Reading List: Summer 2008

I think I acquitted myself pretty well. Especially made a dent in my ever-growing pile of unread books that I've bought.

preacher book 8: all hell's a-coming*, garth ennis and steve dillon
preacher book 9: alamo*, garth ennis and steve dillon
i shall destroy all the civilized planets: the comics of fletcher hanks*
granta 97: the best of young american novelists 2
tracer, frederick barthelme
the double hook, sheila watson
the sound and the fury, william faulkner
ham on rye, charles bukowski
iliad, homer
mcsweeney's mammoth treasury of thrilling tales, edited by michael chabon (mass market reprint of issue 10 of mcsweeney's quarterly concern)
the starman omnibus vol. 1*, james robinson and tony harris
invisible man, ralph ellison
snow white, donald barthelme
robinson crusoe, daniel defoe
the king, donald barthelme
man in the holocene, max frisch
the catcher in the rye, j.d. salinger
nine stories, j.d. salinger
the call of cthulhu and other weird stories, h.p. lovecraft
franny and zooey, j.d. salinger

*comic books

Book Review: The Double Hook

The Double Hook by Sheila Watson

The Double Hook is a masterpiece of modernist Canadian fiction. Ostensibly set in 1930s British Columbia interior, it transcends those spatial and temporal limitations. The back cover describes it thusly as "men and women are caught upon the double hook of existence, unaware that the flight from danger and the search for glory are both part of the same journey. In Watson's compelling novel, cruelty and kindness, betrayal and faith, shape a pattern of enduring human significance.

In his afterword, F.T. Flahiff quotes Watson's mentor Frederick M. Salter as describing it as a book that will confound most readers (and reviewers) who gallop rather than read and whose pace courts bewilderment and frustration for readers confronted by its simultaneously spare and dense prose. As one of those readers who gallops (literally a gallop as I tend to walk while I read), I still recognize that there is something pure and perfect and so seminally Canadian about her work. Its characters are never truly defined as either native or European of ancestry yet somehow succeed at being applicable to both and the succinct appearances of Coyote adds both mythical and thematic resonance.

Still one reading keeps it pedestaled as something to be admired rather than loved. Rather it requires absolute attention and future readings over the quick clip of simple consumption. Absolutely recommended.

What I Bought Today

The Double Hook by Sheila Watson

Used. $2.50.

I get credit (i.e. bonus points) for seeking out Canadian Literature for once.


Cover may appear similar, but different in person. Uncanny.