Thursday, February 26, 2009
February 27, 2009: Ambitions, books, and something starting with C
I'd suspected my IF work in progress was too ambitious, but this morning I quantified that. If I pull this off it might actually be okay. If I don't pull it off...
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My book tastes have almost no discernible pattern. I'm working on it, sure, but I discover books the way I discover music: by spinning outward from more and more starting points that often don't have much to do with each other. Sure, a lot of my book tastes have to do with my two major formative periods (childhood and age fourteen), but that's not usually how it works. Generally, it's spinning outward. And sometimes it's directly related to music, as it was with Not Wanted On The Voyage.
This, of course, is the name of a Christine Fellows song from Nevertheless, my favorite album of 2007. It was also a Timothy Findley book, a fact which it evidently took me a whole year to discover. This is a problem! Fortunately, we have a great library here which I took advantage of.
Findley's a Canadian author, of a tradition in which I'm embarrassingly underversed - well, un-versed, really. I've read quite a few books by Margaret Atwood but that comes from some other place entirely. I guess it just makes sense, in a way. My favorite albums of 2007 and 2008 were, by coincidence, both Canadian. (2009 will most likely break that trend, though, unless Kristin Hersh decides to move to Canada - which wouldn't be all that surprising actually. She's moved most other places.)
Not Wanted On The Voyage is based on the story of Noah's ark. I know the story, of course; it's one of the most well known Biblical stories and it was included in the copy of Genesis my father kept in his office which I used to read all the time as a kid. (Just Genesis. As a kid I thought that was the whole Bible. I don't remember what translation it was. I think there may have been pictures, though.)
Furthermore, I'd already read a book about Noah's ark: Many Waters, by Madeleine L'Engle. I read that book a lot, most recently this summer. It held up quite well. (Tangent: I actually read it first, not A Wrinkle in Time or any of the others in the series. Apparently this is unusual.)
So I pictured Japheth as this short, endearing guy who dodders around talking about the Sand and the Den. Shem is married to Elisheba and Japheth to Oholibamah and Ham to Anah and I don't know why a bunch of Victorian-named (or 2008 neo-Victorian-named) people like Hannah and Emma and Lucy have been transported in.
It only took me a couple of pages to lose all of those thoughts.
At first I thought it was going to be a comedy (yes, start cringing now.) The prologue did it, as well as the introductions. There's a great scene near the beginning where Japheth is wandering about, having been ignored by a bunch of folks, and he's naked, bitter and blue. (Literally blue. There's a reason which I won't spoil.) There's a peacock hanging around and in this wonderful theatrical gesture, he pumps a fist in front of him, in anger or a misplaced sense of "See, I really am a Tough Dude!" And the peacock just turns around and walks away, as if to say "Denied." There's so much characterization in so few details.
And then everything goes downhill. The pacing is pretty interesting. You'd expect the coming of God to be a big climactic event, but it's not. It happens pretty close to the beginning. There are about four events, successively more tragic, which are all pretty convincingly played as the Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen, but there's always worse. One of them - I'd say "you'll know which one" but see the previous sentence - literally made me sick to my stomach, which rarely happens for me in books.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the themes. I'm being purposefully vague because I don't want to spoil this - I made the mistake of reading a spoiler and it was rather irritating - but there's a lot being said here about women, and families, and nature, and those who are different.
Oh, hell, SPOILERS after this point.
What struck me in particular was that scene, once everyone's on the ark, where the "factions," if you will, have already split up, and they go down to Mrs. Noyes and family for food. But they call it "going shopping". There's no "And that's terrible." commentary there that I remember. It speaks for itself.
And you'll never listen to the Christine Fellows song the same away again once you know where the lyrics come from, I promise.
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I didn't mean for this section to exist until I realized "ambitions" started with A and "books" with B. In order to salvage the untended pun, this filler was brought to you by the letter C. Ta-da.
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