Wednesday April 9, 7 pm
This month's theme is a bit different from the others in that it only deals with non-fiction.
The definition of 'pioneer' is broad, however, and opens the door to fascinating people and books.
A pioneer can be defined as one who is among the first to to explore or settle a new country or territory. (Kimberley?? Mars???)
It can be one who opens up or develops new areas of thought, research or development. (Panataphysics??? dog chews for people???)
Whatever your area of interest, there is sure to be a book about a Canadian pioneer you can share!
Without giving too much away, I can tell you there is already a literary pioneer, a medical pioneer, a notorious Kimberley pioneer and a early settler in the central Canada on the list to be discussed.
Curious? Come to the 'book club with a difference' and bring your own pioneer book.
Saturday, 29 March 2014
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
Kimberley Reads & Talks #2- Innocence
This get-together proved as interesting as the first. The variety of book choices-with some similarities- evoked stimulating discussion.
Two choices related to the loss of innocence of uneducated girls at the hands of those they trusted to protect them.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, is set in 19th century England. The heroine, Tess, is seduced, raped and cast out. She struggles with the downward turn of her life, eventually commits murder and is executed. As is typical with Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is rife with coincidences which account for many of Tess's problems.
Mistress of Nothing
The other book with a similar theme is Kate Pullinger's Mistress of Nothing, inspired by the life of Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, a Victorian writer, traveller and intellectual, but told through the eyes of her servant, Sally.
Set in 19th century Egypt, where the heroine's 'Lady' has gone for health reasons, taking her maid/servant/confidant/ ersatz friend and companion. Sally naively accepts her unusual independence and equality. She innocently expected that her unorthodox affair with an Arab servant and her illegitimate child would be accepted. She is devastated at being banished from the household and left to fend for herself.
This novel won the 2009 Governor General's Award for Fiction.
Kate Pullinger was born in Cranbrook, and now lives in England.
Obasan
Obasan, by Joy Kagawa, a Japanese Canadian, deals with innocence of another kind, and the loss of innocence on several fronts.
It is set in 1972, in small town Alberta, with memories of the internment of Canadians of Japanese descent during WWII. Naomi is forced to confront with unblinkered eyes the painful memories of her childhood in the internment camps in the Slocan. She discovers that her mother, whose absence she had innocently accepted as being in Japan to care for her ill mother,died after being horribly injured and disfigured in the bombing of Japan.
She learns that their relatives in British Columbia had an innocent faith in the Canadian government, that nothing bad would happen to them.
A soul shattering loss of innocence occurs for every Canadian first learning of this shameful period of our history, when Canadian citizens were stripped of all property, rounded up and forced to live in inhumane conditions simply because of their race.
Songs of Innocence
After these 3 'downers' it was uplifting to hear about the poems of William Blake. His Songs of Innocence written in 1789 consist of a series of short poems describing the innocence of a child's soul.
In one of the poems he compares a child's face to the face of God:
"Sweet babe in thy face
Holy image I can trace."
In another, children are compared to innocent lambs and are thought to be angelic.
The poems depict an image of newborn innocence and the innocent trust of a small child.
The Innocent
David Baldacci treats another aspect of innocent in his novel The Innocent.
A contract killer and a runaway teenager, an innocent witness to the murder of her parents, team up to avoid attempts to kill them by an 'unknown'. After numerous narrow escapes, harrowing pursuits, and multiple killings, the he finally is confronted by the 'unknown', who turns out to be a women with whom he had had an affair.
The question he asks at the end of the book is one juries have to contend with from time to time. He knows he is not innocent, because he kills by choice-it's his job to protect the 'innocents of the world' by killing the political monsters.
She, on the other hand, had been brainwashed and programmed from a child to carry out his punishment- so is she really guilty, as she had no choice in her actions?
This is a page- turner of a read and because it is so exciting, all disbelief and rational analysis are suspended. It is only when you put the book down and reflect on the story it seems so unreasonable and unrealistic-but so what- it provided hours of entertaining diversion from our mundane lives!
David Baldacci is the co-founder, with his wife, of the Wish you Well Foundation dedicated to combating illiteracy in America.
Short Stories
The two final choices were short stories-"Old Demon" by Pearl Buck and "The Leader of the People" by John Steinbeck.
The main character in each was innocent of the ways of the world, having been raised in isolated rural villages, one in old China on the banks of the Old Demon River, the other in rural California.
Mrs Wang is part of the community whose innocent tranquillity is shattered by the arrival of the Japanese-she had heard of them but had never seen them, and unknowingly saved a Japanese pilot, a forerunner of the Japanese soldiers following.
Mrs. Wang saves her village by sacrificing herself-she opens the dam on the river to flood the fields and swamp the invaders, realising that in doing so she herself would be swept away as well. Her final words as she bounced away in the water were "Come on Old Demon!"
"Leader of the People" focuses on the innocent relationship between a boy and his grandfather. The grandfather has time to enter into the boy's world of adventures, real and imagined, and join him in mice catching. In turn, the boy listens to the repetitious story his grandfather tells about 'Indians and crossing the Plains', with love, trust and respect. When the boy hears his father's angry outbursts about the story, the grandfather is forced to face reality and tell the real story.
These short stories are great examples of these Pulizer Prize winning authors' works.
Pearl Buck brings the reader into the world of the Chinese in which she had lived, and John Steinbeck evokes Depression era California as no-one else can.
Two choices related to the loss of innocence of uneducated girls at the hands of those they trusted to protect them.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, is set in 19th century England. The heroine, Tess, is seduced, raped and cast out. She struggles with the downward turn of her life, eventually commits murder and is executed. As is typical with Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is rife with coincidences which account for many of Tess's problems.
Mistress of Nothing
The other book with a similar theme is Kate Pullinger's Mistress of Nothing, inspired by the life of Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon, a Victorian writer, traveller and intellectual, but told through the eyes of her servant, Sally.
Set in 19th century Egypt, where the heroine's 'Lady' has gone for health reasons, taking her maid/servant/confidant/ ersatz friend and companion. Sally naively accepts her unusual independence and equality. She innocently expected that her unorthodox affair with an Arab servant and her illegitimate child would be accepted. She is devastated at being banished from the household and left to fend for herself.
This novel won the 2009 Governor General's Award for Fiction.
Kate Pullinger was born in Cranbrook, and now lives in England.
Obasan
Obasan, by Joy Kagawa, a Japanese Canadian, deals with innocence of another kind, and the loss of innocence on several fronts.
It is set in 1972, in small town Alberta, with memories of the internment of Canadians of Japanese descent during WWII. Naomi is forced to confront with unblinkered eyes the painful memories of her childhood in the internment camps in the Slocan. She discovers that her mother, whose absence she had innocently accepted as being in Japan to care for her ill mother,died after being horribly injured and disfigured in the bombing of Japan.
She learns that their relatives in British Columbia had an innocent faith in the Canadian government, that nothing bad would happen to them.
A soul shattering loss of innocence occurs for every Canadian first learning of this shameful period of our history, when Canadian citizens were stripped of all property, rounded up and forced to live in inhumane conditions simply because of their race.
Songs of Innocence
After these 3 'downers' it was uplifting to hear about the poems of William Blake. His Songs of Innocence written in 1789 consist of a series of short poems describing the innocence of a child's soul.
In one of the poems he compares a child's face to the face of God:
"Sweet babe in thy face
Holy image I can trace."
In another, children are compared to innocent lambs and are thought to be angelic.
The poems depict an image of newborn innocence and the innocent trust of a small child.
The Innocent
David Baldacci treats another aspect of innocent in his novel The Innocent.
A contract killer and a runaway teenager, an innocent witness to the murder of her parents, team up to avoid attempts to kill them by an 'unknown'. After numerous narrow escapes, harrowing pursuits, and multiple killings, the he finally is confronted by the 'unknown', who turns out to be a women with whom he had had an affair.
The question he asks at the end of the book is one juries have to contend with from time to time. He knows he is not innocent, because he kills by choice-it's his job to protect the 'innocents of the world' by killing the political monsters.
She, on the other hand, had been brainwashed and programmed from a child to carry out his punishment- so is she really guilty, as she had no choice in her actions?
This is a page- turner of a read and because it is so exciting, all disbelief and rational analysis are suspended. It is only when you put the book down and reflect on the story it seems so unreasonable and unrealistic-but so what- it provided hours of entertaining diversion from our mundane lives!
David Baldacci is the co-founder, with his wife, of the Wish you Well Foundation dedicated to combating illiteracy in America.
Short Stories
The two final choices were short stories-"Old Demon" by Pearl Buck and "The Leader of the People" by John Steinbeck.
The main character in each was innocent of the ways of the world, having been raised in isolated rural villages, one in old China on the banks of the Old Demon River, the other in rural California.
Mrs Wang is part of the community whose innocent tranquillity is shattered by the arrival of the Japanese-she had heard of them but had never seen them, and unknowingly saved a Japanese pilot, a forerunner of the Japanese soldiers following.
Mrs. Wang saves her village by sacrificing herself-she opens the dam on the river to flood the fields and swamp the invaders, realising that in doing so she herself would be swept away as well. Her final words as she bounced away in the water were "Come on Old Demon!"
"Leader of the People" focuses on the innocent relationship between a boy and his grandfather. The grandfather has time to enter into the boy's world of adventures, real and imagined, and join him in mice catching. In turn, the boy listens to the repetitious story his grandfather tells about 'Indians and crossing the Plains', with love, trust and respect. When the boy hears his father's angry outbursts about the story, the grandfather is forced to face reality and tell the real story.
These short stories are great examples of these Pulizer Prize winning authors' works.
Pearl Buck brings the reader into the world of the Chinese in which she had lived, and John Steinbeck evokes Depression era California as no-one else can.
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Lecture by Jordan Zinovich
Kimberley’s own Jordan Zinovich
Practical ‘pataphysics: Amsterdam’s Anarchist Island Builders
Kimberley Public Library
‘Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions to particularized, often symbolic, problems.
It has never been widely practiced, but in Amsterdam, beginning in 1972, two men employed pataphysical principles to explore the allowable limits of life on the canals.
In a lecture at the Kimberley Public Library on the 19 th of March 2014 at 7 pm, Jordan Zinovich will show photographs and film clips illustrating his research into their work and the effects it had.
This presentation should prove to be good for anyone wanting to expand their beyond the box thinking. Free!