The Shack by William P. Young

or: How not to read a book

1) Do NOT skip reading BOB (aka, back of book). Bob is full of vital information like "what this book is about" and "who else likes it"
… if I had checked with Bob, I would have known that there wasn't a single publisher review or serious critic who had anything nice enough to put on the book jacket. Instead, they settled for people like Wynona Judd. Seriously.
…if I had checked with Bob, I would have realised that this book isn't about the brutal murder of a daughter and the family's ability to cope with it but more about how God can help you cope with it. This this isn't a work of fiction so much as it is a work of philosophical theology.
…If I had checked with Bob, I would have realised that I would not like to read this book.

2) If a book takes a serious left turn before page 69, stop reading it. I mean, if you feel like you've been tricked into reading a romance when a book advertised itself as a thriller, you're probably going to hate it. So don't waste time finishing it like I did. Oh, and I did. Even when it was clear that I had blundered my way into an evangelical text that said it had nothing to do with Christianity and yet set up the Holy Trinity as fact, I should have known I was going to have issues with it. Even when I cringed at the forty-second time the narrator erupted into tears. Even when it was as plain as the nose on my face that I was not going to get the satisfaction of finding the sick pervert at the end and having him beaten to death / incarcerated for life / tortured by eating ground glass. Hell, even when I realised that this stupid man was actually going to forgive the psycho, I kept reading. Why? Who knows? It wasn't like the writing was compelling. Or the story. I shall chalk it up to sheer stubbornness.

The thing is, I like me a good discussion about God. I'm a big fan of stuff that makes you question your convictions, because, really, if your convictions are breakable, they probably weren't very convincing. But I hate books/songs/people that want to talk about "something" and then start talking about God. Clearly, Young wants to be accessible to other religions, but by making his book about the Holy Trinity (which features an injured-at-the-wrist Jesus) you can't help but think he's only serving to say that all religions are welcome but only one religion is right. I felt like I'd been trapped on the train with a Jehovah's Witness as my only company. I felt like I'd been shafted, conned. I wish I'd never bought this stupid book and inadvertently supported this ridiculous man and his ridiculous notions.

If you haven't read The Shack, don't!

PS: it's good to see that though we differ in many ways, I am not alone.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

People of the Book was supposed to be Augusts' Book Club read, but summer happened, and so it pushed back to September.

Quite appropriate, since September has been linked in my mind inexorably to the smell of books, pencil shavings and plastic binders. Anyway, PotB is fascinating: despite being a Librarian, I hardly ever think of a book as an artifact in and of itself. Brooks is able to bring life into inanimate objects, telling the story of a book through the imagined life of its unplanned guests. While some of the back stories do stretch the imagination (a slave who knows how to read and write in the 15th century? a surprise Jewish lineage at the eleventh hour? hmmm…), most of them are plausible enough, at least for anyone who can tamp down their inner cynic. Also, the main character (Hanna Heath) was a little too contemptuous for my tastes, so I was quite happy to see her narrative broken up by the narratives of far more intriguing voices. The dedication says it all - anyone with a passion for books will enjoy this sumptuous novel. If there were ever heroes in history, they are those that strive to preserve our human stories at all costs.

***

For the librarians.

I'll be the first to admit that I fell into my profession rather than chose it. Loving books and being an avid reader does not mean you ever think you'll be a librarian. Then again, as I found out within two weeks of starting my first professional job, no one really knows what a librarian does anyway. I've always liked looking through used books and wondering where they'd ventured in life. I used to do this with library books too, especially travel books, but I soon realised questioning random stains can only lead to terrible results. A few years ago I started a project whereby I would purchase a used copy of a book I loved, re-read it and then leave it in a conspicuous place (local coffee shop, upper level of a Go train, university reading room, etc.) - I confess that I have stopped tracking them, but the idea is still one that I enjoy. The last book I did this with was left on the GO train (one of my favourite spots) and the last time I tracked it, it was in Colombia! This practice got to be expensive and time-consuming so I started a new project this year - I leave sticky notes in books. Sometimes they're little comments about what I thought was interesting; sometimes it's a recommendation to another book…I read a library copy of The Road and on the back cover, I wrote out a quote from Le Petit Prince. The idea of having a conversation without ever speaking is really, well, cool to me.

I sometimes wonder about librarians whose profession is more like a vocation: the first librarians who used camels to share books all over the Arabian desert; the librarian in Basra who risked her life every night to transport as many books as she could carry from her library to her home in order to avoid them being shelled or incinerated. For a long time, libraries were looked upon as a place for the elite to get access to books; this is why the archaic term "patron" was used for a library-card holder and has been dropped to reflect the far more inclusive culture that are fostered at public libraries today. Librarians have always been looked upon as gatekeepers of knowledge. This isn't true - or at least, real librarians don’t want it to be true. Gatekeeper implies that we would deny access to anyone. Rather, librarians have always been about information dissemination: whether you want a cake recipe or the latest fiction bestseller or instructions on how to make a pipe bomb, libraries will have the answer and librarians will help you find them. Moral debates about the kinds of information have always been a part of our profession, more so in our post-911 paranoid society. Despite the images of be-bunned shushers, librarians are the radicals in our ongoing struggle to keep information free and accessible and usually the strongest voices that fight for individual freedom and privacy. Book banning is only a precursor to book burning and I would sneak about in the dead of night to save books from that horrible fate. Would you? If so, perhaps you're a librarian at heart as well. Sometimes, I wish we all were.

ngoma

While I know that the Ex signals the end of Summer, I've never looked upon it with mixed feelings. For me, the summer has always been too long and I liked being headed back to school. In fact, I looked forward to, like dessert after a delicious meal. This year is no exception. In my librarian years, the summer represents a fun, but exhausting, time of year: in July alone, we offered 38 programs with 2,504 kids in attendance.

I've been going to the Ex for fifteen consecutive years and over time, the focus has certainly changed. In my teens, we bought the play-all-day pass and rode the roller coasters until my dad said it was time to go; later, unchaperoned, we stayed as late as Mississauga Transit would allow us. We once rode the Doppel Loopin seven times in a row. Good thing too, as the next year, they had shut it down for safety reasons. There are no more roller coasters at the CNE. As we got a bit older and the exuberance of youth faded, we stated wandering into the buildings. As a kid, I didn't understand why you'd pay to go onto fair grounds and then just shop. As an adult, that's all I do. This year, we only stayed eight hours (as opposed to our usual twelve), but we still hit every outlet in the place. $112 dollars later, I has fifteen new tops, a new skirt, six pairs of earrings and a hair clip. I love this place.

The other thing we discovered upon entering the buildings were the indoor stages. We're no strangers to concerts at the Ex: we had seen I Mother Earth, Econoline Crush, Treble Charger and this wicked Alanis impersonator who made both Nish and I second-guess her identity. In the International Building, they have a small stage as well, where local ethnic groups often perform. one year, we watched our friend's belly-dancing troupe perform.

This year, we watched Ngoma, a dance-and-drum team from the Jane-Finch area. Watching these tiny kids (one couldn't have been a day over six) drum their little hearts out was a little inspirational; I must admit to getting a little verklempt. The "maestro" had some serious patience, often having to give individual direction to the smallest of the bunch. More girls than boys in the group took care of the "girls don’t' drum" mystique too. I kept thinking that this is the sort of activity that our youngest kids need: healthy outlets for creativity and energy. For all the teachers of the world who volunteer their time and talent - thank you.

On a side note: what is it about drums that make my heart beat faster and my breath come a little shorter? I have never been to Africa, and yet I can almost feel the place pulling me there, with wide savannahs providing cool green shade on hot days. The throb of the afternoon sun matching the rhythm of my heart.

Now Playing: Inglourious Basterds

Ahh, Tarantino. That man knows how to make a good movie. And Inglourious Basterds is absolutely no exception. Right from the first scene, there's tension, drama, laughs and blood. What else would you expect? Here's what not to look for: historical accuracy. Oh my god, don’t even bother. Nothing about IG is accurate, but really, who cares? Valkyrie was supposed to be accurate and it stank up the place. This way, knowing that everything is completely and utterly fabricated, you can actually be held in suspense. Would Shoshanna be successful? Which of the Basterds would survive, if any? Can they kill Hitler before he kills them?

As for the casting, it was all excellent. Brad Pitt is only a little distracting, but I thought he would be very distracting, and he wasn't. The runaway star of this movie was Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa, bar none. That man single-handedly made me laugh at his excellent (if macabre) sense of humour, feel admiration at his impeccable social etiquette, crave his sharp wit and deductive mind and, with swift cruelty, feel like a terrible human being that I ever saw anything cool in him. Perfect Nazi officer.

What can I say? It was very very entertaining. It looks like this summer Blockbuster season came late, but thank goodness it showed up at all. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

ladies night

All I need to reaffirm that I'm exactly where I should be in life is to go out with my girls. See, this is what happens. I stay at work and I get all caught up in being this big work success… you know, senior this and manager that. And suddenly, that becomes this all-consuming force, and I get all down and depressed because I'm still "just" a librarian doing way more work than I should be doing. On Friday, I had the opportunity to hang out with my work mentor and she (the ball-buster that she is) had some choice words for me. Most of them reading something like "you make it too easy for everyone else to succeed - just stop" and "it's your fault no one knows you're bitter - you haven't told them yet" … she's great. With that in mind, I have decided to let it go.

Fast forward a couple of hours and I'm sitting in a bar west of Queen West with my fellow SociaLits. We're talking about boys and trips and work and I'm thinking, you know what? I'm doing well here. I travel lots, I go out lots, I have a good job that affords me my own place and I'm in fairly good health. So, maybe someone two years younger than me (and with a great deal less experience) gets promoted over me - it's probably time I left this sandbox anyway. Currently, I'm doing the job of two librarians and picking up the slack of a senior who hasn't quite grasped the idea that being a senior means doing a lot of the crap that no one else wants to do (that's why she gets paid more than me). It will be interesting to see how the void gets filled when I leave. And it is a when. If I don't get a position as a promotion, I'm willing to go laterally to get away from this insane workload.

All these thoughts swirled about me as I'm getting ready to go out and I had to make a conscious effort to tamp them down. As I'm chatting it up with AnCe, Nish and Senator, I get flashes of what life could be like: I could be working at a way higher-paying job, but then too burned out to actually go out; I could be working at Customs but then be working the 1600 shift and thus processing pax instead of sipping Brazilian cocktails; I could be working at a job that I adore (mmm, Maypole…), but too poor to afford cocktails or condos and be truly miserable. No... employment, in context of life, is pretty good; if I could just stop playing the ranking game, I'd be self-actualised.

Anyway, the evening ended on a bittersweet note: bitter because Nish became ill and had to be escorted home early by Senator; sweet because AnCe and I gorged at a Demetre's. All in all - I love my ladies. I bet they don’t even know the depressing Friday night from which they saved me.

Now Playing: Time Traveler's Wife

I dragged my feet about going to see Time Traveler's Wife. I had my reasons: Eric-fucking-Bana, it received bad reviews, Eric-fucking-Bana, it's a beloved book of mine that I didn't think could be adapted right, did I mention Eric-fucking-Bana? Anyway, I thought It would be a neat movie to see with the SociaLits, as this is one of the first books I remember reading for Book Club. In end, Ance and MissMaggy joined me in my quest to not be distracted by Eric-fucking-Bana and enjoy the movie on its own merits.

When I heard they were making a movie, I really only had two requirements:
- A tear-jerker. I read most of the book semi-choked up and I just bawled like a baby near the end. It is honestly one of the most poignantly beautiful endings I've ever read. I need this to be somewhere close.
- A good Henry. What I really like about Henry-in-the-book is that he's a total paradox. He likes his punk rock and going to concerts in dives but he chooses the relatively safe profession of librarianship; he's learned to be tough and can run and throw punches with the best of them, yet he's never set foot on a plane. Henry(ITB) is an edgy character that's kept harnessed by his condition.

And then, I heard they cast Eric-fucking-Bana. I almost cried. I had pictured Edward Norton or Ryan Gosling or, even, Johnny Depp (though, that would be a stretch). And I was right. Bana can't play punk, and so they completely took that part of Henry's character out, leaving only the boring librarian bits (and none of the cool librarian bits). Thank goodness for Rachel McAdams who plays Claire convincingly and saves most of this production. The rest of the cast was quite good as well, especially Michelle Nolden, who plays Henry's mother.

As for the plot, it was left fairly intact, which brings me to the tearjerker requirement. I wasn't moved enough to cry even once. I think most of the blame falls on the ending, which isn't the book is simply beautiful in its finality. The movie leaves too much… hope? but an empty kind of dime store romance novel hope that you know doesn’t give you anything of substance.

There were some good things about the movie: the cast (minus Bana), the directing and the lovely locations. Claire's childhood home was almost exactly how I pictured it from Niffenegger's description. Other than those highlights, however, the movie fell odd flat. Which is too bad, given the source material. 3 out of 5 stars.

Now Playing: District 9

My first exposure to District 9 was walking by a bus shelter that had one of those great posters in it. I remember thinking, "well, isn't that neat... I wonder what it's all about." I even called the phone number - which is the most awesome advertising since the Blair Witch project. Anyway, on to the movie.

What can I say? It was just this side of brilliant. The pseudo-doc feel is really reinforced by the unknown actors, the handcam filming and the wonderful just-enough use of special effects. Seriously, those aliens looked extremely believable. Everything Cloverfield wanted to accomplish in look and feel, but didn't.

Many critics - including the Famous magazine article - talk about how the aliens were deliberately made to be unappealing and gross, that audiences would have a hard time relating to the "prawns"... perhaps I'm a big softie, but from the moment the camera crews entered their mother ship and filmed those pathetic creatures living in squalor, obviously diseased or starving or both, I was rooting for them. And as if I needed to feel more empathy, they not only show the callous treatment of the aliens' spawn but show a little prawn who is completely adorable and not at at all saccharine.

The allusions to holocaust, apartheid and segregation are obvious: Wikus van de Merwe (very ably played by newcomer Sharlto Copley) refers to the districts as "concentration camps" to his alien counterpart, Christopher Johnson. I won't bore you with a plot overview, but I will say that it's the many layers of the film that make it most interesting. I love that they decided it would be shot in South Africa, for its obvious connections to apartheid and its implicit thumbing-of-the-nose at Manhattan-centred Hollywood action movies. I like that the typical movie hero moment (marine walking through the wreckage, having amazingly survived when all his comrades are dead) is reserved for the slightly psychotic and obvious speciesist, Koobus Venter (played like any other movie monster who just won't die by David James).

There are some plot hiccups: why did the aliens choose Earth? why didn't the aliens leave earlier? How do the humans know how to speak to the aliens? Why haven't they ask the aliens how they can expedite the alien's departure? Add to this, the ending is very... abrupt. I mean, I couldn't have been the only one who needed a "three years later" clip. It's perfectly set up for a sequel, but I think a sequel will ruin the integrity of the movie.

I really the film overall. While it isn't perfect, it's the most thought-provoking sci-fi flick we've gotten in a long while. If nothing else, it generates lots of discussion. I think you should go watch it - it's excellent movie fare. 4.5 out of 5 stars.