CampusIntel

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Critically acclaimed award-winning novelist of Fight Club and Choke, Chuck Palahniuk has released his latest novel, Tell-All on Doubleday on May 4, 2010.

A Random House review of Tell-All on The Cult, Palahniuk’s official website, describes the novel as a “Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth” (Source: chuckpalahniuk.net).

Narrator Hazie Coogie, caretaker of Hollywood actress Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton, guides the mysterious tale turned murder plot when Miss Kathie’s latest suitor, Webster Carlton Westward III, is discovered to have written a celebrity tell-all memoir alluding to Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman musical (Source: chuckpalahniuk.net).

Tell-All thus pays homage to American playwright Lillian Hellman, who died in 1984. Following the discourse laid out in Hellman’s autobiography, The Unfinished Woman (1969), Palahniuk reproduces Hellman’s controversial starlet persona crafted during her forty-plus year career. After penning critical successes such as The Children’s Hour (1934) and The Little Foxes (1939), Hellman’s public image was tested in the 1950s when she was blacklisted by the Hollywood Movie Studios for her long-time affair with communist party member and detective-novelist Dashiell Hammet.

Palahniuk is also set to release a novel, Damned, in 2011, which he said in an interview with Doubleday is “about an eleven-year-old girl who finds herself in Hell and learns how to manipulate the corrupt system of demons and bodily fluids. Imagine if The Shawshank Redemption had a baby by The Lovely Bones and it was raised by Judy Blume, and you have my next new project” (Source: chuckpalahniuk.net). Watch for a North American tour by Palahniuk soon in support of Tell-All.

Recall Romeo drinking the fatal elixir so he can be with his beloved Juliet for all eternity, only to realize, once it is too late, that his maiden’s plan was to fool everyone else about her apparent death, not him. The ignorant hero’s quickness in action ironically befalls him when it matters most. The message that Friar Lawrence failed to get to Romeo: Juliet is alive. It is easy to recognize missed messages and their symbolism in drama on a strictly linear plot.

However, showing multiple characters missing integral messages becomes a daunting task, which Joseph Boyden masters in his Scotiabank Giller Prize winning novel, Through Black Spruce.

The novel opens with alcoholic bush pilot extraordinaire Will, the grandson of Elijah Whiskeyjack whom Boyden’s first novel, Three Day Road, follows. Speaking to his nieces Suzanne and Annie Bird from his hospital bed, not until the climax is the mystery of Will’s hospitalization revealed. But it only takes until the second narrative, led by Annie, to understand that Will is in a coma, and unable to speak. Thus, from the onset, a conversation is constructed between two people – Will and Annie – who cannot hear what each other is saying.

The novel bounces back and forth between Annie and Will’s narratives with each chapter. We learn that Annie is visiting her uncle on a regular basis, and has been told by Will’s nurse Eva, also a family friend, that speaking to him will help with a bountiful recovery (if a recovery is possible). So, via Annie’s attempt to nourish her uncle’s brain, we learn her story.

Annie is back from a wild adventure in search of her long-lost sister, Suzanne, who is a semi-renowned fashion model. Still oblivious to her sister’s track to New York City, Annie makes her first stop in Toronto, the last known whereabouts of Suzanne to her family. Here she meets Painted Tongue, who is later revealed to be named Gordon, and turns out to be Annie’s self-proclaimed “protector.”

Painted Tongue does not speak, and we only understand his thoughts through Annie’s perception of his actions, moans, and moods. The mute Native character is actually a previously dawned character of Boyden’s: the protagonist of a short story, aptly named Painted Tongue, which makes up part of Boyden’s first book, a compilation of his short stories entitled Born With A Tooth. The short story explains why Painted Tongue does not speak: he chooses not to, in protestation to the way he is treated while living on the streets of Toronto. An alcoholic, Painted Tongue moans his way through life, refusing to converse with the neo-colonial symbols he encounters personified in police officers, construction workers, and elite businesspeople. The reader is forced to analyse why he is silenced. And, since he does not converse through language, how Annie Bird always knows what he is thinking – right up to the point of their consummation late in the plotline of Through Black Spruce.

From Toronto, Annie and her protector move on to NYC on a tip that Suzanne is there. Here, Annie is shadowed by the spirit of her missing sister, they fuse into one being. Annie meets Suzanne’s sketchy model-world friends, frequents her clubs, and begins modelling herself. After a while, though, Annie eagerly wants to know what happened to her sister, essential to Will’s current vegetative state. Annie begins to send postcards to her mother back in Moosonee, signed by missing Suzanne, offering another tweaked message image: the sender is absent. Ironically, Annie learns that there are more postcards being sent from Suzanne from around Europe, and Annie and Gordon quickly flee home.

Meanwhile, as Annie tells Uncle Will about her laborious, often life threatening adventures, Will pseudo-responds to her from beyond consciousness. He recounts his life as a bush pilot, flying hunters and travellers in and out of uncharted territories around James Bay, which took a turn for the worse when his family was killed in a house fire. In response, he intentionally crashes his plane, but is saved by the volunteer fire department. So, he drinks to ease his pain.

Will’s conceived purpose in life triggers an adventure of his own to live in the wilderness surrounding James Bay for almost a year. He is seeking solitude, but is unaware of the outer world following him. Among many plot diversions, he comes across a beached whale’s skeleton, representing the larger-than-life obstacles he is faced with. He decides to sit in it for a while and enjoy a few nips of whiskey, when suddenly he is not alone. Will is met with a set of grandparents and their two granddaughters, who mirror Annie and Suzanne with a highly effective linking seagull feather image, and his newly recovered shame of skipping town pushes him back to his problems at home. Climactically, a keepsake of Will’s grandfather from World War One debuting in Three Day Road saves him from falling to his biggest enemies, alcoholism and depression aside.

What do all the missed messages mean? Firstly, Annie’s silence regarding an important piece of information creates the initial tension in the story. Then, she must deal with this by ironically sending many more unheard tales to her laid up uncle. Eventually, the silence theme that looms about throughout the novel transforms into a humbling force for all the characters.

Maximum Rock and Roll magazine’s website posted a sloemn comment on March 17 reporting long-time columnist, Bruce Roehrs, “passed away peacefully in his home.”

Maximum Rock and Roll is one of the longest running punk-zines, starting in 1977, and quite possibly the most reputable when it comes to coverage. It’s like this: if your band gets mentioned in Max RNR, you wear the mark of underground acknowledgement. Providing publicity for thousands of new hardcore bands over the last thirty years, Roehrs is Archbishop of Max RNR blessings.

Roehrs wasn’t originally a journalist, but he was educated. He attended the University of Miami in the 60s, where he developed a love for old school garage rock. Through the 70s he worked a number of blue-collar jobs, eventually ending up in San Francisco. By the end of the decade, he couldn’t stay away from the nightly DIY scene showcasing the new punk bands. This is where he met Max RNR founder Tim Yohannen, who recognized Roehrs from being at a bunch of shows, and recruited him to write reviews for his young zine.

In essence, Roehrs had a knack for recognizing great hardcore. He loved bands that did away with filler – like, now legendary bands, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and Agnostic Front. The faster, louder, and more aggressive the better for Roehrs, and that is what he found in the budding early 80s hardcore scenes across the Western US. Publicizing the new style of rock, which was scaring most of the listening public, became Roehrs’s vocation. The spirit of hardcore was embedded into Roehr’s writing. His articles were often laden with four-letter words, and always ended with a now retired tagline, “See you at the bar.”

In one of his last articles, he reviewed Agnostic Front’s 1983 EP “Victim In Pain” that was recently re-released on Bridge 9 Records. His love for the band bleeds through the write-up: “‘Blind Justice’ has one of the best breakdowns ever committed to hardcore vinyl” he claims, a sentiment that I truly have thrown around in my head ever since I heard the tune. I am sure his passion was mirrored in many of the opinions of his readers. Check out the entire review at Bridge 9’s blog.

The passion Roehrs had for the new punk and hardcore of the 80s, 90s, and today led to many of his favourite bands boosting in popularity due to his praiseful penmanship. He was a lover of the first wave punk bands like Motorhead, Cock Sparrer and UK Subs, and then the ensuing wrath of American hardcore that got its start where he was writing in the San Francisco Bay/Los Angeles areas, and spreading all the way up the West Coast, even to Vancouver where DOA made Canadian hardcore a reality in the late 70s. He also used him column to promote the underdogs. For example, his praise of AntiSeen, a Seattle punk band beginning in the late 80s, in his Max RNR column helped create a following for the now renowned band. Jeff Clayton, AnitSeen’s lead singer, posted “We’ll never forget you brother .… RIP” on the “Never Forget Bruce Roehrs” Facebook group page.

The legendary punk writer will undoubtedly be missed by many people involved with punk and hardcore music. Rest in peace to a visionary, and an inspiration.

The San Francisco Bay Guardian printed Roehrs’s obituary on March 24.
Join the “Never Forget Bruce Roehrs” Facebook Group.

With sources from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and maximumrockandroll.com.

I am about half-way through my NativeLit research project for my final Honours course before graduating this spring, and have found a plethora of interesting reading to share with you. Be warned – I am not an expert in this field, but I am passionate about it.

NativeLit is possibly the hottest literary genre in Canada right now. There are many reasons for this: it’s a relatively new genre in the scope of CanLit, making its debut, arguably, between 25 and 40 years ago. Another reason people are chattering about NativeLit is the controversial discourse: This isn’t a fluff genre, there are real social topics coming to a head in Canadian politics – like land claims, residential school abuse, racism, and stereotyping – being represented in the new NativeLit of our country. So, I am passing on a brief who’s-who on the genre so you can get started on reading some excellent texts.

Phase One: The Old-School

Around the early 18^th century, in the earliest days of Canada’s formation, there were some interesting texts being written in the New World by the colonisers. A lot of travel-logs, frontier novels, and general creative fiction obsessed with the colonisation of North America. As a reference point, early Canadian writing gives a glimpse of how the colonisers perceived North America. However, it does not tell the whole story. Before the mid 20^th century, there were no Native authors in Canada being published. The vision of Canada represented in literature was biased – and out of this vision comes a clear stereotypical Native archetype in literature that was recycled in nearly all texts concerned with Native topics.

Essentially, the Native was used as an objective tool: The Native character is flat, one-sided, and almost always represents the Other compared to the coloniser. They are one with nature, uncivilised, the “noble savage.” This may not sound too ignorant at first, but think about what is not conveyed about Native peoples at the time. Topics like assimilation, dying cultures and languages, unfair land treaties, and the industrialisation of a previously unhindered land mass. The writing of the colonisers paid no attention to these themes.

Look up John Richardson’s Wacousta, a frontier story written in 1832 about the first encounters between Natives and Colonisers, and which also happens to be the first published Canadian novel. Also, the poetry and legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott from the early 1900s offers examples of the flat Native archetype. Campbell Scott actually was head of Indian Affairs during the early 20^th century, and worked to outlaw traditional Native dance ceremonies, on a loosely based argument that they wasted time and produced no good. American literature during the time also produced biased images of the Native, like in some of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories, for example.

1972: A National Recognition of CanLit, and the Dawn of NativeLit

In 1972, Margaret Atwood published Survial: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature with help of a small publishing company, Anansi. The book was firstly intended to generate revenue for the young author, and also provide Canadian teachers with a guide on how to go about teaching CanLit. Up until this point, there was little recognition in Canada, or globally, of an actual Canadian literature scene. Miraculously, the book sold over 30,000 copies in its first year. People started to recognize Canada’s own literary genre, and the unique Canadian themes it projected.

In Survival, Atwood broke ground by addressing the problem of Native representation in CanLit up to that time. The chapter, entitled “First Nation,” acted as a battle-cry for the need of real, positive, Native themes to be recognized within CanLit. Thank Atwood, because almost instantly Canada was reading literature written by Natives authors and Native activists alike, writing about the opposite of what the colonisers saw: the negative effects of colonisation. Before long, post-colonial literature in Canada had a sore thumb for all to see, the genre of NativeLit.

After the ‘70s, Until Today

NativeLit is established, recognized, and in full force. First on the scene were the unrecognized Native writers of the past: Margaret Laurence, Pauline Johnson, and Maria Campbell, for example, were pulled out of CanLit’s camouflaging woodwork for all to hail as forgotten prominent authors. Thomas King also got his start in the early ‘80s, a man who is now considered new NativeLit’s forerunner. King is still a proficient novelist. Check out a book entitled The Native in Literature, a compilation of essays that were presented at the University of Lethbridge Native in Literature conference in 1984, for which King provides the introduction. King’s most famous work is Green Grass, Running Water, which takes an honest look at the state of North American Native culture in the ‘90s.

Also getting started in the ‘80s was Canadian playwright/author Tomson Highway whose first play, The Rez Sisters, first staged in 1987, made huge waves in the CanLit scene. He is still writing new plays in his residential school themed series, and has a new novel, Kiss of The Snow Queen, largely about the same topic. You also may have seen some of Highway’s tragi-comedies that were adapted to the big screen.

I won’t be able to list off all of the new NativeLit authors, but here are some great ones to consider checking out: Joseph Boyden, who has written two novels, Three Day Road, and Through Black Spruce, which are excellent reworkings of the original Native archetype in CanLit. Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach is also great. Not only is it a suspenseful read, it addresses many current Native themes like residential schooling and stereotyping. Also, I praise Beatrice Culleton’s novel In Search of April Raintree, which addresses, among other issues, the niche problem of inner city violence on Native women.

So there you have it. Now all you have to do is read, and remember how NativeLit came to be.

Peter Russel’s book Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism provides a meticulously thorough overview of Aboriginal rights in Australia since the inception of British Colonialism in Australia in the sixteenth century. In a time when, in Canada, Aboriginal rights are still at odds with our legal system, Russell’s story of how one man, Eddie Koiki Mabo, managed to instil key Aboriginal rights in Australian law provides an uplifting ray of hope.

The first half of the near-400 page book provides a background of Indigenous history in Australia. Not too surprisingly, it is 200 pages of extensive research on how the Natives on the British occupied land mass come to be at the mid-point of the twentieth century. It is a wealth of information to take in, beginning with the onset of colonisation and the threat it created on non-British culture. Much like in Canada and the United States, the Native peoples of Australia intended to work together with colonisers during the first wave of colonisation.

But, also like in North America, there were many injustices done to the original inhabitants of Australia by colonisers over the past 500 years. More or less, the many unrecognized land claims and Aboriginal rights treaties were left to rot, and be forgotten, until the famous Mabo case.

Eddie Mabo was a descendent of original inhabitants of Mer Island, an offshore land mass north of Australia. Mabo’s life consisted of countless political endeavours in order to decolonize Native life in Australia. In other words, he wished to see Native culture persist despite the assimilation, and oppressive techniques, of the British Crown. 

All this came to a head in the Mabo vs. Queensland case, beginning in 1982 and ending in 1992. In the end, the High Court of Australia deemed that Native title to lands, cultural practices and lifestyles are a fundamental right of Native Australians. Not to sound too promising, the second half of Russell’s book looks at how the government of Australia, like in Canada and the US, found loopholes to further challenge Aboriginal title rights for its own economic and political agendas.

I cannot give it all away in one small blog, because the story of Aboriginal sovereignty in Australia is a long, and still unfinished tale. However, Russell has managed to tell the story in a captivatingly interesting way. A real page-turner that any history buff should find hard to put down.

You’re probably pretty familiar with the phenomenon of books being made into movies and I thought with the release of “The Lovely Bones” movie, this would be an appropriate time to discuss this fad.

Most people going to these movies will likely fit into one of three categories: 1) those who have read the book (or are ‘fanatics’ of it) before seeing the movie 2) those who have not read the book but go see the movie and 3) those who have read the book but go with people who have not read it or vice versa. I’ve been part of all these categories on various occasions, and each time it’s a very different experience.

In category 1 my experience was with Harry Potter. In a way I guess you could classify me as a fanatic for these books. I mean…I guess I went to every release of the book at midnight…and I went to every movie on the first day…and have read all the books multiple times in English and one of them in French…and I GUESS I do have a few of them on audio for my ipod….but other than that it’s just another book to me… Anyways…when the first movie came out I watched it with high hopes, but afterwards I realized I definitely didn’t like it as much as the books. Why? I think first of all the movie could not encompass all elements of the book, so inevitably some of my favorite parts were missing. Also, some parts were skimmed through while others I may not have thought were as important dragged on. Furthermore, when you read a book and really love it, you know in your heart exactly what each character should look and sound like…and without being a casting director it’s hard for the movie to be an exact representation of what you imagined. So, to read a book before seeing the movie is not always a good idea, unless you can learn to expect different things from the book and the movie…or at least don’t go and re-read the book right before seeing the movie…otherwise you’ll likely come out disappointed.

In category 2 my experience was with the “Lord of the Rings”. I really did try to read the book before going but couldn’t get through it… but, you can’t be mad at me here, because I even tried reading “The Hobbit” but… that didn’t really work out either…however, I DID get a lot further in that book than I did with the “Lord of the Rings” (maybe I was just too busy reading Harry Potter…). Ok, so this being said, I still wanted to see what all the hype was about and thought maybe if I watched the movies, I’d be provoked to read the book. Well…I didn’t actually watch all the movies until last year (I know, I was a little slow on the draw there)… but you know what…I liked them! However, I know a lot of people who didn’t like them because they were so different from the book (or so I’m told). So not reading the book actually worked out for me a lot better for this case…although I still haven’t had the time to read them…

Finally, in the 3rd category I was the one who had read the book before seeing the movie and my friends had not. This happened when I saw “The Lovely Bones” the other day. I think here, reading the book ahead of time wasn’t as bad as when I read Harry Potter before seeing the film. I feel this way simply because I think with the topic being what it is some people do better going into it knowing exactly what’s going to happen. My poor friends who I went with were both on edge the whole time…one waiting vengefully for the guy to die (if you’ve seen the movie or read the book you know who I’m talking about) and the other afraid the whole time that additional harm would befall the girl’s family. I found that although I had read the book, the movie was not the exact same as I had pictured it in my mind but the general ideas and perspectives of it were depicted really well. Additionally, some of the things represented in the movie were better than what I had thought of, as a lot of the abstract thoughts were finally brought to life in the movie whereas before I couldn’t really picture them myself.

In the end the question of whether you should read the book before seeing the movie based on it will obviously depend on the movie as each will be different. However, here are my general guidelines: read the book before seeing the movie if you can, but don’t expect the movie to be everything the book was to you. Also, if you have read the book, make sure you give yourself some time after reading it before you go see the movie and you’ll probably enjoy it a lot more!

Sweet Stroke Tiger!

Oh Tiger…you devil you! I say this rather sheepishly as I dont really care about Tiger’s personal life, much like I didn’t and still don’t care about Kobe’s private life. I admire these athletes because they have mastered a craft. I wonder if Picasso had a flare for extra-merital vagina….well, he did! I just did some research, and according to Sapergalleries.com, Picasso had two wives (Olga and Jacqueline) and four children by three women.  They also assembled a summary of eight of Picasso’s major relationships.

This is just my point…Picasso, MJ, Kobe, and now Tiger. These dudes are highly competitive narcissists that simply cannot be contained. I wonder if Picasso was alive today if people would care as much about his extra-curricula womanizing as they do about Tigers? I doubt it, for some reason the artsy fartsy types can pull it off better…as if its expected. Double standards all over the place…I can’t stand it.