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Mirabilia: A Miracle on Gladstone Avenue
I’ve always wanted to go into St. Anne’s Church, tucked away on Gladstone Ave, just north of Dundas St. West, but not to feed religious urges, more out of art historical interest: the Anglican church, Canada’s only Byzantine-style edifice, is home to a series of religious paintings created by the Group of Seven. This past…
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Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations
Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations By Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda. Introduction by Judith Thurman. New Haven and London: Yale University Press-Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. 324 pages; 206 illustrations. This summer, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art juxtaposed the works of two influential Italian women in fashion design: Elsa Schiaparelli,…
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Tamil literary voices: An event in preview
“We were shivering. We were locking our doors and waiting. You could hear people shouting and houses burning.” Appadurai Muttulingam’s words express an experience too common to many Tamils, a people forced out of Sri Lanka in droves over the last four decades after facing rioting, killing, and oppression. And while sweeping statements like “great…
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CanLit Canon Review #10: Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute
In an attempt to make himself a better Canadian, Craig MacBride is reading and reviewing the books that shaped this country. The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy’s debut novel, explores poverty, war, and Montreal, and it romanticizes none of them. The book centers on the 10-member Lacasse family, which is trapped by poverty in the suburban…
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Bookishness: October 15, 2012
Mo Yan takes the cake Chinese author Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature last week, and, despite criticism about his snug relationship with the Communist Party, promptly called for the release of fellow Nobel laureate, jailed activist Liu Xiaobo. Can’t ask Alice Alice Munro’s appearance at the International Festival of Authors has been cancelled…
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TRB Podcast: Martin Manalansan on “Queer Dwellings: Migrancy, Precarity and Fabulosity”
On September 11, Professor Martin F. Manalansan was welcomed by a packed room at U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs. In “Queer Dwellings: Migrancy, Precarity and Fabulosity,” Prof. Manalansan “builds” and reflects on the nuances of Martin Heidegger’s notion of dwelling in these precarious times. Although about the early 20th century, Heidegger’s understanding of dwelling…
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Indigenous Literary Stars Converge in Toronto: First Nations House and Muskrat Magazine partner up to celebrate storytelling excellence
First Nations House at the University of Toronto will be hosting the fifth annual celebration of the Indigenous Writers’ Gathering on October 18, 2012. Not to be missed, the event will end with a gala reading night hosted by CBC’s Sidd Bobb and Wab Kinew. Participating Aboriginal authors this year include the renowned Lee Maracle,…
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On Novels of Ideas: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
Michael Da Silva takes a pause from his account of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s list of the best novel of ideas to examine her most recent novel.
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Choice Poems: Zach Wells and Naomi Guttman
The TRB team is pleased to announce Choice Poems, a semi-regular series of poems on Chirograph curated by the TRB’s Poetry Editor, Moez Surani. For this, the first Choice Poems post, we’re climbing under the covers and into a lover’s heart with a pairing of poems on love and temptation. Zach Wells shows how a lover…
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Bookishness: Oct. 8, 2012
The Paris Review, to go The Paris Review launches their new iPad/iPhone app, with current and archived issues, free to all until Oct. 21. (At first try; a bit slow to load, with strange formatting on the iPhone 4, but well worth it to read David Gordon’s “Man-Boob Summer” from the current issue.) Wednesday: John…
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CanLit Canon Review #9: Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes
In an attempt to make himself a better Canadian, Craig MacBride is reading and reviewing the books that shaped this country. Two Solitudes, Hugh MacLennan’s 1945 masterpiece, sets out to do nothing less than explain Quebec to the rest of Canada and harmonize the dominion for future citizens. MacLennan attempts this with a generations-spanning soap…
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Visions of Conservative Triumph: Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises
Reviewed in this essay: The Dark Knight Rises, directed by Christopher Nolan. Running Time: 164 minutes. With a quarter of a billion dollar budget, nearly three hours of screen time, and creative carte blanche, one could not but hope for a masterpiece from Christopher Nolan’s long awaited The Dark Knight Rises. One is sad to…