Little Fish

You always had to be on your guard. It didn't matter how often you passed, it could always be taken away. Always. She'd never be little, she'd never be a fish. It could always be taken away.

I know a family who recently went on a trip to China, and as they were walking around Tiananmen Square, local families kept stopping them and motioning for their ten-year-old daughter to pose for pictures with their own children. My friends were amused by this at first, but as it happened over and over, and as their daughter tired of being petted and arranged just so by strangers, they grew impatient and started waving off requests. A locally-based American who had been watching said to them that it was the blue eyes more than anything – most of these people would have never seen blue eyes in real life before and they found the girl's looks to be shockingly strange; that “uncanny valley” effect that can surprise any of us when a person's looks don't fit into our known range of “normal”. Obviously, any Beijing residents who had spent time with blue-eyed people wouldn't have found this girl's looks shocking – familiarity is how we expand our known range of “normal” after all – and all of this is to say: Growing up, I don't remember seeing any trans people in real life, and what there were in pop culture (Klinger in M*A*S*H* [and, yes, I understand his character was pretending to be a transvestite, but he claimed to believe himself a woman in order to get discharged, so] or Divine in Hairspray [and, yes, I understand her to have been an intentionally over-the-top drag queen]) played up the uncanny valley effect – no one was trying to pass; these were men in dresses – and that did little to increase my own range. Today we see trans people more and more – even if they are usually the glamorous types like Lorraine Cox or Caitlin Jenner – and this familiarity absolutely expands the range of what “normal” looks like; which can't help but foster acceptance. But that's all just surface – what Casey Plett gives us in Little Fish is the interior life of a trans woman and this feels like the necessary next step in understanding; and this is why I read – in order to discover how it is that other people live and think and feel. I will admit that at first I wasn't terribly impressed with Plett's actual writing (it's a bit disjointed and doesn't flow quite right), but that's just the sentences (and just my own tastes) – in the end, Plett paints a real and empathetic picture of a transgendered woman's experience, and its value as a whole transcends the inelegance of its parts. 

As the book opens, we meet Wendy Reimer – a 30-year-old trans woman, eight years post-transition, living in Winnipeg – and as the blurb reveals, she learns at her Oma's funeral that there may have been closeted trans (or at least gay) relatives somewhere in her deeply religious Mennonite family tree. The blurb makes it sound like this is the big story arc but it's really not – while there are some nice stretches examining what it has meant to come out of the closet as a member of a religious community over time, this story is more about Wendy's own life than a trek through the past. And her own life is pretty hard, mostly due to the intolerance of others: a low-paying and insecure retail job, constantly at risk of verbal abuse and sexual assault from strangers, a tough dating scene and questionable housing; it all leads to Wendy being a quick-tempered and foul-mouthed blackout drunk (you'll like her anyways). With no mother and a loving but flaky father, Wendy has cobbled together a family of fellow trans women – knowing how lucky she is to live in a time and place where she can find such a community – and the love and support these women give each other is the spiritual heart of the book. The trans women are in various stages of pre- and post-op, and they run the gamut from straight to gay to pansexual; it all paints a big and varied picture of the trans experience, with the women mostly heartbroken over those girls who don't yet know they're girls, or who are too afraid to do something about what they know and want. As for the actual surgery, Wendy says:

If other girls asked (as more and more would as more girls came out and the Klinic pipeline got long) she would say the one true thing she could: No she wasn't any happier, no she didn't feel any more like a real girl. But she was calmer now, like a small buzzing part of her brain had been turned off, and was now forever at rest.

It's hard to say that any of these characters are actually happy – there's the alcohol abuse, constant misgendering (Lady, you're a dooood), sex work, and risk of suicide – but at least they're bravely living their truth, right? I found it interesting when Plett has an elderly Mennonite put in her two cents, pointing out that it's actually harder to deny yourself what you want for the glory of God:

You may have thought you needed to be a woman or die. Have you any idea what you can manage? You think you're weak. And because you think you're weak, you can't actually do anything. So you choose the easy, selfish path.

Nothing about Little Fish makes it look like Wendy took the easy path (and as for “selfish”, that's just a harsh word for taking care of oneself), but Plett is generous to the religious viewpoint and it adds another dimension to Wendy's experience. I liked the Winnipeg setting, I liked the constant sense of danger (it seemed that I more concerned for Wendy's welfare than she was herself), and I liked the shoutouts to Miriam Toews and Heather O'Neill. On the other hand, even if it adds to the truth of the experience, I don't need this much explicit sex in a novel, and as I said earlier, this writing doesn't feel terribly literary at the sentence level. But overall, Little Fish feels important – the needed next step in recognising transgendered people as simply people; I consider the four stars a rounding up in light of this.

Crime and Punishment

Would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchange – it’s simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle.

Crime and Punishment is yet another one of those classic novels that I hadn't read because I thought I knew exactly what it would be about (why did I assume it would spend its first half leading up to a crime and its second with the perp languishing in a gulag somewhere?), and once again, my preconceptions were unfounded: more than anything, Fyodor Dostoevsky has written a psychological profile of a twisted mind – someone so fevered with philosophical whatifism that he can't conceive of the human effects of his malicious thought experiments – and by reflection, shines a light on the twistedness within us all and within society at large. I enjoyed every bit of this, found many surprises in the narrative along the way, and after looking into what others have gleaned from this classic, I was pleased to discover this article in The Conversation that perfectly summarises the social and political influences that drove Raskolnikov to his self-absorbed madness. (I particularly enjoyed that article's history lesson and the line its author drew from the freeing of the serfs in Dostoevsky's day to the anti-liberalism of today, identity politics, Brexit, and even Russia's annexation of Crimea.) It's never too late to pick up a classic and see what everyone has been talking about for 150+ years; I'll still warn that there will be mild spoilers beyond this point.

If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be punishment – as well as the prison.

Rodion Raskolnikov is twenty-two years old, has recently dropped out of school due to lack of money, and he is so world-weary and soul-sick that he wants nothing more than to shut himself up in his dingy garret room, refuse all visitors, and sleep and think and dream:

An anxiety with no object or purpose in the present, and in the future nothing but endless sacrifice, by means of which he would attain nothing – that was what his days on earth held in store for him... What good was life to him? What prospects did he have? What did he have to strive for? Was he to live merely in order to exist? But a thousand times before he had been ready to give up his existence for an idea, for a hope, even for an imagining. Existence on its own had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more than that. Perhaps it was merely the strength of his own desires that made him believe he was a person to whom more was allowed than others.

Raskolnikov harbours a pet theory that the contributions of the great men of history are so monumental that they must be forgiven every crime they may have committed to put their ideas into action; even unto murder:

In my opinion, if, as the result of certain combinations, Kepler's or Newton's discoveries could become known to people in no other way than by sacrificing the lives of one, or ten, or a hundred or more people who were hindering the discovery, or standing as an obstacle in its path, then Newton would have the right, and it would even be his duty... to remove those ten or a hundred people, in order to make his discoveries known to mankind. It by no means follows from this, incidentally, that Newton should have the right to kill anyone he pleases, whomever happens along, or to steal from the market every day. Further, I recall developing in my article the idea that all... well, let's say, the lawgivers and founders of mankind, starting from the most ancient and going on to the Lycurguses, the Solons, the Muhammads, the Napoleons, and so forth, that all of them to a man were criminals, from the fact alone that in giving a new law, they thereby violated the old one, held sacred by society and passed down from their fathers, and they certainly did not stop at shedding blood either, if it happened that blood (sometimes quite innocent and shed valiantly for the ancient law) could help them.

It isn't a far leap for Raskolnikov to liken his own ingenious mind to those of these historical greats, and he becomes fixated on the idea of committing a murder – one he feels he can justify on moral and logical grounds – mostly just to test his theories. In the crime's aftermath, he swoons for weeks in a nearly dissociative state, and his inner thoughts waver between guilt and fear of being caught and a stubborn sense of superiority. As other characters enter the story – his one friend, Razumihin, his mother and sister, the sister's suitors, a derelict and his family, the police – it's nicely frustrating to watch Raskolnikov spurn care and affection, to watch him torment a helpless young woman, to watch him both tease the investigators and elude their traps. The murder that Raskolnikov committed was both gruesome and indefensible, but since he's the protagonist, I didn't necessarily want him to get caught; and as every character in the story is neither wholly good or bad (except for maybe Luzhin, the soulless capitalist), Raskolnikov simply takes his place on the spectrum of human behaviour; he will make his choices and the reader can only wait and see how he will end up dealing with the consequences. 

When I read War and Peace and Anna Karenina, I understood that Leo Tolstoy was a Count; that he was showing what he knew of genteel Russian society. By contrast, Dostoevsky was more middle-class – an engineer, a gambler, and writer; sent to Siberia for five years for his political associations, he knew and wrote of a different Russia. The Petersburg that we enter is filled with drunks, prostitutes, pawnbrokers and tight-fisted landlords; desperate, hungry people one step from begging on the streets. While Raskolnikov is justifiably touched by the sight of a young prostitute who is peddled out in order to feed her family, he also notes that his mother's plan (to marry off his sister to someone who promises to fund the rest of his own schooling) amounts to the same thing. This flipside was very interesting to me and goes some way to explain Raskolnikov's aberrant psychology. (I wish I knew more about the constant anti-German slurs, but I did smile, despite myself, at “You sausage eater...you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a crinoline.”) This was a wonderful – interesting and educational – read; totally accessible and completely recommended.

How interesting for me that just a few days after this I read Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, and in addition to referencing Dostoevsky quite a few times, he referred specifically to Crime and Punishment in the following passage:

You might object, "But I'm an atheist." No, you're not (and if you want to understand this, you could read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, perhaps the greatest novel ever written, in which the main character, Raskolnikov, decides to take his atheism with true seriousness, commits what he rationalized as a benevolent murder, and pays the price.) You're simply not an atheist in your actions, and it is your actions that most accurately reflect your deepest beliefs – those that are implicit, embedded in your being, underneath your conscious apprehensions and articulable attitudes and surface-level self-knowledge. You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don't know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to know yourself.

And yet, Dostoevsky understood – and articulated – all of this, before Freud and Jung and Peterson himself. How interesting.

Tunesday : Livin' La Vida Loca

Livin' La Vida Loca

(Child, D / Rosa, R) Performed by Ricky Martin

She's into superstitions black cats and voodoo dolls
I feel a premonition that girl's gonna make me fall

She's into new sensations new kicks in the candle light
She's got a new addiction for every day and night

She'll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain
She'll make you live her crazy life but she'll take away your pain
Like a bullet to your brain
Come on!

Upside, inside out she's living la vida loca
She'll push and pull you down, living la vida loca
Her lips are devil-red and her skin's the color mocha
She will wear you out living la vida loca
Come on!
Living la vida loca
Come on!
She's living la vida loca

Woke up in New York City in a funky cheap hotel
She took my heart and she took my money
She must've slipped me a sleeping pill

She never drinks the water
Makes you order French Champagne
Once you've had a taste of her
You'll never be the same
Yeah, she'll make you go insane
Alright

Upside, inside out she's living la vida loca
She'll push and pull you down, living la vida loca
Her lips are devil-red and her skin's the color mocha
She will wear you out living la vida loca
Alright!
Living la vida loca
She's living la vida loca

She'll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain
She'll make you live her crazy life
But she'll take away your pain
Like a bullet to your brain
Come on!

Upside, inside out she's living la vida loca
She'll push and pull you down, living la vida loca
Her lips are devil-red and her skin's the color mocha
She will wear you out living la vida loca
Come on!

Upside, inside out she's living la vida loca
She'll push and pull you down, living la vida loca
Her lips are devil-red and her skin's the color mocha
She will wear you out living la vida loca
Come on!
Living la vida loca
Come on!
She's living la vida loca

Come on!
La vida loca
La vida loca

In my timeline, I'm up to 1999 now; and after some cash-strapped and lonely years, things were looking up - I may not have started livin' la vida loca, but I was happy; the mother of two amazing and loving young daughters, married to a good, hard-working man, we were growing out of the two-babies-tying-us-to-the-house days and just entering the maybe-we-can-have-some-us-time phase of life. This song - in addition to being so fun to dance to - perfectly captures this more free and easy vibe and earns its place on my personal soundtrack every time I hear it.

I wrote before that going to the GIFT Gala in February of 1999 was really the first time that I left the house for the evening since Mallory was born, and the only thing I'll add is that after just barely succeeding in weaning her to a bottle so we could stay out all night, it only took a couple glasses of wine to make me loopy after a year and a half of no drinking. Loca! In later years, we usually asked Dave's sister to come watch the girls at our house when we'd be away over night, but this first time, they stayed with my parents. They told us to take our time coming home - and as this was the first time in months that we could sleep in as late as we liked, we took our time.

I also wrote before that for Christmas of 1998, I was able to surprise Dave with two (nearly free) airline tickets to NYC. The promotion period that I could redeem these tickets for ended in May, and as Mallory's first birthday would be coming up that month, we decided to plan the trip for the end of April (to, of course, be back for her big day). We had enough money by this point to be thinking about a trip to New York, but we also needed to be very aware of how much we could spend - happily, as a stay at home Mom with a fairly reliable dial-up internet connection, I had the time and resources to look for deals. The most amazing thing: At the time, the Waldorf Astoria was doing some renovations and it was possible to stay in a maid's room (with the clear caveat that there was nothing luxurious about the room itself) for some crazy cheap (certainly less than $100/night; maybe even $50) rate. I booked it; even if the rooms weren't beautiful, I wanted to stay at the Waldorf. More on this later.

For that same Christmas, Dave gave me a certificate for a spa day at some chichi place in Toronto. I booked it for the day before we were leaving on our trip, and it was the kind of experience I would never want to repeat. (As an aside, Dave's sister is a registered massage therapist, and I've only gone to her once - being rubbed and fussed over, naked, is just not relaxing to me.) I remember that when I entered the spa, I was told to remove my clothes and put on a white robe and slippers and to begin by enjoying "the waters". I sat wrapped in a towel in an aromatherapy sauna until I got too hot - the ceiling dripping scented condensations on my head in hammerlike splats - and then sat by the pool that I wasn't interested in skinny-dipping in, reading ladies mags until my spa lunch arrived; equally spaced away from other solitary berobed women and their gourmet salads. I was then sent for a massage - awkward in my nakedness, even in front of a strange woman - and after that, to the skincare room. This aesthetician was an older woman with an East European accent with dewy skin, and as soon as I entered, she blurted, "So what would you like to accomplish today?" I was confused by her question and, without giving me time to consider an answer, she blustered, "Did you just come from massage? Yes, that always makes the mind like la de da. Come, come, sit."

She put me in a reclining chair and said, slowly, "What are your biggest skin care concerns?" Now, I was just barely thirty and had exactly zero skin care concerns. I thought hard, and though it embarrassed me to say it, I confessed, "I wouldn't mind getting rid of my moustache" (which was blonde, and thin, and barely there). She humphed dismissively, waved her hand and said, "That you do on your time. I'll give you what you need." And then she gave me a deep-tissue (read:painful) facial massage with various lotions; helpfully putting a list of recommended products in the file that she then carried on to my next procedure.

I had a mani-pedi (which made me uncomfortable, what with my short fingernails and ugly feet), and then I had my hair styled and my makeup applied; every recommended colour and product added to my file. Finally, I was permitted to put my clothes back on, I was handed envelopes in which to place my tips for each of my aetheticians, and though I felt pressured to at least get some decent face cream out of everything on my list, I was relieved to walk out the front door emptyhanded; exhausted and overpainted. Dave thought I looked great, but since we were leaving early the next morning, we had an early dinner and night in.

Fast-forward to showing up at the front desk of the Waldorf Astoria the next day (note: this is my very favourite story about me and Dave): At the time, for some reason, our bank had put just Dave's initials ("DR") on his Visa, and when he handed the card to the front desk clerk, he looked up our reservation, turned pale, and then excused himself. I got really worried that there was an availability issue with our cheapo reservations - obviously, we couldn't actually afford to stay here and I immediately felt like an uppity bumpkin - but after speaking to someone just out of hearing range, the clerk came back, handed Dave his card and said, "I'm just going to apply an upgrade for you here Dr Thompson, and the porter will be pleased to take you to your room." That took a second to register on me, but Dave smoothly thanked the clerk, followed the porter to the elevator and gave my hand a squeeze. When the porter opened the door to our room, it was unbelievable: a suite, all Art Deco chintz and marble, king-sized bed and city view. Dave slipped him a five and when the door was closed, we stood gaping at each other and at our good luck: I would not have been unhappy to have stayed in the maid's room, but naturally, this was even better. (It took me years to become offended with that front desk clerk: He obviously thought it would be wrong to put a doctor in one of the cheap rooms, but we were the same people standing in front of him, no matter what we did for a living. Classist jerk.)

Walking through the soaring lobby of the Waldorf - with its brass and crystals and gigantic flower arrangements - and then stepping out onto the street through its front doors was one of my favourite parts of this trip. For some reason, I don't think we took any pictures, and the rest is just touristing, so here's a brief summary of our (three or four day?) stay: We went up the Empire State Building; went to the MoMA and the Guggenheim; saw two Broadway plays (Night Must Fall starring Matthew Broderick, and Art starring George Wendt; both wonderful shows); saw some standup at Carolines Comedy Club; walked uptown and downtown, took a hansom cab through Central Park, took the ferry out to Staten Island; ate a lot of great food and excitedly recognised landmarks. These are the sorts of things every tourist does in NYC, and I was just happy to be doing them with my favourite guy, looking spiffy with pro-painted toes peeking out of my sandals. 

Okay, nothing very livin' la vida loca about any of this, but this trip was a wonderful reminder that I was more than just a trapped-at-home Mom - I was still young and felt lovely and alive in the world. Things were totally looking up for me and Dave and it was a great time for us to be alone together with our recharged optimism.

Woke up in New York City in a funky cheap hotel

She took my heart and she took my money

She must've slipped me a sleeping pill

She never drinks the water

Makes you order French Champagne

Once you've had a taste of her

You'll never be the same

Yeah, she'll make you go insane

Alright

In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo

I see the ad early in the day, when I'm taking a coffee break between the Skee-Ball lanes. A Frankie's Funhouse eighty kilometres out of Chicago is converting a Nifty Trio Set to Digital One. They've got an old Franny Feathers, my daughter Starr's favourite character, in Urban Cowgirl costume, as is. Hasn't worked right since the Spooky Good Time show was loaded in last Halloween.

This ad sparks the titular quest: in which Henry, an arcade games repairman at a Chuck E. Cheese-like franchise, sets off In Search of the Perfect Singing Flamingo to complete his basement recreation of his developmentally delayed adult daughter's favourite pastime; singing karaoke with an animatronic band of furred and feathered creatures straight out of the kiddy restaurant. Starr has Williams syndrome – a condition I wasn't familiar with and was interested to learn about – and this book is really about how her family's time and concern mainly revolves around her special needs. I found this concept to be both intriguing and valuable, but ultimately, I don't know if author Claire Tacon really pulled off the concept: what I initially found charming just sort of fizzled out into meh.

It always comes back to the same complaint, our fights. That I'm too indulgent with one, not tender enough with the other. As if Kath's manner is the yardstick of parental involvement.

As the book begins, Henry – in his fifties, saddled with debt and with no hope for retirement – commits to paying $1900 for the perfect singing flamingo for the basement setup; without letting his wife know about the purchase or the true nature of his plans to take Starr on a roadtrip down to Chicago for ComicCon. As for the wife, Kath – back in the workforce and proving her competence, if not raking in the big bucks – she sets up a dinner with their younger daughter, Melanie, and their son-in-law in order to spring a surprise of her own on Henry: after having miscarried their first pregnancy, the young couple wants to try IVF and need ten grand to pay for it. Henry and Kath had just remortgaged their home to set Starr up in a condo to foster independent living, and Henry can't see why his “typical” daughter would be reaching out for help: after all, they were still paying off Melanie and Chester's wedding, they had helped to put her through university, and the young couple both have good paying jobs; couldn't they see that even with the condo purchase what is “fair” is not necessarily splitting their limited funds 50/50 between the two? As the story progresses, it's obvious that Melanie loves and has always looked out for Starr – is 100% prepared to take on her guardianship when their parents no longer can – and if she's in a hurry to have babies, it's only in the hope that she can raise them to independence before she's the caregiver for her sister and their parents. As the narrative unspools, it's not really about money; this is just one of the pressures of many that this family endures (but these opening scenes do make it seem like Henry is inexcusably irresponsible in his secret $1900 purchase).

That's how Kath always sees our role as parents – to inoculate Starr against the difficulties of living. Prepare her for when we are no longer around. But while I'm still here, I don't want to limit her special treatment. I want Starr to have the best version of life she can imagine. Our daughter struggles enough.

The quest to Chicago and back doesn't exactly go as planned and the whole fiasco illuminates another facet of the family dynamics: Henry wants everything to go smoothly at every moment for Starr – advocating for her, apologising for her, physically shielding her from harm – but when his well-intentioned plans backfire, it's Kath – who had been misled about the whole adventure – who needs to step in and smooth everything over (not to mention Melanie needing to leave her job for backup support). Kath wants for Starr to experience challenges, to know that she is capable of making good decisions, but Henry just can't step back. As Kath points out, it's uncertain whether Starr really is a big fan of Frankie's Funhouse, or if the Williams makes her incapable of saying no to whatever her father offers to her. Truly, everything about the syndrome and how it affects a family was really well-represented.

On the other hand, the plot kind of goes nowhere; many ideas introduced early are never brought up again. The point-of-view rotates between four characters: Henry, Melanie, Starr, and...Darren. I haven't mentioned Darren above because he's a slight acquaintance of Henry's, and although he does tag along on the road trip to Chicago and we learn everything about his life, his storyline is totally peripheral and unnecessary to the main action. I don't understand why Kath – one of only five main characters, and certainly more important than Darren – doesn't get sections from her POV, but in the end, it doesn't matter that much because the voice in each section is the exact same; when a character with a developmental syndrome sounds the same as a Chinese-Canadian teenager, who sounds the same as a middle-aged man, something doesn't ring true. In a blurb, author Michael Christie calls this book “hilarious and humane” – and while I would agree with the “humane” part, the humour was along the lines of, “First love, like acute gastroenteritis, has to pass on its own”, or:

Melly asks me not to call her that anymore. She's Melanie now, Lainey to her husband and co-workers. Says it with such emphasis that I feel accused, as if I'd coached the other kids to call her Smelly Melly Ding-Dong.

I do love a book by a Canadian author who doesn't feel the need to explain local references – I totally identify with driving down the 401 to Milton, cheering on highschoolers competing at OFSAA, Henry contemplating spending the afternoon at Tim's where he could “sit like the other old-timers, flicking through a paper, letting sugar flakes collect on my lap” – but I didn't buy an American bespoke lingerie-maker in Chicago blaming her calloused fingers on stitching “metres” of lace to underpants; most Canadians would probably speak of “yards” in this context. 

I respect the intent behind this book – Starr is a dignified and believable character, confronting challenges to the best of her ability; what I learned of Williams was interesting and valuable – but it wasn't a totally successful novel. Still, I'm not unhappy to have picked this up.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June...If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!

The Picture of Dorian Gray is one of those old classics of literature that I hadn't read (or even seen a film adaptation of) because I thought I knew everything about it: somehow, a handsome young dandy remains forever young while a portrait of him in the attic grows old in his stead. Now having read it, I'll confirm that that is a pretty rude outline of the plot, but as Oscar Wilde's only novel, this book gives space to so much more: a philosophical examination of art vs culture as two separate entities; a pushback against repressive Victorian values, and especially as they criminalised sexuality; and a deep dive into fin de siècle London, with its decadent high society, repressive class distinctions, literary allusions, peak of empire, and the rise of scientism. There is so much thought stuffed into this slim novel that I did find it tedious at times (and especially the chapter on all of the jewels, perfumes, textiles, and musical instruments Gray had collected), but it still stands as a perfect encapsulation of the times that Wilde was living in; it may have been too philosophical to have weathered the years as an entertaining novel (to my tastes), but it stands as a valuable and necessary artefact of thought.

The book begins with the painter Basil Hallward (the embodiment of Art) showing his friend, Lord Henry “Harry” Wotton (the embodiment of Culture), the portrait that he has been painting of a young man, Dorian Gray, who to Hallward's estimation, had been endowed with all the best gifts of beauty, purity, and innocence: this portrait is his masterpiece, but only because it captured his own affection for its subject. Lord Harry contrives to meet Dorian, and finding him charming but witless, endeavors to corrupt him: outlining a popular philosophy of hedonism and pointing out to the youth that although his looks positioned him to experience every sensual/sensory pleasure there is to be had – which is, in Harry's mischievous telling, the only reason for living – once Dorian's youth and beauty fade, as they must, he will no longer have a meaningful life. This causes the impressionable Dorian to make the opening exclamation I quoted above, and by some unexplained device, we learn about halfway through the book that Dorian's Faustian fate has been sealed: after committing an act of cruelty, Dorian discovers that his portrait has acquired a nasty sneer, while his own face remains unlined. He concludes that he can behave in any way he likes, and while the portrait will serve as proof of the corruption of his soul, so long as he can hide the picture away and remain outwardly beautiful, Dorian will be free to experience every decadent pleasure he likes without societal censure – and to a closeted homosexual like Oscar Wilde, this wouldn't have been a strictly philosophical exercise. 

Wilde is quoted as having said of this book, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks of me: Dorian is what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.” Wilde isn't specific about the various self-described debaucheries that Dorian indulges in – although more than one young man is said to have been corrupted by him in some unspecified manner – but in a Preface added to later editions of this book, in response to those critics who called this narrative smutty and immoral, Wilde points out that because the actual “acts of depravity” aren't described, any critic who claims offence is projecting filth from his own imagination, “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Even so, when Oscar Wilde was later on trial for gross indecency regarding his relationship with another man – for which he would be found guilty and sentenced to two years of hard labour – the prosecutor quoted from The Picture of Dorian Gray as evidence; Wilde may have thought that he was being discreet, but even today, Basil's adoration of the young Dorian reads as sexual infatuation and it seems pretty clear that Dorian himself slept with anyone – man or woman – that he wished to. The portrait in the attic doesn't seem so much to be a physical representation of the age-old struggle between good and evil, as in the contemporaneous The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but more an embodiment of strict societal (not to mention legal) codes: the homosexual reality of Dorian/Wilde is literally locked away in a cupboard so that the man is free to walk unblemished through society.

As for the writing, there are many The Importance of Being Earnest-type drawing room scenes with flippant characters quipping out enduring aphorisms:

•  Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

•  Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.

•  There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

Wilde doesn't present many female characters, and what few there are aren't as fleshed out as the males. Lord Harry in particular seems to harbour a dislike for women – he is married but explains early on that he and his wife both cheat; she eventually leaves him for another man – and in addition to dismissing women as “sphinxes without secrets”, Harry also states:

•  My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

•  As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society.

(I wasn't at all offended by Wilde's treatment of women, just noting it.) As I said above, I was bored by the long chapter on Dorian's collections of exotic items (from perfumes to tapestries), but I was impressed by the citing of the diverse sources that prompted Dorian's curation – from the “flutes of human bones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile” to “Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the mouths of the dead”; quoting stories from Democritus, Procopius, Brantome and many others, I marvelled at the number of such references Wilde had assembled long before Google searches. Dorian also displays scientific thinking that reveals Wilde to have been a reader, in addition to all of these literary references, of scientific theories:

•  Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him?

•  I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal.

•  He inclined to the materialistic doctrines of the Darwinismus movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions, morbid or healthy, normal or diseased.

And, although this book is more about philosophy than pure plot, Wilde does insert some lovely Gothic horror writing:

The suspense became unbearable. Time seemed to him to be crawling with feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the jagged edge of some black cleft of precipice. He knew what was waiting for him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands his burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight and driven the eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. The brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving masks. Then, suddenly, time stopped for him. Yes: that blind, slow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being dead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its grave, and showed it to him. He stared at it. Its very horror made him stone.

Also in the Preface, Wilde states, “There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” I completely agree with that argument, and if I'm fit to judge it, I'd say that The Picture of Dorian Gray– with its philosophy, wit, erudition, and creepy secret in the attic that eventually comes to the fore – is certainly well-written; what it preserves of Victorian English society makes it important, as well. Only the bits that bored me (which I will eagerly blame on my own poor taste) prevent me from giving this classic the full five stars.

And this is me at Oscar Wilde's grave in Paris:

Winter's Bone

The men came to mind as mostly idle between nights of running wild or time in the pen, cooking moon and gathering around the spout, with ears chewed, fingers chopped, arms shot away, and no apologies grunted ever. The women came to mind bigger, closer, with their lonely eyes and homely yellow teeth, mouths clamped against smiles, working in the hot fields from can to can't, hands tattered rough as dry cobs, lips cracked all winter, a white dress for marrying, a black dress for burying.

I saw, and loved, the film adaptation of Winter's Bone years ago and that made me hesitant to read the book – I didn't want to retroactively downgrade my enjoyment of the movie if it wasn't faithful to a superior read; and besides, as basically a mystery story, how would the book hold my attention when I remember how it all ends? I was also made hesitant by the number of reviews that dismiss Daniel Woodrell's writing as so much MFA wankery – as obviously workshopped overwriting is my number one personal bugbear, I didn't see how the actual book could improve upon the movie made from it. And yet, the film and the book both have their strengths: whereas the movie used the visuals to create mood and tension, the book is able to get deep into the main character's mind for the same effect; able to give more historical/familial context for her current struggles. And while the writing was certainly crafted, perhaps even to excess, it wasn't fatally so for my tastes – I was crying by the end of this book and I can't fault writing that touches me.

You must have heard what Dollys are, ain't you, mister?

The basic plot: Ree Dolly is sixteen years old and taking care of her two younger brothers (ten and eight) and her helplessly demented mother in their creaky old house in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri while her father, Jessup – a meth cook who has done a long stretch in prison before – has disappeared, promising to come back soon with a pile of cash. A bailbondsman comes to the house one day to explain that Jessup had put the family home up for bond, and if he doesn't show up for court the following week, Ree and her family would have nowhere to live. Desperate to find her father and make him appear for his court date, Ree starts asking questions around the valley. But despite being halfway related to everybody for a hundred miles, and despite being a kid just trying to take care of her family, her questions are met with stonewalling or menace by these code-of-silence-trained inlaws and outlaws. 

Told from a third person limited point-of-view, following Ree around and seeing inside her head was wholly satisfying. As a character, she's strong without being offputting; caring without being a pushover; she's snarky, brave, and clever. Her deepest desire is to join the army as soon as possible (on her upcoming seventeenth birthday, as did the author himself to escape the area), and as she washes her mother's hair or shoots and skins squirrels for breakfast or chops up potatoes and onions for hash, she makes sure to teach her little brothers how to do these things, as raising them has fallen to her. Jessup's disappearance has put a hitch in Ree's plans, and as she clomps through snowstorms in her combat boots, long skirts, and her Mawmaw's old buttonless overcoat, everything from the people to the weather to the landscape seems conspired against the girl making progress in her quest; and yet, Ree persists, even under threat. Woodrell stands accused of overwriting the scenery, but it all worked for me:

Clouds looked to be splitting on distant peaks, dark rolling bolts torn around the mountaintops to patch the blue sky with grim. Frosty wet began to fall, not as flakes nor rain but as tiny white wads that burst as drops landing and froze a sudden glaze atop the snow. The bringing wind rattled the forest, shook limb against limb, and a wild tapping noise carried all about. Now and then a shaking limb gave up and split from the trunk to land below with a sound like a final grunt.

(Incidentally, the cold is such a major part of this story that I don't imagine it would have been as impactful if set at another time of year.) I liked the backstory about the original Dolly settlers – with the Fist of God prophet and scrying the guts of the golden fish – and the rift it set up amongst branches of the family. The part that touched me to tears – and this is the only spoilery bit – was after Ree was beaten, and she knows they'll lose the house, and as she lays broken in bed under the influence of painkillers, she tries to plan how to move her Mom and brothers into one of the nearby caves like some of those original settlers were forced to; I don't remember any of this (other than the thumpin) from the movie, and it moved me that Ree's mind couldn't stop looking for solutions even as she lay nearly dead. I was touched by Ree's physical pain, but also by the indignity of being beaten to the point where she lost control of her bladder and her bowels and she – the strong one, the caregiver – needed intimate physical care:

All her aches were joined as a chorus to sing pain throughout her flesh and thoughts. Gail stood her straight and naked and cleaned her body as she would a babe's, using the soiled skirt to swab the spread muck from her ass and thighs and behind the knees. Gail touched her fingers to the revealed welts and bruises and shook between cries. When Ree moved she came loose and sagged as the chorus inside hit fresh sharp notes. Her agony was the song and the song held so many voices and Gail lowered her into the bathtub where sunk to her chin in tepid water she marked a slight hushing of all the chorus but the singers in her head.

This community that Woodrell sketches is alarming in its codes of honour and practises; this hinterland of lawlessness where a mere girl – who wouldn't dream to ask anyone for food even as her family is reduced to having unbuttered grits for dinner again – is threatened and abused for asking distant cousins if they happened to have seen her father around; more horrifying for knowing that these places do exist beyond the edges of the American Dream. The prose does tend to be overdone, but to my tastes it suited the setting and the quest-like nature of Ree's struggle; Ree herself was a superbly drawn, believable character. And I cried: I would like to be coolly sophisticated and say that I'm unaffected by deliberate tugs at my heartstrings, but I was made to care for Ree and I connected to her and the author through the words he chose, and for that, I have to call this book a complete success.

Tunesday : Smooth

Smooth

(Shur, I / Thomas, R) Performed by Santana, featuring Rob Thomas

Man, it's a hot one
Like seven inches from the midday sun
Well, I hear you whisper and the words melt everyone
But you stay so cool

My muñequita,
My Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa
You're my reason for reason
The step in my groove, yeah.

And if you said, "This life ain't good enough."
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood
Because you're so smooth

And it's just like the ocean under the moon
It's the same as the emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of loving that can be so smooth, yeah.
Gimme your heart, make it real
Or else forget about it

Well, I'll tell you one thing
If you would leave it'd be a crying shame
In every breath and every word
I hear your name calling me out

Well I'm from the barrio,
You hear my rhythm on your radio
You feel the turning of the world so soft and slow
Turning you 'round and 'round

And if you said, "This life ain't good enough."
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood
Because you're so smooth

And it's just like the ocean under the moon
It's the same as the emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of loving that can be so smooth, yeah.
Gimme your heart, make it real
Or else forget about it

And it's just like the ocean under the moon
It's the same as the emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of loving that can be so smooth, yeah.
Gimme your heart, make it real
Or else forget about it

Or else forget about it
Or else forget about it
Oh, let's don't forget about it
(Gimme your heart, make it real)
Let's don't forget about it
Let's don't forget about it
Let's don't forget about it
Let's don't forget about it
Let's don't forget about it

I have to say: I love this song; the Latin guitar, the sexy tone to Rob Thomas' voice, the slow build to losing control vocally - I've seen Thomas perform it live, twice, and it puts my heart aflutter. More than just the listening experience, however, is the shared singing experience I've had with this song with my daughters - it has been part of the background soundtrack of nearly their entire lives, and as they've grown, it has been more and more fun to sing along with them; definitely a song that gets turned up when it comes on the radio, the three of us can't help ourselves but belt it out together. I remember being in Nova Scotia one summer, visiting my parents and driving somewhere with my Mum, and the girls were so little and they sang so big when this song came on the radio - when it was over, Mum turned to me and said, "That was incredible. You know that, right?" I do. It was. They are incredible, and I just love any opportunity to bask in my girls' shine. There's nothing thematically relevant about this song this week, it's simply an integral part of my soundtrack; one of my favourite songs from 1999, which is where I am in the timeline.

So, 1999 dawned, and as I wrote last time, we had a little more money and that just made me want...more. September of that year was when Kennedy was to start Junior Kindergarten (at barely four, so young!), and while that was an exciting prospect, when we went to the local school to sign her up, I was really not impressed by the look of this old, crumbling building; I was imagining asbestos and lead paint and a downtrodden vibe to match the atmosphere of neglect (Mallory later had a friend who grew up going to that school and he said that it was rough - gangs and fights and shake downs - so I don't think my instincts were wrong.) This is what made me want to move - there was a brand new school (opened in 1998) just a few blocks away (and slightly closer to the highway for Dave), and finding an affordable house in that neighbourhood became my dream. Incidentally: at the same time I started thinking about moving, our Newfie friends in the townhouse next to us were having a house built in a brand new subdivision - adjacent to the elementary school that I didn't want Kennedy to go to. This was very affordable housing and I could see that our options were going to be: being able to afford one of the nicest houses in a low income neighbourhood (as Mallory's friend grew up in) or one of the smallest houses in a more impressive neighbourhood. Getting Kennedy into that brand new school really was my hope, so I was more than willing to just get a foot in the door, any way we could.

A real estate agent just happened to cold call us as we began to wonder if we could even afford to move, so we agreed to let him come over and give us an estimate on our home. When this guy showed up, we could see right away that he was a shark: someone was going to get screwed in any transaction he was involved with, and he wouldn't care if it was us or the other guy. He was obviously not that impressed with our little townhouse, but since Dave had added a fence and a deck, as well as mostly finishing the basement since we moved in just over two years earlier, we weren't interested in his "lowball to sell quickly" strategy. I don't know if I exactly remember the numbers, but I think we bought that place for 99k and this agent wanted to list at 105; we knew that comparables were listed higher, but this guy was all about quick sales - even if it screwed us over. Interesting fact: I remember him telling us that the street he lives on is a school district dividing line and the kids on opposite sides of the street are sent to different schools. It was very strange when I recognised him as someone who lives on the street we would move onto six years later - he would become our neighbour and I don't think he has ever recognised me or Dave as people who hadn't hired him. (Oddly: several houses have gone up for sale on our little cul-de-sac in the time we've lived here, and no one has used this guy as their agent. I don't think he would have to do much - keep putting flyers in the mailboxes, make a public point of contributing extra to our annual street fireworks display, be out there talking with neighbours every chance he got - in order to lock down the business on this street. He may act like a shark, but he's not a very good one.)

In the end, we used an agent who was a friend of Dave's mother's cousin, and she listed the townhouse at 120k; such a much nicer number (I think we accepted an offer of 119?). With that bit of profit and Dave qualifying for a bigger mortgage, it didn't take me long to find just what I was looking for: a modest home (three bedroom, two bath; 1500 square feet on two stories with an unfinished basement) on a street just a short walk to the brand new school (I think we paid 167k in the end for it; quite a jump and the absolute limit of our budget). We could only afford this place because it had sat on the market for a while - with ugly colours and terrible sponge-painting in the main hallway - but Dave and I were ecstatic to be moving up and leaving the fairly busy street the townhouse had been on: the first night we slept at the new house, we were woken up by birdsong in the morning and it wasn't until then that we realised we had been living in a place without birds around; this was a step up in every way. 

All of this real estate talk is really a preamble for this: Dave and I brought the girls along when we met with the lawyer to sign the papers for the transaction. He was an older man, grey-haired and frumpy, and as soon as we sat down, he smiled at Kennedy and Mallory (three and not quite one), and then looked at Dave and said, "Two girls, eh? I guess you'll just need to keep trying for a boy." I swear I could have just stormed out if I didn't think we were tied to this guy; who the hell did he think he was? Saying something like that in front of my girls? That may be an older man's idea of a joke, but screw him. Dave and I proceeded with the meeting coldly.

And that's why I put that picture up at the header - I bought that plaque on some trip to Nova Scotia, wanting the girls to have visual proof in their home that being girls is special and just exactly what we would have wanted them to be. I know I wrote before that when I was born, my father looked at brand new me then turned to my mother and said, "Well, you got your girl." To which my mother immediately replied, "Who said I wanted a girl?" This is meant to be a hilarious story, but it's one I've always found painful; don't for a second believe that this wasn't the dominant theme of my childhood. The equivalent hilarious story attending Dave's birth is that, as his Dad paced the expectant father's waiting room, he periodically watched a nurse filling out a chalkboard as babies arrived one by one: Mrs Smith - boy. Mrs Brown - boy. Mrs Johnson - boy. Dave's Dad, half-jokingly, asked the nurse if she could go into the delivery room and urge his wife to hurry up before they ran out of boys. Hilarious. But that was the 60s - the last hurrah for sexist dinosaurs - and my daughters were born in the 90s, so things must have changed, right? Happily, in my home, they had.

Despite both of my brothers unashamedly admitting that they would have been devastated if their firstborns hadn't been boys (okay, they were raised by sexist dinosaurs, but come on), Dave has always said that he didn't need a son - these girls are exactly all the family that we need. And I will say this: I would have happily taken a boy or a girl both times I went into labour. Kennedy was handed to me - It's a girl! - perfect; this is just what I want. Mallory was handed to me - It's a girl! - perfect; this is just what I want. Once we were a family of four, Dave and I then had to evaluate the big picture - just how many kids did we want? Money had been so much tighter than we had expected - even diapers and formula were a stretch to the budget - and now that we could breathe again, we didn't know if we could afford another baby; if it wouldn't be better to have a bit more to invest in the kids we already had. And to me the even bigger picture was: if we had one more baby and it was a boy, or two more babies and they came girl then boy, and then we were done, I would never want anyone to think that we kept going until we got what we really wanted. If we had one more baby and it was girl, that would put Mallory in the unfortunate Jan Brady position (which is actually the birth position my own nutty mother was in until her two younger brothers came along much later; which could only have further contributed to her nuttiness), and I didn't want to do that to Mal. Discussing all of this with Dave, he said, "I honestly don't think anything is missing from our lives. This family feels whole and complete, I love it just the way it is." And so we were complete; nuts to anyone who jokes it takes a manchild to make a family; belting out Smooth with my two girls is such a perfect experience of joy that I can't imagine our lives unfolding any other way.

Clifford: A Memoir, A Fiction, A Fantasy, A Thought Experiment

If I write Clifford, I write him as fiction, as a fantasy, as a thought experiment. I close my eyes and the earth and the sky disappear. The warmth of my sleeping bag wraps around me and sleep pulls me under, into that half-world where reality and fantasy mingle in a place where coherent thoughts disintegrate.

I like this idea of memoir as thought experiment, so while I could never be certain which events in Clifford were meant to be strictly true, Harold R. Johnson's mix of memory and fantasy works well to honour the legacy of a brother he lost too soon. Returning to his long-abandoned childhood home in a Northern Saskatchewan Indigenous community on the eve of his brother's funeral, Johnson spends the night in the hollow formed by the roots of a “grandmother” tree, watching the stars march across the sky and welcoming visions of Clifford and their time together. If we are all – people, the earth, the cosmos – nothing more than the story we agree upon, Johnson does his brother a real service by committing that personal story to the page; a lovely and fitting tribute. (Usual caveat: I am quoting from an Advanced Readers Copy and passages may not be in their final forms.)

Within this cosmos of siblings, of rivalries and affiliations, gravitational forces drew some home. They stayed for a while, then spun away with the momentum of their own adult lives. The younger ones orbited around Mom, and there were two planets, Clifford and I, that were caught in each other's magnetic field and we orbited around Dad.

For brief biographical information: The author, Ray, was the seventh of nine children, and older brother Clifford was the closest to him in age with a six year gap. Their father was a quiet Swedish immigrant who, at twenty-three years older than their mother, died of a heart attack when Ray was just six. Their mother was a strong-willed Cree woman who then provided for her young family by running a successful trapline (with the children's seasonal help) until Social Services stepped in and told her that they would take her kids away if she didn't relocate to a nearby village, enroll the kids in the school there year-round, and put herself on welfare. From their father, Ray and Clifford learned the point of math and letters; from their mother, they learned how to live on the land. With the mind of a self-trained philosopher-scientist, Clifford was always drawing his younger brother in with his experiments and inventions, and it was from Clifford that Ray learned the connections between story and reality.

As the author spends the night on the land of his childhood, vignettes of memory come to him randomly, organically filling in the story of his childhood and his relationship with Clifford. As a child, Clifford taught Ray how to mentally explore the cosmos (in a spaceship made of a giant soap bubble with an eagle feather in his hand), and as a teenager, Clifford guided him on psychedelic trips to explore the reality of matter at the quantum level. All of this subatomic-uncertainty principle-parallel truths philosophising is right in my wheelhouse of interest, and as the boys grow into men and have deeper and deeper philosophical conversations, Clifford – although self-taught – is portrayed as a man with a profoundly intuitive understanding of physics and its implications. Ideas like the constant state theory – that the universe is constantly expanding without getting any bigger – are explained perfectly:

So the earth is orbiting the sun, and the sun is part of a galaxy orbiting a black hole, and while that black hole at the galaxy's centre is eating the galaxy, at the same time it is causing a whirlpool in space, putting energy into it, creating more mass. The two forces balance each other out. The universe is being eaten by the void that surrounds it, which is stretching it in all directions and creating more mass. And the black holes in the centre of each of the billions of galaxies are creating whirlpool energies that turn into mass. The universe is in a constant state of being created and destroyed at the same time.

Clifford grows from MacGuyvering a motorcycle out of a washing machine engine as a kid to inventing a microwave engine rocket as an adult that he then worries will rip an earth-devouring void into space-time. Even so, the rest of Clifford's siblings (including the author) accuse him of under-achieving; treat him like a black sheep for trying to carve his own path instead of throwing himself into local back-breaking industries as the rest of them have. Clifford knows that everything – religion, science, capitalism, reality– are just stories we tell ourselves, and instead of it making him pessimistic or nihilistic, this knowledge makes him love humanity all the more:

You were born knowing that you were destined for greatness. Everyone is born with that same message written in their DNA. It's what kept the Indians walking on the Trail of Tears. It's what has kept us going despite everything. That kid you see on the television with the extended belly and the flies crawling all over him, and they're trying to get you to send money to save him – he has the same message. That's why he stays sitting up, why he doesn't just lie down and die. It's an irrational sense of purpose. Most people have it educated out of them, or, like the kid on television, blocked by trauma, but we all have it. We just have to learn to listen to it again.

I loved that when Clifford tells a Wesakicahk story around a campfire, it's about the trickster flying into space in a rocketship, trying to mend a hole at the end of the universe; loved this blend of the two sides of his heritage and how the author weds them together. The stories that come to Ray as he tries to sleep on the family land add up to a loving portrait of a man and a relationship, and in the end, this mix of fact and fantasy seems the perfect way to honour Clifford. It certainly makes for an interesting read.