Wrapping and Unwrapping

On the subject of my current reading:

I am very close to finishing Roxana. She is being, to some degree, unwrapped now, undone by her incredible past, unable to fashion a future. It's a kind of tragedy or, at the very least, a judgement...which is often to my mind a greater tragedy than a straight-up kill-everybody-at-the-end tragedy.

I am obviously not listening to Defoe's judgement at some level for I am fashioning a future through two new blogs: la lectrice errante and (slightly more than) 50 walks. You're invited! I'm not sure if I should design new personalities for these two blogs. It's a possibility or perhaps even an opportunity...What would D&G think?

Other reading: Choice books picked up in Halifax and at the Hamilton Small Press Book fair. The favorite, I think, is What I would Buy if I had Money by Dan B. It's photocopies of grocery store ads (mostly) with some Future Shop ads thrown in occasionally. It is a pure expression of desire, a desiring. I don't think it's widely available. In fact, when I bought it for 4 bucks, the woman in the gallery where I bought it said that it wasn't a book that they normally carried. It was probably just dropped off by the guy/author, snuck onto the shelf. Who gets the 4 bucks then?? Applicant by Jesse Reklaw is disturbing/interesting and widely available (check it out) but not as disturbing as the book I bought last year at the book fair which was called All the Guns I've Ever Had which I thought was fiction. After I talked to the author, though, I realized it was non-fiction...still it is a very visually pleasing book...

And, finally, the most recent book I've purchased: The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. It was a necessity because the library copy kept getting recalled (ha ha). I like the chapter "The Parts of a Book". I suspect this will become very important to me as I wander...

Just a note

It was just a note from the Interlibrary Loan department that The Philosopher's Dog is three days late...with a threat...

If the above materials are not returned within 3 working days, you will be banned from use of RACER until the materials in question are returned. This ban will be lifted only upon receipt of the overdue materials by the Interlending department.

YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL OVERDUE CHARGES.

If you have already returned this item please disregard this message.

I took it back. I need my access to ILL more than I need to read The Philosopher's Dog. I never got past page 38. I think it was the hockey players from Minnesota who killed it. When I couldn't recommend it to them, it died for me too...

I did read a wonderful book the other day though. I actually bought it I liked it so much. I'll dig it up at home and read it to you tomorrow...

P.S. My Year of Reading is almost finished and I'm thinking about my blogging future plans which I will formally announce (with links) soon...certainly before November 14th.

Time to Read

I’m on page 38 of The Philosopher’s Dog by Raimond Gaita. It’s an engaging read inasmuch as it’s a series of animal ‘stories’ or maybe, more accurately, animal ‘true-crime’ punctuated by thoughtful bits where Gaita reflects, questions, turns over assumptions he’s made about the animals he comes into contact with and asks not only why he makes assumptions but what’s been internalized by the culture in general. He also asks the reader to think about these questions.

I’m wondering how he does it. I’ve already referred to the introduction and his suggested method for reading the ‘philosophical bits’. I think the title contributes because we know that the focus will be on the relationship between a philosopher and his dog and that philosophers tend to be ‘thinky’ people. We expect the book to be philosophical. Gaita also asks a lot of questions in the book (at least up to page 38) and he begins to answer the questions…for himself. For example, in one paragraph on page 36 there are four questions related to the issue of animal euthanasia as Gaita faces a decision about it:

Was I wrong to intend to kill Tosca that way?
Should I extend to all animals the kind of compassion I would extend to Gypsy, respectful of their dignity in a way that is not consistent with "putting them out of their misery"?
Am I wrong even to ask that question?
Should the answer not be obvious now?

There’s always a lingering sense that these questions are relevant for us too. It’s tonal and moral. It puts the pressure on. Gaita, it seems, wants to engage in a dialogue with us but he can’t hear what we say in response. It’s productive in the sense that we may discuss his questions with others. But that hasn’t happened to me yet.

I’ve been travelling over the last few days. I went to the hotel pool/hot tub/gym area. I brought The Philosopher’s Dog with me. I met a group of hockey players from Minnesota at the pool and several of them asked me what I was reading. I could tell that they were put-off the title but that they were okay with the idea that the book was about dogs & animal stories. They asked me if the book “was any good”. I said “it’s okay”. I didn’t feel that I could give it an enthusiastic and unequivocal endorsement.

Now, that it’s been said, I’m feeling at one level that I don’t want to finish the book. I wonder if that’s to do with laziness and not wanting to bother to answer Gaita's questions…or feeling pressured…or just that it’s true, that the book is just “okay”.

New Wanderings/New Book

I'm very excited as I just happened upon a book description that caught my eye and I ordered the book through InterLibrary Loan. Lo and behold, if it doesn't arrive today from the Vancouver Public Library (shocking to me that such a little paperback isn't anywhere closer...). It's called The Philosopher's Dog by Raimond Gaita. Another Australian author. (I hope I can finish this one!) In the introduction, he promises a clash of philosophy and storytelling. He's very warm and encouraging...

My advice to the reader who finds some of the philosophical sections difficult is to read on, though slowly, and to return to the difficult sectons when she has finished the book, remembering that all philosophy benefits from, and most philosophy requires, more than one reading.

This reminds me of the old Talking Heads lyric (though I think Gaita meant no harm):

Oh the boys
want to talk
Like to to talk about those problems
And the girls
say they're concerned
And they are
concerned with these decisions

And it's all
Hard Logic
To follow and the
Girls get lost
And the boys
say they're concerned
But they are
concerned with these decisions

(I don't quite remember the lyrics this way but...this is what's on the TH website).

But read on! Don't be deterred by my slow reading, my distractions, my meanderings...

P.S. photo - as seen in the parking lot of Home Depot, Ancaster early Sunday morning, Oct 1. Driver looked nothing like DQ but did cast the evil eye at me as I photographed her car...

Roxana

There’s an accounting in this book that reflects a lot about Defoe’s background as a fact-gatherer. I’d illustrate it with charts and accounts. (I think he did this already in A Journal of the Plague Year). It’s not what we’d expect in a novel. It’s not apparently a page-turner strategy, yet it is… I’m turning the pages. I find it absurdly fascinating. At times the story seems to stand still and only tension is created. I can feel the wear-marks on the floor from all the pacing that the character must do in going over the same ground seemingly endlessly. It creates tension in the reader too. There’s a sense of ‘stop talking and just get on with it’. This is especially true in the conversations between Roxana (who hasn’t yet been named so) and her maid Amy around the issue of whether and when R. will end up sleeping with the gentleman (her former landlord) who has been so generous to her since her husband left her, she had to farm her kids out to relatives and fell into abject poverty. Whether she sleeps with him or not in some ways seems the least of her worries but I understand why she worries and why Amy worries along with her and why the talking takes so long. Roxana’s also acutely aware of what we’d call ‘the slippery slope’. She knows she’s on the edge of it. When things seem to be working out, she knows that her debts will be called in. There will be a day of reckoning. It’s religious of course and we might analyze it from that perspective or from a perspective in which we recognize Roxana’s compromised position as a woman in her time and place but what Defoe really recognizes and (more importantly) gets down on paper is Roxana’s intelligence and self-awareness. As readers we really get a sense of how she lives in her own body and in her own world. But in a book supremely about manipulation, is she also working on us? What does she want from us? I’m thinking about that…

Stimulating the Palate

Jackpot (wow)
Bacteria (I feel negative about this one)
alongside (is that all one word or alloneword?)
trundle (buggy)
embryonic (I've heard a couple of birth stories recently so, yes, this, but this whole year of reading can be described using this word too)

Ration (ways in which we stand in our own way:( )
Kinship ( I read three chapters of Georgio Agamben's The Open today and suggest that his question "But what becomes of the animality of man in posthistory?" is apt here)
chase (verb or noun?)
caster (please check spelling or OED - wow, it's a variant spelling of 'castor' which is a wheel on a chair or table or a container with small holes in the top of it - like a salt shaker or a sugar shaker, thus, 'castor/caster sugar')
willpower (some have a hard time with the 'castor/caster sugar')

incubator (all of the babies I know born recently have been big and healthy - no need for this - but my ideas are, on the other, in need of one right now... perhaps)
greediness (wanting too much)
water (wow - I think I can brainstorm on that one quite considerably)
tetralogy (4?- 'who does that?' and 'why not'?)
bigot (remember: the open)

macinnongati

or an 'undeviating heart'.

I got up in the night last night panicked by the number of things I have to navigate for the next six weeks. It's a ridiculous state really - not sleeping when you have a lot to do because you really need the sleep in order to do the doing (or something like that). 'Macinnongati' may be what gets me through. I am reading quite fiendishly in preparation for some of these tasks and I'm tasking as I read. One of the things I have to do is prepare an index. It's disturbing me. I am not a methodical person and it seems that this is a task that requires that kind of habit. It's not my way. I'm reading a chapter in the Chicago Manual of Style about how to write an index. It's skilled work. I'm afraid to begin. 'Macinnongati'. I know I want to reach the destination beyond the index. I know it's important to embrace the indexing practice as part of the journey. My heart sinks. I keep moving.