Summer reading

Given my poor showing with Ulysses, R.M Vaughan’s column in yesterday’s Globe made me smile. Tried to link to it, but it’s behind the pay wall. I’ve pinched and posted parts of the article to support the much maligned “summer read.”  

I blame Jian Ghomeshi. The floppy-haired CBC Radio One host has been bragging all summer that he is reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, another impossible book. He’s way past page 17, I’m sure — but then, he has production assistants. 

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Faced with one of my failings, I make like the Conservative Party and take comfort in fake populism. I’m just an ordinary fellow, I tell myself, a common sort. Why should I be held to such impossibly high literary standards? Only eggheads, Brits, sexual deviants (same thing) and desperate-for-ideas movie producers read 19th-century literature. What are the reg’lar folks reading?

Regular folks, according to paperback bestseller lists across this continent (okay, the English-speaking parts) are inhaling Michael Connelly’s latest legal thriller The Lincoln Lawyer — the title of which, you’ll be relieved to know, refers not to Abraham Lincoln or any other remotely educational topic, but to a large automobile. See, you’re already over the biggest hurdle.

Once you crack this book open, you’re safely on autopilot for a good 500 pages. What bliss, to glide like a bit of dandelion fluff from one neatly mowed, monochromatic lawn of text to the next. You could literally read this book drunk on a noisy bus and still not miss a plot point. Connelly is a no-frills writer from the Ellery Queen school of mystery fiction: Unveil the dastardly crime no later than page 5, set up the main characters before page 25, proceed with the nifty procedurals.

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The publishing industry, a world as rarefied (and, increasingly, about as relevant) as Dead Sea Scroll scholarship, likes to refer to books like The Lincoln Lawyer — fast paced, well-crafted books that engage millions — as summer books, or, more dismissively, beach books, as if people are any smarter in the winter or indoors. … 

I wish Ghomeshi the luck of the Irish in his attempt to skip across the bogs of Ulysses.

But by the time he’s finished, I’ll have read The Lincoln Lawyer, two science-fiction novels, and a grocery checkout book (another misunderstood literary subset) about plastic-surgery disasters — all without consulting a dictionary, flipping back to some enigmatic foreshadowing in the beginning chapters, or reverently placing said books gently on my lap whilst savouring the author’s dulcet flow.

R.M. Vaughan is a Toronto artist, novelist, poet and playwright.

Amy

Moving on …

I finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie while stranded on a powerless streetcar yesterday. This is significant only because I was so intent on the story that I didn’t even realize we’d stopped moving until a woman sitting near me unwrapped the biggest piece of barbequed pork rind imaginable (if one imagines such things) and started to chow down.  

Loved the story. Definitely a book I’ll pick up again and suspect I’ll have different questions after each read … Why such disdain for the girl guides? Is it significant that Teddy Lloyd has only one arm? I have to admit that knowing Sparks worked as a propagandist during WW2 may change how I approach the book next time. 

The National Library of Scotland has a quick overview of Muriel Spark’s life and work available here. 

Picked up Saturday by Iam McEwan yesterday during lunch and am 50 or so pages into the story. Have officially abandoned Ulysses. Will taunt myself with its greatness some other time. Am looking forward to reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, which a colleague is currently enjoying, and joining Kate’s Book Blog short story group.

Amy

Taking a knee ten pages in …

Oh my. Such incredible excitement when I first cracked Ulysses. Such horrible panic when after only ten pages I was back on-line looking for reading notes and a bit of context. I did find this, which was helpful:

“Although Joyce only began writing Ulysses in 1914, he had been laying the plans for it since 1906. His intention was to create a fictional Everyman– Leopold Bloom– to rival the classical figure of Homer’s Odysseus (aka Ulysses), which Joyce admired as the most well-rounded portrait of a human in literature. But he took the tribute a step further by making Bloom’s adventures parallel Ulysses’s, on a much smaller scale.

The action takes place in 18 chapters spaced approximately one hour apart, starting at 8:00am on Thursday 16 June 1904, and ending in the early hours of June 17.

The central parallel to Homer is that Bloom’s wife Molly– like Penelope in Homer– is being courted by a suitor, the dashing Blazes Boylan. In order to win her back, Bloom must negotiate twelve trials– his Odyssey.”

Alright, that’s helpful. I read The Odyssey in college and thoroughly enjoyed it. More importantly, I understood the Odyssey … Right now, I don’t have the same confidence in Ulysses.  

I felt slightly better after listening to Sounds like Canada this morning as Jian’s only 100 pages into the book and he started the Ulysses challenge ages (days?) ago. Unfortunately, I tuned out much of the discussion and returned to it just as the listener-reviewer was suggesting that any movie version of Ulysses should be structured like TV’s 24. Given that I now know the story takes place over the course of one day, I’d buy that if I wasn’t so completely off the show … 

As a side, there’s been a bit of a debate in The Globe and Mail about Joyce’s work since Saturday’s article about how his “grandson has intimidated legions of scholars in copyright skirmishes.” Letters to the editor over the last couple of days have been less about the article and more a continuation of the debate over whether anyone has actually read Joyce.

Finding Ulysses

Seems like I may have to borrow Ulysses from someone (…Joscelyn?). I popped into Coles bookstore this afternoon with the misguided hope of buying a copy so I can start reading this weekend. According to the sales clerk, there’s one copy left at the World’s Biggest Book Store and that’s about it as “everyone who listens to CBC has already bought us out.” My local library isn’t really an option as it’s closed for renovations, though I might try Nicholas Hoare or the independent bookstore on the Danforth on my way home.

If anyone has a favourite bookstore, especially in downtown Toronto, I’d love to include a running list on the site. I tend to frequent the big chain as there are three stores within five minutes of where I work, but I would happily walk a little further to support an independent.

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Tried to find Ulysses on the Danforth and was told that three copies were back-ordered. Seeing as how I have yet to find a “damn, I loved Ulysses” comment anywhere, I grabbed The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Will work my way through that until I can grab Joscelyn’s Joyce. 

Amy

Ulysses Challenge

Jian Ghomeshi, summer host of CBC’s Sounds like Canada, has thrown down the summer reading gauntlet … with nothing less than James Joyce’s Ulysses.  After reading about The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie on Bookworm and Kate’s Book Blog, I was going to tackle it next but think I might give Joyce a go.

There’s a reader review of Ulysses on Chapters.ca that mirrors what CBC listeners said during yesterday’s interview: “…Ulysses is required reading. Of course, you’re not required to enjoy it.”

Now, that doesn’t exactly scream “summer read,” but there’s no shame in having several books on the go at once and I figure I can always put Joyce down and enjoy a less dense read if needed.

If anyone has already accepted Jian’s challenge, I’d love to know how it’s going …

Amy