Ahh, They Were Kind of Cute

Just finished with the annual visit from the ghosts and goblins. In spite of my griping in my previous post, I must say I enjoyed the trick-or-treaters this year. Perhaps because it was a nice night and not cold, rainy or windy, everyone seemed in a happy mood. The costumes were wonderful and the children were appreciative and polite. I had a few laughs at some of their comments. There was the little four year old who informed me confidentially, "I'm not really a unicorn; I'm a person dressed as a unicorn." And two bubbly ten year old girs who arrived arm in arm were quick to point out that "we're joined at the elbow - well, not literally." In case I should perhaps be worried? And then there was Honest Eddy who let me know that "this is not my first bag." Ahh, they were kind of cute! Happy Halloween!

Not My Favourite Holiday

Here we are again with autumn winds swirling leaves about, time changing from daylight to standard, and the annual festivities of All Hallows Eve about to begin. Have you ever wondered what the point of the time change is as you look out your window and find that it's dark at 5:30 pm when only yesterday it was dark at 6:30pm? Oh, I know we get the extra hour of morning light, but it almost seems that the point of the time change is to have it dark early for the little kids to make their Halloween rounds. Here we go again - right in the middle of supper - "Halloween Apples!" or "Trick or Treat!!" - I'm never ready for the first blood-curdling scream. I expect we'll have about one hundred visitors in all shapes and sizes, and although every year I do get "into it" and ooh and ahh and look impressed by the costumes of the little tykes, I also find it an evening I could do without. Running up and downstairs for a couple of hours is not my idea of fun. Scrooge said "Bah, humbug"to Christmas; sometimes I think I'd like to say "Bah, humbug" to Halloween! Anyone with me?

A Delightful Interlude

Today a friend and I were on the golf course and it being a rather cool fall day we had the course to ourselves with plenty of time to spend an extra minute or two observing two squirrels chasing one another up, down, and around a tree. It was amazing that they could tear around with great speed and sure-footedness. We watched for several minutes only a couple of feet away and the squirrels seemed to be totally oblivious of us so intent were they in their pursuit of one another. We could not figure out if there was some reason for the activity or if they were racing around simply for the sheer joy of it. Or was it a game? One minute one would be "the pursuer" and the other "the pursued" and suddenly "the pursued" would make a quick move to a lower branch and become "the pursuer. " They kept changing every few seconds and it was absolutely fascinating to watch. As well, it was funny, and the more we laughed at the antics, the better the show became. It was a delightful interlude in our golf game and a moment to treasure.

The Importance of Routines

I haven't really started my fall and winter exercise routine which involves going to the pool for aquafit three times a week. The routine is: get up at 7:45, pack the swimming bag, dress, have breakfast and leave for the pool around 8:45 to be in the water shortly after 9:00 for a class that starts at 9:10. This morning I woke up without the alarm and thought since I haven't been for awhile I should get back in the swim of things (pardon the pun), so got up, packed the swimming bag, dressed and sat down to breakfast, and.................. took a look at my watch only to see it was now 9:15, instead of 8:15!! Too late to even think of going! Well, maybe that will teach me to set the alarm and begin the routine again................................... how about next week? I must make a promise to myself...... it's about time!

A Correction

Ooops! In a previous post I said McEwan had been nominated for the Booker prize several times, but unlike Isiguro, had not won it. I was wrong. He has been shortlisted three times and won the Booker prize for Amsterdam in 1998. For complete information on McEwan and his books vist his website. Lots of interesting facts, links, reviews, and literary critiques!

My Cup Runneth Over

My cup runneth over! I have just finished - in succession - two excellent novels. This is also my second time reading Saturday by Ian McEwan and I found myself as interested as I was the first time I read it.

Saturday is the story of just one day - a day 'off' for London neurosurgeon Henry Perowne. Perowne wakes up early to the disquieting view from his window of a plane on fire coming into Heathrow Airport. Although later on we find out that this was not terrorists, the unusual happening seems to set the tone for a day of reflection about family, about limitations, strengths and weaknesses, about aging, about the state of the world. Perowne is a good man, a family man, a doctor, a saver of lives. He is limited in his knowledge of the arts and literature but his daughter Daisy, an about to be published poet, is educating him, and his son Theo, a blues musician, shares his love and passion with him. He has a loving relationship with his wife, a lawyer.

It is an "ordinary" day: Perowne plans to play a game of squash, go to the market to buy ingredients for a family supper he will make, visit his mother in a nursing home, and stop in to hear his son play. His driving around central London is disrupted by a massive anti-Iraq war demonstration and he (partly through his own lack of attention, or, perhaps, obtuseness) has a car accident involving some young toughs, one of whom has a neurological condition that, as a brain docctor, he recognizes. The accident will have unforeseen consequences, the ordinary day leading on "to a place you never dreamed of and would never choose - a knife at the throat" of your wife.

I think McEwan is a wonderful writer. He is a master of observation and research. His portrait of an Alzheimer's patient is very touching. I was struck by the line where he observes that it is important to keep photographs for "it's always useful to have solid proof that the old have had their go at being young." His details about neurosurgery are amazing. Apparently he spent months observing (his description of the doctors' change room reminded me of my studies in ethnographic observation) and the picture he creates rings true. I read that he went back to his mentor for confirmation of one detail when his book was on its way to publication; something had to be corrected in his description and he dutifully made the change. I also liked the details he shared about music, food, the house (that is apparently like his own house), literature and so on. And how wonderful that poetry (of all things) will save the day. What a touch of genius (and a coup on the part of the English literature majorMcEwan) to use Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" as the poem and how ironic that it's author is not recognized.

Perhaps what I will mostly take from this book is a feeling of awe about the human brain - after all, to all appearances here is a kilogram or so of soft looking matter. McEwan makes us think: how can it hold thought and colour and words and sounds and memory and meaning? "Can it ever be explained how matter becomes conscious?" And can it ever be appreciated just how fragile it is - what tiny anomaly can cause Huntingdon's or Alzheimers? how even with the protection of hard skull it can be damaged? how the tiniest slip on the part of the neurosurgeon can lead to oblivion?

Three Beautiful and Three Sad Things

I happened across a blog called Three Beautiful Things in which the blogger daily writes of three things - sometimes ordinary, sometimes quite extraordinary, that have made her pause and think of the beauty in the everyday. It's a lovely site and others are challenged to begin their daily lists. Well I don't think I will do this everyday, except perhaps mentally, but here are three beautiful and, just for balance, three sad things from my trip running errands this morning:

The three beautiful:
* the sales clerk's face at the shoe store as she bent down ever so solicitously to help the elderly woman
* a display of fluorescent pink, green and yellow footwear that brigtened my mall walk
* the woman whose arm I bumped accidently and who said "sorry" at the same moment as I

The three sad:
* the young man who stands behind his display of cell phone covers at the mall kiosk and stares at the counter all day
* the professional from whom I received a cheque - who spelled my name incorrectly
* the falling leaves of autumn

Science Fiction

Not being a science fiction fan, had I noticed some of the comments from reviewers of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never let Me Go such as "alien worlds," "an inadvertent science fiction classic," and "science gone awry," I probably wouldn't have bothered to read it. I would have missed a wonderful book.

Yes, Never let Me Go is about science gone awry but you hardly notice that it is anything but real, the story is so touching and so simply and beautifully written. Only a few pages into the book you will know that the characters are clones. The story is told from the point of view of Kathy, now a "carer," looking back on her early life growing up at a boarding school type of complex with friends Ruth and Tommy. The story follows the three as they move on to their young adult lives.

In many ways the children's growing up is "normal." But as you read on, little by little, you find that they know just who they are and what life holds for them. Like the people around them, we find the tragic dimension in knowing that they have been created for one purpose, for donations - transplants to others - and that their lives will be short, and we feel this dreadful sadness for them. ("Oh, you poor poor things.") And yet they seem to accept their lot in life with a quiet resignation and a sense of purpose. Perhaps this is how it would be for human clones. I wonder.

Anyway, Ishiguro makes it believable, just as if they had grown up in any other kind of life. For example, had they grown up in a slum perhaps, knowing no other kind of life, it might be reasonable to have low expectations and be resigned to a life of hardships with few perks. Or if you grew up in an orphanage it would be reasonable that a great deal of your "education" would come from other children, although of course guardians would be present. Parallels abound: the children as they grow up turn to their peers for comfort and knowledge; they often pick up wrong information from their peers and interpret it incorrectly; rumour and myth are as much present as fact. In their teens sex becomes an outlet for closeness and belonging.

Although they do know in a general sort of way what their future holds there are bits of hope - hope that one day one of them may have a career or that the inevitable will be delayed for those who are in love. These kinds of ideas are fueled by rumour and wishful thinking: in one very touching sequence the group goes in search of Ruth's "possible," the person from whom she was cloned. A woman in an office has been picked out and this seems likely as Ruth has talked about her dream career of being an office worker. Of course nothing (except disappointment) comes of the match.

Dimly, the children recognize that art and creativity have something to do with making them real - or, in some way reveal to others their "souls." This is a crucial point in the novel and, of course, is the big dilemma, morally and religiously speaking, about human cloning. Would cloned individuals have a soul?

Books On The Go: Two Wonderful Writers

I've got two books currently on the go: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Ian McEwan's Saturday. The next read in my book discussion group is Saturday - I read it once over a year ago and I thought it was an excellent book then. My problem now is that I've forgotten the details of the book, so to do it justice, I should reread the whole book. But, I'm a fairly slow reader and I can't leave Ishiguro. I have never read a book as quietly suspenseful with just the right undercurrent of a touching (but quite horrific "brave new world" type) story of growing up different. A comment on the book cover says it is "a page-turner and a heartbreaker, a tour de force of knotted tension and buried anquish." I wish I had said that!

Both Ishiguro and McEwan are contemporary British writers whose books have won or been short-listed for numerous awards. Ishiguro won the Booker prize in 1989 for The Remains of the Day and this novel Never Let Me Go was short-listed in 2005. McEwan hasn't yet won the Booker prize, although I expect he will. Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954, moving with his family to London in 1960. McEwan was born in 1948. Both authors, interestingly, are English literature majors and I think they both appreciate good writing as well as a good story.

Well, back to the books!