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Journalists’ Courage takes Many Forms

A Thousand Farewells: A Reporter’s Journey from Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring

By Nahlah Ayed

Published by Viking, 356 pages, $32

Out of the Blue: A Memoir of Workplace Depression, Recovery, Redemption and, Yes, Happiness

By Jan Wong

Self-Published, 263 pages, $21.99

Despite many Canadians’ knee-jerk damnation of the print media, two new books prove beyond a doubt that journalists’ courage exists and that honest reporting can have a powerful effect upon readers.

Both Nahlah Ayed, who works for CBC news, and Jan Wong, now a former employee of the Globe and Mail, tell their stories in a direct and personable way. Both books demonstrate that standing up for oneself in the face of trouble is crucial to self-respect and good reportage. It is neither fair nor relevant to ascribe different layers of heroism to either woman. Both face challenging circumstances and are able to write clearly and decisively about their situations.

Ayed, now in her early 40s, was born in Winnipeg and grew up comfortably there, one of four children of Palestinian descent. Thanks to her mother, she became fluent in Arabic, which became a powerful tool in her career when she joined the CBC in 2002. Since then she has reported from Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. Talking to Ayed as I did recently in Toronto (I taught her years ago when I was a journalism professor at Carleton University) is like taking a vitally compressed short course in Middle Eastern history and politics. She’s a beautiful, soft-spoken woman with a spine of steel. Ayed says in her book’s Acknowledgements that her work as a reporter has “always been about trying to understand,” and that comes across clearly in her careful and honest narrative.

Despite her youth, Ayed truly is an “old hand” when it comes to the Middle East. Her family lived – by choice, as a way to reconnect with their culture – in a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan, when Ayed was a child, and her tenure in war reporting began with the First Gulf War. She’s reported at all the conflicts leading up to and including the Arab Spring. Although her publisher wanted Ayed to write a fully personal memoir, the reporter resisted because she rightly believes the story is about the people she interviews, not herself. There are glimpses of what sort of a woman Ayed has become – feminist, principled, consumed by her job, steely under pressure but still capable of fear – but this is definitely a far cry from a tell-all. And that’s as it should be: Ayed may be off to a posting in London in the short-term, but she will continue to cover the world’s volatile places indefinitely.

“When I look back now,” Ayed writes towards the end of A Thousand Farewells, “the Middle East is often just a blur of guns and violence, of explosions and assassinations, of breaking news bulletins and conspiracy theories playing endlessly in my mind.” Despite that, she has managed to deliver a book of great humanity, one that reminds us that human beings – with the same flaws and flesh as the rest of us – inhabit those troubled places. “I always marveled,” she says, “that anyone would care to talk to us in the midst of so much turmoil, and yet they did, the hundreds of people I met and interviewed over the years . . . “ That they did is, I suspect, tribute to Ayed’s tenacity and compassion.

Even though Ayed’s reports have filtered relentlessly into Canadians’ living rooms for the past decade, Jan Wong is possibly the better-recognized journalist of the two, partly because she is nearly two decades older, with four previous books, and partly because of her famous/infamous “lunch with” column that everyone read in the Globe and Mail when she still worked there.

Wong’s dispute with her former employer — and her almost-publisher Doubleday — is complicated, but she outlines it crisply in Out of the Blue. Her inimitable brand of sardonic humor sparks the narrative as she tells of her own oblivious slide into depression, her battle with the Globe and its insurance company, and her subsequent recovery and new life. This may well be one of the most polished and professional “self-published” books you’ll ever read, but one would expect nothing less from the indomitable Wong. She says she’s invested over $30,000 in the venture, a sum that would give many writers pause. But in the first month of publication, she’s
already garnered more reviews and publicity than many senior authors receive even when touted by a prestigious publisher.

As Wong notes wryly, conflict and controversy always help to sell stories. But I would say Wong deserves whatever success this book brings her: she’s faced down the Dragon Despair, she’s stood up to a pusillanimous set of managers and she’s managed to write coherently about two of life’s most devastating experiences: falling prey to extreme depression and being fired.

Kudos to Ayed and Wong: proof that well-honed words can triumph over violence and corporate self-interest.

Enthiran

Directed by: S. Shankar. Starring: Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rei.

2010 Sun Pictures. In Tamil with English subtitles.

When I was growing up on Montreal’s South Shore, a trip to the local Indian grocer was always a treat. It was one of the few connections my sister and I had to my mother’s native land. The pungent aromas of masala and the fine mist of dust would always coax a sneeze as we stomped off past the syrupy laddus and salted treats to the video rental section to choose a movie, usually one which featured a sassy monkey. Most Indian grocers in Canada have a well-stocked selection of Indian films and music, a tradition that continues today.

Not that I’ve moved to the west coast, I find myself missing my connection with the South Asian community. Burdened with that longing, I stumbled upon Enthiran, a recently released Tamil-language Indian sci-fi blockbuster.

Enthiran means “The Robot,” and this isn’t a Bollywood movie. It’s actually Kollywood. The difference? Bollywood movies are usually in Hindi and filmed in Bombay (my family will never call it Mumbai), whereas Kollywood caters to Tamil speakers and is located in the state of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost point of the country.

Enthiran is like a mash-up of The Terminator, The Matrix and the live action Transformers. Dr. Vaseegaran, a brilliant robotics expert creates Chitti, a sophisticated, sunglasses-wearing robot made in his master’s image. This allows both roles to be played by Rajinikanth, a big action star in Indian cinema. Think of him as the 61 year-old Indian version of Chuck Norris. Indian make-up artists have a true gift, as the actor doesn’t look a day over 35. Chitti forms a bond with Vaseegaran’s girlfriend, Sana (played by veteran Bollywood star and former Miss World, Aishwarya Rai) and helps her get into and out of several mischievous (and some very dangerous) situations.

Hoping to make his creation a masterpiece, Vaseegaran gives Chitti emotions, which leads him to fall madly in love with Sana. This doesn’t jive well when Chitti’s evaluated by the military. Apparently stuffing roses into live grenades and telling the army brass you’re in love with your creator’s girlfriend is NOT appropriate behaviour for robots in the Indian Armed Forces.

Every hero needs a villain, and Enthiran doesn’t disappoint. Enter Dr. Bohra (Danny Denzongpa), Vaseegaran’s mentor, friend and competitor in the robot-making business. Bohra is incensed that his robot can’t even walk while Chitti single-handily caters an Indian wedding. Suffice to say, when Bohra finally gets his hands on Chitti, he turns it/him into a murderous machine fuelled by rage and leather jackets.

In order to appeal to a more general audience, the filmmakers invest considerable screen time into the love story. Comedians Santhanam and Karunas appear as Vaseegaran’s dim-witted assistants and provide most of the comic relief. Their scenes are often over-cranked, a film technique where the slapstick action is slightly faster and jerky. The effect is like watching Buster Keaton and the Keystone Kops try to trip up The Terminator. It’s silly, but it works.

If this were a standard Hollywood blockbuster, we’d already be into sequel territory. Director S. Shankar will have none of that. Barely passed the intermission, you really do feel like you’re getting two movies for the price of one, and the 165 minute run-time reinforces that feeling. Unlike western films that favour a three-act structure, Enthiran‘s structure is closer to five.

And yes, in matching with its Bollywood cousins, there is singing. And dancing. And dancing robots who sing. Shot in locations like Machu Picchu, Vienna, Rio de Janeiro and Hanoi, each musical number has its own theme, style and feel. One musical number serves as a visual representation of Chitti morphing from an emotionless robot to a love-struck Casanova. Digital flowers and butterflies bloom from circuit boards as we’re flung through a fibre-optic cable into a giant metallic room with a silver-suited Chitti and techno-clad Sana surrounded by dancing robots with an uncanny resemblance to Doctor Who’s Cybermen. Canadian musicians could only dream of making music videos with these kind of production qualities.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Enthiran, and recent Indian cinema, is the inclusion of English dialogue. Whenever a character gives an order, or makes a firm, technical statement, it’s in English. Since I hail from La Belle Nation Province, where our two official languages co-exist in a begrudging temporary truce, I was surprised at the film’s bilingualism.

That’s not to say the film is without faults. The combination of so many special-effect shots and an extremely tight turnaround time following principal photography means corners had to be cut. Some effects are mind-blowing in their complexity, while others are very noticeably CG. Despite all its flaws, at a budget of $37 million, it’s a fraction of the cost of Michael Bay’s explosive disaster The Transformers and creates an emotional connection between audience and characters. Go figure.

To date, Enthiran has grossed an estimated $82 million worldwide. Not quite in the same league as Hollywood blockbusters, but when you factor in producers’ marketing costs, Enthiran is probably much more profitable. Who knows how much more it would have made with a sassy monkey?

–With a strong background in comedy, Montreal native Ryan Harper-Brown has worked in film, television, print, radio and live theatre. Ryan has an MFA in Writing from UVic and an MA in Film and Television Production from Australia’s Bond University. He currently works as a sessional instructor for UVic’s Writing Department.

Orlean Revitalize Doggy Legend

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

By Susan Orlean

Published by Simon & Schuster

324 pages, $29.99

BY JESSICA LAMPARD

Susan Orlean published her first book Saturday Night in 1990, and has written for the New Yorker since 1992. She is the author of nine non-fiction books, including her 1998 bestseller The Orchid Thief.

With her latest book, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, Orlean uses a potent mix of historical facts, description, and personal details to illuminate the reasons why movie-star dog Rin Tin Tin has “managed to linger in the minds of so many people for so long, when so much else shines for a moment only and then finally fades away.”

After all, the original Rin Tin Tin died back in the 1920s after a regular-length romp on earth. Yet his legacy still endures, even after many of his movies have been lost and his television show cancelled.

The book is full of factual details, which range from sad to funny to just plain fascinating. Orlean reveals that certain folks worked to further Rinty’s legacy at great personal cost (one producer spent millions of dollars and ended up living out of his car largely because he believed in Rin Tin Tin’s star power). She also presents numerous dog-related snapshots of history. For instance, Orlean tells us briefly about the self-professed “two crazy women” and their trick poodles who drove together in their caravan with a gun for protection, providing dog-training services all across the country.

And the result ends up being more about people—specifically, the mysteries of life such as fate, luck, individuality, love, and passion—than about Rin Tin Tin himself.

Throughout the book’s various mini-stories, Orlean tethers her narrative to Rin Tin Tin’s owner, Lee Duncan. Lee is profiled so acutely, we end up developing for him an empathy that’s usually reserved for family. Orlean allows this understanding to form by sharing intimate details of his life; we learn, for instance, that Lee grew up in an orphanage and could connect most easily with dogs.

Also, Orlean further adds to the sense of intimacy by commenting on her characters with kind-hearted wit. In reference to one of Lee’s journal entries in which he describes Rinty as “bubbling over” with excitement, for example, she suggests that “(s)ometimes he bubbled too much, and in one case attacking a porcupine, which filled his movie-star face with quills.”

Orlean also gives her subject wide appeal in part by drawing connections with Rin Tin Tin to the most basic of archetypes: the hero. As Orlean explains, “Dogs, in fact, were the perfect heroes: unknowable but accessible, driven but egoless, strong but tragic, limited by their muteness and animal vulnerability.”

She regularly applies this trademark flair for condensing her research into bubbles of perfectly formed insight, which are scattered evenly throughout the book. For instance, she informs us that while many other dogs could perform athletically on cue, Rin Tin Tin was perhaps most gifted at expressing complicated emotions. And therein lies part of the reason for his enduring stardom, according to Orlean. In her own words, “many of Rinty’s plots revolved around him making choices between pack mentality and individual judgment, an almost impossible feat for a dog.”

Orlean has devoted ten years of her life to transcribing the story of Rin Tin Tin, and the devotion shows. Much like the mysterious Lee Duncan who first brought Rin Tin Tin to fame, Orlean lets the characters emerge as fully formed individuals acting independent of her narrative, never allowing her own colourful commentary to steal the show. As a result, the Rin Tin Tin legend has been given new legs yet again—this time by Susan Orlean.

Books – Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe

Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe

A Book Review by Kimberly Vaness

Charlotte Gill was nineteen when she planted her first tree. The seedling took: Gill spent nearly two decades as a silviculture laborer in some of the deepest wilderness in Canada. Between planting seasons, she lived in Vancouver to try making a go at the writing life. In 2005, she published her novel, Ladykiller, to critical success. Gill now writes full time, after trading in the shovel for the pen, and teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia.

Eating Dirt showcases Gill’s down-to-earth voice, even while she contemplates the motives of humanity. Her descriptions of raw wilderness in British Columbia helped me imagine how exhilarating the solitude of tree planting would be. In each chapter, she reveals the biology behind her workplace, and the secluded thoughts of the tree planter. Gill is passionate about her job, and like a clear-cut, it shows. “There are so many living creatures to touch and smell and look at in the field it’s often a little intoxicating. A setting so full of all-enveloping sensations that it just sweeps you up and spirits you away, like Vegas does to gamblers or Mount Everest to climbers.”

Gill does not shy away from noting the irony between planting trees and logging trees, and questions humankind’s hunger for growth. She comes to conclusions, and I found myself nodding in agreement. “If an object exists in this world, it can’t stay intact, unexamined, unused. We’re biological capitalists. If it lives we’ve got to make the best of it. We’ve got to hunt, cook, and taste it. Whatever it is, we’ve got to harness and ride it, pluck it and transform it, shave it down and build it up.” Gill’s honesty takes hold of readers and packs them into her silviculture world. At times, it feels as though the reader and Gill are embarking on a physical and psychological journey together.

A humorous undertone is also present in the book. “If we could return ourselves like appliances from the Shopping Channel, surely we’d request different components.” From Gill’s descriptions of muggy mornings, to sweltering hot afternoons—and all the bites, blisters, and bears in between—I earned a new respect for folk who plant trees. Gill captures silviculture between the pages, and through her own personal experiences truly makes this a unique piece of creative non-fiction.

You do not need to be a silviculture laborer to enjoy reading Eating Dirt. The book is appealing in its fresh visual descriptions, and its sneak peek at a largely undocumented subculture. Gill’s employment around the pristine Great Bear Rainforest is also relevant to today’s controversial Northern Gateway Enbridge Pipeline, which plans to cut straight through the British Columbian old growth forest.

Kimberley Veness is a third-year Writing and Environmental Science major at the University of Victoria.

Going Coastal

Sometimes, The Coastal Spectators editors see thing in the world of art or even in the world at large that up sets them. Now instead of loosing our mind and going up to the top of a bell tower we take on a different approach. WE GO COASTAL!!! Check back to our site to read rants, opinion pieces, suggestions, and soliloquies that help keep us and some our our friends sane.

If you are interested in writing your own Going Coastal rant please contact the editors.

Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe By Charlotte Gill

Review by Kimberley Veness

Kimberley Veness is a third-year Writing and Environmental Science major at the University of Victoria.

Life By Keith Richards

Reviewed by Tyler Laing

Born in 1943 in war-stricken England, Keith Richards’s time and place very much shaped his musical destiny. As did his mother’s influence. Radio was ever-present during Richards’s pre-TV childhood. And his mother, “being a master twiddler of the knobs” played the good stuff. “She would point out who was good or bad, even to me. She was musical, musical.” But while mum had a role, so too did the dissolution of mandatory national service as Richards left high school. The two years he normally would have spent in the military he instead spent jamming with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. By 1962 they had formed The Rolling Stones—arguably the biggest rock band of all time.

Before leaping into this gargantuan autobiography, I didn’t expect much more than a heroin-induced, cocaine-fuelled, booze-juiced joyride—an exhaustive look into one man’s excessive sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. And while I got that, to be sure—“There’s not much you can say about acid except God, what a trip!” “I’m on pure cocaine, none of that shit crap, I’m running on high octane.” —this book included more than that as well.

In light of his reckless and irresponsible lifestyle, Richards addresses mortality—his colleagues and friends who die—with an objective eye. “I hate all that crying shit, and moping . . . The fucker’s dead.” Even when it’s his young son Tara, who died while Richards was on tour, he maintains this distance. “Never knew the son of a bitch, or barely . . . it was just a crib death.” He neither writes for sympathy nor caters to sentimentality. For this, Richards should be commended.

But as touching and enlightening and exhilarating as this story is, a smelly fog clings to the pages. The rules of Creative Non-fiction have been debated for decades, but one universal truth exists—don’t lie! Fabrications and recreations are going to happen, but blatant conscious deception is unacceptable. And this is a crime Richards comes dangerously close to committing.
Before I bit into even the first paragraph, I read these words on the jacket: “This is the life. Believe it or not I haven’t forgotten any of it.” C’mon, Richards. Really? I’ve been on some benders before, though my most insane party experiences would be like a morning at the petting zoo for this guy. Even still, I’ve lost plenty of nights—weekends, even—to the blackout. And he openly admits, “sometimes I was absolutely fucking comatose.” So for him to come out of the gates and claim complete mental retention of his experiences is to pull his cock out and slap me with it.

This autobiography is at times a laugh, at others a cry, and it’s definitely a white-knuckled ride through a rock god’s life. But as entertaining and illuminating as the content is, respect must be shown for both the genre and the reader’s willingness to suspend reality. Was A Million Little Pieces a good read? Sure it was. But that didn’t stop the world from demonizing James Frey. Should Richards’s fate be any less cruel?

— Tyler Laing is a third-year in the Department of Writing. He will be
working as a summer intern with Harbour Publishing, starting May 7, 2012.