Synchronicity

One of my favourite podcasts is Canadian, Eleanor Wachtel's Writer's and Company, a 2011 Silver Medal program at the New York Festival for World's Best Radio Programs. Each Sunday at 3, Ms. Wachtel introduces us to a new literary figure, primarily through so-in-depth author interviews and retrospectives.  I am always so impressed by her breadth of knowledge and her and her team's depth of research - it is rare that I come away without learning something new. This past week was no exception.  Note that these podcasts can be heard any time, and there is a wealth of interesting episodes to spend many a snowy afternoon in pleasurable company.


I first heard Colm Toibin, 2013 Blue Metropolis winner, in an August, 2014 podcast where he talked about The Testament of Mary, his short novel on the mother of Jesus who is reflecting on her son's crucifixion 20 years after the fact.  As a lapsed Irish Catholic myself, it was a brilliant read.  Have you never wondered about who she was?, beyond the flowers and benevolent smile that shines down upon us from every statue, icon and painting.


Mr. Toibin is an Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland native and perhaps it is because he is so close to my roots (35 kms away!) that his humour and lens on the world resonates so loudly within me. I have spent time in his town and the fields throughout his countryside, walked their mass paths, drank at a ceiledh, and sat enraptured at the ancient Story House. He speaks as though he's in your living room, you're sharing an ale, he knows your relations and helps you find humour in the seriousness of it all. His most recent novel, Nora Webster, has just been published.

In his next appearance, the November 16th podcast, Ms. Wachtel pairs him with a writer I've never read, Marilynne Robinson, 2005 winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Publishing her first novel in her mid-30s, it would be another 20 years before we could read some of her fiction again.  She has resided at the University of Iowa for all of this time, teaching in the respected Writer's Workshop program there and writing non-fiction.  You can read about that here.  Her re-entry into fiction begins with the publication of the 1st novel in her Gilead trilogy, and she's here to celebrate the publication of Lila, the 3rd book.

I have never enjoyed listening to the English language as spoken word as much as I did on this afternoon, listening to this podcast. Ms. Robinson's descriptions, elucidation of her thoughts and opinions, was music to listen to.  Her sentences take you along on an arc, with your brain following along to where it is headed, seeing if you land in the same place as Ms. Robinson.  I loved it.  And as most readers do, I took notes, made lists, and shoved the paper in my bag.  All while cooking a delicious dinner on a wintry afternoon.

So it was, two days later, at the end of my current pile of library books, that I headed to our local to check out some more.  And lo and behold, there on the shelf  was another Colm Toibin, a book of short stories, The Empty Family.  As the Canadian snow begins descending upon us, I find myself retreating to my chair, or sometimes my bed, in front of the fire with a pile of books before me.  I also find myself choosing stories of Ireland, by Irish writers, which reflect the world I imagine my grandfather to have come from, which reflect the memories I have of growing up amidst a large and boisterous Irish Catholic family,  I often wonder about returning there for a longer period of time.

With Mr. Toibin safely (and jubilantly) in hand, I pull my list from my bag, and push my luck by heading to the Rs, and there I find Book 1 in the Gilead trilogy!  Both authors are still with me, 2 days later.  Along with Alice McDermott - her opening sentence of At Weddings and Wakes is a blog post in itself - and Jonas Jonasson, my next 3 weeks are covered! Synchronicity indeed.  Thank you all 5 of you and the Writers and Company team.

S.

National Library Week: An Ode

I have lived in many places in my life and a Library card has always been a part of my wallet.  Like my health card and driver's license, it is a part of who I am.  Beginning in the late 60s, as a 10 year old,  I remember my mom taking me to get my first card, and the date stamp of 1972 was so far away, there were so many books to read, I was practically vibrating!  

I remember treasuring the responsibility of taking this very precious cargo home and making sure I returned on time.  In the meantime, they were all mine. I don't remember any of the books I first signed out, but I do remember the Library book that graduated me out of children's literature.

It was a rainy weekend, nothing going on in a houseful of 8 people.  Or maybe there was too much going on and I needed my retreat.  I opened the pages to The Diary of Anne Frank, and except for sleep, I spent the next 48 hours on my mother's suburban scratchy couch.  I consider reading that book more integral to moving into adulthood than any other pubescent right of passage.  My eyes were suddenly opened to the world outside our Catholic Scarborough upbringing, and the Library had brought it to me.

My elementary school was St. Kevin's Catholic School, a small, uniformed 300-student school, where we raced through the schoolyard chasing boys, playing jumprope, handball, went to confession, celebrated the feasts, walked in straight, quiet lines and learned our religious lessons. We were a rowdy class, friends for life, all walking to and from school, living close by in our neighbourhood, going home for lunch, seeing each other at Church on Sundays and Church functions on any other day of the week.  

At my youngest, the nuns still wore their black habits and I remember being sent to the office for only using black crayons.  Perhaps it was a sometimes gloomy place for a small person, but it had a Library.  And in the Library was Mrs. Kells.  And Mrs. Kells wore regular clothes, a hint of lipstick and sometimes earrings that I imagined were diamonds.  She took a liking to me and brought me under her wing.  I spent a few proud years as very much her assistant to the assistant of the assistant.  I got to shelve books - Dewey gave me order.  I got to decorate displays using scissors, construction paper and glue, helping her decide on seasonal themes and finding the books to match the display.

Our new books required new cards to be made for the card catalogue, a daunting list of every single book housed in our small library.  As I grew out into the world, these card catalogues just got bigger and bigger, and I loved the feel of the oak casing, the beautiful brass place cards on each drawer, the sometimes calligraphic writing indicating which realm of literature was locatable according to this drawer.

I loved the smell of these drawers, somewhat musty with typewriter ribbon, dried cardboard and dust mixed in.  I sometimes stood and read the cards, just to see where 800 PN would take me.  I would be astonished at some of the titles, imagining all sorts of scenarios where I would be taken.

Between our school Library and the public Library, I had my hands full with signing out books, getting my DATE DUE stamp and handing in my card to be filed alphabetically under "S".  Even the sign-out cards told a story, who had read it before me, when they had read it, whether they'd renewed it, whether this was a busy book or whether it had been left to languish on the shelf like a forgotten toy.  Handwriting told an equally intriguing tale - after all, penmanship class happened every Wednesday, with homework!  And getting the date stamp right, I'm not sure if Mrs. Kells ever entrusted me with that job.  It seemed very important.

High school graduated me to a large public school, not just us Catholics, so trepidation abounded in all sorts of unlikely places.  The Library turned out to be one of them.  Counting on it to be my haven in a turned-upside-down-teenage-world, it didn't often offer the respite I sought.  I don't even remember the Librarian, and being qualified as the assistant to the assistant of the assistant, I ended up adrift with no anchor place to welcome me.  And it was full of flirting, something I was more than awkward at.

A big event in 1977 got my mother and I onto the bus and subway to downtown Toronto, something usually reserved for solo Christmas shopping trips by my mother.  It was the grand opening of the Toronto Reference Library, a design of the time, fresh, sweeping balconies, open with skylights, an architectural marvel. We walked in with our mouths open, glorying in the beauty of the air and space around us. We spent hours there that day exploring the shelves, and I returned many times in the years following to recapture that moment with my mother.

University Libraries have always welcomed me with their stained glass windows, carved staircases, plaques of history, sculptures, collected texts, the potential for higher learning enclosed within those walls. Study carrels were not a part of my time there for they turned the library's purpose into one of hard work instead of learning.  There is a difference.

My children have grown up in Libraries, our 20 books every 3 weeks filled their souls with wonder and information, led them down paths they never thought they'd trod, the books they opened helped define who they are and who they wanted to be.  My travels have led me into Libraries

in some of the great cities I've lived in and visited - and I always feel the same sense of grace and reverence that I used to feel upon entering a church. I still get a thrill when the Library calls and the book I've reserved has come in.  Just for me.  My Librarian once found me an out of print James Joyce biography halfway across the country.  She was as thrilled as I when we finally held it in our hands.

In 2013, a global study of collections, use, digital strategies and community outreach ranked Vancouver's Public Library and Montreal's Public Library as the BEST in the WORLD.

Your public Library is built for you.  Use it.  Support it.  Buy their discards for $0.10. Pay your fines. Ask for your Librarian's help. S/He is a human Google, as are the bricks and mortar that surround them.  You can surf their shelves using your hands instead of your fingertips.  And there is a difference. Not better.  Not worse.  Just different. Its a place of peace, a place of quiet, a place to contemplate and think, to giggle, to be shusshed, to bring children, to get lost in thought.  Your Library.