Western Newfoundland

Well, it has been a week since I returned home from vacationing in Newfoundland. I loved it there -- and wished I could stay. I woke up thinking about it again this morning. I wonder if, after the kids are grown, I could move there and be content and not miss New Brunswick too horribly? I think maybe I could...

Strawberry Fields

I just finished an amazing book: Strawberry Fields by British-Ukrainian author, Marina Lewycka. I read her first novel 'A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine', which received much critical praise as well as awards, but I think I enjoyed this one even more.

Strawberry Fields explores the immigrant's labour (both legal and illegal) experience in the U.K . (See http://www.mostlyfiction.com/world/lewycka.htm for a better description of the novel.) A few days after finishing the novel, two of its protagonists, Irina and Andriy, were with me as I explored the Glace Bay Miner's Museum in N.S. Like them, these miners were literally owned by British barons into the middle of the 20th century and were outrageously exploited. Forced to perform very hazardous work, families were routinely blackmailed into sending their children (as young as eight) into the mines when fathers were incapacitated. In 1925 $708 was the average miner's salary and out of this was deducted $461 for accommodations, the gear they needed to do their jobs, oil for their lanterns etc. During this particular year there was a labour riot against BESCO, which brought to mind the scene in Lewycka's book of a riot at a poultry farm (the descriptions of how poultry are produced and treated in this factory farm are true-to-life -- and may make you think twice about eating your next chicken wing). It amazes me that these practices continue into the 21C. AND that many of the products we purchase without so much as a thought come out of these organizations.

When I wrote to Marina to express to her my thoughts about her book, this is what she said inspired it:

"You know, not long after I finished the Tractors book, someone thrust a leaflet into my hand saying, "Here, you're Ukrainian -this'll interest you." It was Called 'Gone West: Ukrainians at work in Britain today' - and the more I read, the more horrified I was. And I started to think, there's a story in this. And then I thought, this is my story to tell - if I don't tell it no one else will. So that's how it started. It's so sad that once one group of people finds the courage and resources to stand up to this kind of exploitation, they simply bring in another lot from somewhere else. I know Canada is a country of immigrants - there are plenty of us Ukrainians over there - and maybe you have stricter employment laws over there. Though we have fairly tough employment laws over here, which are simply not enforced."

Strawberry Fields is an amazing book. Unlike all the light fluff out there, it not only entertains but opens our eyes to the profound destructiveness and immense human costs of runaway capitalism and rampant globalization.

Summer Moon

Is there anything more exhilarating than going for a walk on a heavy, humid summer evening and ending up on a swing, soaring up over a blossoming linden tree with butterfly blips in your belly and your flip flops flirting with the waxing moon?

Another Year

Today is my birthday and my kids got me a cake. But it doesn't say "happy birthday." It reads "The answer to life, the universe and everything." Can you tell from this that one of my favourite science fiction books is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams (the only thing you really need to take with you when you travel is a towel)? In this book, an enormous supercomputer is asked the answer to the ultimate question of life. So over a period of 7.5 million years it churns and churns away until at last it finally spews it out: 42.

This is going to be a great year.

Drop the Girl!

The other evening I went to see Ice Age 3D with my younger son. If you've seen the others, you'll know that, along with all the other drama, there are two squirrels -- a male and a female -- who are constantly fighting over a single nut. Usually each scene ends with the male being duped or seduced by the female and losing the nut to her.

Well, that's how it all plays out in this movie too. In one of the scenes the squirrels are again engaged in a fierce battle and the male is hanging over the edge of a cliff with the nut clutched tightly in one paw and holding onto the female's paw with the other. If he lets go of her, he'll be able to clamber up the side of the cliff and claim the nut as his own. But -- as usual -- she is using all her femininity to persuade him otherwise. As the tension mounts and mounts and the male squirrel is so obviously conflicted, the little three year old sitting next to me screams out at the top of his lungs, "DROP THE GIRL! DROP THE GIRL!"

Oh, the wisdom of a child. As my boys are approaching the years when they'll be faced with the hazards of pair-bonding, I'm going to remember those words -- if she's making you cry, boys, if she's getting you down, she's just not worth it, sweetheart -- DROP THE GIRL!

Why about kids?

I was asked recently why it is that I enjoy writing from the perspective of kids. The short answer is that I find them much more interesting than adults. I think it's useful to think of adults in society as stuck in a concrete corridor with a number of doors along it. We have free choice in the sense that we have different doors from which to pick, but we have limited free will because no matter how much we might deny it, we're stuck in that corridor. Children's corridors aren't yet concrete -- they're permeable because they haven't been entirely "socialized" -- thus they are more likely to clearly see some of the illogic and inconsistencies in the adult world. This makes for interesting fiction.

The other reason is that children consume me. Okay, maybe not literally -- but given the chance, mine would likely eat me alive. And, truth be told, I love the back-and-forth banter and the way they challenge me every day. I thrive on it, actually. The part of parenthood of which I'm most fond is when they practice their politicians-in-training routine with one another and I find myself thrust into the Speaker of the House gig and abuse the powers invested in me by setting arbitrary rules, like: 1) all complaints must be sung sweetly, and in a high-pitched voice and 2) he who is about to say something mean must grab the two sticks from the middle of the table and hold them on his head as horns.

So the question is, how could I not write about children -- they're absolutely positively jolly good fun.

New Beginnings

After several months of "What's next?" and "Have you started another?" I've started another. To be honest, I was a little insulted by these questions. Can't we just celebrate this one for a few more minutes? For the love of God, the ink is barely dry -- come on!

But I am excited to be starting another. I haven't written fiction in over a year. Amphibian's Phineas William Walsh (www.carlagunn.ca) has consumed my life for quite a long time. It's time to let him go off into the world and trust that he'll be okay -- that he'll make new friends who will treat him kindly. So I'll turn my attention to another kid now. In this new novel with the working title "Nuts" my protagonist is a little older and with a whole set of different problems. At thirteen the world's a confusing place. Poor kid. Wish him well.

Amphibian

by Carla Gunn

ISBN-10: 1-55245-214-X

ISBN-13: 978-1-55245-214-1

5 x 8.5 in, 220pp, Paperback

$19.95 CAD

April 2009

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