MeditationsOnContemporaryExistence:CarolShields’The Republic of Love & BarryUnsworth’s Sacred Hunger
Whenever I read Carol Shields, I always wonder 'how does she know:' how does she know life so completely? I love writers who capture several ideas in one thought; Shields does this with ease. I just finished reading Carol Shields' The Republic of Love and my copy is highlighted with statements like:
"It is impossible for us to live outside the culture we're born into. Our communities claim us from the start, extending a thousand tentacles of possession, and Fay, a reasonable, intelligent woman, has long recognized that reverence for individualism is one of the prime perversions of contemporary society. It is illogical and foolish. Oh, yes. We are bound to each other biologically and socially, intellectually and spiritually, and to abrogate our supporting network is to destroy ourselves." (267)
With the recent election in Quebec (Canada), the statement identifies, for me, the roots of ethnic and cultural nationalism, which, at its best, is a source of national pride and at its worst, the cause of racism (and all its ugly faces: discrimination, segregation, ghettoisation, etc). The ugly side of nationalism, like the latter, I would suggest, can be resolved through forms of 'reasonable accommodation' - a controversial and feared concept, which can be seen simply as a form of sharing our 'national' identity, our pride, so-to-speak; (after all, not everyone, in the multi-cultural republic, is white and/or Judaic/Christian).
I started reading The Republic of Love ten years ago, in University, but never completed it. As much as I enjoyed the book, I had to abandon a full reading for the next book in my "Types of Popular Fiction" course. In between starting The Republic and finishing it, I read Carol Shields' The Stone Diaries and Unless. When I read The Stone Diaries I couldn't put it down, but when I read Unless, I couldn't let it go. I recommend Unless to anyone that appreciates 'identity' and asking tough questions like: what does it mean to be included, but, more importantly, what does it mean to be excluded. Carol Shield's Swann and Larry's Party are now on my reading list, but, until then, I have to decide what to read next. I make a point of never reading two books by the same author in a row.
After an agonizing decision between Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness and Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger, I went with the latter - another book from University I put aside. I never intended to finish Sacred Hunger, but unconsciously, I kept it on my bookshelf nonetheless. There were times I thought it was just taking up space and I considered terrorable things, like trading it in. Along side Ondaatje's The English Patient, Sacred Hunger won the Booker Prize in 1992, which, as a loyal colonized individual, I hold in the highest esteem. Sacred Hunger also peeked my interest because England, last week, commemorated the end of the Slave Trade with a series of controversial ceremonies.
50 pages into the book, I'm a little bored with the investment; for reading is an investment - an investment in time and ideas. Like the novels of Carol Shields, I think I prefer reading books that can be described as meditations on contemporary existence. Nevertheless I'll continue reading as it took 50 to 100 pages of reading for my investment in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose to pay off. It always takes a little time to appreciate the challenges reading a 'historical' novel provides. I'm also intrigued by one review to continue reading Sacred Hunger: "This brilliantly suspenseful period piece about the slave trade in the 18th century is also a meditation on how avarice dehumanizes the oppressor as well as the oppressed."
Thoughts welcome……………
"It is impossible for us to live outside the culture we're born into. Our communities claim us from the start, extending a thousand tentacles of possession, and Fay, a reasonable, intelligent woman, has long recognized that reverence for individualism is one of the prime perversions of contemporary society. It is illogical and foolish. Oh, yes. We are bound to each other biologically and socially, intellectually and spiritually, and to abrogate our supporting network is to destroy ourselves." (267)
With the recent election in Quebec (Canada), the statement identifies, for me, the roots of ethnic and cultural nationalism, which, at its best, is a source of national pride and at its worst, the cause of racism (and all its ugly faces: discrimination, segregation, ghettoisation, etc). The ugly side of nationalism, like the latter, I would suggest, can be resolved through forms of 'reasonable accommodation' - a controversial and feared concept, which can be seen simply as a form of sharing our 'national' identity, our pride, so-to-speak; (after all, not everyone, in the multi-cultural republic, is white and/or Judaic/Christian).
I started reading The Republic of Love ten years ago, in University, but never completed it. As much as I enjoyed the book, I had to abandon a full reading for the next book in my "Types of Popular Fiction" course. In between starting The Republic and finishing it, I read Carol Shields' The Stone Diaries and Unless. When I read The Stone Diaries I couldn't put it down, but when I read Unless, I couldn't let it go. I recommend Unless to anyone that appreciates 'identity' and asking tough questions like: what does it mean to be included, but, more importantly, what does it mean to be excluded. Carol Shield's Swann and Larry's Party are now on my reading list, but, until then, I have to decide what to read next. I make a point of never reading two books by the same author in a row.
After an agonizing decision between Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness and Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger, I went with the latter - another book from University I put aside. I never intended to finish Sacred Hunger, but unconsciously, I kept it on my bookshelf nonetheless. There were times I thought it was just taking up space and I considered terrorable things, like trading it in. Along side Ondaatje's The English Patient, Sacred Hunger won the Booker Prize in 1992, which, as a loyal colonized individual, I hold in the highest esteem. Sacred Hunger also peeked my interest because England, last week, commemorated the end of the Slave Trade with a series of controversial ceremonies.
50 pages into the book, I'm a little bored with the investment; for reading is an investment - an investment in time and ideas. Like the novels of Carol Shields, I think I prefer reading books that can be described as meditations on contemporary existence. Nevertheless I'll continue reading as it took 50 to 100 pages of reading for my investment in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose to pay off. It always takes a little time to appreciate the challenges reading a 'historical' novel provides. I'm also intrigued by one review to continue reading Sacred Hunger: "This brilliantly suspenseful period piece about the slave trade in the 18th century is also a meditation on how avarice dehumanizes the oppressor as well as the oppressed."
Thoughts welcome……………