Men are from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Women are from Venus

The Conversation went like this.

"Say Honey, What would you do if you had Telekinesis?"

"You mean moving things with your mind?"

(Beaming) "Yeah!"

"Dishes"

"Dishes?  You have the most powerful weapon ever, and you're going to Bibbity Bobbity Boo?"

"Hmm."

"No wonder there aren't more women in politics.  I'd rob a bank in the first 20 minutes.  Then I'd tear the livers out of anybody who had a problem with it."

But now that I think about it, it's kind of nice.  My wife is nice.  A superhero comic about my wife would be about heroes solving infrastructure problems and conquering the meddlesome inefficiencies in review processes.  Being married to somebody who's not mad with hypothetical power is swell indeed.    

(Plus that means I wear the world conquering pants in this family, huzzah)

The Jade Peony: Canada has Read!

Another years worth of Canada Reads in the bag.  The Jade Peony is about a Chinese family in Vancouver during the dirty thirties and forties.

It breaks down into three stories seen through the eyes of the younger siblings of a less than nuclear family.  Each story has an ending that's sort of heartbreaking, you get to watch people get squeezed pretty tight by the community, and though the reader is left with a certain fondness for the overall Chinatown of the author's imagination, the pressure points get rubbed raw.  

I guess there's something to be said for universality, but I thought two of the three crisis were tired.  I won't spoil it, but in terms of plot it's about as close to an episode of Chinese Picket Fences as I've ever wanted to be.  The plot is really just a vehicle for the author to paint a picture of the community and the history of the place.  That doesn't mean there isn't some great characters peopling this book, and lovely descriptions of the time and the place.  I didn't know the first thing about Chinatown, and now I am led to believe I do, such is the veneer of authenticity on these stories.

If I was a betting man, I'd put this book making it deep into the playoffs.  It's not the worst of this year's crop of novels, but it's not really anything special either.

  

The Long Slide by James Grainger

In Two Naught Naught Four *ECW published a selection of short stories by James Grainger. The Long Slide.

The year is 2010.  I'm looking for something I can't find in Chapters... but can still find on Chapters.Ca (that's here for anyone feeling thoughtful).  You know, really digging.  

That means the last of my gift card scratch went straight to Grainger's pocket and in four to six weeks the package arrived.

In a half dozen stories you can lick in a sitting each, Grainger took a bite out of his twenties, chewed it over good and used his readers as a spittoon.  Equal parts self-loathing and arrogant.  I liked it.   

It's pieces of love through different spectrums of neurosis.  Filial, romantic and other.   Maybe all his characters sit in the director chair beside you and give the "Get a load of these guys" nudge, but you get a naked shot of some real neutral human beings. 

His first story, the title track, is pure Salinger minus all that classy stuff.  If you've ever spent a summer day that turned into night hanging out North of Bloor you're bound to be able feel your way around his character, you'll know his swagger even if you don't like it.    

The Government of Spiders is a love affair gone bananas.  It's about the mental illness and the straws that break backs.  It plays as the most bizarre allegory for procrastination I've come across.

A Confusion of Islands should be read aloud to anybody who can't get After the Goldrush out of their heads.  A road trip to put road trips to rest.  

The book is arranged in ascending order of the responsibilities of the protagonist, from tongue-in-cheek hedonism (picture cruel intentions in the College St. Set.) right up to single-parent widowhood. All of his characters are done the first leg of the race, and they aren't moving until somebody tells them their score.  The sort of Spiritual fermentation that grows furious buried under student debt.  This is the book I'm going to push on my friends when I see them.  

*ECW is the subpop of Toronto Lit, or so a handful of black-rimmed Devil-may-care head shots would have me believe.