A16 O THEGLOBEANDMAIL| THURSDAY,AUGUST1,
M
y love for libraries blossomed when I
joined the public library.
From the age of 8, I was allowed to
walk from my house across the wooden
footbridge over the CN rail line and into town,
where the municipal library was housed above the
police station. Once the librarian gave me my first
membership card, she suggested that I might enjoy
a series of books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder,
starting withLittle House in the Big Woods.
The memory of curling up in an armchair and
disappearing into the faraway world of pioneer life
is still vivid today. I was a city girl from a Greek
household, so the details of homesteading in the
American West were exotic: chopping down trees
to build a house, planting crops, the isolation, it all
fascinated me. Time disappeared. No longer re-
stricted to the here and now, I was
free to imagine myself as a pioneer
girl. I was addicted. And this love of
libraries and reading would bookend
my career, allowing me to one day
create a safe space for high-school
kids, too.
By the time I was in high school,
the municipal library’s collection of
books paled in comparison to our
school’s big library where I read
books written by authors we were
studying in class: Charles Dickens
and Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain and
Emily Bronte. During the summer
months, I was caught up inGone with
the WindandAnna Kareninaor lost
myself in the exciting and strange
worlds of Ray Bradbury’s books.
When I studied English literature
at university, I thought it best to build
my own library. For the next 40 years,
I continued to collect books until one
day I realized that all those books had become a
part of the house, like wallpaper or wood panel-
ling. Suddenly, I saw them as a vanity and an insidi-
ous aspect of consumerism. Why did I have to keep
every book? Who was I trying to impress? I kept the
ones that had made an impact on my life and
donated the rest. My home library is filled with
books that have enriched my life and are of interest
to my family and friends. I regularly prune my col-
lection. A new book rarely stays with me for long.
Toward the end of my teaching career, I became
a teacher-librarian at the high school where I
taught English literature. This position reignited
my love and appreciation for libraries. I’ve never
forgotten how wonderful it is to be surrounded by
books. The school library indulged my passion for
books even more.
I had a generous budget, and I searched for
books that would interest my teenage audience
and hopefully spark a love of reading in them.
Manga. Fantasy. Science fiction. Horror. Graphic
novels. I couldn’t keep theTwilightseries on theshelves. Biographies on sports heroes were in hot
demand. Students raced to the library as soon as it
opened (even in this digital era) to take out several
books of their favourite manga series. I suggested
Three Day Road,De Niro’s GameandThe Ghost Road
to senior boys for their independent study assign-
ment, and the girls lovedLullabies for Little Crimi-
nals,A Complicated KindnessorFall on Your Knees.I
bought books that students asked for and ones
that I wanted to read.
I quickly realized that the library wasn’t just a
place to do research; students came for other rea-
sons as well. I noticed that some students lined up
first thing in the morning, returned at break time
and spent the whole lunch hour tucked away in a
carrel. These were the loners and the marginalized
students, the ones who felt safer in the library than
in the hallways or in the cafeteria
where they could be bullied or ha-
rassed.
There was the young man who hid
in the stacks reading philosophy
books, refusing to sign them out for
fear of being ridiculed at home. A
young woman, who read every book
on human anatomy and diseases,
dreamed of being a doctor but her
family was too poor; she would have
to find full-time work after gradua-
tion. I noticed that students searched
for books on specific topics instead of
using computers: STDs, drugs,
LGTBQ, transgender operations,
mental-health issues. I realized that
computer screens were too visible, so
I bought more books on those topics.
I bought sofas and easy chairs. The
conference room doubled as an art
gallery and a meeting place for stu-
dents to talk about ideas, play chess,
start knitting circles and make posters for their
clubs. The library became an inclusive public
space, democratic and safe for everyone. The circu-
lation rates for books rose steadily every month.
Since I wasn’t just a teacher, I was a librarian –
non-judgmental, resourceful and accommodating- those years were the most rewarding of my teach-
ing career. Even though I was an authority figure, I
wasn’t involved with student assessments and
evaluations or restricted by the rigid structure of
the curriculum. I was free to make the library a safe
and exciting place to learn.
Whether libraries are located in schools or in
communities, they provide students and the public
with an opportunity to engage with the past, the
present and the future; all that is required is a
modicum of curiosity. Libraries are vibrant and
fluid places that help us to adjust to the world and
their doors must be kept open to everyone – for
free!
Angela Jouris Saxe lives in Tamworth, Ont.FORTHELOVE
OFBOOKS
ILLUSTRATIONBYCHELSEAO'BYRNELibrariesarenotjustplacesforresearch,butsafespacesthathelpusadjust
totheworld,AngelaJourisSaxewritesFIRSTPERSONTowardtheendof
myteachingcareer,
Ibecamea
teacher-librarianat
thehighschool
whereItaught
Englishliterature.
Thisposition
reignitedmylove
andappreciationfor
libraries.I’venever
forgottenhow
wonderfulitisto
besurrounded
bybooks.Haveastorytotell?Pleaseseetheguidelinesonourwebsitetgam.ca/essayguide,
[email protected]FirstPersonisadailypersonalpiecesubmittedbyreaders| NEWSTODAY’SSUDOKUSOLUTION TODAY’SKENKENSOLUTIONT
here is extreme television, and then
there isThe Boys. The new Amazon
Prime Video series, which chronicles
the immoral exploits of a group of
superheroes, features so much violence and
gore that it makesGame of Throneslook like
Paw Patrol: Pups Save the Direwolves.
Yet, as bloody asThe Boysis – and with one
scene featuring a Flash-like character who runs
over an innocent bystander and leaves nothing
but viscera-coloured mist in his wake, it is
absolutely grotesque – the drama cannot hold
a severed head next to the series’ oozy source
material, the comic book series of the same
name written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by
Darick Robertson.
Ennis and Robertson’s original work, which
launched publication in October, 2006, before
wrapping its 72-issue run in November, 2012,
asks the question: “What if superheroes were
... bad?” Today, that’s a familiar query to televi-
sion and film audiences, posited by everything
fromSuicide SquadandBrightburnto the many
iterations ofWatchmen(the latest of which, a
stylish and expensive HBO series, premieres
this fall). But when Ennis and Robertson’s
work first appeared on comic book stands, it
made a hyperbolic, vomit-inducing impres-
sion.
Ennis and Robertson’s superheroes were not
just poor role models – they were full-on psy-
chopaths, so convinced that their powers
made them superior to the rest of humanity
that they regularly engaged in sexual assault,
mass murder and even (in one infamously
gruesome moment) cannibalism.
The Boys’thinly veiled approximations of
Superman/Captain America (The Homelander
in Ennis’s world), Batman (Tek Knight), Won-
der Woman (Queen Maeve), Aquaman (The
Deep) and the X-Men (G-Men) pushed the lim-
its of the comic book form as far past the edge
of the envelope as possible.
With the series’ publication, Ennis not only
confirmed that he possessed the sickest mind
in the medium – quickly one-upping his own
work on the gleefully sacrilegiousPreacher–
but also that the industry had finally produced
the one comic book property that no Holly-
wood studio would ever be able to touch.
So much for
that theory.
With every
cable channel
and emerging
streaming service
hungry for zeit-
geist-catching
content to lure in
curious subscrib-
ers, there are no
longer limits as to
what is or is not
too graphic for the small screen. And while the
eight episodes of Amazon’sThe Boysdon’t
touch the comic’s more outrageous moments –
say, the time when about 150 superheroes lose
their heads in one skull-exploding second –
producer Eric Kripke does indulge a healthy
amount of Ennis’s more stomach-churning set
pieces. All of which is perfectly fine with Ennis.
“There will always be things that you can’t
put on TV, and the show simply won’t be able
to handle some of the book’s more extreme
elements,” the Irish writer says in an interview.
“That said, it’s managed to cook up a few fairly
feisty moments of its own.”
One moment, taking place inside a hijacked
commercial airliner, is both impressive in its
fidelity to Ennis’s source material and terrify-
ing for the exact same reason. But there are
original-to-the-series horrors, too, as when
Kripke and his team produce a scene in which
a female Wolverine-like superhero squishes
her lover’s head like a grape. The result is mes-
sy and juvenile, but also frequently and per-
versely captivating – a paean to bad taste that
asks viewers to expect something awful, then
delivers something even worse. It is extreme
television expressly made for these extreme
times – an ugly, hungry culture demands just
as ugly and hungry an entertainment to satiate
it.
It is hard to imagine the work existing a
decade ago, which is precisely when director
Adam McKay (Anchorman,Step Brothers) at-
tempted to adapt it for a feature film. That
effort didn’t make it far.
“I can’t remember who wrote the script for
the McKay film, but it was extremely ropey
stuff,” Ennis says. “Definitely for the best that it
didn’t happen.”
Instead, it was McKay’s sometime collabora-
tors and old hands adapting Ennis’s work,
Preacher producers Seth Rogen and Evan
Goldberg, who picked up the project in 2015
with the aim to make it for the small screen,
where it was increasingly clear there were few-
er limits and more money to throw around.
First, Cinemax approved the series, but in 2017,
Amazon Studios picked up the project as the
streaming service continued its hunt to pro-
duce its ownGame of Thrones-like sensation.
While the Toronto-shotThe Boysis too niche
and too, well, gross to approximate such a
world-conquering phenomenon, its premiere
this past weekend has already proven success-
ful enough for Amazon to order a second sea-
son. And it has turned Ennis, who is watching
AMC wind down its adaptation ofPreacher,
into the most unlikely of Hollywood-friendly
forces.
“I’m content to let the book be the book and
the show be the show. I’ve told my story, is the
way I see it,” says the writer, who adds that,
unlike others who have entered the business,
he has yet to be soured by the ups and downs
of Hollywood adaptations.
“I’m happy enough,” he says, “to entertain
offers on other material.”The Boysis available to stream on Amazon Prime
Video.TheBoysisthe
mostgruesomeshow
ofthePeakTVera
BARRYHERTZItisextremetelevision
expresslymadefor
theseextremetimes–
anugly,hungryculture
demandsjustas
uglyandhungry
anentertainment
tosatiateit.