beginners & mcsweeny's.

The title of this post is not the title of a novel. Because I have still not allowed myself to embark on a new novel as I still have essays and things. (The only downside to university life - school work.) But as I mentioned before, I have been reading short stories. Beginners, a birthday-book from Dora, by American author Raymond Carver whom she likes very much. And a collection of various short stories by various authors for McSweeny's Quaterly Concern edited by Dave Eggers, also an American. One can't seem to escape them. Especially if one is reading short stories which the Americans seemed to have claimed but admittedly do very very well.

Short stories are like amazing train conversations with an interesting stranger. You know the encounter will end soon, but you're not sure how it will end. They don't really enter your real life but they do affect your life undeniably. Short stories do not belong to routine, like a half-an-hour-evening-reading of a novel when you get to know characters and catch up on what happened yester-evening. Rather, short stories break the routine. Leave you wondering and often dissatisfied but nonetheless pleased with what just happened. At least, good short stories do this. In my opinion, a bad short story is a too-long short story. But I am learning, the more I read, that this is not always so.

Beginners and McSweeny's are so different it's almost silly to put them in one post. But they do complement each other well. Because all the stories in Beginners are written by one author, writing in a very specific time and the stories tend to become somewhat repetitive, blurring into each other and following similar patterns. But it is a sad, beautiful and poignant pattern. McSweeny's on the other hand, jumps around like a schizophrenic dancer because each short story is written by a different person (and not all of them are American or male). The stories I have encountered in this anthology range from humourous to dark to uncomfortable to tragic to terrifying. And when I tire of this whirlwind I settle back in Raymond Carver's inherently American and sadly beautiful stories. It's a good balance.

In one of Ali Smith's short stories, two men have a conversation about the novel and the short story. They decide that the novel is a "...flabby old whore... Serviceable, roomy, warm and familiar, but really a bit used up..." and a short story is a "...nimble goddess, a slim nymph. Because so few had mastered the short story she was still in very good shape."

The story goes on to discuss this idea about short stories and whether or not it holds any truth. It is a marvelous story to begin a book of short stories with, I think. The story becomes increasingly funny and thought-provoking and you should all just go read it. Because it's great. And short. ('True Short Story' by Ali Smith).

I'm not sure a short story is a nymph. After reading Lolita (yes, I still think about it...) the word 'nymph' has a new, somewhat tainted meaning. But I would suggest you start acquainting yourself with short stories, they are fantastic things to have on your shelf and in your life.

(Oh, the other wonderful thing about short stories, is that they curl up in dark corners of your mind so that one day when conversation reaches a certain topic that reminds you of a short story you read, you can whip out this fanastic story and you are not quite sure where it came from... Did someone tell you this story? Is it a movie you once watched? Or did it actually happen to you? I would suggest you go with the last one and people will think you're a brilliant interesting person just because you happened to have read a brilliant interesting short story once... It has worked for me before.)

heart of darkness.

I have temporarily banned myself from any sort of novel that I want to read, as this is the week where essays deadlines begin to loom and test dates start to arrive like ominous-sounding mosquitos in the night. The only reading I should be doing is academic. I manage to keep sane by breaking that unbearably dull-and-intellectual reading with the occasional short story. (Recently received a book of Raymond Carver short stories for my birthday... but more about that later). But for English, we just finished reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. For the second time.

We did Heart of Darkness in First Year. However that seems to have gone unnoticed because now, two years later, our lecturer asks the class casually what Conrad we did in First Year. The large class dis-jointed-ly but semi-coherently mumbles 'Heart of Darkness' in response, our lecturer looks slightly concerned, whoops, ah well. Administrational slip-ups do happen.

So, as much as it is annoying to repeat a book it has - at the same time - been pretty fantastic. As a first year student reading Conrad, I was pleased with myself for managing to understand something of the plot. Set in "olden days", this British guy travels along a river into Africa to meet this other guy who eventually dies. Nor did I mind reading it so much, as it was short. So last weekend when I settled down to re-read it, I was overwhelmed and surprised at the sheer beauty, imagery and general brilliance of this controversial book. How did I possibly miss out so much in first year? Did I even read it? It felt like the first time I had ever read that horrid book because I do not remember it being that ... well ... good.

This comforted me. I have definitely become more intelligent since first year which is proof that on some level, university maybe works. Hm. An interesting idea.

I think you know when a book is really good which is it completely terrible yet simultaneously beautiful. That awful racist misogynist still manages to keep you reading. I'm not quite sure how. In literature conversation, there is the faded but never-ending debate "Should We Read Heart of Darkness?" I think any book that makes so many people start ranting excitedly probably deserves to be read.

Lolita is also one of these books. I know I mentioned Lolita in my previous post and I was going to write about it. But I don't think I am capable of commenting on what I think is the most complex and almost definitely the best book I have ever read. (Ok, so everyone knows such a thing does not exist, but if a best book ever was to exist, it might possibly be Lolita). Sick and exquisite Lolita is another one of those books that I will read again in two years and think to myself, "Did I even read this before? How could I have missed out on so much?"

But now I must go back to the books. Not the books I'd like to go back to though. I must return to the thicker, musty, vital and useless library books that hold very little exciting plot and fascinating characters but will nontheless help me write an essay.

Oh, yes... I assumed none of my house-mates would be bothered to read this blog but I was proved wrong when an affronted Tessa yelled from her room, "Nicky! I have never giggled in girlish rapture!" So, I apologise. People who read this, that was obviously a mistake. My darling Tess has never 'giggled in girlish rapture'. She probably just chuckled casually.

alias grace.

I haven't written in a while because I am currently struggling to do anything other than read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita which is terrifying and beautiful and horrible and fantastic and sick. But I am not going to write about Lolita. I am going to write about the book I finished a little while ago - Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace.

The story of how I came to read Alias Grace is a cute one. As a 21st present, Tessa gave me a my first-ever-pair of lacey underwear, a book (Alias Grace) and some pretty cool sunglasses to remind me that I am (and I quote), "Sexy, clever and very very cool". This was sweet and fun and we giggled in our girlish rapture and revelled in our brilliant youth and all these warm, Twirling-Birthday-Girl feelings vanished abruptly when I started on the book.

Alias Grace is sad. It is based on reality (which makes it all the more sadder) but is ultimately a work of fiction. Set in Canada in the 1840s, it is about the young girl, Grace Marks, who was convicted of murder and her innocence/guilt is never quite settled into a feel-good plot, but rather amounts to a dark, somewhat twisty and unsettling story. Chunks of history and quotes from poetry, newspapers, court statements are beautifully interwoven with the gripping narrative.

I did like this book.

In the same way that I get tired of reading American authors, I get doubly tired of reading male authors. Margaret Atwood is both female and Canadian. Lovely. It was noticeably refreshing to read a woman's writing and perspective. When I glance at my bookshelf 70% of the authors are men. I don't particularly want to get tangled up in a feminist rant (right now), I am just constantly surprised that I have to go out of my way to read books written by females. The books that find their own way into my consciousness are almost always written by men and I have to make a concerted effort to read female authors. You never find yourself thinking, "Gee, when was the last time I read a book written by a man?" It's silly.

Aside from being sad and beautiful, there is no denying that this book is smart. Once again, a lot smarter than me. There was definitely a lot of historical research that went into the making of this book. And I have always like the idea of other books making books. (Which is why it's fun to find out what your favourite authors read). I also noticed, only towards the end, a fascinating and detailed structure that threaded its way cleverly and neatly throughout the whole book. Which made me wonder how many other clever bits and imagery I had missed out on.

If you like historical and well-written fiction and are bored to death with those white men confidently and constantly prancing around the library shelves, I would definitely suggest Alias Grace.