am slightly older than the target audience for All I Know Now, and although I would have enjoyed a few more personal anecdotes, Fletcher has written a solid book. There's nothing groundbreaking in the life advice that she presents to her readers, but the advice she offers is sound and, I expect, helpful for her teenage readers and YouTube viewers. 

Fletcher's note to readers on the front fly-leaf of the dust jacket

Mad Shadows (Marie-Claire Blais)

Mad Shadows is the 78th volume in McClelland and Stewart's New Canadian Library series. It's also the 1959 debut novel of French-Canadian author and playwright Marie-Claire Blais. Blais is the author of more than thirty works, as well as the winner of the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award. Mad Shadows was published under the French title La Belle Bête.

Mad Shadows focuses on the lives of Louise and her two children, Isabelle-Marie an ugly but hardworking girl, and Patrice a "beautiful idiot." Isabelle-Marie is jealous of her brother's beauty and attempts, more than once, to disfigure and ruin his beauty. Patrice is ignorant of his own empty mind. He longs only to see his own reflection in the lake and in the mirror, and for the love and affection of his mother. Louise believes that Patrice is a genius deep in thought; she is entranced by his beauty and babies him for her own benefit.

Isabelle-Marie and her family live in a somewhat surreal countryside. The setting reminds me, in many ways, of magical realism. Patrice and Isabelle-Marie hardly encounter the outside world. For Isabelle-Marie venturing to a neighbourhood party is a massive and intimidating step. Apart from her step-father, her husband and family she directly interacts with no one else throughout the entire novel. 

Although the novel, as a whole, is amateurish, it's significance must be noted. The novel rejects certain conventions and norms. Sincere love is completely absent and beauty does not equal goodness. Blais plays with the binary of the beautiful and the ugly, portraying both as capable of behaving in ugly ways and becoming ugly. In fact, in the end, the boundary between the beautiful and ugly merges. 

Also of significance in this novel is Isabelle-Marie's intentional burning of the grain fields near the end of the novel. When she does this she severs her ties to the land and to the way of life she once lived. This is, perhaps, a nod from Blais to the Quiet Revolution which was occurring in Quebec at the time of Mad Shadows publication. 

There's so much symbolism and so many themes to dig into in Mad Shadows. Although I wouldn't recommend it as an introductory novel for readers looking to get into mid-twentieth century Can. Lit. as there are, I believe, far better examples of writing from this period, but it's definitely worth the read for any student or curious lover and explorer of Can. Lit. 

 

Book Sale Finds