“I Am Free”
by Del Suelo
Published by Your Nickel’s Worth
Publishing
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$24.95
ISBN 978-1-927756-50-8
When I began I Am Free - Saskatchewan writer, wanderer, and musician Del Suelo’s
“slow-art” project that combines text and an audio CD in a compact hardcover
package - I was perplexed. What was
this? Autobiography, I surmised. But by the second essay - or chapter, or
linked story - a plot evolved and it began to read more like a novella. Knowing
the genre of a text isn’t critical to its enjoyment, but as both a writer and
reviewer I’m perhaps unfairly keen to “name that genre”. I quickly came to
appreciate the blurred lines and the vagueness (ie: we never learn which Saskatchewan
city the story’s set in), especially as they emulate the dream-like text.
I turned to the author’s own website (www.delsuelo.net) for explication, and
learned that Del Suelo (aka Eric Mehlsen) describes the text portion of his
mesmerizing book\CD combo as a novel. The CD’s ten songs correspond to their
same-named chapters. In Del Suelo’s words: “The songs and prose lean on each other
in a way that together create a sense of depth that I’ve never been able to
formulate with either medium.” Well said, young man.
The first chapter, “By Myself,”
introduces Del Suelo’s narrator and protagonist – an urban office worker
dissatisfied with his white collar career and uninspired life – meditating on
the tiny cactus he bought on impulse. “It took thousands of years for it to
become a resilient, symmetrical masterpiece – and now it sits on display as an
ornament in my office.” He walks home through the snowy streets beneath a
low-lying sun and observes his surroundings. “There’s a pile of snow-covered
leaves in the front yard of one of the houses I pass …” It’s non-dramatic,
everyday stuff.
Like many of us who live alone, the
narrator makes simple meals and plops on the sofa before settling into
whatever’s caught his attention on Netflix. He’s lonely, and wades into
melancholy. And then there’s an all-night supermarket; a papaya; and a girl
with a “vintage lavender jacket with a cheap faux-fur collar,” a lip ring, and
a counter-culture lifestyle. Hello!
By the end of chapter two I’m tempted
to play the CD to discover what the author’s created to accompany this text,
but no, reading first, then listening.
Del Suelo’s penned a compelling story.
His work’s often poetic (ie: deep melancholy is “like the blackened forest
after a fire, or the ruins of a village after a storm”) and frequently insightful
(ie: the narrator smokes because he likes “the mild comfort of having something
to with [his] hands.”). The book quietly makes a case against accepting the
status quo – degree, job, home, materialism. It promotes living solely as “a
human with a heartbeat.”
Then there’s the music. I played the CD,
then played it twice more. Sublime. The author wrote most of the songs, sings
them, and plays all but drums on each. He also produced the recordings. I Am Free is some kind of masterpiece. I’m
illumined, Del Suelo. More, please.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
_______________________________
“*Reading from Behind: A Cultural
Analysis of the Anus”
By Jonathan A. Allan
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$34.95
ISBN 9-780889-773844
I’m going to take a leap here and
suggest that the asterisk that appears on the cover and in the title of writer
and academic Jonathan A. Allan’s provocative new book – the first in a series
of books about the body by University of Regina Press - is not by chance. *Reading from Behind pokes fun and
slings puns at that most base of body parts, the anus, while also situating it
– in all seriousness - within a cultural and literary context. In his ballsy,
er, assiduous text, Allan laments how
society’s historically been phallic-centric, and he attempts to get to the
bottom (it’s impossible to help myself) of why the anus gets short shrift.
True to his scholarly quest, Allan
addresses the anus “head on”: there are sixty pages of comprehensive notes and
references here - plus an index - following the eight chapters (with delightful
names, ie: “Topping from the Bottom: Anne Tenino’s Frat Boy and Toppy” and “Spanking Colonialism”). Clearly, this book
was not written without significant research.
So why the in-depth study? Allan - the Research
Chair in Queer Theory and Assistant Professor in Gender and Women’s Studies and
English and Creative Writing at Brandon University explains that “It truly is
everywhere, the ass,” and it “captivates us”. He asks us to consider it beyond
popular cultural references, ie: Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez’s “iconic
behinds,” and question what is both said and unsaid about this “governing
symbol”. What, for example, might an “anal theory” look like re: discussions
about literature, film, and visual texts? What’s brought to light when it’s disassociated
from its most prevalent sexual association: male homosexuality? Allan looks at myth,
masculinity, and much more as he probes (see?) his subject, and he “works to
relieve the burden of [anal] paranoia”.
This impassioned text gives readers
much to consider, whether it’s the “innocent homosexuality” in books including Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Moby Dick, male-male romance novels
(“The ass, like the romance novel, is not nearly as simple as we might imagine
…”), the shame suffered by male virgins past late-adolescence, or how Brokeback Mountain “swung the closet
doors wide open” to expose the “radical queerness of American literature. In
the chapter titled “Spanking Colonialism” he analyzes the power-inverting
paintings of Cree artist Kent Monkman.
Non-academic readers might well find
this a particularly dense book, but the author’s frequent tongue-in-cheekness
(ie: “We shall come to see, by the book’s end, that [the anus] is a remarkably
complex organ, sign, and symbol that appears repeatedly in literature and
culture” helps lighten the critical load, and aids accessibility and enjoyment.
Allan is currently working on another
body-part book - Uncut: The Foreskin
Archive (“a cultural study of the foreskin that brings together literary
criticism, religious studies, the biomedical sciences, and critical theory”) – and he is both contributing to and
editing Virgin Envy: The Cultural
(In)Significance of the Hymen. Clearly, this is not a writer who shies away
from “taboo” subjects, and bottom’s up to that.
.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
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