The literary leanings of Omi

I want to write. I sit here and wait for something to happen, for my mind to release an image or even a word like a tiny fish through a hole in net. But there is nothing tonight.

Omi called last night to report she enjoyed the latest book I read for her on tape. For anyone who is not familiar with my glorious grandmother, she is a small German woman with a deep love of stories but almost no eyesight. Over the past several years I have managed to be organized enough to read three books onto tape for her. The first was Cougar Annie’s Garden, a beautiful non-fiction account of a diminutive, tough-as-nails pioneer woman on Vancouver Island’s West Coast (Hesquiaht Harbour). Rumoured to have murdered at least one of her four husbands, Cougar Annie was known for her ability, despite encroaching old age and failing eyesight, to aim her rifle by the light of a oil lamp. I wouldn’t have liked to do business with her (she often knowingly sold rotten eggs) or to have her as my mother (I’m going out to the garden; I’ll just tie you to this chair for the next three hours…) but overall she is my kind of woman. Cougar Annie died in 1985 but her garden is kept beautifully and the public is welcome. It is one of those mysterious places I regret not visiting while I lived in Tofino.

The next book was Finding Home: A war-child’s journey to Peace by Frank Oberle, who was the Member of Parliament for the Peace River area of B.C. for many years. Born in Germany, Frank is close in age to Omi and his book remains one of her favourites. The way he describes his childhood experiences during the war, from bouts of terrible hunger to unexpected friendships or scenes of terrible sadness (I remember one scene when he is a boy on a train, and a woman on the train is holding her dead baby. No one can console her, ease her pain, and finally when the train slows she runs off into the winter wasteland. Everyone knows she will likely die out there but no one tries to stop her). I think Omi loved this because so much of it was familiar to her, including Frank’s experience as a young immigrant to Canada who worked at everything from mining to remote bush logging to provide for his family. Omi likes stories about people who carve a new life out of the tatters of an old one.

The latest one was by a Scottish author: Findings by Kathleen Jamie, a nature writer living in Orkney. I had bought it for Craig a while ago but never read it through before I bought it again and started to read it for Omi. I have a terrible habit of not reading the books before I hit record. Part of me is too lazy and the other part likes that we can both be surprised. However there were a few bits (in what I thought was going to be a quaint nature journey), that made me think, “she is going to hate this.” One chapter focused entirely on Jamie’s trip to the Surgeon’s Hall in Edinburgh. Now I loved it but I feared that detailed descriptions of limbs and foetuses in jars may not be to my grandmother’s taste. But as it turns out she gave the book the thumbs up. She did not however care for the bits by J.A. Baker (author of the best nature writing I have ever read), which I added at the end to fill up the tape. This is because Baker is all about description and provides very little in the way of plot. It is night…he describes the world. The sun rises…he describes the world. The day passes…he describes the world. Sometimes he hides in the thicket so he doesn't have to talk to people. And so on.

Omi gets heaps of books from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind but they don’t always have the kinds of books she is after. She doesn’t like books with “so much violence and dirty sex.” Also, if the reader has an English or another, non-North American accent, she finds it hard to understand and it ruins the pleasure of the story. During her call yesterday she graciously complimented me on how much I have improved as a reader. I'm starting to sound "professional" she said. Woo-hoo!

This time I’ve done something new and read to her a list of possible books for the next project. They are:
The Visitor by Maeve Brennan
St Agnes’ Stand by Thomas Edison
A Recipe for Bees by Gail Anderson-Dargatz (I don’t know about this one. The very first line is “Have I told you the drone’s penis snaps off during intercourse with the queen bee?”)
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid
Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks (not my kind of thing but it seemed like a nice romance - something Omi would enjoy)
And finally….the one I have a feeling she will choose:

A Map of Glass by Jane Urquart. I think she will pick this one because it is set in the Canadian wilderness.

Opa will phone in the next couple of days with Omi’s choice. And then I shall begin again, although it is getting hard to track down tapes (Omi and I are 5,000 miles apart but we have matching black tape decks.

In the meantime, a call for help from my creative wee clan of blog readers. Omi has a story idea that has been niggling her for years. She knows the outline of the plot but would like me to help her fill in the blubber of the thing. I say blubber because it is about a fisherman and three whales. A retired fisherman goes out each day on the ocean to putter and catch some fish. Three whales start following him and he develops a feeling of closeness with them. However the villagers where he lives hunt and kill one of the whales, after which, in his fury and grief, he puts a curse on the village and terrible things start to happen.

To me this sounds like it should be written as a fairy tale. But I am stuck when it comes to really shaping it. I don’t know if my “style” would benefit this story. I also feel unsure of myself with regard to knowledge of the ocean. Or perhaps I just don’t have the confidence in myself to think I could do her idea justice.

Any thoughts or feedback would be helpful. A suggested first line would be even better…

Before I go, I am happy to announce that lovely Lucy, the incredible woman I met in Stratford, has been made famous on Advanced Style, post from 3 December. I wish I had gotten her address; she would have been so chuffed.

AND… the lovely manboy is back in Scotland and freezing. Only four more sleeps before I can warm him up.

A film with pneumonia in it

The best thing about today was seeing A Film With Me In It, staring one of my favourite comedians, Dylan Moran. Yes, he's only got one character, which is a cynical, perpetually drunk Irishman, but I love it.
The worst thing about today is finding out my little grandmother (known to most as omi) is in hospital with pneumonia. Opa keeps driving back and forth to the hospital to check on her and bring her audio books. Hopefully she'll be out by Monday.

The Literary Perils of Victory Mouth

For more than two decades, perhaps even three, three drafts of a book, pain-stakingly typed with one of those bash-your-fingers-to-the-bone typewriters, have lain dormant at the bottom of a drawer.
The book is written in German and recounts the tale of my family's move from Vancouver to the Cariboo. My wee grandmother, or as I call her, kleine Omi, penned this novel, and apparently did try once to get it published. When the company turned it down she turned her creativity to other pursuits, mainly pressing and creating intricate designs with wildflowers, until macular degeneration took away her sight.
From what I understand, no one in my family has read this book, not even my mother.
One draft lays open on the table in front of me. It has been heavily worked over - whole lines are crossed out and my grandmother's own character (she changed all our names) moves from third to first person. I have begun the tedious task of retyping the entire thing (134 pages), translating as I go so that I will be left with electronic copies of the complete work in two languages.
Once I have finished the literal translation, I will begin a third copy, which will be the rewrite. I do not think Omi will mind. She was too kind and did not give the characters the flaws necessary for real depth. Well, so it seems. I am only on page four. We'll see what evils arise as I carry on.
My German is not great so I am using a traslation service to help me with the switch to English. The problem is everything gets translated directly and ends up sounding ridiculous. Omi dubbed my father "Siegmund" which the computer keeps changing to "Victory Mouth."
"That sounds like a good idea," said Victory Mouth, raising his glass for a toast.
This makes me think he is not planning a move to the Interior, but is instead raising a great army to cross a river and pillage a walled city. But like I said, I am only on page four.... Perhaps Victory Mouth turns out to be nothing more than an excellent cold sore remedy. At the moment the plot is wide open.
I have been meaning to tackle this project for a few years, but distractions and the less-than-subtle realization of the enormity of the task has kept the book tucked away. I have always known that someday the urge to dig it out would become overwhelming, and that would be when the time was right to begin.
And so. I begin. Tomorrow - page five. And so on, and so on.

I don't know the birds here. Small, brown bundles - not swallows, not sparrows. Their calls are all bubbles and springtime. Soon it will be morning in Canada. A girl, seven years old, will lie in her single wooden-framed bed and she'll hear the chickadees calling silk sounds into the cold snap air. Everything in the world will be tight with the freeze except for that sound, which is full and rich and sorrowful. She thinks she could hold that song in her cupped hands, let it swirl inside the flesh walls like a warm storm.
At the coffeeshop this morning, the closest thing to a greasy spoon our town has, the acrid smell of cigarettes mixed with the humid drift of coffee and the slick danger of hot oil under egg yolk. If I closed my eyes and went by smell alone, I could have been in my grandmother's kitchen. She would be there across the table, staring out over her cup and into the blurred canvas of shadows where my face should be.