Getting to the Marrow of Self by Yann Martel

In Yann Martel's Self the memories of a nameless narrator are peeled back layer by layer. From toddlerhood to thirty-something we witness the intimate details of this narrator who travels on four continents, encounters six languages, and - look out Virgina - appropriates several sexuualities thanks to a metamorphosis from male to female. Martel brings every moment out from behind the thick screen of social euphemisms in an attempt to portray life in all its graphic glory. Graphic, is just the word to describe Self on a fictional, metafictional, and conceptual level.

We are introduced to Martel's graphic style on page one when the narrator gazes through his toddler eyes upon his own "magnificent log of excrement" with its "dense texture of a rich chestnut hue" and "fascinating convolutions" (1). Twenty years, one gender transformation and numerous descriptions of feces later, Martel has the narrator pick up a writer's quill and avow "my novel [will] brim with shit" (172). I had to wonder if the narrator's undisclosed name wasn't Yann Martel. The second aspect of living Martel focuses on is sex. It begins with the narrator's childhood confusion of sex and love. "[S]omewhere out there, totally separate, of independent origin, was a sexual organ tailored to suit mine, so suit me. I set out to find my complimentary sexual organ, my true love" (20). Soon masturbation takes center stage, later the gritty details of the narrator's affairs and relationships. Strangely, what receives far less attention is the narrator's gender transformation. It simply happens, and life moves on under a new set of circumstances.

When Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando she said something bold and new to a world that wouldn't openly or tolerantly acknowledge non-heterosexual behavior. Decades later, any mention of gender or sexuality tumbles us into a social dialogue that only moves us farther away from the experience of life. Self is therefore refreshing in its presentation of gender and sexuality simply as a matter of course, as elements of human existence on par with one's sensory capacity or unique genetic make-up. Awakening on his eighteenth birthday, the narrator is not at all surprised to find himself a woman. His only comment is "I am a Canadian, a woman - and a voter" (108). To approach this novel progressively, we must follow the narrator's cue. Gender and sexuality are finally no longer an issue but a state of being. Martel purposely leaves out the trumpets Woolf orders to peal 'Truth! Truth!' upon Orlando's gender transformation. Martel asks us to move beyond reading gender as an issue, as an obstacle, and to simply incorporate gender into the landscape of raw existence without hindrance of society or politics.

Essentially, that which is graphic is open. Every element and detail is disclosed, every secret shady or sweet. So when Martel peels open the very structure of his novel for us to see, this too is graphic. The seams of the novel are visible on the very walls of the narrator's office in Roetown, Ontario where she works on her first novel. The cloud-white walls are tiled with index cards, "the various puzzle pieces" that in timem "proliferated and became [her] novel (177). They are hierarchically organized by location and border color such that

[a]t mid-height flowed a river, the blue cards, with actual sentences and paragraphs from the novel…. Above and below the blue cards were the brown ones, directions that were essential in giving an episode meaning -the banks of the river - and just beyond these the green ones - the fields of good but very general ideas. (177)

This mosaic mirrors the structure of Martel's novel, which begins with a series of short index card length explorations into the narrator's first memories. Upon a first reading, these memories bear little relation to one another. But eventually the myriad of individual droplets collect to form a river deepening and widening with the novel's progression, crashing against the banks to redirect the flow of Martel's novel, or seeping into the ground to feed the distant fields that give his novel depth and context.

The richest 'droplet' is the narrator's childhood discovery of 'eye fish.' After seeing a medical section of a human eye juxtaposed with swimming fish on television, an unlikely connection is cemented.

I was thunderstruck…. The clear liquid in our eyes is saltwater and therefore there are fish in our eyes, seawater being the natural medium of fish. Since blue and green are the colors of the richest seawater, blue and green eyes are the fishiest…love is the food of eye fish and only love will bring them out. (15)

A simple musing on love later becomes a flood of love stories colored by this metaphor. The intensity and value of every crush and affair is measured in terms of eye fish. It is "the greeness of [a lover's] eyes" that the narrator cherishes, or how one love in particular "would emerge in [her] mind like a whale surfacing with its spray of water and [her] head would become full of blue seawater and bright fish" (166 & 246).

Martel also lends a graphic quality to silence, holder of an unsuspecting power in Self. What cannot be shown to its full intensity through words is shown through their absence. At the climax of the novel Martel juxtaposes a brutally graphic description of rape with silence. The page divides into two columns: the left reserved for the narrator's retelling of the event, the right for the narrator's interior monologue as the rape is occurring. Fear materializes in the right hand column as ongoing ellipses of anxiety are bulleted with small cries of 'fear' and 'pain'. Even this minimal expression is pushed into suffocating silences marked by blank spaces that creep and grow and consume whole pages (286-312). The silence, the fear, the absence of language, becomes the most graphic, most revealing point in the novel.

Despite being aware of the limitations of language, Martel is able to effectively communicate the experiences of the narrator. When Martel points to the failure of language - which he does several times - our own acknowledgement of that failure causes us to reach deeper into the mind of the narrator; to ask ourselves what emotion, what experience lays writhing behind those words. And when language is not Martel's main issue, his graphic and uninhibited style brings us as close as possible to living through the narrator's eyes.

writen for Professor Lecker, winter 2000 at McGill University

YOUViLLEart

When taverns become galleries and the neon lights go out

Montreal knack of tucking artwork into small corners and unusual places is only a small manifestation of the city's unique character. Things tend to turn up where you least expect them. A cathedral stands amidst the neon lights of St. Catherine Street and in Old Montreal a tavern is the sight of an art installation. Another aspect of Montreal's character is it's steady decline. Although in many ways the city is still one of the livliest I've known, it is imposible to deny the swiftly fleeting businesses and the row upon row of boarded up doors in Old Montreal. Place d'Youvilli is one such depressed area encompassing blocks of empty storefronts and deserted buildings. But this street is also home to the Tavern Youville which is striving to survive in face of the city's decline.

The building housing the tavern has been owned by the Ward family for 150 years. With this area of Montreal on the decline the family wants to sell the building. One of the sons, Peter Ward is now the sole owner of Tavern Youville. The customers, tavern workers and Peter himself are all worried that this could be the end of one of the oldest taverns in Quebec.

One problem is that a place like Tavern Youville is not easy to find. There aren't many people meandering through Old Montreal at night anymore. Club culture has withdrawn much of its scene from it and headed for St. Laurent or St. Catherine. But not being in the mainstream of things also serves as a nice retreat. So when a group of artist friends managed to find tavern Youville, they formed fast friendships with the management and came up with a plan to save the tavern and promote their own art.

The Tavern Youville is playing gallery for the artist-curated installation entitled: *YOUViLLE art*. But you wouldn't know it from a casual peruse of the place. Inspiration for the exhibit was the artists' love of the tavern's character and desire to keep it up and running. They worked to ensure that their art would not overpower the subtle character of the tavern. In fact, the art blends so well with the tavern that some of them are hard to find. Much of it was created to look as if it had been part of the tavern for years. One piece, a joint effort by Justin Stephens and Joey Dubuc, is a framed newspaper clibbing produced at the McGill Daily and then yellowed and torn to affect aging. Justin Stephens explained that the artists were "trying to fit with the bar context without posing a threat." The tavern is allowed to retain the identity which is largely generated by the management and customers as opposed to decor or music. The artists have succeeded in creating a space where people can "experience the bar without the encumbering piftalls of the art gallery."

The spirit of Tavern Youville is not easy to come by in an urban culture of strobes and thumping bass. This alone makes the Tavern Youville one of Montreal's truly unique night spots: there are no gimmicks here, just and intique tin roof. an upright piano, a crowd of friendly faces and a lot of provoking - albeit subtle - art. A good deal of the tavern's spirit resonates off of the manager, Janice Petersen. While tending bar she declares absolute rule over the tavern and it's customers. She keeps the peace and draws the laughs. And if you've left for the evening without recieving a farewell hug from Janice, you can be sure that you've done something very, very wrong. But if you're really lucky, you'll not only leave with a hug, but a slew of stories that have grown up out of the tavern.

Storis are easy to come by in a place that's been around for over one hundred years and continues to draw regulars who have witnessed nearly half of its existence. So it's never long before tales arise of showering beer and why the tavern is nicknamed 'the cow shed.' But stories are always in the making and the artists of *YOUViLLE art* are part of a new generation of Montrealers breathing life into this tavern. And, fortunately, for those of us who missed the exhibit opening, a closing party is being arranged for March 14...see you there!

published February 1999 in the McGill Daily Culture

Crazy Wisdom
Chris Warren

CD Review

Canadian artist Chris Warren has taken his music - widely ranging in style and influence - one step beyond the acoustically organic texture inherent in his compositions. He has developed his own style of studio technique which allows for fuller musical sounds and broader artistic freedom. His new CD crosses the boundaries of pop, world beat, and contemporary composition. Coupled melodies of acoustic guitars ring out beneath a serenade of inward truths. A mellow, contemplative claranet rises up out of musical folds, phoenix-like, and draws you deep into layers of sound as it descends again.

"Shame" stants without studio reconstruction and is layerd instead in the full organic voices of the piece: those of Chris, and oboe and a cello. The song is about the Montreal Massacre and the lyrics narrate a sad dance of harmonies between the instruments, which represent a dialogue between the feminine and the masculine with sobbering effects. "Shame," "Why?," "Jerusalem," and "God is Dead" all have a strong social flavor pulling from rich sources. Warren filters brod topics through an intensely personal lens, and focuses them directly into his music.

The artist's refreshing style may, in part, be attributed to his Independant lable status. In effect, studio arrangement brings an entirely separate dimension to music; it is an art in its own right. Because the Indie scene has become accessible through the affordability of studio technologies, independant artists are able to mold this asset into a myriad of possibilities.

Asserting financial freedom into the music scene has allowed this independant artist to step into the light and show us his brilliand colors related in sounds. The result is a layering of instruments and harmonies bursting with the germinal seeds of Chris Warren's raw material.

published November 1997 in The McGill Daily Culture

The Modern Rhythm of Dance

Up Close and Personal with Terese Capucilli and Donlin Foman

"Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies? And even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdainst to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying." - FIrst Elegy, Rainer Maria Rilke

In their fifth and final dance entitled, Threshold, Terese Caucilli and Donlin Forman shook the firmament comprising a small studio on Mount Royal East. As Rilke writes, beauty and terror are often part of the same horizon. They certainly were in this emotional and elegant dance.

Stretching the Red strings attached to the front of her costume, Capucilli animated her own "heart strings" and crept out of a womb-like enclosure on the studio's floor. As the dance proceeded, Capucilli's character orchestrated the movements of Donlin Forman with her undeniable presence until finally coerced back within her amniotic enclosure.

This striking performance was held by Buglisi/Forman Dance in preparation for their upcoming New York season this October. It partially recreated a workshop setting as the dancers prefaced each of the pieces with short explanations of the materials, choreography and methods employed. The result was an unique experience and lerning opportunity as much for the dancers as for the audience. In fact, the setting was a bit too informal at the outset (Forman commented on their rehersal costumes in mid-lift). But gradually the dancers and the audience found comfortable places and were able to reap the benefits of the workshop-performance process.

In their mini-lectures, Forman and Capucilli explained the origins of Buglisi/Forman Dance. After nearly 20 years with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Donlin Forman, Jacquelin Buglisi, Terese Capucilli and Christine Dakin stepped out on their own to choreograph and perform original works.

Of course, with 20 years under the tutelage of Martha Graham, the influence the group retains from her is strongly evident in their technique and in the personal experiences from which the group draws their creative impulses. The peice described above was choreographed at the time of Martha Graham's sickness and death. This understood, the piece reveals the pain and suffering endured by Graham and those around her even though the piece is not in homage to Graham or inspired by her alone.

The other peices in the night's repertoire included a solo that combined dance with dramatic theatre inspired by Sarah Bernhardt. Capucilli, dressed in an elaborate costume reminiscent of the Victorian era, portrayed Berhardt and the roles she has played in a whirlwind of micro tales spoken through the language of a dancer's body.

Buglisi Forman Dance perform in Montreal only once a year. Prior to that they conduct an intensive workshop which Montreal dancers should look forward to. And by all means, if you appriciate Graham tecnique and make it to New York this October, the Buglisi Forman show will be worth your while.

published August 1998 in the McGill Daily Culture