'All My Puny Sorrows' by Miriam Toews

This was another suggestion from my writing tutor but it is now up there with my favourite books. It's very rare that that happens for me- I read a lot obviously and love many of them, but this one really got to me.

The novel focuses on two sisters- Yolandi, the younger, who is content with living, and Elfrieda, the elder, who desperately wants to die. Yolandi tries to keep her sister alive and the book explores the love, frustration, and fear this task has for her.

Sounds depressing, I hear you ask? It is an absolutely stunning book.

Author, Miriam Toews

Toews manages to capture something astounding here and I was not surprised to find out that, after finishing it and reading around the text, the novel draws heavily from Toews own life. Her father
killed himself and years later, so did her sister. Arguably, these experiences have enabled Toews to depict the labyrinth of emotions that surround death, creating a novel that is tender, truthful, utterly devastating, hilarious and poignant. She writes with desperation and gets across the bizarre puzzle of human experience that goes along with difficult family circumstances and grief- when everything is at the lowest, worst, most mind bogglingly difficult, something often happens which pushes you even further into the pit of despair, and often in this situation, the only thing you are capable of doing is laughing, having been pushed to near hysteria.

 In the novel, Elfrieda (Elf- who wants to die) is bursting with eccentricities, talents, charisma and that magnetic draw that makes those near her revel in her light and exuberant life. She is a talented, world renowned pianist, fiercely intelligent, a voracious reader (who believes she would have been married to Coleridge in a previous life) and an iconoclast. Her sister Yolandi, in contrast, is divorced, has children with two different men, and is an unsuccessful writer. Which character out of the two would you believe has a right to be depressed and want to escape the torments of life? And that is precisely the point. The book addresses that notion many people have that those feelings and wants stem from something rational, something concrete, an event that can be pinned down as a cause.
Something others can make sense of. Both Elf and her father (the chronology of the text moves between the present where the women are in their 40s to memories from their childhood, growing up in a Mennonite community) share similar traits which make them want to commit suicide. They do not fit into the world; the world shuns them, mocks them and what is important to them, and shows no sensitivity towards them. They burst with life and hope and desires to change things, connect with people, to find meaning and purpose and beauty in the mundane and unappreciated- and yet, Toews seems to be saying, such vibrant people cannot survive and thrive in a world such as ours.

How on earth can such a novel be funny? Trust me, it is brilliantly witty. In addition to the deep, existential questions the novel provokes, there is a hilarity to the text which demonstrates the bizarre confusion that is life so perfectly. Yoli frets over a broken shower curtain, the antics of her children, drinks too much on her cousin's porch and sleeps with random men. All the while trying to navigate her divorce. The black humour is biting- she receives a text from her estranged husband reading "I need you", replies with concern and love having been regretting her decision to leave him, only to receive a second text that reads 'Sorry. Pressed send too soon. I need you to sign the divorce papers".

This novel spoke to me in a way a book hasn't in ages and it really made an impression on me. Whether that is because it is truly a literary masterpiece or whether it is the subject matter and its effect on me personally, I'm not entirely sure. But I don't think that matters.

*

The text takes its name from a Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem about the death of his own sister. 'All My Puny Sorrows' is also littered with references to eminent works of literature throughout. Another tick for me! Below is an extract from that Coleridge poem. 

"I, too, a sister had, an only sister --
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her;
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows;
(As a sick patient in a nurse's arms,)
And of the heart those hidden maladies ­
That e'en from friendship's eye will shrink ashamed.
O! I have waked at midnight, and have wept
Because she was not!"

Dec. 1794

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

'Outline' by Rachel Cusk

I plucked 'Outline' off the shelves in Waterstones a while ago for several reasons. The blurb says it is about a writer going to Athens to teach a writing course and all about the people she encounters and converses with during her visit. I liked the idea of reading about a writer. I liked the idea of it being set in Athens. And I liked the idea that it focused on people, their relationship with the world and themselves. Despite how promising the book sounded to me, it remained untouched on my bookshelves at home for several months until my course leader at uni suggested I read it. Apparently, I write all about people and relationships too. And I needed to think about point of view. So, almost reluctantly (for some reason, I struggle getting through books I have been 'told' to read...) I settled down in the post New Year den I had created for myself on the sofa and began to read.

Author, Rachel Cusk

'Outline' is a bit of an odd one. It is written from a first person perspective but, unconventionally, this character remains a indistinct, a blur, a shadow of a person. Instead of reading about her thoughts, musings, emotions, actions as you do in the vast majority of books, the character becomes an audience to a chain of narratives, the lives, loves, heartaches and traumas of other people, those she encounters on her journey. And it is these narratives which make up the text. You are told the stories of countless people and hear their anxieties, perceptions on life, their pains and pleasures, their family lives, their memories. If you have ever people watched and truly wondered what stories the strangers surrounding you had, you should give it a read.

Through the tales of others, themes emerge (loss, the difficulty of intimacy) which give us an slight glimpse into the struggles of the narrator. Although it is only a sense. We never hear her thoughts or emotions. Nothing. We learn only a few details about the narrator: she is a writer, recently divorced, has two boys, is trying to get a mortgage loan. When her name is used towards the end of the novel, it is startling- you are almost ashamed at not having known it until that point. As the text progresses,  the slightly unsettling and upsetting feeling you have when reading it becomes almost unbearable. These people the narrator speaks to do not care about her. They offload their lives. She listens. She
makes brief comments, which we never hear. She takes things from their tales that make us realise

ultimately how alone she is. How disconnected. That she is moving through her life having now given up on making a real go at anything- she merely wants to drift through the rest of it unnoticed. It makes us realise how alone we ultimately are in the world, how self consumed we are, that relationships, with anyone, are doomed. One character spends several pages revealing intricate details of his life before asking the narrator, as an afterthought, "What about yourself...working on something?" which is where the chapter ends, our narrator never having answered, as her answer was never truly wanted.

Rachel Cusk's 'Outline' is not an easy read but it is fascinating, subtle and beautiful. If you are intrigued by the hidden lives of others, check it out.

'Wildflower' by Drew Barrymore

I've always had a bit of a thing about Drew. To be honest, I'm not really sure why. And if I ever happen to mention that I 'love Drew Barrymore', whoever I'm talking to tends to query my devotion.

She's apparently not an obvious choice. She's a huge name, she's been in some classic films which many of you would probably have loved when you were younger- 'E.T' (obviously), 'Never Been Kissed', 'Charlie's Angels', '50 First Dates'- and she's best friends with Cameron Diaz. But I don't think that's why I like her.

I think it's because she isn't such an obvious idol that I really admire her. She's clearly talented (not Oscar-type talented but, as I said, she makes a good rom-com- produces them too- 'He's Just Not That Into You' anyone?) She's clearly beautiful but she's, arguably, not drop dead gorgeous in an 'acceptable to the media' way. She tends to play the best friend of the lead. Or the 'quirky' choice of love interest. There's something a little different about her. The same way I love Kate Winslet, I would adore the opportunity to go for a coffee with her, have a chat, a bit of cake. She seems like that kind of person.

Like many people, I'm also intrigued by her childhood, what she went through at such a young age and how she managed to grow from there. She seems like such a strong, wholesome, loving and level headed person- remarkable seeing as she "had [her] first drink at age nine, began smoking marijuana at 10, and at 12 took up cocaine ", a line from the back of her 1990 autobiography 'Little Lost Girl'. Published at 15, Drew Barrymore had already spent a year in an 'institution' (as she often refers to it) and emancipated herself from her mother (I've tried to track down a copy of this book to read but it's currently going for over £60 on Amazon- anyone who has a copy buried on their bookshelf, do share!)

Drew Barrymore is evidently strong and hugely successful. Now 40, she is an actress, a producer, a photographer, beauty company co-founder, the creator of her own wine label and a mother to two young daughters. So when her book 'Wildflower' came out, I put it on my Christmas list.

Rather than a memoir or a traditional autobiography, 'Wildflower' is similar to Lena Dunham's 'Not That Kind of Girl' in that it is a collection of stories or recollections- the back cover of the hardback reads "We all have stories to tell. These are mine". Out of chronology, the book is designed for you to dip in and out of, yet I essentially read it in one sitting.

Other reviews of the book have declared it too guarded and bland. It doesn't have enough 'truth' in it. In other words it's 'not juicy enough'. As humans, we all want to know the private, dirty details of other peoples' lives; we have Instagram and read blogs; we slow down as we drive past car crashes; we binge watch murder shows on Netflix. I'm still interested in Drew Barrymore's difficult childhood but she clearly thought this book wasn't the place for those details. And why should it be? 25 years on, she obviously wanted to write about many of the other little moments in her life and that's fine by me.

You know those friends you may have had for years who know everything that's happened in your life? Every detail. When you speak to them, you may throw a sentence or two into conversation which references the 'big things', the 'tough things' you've had to 'get through', because the conversation calls for it. And to that friend, this isn't a big deal. They know immediately what you're talking about and they nod and the conversation continues. There is a level of intimacy there with old old friends. And Drew Barrymore's book writes to you just like that. In stories such as 'My Beautiful Laundrette' or 'The Royal Hawaiian', 'Bird of Paradise' or 'Seagull', she drops in details about her childhood because they are relevant and needed. But they are not really the main focus of the narrative. They aren't designed to make you go 'oh my god she did what at what age?!' There's a level of acceptance of her past and it feels like she's really letting you into it by leaving the grisly details out.


The book as a whole is uplifting. At times it is funny (after a naked Playboy shoot when she was around nineteen, Steven Spielberg, her godfather, sent her a quilt as a gift with a note telling her to 'cover up') Often, it is touching. At times some tales do feel a little like 'fillers' and verge on the mundane. And Drew Barrymore really overuses the exclamation marks to the point of being irritating. But there is a tenderness and a heart to the book. One of my favourite stories in there is 'Flossy', a narrative all about her dogs Flossy, Vivien and Templeton and how they were essentially her world for seventeen years. There's a real vulnerability in some of the stories and she is relatable in so many ways.

It is a very easy, very quick read. It won't win any prizes for literary merit. But it leaves you with a little insight into who Drew Barrymore has become, 33 or so years after 'E.T', the film which started it all.