What I Am Grateful For: Books

I am having to cancel our family’s attendance at a Thanksgiving dinner tonight since three out of five are ill, but I am still grateful. Mourning the pumpkin spice cake, but grateful. Like Litlove, today I am grateful for books.

What reason do you have to be grateful for books?

I think we all love to be told stories, and there is nothing better than reading the first few pages of a novel and thinking, “Aha, I’m in the hands of a master.” I love that moment of relaxing into a book, trusting that the author is going to take me somewhere safely and at the end, I will be better for it. So to me books are journeys, escape, freedom, new horizons and new destinations – and I am grateful for those, always.

Is there any author for whose existence you are especially grateful?

It’s hard to say because I have loved different writers at different stages of my life. Right now, the two writers whose work I’m relating to most are Siri Hustvedt and Lionel Shriver – they write burning psychological novels that cut to the quick of what is important. I like being exposed to their world-views, and I love how both write ungendered stories – there is no female perspective or male perspective, but a human one. I gasp in admiration.

What positive aspect does reading have in your day?

Firstly, it provides escape and a welcome one. Daily life can be a grind, and it is a relief to have a book to escape into. I was home with a sick child yesterday, and we snuggled in bed together, he working on getting well and me frantically flipping the pages of Ildefonso Falcone’s Cathedral of the Sea. I also read myself to sleep at night.

What good things has reading taught you?

I’m generally empathetic and a listener, maybe more so because I read. In a way, my reading is selfish – it’s something that’s for me and me only, which as a parent, is a healthy escape. I think it’s sane to have a place to go off to and not be drinking in the family’s every emotional tide. I guess it’s also a learning experience have such personal access to a writer’s mind. Then there are some writers whose minds are so gruesome, I don’t particularly want to spend time there. Reading teaches me discernment. Slightly off-topic, I know that my many hours of reading aloud have turned my kids into readers. I’ve just watched my second child get the bug, and now have the joy of going into her room every night and wrestling the books off her before I switch off the light.

Is there any particular book that’s special to you?

Once again, it’s hard to pin down. I think the Narnia books for cementing my love of reading forever, The Canterbury Tales for teaching me the universal appeal of a story, Othello for teaching me the dark power of jealousy, everything by Athol Fugard for opening my mind to the insidious nature of oppression, Harry Potter for being my birth partner, everything by Nigella Lawson for teaching me how to cook, and everything by my two heroes Siri and Lionel for teaching me that women can write big, intelligent, sweeping books. So, no, would be the answer, not one particular book.

What are you most happy to have read recently?

Chris Cleave’s The Other Hand (known as Little Bee in the US) for an object lesson in voice, my friend Nova’s debut novel Dani Noir for its charm and, come to think of it, another object lesson in voice, and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall for its sheer excellence.

Dani Noir

One of the joys of blogging is being able to connect with writers all over the world, right here from The Dorf, Germany. One writer whom I “met” early in my blogging days was New Yorker Nova Ren Suma, who blogs at Distraction No. 99. Nova has inspired me and many others with her dedication to writing. She is a writer with every core of her being; she lives and breathes it. (Occasionally, she breaks from writing to eat cake, which is another reason to love her.)

Having ghosted a series of tween and YA novels, Nova decided to try her hand at writing for younger readers. It was clearly the right decision: her debut Dani Noir was published by Simon and Schuster’s Aladdin imprint in October this year. Within a month, it was on Amazon’s list of Top 10 Books for 2009: Middle Readers.

I’ve read Dani Noir and I loved it. It’s witty, pacey and delightful. If you are looking for a present for a girl this Christmas in the nine to 14-year-old range, Dani Noir might be just the thing. Be warned though: you might have to start renting Rita Hayworth movies!

Here’s a link to the Dani Noir site, and to my recent interview with Nova, published today on Buzzine.

Fighting Entitlement

One of the things that I’ve had to face as a white South African is that the many advantages I had were largely due to my privileged position – the apartheid government spent more money on my education, made sure the hospitals I went to were better and allowed me to live in leafier, safer suburbs than black kids my age. These were not things that came to me because I was a better person, but merely because I was white in a society that oppressed black people.

Something that comes when false privileges are built into society is a sense of entitlement. White South Africans had to let go the notion that they deserved their privileges and have had to adjust to the concept of earning them. White South Africans have also had to step back and allow the previously disadvantaged time to catch up – hence the government’s policies of affirmative action and social equity.

On Sunday night, a blogging friend of mine marched with 2000 other women in London’s Reclaim the Night march. They were marching against sexual abuse and violence against women and for women’s rights to walk the streets in safety. While on the march, while surrounded by other women and police, she was sexually abused. It is hard to believe, but a man – apparently one of a number who had been jeering, cat-calling and making lewd gestures at the marchers – pushed through the barricades, knocked her aside as she was marching and grasped her breasts. You can read her post here, and that of the friend she was marching with.

It is staggering and sickening to believe that an individual was so threatened by a group of women marching for their rights that he found it acceptable to assault one of them.

It shows that the streets still aren’t safe.

It shows that there are many men out there who still believe that they are entitled to abuse, jeer, grasp, grope, comment and instill fear.

It shows that we have to fight not only the privileges that still run artificially through society, but the entitlement that goes with it. (For anyone reading who may not know what male privilege is, let this blogger tell you. Here’s his checklist.)

And to the man who abused my friend, let me tell you that groupthink is not going to save you. The march goes on. We will march, both literally and metaphorically, until you understand that we are not for your taking, until you understand that our bodies are not yours, that you may not comment or point, that you may not approach, or turn violent when rebuffed. We will march until the night is safe again.

ETA: Those of you who live in London and want to show your solidarity can join tomorrow’s vigil in Trafalgar Square at 7pm to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

I is for Insight

Better people than me are doing it and I am not one to ignore a bandwagon.

Behold the bullet point post:

• I wish I’d had the insight to make this blog anonymous – there are things I feel like saying but because people I know read Charlotte’s Web, I won’t. I shall blurt internally and hope not to damage any organs.
• I had a job interview this week. The first in 10 years. It was rigorous and interesting and made me realise things about myself. See above.
• The Times published its 100 Best Books of the Decade today, leaving out notables such What I loved by Siri Hustvedt, We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver and The March by EL Doctorow. I have read 33 of the 100 books and, finding myself ridiculously well-read, shall only read genre fiction from henceforth. Anyone want to lend me their copy of Twilight?
• I am feeling anxious about my brief trip to South Africa without my family at the end of December. See bullet point 1.
• I plan to write the last third of draft two before the end of the month. That is also making me anxious.
• I submitted a test-query to the Queryshark a couple of weeks ago and it’s not up yet. Ditto anxious.
• While eating chocolate cake is good in and of itself, it neither cures anxiety nor writes chapters for you.
• Neither does reading agents’ and publishers’ blogs and hanging out at writers’ colonies.
• It’s time to channel the anxiety and take it where it needs to go: into Chapter 16 and the protagonist’s crisis.

Farewell, dear blog friends. I hope to return in paragraphs, free of anxiety and with Chapter 16 done and dusted.

H is for Harry

I don’t usually go for  alternate realities in my own reading, but my imagination has been captured over the years by the triumverate of The Lord of the Rings, Mervyn Peake’s superb Gormenghast trilogy and the Harry Potter books. I so much loved the latter that I was quite keen to call my third child Harry, but my husband pointed out that Harry Otter is a rough name to live with. So he now has another, rather lovely, name which suits him perfectly, but there is a small part of me that mourns Harry.

I think part of Harry Potter’s universal appeal is that he is an orphan going it alone. Children respond to his ability to cope in an adult world and defeat a great evil. Personally, I just want to mother Harry. I really want to get him home, cook him a nice meal and talk about his day. I’d like to remind him to stop ignoring Ginny Weasley since she clearly is the girl for him and encourage him to listen to that nice Hermione and get on with his homework. I want him to open his eyes and see the good in Snape.

But I think it is more than that with Harry and me. You see, Harry Potter was my birth partner. Long-term blog readers may remember this, but for those who are new here, I’ll retell the story. One of my presents for my 32nd birthday, which is a week before Christmas, was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I wasn’t overly interested in the book, but I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Two days later, when I woke with birth pains and was directed by my doula to get straight into the bath and wait for her to arrive, I started to read it. Several cups of tea and some acute contractions later, I was hooked on Harry. The doula and my husband would pop their heads around the door now and then to check on me or bring me tea, and I’d wave them away, saying I was fine. I dived into Rowling’s world, subsumed myself in her detail, and came up occasionally to do some shallow panting. While I was going it alone in the bath with Harry, the doula gave everyone in the house foot massages.

When the pains finally grew more demanding than Hogwarts, I climbed out of the bath. By then – though we didn’t know it yet – it was far late to leave for hospital. My doula gave me a back massage, and I went to the loo. While I was there, baby coming down the birth canal, though I didn’t know that either, she sent my husband downstairs to put the suitcases in the boot and de-ice the windscreen. She knocked on the bathroom door and told me it was time to leave, and summoning the strength of Harry, I got off the loo, staggered to the door and croaked, “I can’t make it to the bloody DOOR, let alone the hospital!”

Reading my face for the first time, she said, “Put your hand in your pants and tell me what you feel.”

I followed instructions and replied, “I. can. feel. a. HEAD.”

Her surprise was not unlike that of Harry’s when Quirrell unwrapped his turban to reveal he was sharing head-space with Lord Voldemort. “Get on the bed!” she shrieked. Within seconds, my child was born. A few minutes later, my husband reappeared, ready to transport his pregnant wife to hospital, to be met with the news that he had a daughter.

Tucked up in bed with my gorgeous little baby, I finished Harry Potter and started the next one. My newborn’s nickname was Hufflepuff for her badger-like snuffling when she fed. After reading the series myself, I read it aloud to Hufflepuff’s big sister, and now that she is bigger I am reading it to her. Last night, we finished The Order of the Phoenix. Hufflepuff’s little brother sometimes listens in and he recently insulted his grandmother by telling her she was “as old as Neville Longbottom.” It wonderful to me that my kids love Harry as much as I do, since he is their literary uncle.

Maybe if we get a dog, we’ll call it Harry. As homage to our hero.

A 21st Century Executive

I first started working as a corporate journalist 15 years ago, at one of South Africa’s big mining houses. It was as hierarchical as a company could be, with levels and grades and people who had corner offices and important art and people who worked in cubicles, like me. As part of my job, I had to interact with the senior executives, some of whom were very pleasant and human, and others who were not. Every article I wrote had to be signed off by the relevant executive, so the coal guy signed off the coal articles, the diamond guy the diamond ones and the gold guy had his say on the gold articles.

Each article would be printed out and put, along with a polite note, into an inter-office memo envelope (yes, it was before email) and sent along to the person for checking. If I was up against deadline, I would run it along to their offices myself and plead with the secretary to get it through for me. If not, I posted and waited. The articles all came back, duly checked, with terse comments and, as per company style, the person’s initials. Very taut, very mining house, very 1990s.

This week I had an article back, via email, from a chief executive. It said, “I am happy with the article.” And then there was a smiley.

I’m not really a fan of the smiley or any kind of emoticon. I like words to convey how I am feeling. But that smiley, from that 21st century executive, was a good one.

And in mining house terms, it was practically a proposal of marriage.

In Absentia

I’m going to be absent for a brief while from Charlotte’s Web. Yet another school holiday, some paid freelance work, an impending maternal visit and the screams of pain from my unattended manuscript mean that I won’t be blogging for a bit.

While I’m gone, you could feast your eyes upon my son’s ingenuity.

Or you could visit the Little Travellers and read about women living in the epicentre of KwaZulu-Natal’s AIDS pandemic who are beading dolls to save their families’ lives.

See you soon!

G is for Girlhood

Being a girl was about aching for something that was always just out of reach. I existed in a state of longing for something indefinable, of permanent languid dissatisfaction. I was always stretching out, grabbing, then discarding what I had touched. I wanted the next best thing, not the thing I had.

Girlhood was about never being happy in my skin. My body was all wrong. I longed for longer legs, better skin, a smaller bum. I longed for slow, rapturous kisses that would make me forget myself. I longed to melt.

Girlhood was about waiting for the right boy to come along. I ached for a soul-mate and found him in all the wrong places. When boys did turn up, I longed for someone cooler, older, more mature. I longed for a man.

Girlhood was about never finding the right food to eat. I longed for ice-cream, then tuna, then bread and butter, then chocolate, then roast chicken, then milk with Milo. Food came and went, but never in satisfying combinations.

Girlhood was about always dreaming about being somewhere else. If I was at school, I longed to be at home. At home, I ached for my friends. With my friends, I wanted to be with a certain boy. With that boy, I wished I were at home with a book. While reading, I thought of my father.

It was a time of extremes, of being too hot, too cold, too lazy, too over-excited, too silly, too irritable, too focused, too pent-up.

I thought a lot about clothes, but they were always wrong. Whatever I wore was never as good as what that girl wore. I flipped through magazines, ached for Farah hair, Christy legs, Jodie eyes. The clothes I finally bought were dissatisfying: too tight, too loose, too short, too long, too preppy, too Gothic, too old, too new. I longed for one perfect dress.

I felt as if I couldn’t talk very well. I never seemed to say what I meant, hard though I tried. Words blocked in my throat so I stayed silent. There was so much to say. I longed to say it well. I felt as if I couldn’t. I inhibited myself.

When I was a girl, I wanted to please. So badly. I wanted to please so badly that I did things I regretted. I put others before myself, their needs before mine. I pushed my own needs down until I exploded.

To girls, I say:

Find your voice and be proud to use it.

Put your needs first.

Please yourself, not boys.

Love your body.

Live in the moment.

Find and do the thing that makes you forget yourself, that makes your heart sing.

Never stop looking for one perfect dress.

F is for Fifteen

Married fifteen years on 1 October 2009

Tomorrow we celebrate 15 years of marriage and to celebrate, I’m breaking with the memoir theme to give you Fifteen Things I Love About My Husband.

He:

1. Makes me laugh, and finds me funny.

2. Buys cleaning products, and uses them.

3. Is co-dependent in the book habit.

4. Not scared of the gory jobs – anything to do with toilets, vomit, dead animals, he’s the one.

5. Let me win at Scrabble twice this week.

6. Cherishes our family life.

7. Loves and keeps up with his friends.

8. Found me at least eight of my best girlfriends.

9. Enjoys answering questions like “What makes an aeroplane fly?” and “How many seconds are there in a week?”

10. Makes a salad with as much flair as he cooks a steak.

11. Does all the crafting so that I don’t have to.

12. Is a wonderful mixture of dreamy and practical.

13. Recovered our dining-room chairs in three hours last weekend.

14. Has to leave the room during key scenes of The Office.

15. Is more hot and handsome than he was when we got married.

I love you my darling. Thanks for all the years. You are my one and only.

E is for Ellie

My beloved grandmother. Someone with a huge heart in a tiny body. Although she died in 1997, I feel a spiritual connection with her that is so strong, I can barely separate myself from it in order to write about her. We have no distance. I have to pull at the ties that bind us in order to write her story. It is physically uncomfortable to do so.

Ellie was born Elsie Margaret Hinds. She was the third child in a family of six, following a brilliant older sister and a brother who was reputedly not the brightest light in the bushel. In their wisdom, Elsie’s parents kept her back at school every time her brother failed a year, causing her to resent both him and them. She was not sent to university as her older sister was, and quickly escaped the suffocating country life of Kingswilliamstown in South Africa’s Eastern Cape by marrying the glamorous Englishman David Cooper.

Their marriage lasted not more than eight years, six of which encompassed World War Two, and after their swift divorce, she found herself unqualified, jobless and with two small children to look after. My mother always says she went to ten schools before she was ten, and I think this indicates a period of huge chaos as Ellie tried and failed to find work that suited her and a place in which to settle her family. Eventually she followed her sister, then a journalist, to Pietermaritzburg, got a job at the university library and began her course of study in librarianship. She changed her name from Elsie to Elise – an act of selfhood that said “I have arrived”.

A vivacious woman, she quickly became the centre of a group of mature students, all of whom were deeply against South Africa’s increasingly racist governmental policies. They became founder members of the Liberal Party, of which the novelist Alan Paton was vice-president. While she was passionately against the Nationalists or “Boets”, as she called them, Ellie’s heart was taken up by a new course of study which was to inform the rest of her life: the esoteric writings of Alice A Bailey. Ellie became a New Age adherent long before the term came into current use. She meditated daily, was vegetarian, attended Full Moon meetings and developed friendships with like-minded people. She was in her forties, and had found her path.

What a glorious grandmother she was! Her ability to be in the moment meant she was able to share our child-like pleasures and never rise to grown-up distance. She taught us to dream, to believe in fairies, to shape clouds, to paint, to relish an egg and parsley sandwich. She would lie in the grass with us, tell stories and encourage our wildest dreams. When I was 12, she gave me the 1982 copy of the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook and encouraged me to write. She taught my brother to garden: something he does to this day, for a living. She loved us unconditionally, which is the best possible thing a parent or grandparent can do.

Ellie was never completely stable. She had two nervous breakdowns that I know of, and today would be medicated to the gills. Despite finding her base in Pietermaritzburg, she moved frequently, and we were often visiting her in new homes. Every time she moved, she gave more of her possessions away, shuffling off those objects that were binding her to this physical dimension. I think she ached for heaven.

In her last years, she had Alzheimer’s, which she bore lightly, with none of the aggression that sometimes accompanies the disease, and there were always funny stories to tell. Her younger brother – also under attack from Alzheimer’s though no-one knew at the time – and his wife were detailed to drive Ellie to my wedding, a good half an hour’s journey into the Midlands, but not a journey that was unfamiliar to them. Dear Uncle Ross got horribly lost and they missed the service, but were perfectly cheerful, having forgotten why they needed to be there. She also forgot that she was vegetarian and used to tuck in when there was meat on the table, causing us children vast hilarity.

I visited her in her old-age home two weeks before she died. We sat outside in the garden, holding hands and enjoying the sunshine. Our conversation was mostly nonsensical, but it was amicable. Three hours later, we heard that she had fallen and was in hospital. My mother and I hurried to her bed-side. I held her hand. She looked at me, smiled exquisitely, and said, “Hello my darling”. She never recognised anyone again.

Ellie always said, “When I die, don’t bury me, burn me. And please don’t make a big fuss about my ashes. Just put them in the bin.” We didn’t put her ashes in the bin. We scattered them on the hills of the Midlands, the blue hills that she loved with her painterly eye, the same hills that Alan Peyton writes of in Cry, the Beloved Country.

Here are the words of Alice A Bailey, which Ellie meditated on daily:

From the point of Light within the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into the minds of men.

Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God

Let love stream forth into the heart of men.

May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known

Let purpose guide the little wills of men -

The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

(Alice A Bailey and Djwhal Khul, 1945)