Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer

Susan Olding Reviews Perfecting

Today I opened my email to a fan mail saying “Wow!!” about Perfecting and then found a review on the Prairie Fire site written by Susan Olding.

“The breadth of its canvas and the cadences of its prose recall, at different times, the Bible or an epic or a Greek tragedy, and its people are both larger than life and more emblematic than the characters of conventional realistic fiction. Curtis is the prodigal son; Martha is the perpetual naïf. They are like figures in a carpet–distinct, but more meaningful for what they contribute to the pattern than for themselves, for only the carpet as a whole tells the story. Having said all that, Hollis Woolf will remain in my mind as one of the most formidable personifications of evil I’ve met in literature–or, for that matter, in film. In fact, he reminded me of Marlon Brandon in some of his key roles–Stanley Kowalski, Don Corleone, and especially Kurtz. The power he wields over his family is all too believable, and the legacy of pain that he passes to others is not only the stuff of myth, but of reality.”

Check out the whole review here.

And for your pleasure, here is a scene with Brando in Apocalypse Now:

War Rugs

Map war rug with Stinger (MANPAD), the gun that won the war between the USSR and the US played out in Afghanistan.

Many people have asked me about the war rugs in my novel Perfecting. These are rugs knotted primarily in Afghan refugee camps since 1979. Early carpets tend to have a traditional look to them, with the armaments tucked into the sequences, and sometimes almost hidden. The images sometimes even look like traditional motifs (paisley, wheat sheaf, camel) transforming to war iconography (hand grenade, ballista, helicopter). The carpet above is a later carpet commemorating the USSR army evacuating Afghanistan, and also, to my mind, celebrating the Stinger ground-to-air missile weapon, that was the fire power that ensured this evacuation. Historically, 1989 was the year the USSR was defeated, leading to the crumbling of the Berlin wall, and the end of the Cold War.

This month, Brick 84 published an interview with me, conducted by novelist Catherine Bush on the topic of war rugs. The rugs continue to be made, and can be read when seen together in a certain order, as a narrative of the history of Afghanistan from 1979 onwards. There are also carpets that bring in ancient story characters, like Rostam, from the Shahnameh, to insert this new story into that epic one. Some people believe that the carpets are a sort of talismanic creation, and stepping on them may release their power.

If you are curious about the carpets, grab a copy of the new Brick. It even has a lovely colour insert of some carpets from a recent exhibit at the Museum of Textiles in Toronto.

Here, too, is an interesting Youtube video that shows a political intervention featuring the carpets being, well, check it out. It freaks me out a little, when I think they might be activating all that weaponry.

Writer’s Talk with The New York Times

Edition three is upcoming. The course is a successful amalgam of craft, careful study of literature and Q&As with the authors. The winter 2009 term begins at the end of January and features this extraordinary cast of writers:

Francine Prose, Lynda Barry, Andrew Pyper, Lydia Millet and Motoko Rich

Stay tuned for more information about this course.