| For any literary crusader, the opportunity to rate a year’s books is like a dream come true. The task, however, is much harder than one might think, and narrowing the list to five books is well nigh impossible. Still, what’s life without challenge? Not only was it a stretch for me to narrow the field, but the books I ultimately chose were those that challenged me either as a reader or a writer.
Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (Penguin Group) tops my list. Though it seemed a bit of an easy call to choose a bestseller–and something I would usually avoid–it also would have been dishonest to avoid the obvious. Truss’s attempt to tackle the impossible (English grammar) in a way that is both scientific and entertaining at a time when the Internet and e-mail encourage more people to write–badly–is a remarkable accomplishment. Hate me for it if you must, but I too believe there is a relationship between words, punctuation and meaning, and I have been known to correct grammatical errors in graffiti, on billboards etc. I’m green with envy that Truss actually got in there and wrote a book about it.
Paul Anderson’s 1400-page Hunger’s Brides: A Tale of the Baroque (Random House) is an endurance test because of its length and took him 12 years to write, but the pace as well as the passionate, graceful language suits his subject. The 17th Century Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz lived her short life in the shadow of the Inquisition and was a legend in the Spanish-speaking world. Anderson also has a brilliant rationale for the size of the project. He thinks we limit ourselves when we have too strict a notion of what a novel should be. "I’m struck by how convention-bound this art form is," he says. "We should set ourselves goals that no one else dares to imagine."
In his first novel, The Cripple and His Talismans (Raincoast Books), Vancouver playwright Anosh Irani also strays dangerously close to the edge of what audiences will accept. Using devices of magic realism–archetypal characters, an un-named time and exotic location (Bombay, India)–he creates a narrative that is also a kind of myth and journey to enlightenment. The writing is simple and elegant, yet there are many layers of meaning. The reader’s job is to suspend disbelief and not be dismayed by images that may seem cruel and alien. The experience is worth it.
With Wild Dogs (HarperCollins), Helen Humphreys has produced yet another evocative novel in addition to her four books of poetry. This time she uses six characters, all of whom are outsiders, to explore aspects of wildness, which she likens to the experience of falling in love. "Love is a wildness; it can turn on you," says Humphreys. These are not six separate stories, however; timing is everything, and they each have a part to tell.
In a way, Margie Taylor is also exploring aspects of wildness in her latest novel, Displaced Persons (NeWest Press), but with a smaller cast of characters. The inspiration for her story is a former friend, a free-spirited young woman who is so "out there" she challenges others to be "the bad girl." When this reckless outsider ends up dead, Taylor decides to solve the mystery but ends up exploring her own rootlessness. Because the novel is also about the need to belong, the use of the phrase "displaced persons," which came into common usage after World War II, is very intentional. |
