Entering the World of Antiquarian Book Dealing

I have finally found employment doing something I find meaningful and exciting.  For the past year I have been toiling away as a cafeteria worker in my old university.  The workers are unionized, and so the rate of pay is extremely high for the type of work we perform, but the tasks are mundane, and it makes all of life dull and insignificant.  And to make matters worse, the designation of our station is a uniform of putrid green gown and terrible brown hat.  I feel ashamed of my work; I feel ashamed that I pursued an Honours degree in English to end up here.

Last week I replied to an advertisement for an Antiquarian Book Dealer's apprentice.  I didn't think I would get the job, because months of rejection had hardened my spirit and made me cynical.  So I applied out of sheer jest, as a way to amuse myself. I explained my mundane situation and how I was ready to turn to self-defenestration if I could not find something to stimulate my intellect.

He responded within ten minutes, inviting me to an interview the next day, and three hours after the interview he offered me the job.

So now I am learning the secrets and the sub-culture associated with Antiquarian Book Dealing.  There are so many intricacies and eccentricities that I never even imagined this world could contain.  After my first shift, I already have stories to share.

And I look forward to sharing some of those in this blog.

I have been away.  I am often away, dwelling in the realm of the unreal while the world around me crumbles to dust without my even noticing.  Ask me where I've been, and chances are I'll be unable to answer you.

My obsession with the unreal, with the idea that perhaps reality can be experienced only through unreality, leaves   my friends and family deeply frustrated. I don't notice clutter, I don't notice when someone is speaking to me, and I don't notice my personal appearance.  None of these things matter to me in my deepest moments of solipsism.

I suppose this sinking into myself originated as a defense mechanism.  In school, at the dentist, in my room at night, I would leave to go some place else.  Sometimes books took me there, but sometimes I would just stare up at the ceiling or out at the nothingness in front of me, emanating from me, and I would be myself somewhere else, and in  this elsewhere I was safe and the world could be beautiful.

Is it healthy to be so entirely elsewhere?  I think it is probably not.  But I would much rather be unhealthy than to give up this world of my own creation to the world that is.

I cannot write, I cannot read, I cannot think.

I feel outside myself.  I feel not of myself.  I feel separated from everything around myself.  I don't know what's wrong, only that something is. 

Spadework is a dud! Why Findley, why?

Timothy Findley`s `Spadework`` is by far Findley`s weakest novel.  It was awful.  So bad, in fact, that it was nearly unreadable.

Now, I generally like Findley.  I loved Last of the Crazy People, Pilgrim, The Piano Man`s Daughter, Not Wanted on the Voyage, Headhunter, and The Wars.  I thought that his diction was precise and his imagery and symbolism were poignant and profound.  I thought that the way he approached his subjects and themes in these other novels was breathtaking, but unfortunately Spadework had none of these sorely wanted attributes.

Even the central symbol of the novel, the cutting of the telephone line by Luke the gardener, lacked a crucial buildup and could have been made to feel much more significant through a more generous application of figurative language and imagery.  This was the moment where communication was disabled, when understanding between the characters was interrupted and disbanded.  And yet, I didn`t care.

Keith Garebian gives a fair review in the Quill and Quire, but I think it`s important to note the brilliance of his other novels in comparison with this dud.  That comparison alone makes Spadework atrocious, and something to be avoided and rejected.

Furthermore, the fact that Griffin is lured into a homosexual relationship, and then is essentially driven back to ``decency`` by the wife of his seducer is something that is almost offensive.  It almost seems like Findley is advocating homophobia the way Griffin is ``cured`` of his homosexual identity so easily. If there was even some dark hint in the novel that this `cure`` was not a solution to the problem but merely another covering up of identity I would be so much more comfortable with this choice of ending, but the fact that everyone lives happily ever after makes me question why Findley, who I thought was a homosexual man himself, would choose to do this!  To me, it just doesn`t make sense.

Even the `pithy diologue`` was, for me at least, terribly forced and lacking sincerity.  For a novel about the world of theatre, I would have expected a more theatrical style especially where diologue was concerned.

So for these, and other examples of mediocrity, I suggest you stay away from Spadework.  I wish I had.

Living versus Reading

I had a really ugly day today.  Oftentimes my personal appearance is not something I obsess about, and I would rather spent my few minutes in the morning reading my book over a nice cup of tea than frantically trying to make my body a canvas on which I try to inscribe significance.  But today... Today!  My god, today I was competing with  South Park's Ms. Crabtree for haggardness.

It made me realize that there's a line between obsessing over appearance and being lost so completely in my own interiority that the reality of myself disappears, and today was it. 

I am not naturally a feminine creature, but sometimes I wish I was.  When other young girls were giggling amongst themselves and grooming each other to be all of the stereotypes of what it means to be a woman, I was sitting alone in my closet to escape the noise and chaos of my household  and reading Little Women or the Little House books.  I escaped myself and the squalor of the reality around me through these books, and even now I suspect I do the same thing.

My parents were not well off.  My father made as much money as I make now, but he had five other people to support.  We always had enough to eat, but sometimes the quality of the meals were less than desirable (for example we would have nothing but spaghetti or kraft dinner for a week straight).  And as for clothing... well, I was given hand-me-downs from several generations ago.

I think the following school photograph can capture the phenomenological experience I am trying to tell far better than words ever could. I'm the one in red and white in the front row.

I realize that this difference in me, this alienation I felt from my earliest years, was what halted my "natural development" as a girl.  Because I didn't have young girl friends, I missed out on all of that female knowledge which was passed along amongst themselves.  I didn't learn about makeup and hair tricks.  I didn't learn how to walk in high heels, or how to combine colours.  I didn't learn how to cook or clean, or how to manage finances.  I missed out in learning life because I fell in love with Beth and Jo and Laura Ingalls.

Would it have been better if I had never met these characters?  Would I have gained more practical knowledge and be happier now if I had learned less literature?  Would my relationships work out better?

Or would I simply find another excuse for my failure?

Remains of the Day

I've just finished reading Remains of the Day.  It took me some time to begin to really enjoy it, because it begins slowly.  It's a narrative that slowly unfurls and it's not until the final page that the novel, its themes and significance, is fully experienced.   This novel is comparable to Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" in the simplicity of its realism.

 The most striking thing about this novel, I found, was the subtlety of the language.  The story is told through the first person reminiscence of an old english butler who is desperately clinging to the Old Order.  He is certainly a modernist hero living in the fragmented post-modern world, with a terrible nostalgia for the unity of his former days.  He is remembering the past as he journeys across the country to meet with a former colleague in an attempt to rectify some of the staffing problems he is currently experiencing, and the more the man remembers, the most tiny or vague detail confessed, the closer we come to an understanding of the character's complexities.

As I write this entry, I am also watching the film adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.  It's decent, as far as Hollywood goes, but what's lacking is the subtlety and the smallness of the novel.  Things are exaggerated in the film, and the moral ambiguities become instead a very strong political statement verging on propaganda.  Also, the importance of the butler's solipsism is turned outwards through dialogue.  Now, I get that this is the convention of film, but the medium of the written word is so NECESSARY in this case, and I wish that the key  ideas could have been conveyed in some other, unconventional way.  I am, however, enjoying the chemistry of Ms Thompson and Mr Hopkins and how that relationship is developing.  Heh.

At any rate, the book was absolutely amazing, and I highly recommend it.  If you find yourself having difficulty getting engaged with the text, put it down for awhile but don't give up on it!  It's amazing once you get past the first hundred pages or so.

I am the wandering Ancient Mariner

I feel very much like the ancient mariner right now.  I am a babbling madman, forced to tell my story to those who will listen.  And my inevitable recitation, like his story, is one of love and of crime.  Although in this instance, the crime was mostly averted.

I worked with him nearly a year ago without even knowing I was attracted to him.  Until that night, I had no idea I wanted him.  Until that moment of awakening, my partner was my sole attraction, and I had never thought of anyone else.  But on that night he sat near me, and I felt the heat of him, radiating from his body and from his gaze.

He told me.  I knew.  And in knowing I accepted the consequences of what was to be.

And yet, that night, I was able to resist him.  That night, I touched his thigh and held his hand, and then left him alone, rejecting his pleas of a midnight discussion over the situation we were beginning to find ourselves in.  And I returned to my partner unscathed.

But I love him.  And that is my madness.