“You Haven’t Changed A Bit”: Astrid Blodgett’s Superlative Meditation on Relationships

May 5, 2016 By Brett in Alberta, Books / Literature, Society Tags: Alberta, Astrid Blodgett, Books, Canada, Inspiration, Literature, Relationships, Short Stories, Writing 14 Comments

Cover -- You Haven't Changed v.2

Astrid Blodgett’s recently published first collection of short stories, You Haven’t Changed A Bit (Univ. of Alberta Press 2013), is stunningly well written. As I finished the book for the second time, I reflected how these stories brought to mind Rainer Maria Rilke’s observation about how each of us cannot help but be a mysterious solitude in relation to one another and, most especially and paradoxically, to our closest loved ones.

Almost all the thirteen stories in this wonderful volume explore fissures in relationships — whether between spouses, partners, siblings, parent-child or friends — and the unspoken mental landscape that inexorably shapes those relationships. Notably, most of these tales are told from the perspective of a female character, who mainly endure the emotional pain that accompanies varying degrees of psychic distance from a loved one.

A small sampling: In “Don’t Do a Headstand” a visit by her husband’s pregnant teen niece highlights the growing and likely irreparable gap between the spouses. “Zero Recall” explores the toxicity of a husband’s mistrust and the wife’s ensuing bitterness at being treated unfairly, both of which threaten the couple’s bond following an unfortunate mix-up at a blood donation center. The realization by young adult friends that divergent life paths will impact their ties in “Let’s Go Straight to the Lake” is skillfully elicited by the piece’s authentic, slightly awkward dialogue and scene-setting. Several of Blodgett’s stories are especially poignant, particularly “Ice Break,” about fragile parent-child relationships and the weight of guilt from choices that can’t be undone. This latter story is one that I’ve written about previously and compelled me to seek out more of Blodgett’s captivating writing.

In an effort to stick with my preference for conciseness, I’ll conclude by simply noting that each of the stories in You Haven’t Changed A Bit is a pitch-perfect gem, characterized by truly graceful and insightful writing by a talented writer who is worth every bit of your attention.

Astrid Blodgett

Astrid Blodgett

More information about Astrid Blodgett and her writings can be found at the author’s website here.

The Orenda and the Constant of Change

July 9, 2014 By Brett in Books / Literature, History, Ontario, Society Tags: Canada, Culture, First Nations, History, Inspiration, Joseph Boyden, Literature, Ontario, The Orenda 19 Comments

Oh, that bittersweet feeling of finishing a good book that not long before was a welcome and constant companion! So it is with my having just finished Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda, a gripping epic set around the mid-1600s during the time of first contact between First Nations people and Europeans in what would become Canada. The Wendat, or Huron, people, who are one of the principal subjects of this book, believed that each of us and every thing is endowed with an “orenda” or life force, and, so it is, more broadly, with cultures.

Not surprisingly, The Orenda was the top choice in the 2014 Canada Reads competition and good reviews abound for this riveting novel (for instance here on GoodReads). So, rather than pen another, below is a brief excerpt that encapsulates one of the deep philosophical themes underlying the drama that unfolds within its pages. Throughout my reading of Boyden’s poetic work my thoughts continually dwelled on how this snapshot of a not-too-distant earlier time aptly reflects the concepts found in Buddhism, Hinduism and some other spiritual traditions of samsara (the cycle of birth, death and re-creation), change and suffering, each of which are constants in our world and in the clash of civilizations throughout history.

“Success is measured in different ways. The success of the hunt. The success of the harvest. For some, the success of harvesting souls. We watched all of this, fascinated and frightened. Yes, we saw all that happeed and, yes, we sometimes smiled, but more often we filled with fret. The world must change, though. This is no secret. Things cannot stay the same for long. With each baby girl born into her longhouse and her clan, with each old man’s death feast and burial in the ossuary, new worlds are built as old ones fall apart. And sometimes, this change we speak of happens right under our noses, in tiny increments, without our noticing. By then, though, oh, by then it’s simply too late.

“Yes, the crows continued to caw as crows are prone to do, and after a while we got used to their voices even when they berated us for how we chose to live. Some of us allowed them their cackling because we found it entertaining, others because we believed our only choice was to learn how to caw ourselves. And still others kept them close for the worldly treasures their masters promised.

“It’s unfair, though, to blame only the crows, yes? It’s our obligation to accept our responsibility in the whole affair. And so we watched as the adventure unfolded, and we prayed to Aataentsic, Sky Woman, who sits by the fire right beside us, to intervene if what we believed was coming indeed coalesced. But Aataentsic only need remind us that humans, in all their many forms, are an unruly bunch, prone to fits of great generosity and even greater meting out of pain.”

~~~

Alice Munro on Restless Nights

November 15, 2013 By Brett in Books / Literature Tags: Alice Munro, Best American Essays, Canada, Essay, Family, Literature, Memoir, Restless Nights, Sleeplessness, Writing 8 Comments

Last month, when I heard that Alice Munro had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature I was somewhat embarrassed to realize that while I had heard of her I could not recall reading any of her work despite my having diligently mined many of the best writers of the short story form. So I was pleasantly surprised the very next day to have stumbled upon her autobiographical essay “Night” among the selections in The Best American Essays 2013, a volume that I had bought only a few days before (and which I highly recommend, by the way).

In this at times humorous essay originally published in the literary journal Granta, Munro reflects upon a particular period as a teenager when her sleep was fitful and how she dealt with that by sneaking out at night. Her nocturnal meanderings ultimately led to a memorable and poignant encounter with her plain-spoken father, which is hinted at in the following excerpt:

One night – I can’t say whether it was the twentieth or the twelfth or only the eighth or the ninth that I had got up and walked – I got a sense, too late for me to change my pace, that there was somebody around the corner. There was somebody waiting there and I could do nothing but walk right on. I would be caught if I turned back.

Who was it? Nobody but my father. He too was looking toward town and that improbably faint light. . . .

He said good morning, in what might have seemed a natural way except that there was nothing natural about it. We weren’t accustomed to giving such greetings in our family. There was nothing hostile about this – it was just thought unnecessary, I suppose, to give a greeting to somebody you would be seeing off and on all day long.

I said good morning back. . . .

“Having trouble sleeping?” he said.

My impulse was to say no, but then I thought of the difficulties of explaining that I was just walking around, so I said yes.

He said that was often the case on summer nights.

“You go to bed tired out and then just as you think you’re falling asleep you’re wide awake. Isn’t that the way?”

I said yes.

I knew now that he had not heard me getting up and walking around on just this one night. The person whose livestock was on the premises, whose earnings such as they were lay all close by, who kept a handgun in his desk drawer, was certainly going to stir at the slightest creeping on the stairs and the easiest turning of a knob.

* * *

(Photo credit: Derek Shapton)