4 - Wednesday, February 1, 1989 - North Shore News

BoB |
HUNTER |

© strictly personal ¢

[ERPS Ie

ON THE theory that winter is the time to read, I’m passing
along my book recommendations while the gloom is stili
deep enough to warrarit staying in, ideally curled up some-

where near a fireplace.

As a footnote, I might add that
1 find myself reading more than
ever, having reached the conclu-
sion that there is absolutely
nothing o7: te'evision worth wat-
ching. The TV, in fact, has been
turned over to the kids so they can
watch ‘videos.

As for movies, by the time one
pays for the sitter, the parking, the
outrageously overpriced popcorn
and pop, and the tickets
themselves, to say nothing of the
risk of going out afterwards for a
drink or two, hell, you can buy a
couple of hardcovers and entertain
yourself for a week.

No doubt this is a factor in the
decision of my wife and I] to go
back to turning pages for our

MAACO’S SUPREME ||

entertainment. Is this 2 trend?

Books of course don’t have io
be new to be good. Here’s one that
came out more than a decade ago,
but i didn’t get around to reading
it uncil lately. I refer to White
Rock writer W.P. Kinsella’s first
novel, Dance Me Outside.

It is a collection of short stories
written in the first person by wv fic-
tional character named Silas Er-
mineskin, a young rortheri! Alber-
ta Indian who travels as far as Las
Vegas but mainly just hangs out
around his reserve near
Wetaskiwin with the rare, in-
variably traumatic foray into Ed-
monton.

The first thing you have to say
about Kinsella, the author, is that

PAINT SERVICE A

© Chemical cleaging © Thoroagh

© Machine Sead Most

Sarfece Sanding

© Prime and Block Sead © Full Coat of Primer Sealer
© Refinish with Catalyzed Enamel
© Apply lategrated Clear Coat © Oven Bake

Reg, $529.95

NOW
ONLY

Chips and Scratches po

319°

OFFER EXPIRES SAN. 3/89

(WITH THIS AD)
945 W. ist ST., NORTH VANCOUVER
(Next to Beaver Lumber)
984-4111

Hours:

Mon.-Fri.
Saturday

8-6
10-2

he has jam. How many white guys
would dare to write stories like
these ones?

They certainly don't amount to
a liberal or sentimental look at life
on the reserve. Their humor is
brutai and unrelenting. Kinsella
isn't poking fun at the Indians so
much as he is holding white civili-
vation up to the X-ray machine of
his truly savage wit.

I've listened to Kinsella speak a
few times and heard him inter-
viewed. i can't say that he is one
of my favorite people by any
stretch. But that is neither here nor
there. He is a helluva writer,
muybe even a genius.

Certainly, Dance Me Outside is
one of the best Canadian books
[I've ever read. I rank Kinsella right
up there with Leonard Cohen,
which is as much as I can say in
terms of Can/Lit.

But let’s not belittle the guy with
the Can/Lit. rap. He is a world-
class writer and he has truly
brought out an element of the Ca-
nadian psyche which could not
possibly be more authentic, and he
has done it in a way that is free of
pain, guilt or embarrassment, yet
is so intrinsically heavy it made me
groan and wince as well as chortle.

Some of the stories are just
plain, unvarnished sad. And they
ring so true to life — anybody’s
life — that you end up just shaking

Ss eo
Silk Noile
100% silk, 36°- 90cm
reg. 14.98M

Urban Bright Sateen

54", 136em
reg. 12.98 M

Now

Vi Collecti
ogue Collection
reg. 12.98 M

Za

* 986 4519

your head and folding the book
quietly in your lap while you grab
a few minutes of staring into
space.

I'm not sure who to compare
Kinsella to, and maybe that’s the
true test of talent. It stands out by
itself. Kinsella certainly does
something with his writing that
nobody else does.

And then there’s Tom Walfe's
The Bonfire of The Vanities, last
year’s big bestseller. Nice to see a
book that is so damn good, so
serious, yet also so howlingly com-
ic, so deep and yet so thoraughly
entertaining, succeeding in sucha
spectacularly commercial fashion.

Wolfe has always been one of
my favorite American writers. But
I was afraid he’d peaked in terms
of material when he wrote The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. After
taking a run at trying to put inef-
fable and indescribable psychedelia
itself into words, what tougher
topic could he tackle?

And for a while he did kind of
just piddle around writing about
architecture and travel — lost, I
feared, in the vortex of his own
tumbling, scattergun style, with
nothing to get his teeth into. But in
writing a novel about New York in
the dying years of the ’80s, Wolfe
has found a subject worthy of his
talent.

it is the story of Sherman Mc-

Coy, a hotshot bond salesman liv-
ing the ultimate good life in a 14-
room apartment on Park Avenue,
a self-described Master of The
Universe unti! one night while out
cheating on his wife, he and his
girlfriend run down a black kid in
the Bronx. inexorably, he is drag-
ged into the pit of every major
New York racial, economic, sex-
ual, social and political tension.

The tension of the story is damn
near unbearable.

It’s a 700-page epic, but I yead it
in a week, eyeballs falling out
towards dawn. Couldn’t put it
down, as they say. It was just too
deliciously on the mark. Whether
he is writing about Wall Street or
the newspaper business or the pro-
test industry, cops, lawyers, crimi-
nals, preachers, kids or dogs,
Wolfe has a knack for bringing
them (o utterly convincing life.
They become more real than one’s
own friends or relatives.

Slobberingly good stuff. If you
want to understand the greatest ci-
ty of its age without the risk of go-
ing there — and even then! — this
is the route to go. I can’t resist
saying: Wolfe makes me howl.
And this is Wolfe writing some-
thing better than he’s ever done.
Which is saying reaaaaaaallllllllllly
alot. @ -

PRATHER IRE PAT Os TRO Es Fs BR Taree Oe eR TES

’ FABRICLAND)

99%

Now

g99*

MUCH BETTER!

* TILLFE
i Majestic lacquards

% polyester, 45*- 115¢m
reg. 14.98M

ae

Sewing Club
Members
i Use your February coupons for
additional savings on alt ‘items
Fabricland Sewing Club, 2 year
ma membership only *7.50.
Grand Luxe Prints
45°"- 115m
reg. 12.98M