In transit: the world's edge

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On Halloween we hit the road, in transit for several days, heading south. I've chosen Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (winner of the Booker prize) for my travel book, and I'm well pleased with my choice.

Before I say something about the novel, I'd like to say something about the production. This is the Canadian HarperCollins edition, and it's gorgeous. The cover is textured and lush — I prefer it to both the U.K. and U.S. editions. It has French flaps, a lovely flexible binding, rough-cut pages. Sumptuous — as befits this story.

This is a very absorbing novel, and quite interesting from a craft perspective, as well. It's written in a very close third person point of view (sometimes slipping into first, which can be a bit curious). It's also written in the present tense, which I usually find annoying, but Mantel is a master and it succeeds beautifully. I love how the story skips along without very much explanation, leaving me curious. The details are spare, fresh, stunning.

This introduction to the Duke of Norfolk is simply brilliant:

The duke is now approaching sixty years old, but concedes nothing to the calendar. Flint-faced and keen-eyed, he is lean as a gnawed bone and as cold as an axe head; his joints seem knitted together of supple chain links, and indeed he rattles a little as he moves, for his clothes conceal relics: in tiny jewelled cases he has shavings of skin and snippets of hair, and set into medallions he wears splinters of martyrs' bones.

The dialogue is straightforward, without historic flourishes. Overall, one feels very present in a time and place. This is historical fiction at its best.

Here's a lovely Halloween passage:

Halloween: the world's edge seeps and bleeds. This is the time when the tally-keepers of Purgatory, its clerks and gaolers, listen in to the living, who are praying for the dead.

Thomas Cromwell, the main character, has recently lost a wife and two daughters to the plague.

All Hallows Day: grief comes in waves. Now it threatens to capsize him. He doesn't believe that the dead come back; but that doesn't stop him from feeling the brush of their fingertips, wing-tips, against his shoulder.

All Hallows Day is November 1st. We will arrive in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, on the 2nd: El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It's a beautiful tradition — not grim at all — honoring those who are no longer with us. I'll be thinking of many loved ones, but especially of my mother, who shared a passion for reading and who would have loved this novel.

Snooping on readers

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I always try to see the title of a book a stranger is engrossed in. Sometimes I've had to refrain from simply asking. And sometimes I've lurked, coming around from behind, so great is my urge to know.

Of course the ultimate "catch" would be to discover someone reading one of my books. Would I reveal myself? Would I be believed? This scenario has yet to be tested.

All this came to mind discovering the delightful blog, SeenReading.com. Torontonian Julie Wilson takes book lurking to a new dimension: she documents where the reader was sighted, what he or she looked like, was wearing etc., and what book was being read. She gets close enough to see what page the reader is on, and then goes to a bookstore, finds the book, and copies out a passage. (She got into a little trouble, doing this.)

And then she writes a fictional paragraph about this reader. Here's one example from March of this year:

When her son was young, he was a curious collector. In particular, he liked to take random Polaroid pictures, filing each one away for future consideration. One morning, she came across a dragonfly that had died on their back deck. Before she could remove it, her son had pushed past her, camera poised. He took the picture, pulling the tab and counting down. “I love the light of early dawn,” he said, kicking the dragonfly between the wooden slats.

What a writer! I understand that she is giving up this blog for another project. I hope she continues to post, even if only now and then. In any case, the archives are full of such treasures. Enjoy!

New York talk video

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Here is a YouTube link to a video of the beginning of my New York reading. I promised son Chet that I would try to embarrass him, and I believe I succeeded!

Collecting books, collecting book lists

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After my mother died, it was poignant and sad to look through the scraps of paper she kept in a drawer by her reading chair — notes of titles of interest, books to get. The writing becomes more frail with time, and in the last years of her life, she was unable to read at all.

Coming back to our home in Canada after being away all winter, I am struck by all my books — my wonderful research library, my To Be Read stack, nicely awaiting me by the bed — as well as by all my lists of books. Granted, much of this has to do with building a bibliography, seeking out all the possible titles available on whatever subject I'm writing about — but in truth, I recognize that I'm a collector of titles of books to read as well as of books. There are not enough hours remaining in my life to do justice to even a small fraction of them (I'd better begin a short list), but that doesn't seem to matter.

And all this to say: I read an article on Readerville Journal this morning which lists novels about travels into Mexico. I want to note it somehow, but I resist the urge to print it out — and so: here it is.

Test Tour

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Mr. Seat by the Window calls out and waves to all the crew. "Hey, Joe! Nice to see you!" He obviously lives on WestJet — which, I can attest, is a perky sort of airline (superior, in my view, to grumpy Air Canada). I quickly dig out my earplugs and open a book. I think of Alexander McCall Smith, who writes on airplanes. I think of Margaret Atwood, who writes poetry on tour. "What else is there to do?" They are the gold metal winners of the tour circuit. I'm just aiming to get through it in one piece.

I begin a list of survival gear: iPod, earplugs. I will need a purse/backpack that fits under the narrow aisle seat I now favor, something sturdy I can put my feet on (given that the seat heights are too tall for me, designed for men). A shawl and slipper socks for when it's cold; a layer I can slip off when it's hot.

I've chosen an excellent novel for travel — The Book Thief — but it's too fat. I need a slender yet engaging book. I remember traveling through Europe with War and Peace, tearing off pages as I read them, returning home with a few pages and the back cover — but I don't want to do that with this book. This is a book to pass on.

(Written last Thursday, but not posted.)