{"id":28237,"date":"2018-03-23T03:41:19","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T10:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=28237"},"modified":"2018-03-23T11:17:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T18:17:14","slug":"separate-but-connected-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/03\/23\/separate-but-connected-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Separate but connected lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI remember the deep pleasure I had as a child when I first began reading,\u201d author M\u00e9ira Cook told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt was like climbing into a book and pulling the covers down over my head. When I write, I feel as if I\u2019ve returned to that world. My greatest wish is that readers experience the absorption in reading my novels as I\u2019ve had in writing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook\u2019s latest novel \u2013 her third \u2013 is Once More With Feeling<\/em> (House of Anansi Press Inc., 2017). Readers will be immediately drawn in by the cheerful, optimistic and a bit na\u00efve Max Binder, whose \u201cmany friends tend to exaggerate the dozens of half-full glasses \u2013 and some of them considerably less than quarter-full, it\u2019s been pointed out by a couple of the more sour and dill-picklish ones \u2013 that he has eagerly poured into another until presto, not only is the glass full but it runneth over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because, for Max, \u201chope is not merely a feathered thing, a bird, or an equation for water and glass. Hope is where he lives, where he hangs his hat and unbuckles his belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

So begins Once More With Feeling<\/em>, with Max at the airport \u2013 where he\u2019s never been \u201cwithout running into someone he knows, however tangentially\u201d \u2013 to pick up a visitor he\u2019s invited as a surprise for his wife Maggie on her 40th birthday. The light tone lulls readers unfamiliar with Cook\u2019s previous work into the expectation of a nice, light read, albeit one full of insight into human nature and wry observations on life. But, while there is much humour throughout, the novel is substantive and serious, and the writing demands that readers do some work.<\/p>\n

The story of the Binder family \u2013 Max, Maggie and their two sons \u2013 and the community they live in, Once More With Feeling <\/em>\u201cexplores how different family members are affected by tragedy, and how the Binder family\u2019s trauma ripples out into the larger community,\u201d explained Cook. \u201cThe novel began as a series of linked short stories centring on the Binders, but also veering off into other characters and situations. The structure I\u2019d envisioned was of a year in the life of a city (Winnipeg), with each story taking place during a different month. I loved that sense of turning seasons and changing weather that we prairie folk experience so keenly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the process of writing Once More With Feeling<\/em>,\u201d she continued, \u201cI began to realize that, while we often like to believe that we are the protagonists of our own autonomous stories, really we are all connected, all linked in hidden and sometimes unexpected ways, all parts of a larger novel. In Winnipeg, we cherish the fond belief that we\u2019re connected by two degrees of separation rather than the customary six degrees. I wrote my novel with this in mind \u2013 that people who live in different parts of the city, different neighbourhoods, are nevertheless connected not only through mutual friends and acquaintances but also in their shared humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The connections aren\u2019t always easy to make in Once More With Feeling<\/em>, and readers who like linear narratives will find the novel challenging. Some of the chapters have little to nothing to do with the Binders. But Cook is a master at creating characters \u2013 and Winnipeg would be one of the many in this book \u2013 that seem real, like people we know or have known, or who resemble ourselves in ways. The writing is excellent; many passages are hilarious, others are breath-catching. Cook is a perceptive observer and intelligent commentator. Perhaps not surprisingly, she was a journalist in her home country of South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came to Canada in the early nineties and lived for a couple of years in a small town three hours north of Winnipeg,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d previously lived an entirely urban existence in a large, bustling city, Johannesburg, where I was a film and drama reviewer. Suddenly, I found myself in a very small town (the population was about 500), where I could no longer work as a journalist. I\u2019d never seen snow before and, since I\u2019d arrived in February, there was an awful lot of it. I experienced culture shock as a devastating loss of identity, the loss of everything I\u2019d known before. When I looked out my window, the snow seemed as white and blank as a page. I began to write \u2013 first poetry, later fiction \u2013 as a way of leaving my mark on that page.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to her three novels, Cook has published five books of poetry. In Canada, she also has lived on the West Coast for a spell.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband and I lived in Vancouver for four years while we were studying. In those four years, I received my PhD in Canadian literature and had three children,\u201d she said. \u201cDespite how fertile a place Vancouver was for us, we returned to Winnipeg for work reasons. (Perhaps we were afraid that if we remained in Vancouver we\u2019d have another three children!) My daughter had her naming ceremony and my twin sons had their britot at Beth Israel Synagogue on Oak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>Once More With Feeling<\/em> has numerous Jewish aspects, from several characters, including Max, to topics such as the Holocaust, and how we remember and learn from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaggie isn\u2019t Jewish but I didn\u2019t have a specific reason for this in the sense of wanting to portray an intermarried couple,\u201d said Cook. \u201cI was interested in representing a city that is as diverse and vibrant as the Winnipeg I live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Cook herself, she said, \u201cJudaism has always been important to me but I didn\u2019t always feel that I was important to Judaism. When I was growing up in Johannesburg, my family attended an Orthodox synagogue and I often felt excluded and sidelined as a young girl and, later, as a woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the years, I found my way back to my lost religion via the Conservative movement. My family attends an egalitarian synagogue in Winnipeg, where we sit and pray together, and where my daughter had her bat mitzvah six years ago. Watching my daughter reading from the Torah was such a deeply meaningful experience; it inspired the section of the book related from the point of view of the mothers watching their children grow up and become sons and daughters of the commandments.\u201d<\/p>\n

This chapter \u2013 called \u201cTree of Life\u201d \u2013 is especially poignant, while also providing a critique of various social mores with wit and tenderness. And Cook doesn\u2019t only put a lens on the Jewish community, but also on larger societal issues, such as racism toward First Nations people and the problem of homelessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t censor myself when I write but I certainly do when I revise,\u201d she said about tackling controversial subjects. \u201cStephen King once said: \u2018Write with the door closed, edit with the door open.\u2019 And Hemingway is supposed to have advised: \u2018Write drunk, edit sober.\u2019 The model I follow is less decadent but similar in intent: write in a dream, edit when you wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n

And how does she know when to step away from the keyboard?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a point where the writing doesn\u2019t feel personal anymore. The story that has for so long been floating in your head or been messily transcribed from longhand notes to a Word document, that story hardens into conviction, becomes real.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI remember the deep pleasure I had as a child when I first began reading,\u201d author M\u00e9ira Cook told the Independent. \u201cIt was like climbing into a book and pulling the covers down over my head. When I write, I feel as if I\u2019ve returned to that world. My greatest wish is that readers experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[6133,7976,4048],"class_list":["post-28237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-fiction","tag-meira-cook","tag-winnipeg"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}