Of Shakespeare, Anonymous, and Muriel Spark

4 November 2011

"Shakespeare is – let us put it this way – the least English of English writers. The typical quality of the English is understatement, saying a little less than what you see. In contrast, Shakespeare tended toward the hyperbolic metaphor, and it would come to us as no surprise to learn that Shakespeare had been Italian, or Jewish, for instance." -- Jorge Luis Borges 1979

The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London.

From Yoko Morgenstern: A Blue Fish

1 November 2011

Literary non-fiction from Yoko Morgenstern.

Photo: Danny Stoeker

Poet and psychiatrist Joël des Rosiers wins Quebec’s national literary prize

1 November 2011

In addition to being a gifted poet and a practicing psychiatrist, Des Rosiers is a courageous and open-minded gentleman for whom I have great respect. This, as we all know, has nothing much to do with literary merit, most of the time. I mention it because it gives me even more reason to rejoice that Quebec has chosen to celebrate Joël des Rosiers and his work with its highest literary honour.

Doug Gibson's Stories about Storytellers, reviewed by Linda Leith

28 October 2011

My review of Doug Gibson's Stories about Storytellers has just appeared on the Globe Books site and no doubt in the paper tomorrow.

From Yan Liang: Q & A with Norwegian Wood director Tran Anh Hung

26 October 2011

"I am a guy who is Vietnamese, living in France, making a Japanese movie. But Vietnamese culture is really deep inside me. Let’s say I enjoy watching Vietnamese women more than others. It’s something like that. I feel that I am a different man when I am in Vietnam compared with France. I feel that I’m not living my life fully in France, I feel as though my life is in suspension. It is not something I dislike, that’s just how it is."

Much outcry as Australian broadcaster kills popular radio book show

3 October 2011

I will take this opportunity to point to the spectacular example that Australia’s Book Show has set in books coverage on radio – and to lament that fact that we don’t have anything that comes even close to daily books coverage here in Canada.
                                          
                                           Ramona Koval, presenter of
                                           The Book Show

Montreal BookCamp

2 October 2011

Questions about the future of bookstores and libraries soon resulted in bold statements to the effect that “Bookstores will die. It’s a pity, but that’s the reality.” Booksellers fared better in this imagined future, but not by much. To the suggestion that booksellers can continue to play a role in providing advice on books, one participant cracked, “you might have difficulty living on that.” Publishers came in for some dismissive comments, as well, and radio and television got it in the neck.

Changes made to .ll. -- and changes to come

28 September 2011

Introducing fiction and poetry in translation into English -- and, in the weeks to come, a new blogue in French.

Not to mention, it's easier than ever to sign up and comment.

Not to mention the books that will follow in the new year.

Photo: Phyllis Papoulias

Nelly Arcan's Humilation on Tout le monde en parle

13 September 2011

Nelly Arcan, the talented and beautiful novelist who committed suicide in September 2009 (see my Globe Books post here) has published a posthumous story called Shame (La Honte) that is creating a stir.

Nelly Arcan on the cover of her second novel, Folle.

Report from the Future II: Montreal’s Literary Avant-garde

13 September 2011

I hate to break this to you, Ladies and Gentlemen – especially if you’re still in denial about the digital revolution – but the literary future includes not only electronic books, but words and images dancing on a screen, with voice and music and other sound effects.

Bertrand Gervais

Report from the Future I: Montreal’s Literary Avant-garde

13 September 2011

Letters appear, quickly metamorphose into other letters, creating new words, new meanings, and new stories. A story that might have been set in Brooklyn is transformed on screen into a story about Odessa, and then into another about Berlin.

I catch a line about being “hand in hand on uncertain ground.” It all reminds me of that line of Leonard Cohen’s about a woman “who’s gone and changed her name again.”

blue as an orange

Nepveu, Mavrikakis, Leblanc: Quebec’s impressive fall literary season

12 September 2011

While the Miron biography is a considerable assessment of the one of the great figures of nationalist Quebec, the publication this month of a new novel by Catherine Mavrikakis is an event, too, and one of the surest signs of vitality among a younger generation of Quebec writers.

And then there's Perrine Leblanc, aged 31.


Catherine Mavrikakis

Quebec’s fall literary season begins

12 September 2011

This is, in short, the busiest time of the year for literary publishers here, perhaps even more so than elsewhere in Canada, since the Quebec industry takes its lead from France in its single-minded focus on the fall.

Kim Thuy

From Kenneth Radu: Reading Kathleen Winter’s Annabel

7 September 2011

The heart of the novel is the brilliant and painful, detailed and multi-layered depiction of Annabel herself from his earliest years as the boy Wayne to the excruciatingly awkward and sometimes devastating experiences of the young woman Annabel in St. John’s. In scene after scene Winter wonderfully conveys a child’s literal-mindedness and imagination, a child’s consciousness of physiological transformations and emotional changes, an adolescent’s conflicts and yearnings, tensions within the family, all complicated by the salient fact of his/her gender.

Commenting on posts

6 September 2011

Visitors to this site are cordially invited to comment on posts. You will need to register first (at the end of any post).

Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table, reviewed by Linda Leith

2 September 2011

Linda Leith's review of Michael Ondaatje's great new novel, The Cat's Table in the Montreal Gazette.

Q & A with Patterson Webster on Land Marks / Pays sage

30 August 2011

Patterson Webster’s exhibition Land Marks – nicely translated as Pays sage – explores how people shape the natural world and are shaped by it. Intrigued when I attended the show and walked the trails, I asked Webster questions about her work, to which she responded by email.

Her work is exhibited in a gallery setting at the North Hatley Library (165 Main Street, North Hatley) and outdoors at Glen Villa Gardens (1000 chemin North Hatley, Sainte-Catherine–de-Hatley), where you can walk the Abenaki and In Transit trails daily, 1–5 p.m. Enter the property on the private drive marked with a flag. Follow signs for parking. See brochure and map. Duration of walk: 45 minutes (1.5 km) round trip.

From Kenneth Radu: The Sculptures of John Félice Ceprano

24 August 2011

These works fall to the force of nature every year and are rebuilt in new formations in late spring and summer when the river releases itself from winter’s grip. The rock remains, the art vanishes, only to reappear, because the artist is moved to do so, change and transformation being essential to his aesthetic. And that’s a rather exciting concept. Ceprano’s purpose is not to create a never changing artifact, but to celebrate the phenomenon of change itself.

UFOs, nuclear weapons -- and apologies

24 August 2011

The site has been down, owing to server overload. Some of that is the traffic generated since the four pieces I posted yesterday, but most of it has nothing to do with this site but with another dealing with UFOs and nuclear weapons.

My webmaster suggests posting on UFOs and nuclear weapons as a way of increasing traffic. I guess it would be.

The Reford Gardens: The Old, the New, the Secret and the Provocative

23 August 2011

What interests me in these gardens is their design and imaginative daring, along with their thoughtful and often playful deconstruction of the garden into its constituent parts. As a writer, I am also intrigued by the power of the language used to describe them. Among the most provocative – perhaps especially for a writer -- is the Jardin de la connaissance, a “secret and strange library” of walls, benches and floors made up of used books exposed to wind and weather – and varieties of mushrooms cultivated within some of the books.

Here is a world première view of Louise Tanguay's new photograph of the controversial Jardin de la connaissance.

Auberge du Grand Fleuve, Métis-sur-Mer

23 August 2011

This French couple declared the food they had at the Auberge du Grand fleuve (131, rue Principale, Métis-sur-Mer), the best they'd had in Quebec.

Photo: Linda Leith