Red Cedar

the one thing i did manage during my week of illness, was read through a stack of novels with alarming ferocity – something i don’t do as often as i would like between the school-work-politics ternion that is my life. between last tuesday and this, i polished off four new works – all of which came out in 2003… each had its own merits to stand on, (recommended to me by anna) was by far the best. i review them below in the order i read them:

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

The opening line – “I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” – was the hook that got me to buy the book in the first place (browsing in the bookstore). Although at first glance it appears to be a book about sexual and gender identity and how that might transform one in a lifetime (especially if that one is a hermaphrodite) – it is really a far-reaching multi-generational family saga beginning in Turkey and ending in Detroit – with a few twists along the way. This book is a good read, with a compelling storyline and excellent character portraits. Where the read thins is during the narrator’s present life (scenes of which are interspersed throughout the tale) which seems surprisingly devoid of detail and character compared to the rest of the book. This aside, it was worth the purchase.

River of the Broken Hearted – David Adams Richards

For some reason, the Globe and Mail called this the “best book of 2003”, but I’m not sure what would give it that qualification. Another multi-generational family story (I don’t know how I picked two of these in a row), RBH is set in a small town populated by mainly Irish immigrants on the bank of the Miramichi River in New Brunswick. A bleak portrait of the struggles of one woman who did not keep in her place, and kept her business going despite the death of her husband, murder of her father and the derision of the townspeople – this story unfolds through three generations of dysfunctional family to an impossibly happy ending. Though I found the book difficult to get into, it did draw me in eventually and although i did not find the storyline all that believable in parts, it was definitely compelling. There is a bit of a mystery aspect that picks up part way through the book and i think that helped me stay interested in characters i did not really identify with. This is an okay read, but i wouldn’t buy it again.

Elle – Douglas Glover

This poetic tale about a lustful french girl abandoned on the shores of New France as punishment for her indiscretions is a surreal journey through the mythic pre-contact Canada. After losing her lover and nanny on the Isle of Demons (where she has been abandoned), a pregnant Elle survives the winter with the help of a native hunter, and before the thaw walks to the mainland and enters the forest to complete her transformation from woman to she-bear and back again. The language of this story is as haunting as the dark healing magic of the medicine woman who nurses her back to health in the wilds before and during her transformative process. The narrative is not nearly as important as the language and imagery in this lull from real life.

The Speaking Cure – David Homel

Set in a war-torn Yugoslavia, this journey of a counselling psychologist through the moral ambiguities of civil war, make for page-turning reading. As my friend Anna said, “this book is everything reading is about” – and I couldn’t agree more. Initially the story seems to be about a dissident psychologist pushing at the boundaries of serbian society in crisis, but it becomes apparent mid-way through the story that this counsellor is less interested in helping others than in acting his own psychodrama out in a country gone mad (though his self-awareness in this respect lacks a great deal). An adulterous relationship, a trip to the frontlines, and the publication of a work of “fiction” seal the main character’s fate in the dystopic Belgrade. Homel’s work touches on themes of madness, resiliency, sexuality, trauma, and finally atonement – a definite good read for troubled times.