Linguistic retrospective shows endless creative flexibility

A note on my desktop (the wooden one, not the screen) made me think about how computing has revolutionized language.
Remember when emulation meant imitating the behaviour of an admired mentor, and an icon was a religious symbol?

Not so very long ago, a bug was an insect, and a virus a disease-carrying organism that caused such physical ills as a cold. Backup meant physical or moral support.

To boot was an action carried out mostly by bar or club bouncers, who ejected undesirable people from the premises. A browser was an animal -- a giraffe, say, that wandered around eating leaves from trees, and encryption was something done in secret by military organizations.

The term mining was applied to gold, not data, and firewalls were safety features of large buildings. Hardware meant tools and home repair equipment sold in brick-and-mortar stores named accordingly. Java referred to a cup of coffee, and lurking meant standing unseen in the shadows, often wrapped in an overcoat and wearing a hat pulled low.

The net was a requirement for waitresses, intended to prevent stray hairs from landing in the customers' food. A notebook was something you wrote in with a pen, or carried in your purse to make lists in those days before cell phones became ubiquitous.

An option was any choice you made, and a path was a way through the forest. Pasting meant handling a sticky substance, a program was a radio show, and resolution meant determination, or else a January promise about what you would and wouldn't do in the coming year.

Spam was sandwich meat, and surfing a pleasure restricted to seaside vacations. A terminal was a bus station, a thread went through the eye of a needle, and the Trojan horse was an element from the plot of a nearly forgotten epic called The Iliad.

Virtual meant almost, user was a euphemism for drug addict, and cookies were for eating.

The field of computing has created a whole new range of vocabulary, proving once again the enormous creativity, flexibility and expansive capacity of human language.

Jarvis didn't touch this one

Here's one puzzle Jarvis didn't get his mitts on. For the past five years, he's been creating puzzle mischief. The first Christmas jigsaw anomalies came to light in 2013.

Is it possible that Jarvis been caught at last? Or perhaps he's just not an art fancier.

In any case, all the pieces were there, and no extra ones came to light. I can hardly believe Jarvis has retired from the field. In a weird way, I kind of miss him.

Jigsaw puzzling mystery continues; new technique applies

To explain the appearance of mischievous extra puzzle pieces over the past several seasons, we posited Jarvis, a disgruntled employee who messes with the puzzles. This time, he took nothing away, but added a plain gray piece that obviously couldn't be part of this puzzle.

Below is a dismantling innovation from a neighbour who also enjoys mind-soothing "puzzle therapy." Take the ends off first and store them in a separate bag in the box to make it easier for the next person.

White Rock after the storm

Near a broken pier lit by sunset light, work crews clear logs and rubble. Boats lie where the storm washed them ashore.





 

Nocturnal conversation liberates insight and faith

A couple of days ago, I missed a call from a friend in Ireland. My phone was on silent while I beavered away on the latest draft of my novel, The Habit of Secrecy, (but publishers have been known to change titles). Part of the story takes place at Bletchley Park (seen in the photos).

I was getting into bed around 3 am after the long bout of editing. Spotting the missed call, I tried to call Jackie back. This time, she didn't pick up. Then my phone rang; nobody there.

In Ireland, it was a sunny late morning. Jackie's phone had dialed me while she was taking her dogs outside. When she heard me speaking from her pocket, we launched into a long-overdue catch-up. The talk ranged round to writing, and I told her about one of my Bletchley Park scenes.

"I was just thinking about the codebreakers at Bletchley Park the other day," she said. Jackie is an energy healer. She'd been sitting with a group of fellow healers, working to break prevailing negative codes of belief.

Every day we re-program ourselves, unaware that we're reinforcing long-held negative beliefs. But it doesn't have to be this way. As we become aware of our thought patterns, we can alter them.

The other day, I was shocked to hear a friend say of a dear one suffering from anxiety, "She's doing better, but she's had this for a long time; I assume she'll struggle with it for life." Hearing this statement shocked me into a moment of clarity. This is precisely what Jackie means when she says we routinely (and often unintentionally) put spells on ourselves and each other.

Photo left: At Bletchley Park in World War II, women operated these "Bombe" machines to help break Enigma, the German naval code.

Today we must break belief codes, the social and family programming that we often allow, even invite into our lives. But energy can be shifted. Orienting our lives in more positive directions is only a decision away. As I travel the healing path, I love talking to Jackie, who helped me take those first crucial steps toward the self-awareness that guides my life today.

Anne Lamott's notes on hope

This delightful book by Anne Lamott speaks of diverse topics including puzzles, addiction, and bitter chocolate. But the greatest of these is hope. Only hope, the author tells us, stands in opposition to her "stockpiling antibiotics for the apocalypse." Hope indicates spiritual progress: these days, when visited by the "mental roommate" who tells her to jump from a great height or wrap her car around a tree, she simply rolls her eyes. "Oh, you again."

Lamott's fundamental message is the value of story, that soul food so necessary for humans. Good stories needn't be "hot." Indeed most often they portray "modest salvation." But they make us feel "more connected to life," make it "more spacious and welcoming." For children especially, they serve as "mirrors, mentors, guide dogs." Stories feed us, and hold us together. "Truth and awareness mend."

This author encourages writing, because it "dilutes our habitual fear and our need for control." Also, it "breaks the trance of our belief that life is going to hell in a handbasket." In a signature switch, she adds, "But do not tell your family this. They'll want to know if you have an agent."

Sadly, society does not encourage its members to have a wide view, so even though humans are "truth-seeking missiles,"..."not many of us were encouraged to challenge our convictions and identities." That's sad, because "the bigger bandwidth of truth, the more our understanding aligns with what truly is."

Lamott explains the societal hunger for ever more stuff as a misguided attempt to correct internal spiritual imbalance. "The desperate urge to own and control in order to fix our psychic holes, relieve anxiety...and cauterize old wounds takes root at an early age, and is doomed." Since we "cannot arrange lasting safety or happiness for our most beloved people," and "Not one single person in history has gotten an alcoholic sober," what remains is the inner spiritual work. Being at peace is "an inside job," and "silence is medicine."

Finally, "if the earth is forgiveness school, family is your post-doctoral fellowship." Challenging though life can be, Lamott tells us, the path to liberation is kindness.

Words of wisdom from characters in Chance Encounters

Alexander McCall Smith is always a delight to read. A book of short stories is a departure from his usual novel writing, which he has described a "serial condition." These stories were inspired by old pictures of unknown people. The settings vary: Glasgow, rural Australia, New Westminster, BC. The characters are just as diverse. One young man gets work with the circus and finds himself at the funeral of a ventriloquist's dummy; another thinks war is all drill and boredom until he is rudely awakened by being taken prisoner.

This author's work is infused with humour, surprise, and compassion. Each book contains individual lines that sparkle and resonate. In this collection, I delighted in the internal philosophical pespectives of Flora, a thirtyish Glaswegian ex-nun and heiress who visits Jenner's, Edinburgh's finest department store, in the hope of meeting a man.

And indeed she does meet one, a nice one. Inevitably for an Alexander McCall Smith character, this fortuitous meeting evokes thoughts about the nature of living. Flora's ideas resonated strongly: she feels that "one should never fight destiny. Go along with it, and with the tides that carry you through life. They know where you're going, and you do not."

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

The books by JK Rowling as Robert Galbraith keep getting better. We travel from Camden and Little Venice to Westminster Palace and Newbury Racecourse, following a variety of well-drawn characters. The cast includes spoiled rich people, angry political protesters, predators in three-piece suits, and penniless chancers. Great to watch the flawed Cormoran Strike and his intrepid sleuthing partner Robin Ellacott evolve and tackle their personal challenges. And I learned that lethal white is not a drug, but a rare equine genetic defect.

Seven Sacred Truths by Wanda John-Kehewin

The words of Wanda John-Kehewin contain powerful medicine, for herself and for those who read this book.

This volume contains a mix of spiritual wisdom amd vulnerable self-revelation, sprinkled through with the humour that has helped this courageous woman to rise above the violent abuses practiced on her and her people. We need to "take our designer blinders off," and consider the life of this "First Nations Woman with brown skin, a brown mind, who lost her mother to alcohol."

She does not despair; instead she hopes the Elders who have died with their wisdom unspoken will return "in art, words and resolution and send us an army of youth who will cry for the past, sing for the future," so that "we may one day be able to die peacefully."

Her cultural perspective is wide and her indictment of consumerism memorable: "Once something becomes a commodity, it is destined to run out and become a greedy man's lifeline..." On the other hand, "when your only toys are books, paper and #10 gray pencils, you could only see in black and white, wrong and right."

She does not spare herself, but examines her writerly calling with ruthless realism, observing herself as she sits "on the floor amid the clutter and consumer righteousness." Deep inside her the little girl she used to be is still "cowering in the corner," while the adult poet splashes her "feeble, useless fury onto recycled paper while another twenty trees lie dying by the side of the road," just so she can have a "paper voice." Sipping from a paper cup on which is printed 'Save the Trees,' she savours the precious water, sharply aware of how we are consuming our entire planet.

In a poignant "Letter to my Nine-year-old Self," John-Kehewin speaks these words of consolation to the traumatized and despairing child she once was: "I can tell you just how strong you were and how that strength would be shared with your own children one day." Though the babies born to the poet are not as big as the babies born to the white women, the hospital nurses are awed by her five-pounders. "'I pack light,' she says, and leaves them "wondering whether to laugh or take out Canada's food guide."

In Geometry, the final poem, she ponders how to bridge the gap between the different cultures she must negotiate, and concludes that some values are universal. After listing some of the things she does not know, she invites the reader to "Let me tell you what I do know." The list that follows includes these crucial things: "You should never hit a woman," and "You should never oppress a child, or tell them they are stupid and limit their chances to thrive." Reminded by this powerful indirect reference to all she has come through, readers are deeply impressed, and thankful she survived to grow, thrive, and share her wisdom.

Choir music season brings Willan plus concert at St. John's

Willan and two other choirs welcome all choral music fans to our concert on Tuesday, November 27 at 7:30 pm in St. John's Shaughnessy, 1490 Nanton Avenue (Granville and Nanton.)

We'd love to sing you the songs we've been practising all term, and look forward to seeing you there!

Conducted by Patricia Plumley, our concert features Eric Hominick on piano and baritone soloist Desmond Cooper.

Admission by donation and all are welcome.

Russ Froese: a journalistic assignment as a Red Cross delegate

Russ Froese points out the scale and location of the undersea quake. Photo courtesy of Patricia Sandberg.

Russ Froese addressed Canadian Authors -- Metro Vancouver at our November Literary event. An award-winning television reporter, producer and documentary maker who hosted the Journal on CBC, Froese is a trained delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In Getting the Story out, he described how information was organized and shared during the enormous disaster caused by the 2004 undersea earthquake off Indonesia, 9.1 on the Richter Scale. The ensuing tsunami devastated northern Sumatra. Smashing inland, it contaminated wells with salt, wiped out a city of 60,000, and killed half a million.

Along with the challenges of hosting the international media people who flooded into the disaster zone, Froese and his colleagues had to cope with local politicians and others who got in the way of the coordinated disaster response. Then there were the NGOs who built unsuitable housing which failed to meet the long-term needs of the people (wooden houses that got eaten by termites). ICRC also had to figure out how to bring in buffalo by boat for the feast of Eid.

In spite of the challenges, there was some good news. The story Froese kept going back to as he reported on the evolving situation was the amazing resilience of the people. He was also glad to tell his audience that after the tsunami, the civil war that had been waged by guerillas in the area had faded away. And unlike before the disaster, the area now has a land registry and an early warning system for tsunamis. Canadians made generous contributions, and the Red Cross ended up building more houses than they had planned. They also assisted with the trauma, including the reburial of bodies found up to two years after the event.

In the Woods by Tana French

Novelist Tana French bucks the trend to shorter, simpler stories. This first tale about the imaginary Dublin Murder Squad is a gripping psychological thriller 592 pages long.

Rob, the narrator, slowly unveils how his life was derailed by the sudden and violent disappearance of his two best friends at age twelve. In an effort to protect their son from the publicity of having survived whatever fate caused his pals to vanish, his parents moved house, sent him away to boarding school in England, and changed his name.

Decades later, Detective Rob Ryan is back in Knocknaree, working with his partner Cassie Maddox on a murder that took place close to where his friends vanished years before. The child victim is found in an archaeological dig, soon to become a highway. Could that be a clue?

Partners in policing, Rob and Cassie enjoy a deep and trusting friendship. In every way that matters, they have one another's backs. They have the good cop-bad cop routine down pat, and Rob sees their mutual trust as more profound than first love, which is "nothing, nothing at all, beside the power of putting your lives, simply and daily, into each other's hands." But when the present case seems to interweave with the cold case from his past, he begins to unravel, and so does this ideal partnership. Once convinced that he was "the redeemed one, the boy borne safely home on the ebb of whatever freak tide" carried off his friends, he must face the reality that psychologically, he "never left that wood."

The housing estate where he once lived, and where the murder took place, has a social hierarchy. Conscientious mothers at the middle-class end forbid their children to visit the rough end. As an investigating officer, Rob is filled with apprehension when he senses the world of the estate filled with "private, parallel dimensions," with "the dark strata of archaeology underfoot." A fox outside his window reminds him of a city that "barely overlaps" with the one he inhabits.

Through the perceptions of the troubled detective, French plunges the reader into the recent past, a time when "people held onto their innocence" tenaciously, and parents allowed their children to play in the woods without worrying. Rob then he pricks his own bubble, referring to the burden of "all we now know about" things once seemed to be "only unthinkable rumours" that took place elsewhere. In Ireland, Missing Persons is "jaded from taking too many reports on children kept after school or lingering over too many video games." This touches on a wider loss of a social "innocence," a deep alteration in the social contract that has followed the erosion of trust.

Over a shared dinner, the detectives take a break from the case to discuss big questions. Humans need a belief system, says Cassie. As trust deserts the traditional bulwarks of church and politics, people make a religion of money, which is now confused with virtue. Only half-joking, she adds that another contemporary belief system is in bodies. Like the religion of money, a perverse faith in the body accords physical behaviours and health choices the status of good and evil. Her explanation: because in order to make daily decisions, people need something to believe in. "All this bio-yoghurt virtue and financial self-righteouness," she says, "are just filling the gap in the market."

A teen Rob once knew is a potential witness. Visiting him in jail to do an interview, the detective decides he's "a casualty of the eighties," whose life was blighted by an economic time when an entire generation "fell through the cracks." Along with such telling scenes, French salts other trenchant bits of social commentary with humour, like when Rob judges that his grandparents having started work at sixteen takes "trumps in the adult stakes, way above any number of piercings and tattoos." Or when he explains that though he dislikes beer, he drinks it in his father's company, because his dad "gets worried if I ask for anything else" and "considers men drinking spirits to be a sign of either incipient alcoholism or incipient homosexuality."

In O'Kelly, the police chief, we see the social programming of rigid sex roles and toxic masculinity, for instance, when he alludes to migraines as "womany shite." The elderly Mrs. Lowry, a potential witness, represents a generation that is "compulsively competitive about generosity." When the cops bring her some shortbread, she feels compelled to "get a bag of scones out of the freezer and defrost them in the microwave and butter them and decant jam," unwillingly to relax "until we had each swallowed a sip of tea." 

Three teenage toughs form a brotherhood, thinking of themselves as three musketeers. Of course, such a gang mentality inevitably generates violent behaviour. One boy, Jonathan does not condone this, but "lost somewhere in the wild borderlands of nineteen, half in love with his friends with a love passing the love of women," he does something his more mature self will regret deeply. When this memory is triggered many years later, he will apologize, however indirectly, to the woman on whom he helped his friends practice an unconscionable violation. 

Situating her book in the epicentre of our contemporary social atmosphere, French also raises the issue of allegations. Both an innocent female police officer and a man with a shady past are made to suffer the ignominy that inevitably follows allegations, which have to be checked out, "no matter how baseless they may seem." About such allegations, "neighbours always know...and there are always plenty of people who believe there is no smoke without fire." One is reminded of Stephen Galloway. Recently, he filed suit against Caralea Cole, the 48-year old artist whose name was protected by privacy rules while her unproven accusation of rape cost him his job.

After Detective Cassie's experience with a psychopathic boyfriend in college, would she label victimism as another quasi-religion? If so, it isn't the approach chosen by Halifax columnist Lezlie Lowe. Recently, she turned the darkly vengeful side of MeToo on its head. Without naming, shaming, or describing herself as a victim, she wrote a column about a man's disrespectful violation of her stated wishes. The incident happened many years before, and she'd long since got on with her life. However, reading her column, the male who'd misbehaved recognized himself and telephoned her with a sincere apology.

Though the problems portrayed are universal, the narrator insists that this is a peculiarly Irish story. With the book set on an ancient site about to be destroyed amid a maze of financial greed, political skulduggery, and crooked land deals, Rob cynically comments that in his country, "Corruption is taken for granted, even grudgingly admired: the guerilla cunning of the colonised is still ingrained in us." His countrymen continue to struggle over "that primal, clicheed Irish passion, land." Sam, another detective, loses his innocence over anonymous related threats carried out by a politician uncle he had previously admired.

This novel is larger than life, and far larger than the local Dublin setting. Many casual observations made by French's characters point out our contemporary social challenges, as well as portraying a recent but utterly vanished past. I'm currently listening to another audio book about the Dublin Murder Squad, and look forward to more tales from this skillful storyteller. 

Ian Rankin: intelligent, witty and sold out

The Arts Club on Granville Island was sold out, and I waited in the queue for Ian Rankin to sign my book. In a House of Lies features the retired John Rebus, now a non-smoker and dog owner. As Siobhan works on a cold case that's heating up, he gets his oar in once again.

Rankin was delightful, and Jerry Wasserman, his interviewer, was a lot of fun. He make a joke about calling him Big Ger, the name of Rebus's arch-enemy. The audience laughed, and he quipped, "Good, you've read the books."

Some of Ian Rankin's revelations surprised me. He once got funding to embark on a PhD about Muriel Spark, but after considering what Muriel would have wished him to do with the money, he decided she'd prefer he write books. He did that while undertaking his PhD studies, which he never did complete. Recently, though, he used his expertise about her to help with Spark's centennial celebrations. (She was born in 1918).

Before finding his feet as a novelist, he once purpled them as a grape tramper for a winery. The work, he explained, is done naked, since as the grape juice rises to mid-chest level before tramping is complete. His negligence of his duty to feed the lees to the resident pigs before they fermented ended in death and loss. One pig (50% of the herd of two) died drunk on grape pressings and Rankin lost his job as a swineherd.

Another fascinating detail: Rankin was dismayed, even outraged, when his initial Rebus novel was put in the crime section of the bookstore. A serious writer, he employs his craft to understand himself, society, and humanity. And he never knows how a Rebus novel will end until he is well into the work. "If I outlined," he said, "I wouldn't have to write the book, as I'd already know what happened." In fact, he has once such outline in his drawer of a book he never went on to write.

Finding Mr. Wong by Susan Crean

I found this book a real page turner. More than a memoir, it's a well-researched portrayal of Canada's social history, much of it forgotten. Centred in Toronto during Crean's childhood, this memoir describes how her young life was enriched by Mr. Wong, a Chinese man who cooked, worked and lived in the household of her grandparents. With China suffering famine and political chaos, Wong had left his home village to travel from Taishan to Hong Kong, and thence to Vancouver, to join his only living relative.

Two oceans away, another kind of disaster, the potato famine, had forced huge swaths of the Irish population to board ships for the new world in the hopes of survival. The displaced arrived in such numbers that by 1871, they were a quarter of the population of English-speaking Canada. Crean's great-grandfather was among these immigrants.

On the edge of starvation and weakened by disease, the early arrivals received a cold welcome in the new land. The reason? They were Irish Catholics, and the English and Scots Protestants thought them different and untrustworthy. Indeed, Sir John A. Macdonald was an Orangeman. Yet in time, the Irish settled and melded into the community.

But the racist bias that buffeted Mr. Wong's life was far worse than that visited on the Irish. He faced the additional challenge of bridging a vast gap of language and culture. Yet in spite of the cold welcome he received in the new nation, Mr. Wong too made a life, knitting himself into a single family, at a time when, except for Chinatown, the community offered little connection. He liked cooking, developed his skill and worked to acquire English. He met Crean's grandfather and the two men trusted each other. Wong joined the household, promising to stand by the family.

As was the case for his fellow Chinese Canadians, social circumstances made it virtually impossible for Wong to marry. Along her siblings, Crean "grew up in Mr. Wong's kitchen," and took his love, care and guidance for granted. As a child, she knew little about his past, or his Chinatown forays. As an aging woman, she decided to research the history that would help her "find" Mr. Wong.

In doing so, she excavates our nation's past. The reader learns about the physical separation of the servant class, as expressed in the "upstairs downstairs" architecture of houses "comprising two interlocking parts that could be completely closed off from each other." The "backstairs" were the servants' entrance, and led to their invisible quarters.

The delusions of racial purity that were current at the time, as well as the strictures on female behaviour were enforced by powerful social sanctions. Crean's relating the story of Velma and Harry reminds us of the "racist and misogynist laws lurking in our history." When Velma fell in love with Harry Yip and they moved in together, the state quickly intervened. Velma was arrested, labelled "incorrigible," and locked up in a reformatory. The description of what went on there reads more like abuse than care. When Velma gave birth to Harry's son, he was taken away "for everyone's good." Fortunately, after a year of incarceration, she got out and married Harry, and they managed to retrieve their child.

"How is it," inquires the author, "that we don't even know [the Female Refuges Act] remained on the books in Ontario till 1964?" How have we forgotten the White Woman's Labour Laws that prevented Chinese businesses from employing "white" women? It behooves us to remember the Chinese Exclusion Act (1923 to 1947) that followed the infamous head tax era. What are we to make of the federal government's rebuff of RCAF veteran officer Gim Wong when he took the case for head-tax redress on the road in 2005, only a dozen years ago?

The history is a central part of the memoir, and the reader can enjoy warm glimpses of Wong, who made a new home for himself in an alien land. The reader gets more than the closure the author is seeking as she quests for some tangible evidence of Wong himself, long after the death of this very important childhood figure whom she took for granted. Only after visiting China is she able to find peace in her memory of Wong. Like The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, this is a book that all Canadian high school students should read.

Outposts by Simon Winchester

Published in 1985 and updated in 2004, this fascinating book describes a series of visits by Simon Winchester to the last remnants of the British Empire.

These throwbacks to another era are mostly small, remote, mid-oceanic islands. All have checkered histories. The island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, is nominally part of the British Indian Territory. Thought by some to be the site of the sunken continent of Lemuria, this islet in the Chagos Archipelago is militarized and well-guarded by the US. Here the journalist author is not allowed to set foot.

With the help of an intrepid Australian yachtswoman, he does manage to make the perilous journey to the mid-Atlantic coral scrap that is Tristan da Cunha, and even to get ashore there.

He also visits the infamous Pitcairn, the largest of a remote Pacific island group that sheltered the Bounty's mutineers. Their descendants, some with the surname Christian, still live on the island.

Another port of call is St. Helena, the South Atlantic island where Napoleon lived out his exile. Observing the local life, he notes that the many happy children born out of wedlock are inclusively called "spares." It also seems the islanders have a strong penchant for bestowing nicknames that refer to past events or escapades. But the author does not learn why a certain policeman is called Pink Balls, and comments that this is "better known to his wife."

The islanders enjoy sharing stories, and the author hears tales of large turtles that live hundreds of years. According to legend, one that died when it came ashore not only provided enough meat for three days' worth of soup for an army group; its shell was large enough to act as a roof for a small cottage a local man was building at the time. He's also told of an amazing feat that used to be performed regularly. School boys carried lunchtime bowls of hot soup down the 699-step Jacob's Ladder on their laps, while they slid down the steep ascent, heads on one rail and feet on the other.

As with all of Winchester's stories, this is a delightful read. He speaks about his travels in terms of geography and weather, and also of obscure and idiosyncratic history. Strange vagaries of the past are laid out for present examination, casting oblique light on the way we are now.

Smiles on order?

The person who taught me the beginnings of this philosophy was a carpenter known in our home town as Jimmy the Greek. "Smile," he said. As a new waitress with a summer job, I didn't appreciate his comment -- thought he was taking undue advantage of his position. In those bygone days, the customer was always right.

Jimmy always smiled and I took myself too seriously. I resented criticism, which was how I interpreted his first request to smile. Fortunately, I couldn't stay mad at him. As a regular, he always had a cheerful comment. Soon he'd invite me to "flip him for coffee." He always tossed, and I often paid from the tips in my apron pocket. Someone said he had a two-headed quarter. But I didn't mind. Jimmy was fun.

Reading a headline in the paper the other day, I was reminded of those long-ago summer I spend as a waitress in Gim Wong's cafe.

"Stop telling me to smile at the gym," screamed the headline. Like the younger version of me, the author had a negative reaction when the woman trainer instructed her to smile.

This interaction illustrates an important life lesson. It's not what happens that matters most. Our interpretation of what has occurred and our stories about what was intended are the things that give us grief.

If being asked to smile triggers a negative reaction, maybe we should wonder why. After all, it's just possible we're being reminded to enjoy the moment. It's hard to argue with such sage advice.

Hal Wake, Eden Robinson, Ali Hassan, and Peter Carey at Whistler Writers Fest

I really enjoyed Whistler Writers Festival. Left, writing conference familiar and expert author interviewer Hal Wake listens while Kitimat novelist Eden Robinson responds to one of his question. Below: comedian Ali Hassan is the interviewer. Along with a rapt audience, he listens to the intermingled funny and serious tones of Peter Carey, who talked about his latest novel.

Music and Stories at Whistler Writers' Fest and Whistler Independent Book Awards

Left, Indy short story writer Mike Sadava, a nominee for the Whistler Independent Book Awards, had a song to go with his stories. Fellow nominee Toko-pa Turner listens from the side. Below, another musical author, Dave Bidini reads from Midnight Light.

Echoes of Kate Atkinson on Thanksgiving Day

Left: Kate Atkinson signs a book for a fan in Vancouver.

I'm so thankful for the opportunity to read the work of amazing writers like Kate Atkinson. From the front row in St. Andrews Wesley last weekend, I delighted to hear her read from her new novel and converse with Vancouver writer Alix Ohlin. I even had a word with her as she signed Transcription. Her latest novel portrays a typist transcribing material captured on hidden recorders by MI5 in WWII.

The transcriptions used, the author assures us, are not actual, but "close facsimiles." Because the technology was less advanced, they contain plenty of gaps and inaudible sections, just waiting to be fleshed out by heated imaginations. In this book, Atkinson says, "Nobody is trustworthy when they tell you who they are."

It's always fascinating to hear how writers create, and how they think about the worlds their novels spring from. I was fascinated to learn that MI5 periodically releases material from their archives into the national archives, where Atkinson did the research for this book. It was also interesting to learn that MI5 used microphones plastered into walls.

Ms. Atkinson says her novel shows how the British "present themselves to themselves" as they look back at the war "through propaganda that we still have." She portrays Juliet, her protagonist, as a scholarship girl who "has been moved out of her class," and "is in exile from herself from the very beginning."

Other comments that stood out for me concerned the world of the time, when aged 18 in 1943, Juliet "has no idea that homosexuality exists." The character of Perry, a gay man, is based on that of Max Knight, (whom I met while reading Rendezvous at the Russian Tea Rooms). This skilled spymaster began his life as a naturalist, and after the war became Uncle Mac, host of a children's nature program on BBC.

When interviewer Ohlin said how much she enjoyed the telling details about food, clothing and household, Atkinson responded by saying "I think I was alive during that period, but I wasn't." Speaking of food, she also informed her audience that "If you could hunt or shoot it, it wasn't rationed," adding that the post-war British diet was "really, truly appalling."

I was also delighted to learn that Jackson Brodie will be back. Indeed, she has finished the new book, and it will coming out soon. I was deeply relieved to hear that although she "did think of killing him off, he's not dead." It was profoundly pleasing to hear that in her "far distant future," she has a "big complicated novel about the early days of the railway."

Though readers find many moments in her novels hilariously funny, Atkinson's humour is "organic;" she never thinks about it while writing. She also feels she writes "filmically," but this too is not a conscious choice. Historical novels like hers, though "not necessarily true," contain "the essence of truth." I couldn't agree more.

A side note supports this idea: after publishing the book, she received a number of touching letters from children of men who flew the bombers. They said it helped them to better understand their dead fathers.

Dead and Kicking -- Paranormal Mystery writer Wendy Roberts at CA -- MV

Ready to evoke the Halloween mood? Join Wendy Roberts as she discusses ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night. Sometimes those spooky noises are just writing prompts from beyond the grave.

Wendy is the author of eleven novels, including two series: the Body of Evidence thrillers and the Ghost Dusters mysteries. She has also penned standalone mysteries Dating Can be Deadly and Grounds to Kill.

Hosted by Canadian Authors -- Metro Vancouver, this event takes place at the Alliance for Arts and Culture on Wednesday, Oct 10 from 7 - 9 pm.

All are welcome and CA members are free. Students with ID $5 at the door; non-members of Canadian Authors pay $10.

The Agony and the Ecstasy with Vancouver artist and writer Michael Klucker

Canadian Authors--Metro Vancouver hosted Michael Kluckner at WORD this year. An attentive audience enjoyed a talk by this cartoonist-painter-writer. "Remainders of the Day" described the highs and lows of his years working to stay afloat. Authorship, he told us, is "a niche market," and one that is constantly changing.

His advice? Stay flexible, develop a thick skin, and don't take resounding indifference personally. Following these principles, Kluckner has survived and thrived from his early cartooning, through the vanished days of making money at magazine writing and the halcyon ones of winning prizes for a beautiful book that catapulted him from his "regional" status when it hit Toronto running, and got him promoted to a "Canadian" writer.

Before the late nineties, an Indy bookstore might carry 4000 titles to serve its local community and book prices were  stable, netting authors about 10% of the retail price. Conditions changed dramatically when Chapters megastores listing 100,000 titles beat back the small booksellers, demanding not only a 50% discount, but a 3-month return option on unsold books. Compounding the problem, Costco and some grocery stores normalized selling books at discount prices. The downward pressure on book prices hit authors and publishers hard.

Less than ten years after the book-buying public was slapped with GST (in 1990), book prices were pushed down and "royalties fell off a cliff." An illustrated coffee table book that would have fetched $40 in the eighties was priced at $35 three decades later. Amazon had become the "poster child" for the online sales model: the platform makes the money, while those who produce the art get next to nothing.

Now that writers and publishers can no longer afford to produce large colourful art books, Michael has moved on. His current genre is the  graphic novel, and his work features archived material, such as newspapers from 1910. Sold at comic fests as well as indies like Black Bond and Book Warehouse, his new work includes a biography of WWI ambulance driver Julia Henshaw, and Toshiko, a fictional Japanese Canadian protagonist in war time. Graphic work, being easier to read, also has the merit of being accessible to a wider and younger group of people, as well as those for whom English is not the mother tongue.

So what's a writer to do? Have a website so people can find you, maintain faith in your solitary craft, and enjoy your community as you find it, both fellow writers and fans. In closing, Michael posed an interesting question. Are contemporary people more interested in authors than books? Whether or not this is true, many now have a "vicarious desire to be part of a creative process."

Dear Corporate-style Charity

I am writing about the enormous calculator and tri-color pen you sent me in the mail. If you are relying on such a device, I suggest you re-check its functioning. Your calculations are clearly incorrect. You say my donation is worth triple the dollar amount I send, yet offer absolutely no evidence for this mathematically nonsensical claim.

A more realistic estimate is that perhaps half my donation will be used to support your good works. The rest will have to be spent on sending the next round of cheap bribes. I understand that giant corporate charities have to solicit funds in a dog-eat-dog world, and compete for diminishing dollars. But may I suggest that the race to flood potential donors with ever fancier plastic goods is far from an ideal solution? I for one resent your transparent attempts at manipulation, not to mention the waste of resources.

Still, since my mother taught me to be polite, courtesy is an ingrained habit, so I must thank you for the calculator and pen. But in these days when every phone and computer has a calculator function, just how many calculators does one household need? Also, has it not crossed your minds that people might donate freely instead of in exchange for "prizes"?

If you really must send "gifts," please refrain from sending more unwanted plastic clutter. Fresh flowers would be a lovely choice, or possibly chocolates. Even better, I'd love a small pet - perhaps a goldfish. But no, those ideas are all too impractical.

I have it! How about a rebate cheque for the money you refrained from spending on bits of plastic? Then you wouldn't be seen to be contributing to the garbage problem and wasting non-renewable energy. I doubt that I'm alone in my frustration at witnessing how as charities like yours work for their various causes, they contribute ever more irresponsibly to the tsunami of junk mail.

On receiving the calculator, I sent you a donation -- in spite of and not because of the bribes. Lest you think this letter is not serious, let me assure you that next time I receive a large package like the one that came yesterday, I will return it to you by the next post, sans donation.

Sending my best regards, and thanking you for your good work, I remain

a sadly misunderstood potential donor (but only if you quit with the bribes)

PS Today in the post, I received a nickel from a rival charity. They've promised to make my donation worth five times as much, because for every dollar I donate, a large life insurance company will donate enough to quadruple it.

Where will this end?

The Quiet Side of Passion, by Alexander McCall Smith

Alexander McCall Smith is always an inspiration. As well as many gentle jokes, each book contains something that shows his finger remains on the pulse of the times. Not to mention an inevitable surprise or two.

After responding to a summons from the incorrigibly pompous Professor Lettuce, Isabel meets a philosophy student and they get into a conversation about the removal of historic statues. This timely and intriguing topic relates to the recent removal of the Sir John A. Macdonald statue in Victoria and the heated public discussion that ensued. As usual, Isabel thinks deeply about various aspects of this thorny question, and opines that although letting a statue stand "says that at a particular time... somebody was admired sufficiently for a statue to to be erected," it gives no indication of how people feel about that person now.

Unwilling to risk quick and sloppy conclusions, she also points out that "You couldn't have a statue of Hitler in Berlin with a footnote at the bottom saying he was responsible for millions of deaths." As a virtual reader of the fictional Applied Review of Ethics that Isabel edits, I look forward to her proposed issue "on the taking down of statues."

I admire Isabel for her awareness of her privileged existence in "a parallel universe to that occupied by most of humanity...insulated from the economic realities that made life a struggle," while she enjoys "editing the philosophical observations of others" and a marriage full of "happiness and contentment." She has always imagined "The printed word, thousands upon thousands of printed words" that occupy her study have "kept it safe...from the enemies of reason." In this book, a surprising event (caused, as always by Isabel's powerful impulse to interfere) causes her to doubt this old belief.

I was fascinated by her interaction with Cat's latest lover. Isabel soon finds she has more in common with Leo than she first assumed. Cat likes boyfriends who are built, "not merely thrown together," and Leo is an attractively physical man. Yet Isabel soon discovers there is more to him than brawn and leonine good looks; they share the important knowledge that "you can't set everything right in this life." She even comes to admire Leo; while she only agonized, he took action to resolve a sticky situation. After another bout of thinking, she concludes that violence, when "wielded righteously," can sometimes act as a "disinfectant."

In a lighter vein, I got a great kick out of the idea that while people might "pursue their androgynous agenda with intimidating ruthlessness...men and women were different," which reminded me of a long-ago blog post I wrote here.

Other delightful lines included "crimes against musicality," and the mistranslated idiom "blue with envy," which in turn evokes the image "ochre with rage."

This author's books never fail to contain some observations of philosophical consolation in the face of life's difficulties. This time, he has Isabel raise the proposition that "love and compassion are the only balm" for what goes wrong in our individual and communal lives. We can remember and act and console ourselves with this simple idea, when inevitably and "irrespective of our intentions," the unexpected arises once more to challenge us.

Isabel also concludes, rightly and consolingly, that "one of the skills one had to develop in life was the ability to distinguish true absurdity from reality, which was not as easy as one might think."

The horoscope lady struggles on, along with the rest of us

Zodiac image from NewsNow

It's been awhile since my last update on the horoscope lady. Disclaimer: I'm not revealing her identity. Though her challenges may be very public, she'll retain her privacy.

This character assessment is based on the psychological principle called projection. These days, some call it mirror work: the flaws that annoy you in others are those you share. Fortunately, that goes for good points too.

Telltale words and phrases suggests the writer of our daily horoscope has yet to overcome her tendency to be disorganized. Her advice to readers reveals that she herself needs a whole year to devote to planning, putting things where she can find them, and developing a more structured routine. In this vein, she recommends taking on new responsibilities to "improve your life."

Her use of language points to the fact that she's still too easily led. An example of self-talk is "Stick to your boundaries," as is the warning not to settle for something that "doesn't sit right with you." She advises readers to stay in control, avoid the temptation to be a follower, and stop letting others confuse you or make you feel insecure. She warns too of the risk entailed by trying to fit in; acting out of obligation allows others to impose. This theme returns in the explicit warning against "letting others get involved in your business." Clearly the voice of experience.

Sadly, she's still a bit of a spendthrift, as revealed by her dire warnings against making "a financial mistake." This theme is repeated in the advice to save money rather than "buying something you don't need." A related flaw is attention-seeking behaviour, an unfortunate tendency to exaggerate in order to grab the spotlight. She castigates herself and her readers with the caution to "stick to the rules," and promises that patience and persistence will eventually result in "getting ahead."

Fortunately, her health is improving. While we see many exhortations to develop good long-term habits and avoid grabbing for immediate results, the old addictions seem to have abated. In her current phase, she's prepared to "embark on a new and healthier routine." Indeed, she states outright: "Take care of your health." To achieve improvement on the mental and emotional front, she also advises the reader to broaden awareness, gain perspective, and seek peace of mind.

It's heartwarming to see her taking her courage in both hands, inviting readers to embark on personal growth by trying "something new," and "exploring unfamiliar territory." It's also good to see her making relationships a priority, as evidenced by her willingness to help those who need her "without complaining." Touting the benefits of considering "what you can do for others," she also promotes the value of "living up to your promises," and hopes helping others will "bring good fortune."

On the whole, there's nothing wrong with the horoscope lady that the rest of us don't share. It's called the human condition. But it's nice to see her moving into more positive territory as she focuses on taking responsibility, building self-confidence and showing "strength and courage."

On the principle that what you see in others is what you are, I hold great hope that after years of struggling with self-control, money and relationship issues, this mysterious yet very public figure is moving into a more mature and satisfying phase of her life.

Phillips screwdriver inspired by eucalyptus seed?

 The unusual seed of the eucalyptus: could this have inspired the Phillips screwdriver?

Alexander McCall Smith's latest Scotland Street moves reader from laughter to contemplation

A Time for Love and Tartan re-introduces us to familiar characters who have moved on since we last met. The Danes having departed, Matthew and Elspeth once more need an au pair to help with the triplets.

The Duke of Johannesburg visits, and suggests his godson, an apparently perfect candidate, for the post. After all, there are "bags of male au pairs" these days. When the exhausted parents learning the young man loves cooking, flower arranging and rugby, they engage him at once.

Meanwhile, Olive, Pansy and Tofu stir up gossip about the trouble between Bertie's parents. His friend Ranald tries to soothe him with the assurance that God will deliver Tofu's comeuppance, when he "eventually gets hold of him."

In moments of delicious whimsy, we catch glimpses of Scandinavian noir, plainclothes nuns, half-opened bills, cheese wars between flatmates, and the dreaded "Glasgow kiss." Over coffee, Domenica and her friend Dilly recall a terrifying moment in the Uffizi Gallery when their friend came down with Stendhal syndrome, a condition that "occurs when you're exposed to too much great art." Poor Antonia "was positively foaming at the mouth and had to be carted off to the hospital."

In a bookstore, Matthew has a terrifying but hilarious run-in with his former school teacher that causes him to hide under his desk. Fortunately, this is resolved when he learns that she too has read Fifty Shades of Grey. Elspeth, who has been too busy with her three toddlers to explore the garden of their new home, suddenly finds she "could go out into the garden and simply smell the roses, if they had any."

Side by side with the humour, this writer's tales express his compassionate wisdom. Waiting to have coffee with Bruce, Pat contemplates the onset of invisibility that accompanies aging. "She was now twenty-five, the point at which eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds start to look through one. Invisibility for the young, of course, is a quality that grows slowly: by thirty, one is beginning to grow fainter; by forty, one is starting to disappear; and by fifty the metaphorical hill has been crossed and one is simply no longer there."

As always, sober themes underpin this delightful story. Angus contemplates the ineluctable passage of time as he recalls a friend of his youth, who once told him that "'just as I get used to something, the future comes and takes it away.'" Domenica has a moment of illumination that dispels her doubts about having married Angus, and gives him "a kiss of peace."

Sitting before the Board who will assess his application for promotion in the Department of Statistics, Stuart experiences his own moment of truth, recognizing with inescapable clarity that the bureaucrats have "lost the ability to appreciate truth, so blinded were they with appearance." This stunning revelation implies action, and Stuart takes a step into the unknown. Over a solitary lunch, he confronts the fact that "he simply did not believe in the utterances that they made their employees chant: the mission statements, the virtue signaling, the gobbledygook. Why should everybody believe the same thing, sign up to the same ideology?"

Matthew and the Duke have a conversation about the current rise of incivility, and the Duke quotes Hamish Henderson, who "believed that we should treat one another with gentleness and love," and be careful not to "disfigure ourselves with hatred." We unleash the forces of incivility "at our peril," says the Duke. "Nobody is above it, and we are just as vulnerable as anybody else."

Creative Scotland has brought two Pygmies (now renamed Forest People) to visit the country, and anthropologist Domenica is asked to help host them. With Dilly's assistance, she prepares a lunch for the visitors. When they arrive, it transpires that they speak neither English, French nor Swahili. This leaves their hostess stumped for conversation as she seats the guests and gives them lemonade.

Then she recalls a word she learned from the Baka people of the Congo, and tells Dilly, "They had a word for the spirit of the forest in which they lived: Jengi." The visitors are electrified, their eyes shining as the man points out the window at the trees in Drummond Place, then gazes back at his hosts "with an ineffable sadness." As Domenica has already told her friend, "their forests are being cut down and they're being relegated to so-called settlements," where "The canopies above their heads will be concrete." And she wants to cry "for the loss of so many of the things that had made the world a richly-textured place: for community, and local culture, and the forests, and the people who lived in them; because now all that was going, swept away, consumed, cut down, taken away."

Glimmering behind these sober themes, the delightfully local atmosphere of Scotland is always visible. The Scottish team shuts out New Zealand in a celebrated rugby match, Angus Lordie hosts a party where he declaims a poem, and the Duke drives himself in his "Belgian" car, as his driver is "off somewhere speaking Gaelic."

Write with JJ Lee September 12 in downtown Vancouver

Canadian Authors -- Metro Vancouver hosts the noted memoirist JJ Lee for a writing workshop, followed by Q & A with JJ. No pre-registration required -- just bring paper and come prepared to write. The event takes place September 12, at 7 pm at the Alliance for Arts and Culture in Vancouver.

Former CBC radio journalist JJ Lee is the Non-fiction Mentor at The Writers Studio SFU. Now working on a second memoir, he'll share his technique for uncovering memories you didn't know you'd forgotten. We'll be working on paper, using JJ's exercise sheet.

Expect to surprise yourself with what you come up with. It's going to be amazing.

Monia Mazigh and daughter Baraa read at Kogawa House

Last evening Historic Joy Kogawa House hosted a reading featuring current Writer-in-residence Monia Mazigh (left) and her poetic daughter. Dr. Mazigh read from her fiction, and from the memoir Hope and Despair, which describes the shocking arrest of her husband Maher Arar, his imprisonment in Syria, and her efforts to clear his name.

Baraa Azar discovered spoken word poetry at Carleton University. "A poem begins as a lump in the throat," she began, continuing, "This poem is not about politics, but about people;" it "transcends caste, color, and religion." Another spoken poem juxtaposed two historic events that took place in 1776. As Jefferson penned The Declaration of Independence, a slave fort was built in Africa. Slaves dropped through the door of no return, and "bare feet wrinkled the sand for the last time."

Baraa's poignant meditation on home ended: "My polaroid picture of home is fading on the back of my eyelids."

Surrounded by lit candles as evening fell, an appreciative audience listened to the work of this remarkable mother and daughter in Kogawa House garden.

Afterwards, we chatted over refreshments that included cherry juice and Monia Mazigh's homemade cake.

Having heard the author read from her novel Hope has Two Daughters, I came away with a copy of this book, which takes place in Canada and Tunisia.

Left: Short story writer Cynthia Flood, Baraa Azar and others relax in the garden.

Seasonal shift now in sight

Altered angles of light and different plants to enjoy are harbingers of autumn. The weather continues warm, no longer hot, with the expectation of rain in a few days.

Left, slanting September afternoon light transforms a coleus into red velvet at the VanDusen Garden. Below, a pineapple ripens in a pot at 99 Nursery in Surrey.

A bit of Quesnel history

It's mid August, and the sky is pink with forest fire smoke as West Quesnel, on the other side of the Fraser, waits under evacuation alert. Opened in 1929, this footbridge once accommodated horses, wagons, and the occasional car, and served the area until 1970. As we trotted across the wooden planking, making the expected noise, I kept expecting a voice to cry out from below, "Who is walking across my bridge?" like in The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Across the street stands the Hudson's Bay store, opened in 1867. Nearby lies an old boiler from the first steamboat to serve the Upper Fraser, the S.S. Enterprise. Another Heritage Corner artifact is a Cornish water wheel used in the Gold Rush.  The Collins cairn marks the successful overland telegraphic connection of Quesnel with New Westminster in 1865. The telegraph arrived in Barkerville three years, but it took until 1907 to reach the Yukon.

 

Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

What happens to the emotional life of young Nathaniel when his mother, due to the secret exigencies of war, must seek to protect him and his sister by leaving them and staying away, entrusting them to the care of strangers?

When in spite of maternal vigilance at a distance, the boy and his sister are grabbed and chloroformed, how does he react? This violent incident results in a reunion of sorts with his mother, but she gives no explanation for her absence. Does he then evolve into "someone not intent on knowing himself but preoccupied with others?"

His father's elaborately explained departure preceded his mother's going. During her absence, a mysterious woman ethnographer suggests that the individual story is "not the important one," and the self "is not the principal thing."

Meanwhile, he grows fond of The Darter, a man who uses Anderson shelters to stash his illegally imported and possibly stolen greyhounds to sell to racetracks. With his protector, Nathaniel travels through "warlight" on the dim backwaters of the Thames. The Darter also finds the boy a summer job, where he falls into his first love affair.

As a young man, Nathaniel attributes his invitation to apply for an intelligence post in the Foreign Office to class, nepotism, and "the possibly inherited quality of secrecy." Taking up his job, he discovers that "with the arrival of peace, a determined, almost apocalyptic censorship had taken place." This is exemplified by the runaway fire in the Baker Street Offices of the Special Operations Executive, presumably set by the "burning officers" who operated worldwide, incinerating all the documents governments wanted to forget.

His late mother, Nathaniel learns, was involved before D-Day in the creation of "Thirty-two aerodromes, along with decoy airfields to confuse the enemy...built almost overnight in Suffolk." These "would never exist on a map," and "would vanish by war's end." Recalling his teen years "living in two worlds as well as two eras," he broods on his youth, when he was buffeted by conflicting stories and experiences.

In his anonymous office in London, while the higher echelons with more knowledge and power are housed above his low floor, Rose's son uncovers as much of her vanished life as he can. He learns that the man who has recruited her, whom she's "tethered to," is someone she met in childhood. Once a young thatcher who fell from her family's roof and broke his hip, Marsh Felon transformed himself into a BBC nature broadcaster and a Gatherer who recruits talent for the secret service -- "among the semi-criminal world or among specialists."

Nathaniel then uses the bits he has gleaned about his mother to imagine her life. Firmly tied to Felon, Rose questions their role, opining that "we are little better than terrorists now." After a long-ago promise kept, and a long lunch of champagne and oysters, Rose slips Felon's leash in Paris to walk the city alone. Returning to the hotel, she reflects that though he has "shown her over the years the great vistas she desired...perhaps the truth of what is before you is clear only to those who lack certainty."

Like his mother after her retirement, Nathaniel finds himself "once more back in a small repeating universe that included few outsiders." Men who once protected him, The Moth and The Darter, have receded to the "ravine of childhood," and after being recruited "almost innocently," he has spent most of his adult life "in a government building, attempting to trace" his mother's career.

In the end, he observes, those who remain in the Service continue to abide "by the secrecy of their roles," even after the war. Years later, these loyal people receive no more than "a quiet sentence in an obituary" mentioning that they "had 'served with distinction in the Foreign Office.'"

In a final effort to redeem his missing past, Nathaniel seeks out the Darter, whom he had abandoned long ago. To his disappointment, he finds not answers, but something quite unexpected. Thinking of the time he has lived through, and recalling how he watched a girl he knew "loosen a ribbon from her hair in order to dive into a forest pool where bouncing bombs had once been conceived and tested," he feels himself to be implicated in "sutras of cause and effect."

"We order our lives," thinks Nathaniel, "with barely held stories," gathering the invisible and unspoken and "sewing it all together in order to survive." Our fates are intertwined like those of the sea pea: "on those mined beaches during the war," this endangered vegetable rebounded from near-extinction, "thanks to the lack of human traffic," to become a "happy vegetable of peace."

The subtle glimmer of ideas and the elusive liminal images suggested in this book will stay with me for a long time. As in earlier works, Michael Ondaatje's luminous prose reflects his poetic bent.