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We’ve spent two nights in Paris. When we first arrived the key to the flat was not under the door mat (security!!!) and the five of us stood in a row in the long narrow hallway with our suitcases on wheels, as if we were cattle waiting for slaughter. Sister made a flurry of phone calls, the final one stating we wouldn’t wait for much longer and they could pay for our hotel if we had to get one. An Italian Canadian family who was visiting from Montreal was in a unit on the next floor. When they heard of our troubles they let us bring our luggage into their flat and wait for our key there (where mum could have access to a washroom) as they were going out for dinner. Unbelievable! They were so generous and kind and trusting. It really warmed the heart. Truly, the kindness of strangers. Our key was delivered shortly thereafter and with great relief we gained entry.

Our flat is located near Notre Dame and Centre Pompidou. It’s central so that our mum won’t have so far to walk. But she’s still finding a bit of a struggle. She has various ailments, one of them being a kind of muscular arthritis. She hobbles on cobblestones. I hobble on cobblestones! One year I was in beautiful Sevilla in Spain and my ankles turned every step I took because of shoes that were not designed with cobblestones in mind…. I do have my sensible West Coast dyke Merrills and they do nicely on almost all terrain, but high end fashion they are not.

Group dynamics are always in flux during holiday exursions. Yesterday sister and I had a testy discussion on the Seine tour boat about how must capacity our mum had to be left with her friend from Japan to go shopping on their own in our neighborhood. Sister rated them at zero. I rated them at about 4 out of 10. I.e. let’s let them hobble about and shop on their own. Daughter watched silently from her seat a slightly bored and pissy expression upon her face. Sister pointed out that mum got lost in the hotel in Banff. Apparently she only had to go straight, but she was missing for half an hour and sister went on Search and Rescue. Therefore, she stated, mum could not be left on her own. Sister also said she’d witnessed a mugging in London and it was hard and fast and very traumatic. That we were deterring muggers from mugging easy pickings like our mum because we were with her. Mum does have the tendency to walk slowly her head tilted upward as she gapes at something, her wallet held loosely, forgotten in her hand…. I acceded to my sister’s opinion a little grudgingly: she knows more about Europe after all. I must also accede that my desire for mum and her friend to go off on their own isn’t necessarily for their sake…. <crooked grin> I have decided that the best possible trip for my mother would be a cruise trip. At least she would be confined to the boat thereby there would be a convenient purser near at hand to direct her to her room. There are port stops where she could explore shops with a group of other cruise people. And she would not have to walk too far to get to where she wanted to go. I will never go on a cruise trip.

Mum and her friend natter on and on…. They have so much to catch up on, certainly, but a lot of time is spent socially massaging their relationship. They need to be in agreement on every platform. They are agreeable with each other. Are not the counters so very high. Yes, the counters are very high. Are there not many tourist trinket shops. Yes, there are so very many tourist trinket shops. I know this totally makes sense for group dynamics, but sometimes I just want to say outrageously opinionated things. I want to be the asocial kid who tears through the tea party, tipping over the table, scattering cups and making the other girls shriek. Hahahahahaaaa! Don`t you want to travel in a group with me…. Perhaps to my mother`s friend I am coming across a sullen and ill-tempered. I just don`t like to natter and make conversation for the sake of conversation. Silence can be lovely and sweet. And you can notice things that can be drowned out by the sound of voices. Also, I would like to point out that my mother has said that I was born un-smiley and rather serious…. (I have lost my apostrophes and I do not know where to find them. I seem to have hit a button on the keyboard that has affected workings of buttons with Shift key. Sigh. So am no longer using contractions and sound like the characters in True Grit.)

The pinnacles and carvings of the Notre Dame so very forbidding and domineering. The tourists wind around the building in long lines to see the interior. We snap photos from outside, none of us hearty enough to brave the queue. More photo ops for my mum and her Japanese friend from the Seine tour boat, the Eiffel tower in the background. They have proof of having drifted past one of the main sights that signify France.

Daughter is looking forward to shopping today. There are summer sales going on and there are fashionable T-shirts going for 10-15 Euros!

I will be spending some time with book people today. I had made a mistake and had thought our meeting was yesterday. So I was standing outside, against the building door, looking up and down the narrow street as mostly tourists strolled by. I made a point of looking at my watch now and then so that the souvlaki and sandwich shops across the way would know I was waiting for an appointment….

Is French onion soup French…. Yup! Whew!

Tomorrow the Louvre. We are going to rent a wheelchair for my mum. If my heel starts to act up I will sit in her lap and get daughter to push us. Awesome!!!! Hahahahahaha!

How lovely, how odd, how complicated and delightful…. How do we find ourselves in this time and space, a tourist, a holiday-maker, in a enormous chateau in Dordogne, France? First of all the chateau is enormous– built in 1840 for the Duke “who won Algeria and Morocco for France”…!!!! Class, race, colonialism, imperialism all converge upon the site where we rest our bodies, 21rst C. tourists from so many different countries, races and cultures. Those of us who have the income to afford travel for leisure are truly privileged. I don’t want to forget this; I still want a good time….

I am having a good time! I’m tripped out by the lodgings! So very grand, but also a little worn at the edges. A posh chateau converted into accomodations will wear. But the grand high ceilings, the large massive rooms, the four-poster beds and the tall windows– we are in a time slip and what shall we say when the Duke and Duchess return! I stare at the portraits of the original owners who look down upon us when we dine at the great long table and wonder what they would think. How they would never have imagined such a gathering in their home. The flow of time, the changing of demographics and privilege and today we breakfast upon sweet canteloupe wrapped with prosciutto. Slices of tangy juicy nectarines, savoury fatty fig sausage procured at the market in Martel.

We drove to Rocamadour yesterday. First off I must say that my misgivings about the use of GPS devices have grown since being here. I don’t have one at home and my sister and brother-in-law have been using theirs in the rental cars. They’ve both chosen female voices. You cannot moderate the volume so “The Lady in the Car” (this is what I call the voice) shouts her information at odd intervals startling me greatly. But this is the least of it. Now I understand why there are stories in the news about people driving into lakes and drowning! “The Lady in the Car” (I really mean the program) is limited to what was orginally input. So new roads that were constructed afterward are not accounted for. Following the directions can lead you astray, in oddly circuitous routes, extraordinarily long scenic side trips along back country single-lane farm roads (pretty!!!) and take a very long time even after you’ve inputted “fastest route”! Hahahahahahahhaaaaa! I do see how it would be useful for a single driver who was travelling alone– it’s so dangerous to look at a paper map and drive at the same time.

I loved viewing Rocamadour from the ramparts of the L’Hospitalet perched atop the cliff. The perspective was so intense– the 3-D effect seemed hyper-accentuated, I don’t know why. The valley and river so far below and the tourists milling down the main roadway, going up and down the stairs like Escher people…. And still higher above us vultures soared and spiralled in great sweeping arcs like silent angels.

Enroute we stopped at Martel. It was a smaller medieval town without the bustle and clamour of the more well-trod tourist sites. It was so lovely. We had a most beautiful dejeuner outside under umbrellas. We feasted upon canard and the most delicious sliced and garlicked potatoes! Daughter adored this town.

The vegetables and fruit are so much fresher and tastier than what we buy in supermarkets in British Columbia. What sad things have we done to our produce? They are grown in bulk with fertilizers, picked too early, and shipped from afar to arrive upon our shores tasteless and devoid of goodness.

I hope Son is watering my garden while I’m gone! I have high hopes for my potatoes and carrots. The cold weather things are doing well this year. I think there is time to plant late rows of lettuce and kale upon my return. All good.

I haven’t had a proper walk around the grounds. We have been busy with sightseeing. There is a skylight in our bedroom. The natural shift in light wakes me gently at 6 a.m. It’s such a slow waking I can’t even be resentful. It is calm and quiet this early. The chateau is so full of peoples, children, movement and sound. The morning quiet is a pleasing way to start the day’s movements. Tomorrow or the day after I shall walk around the entire estate. The morning birds.

Speaking of movement, the chateau is so very large (three floors of rooms plus a basement) that people are always looking for each other. One will glide into the dining room, ask for someone, and no, we have not seen her. The seeker moves on and continues searching. Perhaps up the marble staircase. Perhaps up the cramped spiral servants’ passage. The sought enters the dining room five minutes later. So the seeker and sought flow through the chateau, always in another room, one floor away.

I have been so busy I have not posted on my Sundays. But, je ne me regrette pas, because tomorrow– well, today, in fact, daughter and I leave for France! We are “picking up” my mum along the way (via airplane/airport) and will be spending the next two weeks on the road! Tres bien! It is one of my sister’s birthday and she’s arranged for a large gathering of friends and family in order to celebrate. It’s going to be loud, exciting, fractious, hilarious, dramatic…. We are not a quiet family. Nope.

I hope to post On-the-road updates now and then. I’m not entirely sure that our accomodations have internet connection. This detail wasn’t included on their websites. Lordy. I’m kinda addicted to email. I guess time off-line is a Good Thing. But it will take me a little while to acclimatize! I guess I could always write the entries on laptop and then post on a later date.

The past few weeks I`ve been catching up on writing, rewriting, editing and correspondence. Also had the most fabulous “shop talk” meeting with my agent. “Shop talk” is, for me, discussions of the business side of writing. My agent knows a lot about this of course and it’s good to touch base to hear where she’s at, where I’m at, and what kind of goals can be placed upon the horizon in the most potentially fruitful of ways. I find it so very important to me to work with an agent I can talk with– an agent who has the time to sit down and answer questions, ask questions, and share information. Not all agents do this. I suppose not all writers want this kind of author/agent relationship? Some agents don’t like to be asked questions…. They want to be left alone with your manuscript, the author to go back to being creative, and the agent will be happy to hear from you once the next manuscript is completed. The important thing is to find an agent with whom you can work compatibly.

I`ll be meeting my French editor of Baam! in Paris! Half World was translated and released in 2010 as Entremonde. It`s so neat and odd to have one`s book translated into a language one does not know. The translation is a book near to what you wrote, but the translator (in this case, Marie de Premonville!) is the one who literally wrote this French version! I can`t read it to comprehend it. I can sound out the more simple words, and spot a noun here, a verb there, but there is no comprehension other than what I know already of my own English version. A translation is a variation of the original, because there is never an equal and exact translation from one language into another. I love variations… (except in my morning coffee!). Very excited to  meet book people from France! Yay!

Not much time left for sleeps. So adieu mes amis! (Daughter hates my French accent. Or, my English accent atop my atrocious French. It is likely I will embarrass her a Great Deal. Just as my mother will embarrass me. Oh, the legacies! I tell you!)

I’ll try to post while on the road!

Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy features aliens that have three “sexes”: male, female, and ooloi. The ooloi are neither male nor female but a third sex that is necessary for reproduction. The ooloi can manipulate DNA and make genetic alterations– they are living sythesizers of new life. The ooloi manipulate the genetic material in an organ called yashi. The ooloi hunger for new DNA, discovery of new species, etc. If they haven’t tasted something new for a while, they need to seek it out.

I’ve been taking to thinking of the “creative” organ inside of me as my yashi…. Yashi was hungering this past week, so I fed her. ~___~

Watched several films, read several graphic novels, a trip to the Vancouver Art Gallery, made a painting of a squid, attended a lecture on our microbial environment, and working my vegetable gardens all nourish my yashi so very much!

I’d been curious about Parnormal Activity for a while and finally got to see it– was a huge fail for me. Perhaps the intended audience is meant to be younger…? I think I might have been frightened if I were fourteen? But I found the main characters so extremely annoying that I didn’t care what happened to them. (Which led me to question my own morality– i.e. if I didn’t care for a person based on their personality traits, clearly it’s amoral to have no empathy over whether they live, suffer, or die, etc.) However, another element that prevented any willing suspension of disbelief was the use of the hand-held camera as documenting-event-as-they-occur premise, which I find a huge leap of faith because if you’re really in a life or death situation, how many regular joe people (as opposed to dedicated and practiced professional journalists/camerapeople) would keep on filming? If there’s some weird scary evil shit going down, wouldn’t you just frickin’ stop filming and run, fast? There were several lines delivered throughout the film with the character addressing this very question– explainers, on why he feels compelled to keep on filming. Which only underscored the constructedness of the narrative. In the end it was a gimmick film. But I was very much impressed by the low-budget aspect! It did remarkably well for a small-scale production. Kudos!

Also watched My Dog Tulip, a feature-length animation about an older curmudgeonly bachelor writer who adopts a German Shepard. The writing/narration is a little dated (it was written as a memoir in 1956), but the drawings/animations are so very beautiful and lovely…. Gorgeous and strategic use of colour. The deep greens, blues, red alongside shades of brown. The lines sometimes left gestural. It was such a balm upon the senses, especially in this time of CGI-created uber uncanny valleys… (The most recent unpleasant valley I visited was Rango! Especially the female lead, Beans, to the Depp-Rango-Chameleon. Beans was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I was so distracted by the CGI that I could scarcely follow the story.).

Also finally watched Kinsey! Whoa! Very gripping and interesting and well-performed. Who doesn’t love Laura Linney? I also found the doubling of father behaviours to be well-done. I’ve also begun watching the TV series, True Blood. Not too shabby! And there’s not so  many seasons to catch up to. Not like Battlestar Gallactica. Captn’, it’s not possible!

Read the Best of American Comic 2007, Dogs and Water, and American Widow. American Widow is a memoir of life after 9/11, from the point-of-view of a young pregnant wife who has lost her husband in the attack upon the Twin Towers. Deeply personal, honest and sad, it reveals what the aftermath was like for Alissa Torres, the very intimate human suffering behind a large-scale historic tragedy. The clean, spare artwork of Sungyoon Choi was a perfect pairing with this narrative. Very powerful use of dark and light, simple lines. Unfussy. This graphic novel made me cry….

I was going to share some thoughts on the Surrealist show at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Ken Lum’s installations, and a simple and haunting piece, “Torso of a Young Girl”, by Myfanwy Macleod, but I need to leave, soon, for a plenary session at the Asian Canadian Studies Graduate Workshop! If you’re in Vancouver area please do go to the gallery. If you go on a Tues, between 5-9pm it’s sliding scale and you can pay what you like!

Feeding the yashi is so important to nourish creativity…. Writing is the very visible part of our creativity, but the stuff that supports and sustains it should receive just as much time and focus. And respect.

The neighbourhood crows are gathered in a tall spruce tree across the street– they caw and caw and caw and caw. The last time they were so upset there was a raccoon in the branches. A day of drizzle rain finally lifted in late afternoon. It’s been a perfect watering.

I made dumplings out of the wild mustard that grew spontaneously out of the garden. The seeds must have travelled with the soil that was newly purchased this spring. After some searching online I was able to identify the plant, and also learn that it is, indeed, edible. I thought it might be so– when I sampled a little of the fresh leaf it reminded me of Chinese mustard and daikon greens. Apparently Italians like to eat wild mustard. It tastes similar to rapini, but I find it sweeter. I blanched the greens because they have prickly fur covering some of the leaves and stems, and I read that boiling it would deal with this. I squeezed the water out of the boiled greens and minced it then added organic ground beef, grated ginger and garlic, salt and a dollop of sesame oil. This the filling, the big children and I folded the dumplings and we had our usual discussion of how many to boil and how many to pan-fry. They turned out very nicely and it’s so lovely to discover that a weed overwhelming a planted garden is also food. I did try dandelion greens one year but they were so bitter I had to spit it out. I remember my grandmother making dandelion greens from my half-forgotten childhood in Langley. My oba-chan’s greens tasted good. At least I remember it so.

I’ve started reading the novel, Mother, by Maxim Gorky. I knew nothing of this book or author– I only picked it up because of synchronicity. I had been in the library looking for specific titles for research. After I had found what I was looking my eyes passed over the shelves in front of me when I was snagged by the title in black caps. Just a few weeks ago I’d blogged about being a writer and a mother, then reviewed the Korean film, Mother. Now this! Three is a significant number in Japanese culture. Bemused I reached for the novel and read the back flap and then the first few paragraphs. I added it to my stack.

Gorky’s novel is very chewy. It seems to me that Gorky’s political and social justice agendas are the primary machines that drives this narrative. But he’s folded his ideologies into story form, utilizing the illiterate down-trodden mother to embody and speak the voice of the powerless proletariat “every-person”. According to Wiki, this novel was first published in 1907! I find that I keep on having cognitive dissonance, because the ways that Gorky depicts Pelagea, the mother, as a fully realized and changing and developing character is so very progressive and in some ways, very feminist. I mean this is 1907!!! (Sometimes the mother is idealized, but it’s very much in keeping with the workings of the novel– idealization is part of the ideological lever.) I’m only on page 147, but I’m very much moved by the descriptions of the daily drudgery and suffering of the proletariats as well as the fiery passion for the rights of the working classes and a faith in humanity despite all of the ugliness that circumscribes their lives. 

Sometimes the political speeches go on-ish, but that’s because I’m a reader in my petit bourgeois home, over a hundred years away, well-fed, warm and tired after a weekend of leisure…. Gorky put it on the line for social justice– he was sent to prison many times. He risked his life for his beliefs and his art form. It’s something to think about.

And the crows still caw and caw and I’ve yet to paint bright signs for tomorrow’s rally in support of passing a Burnaby school board policy that ensures that LGBT students and staff are and feel safe in school.

I haven’t worked on any fiction projects today– I did, however, do the dreadful filing of receipts and the desk is clear, wiped free of dust, and blessedly uncluttered. Writing new words at a clean and clear desk is a marvellous thing. But for now off to look for pieces of wood and large paper!

It’s difficult to comprehend fully, but I’ve been a writer for over twenty years. Unbelievable! Weird! By hook and by crook I’ve somehow managed to live off my writerly income, but this has been only just manageable because my ex-husband and I share our resources to raise the children and maintain family. I know I could not have stuck to my writer’s life as I have lived it as the primary care-giver single mom.

I don’t like to think of my writing as business and don’t do it naturally– this is partly a result of the idea of separating art (i.e. “high art”) from the commercial. Braid into this strand the political and it’s even more difficult to frame writing as business. Every profession will have members who think of themselves as the best, or the most “pure” (?), the most evolved, etc. In the great wash of life what people think of you and what you do does not truly matter. However, sometimes we can’t help feeling doubts and question what we do, how we do it. We can’t help these feelings and thoughts, because we are, aside from V.S. Naipaul <rolling eyes>, feeling and thinking social creatures.

If writing is the sole means of your income to not think of the business side of things is selectively naive and counter-productive. To think and plan on how to increase your income with your art so you can continue to do the art you love to do is not an evil thing. I have heard people in the literary arts and visual arts talk to each other about how so-and-so has “sold out” or “went commercial” and wasn’t “truly an artist anymore”. My first question I ask is who is it that deems this so? Are they coming from a place where income is a less pressing concern? I.e. do they have family money to fall back upon so they needn’t fear aging in poverty with no medical plan? And, finally, why must we cling to the weird Romantic idea(l) that artists must suffer for their art?I want to live and eat well. It is everyone’s right.

Art is also labour. I think of the writing I do as art but also as a serious (and joyous) labour. And as a worker I expect to be paid. I’ve been working hard at writing for many years. As I become better at this labour and art form I want a raise! Hahahahahahahahaaaa!

Meeting with my agent’s partners in Toronto has shifted something for me in how I think of my writing. I had been always placing the ideals (subjective) of art and politics in the foreground, but I think I need to balance the field with an equal amount of thinking and energy around elements of business.

One of the agents said that the average reading level was Grade 10. My friend said, That high? Instead of feeling like the writer must come down from her esteemed standards of excellence which involves a large vocabulary, and woeing and wailing that literacy has fallen so low, it can be seen as an opportunity to reexamine the author’s expectations of audience. There are also issues of class. Does your choice of vocabulary, construction and narrative only speak to a smaller specific audience or does it have the capacity to reach a wider and diverse audience? Who do you want to reach? Who do you want to have read your book? Do you want to make more money? To want to make more money is not, in itself, a bad thing.

The same agent said that books are luxury items. Most people cannot afford to buy books in the same way they would spend money on apples or bananas. True, I thought. I love libraries and frequent them and borrow books. But as a writer I earn money when people buy my books.

I don’t think it’s one or the other– we’re either true to our political beliefs and artistic ideals or we “go commercial” and write more mainstream. I like to think that it’s possible to combine the best of all wor(l)ds and an artful writer can pull this off! Why not? If you write it into being, you’ve written it into being!

God, I love this work!

WisCon 35 concluded—what a lovely weekend meeting up with friends from previous Cons, making new friends, and talking, laughing! Nisi Shawl gave a lovely GOH speech and I loved how she situated the idea of genius as not something individual and anomalous, but arising from and because of community, and that it is possible for all to shine. The feminist contingency from Japan, including Mari Kotani and Madame Robot had an excellent panel detailing their feminist domination of Tokon 10 last year in Japan. I loved the discussions that were generated by the Magic Realism and Diaspora panel moderated by Mary Anne Moharanj with Nisi Shawl, Sheree Renée Thomas, Ibi Aanu Zoboi, and yours truly. coffeeandink has shared her notes from that panel on her livejournal if you want to take a look. The loveliest conversations are held during lunch and dinner– reestablishing connections and proposing new projects. Building a wider lattice of communities. I’m so lucky to have been able to attend!

Intensive socializing, panels and a reading. Sometimes the introvert side took over, over-riding the professional face, sending me upstairs to pancake flat atop my bed. And what a lovely bed it was!

I must confess— I don’t have cable TV at home so when I’m on work trips and stay in hotels I am mesmerized by what is on there! Particularly paid-for programming/advertising. This time, of particular note, was the special cantaloupe skin cream that that model uses…. Whoa—the complete lack of any kind of scientific info and reliance only upon the model’s own face and then shots of the special French doctor and the story of him “discovering” the magic melons follows such a fairy tale narrative. Holy smokes, I think. Why not magic beans? Why not the Japanese magic pot? It’s brilliant in its simplicity and effectiveness. And frightening. People want to follow the cult of “anti-aging” and “youth” so very much. I love aging faces! I love the distinct lines, the imprint of experience that is etched into skin. I would stare at older people if staring wasn’t considered rude. (The special melon story is fascinating, but I still would opt for the Spanish snail slime cream they were advertising in Leiden….)

I quickly flipped through the numerous “reality” shows figuring young people partying and being unpleasant/drunk because I find them so very painful to behold. Then I was snagged by an “exposé”-type program that combined catching pedophiles with reality TV on hidden camera…. This was sick on multiple levels. I think it’s a good thing, of course, to catch would-be pedophiles who prey on young people online. But to record it on camera and air it on television is another matter altogether. We watch the pedophile enter the house where he’d been directed to go to by the “bait youth/child” and witness him being berated by the “host” of the program. This is truly disturbing as it situates the viewer as a weird voyeur. I think the viewer is meant to feel some kind of moral righteousness as the would-be pedophile is caught and also a sense of justice and power and superiority as we witness the very public humiliation of the man (I didn’t see any women in the program). The different men frequently claimed they had made a mistake. And that they would never do it again, etc. They were very compliant with their guilt, and several of the men mistakenly thought that the “host” of the program was actually the father of the child/youth he had preyed upon online. What the would-be predator doesn’t know is that there are an enormous number of police officers waiting for him outside. He is allowed to leave the house, thinking he has gotten away, when the spotlights are lit and he is roughly made to lie upon his stomach, told he is under arrest and handcuffed and taken away.

What are we when we observe this spectacle? What are we if we gain some kind of satisfaction from it? There is a kind of displaced mob-justice element, here, that should not be encouraged in our species.

Of course I find the idea of pedophiles and predators disgusting and reprehensible, but I don’t think that this means that they ought to be treated the way they are on the television program. I can understand police officers doing this as a part of their work. I suppose some people would say that such shows, if viewed by predators, could serve as deterrent as he may fear being caught is much the same way. And that this is reason enough for this program to continue. But at what cost for those who are not predators—a far larger number of people? That this is televised and can be viewed as a “form of entertainment” troubles me so very much. It can only sicken our spirit…. But I don’t want to end on appalling television programs!

I’ve written about being a writer and mother on this blog and though I’ve been doing these work trips for some time it’s still lovely to get away from the home front, have ROOM SERVICE and lie in bed whilst eating a clubhouse sandwich!!!! Hahahahahaaaa! Because I was getting into that space of being soooo sick of wondering what I’d make for dinner. Holy shit….

Rumours and buzz: Sharyn November, my editor at Viking, told me that the next new thing is supposed to be mermaids…. I can only hope it will be the man-eating variety rather than the wanna-marry-a-man kind. <weak grin> . I won’t be holding my breath. Tomorrow meetings with my agency and publisher. Finish an editorial. Catch up on emails, business, and back into a groove of writing.

Two nights ago I watched Bong Joon-ho’s 2009 film, Mother. I’m a fan of his earilier film, The Host, and love what he does with splicing different genres. Mother is also a combo-punch of films. I don’t want to say too much about the plot points because I don’t want to spoiler it or even place too many suggestions on what it might be like; it’s best just to watch the entire film if the trailer makes you curious. I must say that I found it extremely intense. It was also visually gorgeous and the acting was excellent. I don’t know if I could say I enjoyed the film.  I found it gripping, disturbing, extremely interesting…. I would definitely recommend it, though one must not turn to it as a feel-good film. No, certainly not that.

Sometimes when I read reviews by viewers outside of the culture of origin (i.e. Western reviewers of, say, international films) I wonder about the gestures and meanings that cannot be decoded by peoples who live with a different cultural grammar. For instance, the hero of the film, Mother, is the single parent to an adult-aged child who has mental challenges. Do-Joon has a very small working memory and behaves in a “child-like” manner. One of the details that might seem more extreme and “weird” by a Western audience as opposed to an Asian one is that 28 yr old Do-Joon sleeps in the same bed as his mother. So much cultural context can be misread or missed entirely…. I guess this is so about any decoding of art forms, but it would be good to keep this in mind when approaching films, books, art from cultures not one’s own: it is very likely that I’m missing a lot of references. I see the picture, but what I see is a partial image, and tinted with my subjective reading of what things signify. Moving onward, this film has got me thinking about so many things, but  not surprisingly, I’ve been ruminating on various depictions of “mother” to be found in literature and popular culture.

The DVD cover image is alarming. It’s a close headshot in 2/3 profile, Mother’s hair is in maddened disarray, the only use of colour  (only RED! on black and white photo) is in the cap font of the title, her shirt, and her bloodshot eyes. This is an image of mother of madness…. There’s also a long thin silvery object that’s held upon her shoulder and rising up past her neck, alongside her head. It’s not entirely clear what this shiny silver object is, but it is ominious. It looks a little like a sword. There is an implication of violence. Bong is most careful with his use of symbolism and recurring motifs. I think I ought to go back and watch more carefully the details without the distractions of plot. This film is truly gorgeous particularly in constrast to the violence and tragedy unfolding…. And his use of the same symbols and images, at different points and different settings resonate with such intensity. I really enjoy the ways he seamlessly contextualizes class tensions within the workings of plot. He also did this in The Host (an SF monster-film, political critique and comedy and trajedy….!!! Truly! He mashed it all up and I thought it worked. He made it funny not by accident, but because he wanted comic elements! Not for all viewers, I suppose.).  

So, mother-love is the force that transforms multiple characters’ lives in Bong’s film. I’m curious about how different people decode this narrative structure. In 2004 I was on a panel with Finnish writer, Johanna Sinisalo. I was so chuffed we ended up on the same panel because we’d both won the James Tiptree Memorial Award (in different years) and it was neat to meet her. Anyway, the topic of the panel was something like “Love in literature”. And it turned out that we both thought that the most powerful examples of love was that of the mother toward her beloved child. (This is not to suggest that all mothers love this way, or that all mothers love. Some mothers do not love their children. Shit happens.) The other panelist thought the greatest love was between a man and woman. It so happened that the other panelist was male. Clearly there is not enough data to make any conclusions, here, but perhaps someone can do a graduate project in this area…. ^__^

Consider the figure of mother in popular culture, film, tv and literature. We have the archetypes (sexist? patriarchal?essentialist?) of the long-suffering devoted mother. We have the evil stepmother. We have the failed mother. And we must not forget the “disappeared”-mothers so rampant in Disney narratives! Which mother characters stand out for you?

My first most memorable positive mother character was that of Hagar Shipley in The Stone Angel. Maybe “positive” is misleading– Hagar Shipley was a deeply flawed character and an uneven mother. I guess what I was taken with was that she was utterly believable, flawed, human and marvellously “unbeautiful”. What was “positive” for me was that she was a character who portrayed a mother that was not limited to stereotype and generalizations.

It’s a little embarrassingly low-brow, but I have a fondness for the film, The Long Kiss Goodnight (the homophobic jokes throughtout of the film firmly set to the side) because it’s just kinda cool to imagine that a frumpy middle-class teacher/mom is an amnesiac assasin….

My heart breaks for the mother character that Julianne Moore played in The Hours.

There’s Mrs. Parsons in the Tiptree short story, “The Women Men Don’t See”. I LOVE her!!!

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone said/wrote that there’s a dearth of mother characters in fantasy and sf, particularly for adventures with children as the hero, because if the child’s mother was around the child would not have to go off and fight evil/save the world/slay monsters, because the mother would do this for the child…. This is a bit of a plot connundrum for the writer who wants to include three- dimensional and positive and realistically diverse depictions of mothers in fiction…. In fact, Melanie’s mother in my own novel, Half World, is missing for most of the novel…. >_< !!!!!

I still want to write a mother of all novels…. ~__~

Daughter likes to draw characters. One day she was sketching ideas on the white board and we began playfully thinking of different ideas and possible scenarios. What kind of personality would a teabag character have? What if it’s wet? What about a bean sprout (moyashi)? And then we got to the Japanese sweet potato, imo. A homonym of “emo”, we were delighted with the play of language/translation and we came up with a comic strip! Hopefully more to come.

(Click image to enlarge)