A Boy of Good Breeding

Clever poignant little moments:

#1) "I knew it," said Hosea. "And I do love you." He looked at his hands, at his tapered fingers. They were pudgy, he thought. Why? The rest of him wasn't fat. Could he lose weight in his fingers? They looked childish to him.

#2) He passed a couple of kids walking down the street. Their jackets were open and they were wearing rubber boots. "Hello there," he said, "beautiful spring day, isn't it?" The kids smiled and said, "Hi." They knew who he was but the didn't respond to his comment about the beautiful day. As a rule, thought Hosea, and he must remember this in the future, kids do not respond to comments about the weather.

#3) They lay there quietly for a long time and watched the purple fade from the sky. They saw some lights go on in town and saw Johnny Dranger's yard light go on and they heard his dog bark a couple of times and the slam of a car door and Johnny yelling at the dog. If they hadn't lived in Algren all of their lives they would have smelled the liquid fertilizer on the fields. They were used to the smell of shit.

I thought reviewing books for an online journal would be easy. Until I received a Christmas picture book in July. And actually, I originally requested teen literature. I thought the book was terrible, and had a hard time being even-handed in my response. After all, who wants to read a negative book review - usually they don't get published -in print. As a result, I fallen behind on my blog, not feeling the impetus to review any more books. And furthermore, I just worked 6 days in a row, and believe it or not, nothing particularly strange or funny happened! That may in part be due to the fact that my efforts were concentrated in the children's departments and at this point in the summer, things are "readers-advisory-intensive" as parents drag their reluctant pre-teen readers in for some "good quality literature"...

All I can say about the above excerpts ... A Boy of Good Breeding, by Miriam Toews - it doesn't quite hit the mark like her more recent Governor General Award /Giller Prize winning novel, A Complicated Kindness...but it is still a meandering thoughtful read, rich with quirky characters and the dry sarcasm we have come to know and love from this author. Her novels are fully of clever moments and character that think thoughts that anyone could think but never share...their weaknesses are so real that even when the plot falls through the cracks of credulity, the strength of the story lies in the incredible characters that people it. What's with the title? Well, Hosea Funk, mayor of Canada's smallest town, was the illegitimate child of a mother who gave birth to him during a trip to the outhouse and then claimed a man on a horse gave her the baby, and so he grew up, a mystery child "kindly" cared for by a selfless young woman.

Started But Not Finished...

Becoming Chloe by Catherine Ryan Hide (YA)
--- opens with a back alley rape scene, and portrays two street youth: a traumatized girl running from the abuses of countless group homes, and a gay teenage boy with a mysterious welt on his head...felt too heavy for such a sunny day.

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme
--- "the seamy and quirky stories behind favorite nursery rhymes" by Chris Roberts (A British librarian!) - really interesting, but again, just too much to read right now!!

In Progress...

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
--- seems everyone has read this book but me, and those who haven't cast a derisive eye on it, seemingly unable to get past the word "Lolita" which actually has tragic parallels to the lives of many Iranian woman - for example, those forced to marry at age 12??

Tapas on the Ramblas: A Russell Quant Mystery by Anthony Bidulka
---Comforting like a Nancy Drew novel. Aaaah. Well, maybe Hardy Boys. Well, actually gay Hardy Boys. This was an addition to a Canadian mystery writer booklist I created - I am now trying to read all the books I annotated!