I
read fiction with a writer's eye: I rarely get caught up in the story
because I'm too busy studying what works and what doesn't work. Once
I've figured that out, unless it's a really wonderful story (and few of
them are) I stop reading. My library is full of novels whose endings I
don't know.
So it's unusual when I can say, as I can today, that the last two novels I read I finished, and enjoyed immensely.
Dogs of Babel by Carolyn
Parkhurst was loaned to me by a neighbour who told me she has never
read my blog, and with whom I've never had a really serious
conversation. I probably should some time. She gave it to me because
it's a novel that involves a dog, and she knows I write and love dogs.
What's interesting is that it also broaches (though in a somewhat
macabre way) inter-species communication, the tarot deck (specifically
The Hanged Man), and the causes of depression, all of which I have
written about on these pages. It's the author's first novel, and, more
remarkably, is written from the perspective of its male narrator. Its
240 spare pages contain a whopping 42 chapters, which works fine for
me, and it hasn't an ounce of fat on it. It proceeds at a gallop. It's
both a mystery and a retrospective romance. The
happily married protagonist's spouse has mysteriously died from an
improbable fall from a backyard tree, witnessed only by the family dog.
The mystery is unravelled as the story of their romance is rolled out.
Various motifs wind their way through the story: masks, tarot cards,
talking dog jokes, kitsch, name anagrams, body wrtiting, surrealistic
dreams, Scottish myths. The characters are thin and not terribly
endearing (the dog excepted), but the story keeps you going, the
writing is tight, and the dialogue is real. Great, straight-ahead
writing. Here's a teaser, the description of the protagonist's
imaginings of what their dog would tell him if she could talk:
Maybe she wants to tell me about
a single moment of summer grass, looking for something to chase, the
feeling of damp earth on bare paws. That may be what she has to tell
me. The joy of muscle and bone working together to run as she chases a
cat. The wind blowing her ears as she sticks her head out a car window.
The loneliness of the door closing, leaving her alone in the house. The
patient waiting beneath the table, the smell of dinner not meant for
her...Seeing things happen and not knowing why. The smells of other
dogs.
Elroy Nights is the latest novel by Frederick Barthelme, who, as my regular readers knowwell,
is my favourite fiction writer. What can I say? I'm addicted to this
guy's writing. I read his books in
one sitting, usually finishing bleary-eyed as the sun is rising. He has
it all: Lovable, quirky characters, imagery that is so real and
extraordinary that it brings tears to your eyes, a quiet anger that
imbues and energizes every brilliantly-chosen word, a pulse on the
despair and lonely desperation of aging North Americans, a sparkling
but ironic sense of humour and playfulness, a delightful ability to
find imaginative and unexpected adjectives that are somehow perfect,
and dialogue that is
inventive, crisp and clever but still totally credible. He makes every
person in his stories, American archetypes whose lives are grindingly
ordinary, somehow extraordinary, magical, full of promise, and in so
doing he connects us, eccentrics every one, to each other and makes us
whole, a people, at least for a moment less lonely. He's America's
master storyteller, the most under-rated and understated writer of our
time. Here are a couple of passages already blacklined and dog-eared in
my copy for further study.
When Winter [the narrator's
step-daughter] hit eighteen she moved out, got an apartment with one of
her dodgier friends, and left us at the house with the dog, Wavy, who
followed Clare [the narrator's wife] everywhere she went. Clare and I
didn't adjust too well to being alone with each other. In a matter of
months, Clare was sleeping in one of the upstairs bedrooms. And soon
after that, every night when she went to bed I felt a little bit
relieved to have the downstairs to myself.
[After the narrator has moved out] As I drove across the bridge, I
thought how we'd started as young people insisting on living the way we
wanted, and how we'd gradually retreated from that, from doing what we
wanted. Things change. What you want becomes something you can't
imagine having wanted, and instead you have this,
suddenly and startlingly not at all what you sought. One day you find
yourself walking around in Ralph Lauren shorts and Cole Haan loafers
and no socks. You think, How did this happen? It isn't a terrible spot,
and you don't feel bad about being there, being the person you are in
the place you are, with the wife or husband you have, the
step-daughter, the friends and acquaintences, the house and tools and
toys, the job, but there is no turning back. You have a Daytimer full
of things to do. You have a Palm PDA and names and addresses and
contacts, and there is no way back. Even if there were a way back, you
couldn't get there from here, and you probably wouldn't go if you
could. The effort required isn't the kind of effort you can make
anymore.
That will get you started. What happens to Elroy is both random and
inevitable, and the lessons from the story are as light as the breath
of a whisper in your ear and as profound as the meaning of love.
[By the way, if you're looking at my earlier articles on Barthelme,
please note that I haven't updated the link to his advice on writing, The 39 Steps, which can now be found here. ]
The pollsters, except for the bizarre Gallup organization, are teasing us again with hopes of a clear Kerry win. The electoral college looks especially good, though it's extremely volatile. I've already said I think moderates will decide the contest, and they'll vote for the candidate they perceive as least extreme. I've suggested what Kerry should do if he wins. And I've listed what Bush will do if he wins. What's missing is the disaster recovery plan -- what should we do if Bush wins, or steals, the election?
With the Republicans controlling Congress, thanks to the outrageous
Texas gerrymandering and other dirty tricks, what we'll have to do is
fight like hell against the following programs:
Elimination of environmental & labour protections and
other deregulation of business, and the sell-off of most remaining
public land and resources for commercial purposes
Indifference and apology for the outsourcing and offshoring of millions of jobs
Indemnifying corporations against citizen litigation for misconduct
Pre-emptive attack on Iran, then Syria, and then, when the House of Saud is overthrown, Saudi Arabia
Elimination and privatization of government social services
Flat tax, estate tax repeal, and other subsidies for the rich
Patriot Act II
Ban on abortion, after replacement of retiring Supreme Court members with religious zealots
Other acts eroding the separation of church and state
Substantive withdrawal from the UN
That fight will have to be in arenas where the neocons don't yet
dominate: In the courts, below the Supreme Court level, the
international arena, including the fledgling international court (even
though Bush has refused to acknowledge its authority over the US),
international trade tribunals (which are realizing that 'free' trade
laws and globalization are stacked in favour of US corporations, and
that the US routinely ignores international trade agreements when it
suits their purposes to do so), the media (we'll need to create a whole
parallel media network to counteract the mainstream corporatist media),
and the court of public opinion in the US and internationally (while
Bush doesn't care what people outside the US think of him, and of
America, there is evidence that most Americans do). We will need to
paralyze government by filibuster and by every other means at our
disposal. We will need to mobilize online and through more traditional
networks to protest in the streets and dog Bush at every turn. And
we'll have to stop being polite and coy in our public discourse, and
wear our vehement opposition to Bush's most heinous measures literally
on our sleeves -- making armbands and political buttons and bumper
stickers and other demonstrations of resistance a constantly visible
part of the costume and identity of the nation for the next four years,
until moderates and even conservatives get alarmed and realize there is
something profound going on, and take the neocon threats to everything
their country was founded on much more seriously. The entertainment
industry, too, will need to stop pussyfooting around and start
producing programs that show Americans with their rights being trampled
by government, their environment and jobs being destroyed by ruthless
and greedy corporate oligopolies, and rampant government and corporate
crime, in place of the citizen-on-citizen crime that currently
dominates the cop shows. Using everything we have, we will need to
isolate, contain and neutralize a second-term Bush regime.
The ten bullets above represent nothing less than a neocon war on the
environment, on American workers, women, children and future
generations, on citizen rights and freedoms, internationalism,
pragmatism and consensus, on secularism, and on government's role and
responsibility as protector of the weak, the poor and the needy. For
the last four years it's been an undeclared war, but if Bush gets back
into office it will be gloves off, and we must be ready. Expect that,
for the first time since Vietnam, many unarmed Americans will die in
the streets at the hands of fired-up and frightened police, and give up
their lives for the principles that once made America a great nation.
When I say "we" will have to fight, I mean of course Americans who see
the folly of creeping fascism will have to do so. If Bush wins, I'll be
setting up a permanent category of my blog to help Americans who can't
bear to see what another four years of this madness will do to their
country, to immigrate to Canada. And if they'll let me across the
border, I'll see you on the streets in solidarity. What this extremist
ideologue does affects not just America, but the whole world. The whole
world is watching, again.
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
I
read fiction with a writer's eye: I rarely get caught up in the story
because I'm too busy studying what works and what doesn't work. Once
I've figured that out, unless it's a really wonderful story (and few of
them are) I stop reading. My library is full of novels whose endings I
don't know.
The pollsters, except for the 
