"Slipstream: A Memoir"

I recently finished reading a fascinating book: "Slipstream: A Memoir" (Macmillan, 2002), by the wonderful novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard. I often enjoy reading memoirs by writers, as they offer insights into those magical people who create new worlds for us as readers to explore. This one is of particular interest to me for several reasons. First, I have read most of Howard's novels, including the addictive, intense quartet about what was happening during World War II back home in England, collectively titled "The Cazalet Chronicles." Second, she apparently knew everyone in the world of English literature, as well as many in the other arts, throughout the second half of the 20th century. A short list of her famous friends and acquaintances includes Sybille Bedford, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Antonia White, Stephen Spender, Elizabeth Taylor, Marc Chagall, Philip Larkin, Penelope Lively, Evelyn Waugh, and many more. She was married three times, including a turbulent marriage to the celebrated but difficult novelist Kingsley Amis, and had romances with many others, including the French novelist Romain Gary. Despite all her publications, her famous friends, her love affairs, and her beauty, she was quite insecure most of her life. Only in old age (she was in her early 80s when she wrote this book) did she find a kind of balance and peace within herself. However, she did have a great talent for friendship, and appreciation of and loyalty to her friends; she also derived great pleasure from nature and gardens, as well as from travel. This brings me to the third reason this book is of interest to me: As with Diana Athill's memoirs (see my 3/15/10 post), it is wonderful to hear from and about a person who has lived a long life and is still writing, still reading, still enjoying life despite some physical illnesses and restrictions. Howard, like Athill, is also very candid about her life, her loves, and her weaknesses; perhaps there comes a point when it is no longer necessary to pretend and conceal the truth? It is also probably easier to be candid when one has outlived many of the people one writes about - family, friends, husbands, lovers, employers, editors, and agents. In any case, I admire Howard's making her way as an often single woman or a woman in a difficult marriage, working, writing, persisting, often short of money and support, at a time when these things were even more difficult for women than they are now. Although it is a bit of a commitment (477 pages), I recommend this memoir to those who are interested in writers' lives, women's lives, and the world of twentieth century English literature.

No Post Tomorrow

Dear fellow readers,
I will be at a conference for the next few days, and may not be able to post an entry every day. Tomorrow (Wed., 3/24), in particular, I will probably not be able to do so. But I will be back and blogging again very soon!
Best, Stephanie

Ode to Librarians

On 1/30/10, I wrote in praise of libraries. But what would libraries be without librarians? Whether at public libraries or at school or university libraries, those wonderful, extremely knowledgeable, very helpful people are the ones who -- among their many responsibilities -- order and keep track of the library's holdings and assist and educate library patrons in so many ways. Fortunately, old stereotypes about librarians seem to have faded somewhat, perhaps because of the increasing complexity of their jobs, including the ever-advancing technological possibilities and demands of the modern library. Some of my favorite people at the university where I teach are librarians. I'd like to send out special thanks to Joe G., who does such a great job teaching my students (as well as many other classes of students) library and research skills every semester. I hereby raise a virtual glass in a toast to Joe and all the other librarians at my university library, my local library, and all libraries everywhere!

"The Feast of Love"

Charles Baxter is a writer I have been vaguely aware of, but I have read very little of his work. He is the author of several novels, short story collections, and poetry collections, as well as nonfiction. I have just finished reading his novel "The Feast of Love" (Pantheon, 2000), which I enjoyed. Although it is a novel, it is a sort of collection of interlocking short stories. Each chapter is told from a different point of view; the main characters have more chapters and the minor characters fewer. The story is set in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to which I feel a connection as I lived in that area for my last two years of high school, and have visited a good friend there many times over the years; this sense of connection and familiarity added to my enjoyment of the book. The novel is seemingly self-referential, as the author himself lived and taught in Ann Arbor for about a decade, and as the framing storyteller/writer in the novel itself is named "Charlie." The book is divided into five parts: Preludes, Beginnings, Middles, Ends, and Postludes, and is loosely a "reimagined 'Midsummer Night's Dream'"; this is not immediately obvious, but once one makes the connection (and it had to be pointed out to me), the echoes and signs are there. Shared topics and aspects include love, loss, sleep, insomnia, dreams, foretellings, unexpected connections, death, reversals, and resolutions. When I was reading the first pages of this novel, I was not sure I was going to like it, but I was gradually drawn into the story. The best thing about it is its compelling characters, who are individual, quirky, vulnerable but strong; they are not always sympathetic, but the author allows us to understand and feel a connection with each of them.

On Textbooks

Although it is traditional for college students to complain about the number (and cost) of textbooks, and I sometimes did so too, I actually felt a certain special pleasure when buying assigned books for my classes. Seeing the lovely pile of books with their varied topics, sizes, and colors, I had a sense of anticipation. I knew that I would read my way through those books as the semester progressed, and by the end of the term, I would know so much more about the world. This feeling came from the same place where all my feelings about books come from: the overwhelming conviction that books are central to my life, and that they provide knowledge, power, variety, connection, and pleasure. Twentieth century American fiction! Survey of European art! Introduction to Social Psychology! The Novels of Joseph Conrad! Hinduism! Existentialism! It has been many many years since I was a college student, but as a professor, I still feel a little frisson when I walk into a university bookstore at the beginning of a new semester and see all those beautiful books, classified by department and class number, filling the shelves.

"Normal"

On 2/27/10, I wrote to highly recommend Amy Bloom's latest short story collection, "Where the God of Love Hangs Out." I was intrigued to discover that in addition to writing short stories and novels, she had written a nonfiction book titled "Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude" (Random House, 2002), so I found and read it. Bloom had been wondering about the definition of "normal" regarding questions of gender and sexuality, so she researched three groups of people, as the title indicates: female-to-male transsexuals, male cross-dressers, and the intersexed. She spoke with doctors and scientists, as well as with people in each of the three categories, including activists, people who are open about their differences, and those who hide them. For example, she went on a cruise with a group of male cross-dressers and their wives, and describes them in perceptive detail. Bloom writes of the great variety, the great continuum, of what is "normal." She states that nature is "vast, capricious, occasionally hilarious, and infinitely varied." Even within each of the three groups she writes about, there is enormous diversity. At the same time, she shows us the ordinariness and humanity of people who happen to be different from the majority in particular sexual or gender traits. Besides Bloom's message of understanding, the best part of the book is her portraits of specific individuals whom she has gotten to know and with whom she has made a very human connection. The stories she tells are alternately serious, humorous, and heartbreaking; of of them are fascinating.

Canadian Writers

Because I was born in Canada of Canadian parents, and although I grew up in India and have lived my adult life in the United States, I still feel a close connection to, and pride in, Canada. I am particularly proud of the great Canadian writers who have international reputations. I discovered some of these authors during my college days, in a wonderful class on Canadian literature taught by the great Canadian poet A.J.M. Smith, and discovered others on my own throughout the years. Below is a list of a few prominent Canadian writers, some from the past and some currently writing, whose work I have read and liked, along with brief comments, as well as the titles of one or more of their best-known works. I will likely write in more detail about some of these authors and books individually in future posts.

-Margaret Atwood. Novelist, poet, critic, and political/social commentator. She and Munro are the most famous Canadian writers currently writing. Surfacing; Cat's Eye; The Handmaid's Tale.
-Robertson Davies. He and Richler were the most famous Canadian authors until Atwood and Munro came along. The Deptford Trilogy.
-Mavis Gallant. Gallant published over a hundred stories in The New Yorker. The Collected Stories; Paris Stories.
-Margaret Laurence. The Stone Angel.
-Malcolm Lowry. Under the Volcano.
-Anne-Marie Macdonald. Fall on Your Knees.
-Rohinton Mistry. Mistry is also on my list of writers of Indian heritage (3/1/10). A Fine Balance. Family Matters.
-L.M. Montgomery. Revered by young female readers around the world. I adored her books as a child, and loved reading them to and with my daughter later. It happens that I am also distantly related to Montgomery; her stories take place on Prince Edward Island, where my grandfather grew up. Anne of Green Gables and its sequels.
-Alice Munro. Considered by many to be the leading living short story writer in the world. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories (a collection from several earlier volumes); Too Much Happiness (her latest collection).
-Michael Ondaatje. The English Patient. Anil's Ghost.
-Mordecai Richler. The great Montreal writer. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
-Carol Shields. I have already posted about Shields (2/20/10), a great favorite of mine. The Stone Diaries; Larry's Party; Unless.