My Ontario Summers Part 2

So today after working out (Zumba Cardio Party!!!), and I was doing my happy dance out on the deck ("I'm going to the cooottaaage, I'm going to the coottaaaage"), my Mom asked me "What is it that you love most about the cottage?"

And I was like "Psha! Mother, don't you know the lyrics of my cottage song? Specifically the second verse?" and went on to recite it for her.  She pointed out that I could almost slam it, and I figured that since song lyrics are pretty much poetry, I could include it here as "something" about literature!  So after perusing my outside cottage literary picks, here is mine- straight from the heart.

My Ontario Summers

It was raining in Vancouver when we got off of the plane and I thought

Right about now they're probably stumbling to bed

After sitting at a campfire for hours on end.

When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't hear the sound of music or laughter

Or the clatter of a boat going by.  How was it that I was stuck at home

While you were there.  I always hate to say goodbye 

To my Ontario Summers, my time at the cottage on the lake.

I'll be rolling back in next year

Whatever it takes.

Where pale blue skies turn to blankets of stars 

Can you believe all this magic is ours?

Throw your cares away.

Once you're up, you're up to stay.  

Its in the sparkle of the sun on the water.

Its in the flickering flames at night.

Its a thousand different little things that make up this feeling

That eveythings gonna be alright.

And the moment that I get there,

I mean the second I arrive I'm struck by that feeling.

Its in the faces of the people who are there.

The smell of the air.

The loons on the bay.

The end of the day.

I always hate to say goodbye

To my Ontario Summers.

Throw your cares away.

Once you're up, you're up to stay.

And what I mean by that is even though it may seem 

So far away, there's a part of you that will always stay.

Cause just one day, just one month, just one summer

Ain't enough.

You'll be back again.

Cause the lake won't let you let go.

So when I'm winding through those tricky roads

After saying sad goodbyes,

I'm always looking over my right shoulder

Like I've left something behind.

But then when August turns to September,

When Summer fades into Fall

I realize what it is.  And that I haven't really lost it at all.

Its where it should be

This imperative part of me.

I forgot my soul there, don't you see?

So my tan lines may fade and I'll start wearing shoes again,

But I'm holding on to that feeling of my Ontario Summers.

My time at the cottage on the lake.

I'll be rolling back in next year, whatever it takes.

Where pale blue skies turn to blankets of stars.

Can you believe all this magic is ours?

Through your cares away.

Once you're up, you're up to stay. 

My Ontario Summer

Hello lovely blog people.  I am in a strange mixture of moods today.  On the one hand, I am absolutely giddy with the knowledge that in a week's time, I will be on a plane to Ontario for two weeks holidays at my Aunt and Uncle's Cottage on Kosh Lake.  On the other, I am in an intense amount of physical pain, as the wicked sunburn I so idiotically procured on Monday has turned into a super sensitive minefield of aching and agony.  OW!  Its so bad that I had to call in sunburnt to work today.  Its like its penetrated into my muscles.  BUT THAT'S OK BECAUSE I'M GOING TO THE COTTAGE IN A WEEK!

Which brings me to the subject of today's blog!  Last Christmas, I gave my aunt and uncle a collection of literature that reminds me of the cottage.  I wrote it all out on pretty paper and bound it with ribbon, and it probably made me more happy making it then anybody gets reading it.  But hey, I'm a lit-nerd, and thats what happens.  I thought that in preparation for my annual cottage trip, I'd share some of those selections here!

Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

I first came across this lovely story sequence in my Engl 222 course, Canadian Literature.  We studied "The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias" and I adored it to no end.  Leacock's entire work is centred on the fictional town of Mariposa, that is loosely based on his home town in Northern Ontario, and also incredibly alike to the small town feel at Lake Kasshbog.  So I obviously love it.  This particular short story that we read in class is about one of those New Orleans style boats- you know, the ones with the windmill type thing on the back?  Anyways, they take one of those out on the lake, practically the whole town is on board, and they get stuck out in the middle and have to paddle themselves to safety, singing the Canadian National Anthem all the way.  Its adorable.  And AMAZINGLY the whole thing is available online for free!!!

A.J.M. Smith's "The Lonely Land"

Yet again a find from my Canadian Lit class, this poem is straight-up Canadian landscape and has the word 'spume' in it.  In one of the epic scrabble showdowns that grace the shores of Kosh Lake every summer, my Aunt Marci played this word, and nobody believed her that it was real.  I can't remember if it cost her a win or not,  but a large deal was made of it.  So when I came across the word the following September, we all felt pretty bad.  The closing line of the poem is also quite wonderful: 

This is the beauty

of strength

broken by strength

and still strong.

 Loves it!

William Butler Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

Choir kids, you'll love this one!  Mr. Horning associates this poem with hitchhiking, and I think that is dumb.  I mean, I guess that technically everyone is welcome to interpret poetry as they see fit, but I think he tends to forget that the "While I stand on the roadway or on the pavements gray" line, is preceded by "...for always night and day/ I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore/" and is followed by "I hear it in the deep heart's core" (Beautiful, by the way, WB my man).  So when I sing this line, I think of the way that I constantly have the cottage on my mind, wherever I am, and that I can't wait to get back there.  Once you've heard lake water lapping, you can't go back. 

There are more, but my back is on fire, and I have to go put a facecloth soaked in peppermint tea on it and lie still for a while.

Next up, I believe, will be another Seamus Heaney poem, that will be perfect for the 38 degree weather I'll be heading into next week (SUCKAAAAAAAAAS!)

Weird things happened to the font/font size of this blog.  Oh well.

See you soon Kosh!

The Hunger Games Trilogy

This morning, I finally finished the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay kept me constantly entertained in the small patches of hours I've had off work for the last couple weeks.  I feel like I haven't blogged in ages (which is suitable, since I haven't), but I wanted to finish all three of Collins' novels before babbling on about them here.  I read the dystopian set on the recommendation of the lovely Jennifer Kelly, who, in her words (ish), knowing my taste, wouldn't suggest a book that "wasn't good literature".  Thanks Jenn.  I agree that The Hunger Games and its sequels are definitely worth reading, and would recommend them to all my literary friends.  Going beyond the "worth reading" stamp though, I would hazard a guess that young adult readers, Collins' target group, would adore the trilogy like my generation adores Harry Potter (moment of silence).

I guess that to some of my readers it sounds silly considering myself something other than a young adult, but when it comes to novel genre, I tend to think of "young adults" as being more in the 14-18 range.  Is that just me?  As much as I enjoyed Collins' trilogy, I sometimes found myself wishing I had read it at a younger age (or I suppose wishing it had been written when I was younger), assuming I would have enjoyed it that much more.  I also think a younger Danica would have cared less about Collins' fragmented style (as in, her style is literally one of sentence fragments), which started to really get on my nerves by book three.  In terms of content and entertainment value though, I was totally sold.  And at the risk of being harshly made fun of by Jenn and Kirstin, I appreciated the trilogy's motif of fire imagery.  (Insert laughter).

For those of you who haven't heard of it, Collins' trilogy is set in the dystopian world of Panem where an elite Capitol rules over twelve underprivileged districts.  Prior to the action of the novels (about 74 years to be exact), a rebellion is described to have taken place, where the Capitol defeated rebel forces from the district, completely demolishing the 13th district, and leaving the others in rather shoddy conditions.  And these jerks at the Capitol have made an annual event to remind the districts of their place.  Welcome to the Hunger Games, where each district pledges a boy and girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to fight each other to the death in a man-made arena full of horrors.  Only one child can win (as in, only one can live).

Isn't that terrible!?  This past year, the boy I tutor did his English 11 book report on Collins' trilogy, and when he explained this general plot line to me I was both completely intrigued and highly disturbed.  Ah, the beauty of dystopian fiction.  I knew right then that I wanted to read Collins' novels, but it took some pleading from Jenn to make it happen.  I was worried that since I knew the basic plot of the novels (pretty intensely in the case of the first) they would be ruined, but that totally wasn't the case.  The things I thought I knew came to a totally different world after entering Panem, and the life of Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss is one of the district twelve tributes for the 74th annual Hunger Games.  She narrates all three novels, and is, I think, one of Collins' greatest achievements.  She's an incredibly believable character, with natural talents and flaws, and the way Collins writes her mindset at any given time is very impressive.  When Katniss doesn't quite know whats going on, neither does her reader.  If Katniss isn't present for a certain event, Collins doesn't fill us in with some lame, detailed conversation between Katniss and someone who was present, but instead allows the reader to fill in the blanks along with her narrator.

Girly girl that I am, one of my most favourite parts of Collins' story was the romance that weaved in and out of it. Again, Katniss' trials with love are very honestly and realistically written.  As the books go on, they get more and more political, and Katniss' uncertainty on her stance on these issues is also quite convincing.

I feel as if I can't go very far into any of the books without giving too much away, but let me say this:  I applaud Collins for her courageous decision to stray from the classic happy ending.  The third novel, the last in her trilogy, closes on a melancholic and even dangerous note, which I fully appreciate.  It gives the whole trilogy a lot more strength, and leaves an impression with her reader that seriously lasts for days.  Its a thinker, her trilogy, and as I mentioned before, it is worth the read for any avid reader.  And if you know a "young adult", buy it for them for their birthday.  They will thank you.

Jai Ho!

I just realized this blog title has the potential to confuse a lot of my faithful readers.  This entry is not about Slumdog Millionaire, and it is not about the epic dance choreographed by Kirstin Hain and yours truly (although you can see it here, here, here and here).  It is, instead, another "list" blog, this time highlighting some of the Indian and Indian-themed literature I've come across in recent years.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it a "genre", but this grouping of texts is definitely a set of sorts, and one that I have almost entirely enjoyed.


Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie 
I've mentioned this novel before, in my "faves" list.  I don't have the book on me (Kirstin, do you have it?), but I know it is close to a whopping 500 pages, possibly more, and that each page is worth it.  Rushdie is generally considered a master of his craft, and I think this novel totally proves that.  Saleem, The main character, and narrator, is an interesting and complex fellow, who is endowed with the magical midnight power of mind reading.  The imagery in Rushdie's novel is probably my favourite thing about it, and its seriously amazing the way he writes it all together.  I've written a couple papers on the way that Rushdie's command of his motifs is what holds this multi generational, cross-continental novel together.  Of the many motifs, my favourites are the blue Kashmiri eyes that distinguish many characters, and the "ticktock" clock of midnight.  I recognize that reading this book is a major feat, and that it won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I feel like any and all true lovers of literature NEED to read this brilliant work.

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
I read this novel for my Major's Seminar class which focussed on Literary Prize Winners.  Roy's novel won the Booker in 1997, and for any who cares to know, tied for first place in the ENGL 490 showdown for best assigned text (it shared top place with Coetzee's Waiting For the Barbarians, another fabulous work, and the one that I was championing).  Roy's novel reads a bit like poetry, a bit like fairytale, and has a very folk-story vibe to it.  In my opinion, Roy's greatest accomplishment in this text is her treatment of structure.  The story centres around twin brother and sister Estha and Rahel, and the way in which a terrible tragedy affects both their lives.  Another highlight of the text is Estha and Rahel's secret language of sorts, and the way it works itself into the writing.  There is a technical literary term for this that I'm kicking myself for not being able to remember.  Like other novels in this set, Roy's considers the Indian caste system, although I must say her treatment of it is much more in depth and focussed than others I've read.  This is a beautiful read, and its not too long, so easy to handle.

Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai

This is another Booker Prize Winner, but I actually read it in my ENGL 204 World Literature class, which wasn't really world lit, but rather "worldly" lit.  All the set novels explored "cultural crossroads" of sorts.  The way this one fit in had to do with the Nepali uprising of the 80's, British citizens living at the foot of a mountain in Tibet, (including two funny old ladies and a young teenage girl), and an illegal Indian immigrant living in New York.  Its really hard to give a taste of the plot of this novel, but its a very interesting read, and gives a neat spin on the typical post-colonial literature of english department fame.  Some nice "setting representing theme" stuff going on. There's also a very well-written romance.

White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
So this is the only novel in this entry that I'm not crazy about.  However, it too won a booker prize (I'm starting to realize how stuck up my taste in lit is coming across), so I'm somewhat the minority in this opinion.  Actually, when I think about it, I'm sure lots of my blog readers would quite enjoy this book.  Its just not my type.  Adiga's novel is narrated in first person, structured by a series of letters that his protagonist, Balram, is writing to the President (if I recall correctly, thats the term Balram uses) of China.  I can't say much more without giving it all away, but Balram is a crazy, self-made man who goes through a lot of crap, but takes it mostly in stride.  Adiga does a nice job of representing a growing and changing India, to be sure.

Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Lahiri
This text is another from my 204 class, and I loved it.  It is a short story collection concerning Indians living in India, Indians living in the states and Americans with Indian heritage living in both.  There is a story about a couple who lose a child, a story about an Indian cab driver (that one is so cute and sad), a couple who move into a house with a bunch of crazy christian objects left behind and kind of hidden around (hilarious), a sad Indian house wife, and many others.  We were only assigned a handful of Lahiri's short stories for class, but I read them all, and thought they were super great.  Again, short stories aren't for everyone, but if you're into them, you'll probably like these ones.


So there you go.  My fourth year at UBC ended up revolving fairly heavily around books from and about India, and for the most part, I found reading them a very rewarding experience.  If you've read, or end up reading, any of the books I've mentioned, let me know what you think!

And seriously, watch the Jai Ho videos, which are probably better than all of these novels put together.