The video depicts what should be a GLOBAL CATASTROPHE the likes of which have never been seen before. Continents moving at hundreds of kilometres per second and slamming together. Good things the ocean water has no need to obey fluid dynamics, for one thing. (Notice how water materializes out of the Pacific coasts and just disappears from the Atlantic?) And there’s no way the two groups of partiers would happily end up on the same beach. There’d be a lot more than a couple cracked streets and some bouncing sand. That’s all I’m saying.

One in particular has caught my attention a couple times now. It features rather simple looking puzzles on the screen and large cash prizes of several hundred dollars. It is hosted by a blond British woman (or at least someone with a non-North American English accent) encouraging viewers to call in and try solving the puzzle of the moment. It is rather amusing watching her trying to come up with new things to say after 20 solid minutes without a single caller. How many new ways can she describe the puzzle? How many new ways can she ask me to call in? How many times can she say that time is running out?

The absolutely maddening thing is that these puzzles are always so easy. At least, they seem easy enough that it is absolutely mind bogglging that someone hasn’t called in yet. Last night’s game: name a car brand with 5 letters starting with M-A-Z and win $2500. And nobody is calling in to answer! All the while the background music gets more and more pressing, alarms start going off, and countdowns start appearing on screen, all designed to make me think that I only have a few seconds to call in and be handed this bounty just for not being a complete idiot.

But last night I finally found the complete rules online and found out how this ruse works. Though they work hard to give the impression that nobody is calling, that the puzzle really is that easy, and that there really are no tricks associated with the cash prize, it’s all BS. When you enter by calling in (all calls cost $2) or sending in a text message (again, at the cost of $2) you’re only registering your name as a contestant. It is then at the producer’s discretion when to actually call people, how many people to call, and how long to run the game. So they could run the entire thing with people furiously texting and calling thinking that it is a sure thing and why the hell aren’t I getting through because nobody else is calling and it’s almost over so I have to try again and again and again and….. and then only at the end let someone on the air with a guess they know is wrong and not have anybody win the prize. The rules basically say that they can put up this ruse of easy money as much as they want, collecting their $2 fees with each registration sent in, while having no obligation to actually let anybody even try to win.

In any case, the answer to last night’s puzzle was MAZEL, the Spanish concept car design studio. I doubt anybody would have won even if they had given them a chance.

I should point out that “started reading” does not mean “finished reading”. I managed to get almost one hundred pages in before I started skimming. I got another fifty pages before I put the book down for good.

The problem with Unless is that almost nothing happens. Most of the book is the main character droning on about her life and what she thinks about things and going off onto tangents about her neighbour or that other thing or something else and blah blah blah blah blah.

I’m not the kind of person who needs action and explosions and dramatic plot twists to stay interested but I do need something other than an internal monologue. I didn’t even feel like I knew anything about this woman before I’m thrown into the deep end of every little thought she has. Why do I care about all this? Sure there allusions to things happening, references to a world in which some kind of story is happening, but it’s completely overwhelmed by her droning on and on.

The major conflict that everybody talks about featuring so heavily in this book, that the woman’s daughter has dropped out of university and spends her days out on the street, barely even comes up. One third of the way through the book and this situation was mentioned maybe twice. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I know if I had to give a synopsis of the book based on what I read, I probably would have said something like “a woman thinks about feminist literature”, but that doesn’t sound as exciting.

It’s no surprise that one of the things people wonder about this book in the context of Canada Reads is whether or not it can pick up support from men. My mom liked it, but probably because she identifies quiet well with the main character. I can’t even say it’s a women’s book, because my sister couldn’t stand to finish reading it either. Well, Lorne Cardinal liked it.

In the end I’m not sure where to rank it. It is tied at the bottom with “The Best Laid Plans” by Terry Fallis. If the two were combined they might have something going for them. Shields’s writing is clearly good and has depth, but the problem is she doesn’t go anywhere with it. “The Best Laid Plans” in contrast is shallow, but at least I still wanted to know what happened next even if I wasn’t really taken in by it. Even though the quality of writing in “Unless” is very good, given a choice between the two I would tell a friend to go with “The Best Laid Plans” instead. It’s lazy summer beach reading, but at least they won’t be bored to tears.

I’ve only just started “The Birth House” by Ami McKay, so I can’t say much about it yet but it is at least better than those other two. I’ll give it a tentative 3rd place. “Essex County” is second, and finally “The Bone Cage” is the one I want to see win it all.

(Links above are to my comments on the other books.)

ANYWAY, time for me to put my feelings about the 3rd* book, Angie Abdou’s “The Bone Cage” down in writing. I’m going to be blunt here, because I feel rushed with the debates two weeks sooner than I thought they were, and also I have somewhere else to be tonight. This isn’t going to be the cleanest most professional review but it will get the point across.

This is my favourite book of the five contenders.

I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that, as a former varsity athlete, I definitely connect with what Digger and Sadie are going through. On the outside most athletes seem to be all confidence and bravado, but Abdou really cracks that shell open and shows us what’s really going on. As it says in the book, “Athletes are experts in mind control.” They have to be or they wouldn’t survive. High performance sport is almost entirely won in the mind. I was not an expert at this, so I’m no longer a varsity athlete, but I definitely understand what it’s like to need that skill to advance.

That being said, it isn’t the only reason I liked this book. It is a book about Olympians in training, but it’s a book about Digger and Sadie. They are great characters and I really felt I was reading about them, not just about training for the Olympics. I like Digger. I like Sadie. I like their insecurities. I was with them through their trails. This was a book I really felt a part of.

Also, I enjoyed that this book contained a reference to a real-life event that was featured in a previous Canada Reads selection. Ten points to anybody else who spotted it.**

I’m curious to see if this book garners support from non-athletic types in the same way that I wonder if Carol Shields’ “Unless” will get support from anybody who isn’t a middle aged woman. My bias is clear there, but I think “The Bone Cage” definitely deserves it***. It is my pick to win.

* The other books being The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis, Essex County, by Jeff Lemire, Unless by Carol Shields, and The Birth House by Ami McKay.

** The Frank Slide in chapter 27, from “The Outlander”, Canada Reads 2009.

*** “Unless”, on the other hand, does not. More on that later.

It is a behemoth of a book, twice the size of any of the others, but being mostly graphics it makes for fast reading. My sister and I each finished it in about 3 hours. I suspect this, and the impression that maybe it lacks depth because of it, will be Essex County‘s biggest stumbling block when it comes to the debates. I found it quite engaging, though.

The bulk of the book is actually a collection of three graphic novels, each set in the same rural county of souther Ontario and loosely tied to one another. I’ve always liked this kind of storytelling, where you see hints at how all these different stories are connected, and that maybe they are all facets of the same thing. Yet at the same time it always makes me yearn for a bit more of that connection. (Interestingly, this is the same thing that I ended up really enjoying about Nikolski, the winner of last year’s Canada Reads.)

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was the stuff that came at the end, after the three main novels had concluded. They seemed somewhat tacked on, which is understandable considering they are the smaller bits of a collection rather than the end of a novel, but I wish there had been more of a demarcation between these two. I felt that rather than a good ending to the trilogy, the story kind of wasted away into these bits and pieces at the end.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book quite a bit (I think having an appropriate reading soundtrack may make a big difference here), felt connected to the characters, and really enjoyed how things came together in the end, with the reader given enough information to know where everything lay without having it all detailed piece by piece. One leaves the book with a real sense that this place exists and these people are real, even if we are only with them a short time.

The other books in Canada Reads 2011 are The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis, The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou, Unless by Carol Shields, and The Birth House by Ami McKay.

I’m going to be quite brief with this one. It has been hyped up as being funny and clever, and an insightful look at Canadian politics that will, featuring a political outsider, appeal to even those who despise politics. I think it was on that basis that Avi Velshi championed it during the Canada Reads launch.

Quite simply, I found it not funny and shallow. There were jokes there, I recognized when they happened, but they were typically obvious, cliche, or based on some tired stereotype. I don’t think I ever laughed once.

I also found the characters quite flat. The main character didn’t have much in the way of characterization, and I had a strong sense that Fallis knew what sort of character he was writing, but neglected to show that to the reader. I can’t help but feel that he was actually just writing himself and forgot that the reader won’t see the character the same way he does. It made for a uninspired narration.

Early in chapter five, the narrator recounts the story-so-far and says “It sounded like a sitcom that was cancelled after three episodes because it was just too far-fetched.” Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s wrong with a good fraction of this novel. The whole scandal that sends the lead political outsider into office, for example, had me rolling my eyes and actually vaguely insulted. Was I supposed to find that whole episode funny? Who is this book supposed to be written for?

Finally, it didn’t help that I was constantly bothered by references to “the Leader”. Always being capitalized and never named, I couldn’t help but be reminded of The Leader of the Movementarians more than any political party.

Of course it is clear by this point that I do not see The Best Laid Plans as much of a contender. I will be writing up comments on the other four books in the next couple months, but to give a brief preview, this is the bottom of the 2.5 books I’ve read so far.

The other books in Canada Reads 2011 are Essex County by Jeff Lemire, The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou, Unless by Carol Shields, and The Birth House by Ami McKay.

In a terminal, run ‘alsamixer’.

Towards the bottom right, there are two items labeled ‘Digital’.

For the system to recognize the built in microphone, the first needs to be set to ‘Digital’ and the second to ‘Analog I’. For the system to recognize the audio input jack on the front, they must both be ‘Analog I’.

Then, open System > Preferences > Sound, or double-click on the volume in the task-bar and open preferences. Under the ‘Input’ tab, switch to whichever device shows some input levels. For the external, this is ‘Microphone 2′ but not ‘Microphone 1′. Adjust gain as necessary.

Then you can run qarecord to record wav files.

Now all I need is something that can play LP records and I’ll be in business.

I will write a proper review of Good to a Fault once I finish it. For now I’m enjoying it, and really identify with the main character, Clara, especially in the way she second guesses herself so much. Endicott is very good at making very human characters and letting us know what they’re thinking as they do what they do. I’m very interested to see how it goes.

Based only on half the book, I’d rank it above both The Jade Peony and Generation X, which I’d put at 4th and 5th respectively, but below Fall On Your Knees and Nikolski which are in a loose tie for first.

I’m looking forward to the debates!

Let’s cut right to the chase: This was an okay book, but not a favourite by any means. Of the four books I’ve head, it’s sitting solidly in third place. Nikolski and Fall On Your Knees both had some resonance with me through their stories and memorable characters, while Generation X inspired an intense repulsion. The Jade Peony was just… meh.

The novel is told through the eyes of three children in the same family in the roughly 5 to 15 age range, living in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the 1930s and 1940s. On the face of it this could have had very similar results to Nikolski and Fall On Your Knees, which featured multiple points of view and stories that connected in different ways, but Peony utterly failed to make that connection. The three stories—despite being told at the same time in the same family—could not be more disconnected.

Part one features Jook-Liang and her friendship with the Monkey Man. Part two was about Jung-Sum and his budding sexuality. Part Three was a bit more diverse, as we saw Sek-Lung go through the death of his grandmother, starting school, and witnessing a Romeo and Juliet type relationship between a Chinese/Japanese pair. Each story stands completely on its own. In the last section, for example, we read

My two stepbrothers naturally felt superior. Kiam was fifteen and getting all A’s at King Edward High; Jung was twelve and was learning how to box like Joe Louis at the Hastings Gym.

That’s about all the crossover we get. Compare this to Ann-Marie MacDonald’s writing style in Fall On Your Knees, in which half a dozen characters are blended together so expertly, moving from one point of view to another in such a way that every character, every setting, and every event has half a dozen dimensions to it. Compare this to the characters in Nikolski, who have connections between them that are painfully evident to the reader but frustratingly just out of reach for the characters themselves. I actually felt my gut wrench when the characters came so close to realizing their bond. In comparison Choy’s characters are completely flat. Each tells a particular story, completely isolated from the other two, in an identical, formal, grown-up and completely neutered narration.

There was potential here, and at times some of that did show through. The forbidden romance (both of them). The tension between old and new. The war. The grandmother. The histories that brought the family together. But none of it really came through. Even the grandmother, which I suspect will be brought up as a common thread in the three stories and the source of much of the novel’s meaning, struck me as a cardboard cutout stereotype. There wasn’t enough depth. I don’t feel connected to any of it.

So while not terrible, there’s nothing much memorable about The Jade Peony either. It filled some time, but that’s about it.

This is the fourth in what will hopefully be a series of 5 posts on this year’s Canada Reads books. The other posts are here: Generation X, Nikolski, Fall on Your Knees, and Good to a Fault.

Actually, as I said in my last post, that I can remember details about a book several years later is a very, very good sign.

Ann-Marie MacDonald has a very interesting writing style, that moves seamlessly between characters and perspectives in a way that could be catastrophically confusing but works quite well. She has a particular talent for writing children, with the strange lenses that they might see the world and the things happening around them. I always feel as though I never quite know what’s going on because everything comes filtered through characters’ perceptions, but that’s what makes this such an interesting read. I really feel like I know what the characters are thinking, feeling, and what’s motivating them to do what they do. And on the other hand, there are instances when you see the same scene from two perspectives at different points in the novel and you realize that you had it all wrong. There’s one scene in particular that I’m thinking of, which I don’t want to give away, but completely changed my outlook on these characters’ lives once I saw it through the eyes of one of the children. There are some elements of the story that are revisited and referenced throughout the course of the novel and each time is a revelation. That MacDonald can tell a story like that from so many angles at once, keenly aware that each bit of information the reader learns colours the rest of the narrative in different ways, is what makes this such a great book.

Now, that being said, I must make the inevitable comparison to The Way the Crow Flies, which I read a year or two before this one. Everything I’ve said in the above paragraph also holds true for both books, but on the whole I think The Way the Crow Flies was my favourite of the two. I liked the story there more, I think it had a wider variety of things going on while still being held together just as well, and it had a more well defined story arc that Fall on Your Knees lacked. It’s been longer since I read the former, but the plot still sticks quite well in my mind, whereas in the latter while I may remember characters and scenes I don’t remember the story. I actually remember being disappointed in Fall on Your Knees while reading it, since, though still brilliant, it didn’t live up to its predecessor.

But does that mean much in the context of Canada Reads? This book has enough competition already without being put up against others by the same author outside the contest. Part of me really wishes that The Way the Crow Flies was in this contest instead, and I can’t help but think that Fall on Your Knees shouldn’t win because of that, even though I know that doesn’t make much sense. I’m sure that as I listen to the debates, almost every argument about Fall on Your Knees will be about The Way the Crow Flies as they have so much in common.

So in the end, as irrational as it may be, I’m tempted to let myself be charmed by Nikolski and see this book voted out a bit sooner. But who knows. Maybe Good to a Fault will blow them all away. Stay tuned.

This is the third in what will hopefully be a series of 5 posts on this year’s Canada Reads books. The other posts are here: Generation X, Nikolski, The Jade Peony, and Good to a Fault.

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