Best Books of 2023

This year I have returned to form and picked 5 novels, not 3.  What's a bit curious is that all of them are comic novels in one way or another, though Troubles and Grey Bees are both a bit bittersweet, focusing on life during occupation.  Most of these were read quite early in the year, with the exception of Grey Bees, so there was a lull when I wasn't loving much of what I was reading.

Best Books Read in 2023

J. G. Farrell - Troubles
Andrey Kurkov - Grey Bees
Kingsley Amis - Girl, 20
W. Somerset Maugham - Cakes & Ale
Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall

Honorable Mention:

Frederick Reuss - Henry of Atlantic City
J. G. Farrell - The Siege of Krishnapur
Paolo Bacigalupi - The Windup Girl (A SF novel set in a largely post-carbon society.)
Alaa Al-Aswany - The Yacoubian Building  
Nikolai Gogol - Dead Souls
Theodor Fontane - Effi Briest (Germany's version of Madame Bovary...)
Naguib Mahfouz - The Search
Georges Perec - Life, A User's Manual (Puzzles within puzzles...)

Jhumpa Lahiri - Whereabouts

Karan Mahajan - The Association of Small Bombs (A solid novel with a bleak ending.)

Pandemic in the Metropolis: Transportation Impacts and Recovery ed. by Loukaitou-Sideris, Bayen, and Jayakrishnan  (This is actually a non-fiction book I reviewed for a journal.  Not as entertaining as the 10 fiction books but more directly relevant...)


The best re-read was a bit of a toss-up between Flaubert's Madame Bovary and McInerey's Bright Lights, Big City.  I think I'll go with Bright Lights, Big City.

There were several moderate to severe literary disappointments this year.  I finally read Fante's The Bandini Quartet and didn't like it much at all.  I read a couple of Hemingway novels and didn't like those, though that was hardly a surprise.  (I was expecting to enjoy Fante...)  I was moderately interested in Angela Carter's Wise Children, but the last chapter was so icky that I crossed it off my list of novels I could ever recommend.  I had expected that Conrad's Under Western Eyes would make the list, but it didn't for reasons I go into here.  But I guess you just never know about books, even those you are primed to like, until you actually dig in between the covers.

I do expect to get around to a few key Russian novels in 2024 and will probably reread Invisible Man.  I have relatively high (but hopefully not too high) expectations for McCarthy's The Group, which I'll be starting soon.  I suspect after I wrap that up I might read or even reread some Joan Didion (and possibly some of the Sontag essays I haven't gotten to yet).  And I'm all but certain I'll get to The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams.  So a lot of potentially great reading in the new year.

Book News at Year's End

I am very, very close to finishing up Mahajan's The Association of Small Bombs.  I think this will make its way onto the honorable mention list, so it's moderately important I finish this up tomorrow.

I was able to return a fair number of books at Riverdale on my way downtown.  I did pick up W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, so that will join Carol Shields's Swann as books that have bogarted their way into the reading pile.  I actually own Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, though whether I could put my hands on it quickly is not clear.*  I don't have a timeline in my head, but I think I will get through Austerlitz fairly quickly.  Then at some point, I will borrow and read Vertigo.  Then I will read my copy of The Rings of Saturn.  I may change my mind, but at the moment I think I will skip over Emigrants.

I ordered a copy of the Dover reprint of What Maisie Knew.  It is supposed to have the Gorey cover, but I have my doubts.  I was actually able to have it sent up here without too much trouble, so I'll find out soon.

I have the two Conrad books and the Gogol in my shopping cart, but I haven't pulled the trigger just yet.  Maybe next year, which is of course right around the corner.  I suspect before I actually order anything, I'll add Exley's A Fan's Notes to the stack.  This isn't a book Gorey covered, but I'd make sure to get the Vintage Contemporary version.  I actually saw this at Circus Books a while back, but the pages were pretty yellowed, so I passed.  I keep checking whenever I am at BMV, but they don't have it.  A lot of the stores that would have had this (in the distant or even recent past) have closed.  Sad...

I do need to balance out this spending on myself.  I had already donated to a number of causes but made a new donation to the YMCA and a gift to Call Auntie (inspired by the talk-back after Hypothetical Baby).  Call Auntie is a not-for-profit but not actually set up as a charity, so I don't get a tax receipt, making it likely this will be a one-off gift.

I reminded myself that I still haven't ordered Mr. X: Pokerface.  I have a whole post talking about Mr. X and whether it makes sense to wait for Mr. X: Excavations, though that certainly seems delayed.  I'll try to hold out a bit longer.

I think the next book I am scheduled to read is Maxwell's The Chateau followed by McCarthy's The Group, both of which I own in LOA editions.  Now it might take a while to actually get there, given all the library books I still have out.  If I do go to Buffalo in early February, I am leaning toward reading Tim O'Brien's new novel, America Fantastica, on the bus.  For the trip to Ottawa and Montreal, it's a toss-up between Steinbeck's East of Eden and something by Dickens, either Nicholas Nickleby or Dombey and Son.  One thing's for sure, I won't be running out of books to read in the immediate future!

* So the next time I really dig through the boxes in the basement, I need to keep an eye out for the Pushkin, The Rings of Saturn, and a collection of plays by Di Filippo.  I was also looking for my copy of Bright Lights, Big City, but since I reread it recently, it isn't as pressing.  It turns out Everett riffs on Ellison's Invisible Man throughout Erasure (and teaching the two back-to-back would be a great idea), so I might need to reread Invisible Man as well, which means retrieving it from the basement.  (At least I think I know where my copy is.)  It's probably been 15+ years since the last time I reread this masterpiece, and this (Erasure) is a timely prompt.  Maybe I will get to it in 2024.

Edit (01-04): The Rings of Saturn did turn up, while I haven't made a concerted effort on the others yet.

Library Trek

After work, I ran up to the North York Library on the subway.  I've been through North York Centre before, but never stopped in at the library.  In fact, it is tucked behind the main complex a bit, so if you've never been there before it is tricky to find.  Anyway, it is a pretty big library.  I ended up borrowing a bunch of Criterion DVDs, which wasn't my reason for coming at all.

I was really hoping to find Everett's Erasure.  I didn't find that, but I did get Half an Inch of Water, which is a book of his short stories set in the West.  I guess if any branch has Erasure, it's probably Parkdale, but I just don't think I will get out there.

I had better luck finding Carol Shields's Swann.  While this isn't something I'd put at the very top of my reading list, I decided to grab it and read it after I get through the other library books (and then renew it a couple of times as necessary whenever the online system comes back up).

Then I made it over to the art section.

I didn't have particularly high hopes for the Norman Bluhm book.  I'm leaning toward ordering that and shipping it to North Carolina.  (I would likely eventually donate it to the AGO's library.)  I didn't expect another Newark Museum catalog, The Arc of Abstraction, to be in the system.*  Interestingly, the National Gallery of Art Library owns a copy.  I won't be able to go in on my next visit to Ottawa because the library isn't open on weekends and they don't loan books out directly to individuals anyway, but they apparently don't charge for interlibrary loan, so I might try to arrange that as soon as the TPL system is working again.

I then went and looked up Jean-Paul Riopelle.  They didn't have anything recent in the stacks.  I think this is a case where I'll just look at the catalogue when I am up in Ottawa and decide whether to buy it.  While a few copies will probably land in the TPL system, there is just no clear indication when that will be.  Maybe the system will actually be working again before I get to Ottawa in late Feb., which would be nice. 

I wasn't expecting Max Beckmann's The Formative Years (the exhibit I saw at the Neue Gallerie) would be in the stacks, but there was a nice book on Beckmann's landscapes, which I snagged.  I'm fairly likely to buy The Formative Years and probably eventually donate it to the AGO library as well.

I finally made my way over to the section where Keith Haring should be.  I was quite surprised but gratified to see that the catalogue associated with the AGO show was there, so I grabbed that.  This might well have been one of the last things to get into the system before the ransomware attack.  So all in all, it was a useful trip, though of course it would have been even better if I had come home with Erasure.

While on the topic of Keith Haring, I did run over to the AGO on Boxing Day.  It was busy but not as completely crowded as it was on opening weekend.

I'd say Red Room is my favourite piece in the show, but it is hung in a corridor where you can't get a good view of the whole thing, so I had to piece this shot together!  I had wondered if it was supposed to be a direct reference to Matisse, and apparently it was (the fishbowl is certainly a clue...).

Keith Haring, Red Room, 1988

I'll probably make it back to the Haring exhibit a few more times before it goes away for good.  I'm not as sure if I'll make the trek back up to the North York Library or just wait it out until the overall system is back up and running and then order my books to come to the Riverdale Library.

* Not quite sure how I missed this (maybe Worldcat was just acting funky at the time), but Robarts has a copy of The Arc of Abstraction.  Better still it is on the shelves, and I should be able to grab that today.  Score!  However, I might need to run up and back over lunch, since I believe they close at 5 pm over their winter break.

Gorey Book Covers

I know that I posted Edward Gorey's cover for Conrad's The Secret Agent on the blog and his Kafka cover here.  I think I talked in very general terms about the many great Gorey book covers.  I will link to another site that features many of the best Gorey covers.  It's kind of cool that most of these books were actually mass paperbacks and not hard covers, so it isn't particularly expensive to collect these books (shipping to Canada aside).

However, I don't actually collect books just for their covers (or almost never).  Indeed, I will be parting with a book that has a reproduction of the famous Lucky Jim cover, simply because I don't like the novel itself at all.

If I happen to stumble across a copy of Conrad's The Secret Agent with Gorey's cover, then I would pick it up, but I'm not actually expecting that to happen, especially since Elliot's books is gone (and I won't be going back to John King Books* in Detroit anytime soon).

I definitely still have Kafka's America.  I used to own Puskin's The Captain's Daughter.  I don't remember parting with this, but I also haven't seen it in a while.  I might look around a bit more and potentially order it, but only if I can't find it and then come across an inexpensive copy.

I'm very tempted by the Gogol story collection but haven't entirely made up my mind whether to order a copy.

What I have done recently is to put in an order for Lermontov's A Hero of Our Times (and managed to have it shipped to Toronto).  In this case it is partly for the cover and partly because I want to compare Nabokov's translation to the more recent Randall translation.

I then put in an order for Gide's Lafcadio's Adventures (which is actually just The Vatican Cellars in a different/earlier translation).  I believe this is actually the very first cover Gorey did for Doubleday Anchor.  Outrageous shipping prices led me to send this to Chicago.  I also ordered The Quick and the Dead and Larbaud's Barnabooth, and they are also headed to Chicago.

I'm wavering but am fairly likely to order Conrad's Victory and even Conrad's Chance (which I do own in a different edition).

I also liked these covers from Henry James books (and What Maisie knew really does look like a classic Gorey set-up), but I think if I ordered them I would be giving in and collecting the books for just the covers; I would generally like to avoid doing that and indulging in another time and money sinkhole.  However, if I happen to stumble across them (with Gorey's covers in decent condition), I will make sure to snatch them up.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a book dedicated just to Gorey and his cover art (as well as a puzzle with some of the best pulled into one image).  I think I can pass on the puzzle (at least the book covers one, though the Drop Curtain puzzle is quite intriguing/appealing), but the book on covers has its attractions, though I haven't been compelled (yet) to order a copy.  As it happens, the book is in the OCAD library and I might be able to finagle my way to borrowing it for a week or so, which is a lot more sensible than buying it, n'est pas? 

But I think that is more than enough time on this fairly niche topic.

* I wasn't really thinking of picking up Gorey covers at the time, and I probably could have scored some when I was there.  Instead, I was focusing on Vintage Contemporaries, particularly anything by Exley and Joy Williams.  In the end, I managed to get one Exley (Last Notes from Home) and one Janet Hobhouse (November).  What I really wanted to pick up was Joy Williams's The Quick and the Dead, even though that wasn't a Vintage Contemporaries title.  I stopped in at Strand Books at the beginning of the month, getting a different Hobhouse and Joy William's State of Grace, but they didn't have any Exley, which was a bit surprising, nor The Quick and the Dead, which was less so.

Best Theatre of 2023

I use these theatre round-up pages to list everything that was meritorious rather than trying to limit the list to 5 or 10 best productions.  Just compiling the list is useful, as many of these in the first half of the year had slipped out of my memory banks completely.  But with some prompting, some of the details are coming back.  It doesn't appear I saw or did too much in Jan., so this upcoming Jan. is going to be quite a change!

Feb.
Things I Know to Be True (Mirvish)
Yerma (Coalmine)
King Lear (Shakespeare Bash'd @ Theatre Centre)
The Prodigal (Crow's Theatre)

March
The Baltimore Waltz (UT production at Factory Theatre)
“I love the smell of gasoline” by Claren Grosz (Lee Daniels Spectrum)

April
Vierge (Factory Theatre)
Low Pay? Don't Pay (George Brown)

May
Boom X (Crow's Theatre)
The Sound Inside (Coalmine)
She's Not Special (Tarragon)
Sizwe Banzi is Dead (Soulpepper)

June
I went to some poetry events like the Griffin Prize Awards ceremony and a reading at the Tranzac club.  I did see a show at Alumnae that was like a warm up for the Fringe but it doesn't quite make the cut.

July
Toronto Fringe - I saw so very many Fringe shows this year.  One of the better ones was a musical about the Zodiac and then one about a mail-order bride-to-be.  The Gay Agenda was good, as well as Good Old Days and Miss Titaverse.  I wrote up some mini-reviews at the time.

August
Midsummer's Night's Dream (Canadian Stage @ High Park)
Edward II (Stratford)
Les Belles-Soeurs (Stratford) - ok but sadly not as good as a community theatre production I saw in Peterborough!
Grand Magic (Stratford)
Gilgamesh (Soulpepper) - the great musical numbers were the real reason to see this production
Living with Shakespeare (final show out of almost 25 years of Driftwood's Bard on the Bus tours)

Sept.
The Master Plan (Crow's Theatre)

Oct.
Speaking of Sneaking (Buddies)
Spaciousness (site specific show at Fort York!)
Wildwoman (Soulpepper)
A Terrible Fate (Videocab/Crow's)
Doc Wuthergloom's Here There Be Monsters (Eldritch Theatre @ Red Sandcastle)

Nov.
Arden of Faversham (Shakespeare Bash'd @ Monarch Tavern) - a staged reading
The Lehman Brothers Trilogy (Canadian Stage)
Withrow Park (Tarragon)

Dec. 
Arcadia (Bedlam Players in NYC)
Monster/Here Lies Henry double-bill (Factory)
Hypothetical Baby (Tarragon)
Angels in America, Pts 1 & 2 (Buddies)
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (Crow's)

I did not like a number of "edgy" productions that the critics raved about, particular Fairview and Topdog/Underdog (both at Canadian Stage) and The Land Acknowledgement (at Crow's and later Mirvish), which Karen Fricker just raved about but I found dishonest and fairly tedious.

I truly disliked Howland's production of Heroes of the Fourth Turning.  I can't think of anything I actually liked about this, starting with the fact it was 2 hours with no intermission.  But mostly I didn't want to spend any time, let alone two hours, with a bunch of hard-core Catholic anti-abortion agitators.  I truly don't see any point in understanding their point of view.  I fully get where they are coming from, but I reject their attempts to impose their worldview on others who don't accept their moral precepts.  Understanding them better will not actually lead to some sort of hard-won consensus around abortion and abortion rights.  Instead the only thing to do is reinforce the political structure so that it rejects, with prejudice if necessary, those who claim the right to interfere with a woman's bodily autonomy in the name of religion.  (Incidentally, Hypothetical Baby was a much better piece of theatre that grappled with moral choices around abortion in a way that was thought-provoking and empowering; in other words, the reverse of Heroes of the Fourth Turning...)

I was a bit disappointed in Arcadia, mostly the contemporary scenes, which felt a bit shout-y at times.  But it is such an intricate play that I need to see it whenever it is produced.  Interestingly, it was playing in Raleigh, NC around the same time as the Bedlam production.  I likely would have preferred going to Raleigh and also seeing some relatives down there.  The flipside is I saw world-class museums in NYC, including stumbling across a compact Max Beckmann show at the Neue Gallerie.

Max Beckmann, The Bark, 1926

The most ambitious production was surely the two-part Angels in America at Buddies in Bad Times.  I thought they really pulled it off, though not everyone agreed.  Perhaps the single best thing I saw was The Master Plan at Crow's, followed by Sizwe Bansi is Dead and then perhaps Angels in America.  The Baltimore Waltz was surprisingly solid for a student production.  Wildwoman was quite good, and seeing it as a full production (not just the staged reading they put on mid-pandemic) really brought it to life.  I also liked Vierge quite a bit at Factory, and then the back-to-back monologues (slightly tweaked by the author Daniel MacIvor) with Here Lies Henry being the stronger of the two.  In general, I liked almost everything Factory put on (aside from Armadillos where I actually left at the intermission) and most of what Crow's Theatre put on, aside from Heroes of the Fourth Turning.  At Canadian Stage, it was basically a 50-50 split with a few strong pieces and then a couple I really disliked/hated.

I'm sad that Hart House Theatre really hasn't committed to putting on its own season, and I don't really know what the hold-up is.  I also was disappointed that Videocab didn't do The Cold War Part II in 2023, but I hold out some hope that they'll stage this in the summer of 2024.  My biggest personal disappointment is that Sing-for-Your-Supper never actually kicked off again.  There are hints it might restart in Jan., but I'll believe it when it actually happens...

I might circle back with more comments later, but this gives a pretty good flavour of my year in theatre.

Low-Key Xmas

I thoroughly approve of this thought piece on not going overboard on Christmas and Boxing Day.  This was the least effort I've put into Christmas in a long-time.

My son wasn't even coming home until Dec. 23, and my daughter wasn't going to help, so we (or perhaps me unilaterally) decided to forgo putting up a Christmas tree this year.  I was able to find the stockings, and those were hung by the chimney.  I also put out some outdoor lights on a tree in the front yard.  (Half of one strand malfunctioned.  While I will see if it is possible to repair, I may also see if Home Depot has the same brand on sale now that Christmas proper has passed.)

We didn't buy a lot of gifts this year, so I was able to wrap them on the 23rd.  Here they are in front of the fireplace.  (The boxes towards the back are purely decorative...)

While I had bought cards from the dollar store, it was a bit of a scramble to get them signed on Christmas morning, which is also when we bought and exchanged Amazon gift cards, so that was last minute shopping for sure.

My son and his mother mostly watched sports all day.  I have almost no interest in professional sports and certainly don't have the patience to watch on television, so that freed me up to finish up a couple of books and to watch Terry Gilliam's Brazil.  It is actually a Christmas film, just as Die Hard is, though I don't know if I would make it a new holiday tradition.  We'll see.  While it wasn't a secret, it was only this time around I watched some of the bonus features and realized Tom Stoppard contributed to the script.  I also was quite intrigued by a shadowy figure that seems to be following Sam or keeping an eye on the Buttles or both.  I don't think this is supposed to be Jack (Palin's character).  One of these days I will watch the movie with audio commentaries on to see if this is better explained.  However, it might just be a glancing reference to The Third Man or another film noir, as it doesn't actually seem to advance the plot.

I took my daughter for a walk.  I was surprised that several Ethiopian restaurants were open.  We had more than enough food in the house, so I didn't attempt to make this a new tradition (going out for Ethiopian on Christmas Day).

Then I watched Blade Runner (The Final Cut) with my son.  He had never seen it and thought it was a great movie.  I haven't seen it in quite some time.  It still holds up well.  I said maybe on his next visit we'd watch Blade Runner 2049.  This is another film where I probably will want to go through the audio commentary.  There are some other bonus features, including a documentary on how different the movie is from the PDK novel.  In fact, there is apparently some footage of PDK talking about his reactions to the movie!  I had no idea such a thing existed at all.

And that was pretty much it for Christmas.  I did give some money to charities, in a couple of cases getting in on places where gifts were being matched.  And I bought a few books, most getting shipped to Chicago due to exorbitant shipping prices to Toronto.  I'll discuss those in a follow-up post because there is an interesting Edward Gorey connection.  

Now that it's Boxing Day, we're off to the AGO, which is almost a family tradition.  Ciao! 

Random Updates - Late Dec.

So many things to comment on; it's hard to even know where to start.

I have exciting news (to me) about a new job opportunity, but since I am still waiting on the formal offer, I should hold off, aside from saying I'll be back in the private sector by late Jan. (though not in time to justify a trip to TRB -- drat).  The annoyance of time sheets aside (i.e. having to justify yourself to the corporate powers that be), it seems I work better on multiple projects for multiple clients rather than focusing on just one big thing for an extended period of time.  

Let me go back to the 16th (the subject of my last post).  As I was heading out, my front bike tire was pretty flat, which was a bad sign.  I pumped it up and it got me to the downtown office and then over to Buddies for Angels in America Part 1.  (I did decide to skip going to the gym but otherwise wasn't too bothered by my arm fortunately!)  I was so relieved to find out that the whole cast was intact for the last weekend (& no COVID derailments).  I thought it was a very good production, at the same level as the one in Chicago.  I would have liked the Angel to come down from the ceiling and not through the wall, but that's a minor quibble.  I also wasn't quite sure why she should have stumps rather a full set of wings.  (It's almost like she wandered in from the set of Rivera's Marisol -- another play I try to see whenever I have the chance.)  

Anyway, the play ended in 3 hours and 15 minutes, about 15 minutes earlier than I was expecting, which was great.  I rode over to 401 Richmond and saw a few shows there, including the year-end group salon at Yumart.  There were a couple of pieces that I liked by Tim Deverell, including an older piece and this new one:

Tim Deverell, Gambits, 2022

I perhaps could pick one up to celebrate the new job, but again no point in getting too ahead of myself.  Leaving 401 Richmond, I realized my tire was really flat, so whatever puncture I had was pretty bad.  I more or less rode on my rims to get back to Union Station.  I ate a quick dinner, then left the bike there (to collect it on Sunday) and went back for Angels, Part Two at Buddies.  Again, they did not disappoint, though I will say that the Antarctica dream sequence was more impressive on Broadway.  (I vaguely remember dry ice and maybe a couple of stuffed penguins.)  There was one part when Prior visits heaven that I didn't recall but otherwise it's actually a bit remarkable how much I remembered from roughly 20 years ago when I saw it last.  It wrapped up just after 11 pm, so truly a full day of theatre.  While the production seemed pretty well attended, I find it astonishing that the Star didn't review it* nor did Glenn Sumi.  I guess the Globe and Mail did send a reviewer, who gave it a mixed review.  Then there was a totally off-base review from Intermission.  I think only Slotkin felt as positively about the show(s) as it did.  Anyway, definitely one of the best theatre events of 2023.  I'll get to the rest in an upcoming post.

On Sunday, I actually had planned to spend part of the day working at Robarts.  I did accomplish this, although Percival Everett's Erasure was missing from the stacks, which was very disappointing.  I had decided, sort of at the last minute, that I should try to read it after all (despite what I wrote here) before watching the movie American Fiction, which is based on Erasure.  There are probably a few copies of Erasure in the TPL system, but they still haven't fixed any part of the system, not even an internal catalogue, so no one knows where any books are.  The whole library system is next to being completely useless and has been this way for weeks now.  If I happen to get over to the Theatre Centre (prob. not until Feb. for Shakespeare Bash'd) or Assembly Theatre (just possibly SFYS will actually happen for realz this Jan.) I'll stop in at the Parkdale Library, as they might have Erasure.  I'm also probably going to head up to North York to see if a couple of recent art books are in their collection, and I guess I'll look for Erasure while I'm up there.  (I did call to verify you can at least go into the non-fiction stacks, but I had to go to another library website to verify what the Dewey Decimal call numbers would be if they did have the books.  So crazy!) 

I also wanted to stop in at the AGO, but there was an injury on the tracks that had completely shut down that side of Line 1.  I figured it probably would have cleared up after my trip to Robarts, but close to two hours later, the subway was still shut down!  As annoying as that was, I will be going to the AGO on Boxing Day, so it is more a case of art deferred.  I then had to backtrack to Bloor-Yonge and go to work that way.  (Again, none of this even would have an issue if my bike was working.)  I did bring the bike home on the subway, which is extremely rare for me.  The subway stations are certainly not designed for bikes!  Once again, I pumped up the tires and they held on long enough to get me from Danforth to Bain, and I walked to the rest of the way.

Monday I worked from home in the morning and dropped off my bike at the bike shop, which doesn't open until 11 am (and is not open on Sunday).  Then I took the TTC in to work.  I was able to get the bike Tues. after work, just in time for it to get cold, and I only rode in to work on Thurs.  I also went to the gym twice and I snuck in some swimming as well.  While I still have a bit of a cough, it hasn't completely derailed my exercise routines.  Still, it was hard that first time back after close to a two week gap!

I'll just touch briefly on my reading, and then I have to go.  I think I am definitely tougher on books than I used to be.  I reread The Sun Also Rises and hated all the characters this time around.  The casual racism and anti-Semitism are almost unbearable to me.  And the celebration of toxic masculinity is just so painful.  I think it is likely that Hemingway is only going to be remembered for his short stories 100 years from now, as no one will want to read the novels.  A Farewell to Arms wasn't much better, though there was less racism, simply because there weren't as many people of color or Jews in Italy.  The actual dialogue between Frederic and Catherine is so cringey; he talks to her like she's an idiot, and she basically lapses into baby-talk most of the time.  Add in two super-human escapes, and Frederic is little more than a male "Mary Sue."  I did not like it on any level.  It's surely a mistake, but I'm still going to get around to For Whom the Bell Tolls (at some point), but I am going to be quicker on the trigger finger to dump this book.

I liked the first section of Conrad's Under Western Eyes, which definitely does have shades of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but then the perspective switches from omniscient third person to a limited and somewhat unreliable first person narrator, who then peruses the journals of Razumov, and is thus able to fully reconstruct the minute details of Razumov's interactions with the revolutionary Haldin and several other key characters.  I strongly dislike this switching back and forth of perspective, particularly when there is a first person narrator with access to information that never would have been written down in a diary or letter.  This bugged me quite a bit in Proust, and it seemed to me a complete mistake here that fatally damaged the book.  If the book had been simpler, and just an expansion of parts one and three, I would have liked it better, though I still probably wouldn't have liked the ending, but certainly I did not like the novel that Conrad actually wrote.  Too bad...

I did get through Perec's Life, A User's Manual.  More than anything I found it a bit exhausting.  In so many places the mini-chapters just became lists and lists of things, particularly descriptions of every painting in a room or all the items on a workbench.  The structure was clearly inspired by Calvino's Invisible Cities with an infusion of Borges's Funes the Memorious.  I'm glad I finally have read it, but ultimately it left me pretty cold.  I never got a handle on most of the characters and the only one that really stood out (Bartlebooth) had such a stupid life goal (to spend his whole fortune creating paintings, turning them into jigsaw puzzles, and then destroying them) that I lost considerable interest in the book.  I did not realize, while reading Life, that this character was supposed to be an amalgam of Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener (whom I don't care for for intensely personal reasons) and Valery Larbaud's Barnabooth.  I suppose one good thing that has come out of this is that I am spending more time working on a jigsaw puzzle (of Monet's water lilies) that has really stumped me.  My goal is to complete it to ensure I have not lost any pieces (itself no sure thing), and then give it away.

I wasn't thrilled with Martin Amis's The Rachel Paper because the narrator is definitely a creep.  While the second half got better, I really didn't think that highly of Brewer's The Red Arrow.  A couple of the stories in Jem Calder's Reward System are ok, but I find the very flat, affectless writing out-putting (or maybe I just find Gen Z problems so uninteresting?).  Calder reminds me just a bit of Douglas Coupland, but much less entertaining and humourous.  I'm really struggling to think what will be the last book on my best books list, since I haven't like much I've read for a while.  I expect Erasure might have made the list, but it is so hard to get my hands on a copy.

I did not like Alice Notley's Certain Magical Acts, as the poems were just so long and boring. I didn't much care for the short stories in Munro's Open Secrets, as I just didn't find her use of historical fiction compelling or particularly believable.  I was glad that after a long hiatus, I'm finally starting to read through Narayan, but I absolutely hated The Man-Eater of Malgudi.  What a terrible novel.  I'm really hoping the next two are a return to form.

Anyway, yesterday it was a very wet day, though I managed to force myself to the gym and to get groceries (assuming that today would be even more crowded).  Then I walked down and saw the hit musical at Crow's Theatre: Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet of 1812.  It was pretty good, though I generally don't care much for musicals with a few exceptions.**  I did like the music, which mixed classical music and electro-pop and maybe even some disco.  The lyrics were generally not as compelling with some exceptions.  I also thought the ending was a bit of a cop out, but I guess there were only so many liberties they could take with the script, as this is drawn from a couple of chapters from Tolstoy's War and Peace!  (Maybe this will finally inspire me to tackle this tome in 2024 or 2025 after I get through those other Russian novels like Oblomov and A Hero of Our Times.)

I guess that gets me mostly caught up for Dec. at least.  I still need to go back and document some trips I took in 2023 and write up my year-end round-ups.  Fortunately, I don't have a lot going on this week other than going to the AGO on Boxing Day and maybe seeing America Fiction.  My son is deciding if he wants to go with me to see The Boy and the Heron in Japanese with subtitles.  I already saw it dubbed and don't plan on seeing it dubbed a second time.  There might be something to check out over at TIFF, but otherwise, I think I will mostly be reading and writing this week and maybe trying to wrap up some key work projects.

Jan. is looking like it might be very busy between going back to Buddies in Bad Times several times, and a few concerts (including Skye Wallace just popping up at Cameron House) and some great acts at The Rex (often with Neil Swainson on bass in support), so I'll be staying pretty busy.  It's probably just as well I'm not heading out to DC for TRB this year after all.  

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2024!

* And I am almost in total disagreement with Karen Fricker's best of 2023 list, though I did like Edward II at Stratford and The Master Plan at Crow's.  Oh, Sizwe Banzi was great as well.

** I do really like The Book of Mormon and may go again in Jan.  Spamalot was also great, and Some Like It Hot was good, though I don't think I'd see it a second time.  (I actually did have the chance to catch Avenue Q here in Toronto.  I thought about it for a while but ultimately passed.)  And how can you go wrong with every Gershwin hit song packed into Crazy for You?  I also was blown away by Hedwig and the Angry Inch and now regret not seeing it before when I had the chance(s).  (I see Shotgun Players in Berkeley are just wrapping up a run.  Based on their past work, I'm sure that would have been great.  There is a company in Chicago that should be doing this over the summer, so I may check back later.  And a company in Buffalo should put Hedwig on in Oct.  That overlaps with the Marisol exhibit at the Albright-Knox, so I might try to make that work, even though it might mean an overnight stay in Buffalo, which doesn't thrill me.)

Incidentally, the rotating stage for Natasha and Pierre reminded me of the Northwestern production of Not Wanted on the Voyage (yes, based on the Findley novel).  I thought that was a pretty incredible show that never quite made it to Broadway, so I wrote Crow's Theatre and recommended they consider tracking down the writers (Bartram and Hill) and putting it on themselves.  I would see that again for certain.  (Crow's wrote back and said they would look into it, not that I really think this will lead anywhere, but I tried.)

A Shot in the Arm

I'm starting to wonder if I miscalculated.  I got my COVID booster shot on Friday at 10 am.  I haven't had any real problem with the booster shots in the past, but I think this time it's taking a bit more of a toll.  My arm is still quite sore, and I was a bit woozy just a few hours ago.  I actually have a completely jammed up Sat., and if I had known that this time would be the time I actually "feel" the shot, I would have done in early next week.  Hindsight...  

Anyway, the plan was to go to the gym and do a short workout, focusing on legs and cardio and not doing heavy lifting.  This is the mostly likely item on the list to get scratched off.

Then I wanted to go in to work and drop off some food for later.  Then at 1 pm, I go to Angels in America, playing at Buddies in Bad Times.  I thought this was maybe 3 hours, but it's actually 3.5!  Immediately afterwards, I'm going to try to cut across the city and drop in at 401 Richmond.  I wasn't able to make it last weekend.  The weekend before that I was just getting back from NYC on Sat.  On Sunday, I was at a double-header at Factory.  There was a bit of a gap, and I had enough time to run over to 401 Richmond and also to grab a snack, but on Sundays very few of the galleries are open.  (If I had more time on Sat. I would stop by Bau-Xi, but I just don't think that will work.  Potentially, I might be able to stop by this Sunday.  I'm not entirely sure what galleries are open on the 23rd, but I assume at least some are closed for the holidays.)

Depending on time, I am likely to swing by work, eat my dropped-off food and get back to Buddies for a show that starts at 7 and runs until roughly 11 pm!  I haven't entirely decided whether to bike back or leave the bike at work and pick it up Sunday, though I am leaning towards the latter.  This is the last weekend of Angels in America, and I am so worried that someone in the cast will be sick or have caught COVID.  (Actually two people in the cast were missing from Arcadia when I saw that, but they were very minor roles, and it wasn't an issue...)

Sunday is a much lower-key day, though I should run over to the mall and probably get downtown later.  I might check out the Keith Haring exhibit again and this exhibit on British-Caribbean artists that has just opened.  I didn't get to The Rex Friday night (to see Pat LaBarbara and Neil Swainson a second time), and there is at least some chance I go see a different group Sunday evening.  I think a lot depends on how I am feeling by then.

Mixing in Newer Titles

Looking over my current reading list, there are a handful of contemporary novels: Brewer's The Red Arrow, Rushdie's Victory City and Zalika Reid-Benta's River Mumma.  Arguably, one could contend that Pynchon's Inherent Vice and Suárez's Havana Year Zero fall in this category, despite being published 10 years ago.  Knocking at the door but not on the list proper are Shteyngart's Our Country Friends and Do You Remember Being Born?* by Sean Michaels.

In terms of what I am actually currently reading, I'm just over halfway through The Red Arrow.  There are parts I liked a lot, particularly any of the digressions about West Virginia, but the main plot (about an author whose crippling depression left him unable to write) is not very interesting to me.  Maybe it suffers in comparison to Bright Lights, Big City, which I just reread a few weeks back.  Also, the way that everything will be resolved by taking therapeutic doses of psilocybin mushrooms seems like a cop-out, even though this is based on the author's actual experience.  I came very close to bailing, though it has picked up a bit in the 2nd half and it is a relatively short novel, so I'll press on a bit longer.

I have roughly 80 pages left in Martin Amis's The Rachel Papers and 100 pages to go in Conrad's Under Western Eyes, which is good but not as compelling as The Secret Agent in my view.  I'll likely finish both of these by the middle of next week.

The big question is how much I'll be derailed by the new books I saw at the library.  (The website is still totally jacked up, but it is possible to borrow books on display, many of which are newer titles...)  Since books aren't really going to be due until Jan. at the earliest, I borrowed The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan (from 2016) and How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz, which was published in 2022.

I'm still pretty intrigued by The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty, and it turns out there is another novel about female pirates/buccaneers: Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig, though I have to say these look more like summer reading.

I also ran across A Hero of Our Time by Naben Ruthnum, which sounds interesting as well, though if I do read it, I would want to read the Russian novel of the same title by Lermontov first.  And indeed, I would probably also read Oblomov at the same time.  I'd say, leaving War and Peace aside, A Hero of Our Times and Oblomov are two of the key remaining gaps off of my pre-Soviet Russian reading list.  And if I am reading Oblomov, I'd probably also finally read A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre, which predates Oblomov.  (You can see how things spiral out of control once I get started...)

Then I just read that there is a new movie, American Fiction, hitting the street next week.  This is based off of Percival Everett's Erasure.  Both the novel and the movie sound like a pretty blistering take on the state of publishing and how "writers of colour" will do well only if they pretend to be homeboys (or gals) from the hood.  As much as I'd like to read the novel first, that just seems unlikely, particularly given that the TPL website still makes it impossible to locate specific books!  Maybe I should cut myself some slack and watch the movie first and read the novel afterwards if it seems worthy.

Finally, I only learned the other day that Paul Auster has a new novel out (Baumgartner) and, even more surprisingly, Tim O'Brien has just published his first novel in over 20 years: America Fantastica.  Apparently, this is a bit of a road trip novel, and in my mind maybe it could/should be paired with Rushdie's Quichotte.  Fortuitously, an advance reading copy of America Fantastica leaded in a Little Free Library box, so I scooped it up.  Now one path would be to reread all the classic O'Brien's (as well as The Atomic Age, which is supposedly not nearly as good), but the more tempting path is to jump to America Fantastica, since it is hot off the press.  I don't think I can justify rereading Quichotte, as I read it in 2020, but just possibly I might listen to the audiobook version.  However, it turns out this is 16 hours long, which does seem a bit excessive!  I guess it depends if I can figure out how to listen on my phone.  Or maybe I could listen while working on this jigsaw puzzle that I can never seem to find the time to work on.

At any rate, it is pretty clear I don't have the discipline to stick to a single reading list, but I do read across a pretty wide range of literatures -- and, in the meantime, I do make incremental progress on the current list.

* This novel about the impact of A.I. on artists & writers will be paired with Jeanette Winterson's 12 Bytes, which is actually a book of essays about A.I.

Still Somewhat Sick

Things could certainly be worse.  I don't have COVID, and my nose isn't particularly runny.  However, I still haven't completely recovered from that cold a couple of weeks ago.  I have a bit of a hacking cough, which is not clearing up quickly enough.  Just in general, I feel in the dumps and low-energy.  On Sunday, I did force myself to go to the gym for a short workout, and on Monday I swam about half the laps I normally swim.  (I guess I am hoping that forcing the issue will lead me to get over the cold/cough sooner.)  I also biked to work on Tues., though I was very annoyed that it snowed on the way home, as that was not in the forecast!  I probably should bike on Wed., though I don't really feel like it.  I'm on a somewhat restricted diet where I am supposed to cut way back on carbs, which I don't appreciate.  

I suppose I am also grumpy because my short trip to NYC last weekend didn't turn out as I had planned, and the weather hasn't been very pleasant lately.  I'm also not pleased that the library system is still so broken.  Very little seems to be going right at the moment.  I think I'll stop there and maybe over the week catch up on the many overdue posts I still hope to write. 

Update: I did bike in but it wasn't too fun.  I think this is as cold out as I am willing to bike (hovering around 1°C) as my hands hurt at this temperature.  It does not help that I have to park 3 blocks away and walk over, which still grates.  It should be a bit warmer on Friday, so I'll plan to bike on that day and see how it goes later in the month.  Once again, I am biking in December in a climate that really doesn't support such activity.