Just started reading Ru, by Kim Thuy. The book is most recently the winner of Canada Reads, but is also winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction in its original French. Its list of accolades is long. Immediately it reminds me of the Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, in its image-heavy, prose poem style.
This is one of my favorite styles of writing to read. I find the vignettes more manageable than a conventional novel, in particular when I am reading in short spurts. While there is a narrative flow to Ru, you can read slightly ahead or behind your "place" without compromising the story; as a reader, I like having this extra amount of control over my reading experience. I dislike when I feel locked in to the author's story line, when I have to leave off at a logical spot in order to pick up the book and proceed. These days I don't always have the time to finish a chapter.
Thuy paints very poignant scenes, which, when reading, make me thankful that such moments were captured. I get pretty emotional about good writing, I'll admit. But to me, this is the kind of writing which makes you watch and observe the world around you more closely, realizing that we are constantly moving amid these notable moments.
What else I am reading this month:
- Improving Your Soil, Keith Reid
- Bed Timing, Marc Lewis and Isabela Granic
- Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, Richard Ferber
- The No-Cry Sleep Solution, Elizabeth Pantley
- Canadian Gardener's Guide, Lorraine Johnson (ed)
- 500 Kitchen Ideas, from the editors of Country Living
- The Sewing Book, Alison Smith
- Blind Window, Sleeping Woman, Haruki Murakami
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