The Little Stranger

I just finished reading Sarah Waters' latest novel, The Little Stranger, and I'm pleased to report that it's something of a return to form for my favorite contemporary novelist.

Not that I thought The Night Watch was a bad novel. Quite the contrary, in fact. It's just that after her first three novels, with their engaging narrators and fascinating fusion of the genre conventions of the Victorian era with insights into elements of Victorian culture that the Victorians themselves would never have discussed (for instance, unless Silas Marner or Romola turn out vastly different than I'm expecting, I don't think George Eliot ever gave us an informed look into the wide, wonderful world of Victorian pornography), it was a little jarring to read a very modernistic tale of WWII era England delivered by an utterly dispassionate 3rd-person narrator. I agree wholeheartedly with these sentiments of Rohan's:

I would also appreciate some exposition, a thicker layer of narrative commentary, even some philosophizing! Waters's touch is so light that I find it hard to be sure what she thinks is important about the moment she has chosen, or why she develops the kinds of characters and linkages she does.

Where Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and especially Fingersmith all draw the reader in to their richly imagined worlds, The Night Watch almost seems determined to hold you at arm's length. Again, it's not a bad novel; in fact, it's an excellent read. I'd certainly rate it higher than Tipping the Velvet, which, for all that it's a fun read, is more than a little overstuffed and less than a lot focused. But, all the same, three years after I first read them, I can still intimately remember the plots of her first three novels. Hell, I can still shut my eyes and imagine myself into their settings, as though I were a fly on the wall watching Sue's first departure Mrs. Sucksby's home, her final showdown with Gentleman, or (*blush!*) her first awkward lovemakings with Maud. I read The Night Watch more recently than all three of those, and all that springs to mind when I think of the novel is it's reverse-chronological structure and one particularly squirm-inducing scene involving a botched abortion.

So I opened up The Little Stranger with a mix of excitement and trepidation. I was certainly expecting a great read, but would it be a great read like The Night Watch, or a GREAT read like her previous novels? Turns out it's GREAT. Not on the level of Fingersmith, but certainly a cut above Tipping the Velvet and maybe even Affinity, to which it bears the most similarities.

Waters doesn't return to the Victorian settings of her early works: we're dealing again with post-War England. What she does return to is a heartfully (my spellchecker claims that's not a word, but fuck it, I'm coining it) rendered first-person narrative that draws you in to the emotional lives of its characters, all the while confronting you with more interesting questions to ponder than "are we going backwards in time for a reason?" and "why is the narrator so bored with its own story?" Here some thorny, fascinating thematic issues are presented without the aseptic subtlety of The Night Watch. Hell, without any subtlety at all: Waters probably could have cut ten pages worth of narrative asides from her final draft had she simply opened the novel with a disclaimer announcing "This is a novel that considers the complex thoughts and feelings people of both the upper and lower social classes have to the stratified history of English society, and how those thoughts and feelings are upended by the rapid social change of the post-War era." I don't mean that as a criticism, mind you. While Waters' chosen theme is very, very obvious, it is skilfully used to inform every aspect of the book, from the possibly supernatural "ghost story" elements of the plot, to the motivations and aspirations of all the beautifully realized characters.

At the same time, Waters' outright abandons the lesbian themes of her previous work. We're dealing here with a straight male narrator, surrounded by a handful of well-developed straight supporting characters, both male and female (well... one of these women might be gay, but the thought certainly never occurs to the other characters, or especially the narrator). And, being a red-blooded young straight male, it's a relief to be able to report that I find Waters' ability to weave a compelling narrative in no way diminished by a lack of hot lesbian sex scenes.

To sum up: this is a well-crafted, occasionally suspenseful, definitely gothic, possibly ghostly novel that makes up for any occasional lapse in the momentum its gothic narrative by simultaneously telling a compelling human story about some fascinating characters. This is a great novelist at work, people. I don't really care what your usual literary tastes may be: do yourself a favor and pick it up as soon as it hits paperback.

What Would Jesus Do?

Apparently, he'd beat a 7-year old girl to death with a quarter-inch plumbing supply line. Because children must be beaten into perfect obedience, and a proper spanking leaves a child "without breath to complain."

B.I.G. and Me: Things Done Changed

Banger, who I'm told by XXL was a member of Biggie's posse, Junior M.A.F.I.A., said of his mentor that he "absorbed his whole life;" that when anything happened to him he'd "analyze it and absorb it and suck it up and then make a song about it."

Ready to Die, his debut album, is riddled with social observations, but they aren't phrased overtly in the way the commentary on a song like 2pac's "I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto" is. Where Pac would takes a more global view with a line like "I see no changes/All I see is racist faces," Biggie maintains a street-level perspective: "I hear you mother fucker's talk about it/But I stay seein' bodies with the motherfuckin' chalk around it."

The opening lines of "Things Done Changed," the first song on Ready to Die, illustrate Banger's assessment of Biggie beautifully. "Things Done Changed" is not the first track on the album. True to Sean Combs' love of excess (for the uninitiated, that's Puff Daddy, or P. Diddy, or Diddy, CEO of Bad Boy Entertainment and Ready to Die's producer), the album opens with a nicely constructed audio collage that introduces you to Big's world: a medley of song samples and urban ambiance that takes you from Big's birth in the comparatively peaceful Harlem of the early 1970s to the then-present urban hellhole of the early '90s. Like I said, it's nicely constructed, but you have to wonder why anyone thought it was necessary when Biggie opens the album up with:

"Remember back in the days? When niggas had waves,

Gazelle shades and corn braids,

Pitchin' pennies, honeys had them high top jellies

Shootin' skelly', motherfuckers was all friendly,

Loungin' at the barbecues, drinkin' brews,

With the neighbourhood crews, hangin' on the avenues,

Turn your pages to nineteen-ninety-three,

Niggas is gettin' smoked, G: believe me."

Few novelists can paint a picture for you with so few words. I'll tell you right now, I do not have any memory of back in the days, when African-Americans had waves. But with just seven lines (or approximately seven lines... obviously there's some degree of arbitrary editing on my part to put a verbal art form into written words), half of which focus on nothing more than fashion trends, Biggie puts you in a sepia-toned idealization of a thriving community and subculture. Your brain almost wants to block out the harsh street beat he's rapping over and replace it with some Motown. And then at the end of the stanza, with a single line, he flips the script on you: this isn't a song about nostalgia; it's a song about the horrifying contrast between what once was, and what is now.

From there, the song stays focused on the urban blight of post-crack Harlem, presenting a street-smart and brutally blunt assessment of the social mores of Big's mileu ("Instead of a Mack 10, he tried scrappin'/Slugs in his back and that's what the fuck happens") that can resonate even with those who have no personal experience of those conditions (like me!).

At the same time, Big crafts a deceptively broad social comment, that ranges from depicting the horrors of the endemic poverty that pushes people into a life of crime (Shit, it's hard bein' young/From the slums/Eatin' five cent gums/Not knowin' where your meal's comin' from"), to calling out the political establishment's apathy to the blight afflicting Harlem (the aforementioned "I hear you mother fuckers talk about it..."), to warming Republicans' hearts by refusing to absolve his own generation from at least a partial share in the responsibility for their situation ("Back in the day our parents used to take care of us/Look at 'em now, they even fuckin' scared of us"). And then at the end, he brings it all back to the personal, opining "shit, my Mom's got cancer in her breast/Don't ask me why I'm mother fuckin' stressed/Things done changed." Even in the midst of this social horror, the universal horrors of every day life go on.

Not too shabby for a single song from an artist who's never really gotten props for his political side.

Next up: we discuss "Gimme the Loot" and whether Biggie glorifies violence. And we make fun of my least favourite widely-respected music critic (who's that, you ask? Stick around and find out!).

My Friend Robert: An Earnest, Productive Member of His Community

[Note: One thing I hope happens if I keep up with this blog is that, as a result of my being a somewhat eclectic person, I'll end up with a little something for everybody. And, by extension, I'll get people to read about stuff they wouldn't normally be interested in. In that spirit, this post is the beginning of a new series designed with the intention of expanding the appeal of my blog to my friend Robert's mother (Hi Kathy!), who apparently read the blog and didn't find my posts about musical theatre, hip hop, and video games interesting.]

My friend Robert Hammer works full time as a high school teacher at Citadel High, the fanciest public school in town. Now, if I had to spend 40 hours a week dealing with high school students, probably the only thing I would want to do when I got home is huff paint and watch slasher movies. But not my friend Robert! In whatever spare time he has, Robert volunteers for the NDP, knocking on doors when there's an election, attending meetings and colloquiums when there isn't, and presumably also doing some sort of third thing under some sort of third condition for the purpose of completing this list.

He doesn't do it for the money (because he isn't paid!). He doesn't do it for the glory (because their isn't any glory involved in provincial politics). He doesn't do it for the thrill of victory (because the candidate he worked tirelessly for in the last election was the only NDP incumbent to lose). No, he does it because he believes it's the right thing to do. Because he believes in giving something back to his community. Because he wants, in whatever small way he can, to make the world a better place.

I admire him a lot for that; although, of course, I'd never tell him, because it might seem like I was coming on to him. As annoying as it may be to call your best friend and say "Hey, it's Saturday night, let's drink some beers!" and hear "I can't, it's a by-election weekend!" (seriously, folks, true story), and as annoying as it may be to have to be dragged from the comfort of your apartment SEVERAL TIMES to go knock on doors in Dartmouth and try to convince old ladies that Darrell Dexter doesn't actually plan to sell Nova Scotians into slavery building monuments to the NSGEU, the fact remains that spending your spare time working for the betterment of your community is a truly noble undertaking.

Applaud this man, folks!

Overheard at the Neurosurgery Clinic

"Dumb and Dumber? I found that movie so stupid."

Those Crazy Evangelicals

I know that evangelicals and other Christians, when trying to defend themselves from the charges of homophobia and bigotry that result from their decision to dedicate their lives to the advancement of the causes of homophobia and bigotry, often recite the slogan "Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner." You know, because it's not really gay people that gross them out. Gay people are fine! It's just all the gay things they do that are problematic, like pursuing members of the same sex for their romantic relationships, or demanding equal rights under the law.

Anyways, I had a thought: given that so many of these prominent purveyors of religiously inspired hatred turn out to be deeply fucked-up closet cases who are perfectly happy to do what they want in their secret lives while punishing those who have the integrity and courage to live their's openly, a more accurate slogan for their movement might be "Hate the Sinner, LOVE the sin!"

The Ladies of Nintendo: Princess Peach

Even from an early age, I think I've had a pretty clear feminist bent: I can remember that in 3rd grade, when once a week we had to write FIVE SENTENCES on any subject and read them to the class, I wrote an (eloquent, powerful, and remarkably well composed) paragraph explaining that two of my best friends were girls and that I didn't care that people made fun of me because of it.

What I don't know is how I managed to arrive at that point, given that my earliest feminine ideal was Princess Peach (or, as we called her back then before the Japanese revealed her first name to the West, Princess Toadstool). Because, love her as I do, I can hardly deny that she's a ridiculously sexist character. It almost seems pointless to develop an argument for such an obvious proposition, but let's just take a look at her:

The outrageously pink dress. The dainty white gloves. The even more dainty posture. The vacuously cheerful stare. I'm not going to post a sound clip of her voice, but would you believe me if I told you that it's high-pitched and bubbly? This is not a lady who's at all likely to grace the cover of Ms. And we haven't even gotten into the fact that she's constantly getting kidnapped and passively waiting for Mario to come save her. Or that the one time that Mario and Luigi got kidnapped and Peach got to come to the rescue, she did so by...

...summoning her incredible emotion powers, like the ability to cry on command. But really, using primary evidence isn't even necessary. Instead I'll just point you to this Gamespy article. I'm not prepared to endorse every word in the article, but let's just face the facts: when a staff writer for an online video game magazine sets aside his latest draft of "Epic Boobage: The Top 15 Shots of Tifa's Chest in Final Fantasy VII" to complain that a video game character is setting the clock back on feminism, you know that you're representing some pretty retrograde gender ideals. Hell, even when she ditches the damsel-in-distress, whiny spoiled rich girl persona to, say, play some extreme soccer, she chooses to dress like this:

And when I was five, Princess Peach did that little floaty jump of hers right into my heart. This was the girl. The girl worth charging through eight crazy worlds filled with obstacles for; the girl worth learning how to do running jumps across the narrow platforms of world 4-2 when my cousin Andrew refused to continue doing it for me. It's really quite amazing that I never developed any sort of complex about pretty, spoiled rich girls. Ahem.

And, even now that I'm older and I can peer through the lens of my liberal arts education to see that Peach represents some pretty retrograde gender norms, I still love her. I play as her in Super Smash Bros, and any other game where she's playable (and I firmly believe she should have been playable in New Super Mario Bros). Hell, it's entirely possible that it was the degree to which I wanted to go to the Mushroom Kingdom and hang out with Peach's court that made me so comfortable at a young age with having girls for friends, even if the other kids made fun of me, and laid the groundwork for my later feminist outlook. That's a bit paradoxical, but I've never claimed to be anything less than a complicated and deeply fascinating man.

Anyways, I say all this so that, a little later on, when I write a post defending the other major Nintendo princess (that's Zelda, of course... I don't have much to say about Daisy) from feminist criticism, I have something to point to to establish that I'm capable of acknowledging the problematic elements of characters that I retain a nostalgia-tinted fondness for.

[Edited February 18, 2010 to make the Tifa joke funnier.]