By The Book: Stories and Pictures

by Diane Schoemperlen

Overview

New from the Winner of the Writers' Trust of Canada Marian Engel Award and the Governor General's Award for English Fiction

Once touted as compendiums of human knowledge, the encyclopedias and handbooks of bygone eras now read quaintly, if not comically—yet within their musty pages are often found phrases of uncanny evocative power. Scrupulously stitching such fragments together, in a sequel to the Governor General’s Award-winning Forms of Devotion, By The Book is a collection of verbal and visual collages whose alchemies transform long-dead texts into tales of enduring vitality. With her visually witty full-colour artwork and stories like “What Is A Hat? Where Is Constantinople? Who Was Sir Walter Raleigh? And Many Other Common Questions, Some With Answers, Some Without,” and “Consumptives Should Not Kiss Other People: A Handy Guide to the Care and Maintenance of Your Family’s Good Health,” Schoemperlen’s irreverent and ironic brand of nostalgia combines vintage kitsch with comic, creepy, unexpectedly moving yarns.

Praise for By The Book

“Diane Schoemperlen's By The Book is a bravura performance. Fragments, collage, assemblage, found poetry - none of the conventional words cover it for they miss the fantastic wit, the energy of humour, the divine ability to find comedic ore in the print detritus of our culture. She doesn't rescue texts; with her wicked sense of irony, she actually puts thought where there was none. She infects the banal with the virus of her own brain and makes it into art. Then she makes a picture of it—oh, dwell upon the details; there are whole novels lurking in the details.”—Douglas Glover

Praise for Diane Schoemperlen

"Schoemperlen's inventive language and narrative structures encourage readers to be free 'from the prison of everyday thinking."—New York Times Book Review

"Lovely, clever [and] imaginative."—Wall Street Journal

“Cuttingly witty ... Schoemperlen could almost form a school of piquant and inventive fiction with Julie Hecht, Janet Kauffman, and Lydia Davis.”—Booklist

"There is no mistaking a Schoemperlen story—devoted to form, faithful to the mysteries of the everyday."—The Globe & Mail

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781927428818
Publisher:	Biblioasis
Publication date:	09/30/2014
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Diane Schoemperlen has published several collections of short fiction and three novels, In the Language of Love (1994), Our Lady of the Lost and Found (2001), and At A Loss For Words (2008). Her 1990 collection, The Man of My Dreams, was shortlisted for both the Governor-General’s Award and the Trillium. Her collection, Forms of Devotion: Stories and Pictures won the 1998 Governor-General’s Award for English Fiction. In 2008, she received the Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada. In 2012, she was Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

BY THE BOOK OR: ALESSANDRO IN THE NEW WORLD: AN UNLIKELY TALE OF TIME TRAVEL, TRANSLATION, AND TRAGIC LOVE

A NERVOUS RACE: 222 BRIEF NOTES ON THE STUDY OF NATURE, HUMAN OR OTHERWISE

WHAT IS A HAT? WHERE IS CONSTANTINOPLE? WHO WAS SIR WALTER RALEIGH? AND MANY OTHER COMMON QUESTIONS, SOME WITH ANSWERS, SOME WITHOUT

A BODY LIKE A LITTLE NUT: IN WHICH THE BOTANIST LOOKS FOR LOVE IN THE WILD, APPROPRIATES THE ALPHABET, WAXES POETIC, SUCCUMBS TO DESPAIR

HISTORY BECOMES AUTHENTIC OR: THE QUESTION OF THINGS HAPPENING

CRY HAVOC AND LET SLIP THE DOGS OF WAR: A HANDBOOK FOR THE ADVANCED STUDY OF SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS

CONSUMPTIVES SHOULD NOT KISS OTHER PEOPLE: A HANDY GUIDE TO THE CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF YOUR FAMILY’S GOOD HEALTH

AROUND THE WORLD IN 100 POSTCARDS: IN WHICH THE GEOGRAPHER MAKES A SURVEY OF THE WORLD, FINDS IT WANTING, COMES TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

A NOTE ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 316

Editorial Reviews

These are not works of conventional narrative; rather, an unexpected order emerges from the seemingly arbitrary alphabetization…In the tradition of the objet trouvé, the familiar is made to appear new and sometimes startling…The best portions of By the Book suggest ways old texts might speak to us today, chopped up, reordered, tweet-ready. Schoemperlen works in a tradition that recalls, in addition to Lethem and Shields, the cubist fictions of Lydia Davis, David Markson and Padgett Powell.

The New York Times Book Review - Mark Sarvas

Praise for By The Book

“By the Book suggest[s] ways old texts might speak to us today, chopped up, reordered, tweet-ready. Schoemperlen works in a tradition that recalls, in addition to [Jonathan] Lethem and [David] Shields, the cubist fictions of Lydia Davis, David Markson and Padgett Powell. The most effective stories here affirm the notion … that ‘the beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of a brilliant completeness.’”—Mark Sarvas, The New York Times Sunday Book Review

“[Schoemperlen] breaks her readers out of the present to give them more insight into who they are and how they live.… A meditative, poetic journey …”—Stacey May Fowles, The Globe & Mail

“One of the reasons for the popularity of Schoemperlen’s inventive work ... is that she seems to be having so much fun creating it. ... Schoemperlen wants us to consider the randomness, absurdity, and militant certainties not only of another era’s texts and images but of our own.”—The Toronto Star

“The stories are illustrated by beautiful, hand-assembled visual collages … [which add] a levity of spirit that would be missing if the book were nothing but text … By the Book contains rewards aplenty for the reader adventurous enough to engage it on its own unique terms.”—Winnipeg Review

“By the Book is a witty, imaginative, and sometimes whimsical journey through words and pictures.”—This Magazine

"Strangely appealing ... an extremely clever and often graceful collection that rewards the curious reader."—Kirkus Reviews

"Charming and cool ... Schoemperlen's re-mixed antique illustrations delight the eye, and yet also provoke laughter, close study, and further examination ... By The Book is unusual, witty, and whimsical. Add to that the high production value of the volume itself ... and you have a terrific gift for a book, art, or ephemera lover."—Fine Books & Collections Magazine

“The accompanying collages are bright and colourful… [and] although made recently, stylistically, textually, and playfully reflect the eras of the publications.” —kolaj Magazine

Praise for Diane Schoemperlen

“Beautifully written and brimming with complexity.”—Boston Globe

“One of the most charming novels you're likely to read this year.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune

“A book about believing in something bigger than oneself and putting faith in what we can't fully know ... a look at the search for meaning.”—Philadelphia Inquirer

“A thoughtful and intelligent writer. Readers who enjoy unconventional fiction will find food for thought here.”—Publishers Weekly

“Highly intelligent and unique.”—Library Journal

“A holy hoot.”—Elle

From the Publisher

2014-08-27
A new collection by Schoemperlen (At a Loss for Words, 2008, etc.) offers stories that revel in unconventional forms and odd details, each one mining texts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries in an exploration of collage and fragmentation. Only one piece in this strangely appealing collection, "By the Book Or: Alessandro in the New World," engages with the traditional expectations of narrative. Alessandro, an ambitious young man of 25, journeys to the New World in search of a new life. He follows the guidance of a book that belonged to his great-great-great-grandfather, an annotated volume of vocabulary lists, sample letters and suggested dialogues called the Grammatica Accelerata. Fragments of this text appear throughout Alessandro's story and seem to bend his new reality ever closer to a perfect fit for its recommended phrases. These fragments exist beyond the confines of the story, excerpted faithfully from an Italian-English handbook published for immigrants circa 1900. Schoemperlen builds her own story around the old words, focusing attention on how texts might shape life and our perception of it. This exploration continues in pieces that are less and less like traditional stories. "A Body Like a Little Nut" rearranges phrases from a botany textbook in alphabetical order, creating a sequence of images and sounds that works almost musically to encourage imaginative association. "Around the World in 100 Postcards" lists facts from a 1946 Canadian textbook on geography and reads like missives from a world made foreign by its existence in the past. While the stories are not all equally engaging and sometimes veer into confusing opacity, they provoke energetic consumption, urging the reader to make unusual connections with the personal baggage of their own imaginations. Collages, also created by Schoemperlen, illustrate each story. An extremely clever and often graceful collection that rewards the curious reader but should not be approached with the expectation of traditional story.

Kirkus Reviews