Criss Cross

Criss Cross by Lynn Rae Perkins is a lovely children’s novel -- funny, moving, and beautifully written. It focuses on a group of fourteen-year-old friends as they move through a spring and summer in their hometown of Seldem. There’s Debbie who wishes that something different would happen to her, something good, soon. There’s Hector who’s learning to play the guitar, dabbling in song writing, and trying to get up the courage to approach a girl in his guitar class that he has a crush on. There’s Lenny whose voracious reading of science books has translated into a mechanical ability that has him headed toward vocational school instead of university.

These characters don’t undergo any grand traumas in the course of the book, just the subtle-on-the-outside, major-on-the-inside sort of shifts that are apt to occur in an adolescent summer. Kids who have been friends all their lives find themselves drifting in different directions as they develop new interests and identities. The boys and the girls suddenly recognize one other as boys and girls, not so much in a sexual attraction sense as in a socially awkward sense. Everything begins to change.

The “Criss Cross” of the title is the name of a radio show that Debbie, Hector, Lenny, and friends gather to listen to every week:

Hanging out in the truck listening to the radio show got to be a regular thing. It wasn’t an official plan, but almost every Saturday night through the spring, and then the summer, they all showed up and sat there in the parked truck in Lenny’s driveway with the radio on.

The phrase “criss cross” also gestures at a broader theme of the book, the interwoven lives of these teenagers as they move away from one other and back again. It hints at missed communication among and between them, their parents, and other people that matter in their lives. Here’s a passage in which Debbie wishes but fails to confide in her mother:

Her mother had no way of knowing that this would have been a good time to tell her daughter that she had once known a boy who went away… They might have talked then about how that felt, and what you did next. But their secrets inadvertently sidestepped each other, unaware, like blindfolded elephants crossing the tiny room.

Finally, the phrase “criss cross" connects with the novel’s innovative structure. The book is comprised of short sections that shift between the perspectives of the various characters. Some of these sections are conventionally written, while others are in the form of dialogues, song lyrics, and split-screen columns simultaneously offering two points of view on the same events. The text is peppered with illustrations scrapbook-style: drawings, photos, diagrams, and comic strips.

The structure of the novel combined with the lyrical language used throughout give it a whimsical quality, but ultimately the characters are so fully drawn, so fallible and real, that it retains a sense of solidity as well. I loved this book. It seems to me to be fully deserving of the 2006 Newbery Medal that it was awarded as this year's most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

The flyleaf indicates that Criss Cross is aimed at children ages ten and up. There’s an innocence about it that certainly makes it appropriate for readers younger than the fourteen-year-old protagonists. But there’s also a subtlety to the writing that I suspect might be better appreciated by children older than ten. I’ll try it out on my soon to be twelve-year-old niece and see if she likes it as well as I do.

Rereading and Rewriting

Frank O’Connor on rereading and rewriting:

The writer should never forget that he is also a reader, though a prejudiced one, and if he cannot read his own work a dozen times he can scarcely expect a reader to look at it twice. Likewise, what bores him after the sixth reading is quite liable to bore a reader at the first, and what pleases him after the twelfth may please the reader at the second. Most of my stories have been rewritten a dozen times, a few of them fifty times.

From The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story (Melville House Publishing, 2004) at 211.

Small Press Titles in the Mainstream Press

There’s an excellent piece by Robert Wiersema titled "Small Presses, Big Ambitions" in the book section of today’s Globe and Mail. It’s a triple review that Wiersema begins with this statement:

These three books serve as a reminder of the relevance of Canada’s small presses, of writers and editors willing to push the envelope of form and content in the shadows of the mainstream.

The three books under review are So It Won’t Go Away by John Lent (Thistledown Press), Jackytar by Douglas Gosse (Jesperson Publishing), and Smoke Show by Clint Burnham (Arsenal Pulp Press).

Wiersema says of Lent’s So It Won’t Go Away, a collection of connected fictions focussed on three Connelly siblings, that it is impressive and entirely satisfying on a surface level, but that there is also much of interest going on underneath: "The levels of structural play are subtle, but deliberately unsettling, and keep the reader active and involved." In particular, Wiersema notes the moments when an unnamed narrator appears and takes credit for inventing the other characters central to the book:

Interestingly, the creator never creates a position of privilege for himself; his story is as fictive, and as truthful-feeling, as the “bigger, impossible story” of the Connelly siblings, and becomes another strand in the complex and utterly winning tale Lent is spinning.

Douglas Gosse’s Jackytar also engages in this sort of layering. Featuring a novel within a novel, it opens with an author’s note purportedly penned by the main character, Alex Murphy. Wiersema sums up the strengths of this book as follows:

Gosse has a keen command not only of the vernacular of the small Newfoundland community, but of Murphy’s French past, and how those voices are shaped and subsumed by life away from that home. Murphy’s discovery of his own voice, as a writer and a man, is at the heart of Jackytar, and makes for a moving and involving story.

Clint Burnham’s Smoke Show, a novel “rendered almost entirely in dialogue,” is perhaps the least conventional of these three innovative books. Wiersema describes it as “an unsettling marriage of fiction and prose poetry” and as “defiantly anti-narrative, creating instead a haze of moments, experience not depicted but recounted.” It is, he concludes, “a novel, and a lifestyle, in the perpetual present.”

Two of these titles were already on my radar, So It Won’t Go Away because it’s a sequel to Lent’s 1996 collection Monet’s Garden which I loved, and Smoke Show because I’ve got it lined up to read in advance of Burnham’s appearance at The Fictitious Reading Series this month. Now I’m looking forward to reading all three.

Wiersema’s review exemplifies the sort of detailed, thoughtful consideration of small press titles that I’d like to see more of in the mainstream press.

Story in This Magazine

I received my contributor’s copy of the March/April issue of This Magazine in the mail today. One of my short stories and a mini-interview of me appear in it. Neither is available online but if you’d like to read them you can pick up a copy of the print edition at the newsstand. An interesting bit of literary content that you can access online is this article about depictions of East Vancouver in the writing of Eden Robinson and Ivan E. Coyote.

Literary Outlaw

I know John Gardner only through his writing about writing: The Art of Fiction, On Becoming a Novelist, and On Moral Fiction. On that basis, I’d always assumed him to be a stodgy, conservative character. Imagine my surprise, then, when I stumbled across a biography of him subtitled Literary Outlaw, complete with a cover photo of him sporting long hair and a leather jacket. The description on the flyleaf refers to Gardner as “a man of unrestrained energy and blatant contempt for convention,” and “arguably America’s most daring writer.” It promises details of a personal life “as chaotic as his writing was prolific.” Clearly there is much about this man and his work that I have yet to learn. I’ll have to read the biography and some of his fiction and reassess my conception of him. Any Gardner fans out there with a recommendation as to which of his novels I should try first?

What's Experimental about Experimental Writing?

The term “experimental writing” has been bandied about a lot lately in the literary circles that I frequent. I have to confess that the more often I hear it, the less sure I am of what it means.

In a recent essay, Marc Lowe defines "experimental writing" by way of contrast with "literary fiction," and in so doing entirely conflates the latter with "traditional realism." In his view, contemporary literary fiction requires “believable characters with memorable names and realistically portrayed attributes,” “plots that resolve themselves in a decisive, if blandly predictable, manner,” and “a clear and understandable (i.e. linear and tidy) storyline with a consistent style of narration (no abrupt shifts in tense/time, no blurring of who’s who or what’s what, etc).” Experimental writing, on the other hand, "[does] interesting things with language and/or narrative structure."

I'm sympathetic to Lowe's quest to defend experimental fiction but I barely recognize the literary landscape that he describes. It seems to me that, by virtue of what he excludes and includes, he has defined the term "experimental writing" so broadly as to subsume the bulk of contemporary literary fiction thus accomplishing precisely the opposite of what he set out to do. I’m entirely in agreement with Dan Green on this point:

Fragmentation, chronological displacement, shifts in point of view, and other forms of non-linear storytelling are quite common in contemporary literary fiction, so common that I would say the sort of naively realistic, unswervingly linear narrative Lowe describes is in a distinct minority among the books that appeal to today's literary reader.

I would go further and suggest that even contemporary genre fiction (though admittedly crime fiction is the only realm of genre fiction in which I read widely) no longer routinely adheres to the requirements that Lowe lays out for traditional realism.

What, then, is experimental about experimental writing? An obvious answer would be that experimental writing is writing that breaks new ground, that does something that’s never been done before. This sets the bar too high, however, given that there isn’t a great deal of new ground left to break. For example, there’s nothing wholly new at this point about stream of consciousness, or surrealism, or metafiction. All have been done before and done well. Indeed, many writers who embrace the label “experimental” explicitly align themselves with established schools of writing that follow set conventions.

Would it be sufficient to define as experimental work that simply breaks new ground for the writer? Clearly not. If I were to attempt to write a novel in the style of a classic western, it would certainly be an experiment for me. However, if I succeeded, no one would deem the result experimental fiction. If the term “experimental” is to have any meaning in the literary context, it has to attach to the work rather than the writer.

The most interesting definition of “experimental fiction” that I’ve come across thus far is one provided by Douglas Glover in The Enamoured Knight. He defines it in relation to realism, but he doesn’t set up an either/or proposition. He describes a continuum with “strict realist” at one end and “experimental” at the other, with plenty of space for hybrid forms in between:

What seems to be the case with experimental fiction is that it is always written with other, more conventional books or conventional notions of reality in mind; one of the primary effects of experimental work is the denial of expectation, the surprise the reader feels when form is inverted or twists back on itself or is in some other way subverted. Most commonly the experimental artist does this simply by drawing attention to the work of art as a work of art. A painting isn’t about the image it represents; it’s about surface, shape and colour. A book is a book. In this way, oddly enough, the experimental novel is tied to the strict realist novel, the same but opposite, like the right and left hand. They are both committed to a species of honesty, authenticity, or "realism." But the larger novel tradition swears allegiance to verisimilitude while the experimental tradition diminishes the importance of illusion and highlights the reality of the work itself, its materials, tools, and process.

This too is only a partial definition of “experimental writing” but, given what I’m reading and writing these days, it resonates for me.

The Logogryph

Thomas Wharton begins The Logogryph: A Bibliography of Imaginary Books with this passage:

In the early years of printing, books were often shipped and sold unbound. The buyer would either bind them later, which was expensive, or leave the pages loose. In this way a reader could add other material, remove leaves or arrange them in any order.

The book, a collection of highly original fictions, reads as if it could have been constructed in this manner. It contains pieces written in the guise of myths, folktales, short stories, poetic fragments, philosophical musings, and academic treatises. There is a whole history of books and of reading to be found within its pages.

In one piece a character falls out of his story and has to make his way on the outside. In another, two bibliophiles are driven mad by one another’s margin notes. In a third, a novel lives up to its jacket copy (“It will live in your imagination”), taking up residence in the reader’s head and thwarting all attempts at eviction. A fourth takes the form of an essay on the contemporary novelists of Atlantis describing their struggle with Atlantean identity in the shadow of influential representations of their island by British authors. A fifth depicts books as architectural features dotting the landscape:

Remains of other novels are few and far between, for obvious reasons. If the pages are not continually consulted, time and tide over a period of years erodes punctuation, and eventually metaphor. With long neglect of readership, the lower regions of the novel become flooded with brackish water, and oblivion eventually undermines the whole structure.

Of course, unlike the ancient books described in the opening passage quoted above, The Logogryph has been bound, and beautifully so. Gaspereau Press makes lovely books, and this one is no exception. But the contents of The Logogryph are linked by more than shared themes and a physical binding. An ongoing story of a family, appropriately named the Weavers, and a young would-be writer who is profoundly influenced by his association with them, threads through the text and ultimately provides it with a surprising unity.

The Logogryph is a brilliant book. I suspect it will stay with me a while, and unlike the book which so abused the hospitality of its reader in Wharton's tale, it will be a most welcome guest.

Wildly Disappointed by The Picture of Dorian Gray

It was an odd experience reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray for the first time at this late date. I know that I’ve never read it before, but I kept feeling as if I had. It was all so familiar: the beauty-for-its-own-sake aesthetic, the clever device of the portrait that ages in place of its subject, and all those rapid-fire aphorisms piling on top of one another. I had to check my impulse to take Wilde to task for using clichés and remind myself that he was the wag that coined them.

How, then, to push aside all that was so familiar to me, and approach the novel as something fresh? I couldn’t do it and I soon realized that I didn’t want to. For the bits that have become familiar even to those that haven’t read the book are the best bits. If they’re pushed aside, all that’s left is cardboard characters, atrociously florid descriptive passages, and clunky dialogue.

Let me elaborate. First, the characters. I found it difficult to get worked up about Dorian Gray’s descent into vice. Even at the beginning I didn’t see him as perfectly innocent or charmingly naïve but rather as vapid and petulant. Good looks notwithstanding, there didn’t seem to be much there to spoil. Basil Hallward is a nice enough fellow, but his pining after beauty/Dorian quickly grows tedious. Of the main characters, Lord Henry interests me the most. His philosophy is intriguing and his wit fairly dances on the page. But before long I wearied of him as well. There are too many clever aphorisms one after another; they often seem to be thrown in simply because they're good lines rather than to advance the plot or the reader's understanding of Lord Henry's character. On that last point, part of the problem is that the barrage of aphorisms don’t belong solely to Lord Henry. They are also spoken by the third person narrator, Mr. Erskine, and occasionally some dutchess or other at dinner, but always in the same tone and with the same sensibility. This has the effect of watering down the uniqueness of Lord Henry’s voice thereby robbing the novel to some degree of one of its best features.

Don’t get me wrong; I love the clever lines. I won’t pause to list my favourites here, but I will point you to a post at So Many Books where Stefanie has listed eight great lines that she marked just in the first eleven pages of the novel. The problem is that although there are indeed a plethora of great lines worthy of copying down, these are counterbalanced by many cringe-inducing passages of description. For example, this:

As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart.

Or this:

His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling.

Or this:

Her flowerlike lips touched the withered cheek and warmed its frost.

It’s not a long novel, but passages like these make it hard slogging.

And the dialogue. How could an accomplished playwright like Wilde pen such dreadful dialogue? The dinner party scenes are quite good. But in those scenes involving only two or three people, a prime example being the scene in which Basil first introduces Lord Henry to Dorian, they all seem to take turns declaiming lengthy soliloquies rather than speaking back and forth to one another. Who would have the patience to participate in such a conversation? Surely even Lord Henry, witty though he is, would have to let someone else get a word in edgewise every now and again.

I admire Oscar Wilde enormously for his wit, his style, and his reckless courage. I love his plays. I wanted to love The Picture of Dorian Gray. But I didn’t. I don’t think that the novel is Wilde’s forte. Ultimately, it strikes me as a fascinating idea that just wasn't very well executed.

Stop by the MetaxuCafé forum for links to other bloggers’ posts about The Picture of Dorian Gray and to join in a discussion about the book.

Voices on the Radio

Margaret Atwood’s The Tent is an odd and unsettling little book. It’s a collection of very short prose pieces that defy classification. They’re not short stories. The publisher’s catalogue refers to them as essays, but that’s not right either. I’m inclined to call them monologues or, in a couple of instances, dialogues. I tilt toward these descriptors because, although Atwood’s characteristic precision with language is amply in evidence here, these pieces rarely conjured up visual images for me. Reading the book, I felt as if I was sitting in the dark listening to voices on the radio, voices that alternately lulled me and spooked me.

I appreciate Atwood’s willingness to experiment but I found the results to be rather uneven. When the pieces work, they're very powerful. Most interesting to me were the ones in which Atwood turns stories and the very idea of story inside out. She employs a wry, dark humour very effectively to this end. For example, of the would-be hero and heroine of “Three Novels I Won’t Write Soon,” the narrator says:

Chris and Amanda are very likeable. They have straight teeth, trim waists, clean socks, and the best of intentions. They don’t belong in a book like that, and if they stray into it by accident they won’t come out of it alive.

Other standouts are “Orphan Stories” and “Horatio’s Version.”

But in other pieces, for example “Chicken Little Goes Too Far” and “Bring Back Mom: An Invocation,” the humour struck me as too broad, almost slapstick, the parody too easy. Voice alone isn’t enough to carry these pieces; they just never rose up off the page for me.

There are flashes of brilliance in The Tent but ultimately, as a whole, the collection left me unsatisfied.

Fictitious Reading Series 3

Fiction fans in the Toronto area, take note. The third instalment of The Fictitious Reading Series will take place on Sunday, February 26th at 7:30 pm in the gallery space above This Ain’t the Rosedale Library (483 Church Street). This month’s featured writers are Lee Gowan and Hal Niedzviecki. The evening will include readings by Lee and Hal, as well as an informal onstage interview with them. Stuart Ross will host and I will conduct the interview.

Lee Gowan is the author of three books of fiction, including the Trillium short-listed Make Believe Love and, most recently, The Last Cowboy. His screenplay Paris or Somewhere was nominated for a Gemini. He teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. The Globe and Mail described The Last Cowboy as “an engaging book that is at once funny, poignant and a razor-sharp image of that most tender and terrible of entities: the family” while The National Post lauded it for "resist[ing] sentiment and simplicity” and “restor[ing] the rural West’s complexity.”

Hal Niedzviecki is the author of six books including the novels Lurvy: a farmer’s almanac, Ditch, and, most recently, The Program. He is co-founder of Broken Pencil, the magazine of zine culture and the independent arts, and of the annual Canzine festival of Underground Culture. The Globe and Mail pronounced The Program “fascinating,” “quite strange” and “original in every way” while Now Magazine praised its “soulful, beautifully written moments.”

Come out to see these writers read on Sunday night! And if that’s geographically impossible, check out their books.