about those values

My mother, a number of ex-teachers and professors, a former boyfriend or two, and more than a couple former bosses will tell you that I don't really flourish in an environment of micro-management and close oversight. I balk at being told what to do, even if that thing is in my favour or something I want to do (sometimes even if I was already planning to do it).

There are two solutions: first, a little self-awareness goes a long way in doing things anyway. Second, creating structures that keep me accountable without too much ridigity keep me moving forward. I'm a pretty big fan of checklists, coloured spread-sheets, etc, but I have a long history of abandoning projects and commitments if something goes awry - dribbled paint in the powder room trying to create a feature wall? Stop work, you incompetent loser. Cheated on your diet? Eat all the things and pretend you're okay being fat. In modern business lingo, I have not always been agile. I have been brittle.

This year, before the whole world got sucked into an unplanned redesign, I started to take a deep dive (that has turned into a LONG soak) into the world of fulfillment, which lead me into the realms of character and ability, which lead me into really considering and clearly defining my values. It's been an interesting journey so far, and I'm considering what to do with all the information I've amassed. Today, however, is about what's keeping me moving forward, mostly because I have more questions than answers at this point.

Back to the point at hand and structures for fulfillment that aren't bossy schoolmarms: last week I had started a daily task list, but that felt SO uninspiring that I knew before I even started that I wouldn't want to stick to it. Since I already had a print out of my core values and what each value means to me, I decided to create a matching daily values check-in - and that does inspire me.

Now each day I can see which values I've taken action in, and at the end of each week I can see what's been neglected and where I might want to focus my attention. It's not necessary so much to practice every value every day, but handy to see where things might be out of balance. I have slipped both pages into glass-fronted picture frames that sit on my dresser, and I use whiteboard pens on the checklist, so I can wipe it off and start fresh each week.

I'll tell you in a month how that's going.

The Perfume Garden: a review

I pulled The Perfume Garden, by Kate Lord Brown, from the "to read" shelf as part of my new winding down before bed plan (in short, look at pages, not screens). That was a tactical error. Although 60 pages in I could tell you how every major plot point was going to unfold, twist, and weave around another lesser thread, I still couldn't put this novel down. 

• Maybe it's being stuck at home and yearning for the free travel of the characters. 
• Maybe it's the deeply sensual (as in luxuriously sensory, not as in a euphemism for sexual) descriptions. 
• Maybe I just lacked discipline. 

Whatever it was, I couldn't stop. I kept thinking to myself, "what are you doing - it's not that great." I had hours of "just one more page. Just one more chapter - they're short. I'll just read until [thing I know is coming] happens" Until finally it was 7 am and the book was done.  I still can't tell you why. 

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The central romance is charming and predictable. The supporting and background romances are static and predictable. The plot is entirely what you expect, and yet none of it is exactly boring - that's down to the setting. 

The story is mainly set in Valencia, Spain. It uses the not-that-clever plot device of flashing forward and back between two storylines that entwine (that's not a spoiler - the connection is made immediately) - the older generation meeting during the Spanish Civil War and the principle characters (generations on) meeting in the early '00s. There are bits in England, but they only seem to serve as points of contrast. The plot is saved by its focus on the Spanish Civil War since it lends uniqueness to tales that have otherwise been told. England, where less of the story takes place, seems unspeakably drab by comparison. 

If there is something special about this book, it may be the atmosphere Brown evokes. It's not as overwhelming as Rushdie or Ondaatje or Roy, with their South Asian humidity and jungle richness. The reader doesn't swim in this atmosphere so much as to be gently carried along by it. It clears the mind and makes the reader (at least this reader) feel as though they are taking deep breaths of the freshest mountain air. Part of the magic of that atmosphere comes from the central character's work as a perfume designer. The entire world of perfumery sounds like the most ideal balance of art and science, even for someone who doesn't like strong scents. 

Brown's true weakness - even worse than her predictable plot - is her flat characters. The predictability of the story is the predictability of all people whose motivations are openly broadcast and unchanging. The bad people are very bad and the good people are very good. The sad moments are very sad. And the happy moments are bright and unblemished. Life just isn't like that. Humans aren't like that. And we sure don't talk like Brown's characters talk. 

That said, I do recommend this book. It as a nice light read with some beautiful moments, and definitely steps above pulp fiction. I believe I could sit in an orange grove in Spain for hours and never tire of the setting. It's a sweet story nicely told. Nothing more or less. 

Dear Life: a review

I am often embarrassed to realise that I have two degrees in Literature and still so frequently find canonical titles or authors I haven't read. Until this book, Alice Munro was in that category. I am now a huge fan, and I look forward to making up for lost time. Mind you, my introduction to Munro was her final short story collection, Dear Life, for which she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Perhaps I should stop now and avoid having my high regard undermined (a la Ondaatje).

The truth is, I don't read a lot of short stories. I tend to prefer the depth of character, language, and plot that the spaciousness of a novel allows. With a writer as skilled as Munro, however, the short form is more than enough length to tell a story that is as rich and engaging as any novel.

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Dear Life is a collection of short stories from very specific Canadian places, yet they could be anywhere. Or at least in any small Canadian town. Perhaps there is a particular Canadian experience that translates from rural Ontario to British Columbia. I tend to think the provinces are more distinct than that, yet riding the train through the Rocky Mountains, or watching the leaves turn gold, then orange, then red in autumn certainly translates, as do Munro's characters.

Perhaps what feels odd about Munro's compelling but unusual characters is their ordinariness. While mildly antiquated, they are, in the main, relatable and irredeemably human. And yet they are distinctly themselves. The women, in particular, have a fullness that keeps them from being tropes or clichés.

I find Munro's style hard to identify. It is a style with depth but without flourish. More Coco Chanel than Thierry Mugler. Mostly, I just enjoyed spending my time in the world Munro created - it felt peaceful to find myself in each separate tale. Munro can be cynical, but without bitterness and in a forgiving and tender way. Dear Life comprises mainly love stories with too much reality to be saccharine or even all that romantic.

Alice Munro and I share a similar philosophy of truth, which is that there is truth, and there are facts, and we musn't let the latter distract from or dilute the former. In introducing her final four stories in this collection, Munro states ...

The final four works in thise book are not quite stories. They form a separate unit, one that is autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact. I believe they are the first and last - and the closest - things I have to say about my own life. 

The Finale - these four separate works - are not so dramatically different from the prior ten works of fiction. The style, the settings, and the characters very much relate across the whole collection. Perhaps that shows that writers write who they are, no matter what name they give their story. Perhaps I'm over-reaching.

Somehow, particularly in those final personal stories, Munro - more than a generation older and most of a very large country away - recalls for me a small farmhouse, a bend in a river, trees at the edge of a field, sisters in bunk beds, a listening father, an adolescent girl's impatience for her mother. Even the worst horrors are unveiled gently and only with as much detail as is absolutely necessary for understanding. Her realism is just that - neither glossy nor lurid, but clear.

Warlight: a review

Well, this is frustrating. About a third of the way through Warlight, Michael Ondaatje's seventh novel and umpteenth book, I paused to write my impressions at that point. Only now that I've finished reading it, I can't find the notes. I do remember the gist of them though:

• what a disappointment 
• where is Ondaatje's trademark poetric mastery of language? 
• why is this book so boring? and 
• why are these people so insipid? 

Reading this book, after cherishing it on my 'to be read' shelf for most of two years,  reminds me of being all flustered to see a high school crush at your 20-year reunion, only to find he is fat, bald, and coasting off his BMOC days.

So, ya. Warlight, published in 2018, is not Ondaatje's best novel. Considering how powerful and lyric his first six novels were, that may not seem like a problem, but I was actually left, at times, wondering if Ondaatje even wrote Warlight. Only, I'm quite sure that he did. I am certain it was truly he at the author event I attended. It was the one and only Ondaatje I waited in line to have him sign my copy of the book, and then stupidly fangirled some predictable appreciative nonsense at him. He wouldn't go through all that for a book he didn't even write, right?

But this book. Given the context and the content - Britain post World War II, but reaching back to key elements of the war, including homeland and overseas intelligence, criminal elements, abandoned children - there should have been ample dramatic tension. There wasn't. At first I thought it was just the adolescent narrator failing to understand and so to convey life around him, but as the narrator ages, he doesn't gain any insight. I'd say more, but I'm not sure how to without spoilers.

Speaking of spoilers, I am glad I pushed on through the end. This was not, unlike The English Patient, or In the Skin of a Lion, or The Cat's Table, a page turner. There was no sweep of poetry or romance to pull me along. However, out of respect for the author - who remains one of my favourites - I carried on to the end. And the end was both surprising and satisfying.

So, that's really all I have to say about that. Read it or don't. I'm not sure I recommend it. I mean, we are at the beginning of social distancing and people seem to have more time on their hands, so maybe it's worth picking up.  If there are any of his earlier novels you haven't read, or if you read poetry, maybe try any other book of his instead.

good-bye, good friend

My first thought this morning on reading that Kenny Rogers has died was, "poor Dolly." My second thought was how grateful I am for all his music. 

Kenny Rogers was a surprising guilty pleasure for me as a teenager. I used to say I hated all country music except Kenny Rogers but it turns out he was a gate-way artist to other guitar-forward storytellers like Garth Brooks, The Dixie Chicks, and ... okay, maybe just those two. 

I discovered Kenny Rogers, beyond The Gambler, at a babysitting gig when I was 13 or 14. My beloved Shiney and her family had recently moved away, and I was missed her terribly. There wasn't a lot of other music in the house I was babysitting at, so I was working my way through Kenny Rogers and social studies when I heard this song and teared up. 

You were a good friend

I listened to it over and over again so I could write out the lyrics and send them to Shiney. In the process, I memorized every line, note and inflection. 

You were a maverick ...

We'd tell stories 'round the campfire late at night when it was down to just you and me ...

Good friend, why did you have to go,

Just when I was getting to know you?

I'll sing this song to show.

You were a good friend, 

They don't make them quite like you,

And in my memories, you'll always be, a good good friend to me. 

I'd go about my day and hum the chorus. Chetwynd was a lonely place for me as a teenager, and it helped to remember my loving friends in other towns. 

Life moves on. People grow and change. And friendships, like all relationships, flourish or wither depending on how they are tended. And nearly 40 years later, this song - even just that gentle piano intro - takes me back - to a beige sofa, a scratchy LP, and the moment Kenny Rogers bridged more than 260 miles for a lonely teenager. 

If I close my eyes, it doesn't hurt quite so bad.