My favorite novels are those that examine life. Among a recent batch of a donation to the floating book shop was one such,
A Season in the Life of Emmanuel by Marie-Claire Blais, a French Canadian, translated from her native tongue. The titular character has just been born into a poor farming family in rural Quebec, pre-electricity, the 16th child. The narrative begins from his point of view, then shifts constantly among several family members, mostly between the maternal grandmother, the family's rock, and a sickly adolescent male who is driven to write. The father is brutal and scoffs at education, the mother overwhelmed. The grandmother is tough love personified. She says to the infant: "Ah, my child, no one is listening to you, there is no use in crying. You will soon learn that you are alone in this world." Published in 1965, the novel describes the harsh conditions of the region, where winters are long and death is a constant even among the young. Of course, such a large brood will have diverse personalities. The most interesting are the aforementioned writer, his larcenous younger brother, and an older sister who embraces suffering. Given the year of publication, there may have been restrictions on how descriptive the author could be regarding sexual content. I suspected the brothers were buggering, in part to ward off the cold of night, but wasn't sure until I read the Afterword by Nicole Brossard. When reading such a work I can't help but thinking how lucky we are to be living in the modern western world. We may question what life is about, but we do it with the advantages of creature comforts that take a lot of the sting of the great mystery out of it. We can escape into simple pleasures or vices. Given the misery the characters of the book suffer, they must have constantly been thinking "What the hell is this?" or in modern parlance: "WTF!" Yet the young writer, despite infirmity and his unforgiving social and physical environment, carries on cheerfully, indomitable. This can be seen today also, of course, that fascinating contrast of the positive persona of one of meager or modest means vs. the miserable one of someone blessed with wealth and good health. Blais, 76, has written more than 20 novels and won ten minor literary awards. ...
Emmanuel was her third. Although it is by no means an easy read, it is well worth the journey through its 123 pages of tiny print, its leaps between stark realism and flights of fancy. There is no plot. It is a portrait done by a skilled artist. To my surprise, there was a French film adaption in 1973. It is held in low regard. There have been two other Canadian adaptations of her work, both in French.
Given their wealth of young talent, I thought the Cubs would dominate MLB for several years. Maybe it's the Mets who will.
It is rare, perhaps a once or twice a year occurrence, when I make out like a bandit running the floating book shop. Today on Bay Parkway I immediately sold a book in Russian, and John Grisham's
The Brethren to Jack of Chase. For more than an hour it looked like that would be it in terms of sales. Steve, aka Conspiracy Guy, donated a handsome pictorial on guitars and an instructional VHS from the phenomenal Eric Johnson. He says he's been playing for 50 years and considers himself "world class." I wasn't surprised when both sold a while later, but I was surprised that a middle age Asian man and not a young man bought them. A young Asian woman then purchased works of non-fiction on women under Mao and a bio of Katharine Graham, who at one time ran the
Washington Post, which was purchased by her father, and who rubbed shoulders with celebrities of all walks of life. Then Katerina came along. She'd bought
Killing a while ago and struggled with it, as her first language is Russian. Despite that, she was gracious enough to buy
A Hitch in Twilight. Right behind her came a middle age couple who carefully looked at my display. The male noted my name and said: "That's my friend I was tellin' you about." I asked how he knew me. He raised his head and I stared into his face and realized it was Phil, a friend from the Exchange I'd written about in a short story,
Distinctions, about a raucous night on the town. We hugged and patted each other on the back and chatted for a bit. Since they had an errand to run, they left for a while. Meanwhile, Mike, a local super, handed me a banana. When Phil returned he brought me a cup of coffee and a Danish, and he bought
Killing, Close to the Edge and
Rising Star. We reminisced about his firing. He was going through a divorce at the time, mad at the world, and he and a young member of our staff tried to steal a broker's briefcase, which contained about $1000, during the gold market's close, which was usually hectic. He spent a harrowing night in a holding cell filled with hardened criminals. He asked me for bail money, $300 if I remember correctly, which his sister, Cetta, the woman with him today, picked up. I encouraged him to join Facebook. My thanks, my friend, and to the other kind folks who made this a great day. I was so lucky I even scored a good parking spot to set the next three days of operation. Sometimes you just get lucky.
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
