arts / 8

 

Nina Falcos
Contributor

f you're a book-lover stricken with the
Goldilocks complex (the book has to be
just right) but aren’t sure which book should
accompany your summer adventures this month,
fear not: here are 10 top-notch reads to satisfy
your specific literary needs!

For the language lover
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Towles’ expert skill in weaving this beautiful
narrative into a modern masterpiece explores
the decadent world of New York in 1938.
Following the vibrant Katey Kotent in her
quest for social stardom, you cannot help but
get caught up in her complicated connection
with the object of her desired affection: the
compelling Tinker Grey. Page after page, this
novel’s words melt like chocolate and concoct
an absolutely mouthwatering story.

For the reader looking for 30 seconds of genius
The Line by Paula Bossio

Picture books are not just for kids; they can
provide immense satisfaction for those of us

in search of inspiration on the go. The Line
explores the entire human spectrum of emotion
by following a plot filled with playful scenes,
monsters, heroes, friends, and boundless
creativity.

For the maple-sweet Canadian
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden

This top bestseller navigates the world of pre-
confederation Canada with expert narrative
skill as we follow the lives of three provoking
characters: Snow Falls, a kidnapped Iroquois
girl; Bird, her Huron captor and warrior;

and Christophe, a seemingly harmless Jesuit
missionary. Boyden inserts the reader inside
the twisted minds of all three protagonists
so smoothly that by the end you havea more
intimate knowledge of the inner workings of
their minds.

For the poetry and latte connoisseurs
The Hottest Summer in Recorded History
by Elizabeth Bachinsky

Douglas College’s own poet laureate, Bachinsky’s
spunky humour and tender heart fill the pages
of this brilliant collection of poems. From pieces
inspired by the Fraser Valley to musings on the
awe of being in other poets’ homes, she pulls

us into emotional states that linger long after
reading her work.

For the wonderfully weird
Self by Yann Martel

This novel explores the original storyline

first presented in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando,

in which a young writer finds that he is now

a she almost overnight. The metamorphosis
doesn’t stop our transformer from exploring
hundreds of countries, testing countless career
shifts, and enduring the most peculiar of
relationships and thoughts.

For the light-literature dieters
Love the One Youre With by Emily Giffin

Giffin has a gift for taking characters with ideal
lives and turning their worlds upside down,
causing them to question every angle of their
current version of perfection—and it’s all right
there on the surface of the text. If you haven't
already indulged in her two works paired with
movie contracts (Something Borrowed and
Something Blue), take a whirl with Ellen and
Andy in Giffin’s fourth book as a long-lost love,
Leo, enters the picture and threatens to destroy
a seemingly perfect marriage.

For the child at heart
The Case of the Missing Deed
by Ellen Schwartz

If youre a fan of the magnifying glass mysteries
with a twist, Douglas College’s own children’s
literature expert has written the summer
mystery for you. In this Canadian-bred tale,

a grandmother is dangerously close to losing
her home to the evils of a mine development
because her recently deceased husband has
hidden the deed. The grandchildren stumble
upon cryptic clues hidden within her famous
recipe books, and together must help find the
document before it’s too late!

For the sucker for the classics
Vanity Fair by William M. Thackeray

Whether you have already indulged in
Victorian literature, or are looking for your
first leap, this lighter satire on English and
Continental Society during the Napoleonic
wars is a fantastically dramatic read. Following
the life of the viciously devious Becky Sharp,

a quick-witted woman who matches her last
name, we follow her scandalous methods of
rising to the top of the social hierarchy. Filled
with bombastic, life-like, and terribly flawed
characters that you cannot help but adore and
detest at the same time, experience the roller
coaster held within Thackeray’s exciting work.

theotherpress.ca

 

 

|
True story inspires

one-woman play

about justice system

» Playwright Judith Thompson's
compassion protrudes

  
  

PY Julia Siedlanowska
| Staff Writer

with fantastically clear characters placed in situations

cking a definitive moral solution. Written by Thompson
and directed by Ken Gass, Watching Glory Die is the story
of a young criminal offender named Glory, who struggles to
maintain her sanity, her identity, and her hold on life and
reality in prison. The most striking thing about this play
is that it’s inspired by the true story of 19-year-old Ashley
Smith, who died in an Ontario prison in 2007.

Thompson plays all the roles in this one-woman
show, telling the story through the eyes of three female
characters: Glory, her mother Rosellen, and a female prison
guard named Gail.

As Rosellen tells the story of how her adopted daughter
went to juvie for throwing an apple at the postman, she
unfurls the dilemma at the heart of the modern justice
system: does it create the criminal? In this instance, as
we see the young girl in jail for five years for minor and
questionable offences, it’s clear that it does.

Although Thompson is a well-renowned Canadian
playwright, she does a fantastic job as the sole actor in
this production. Her compassion is evident in all her
works. Her most famous is her first production, The
Crackwalker, inspired by a summer job as a social worker in
Kingston, Ontario. Compassion and an inability to ignore
marginalized individuals is evident throughout her works.

In Watching Glory Die, she uses the same abstract
and absurd poetic imagery that flavours the minds of
her most desperate characters. Five years into her prison
sentence, Glory struggles to find any outside validation
for her existence and winds up strangling herself several
times a day. In the lonely hallucinations inside her prison
cell comes some of Thompson’s most image-rich text.
Glory tells us of her imaginary “Crocodile mother,” with
her crocodile eyes peering at her. These are some of my
favourite scenes.

The script and acting are aided by the fantastic set,
projections, lighting, and sound design. The only set pieces
are a large, three-walled cell with a mirrored floor and
white ceiling, and a chair stage left of it. When Glory is in
the cell, Thompson transforms completely into a young,
withering girl. This is no doubt in part to the clever change
in atmosphere that the set creates. When the camera in
the corner of the cell picks up a black-and-white image of
Thomson and projects it onto the wall, we are able to see
her from the prison guard’s perspective. All angles of the
story are told, not only through Thompson’s ability as an
actor, but also through pointed use of the stage technology.
All elements are working together as they should.

The only ingredients that distracted were the shoes.
Switching from the character of the mother to that of the
guard was plagued by a change in footwear that albeit told
us something about each woman but also interrupted the
action and looked clumsy.

In Watching Glory Die, Thompson successfully tells a
story that may otherwise have gone unheard. Although the
subject matter is not unknown to us, Thompson yet again
structures it in a way that makes the tale louder. She cloaks
it in a language that burns images into our minds that
will last longer than simple facts picked up through news
media.

Jr Thompson tackles difficult subject matter yet again
a