Recently it’s occurred to me how much of a person’s identity is ultimately and inescapably predetermined by not just where they live, but where they began life. Where we are dictates much of our geographic and cultural landscape in the present, but where we came from tends to be the blueprint for how we construct our understanding of any given environment.
I hosted book club last weekend at the new digs, which is actually the house I grew up in as a kid in Toronto, refurbished to my purposes by Momandad Inc. as a twenty-something recent graduate hungrily seeking out life in the city. I’d like to think that unlike many recent grads who move to TheBigCity for the same purpose, I’m slightly more legit because
a) I began life in these here streets
b) I attended university in these here streets
c) I return to my roots in these here streets
and let’s conveniently ignore the fact I lived, essentially, in a forest throughout high school.
Now that the essential back story is out of the way, I should explain Book Club, for those ignorant, illiterate peasants (i.e. ALL OF YOU) who are not in the know. Simplistically, “book club” refers to an elite secret society, which sprung like a phoenix from the ashes of a literature class at The University of Toronto, headed by an eccentric but anonymous prof,
THIS GUY >>>>>
who has published several novels but is perhaps more famous, to his eternal chagrin, for his stint as a host for a talk show on the CBC, where he interviewed celebrities.
We meet once a month to discuss life and literature, sex, love, and death, and sometimes, well, boys, over a bottle of wine (each). Intense personal connections have taken root, and in its essence, Book Club exists as an unconditional support group for the women (and a couple of men) involved. The more bizarre rituals and events I’ll save for later posts, but in this month’s meeting, we were discussing Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury over hors d’oeuvres and candied hibiscus flower prosecco in my sadly furniture-less abode (which was once described to me as being very “young professional” in that one has the means to buy the house, but then has expended the means with which to furnish it). One of the topics that came out under discussion was to the degree that Faulkner had been influenced by his upbringing in the South, the decline of Southern society and values being the underlying theme of the novel. It is very difficult to separate yourself as an observer of your own society and to comment on it in this seemingly objective way, but in reality these “commentaries” in literature are almost always related by speakers who are themselves deeply immersed in their subjects, and so objectivity and impartiality are, in this context, themselves subjective.
These are just some initial thoughts and things to consider as I start my foray into blogging the Toronto sphere. I don’t imagine my impressions and perspectives of this city aren’t influenced by the fact I’ve spent a good portion of my early childhood, and all of my adult life, largely within the Bathurst-Bloor-Yonge-Queen boundaries. I would however like to think that a lot of travelling in my teens and early twenties has contributed to an understanding of Toronto within the context of the rest of the Universe, and not Toronto as the Centre of the Universe (as other Canadians might accuse us of thinking). But you tell me?