Slow Emergencies by Nancy Huston

I have been planning to read a Nancy Huston book for a long time, ever since seeing some interesting interviews with her. She's from Calgary and moved to Paris where she began writing novels in French so that her parents couldn't understand them - well, that's what she said! And then went on to win major literary awards in France, no small feat, as well as winning awards for her English translations of her own work in Canada. And this last bit got everyone's knickers in a knot since translations don't usually qualify for awards, but if they are done by the original author, do they still qualify as translations? And should she be punished for doing that very anti-Anglo-Canadian thing, "showing off" (which translates loosely as being good at lotsa stuff)?

So she's a great role model for doin' yer own thing, in any case. And I enjoyed this book, polishing it off in one day. It has a rhythm and pace that pulls you along, like the dances of the dancer in the novel. The book opens as Lin gives birth and then becomes a poetic study in her conflict between motherhood and her career as a dancer. Short, nearly cinematic vignettes are all we are ever shown, but they are evocative and do the job. Might also be why the book is quick to read - lots of blank space after each vignette, so perhaps it isn't really very long as a novel.

I did become curious about how different the book would be in French - I suspect the poetry and pace might work even more effectively there since so many more words rhyme. It isn't the most uplifting book to read when contemplating starting a family - (had me thinking, yikes, better to just stick to having one child as that second one really does stir it all up for her) ... but the brushstrokes paint a full life of questioning and trying to answer that irritating question, career or family? better than any magazine article can do. All us grrls can relate to the debate even if we know the two elements are not truly interchangeable. Then we breath a secret sigh of relief that we aren't dancers on top of it all. Unless you are a dancer, of course, in which case this book might be about you.

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