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  Lunatic Writer

How the Dead Dream: Book Review

1/30/2013

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Before reading this book, I had no idea who this author was.  Yet, within a dozen pages, I was coming to understand that I was reading something quite special.  The fact that I should be so impressed by Millet’s writing is all the more amazing when I reflect that the protagonist of the book is a devoted capitalist—hardly a person I would normally be drawn to.   Throughout most of the book, he is simply referred to a ‘T’.  Yet T’s transformation is both poetic and spectacular.



As a boy T’s principle passion is to ‘collect’ money and stash it under his pillow at night.  He receives a visceral thrill as he studies the lithographic etching on the American dollar bill.  In college, he is a friend to all, but intimate with no one.  It is ‘T’ who is the designated driver, ‘T’ who sorts out his friend’s indiscretions and messy relationships. ‘T’ himself avoids all youth’s usual excesses, in favour of focusing on the market, real estate and mapping out his destiny. He is enamoured with a vision of high rises, new highways, bright lights, holiday resorts, retirement homes in the desert, the creation of which will become the source of his material wealth and self-worth.

It is worth noting that the protagonist of “How the Dead Dream” is a male, and the writer female. It is the most convincing cross-gender writing I have ever come across. Never once did I doubt the authenticity of the male voice of ‘T’.

But what makes this novel so good?  The writing to be sure, which is extremely lyrical at times, and the psychological insights Millet has which are quite breath-taking.  In the end, what is most impressive, is the journey she takes the reader on.  We meet ‘T’ arch-capitalist, without a soul it seems, at first, but then gradually we see a change take place. It begins when he is driving at night and hits a coyote.  He stops his car to check on it. It’s not yet dead. He feels obligated to carry it off road—even though he doesn’t know what to expect—after all, it might bite him. He stays with it until it takes its last breath.  That moment changes him, though he doesn’t realize it at the time.

Later ‘T’ who, till this time, has never surrendered himself to anyone emotionally meets Beth, the love of his life, but tragedy strikes, and that relationships lasts only a short time.  His father, a man in his sixties, suddenly, and without explanation, leaves his wife.  ‘T’ does his best to console his mother, and has her live with him.  She develops early dementia.  The scenes of ‘T’, the son, speaking with a mother who doesn’t even recognize him, in fact thinks he is a criminal,  are heart-wrenching.

Quite unexpectedly—to me, at least—‘T’ then develops an obsession with endangered animals, going to great lengths to be in their company.  For him, they come to represent the world condition, the ultimate fate of each individual and each species, creatures near their end and alone, desperately alone.  Some of the novel’s most memorable moments take place as ‘T’ stands eye-to-eye with some of these forlorn and mighty creatures.

This might help explain the otherwise quite obscure cover of the book: it is a close up of an elephant’s eye.

I did not read Millet’s book in one sitting—I never do, but I could very easily imagine myself making an exception for this book.  It was that compelling, that beautifully written, that filled with compassion, longing and even humour.  It’s one of the best things I’ve read in years.  

9/10.

Only the “classics of literature would get a higher rating from me.  I have a new favourite author!


 


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Eighty Thousand Words

1/29/2013

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Early this morning, I reached the 80 000 word mark in the first draft of my novel, Big Ledge.  By some accounts this is the ideal length for a novel, a first novel, anyway.  If you become a commercial success, you can make your novels any length you like...  
I'm not finished the first draft--there may be as many as twenty thousand more words to come--but the end is in definitely in sight, the task seems possible.  And with the shrinkage that will naturally come after editing, eighty thousand words may indeed be close to the final count.
It's a good place to be, better than almost exactly one year before when I started on the first chapter.  Will there be enough material for a novel, I asked then?  Can I sustain it?  Can I map out a reasonable plot?  Can I maintain the interest of readers and my own interest, for that matter?  Well, I'm committed now...  Of course most writers SHOULD be "committed".

FYI.  Big Ledge is NOT a story about the life of birds (although birds do appear in it: chickadees, jays and ravens to mention a few...)


For more about the Big Ledge project...

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from The British Daily Colonist: Jan. 17, 1886

1/17/2013

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from my favorite feature: a miscellany of humour, bizarre facts, unsubstantiated rumour, and shameless advertisements:



WHAT SOME PEOPLE SAY



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That tall ladies who don’t like their height may console themselves with the fact that the handsomest woman in Italy stands nearly seven feet high.

That it is said that it is no longer the style for girls to learn to play on the banjo, from which a critic infers that they now play on the                instrument without learning.




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That Monsignor Fabre of Montreal has issued a circular to his clergy, in which he strongly condemns the tobogganing and snowshoe costumes of females.






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That Oxford has 111 of its sons in the new parliament and Cambridge 82. Of the public schools Eton has 72, Harrow 46 and Rugby 27.

That extraordinary numbers of Jews are going to England from Germany, Russia and Roumania.





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That Mme. Patti finds herself in high favour among the Parisiennes. “The French now talk of her,” writes Edward King, “as if she had made her debut here and were a child of Paris. They are quite wild to see her on stage once more.” She is to sing for these new worshipers soon after New Year’s.


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That the street peddlers in Philadelphia did a thriving business on New Year’s day in false moustaches, beards and whiskers.

That roller skating is dying out at the east.




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Justice John Hamilton Gray: Sproule's Hanging Judge  

1/14/2013

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Prominent in Canadian history are two Fathers of Confederation with exactly the same name: John Hamilton Gray. Go figure....

I'm focusing on the one born in Bermuda in 1814, and who died in Victoria in 1889.

Gray's career might be described almost as picaresque in regard to the  many and geographically widespread offices he held.

He was a lawyer, a lieutenant-colonel in the militia; he ended up being premier of New Brunswick and, as mentioned, won his greatest fame for being one of the Fathers of Confederation.

Gray was described by some of his contemporaries as a "conservative of the old school... gentlemanly... forgiving."  By others he was considered shallow, even "empty-headed", someone whose opinions might be easily swayed.  

In 1873 he gave up his ties with eastern Canada to become a judge in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. It was in this role that he heard the case of Regina vs. Sproule, some twelve years later.





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Here's some of what Judge Gray had to say in his final instructions to the jury at the Sproule trial:

"I have now read the evidence from beginning to end; and it is certainly of the most unusual and extraordinary character. I have never met in my life a case like the present, requiring such careful review of the evidence, the closest attention, and a moral determination to do right irrespective of the crown or the prisoner at the bar. I cannot define any other theory by which this crime could have happened than that adduced by the crown."

Judicial impartiality?

Judge Gray goes on to attach great importance to the manner in which Sproule was apprehended. As though its unlikely nature is irrefutable proof of the man's guilt.  He strongly suggests that the hand of God was at work...

"It is most extraordinary how the winds should have operated that day, how the prisoner was delayed--almost, I may say, by circumstances that were so ordered, that they seem to have been so by the interposition of providence. The storm arises on the lake, the wind retards the progress of the prisoner, the rifle shot is heard, the prisoner lands where no human eye can detect the trail, yet the same inscrutable Being is beside this man, and we find almost at the very moment when escape seemed to have been certain, that he absolutely walked by some extraordinary means right into the captors' hands... It seems everything had been brought by some higher power than an earthly one. I am satisfied, gentlemen, that the matter may be safely left in your hands... and I do hope that you will be able to come to a conclusion which will be consistent with what is right between God and man."


With all these high-powered instructions  taken into account, it is a wonder Sproule's jury deliberated as long that it did, and that they dared return to the court and announce they couldn't agree on a verdict.

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from the stage play, Sproule's Folly: Sproule "fleeing" justice in his boat with Lily Langtry as his companion (actors Lara Schroeder & Michael Pierce)

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January 12, 1886

1/12/2013

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Yes, the people from Ayer's are at it again! Flu and cold sufferers, rejoice, relief is at hand. After all, who could doubt the words of J.I. Miller, of Luray, Virgina, who says, "I was saved from the grave, I am sure, by the use of Ayer's Cherry Pectoral."

I'm sure R.E. Sproule would have tried some!

To get a taste for the Big Ledge project, try reading the first chapter.

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The Defense of Robert Sproule

1/10/2013

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Theodore Davie, younger brother to A.E.B. Davie, followed in his brother's footsteps, becoming both lawyer and politician. Generally, A.E.B. argued for the prosecution and Theodore for the Defense.

In the 1884 appeal heard before Chief Justice Begie in regards to the dispute of mining claims at Big Ledge, Theodore had originally agreed to represent Sproule and his party.  Unfortunately, Theodore was called away at the last minute on pressing government business, leaving Sproule with some lesser light to argue his case.  In Theodore's absence, Sproule might well have had his heart set on Baillie-Grohman's representation. After all, Grohman had successfully defended his interests before Gold Commissioner Kelly a year earlier.  But Grohman too was unavailable, away on one of his many trips to England early in 1884.

In the end, Theodore Davie was able to represent Sproule but, this time, defending him on a murder charge.  Starting on December 2, 1885, Theodore Davie faced off against his brother, then Attorney-General of the province, in what was regarded as one of the most high profile cases ever to be argued in a British Columbia court.

Even after Sproule's conviction, Theodore continued to represent Sproule, traveling as far as Ottawa, seeking a re-trial or, at worst, a commutation of the death sentence. 

Originally Sproule had been sentenced to be hanged on January 5, 1885.  Thanks to a long list of appeals, legal wranglings and last minute reprieves,  Sproule's sentence was not carried out until October 29, 1886.

In 1889, Theodore Davie became Attorney-General , and went on to become premier himself in 1892.  He resigned from that office three years later to become Chief Justice, succeeding the legendary Matthew Baillie Begbie. 





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Robert Sproule & the Appeals Court

1/9/2013

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Matthew Baillie Begbie was a colossus in the early history of British Columbia's judiciary. Later he was to be known as the "hanging judge" This epithet was likely undeserved, however,  since judges of British Columbia at this time had no leeway in passing sentence in murder cases.  Only if a jury recommended mercy could hanging be avoided.

Begbie was the Chief Justice (or its equivalent) for most of his professional life and remained in this role until his death in 1894. It was he who, early in 1884, heard the appeal launched by the Ainsworth Syndicate over the ownership of claims at Big Ledge. Begbie reversed all of Gold Commissioner Kelly's rulings, except one.  Hammill's re-staking of the Bluebell site was a simple case of claim-jumping, Begbie decided, and he ruled in favour of Sproule. 

Begbie also expressed his annoyance at the role played by Baillie-Grohman in the dispute. "...the whole of this wearisome, expensive and mischievous litigatiion has been caused and fostered by the unauthorized intrusion of a stranger, who seems to have succeeded, before the Gold Commissioner, in raising such a cloud of irrelevant statement and controversies, as to entirely obscure that officer's view of the few material facts in each case. This interference, it is scarcely necessary to state, is entirely illegal."

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However, lest we think Begbie was the kind of man to hold a grudge, it is instructive to notice that Mrs. Baillie-Grohman, in writing of her time in Victoria, states how Begbie was a good family friend and would often come over to house for dinner.  And, after all, the two men did share a common middle name.

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Robert Sproule & the Crown

1/8/2013

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Alexander Edmund Batson Davie: there's a mouthful.  Davie street in downtown Vancouver is named after him. He was the first man to receive his entire law education in British Columbia. He was elected to the legislature in1875 at the tender age of twenty-eight.  In 1882, he was appointed the province's attorney general.

In 1885 A.E.B. Davie (as he preferred to be known) was the natural choice to represent the Crown in the high profile Sproule murder case due to take place in Victoria. 

And who would represent Sproule?  A.E.B.'s brother, Theodore, obviously! More about him later.

A.E.B. went on to become the eighth premier of the province in 1887. He fell desperately ill soon after and moved to California to recuperate. From there he carried on the business of government by correspondence (the postal service must have been more reliable back then). 

A.E.B. returned to Victoria in 1888 but never did fully recuperate. He died while in office the following year.

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Canadian Kung Fu

1/7/2013

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Here's a salute to the power of radio drama (comedic skit in this case).  Less than one minute long: the perfect definition of a Canadian. Love it!

http://www.cbc.ca/irrelevantshow

can_kung_fu.mp3
File Size: 2095 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

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Pacific Coastal Steamers: 1886

1/2/2013

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Travel between Victoria and San Francisco was surprisingly common back in the 1880's, and mostly by coastal steamer.  In Big Ledge, I have Baillie-Grohman make such a trip, where he combines business with an opportunity to finally catch Lily Langtry on stage.

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The Queen of the Pacific made regular trips between Victoria and San Francisco and also up to Alaska and back.

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    Brian d'Eon, fiction writer: whose work modulates between speculative, historical and magical realism.

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