"I'm not dead yet... I feel happy..."

[felis_ultharus]

We are now a house of the Plague, although it doesn't seem to have hit me as hard as it hit Matt. I was feeling queasy yesterday, but so far no vomitous offerings have been made at the porcelain altar.

We had to cancel the Lughnassadh event yesterday since three of us were unwell. I just did a small, quiet, personal thing to mark the holiday.

Otherwise, I'm still slogging slowly through Susannah Moodie and her Freaky Neighbours, also known as Roughing it in the Bush. I'm only one-third through it. It has all the hallmarks of early Canadian literature: violence, death, snowstorms, dark forests, suicide, and abused children, and yet it still manages to be boring.

Comments

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

wow, it's still boring? That takes skill... not a skill that I would want to have mind you. ;)

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

All Canadian literature requires violence, death, snowstorms, dark forests, suicide, and abused children. Some do it well, some don't.

foi_nefaste did a CanLit course where everything on the syllabus had a rape scene. I believe some of those were boring, too, if I recall correctly.

We, as a country, tend not to write light and fluffy things.

[jenjoou.livejournal.com]

I've noticed. All the books in my Canlit class had all those things too. Some were good, some weren't but at least I had a much better teacher than foi_nefaste. Not only rape scenes.

It's interesting though considering how many comedians we have... :)

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

All Canadian literature fits into one of two categories:

• A depressing exploration of the eldritch depths of the human soul. This usually involves snow somehow. This is the Sinclair Ross/Margaret Laurence mode.
  
• Cynical, biting comedy about the place where the author grew up. This is the Mordecai Richler/Wayne Johnson mode.

So we have our comedians in CanLit, too. Of course, there is no comedy written on the prairies, because it's too miserable to allow it. And besides, laughter was downsized in Alberta to balance the budget.

[ubergreenkat.livejournal.com]

ha ha ha ha ha