only books

My book club is reading Alone in the Classroom, a peculiar bit of Canadian writing that tries to scream Canada! the way Miriam Toews screams Canada, the way Sam Roberts sings Canada, the way Tomson Highway and Michel Tremblay emote Canada with its beautiful quirks and flaws and magic .  I wanted to be impressed with this book but either there were bits that didn't quite work, or I wasn't smart enough to make all the necessary connections for it to be completely satisfying.  We are discussing it on Saturday, but unfortunately I have read a few books since this one and now it is not as clear as I would like it to be.

After that I read something by Deepak Chopra, something about seven spiritual secrets.  I did not appreciate it.  It seemed trite and obvious.  And insipid.

Then I read The Children Act, by Ian McEwan, which I enjoyed very much.  The notion of a woman in her sixties suddenly finding her husband is planning to have an affair with a younger woman was fascinating, terrifying, psychologically challenging.  The knowledge that these things really do happen is something I struggle with, along with the awareness that husbands also develop fatal illnesses sometimes and die.  It would be nice to think that the future is all set up, but these thoughts frighten and shake me, although I have enormous faith in my husband, I recognize our human frailties to keep me from being to certain of anything.

And now I am reading Elizabeth is Missing, which I chose because it was Laurel's Pick at the bookstore, and I like the name Laurel.  This book is about an elderly woman with some sort of dementia, who feels certain that her friend Elizabeth has gone missing, but struggles too much with her failing memory to deal with the situation as effectively as she wants.  And again I am reminded of our humanity.  My mother and her her ominous threats about the tea I was meant to poison at earliest sign of dementia.  (She was lucky, really,  because my mother behaved irrationally enough times throughout my childhood that she would have been dead many times over if I'd kept my word.)

Yesterday I went to the Writer's Festival with a pack of teenagers and BB, who is recovering so well from leukaemia that one would never know she had been ill.  I honour my strange friendship with this woman who no one else seems able to get along with.  During the writers' talk, one of the authors said she identified herself as "bi-gendered" or "two-spirited".  While this has been in vogue in the East for a long time, it is comparatively new to the West, and completely new to conservative BB, who rolled her eyes at me and said, "Good Lord", in a voice that travelled several rows.  I tried to explain it to her on the bus on the way home but she would have none of it.  Stupid, impossible, ridiculous.  I do not wonder why other people find her intolerable.  I wonder why I enjoy her so much, why I get such a kick out of her obnoxious behaviour instead of being offended.

Speaking of work, the cool young teachers have invited me to a cool young teacher party in a couple of weeks.  (BB is not invited.)  I am not sure why I am, as I am neither cool nor in my early twenties.  I am trying to decide if I want to be sociable with people I do not really relate to, in case I find something relatable after all, or if I would rather stay home - which is my default preference.  Last time I went to a cool teacher party I drank too much wine and got sloppy.  Come to think of it, maybe that is why I have been invited, to provide some entertainment.

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