Books, Family, Random
I have had no word-togetherness and/or sentence construction ability so I’m off on a lil’ break. I hope to be zipping about and commenting meaningfulness and blather soon, though. Wish me good reading while I unplug, disconnect and find my happy-place. Just might have to watch Happy Gilmore or travel to wilds unknown. XOXOXOXO, Care
Thoughts 
Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell, Riverhead Books 2008, 248 pages
MOTIVATION for READING: I was under the impression that Sarah Vowell was about 70+ years old – not sure where I got that impression nor why it is relevant, but when I saw the clip that Kim posted on her review of this book, I knew I had to find and read. She’s FUNNY! I bought it when I saw it on the BOGOHO table at Borders.
I enjoyed this very much. I found Sarah Vowell’s thoughts on the characters who first settled the Boston area quite entertaining. I learned a lot, too. I like history when it is interesting, relatable and informative. I will definitely read more of her books.
I guess I should explain that this is a book about America’s first organized settlers of New England. But it’s more than that. Kim calls it pop history. It’s got religion, government, philosophy and character studies… It is not dull.
I am so out of words these days, it seems; so I will end this embarrassingly short ‘review‘ with the quote on the cover by the Washington Post:
“Vowell’s funny, imaginative take on musty, buckled-up Pilgrim notables brings the era wickedly to life.”
FINAL THOUGHTS: I think I appreciate it when I realize that no time in history was there every a glory period anywhere that life was super-dooper. I suppose, (ah great, I’m starting to wax poetic in some ill-thought philosophy crap way) that as I get all melancholy that life sucks and the world is a freakin’ mess, that really? it always has been and there is no reason not to approach it (life) with a sense of humor and an attempt to do and be your best and look to the sunshine. I’ve not been feeling very optimistic about anything lately… So thank you Sarah Vowell for taking me on a journey back into time and on travel a trip through my parts of New England; for giving me a bit of perspective and for teaching me about some people I knew little about. (In no way do I mean to say that I found any affirming inspiration per any specific person in this book. just sayin’. But maybe perseverance?)
I didn’t read this for any challenge but the last chapter introduces the reader to Anne Hutchinson and now I want to know even more about her. Perhaps a good bio would be an excellent choice for the Women Unbound Challenge. (like I need any more recommendations for that?!)
Oh – (refer to Kim’s review to get this…) I forgot to even notice that there were or were not chapters to the book. SO I guess it didn’t bother me, huh Kim? 
RATING: 4/5 
RATEHId
einWhitetoSkipLine
When I wrote last week’s post “Not Yet Mrs. Dalloway“ – just so I would be included in the Read-along – I was only about 50 pages into my reread. I was leaving for a weekend away in the mountains of New Hampshire (with time to finish the book). Once back on Monday, I was able to enjoy all the excellent insightful posts collected from various first time and multiple reads of this interesting novel from all over the book-blogosphere.
The next Woolf in Winter discussion is scheduled for January 29th over at 
Emily’s blog: Evening All Afternoon featuring To the Lighthouse. I am so glad I decided to peruse the stacks at the library last week despite trying to interlibrary-loan it. I was shocked and saddened that according to the system, no copies of this in any form were available. Yet there it was on the shelf so I grabbed it! woo hoo – yea me.
I want to keep talking about Mrs. Dalloway! I’m rating this FIVE PIE SLICES this time around and I’m thankful for the Flashback Challenge for giving me the push to pick this up again. I very much enjoyed the beautiful prose and the imagery of the passages; I loved the sense of place and time; I loved being inside peoples’ heads and I was amazed at Woolf’s skillfully depiction of how current events and memories swirl together for interesting thought processings. 
I actually intend to read this again. Not anytime soon, perhaps but in a few years? Let it fade again and allow me to experience a re-awakening to its charms.
But what I did do this past Saturday was click the Instant Play from Netflix.com of the movie version featuring Vanessa Redgrave. I really liked it.
Similar to my reactions and the intro to the movie Lolita*, I was struck by the wondering of just how are they going to film something that is so much inside peoples’ heads?!
It was well done and it fit my Saturday mood perfectly. I thought Redgrave portrayed an excellent Clarissa and she came off cheerier, I think. The voice-overs were a big part of the movie but not it’s main method for conveying the story (I was worried.) On a negative side, the conflict between Clarissa and her daughter’s tutor did not come off as hostile as it does in the book. I also did like the actor who played Septimus – he did an excellent job. Overall, a charming adaption for such an ambitious task.
HAS ANYONE ELSE SEEN THIS MOVIE? 
I hope to re-watch The Hours film, someday soon, too. And a friend and I have agreed to read a bio of Virginia Woolf together. I think I’ve jumped into a project!
With that said, I’m off to go To the Lighthouse now.
HHH
HHH
* The Stanley Kubrick film of Lolita starts off with the repeated voiced and printed question of “How can they make a movie of Lolita?!”
I spent Friday afternoon playing librarian at the Assisted Living / Home for the Aged where I volunteer. It is such fun!
One of the local town libraries donates their discarded large print books to us and that means that someone gets to cull the stock already there and place the new books onto the shelves.
And that volunteer is me. :)
It is tough to choose the books to remove. It is also hard not to look at each and every one but who has time for that? I wish we had an inkling which books were most ‘checked out’ but we don’t – it’s an honor system. Just borrow and enjoy and return it when you can. So we don’t have a system to know if romances are what the residents enjoy most? or biographies? or who are the favorite authors?
The first step yesterday was to find any books that are not large print. I was actually shocked that we found so many! I piled these into boxes and moved them to the basement. Eventually I will put this in my truck and donate them.
Some of these books come home with me, too. I chose a Nadine Gordimer (A Sport of Nature), The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks, a bio of Catherine the Great, and Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.
I still have a lot of hours to donate to get them all into alphabetical order, but I’m really enjoying my work and sharing my love of books with the residents.
The Weekly Geeks Meme Theme for the third week of 2010 is to focus on the country of Haiti.
I’m choosing to share a favorite book by a favorite author: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.
A documentation of the life of Paul Farmer, “a man who would cure the world”.
Tracy Kidder follows Paul Farmer around the world and back trying to understand the strange man who never gave up on his adolescent ideals and never grew up. Through interviews and shared struggles, Kidder starts to understand the complex and brilliant man just as you, the reader starts understanding and sympathizing him as well.
When Paul Farmer was just a student and visited Haiti, he found his life calling there. He traveled sporadically back and forth from Harvard to Haiti to attain his degree but his heart and mind never left. Till this day Paul Farmer keeps his home in Haiti, refusing to give sub-par care to anyone who comes knocking at his door while other doctors keep telling him that it is not “economic” to be giving first class care and medicine to people in poor countries who need it the most.
A heartwarming story of struggle against the odds and the preservation of a single man who would give everything up for the sake of others in need. -Dominic Chu
This book also gives the reader an appreciation for the work of Partners in Health, the organization that Dr. Farmer and others started to fund and deliver healthcare not only to Haiti but around the globe.
I recommend this book, this author, and PIH.
The title comes from a Haitian proverb, which is usually translated as: “Beyond the mountains, more mountains.” per an interview of Kidder.
I am conflicted.
Let me provide the scenario, the back story.
I was bouncing around the bookosphereblogworld when I found a review that appealed to something in me. SOMETHING. oh, how conflicted I am in the telling here! oh how I long to call on some applicable Shakespearean line of prose and poetry and theatrics to make this my own amazing saga!
SEE? I’m fighting my own whatever-demons of nonsense as I struggle not to write a piece of melodrama for your own confusion drama?
I’ll start over.
I read a book review that caught my attention. The review stated that a teacher of a vocational trade suggested this title to his students and it was overwhelmingly received. Embraced even, by a group not traditionally won over by a book, perhaps. So I was hooked.
And the blogger, who happened to be a book seller if I understand correctly, also loved this book.
I was won over myself.
I sent the link to this review to friends who thus purchased the book (I assume) on the basis of said review – and maybe also my enthusiasm for sending on the link to the review?
I bought the book. I didn’t just buy ONE book but I bought TWO. I bought these from the BOGOHO table at Borders – which I must admit … I WAS EXCITED!!! to see this on the BOGOHO table. So I bought.
I bought this for myself and I bought one to send to my Holiday Swap because 1) I had little information to base what would be a good choice for the giftee (ok – I ain’t good at this?) and 2) I thought that if a teacher was doing a great job of engaging youthful readers to this book than a YA librarian might want to know it.
Um.
.
AND THEN!!! the Bookclubber who had the floor (the turn for suggesting a book) brought this book in and I was all “HEY-Yay! I KNOW that book!!!!” and it was voted in for January.
I hate writing these posts and would probably just skip right over it like I did with Lolita. However, I am baffled with myself and my reactions and feel I must review this for these reasons:
1) This is a book club book.
2) I was so excited about this book and am seriously baffled WHY and why-so-let-down.
3) I am unable to attend book club meeting. ***
Is EVERYONE ready for what comes next?!
Thoughts 
Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore, Thomas Nelson 2006, pg 164 0f 245+
MOTIVATION for READING: My bookclub chose this for this month’s book.
RATING: no rating. DNF
SPOILERS ahead and this is the last warning.
If you are still with me (and are not just KB nor GM nor MD – my most possible IRL readers of my blog) then you have a right to my thoughts on why I chose not to finish this book.
I got to the point where the reader was being teased with cancer-cured!! no wait… cancer back!!! and I just had to stop.
I had made the mistake of looking at the photos at the back of the book and I knew right away that the amazing lady who brought these two men together was going to die.
At this point in the book, it was just sequence of events. I didn’t feel anything.
I kept thinking… ”what am I feeling? why was I so excited about this book? what was I hoping for in this story? am I getting it?”
the answer was NO.
and I’m baffled. I’m baffled. Was it an amazing marketing job by the book jacket? was it an amazing sell by the blogger that first brought this story to my attention?!
I was so perplexed that I had to go re-read that initial review post (and no offense to the blogger) I MUST WONDER if I really READ THAT WHOLE POST!!! I obviously didn’t or just glossed over her words because I must admit it was accurate. [UPDATED to link to the original blogger's review here - and it's quite positive: The Book Lady.]
I think I was so sold by the idea that a vocational teacher* started a book club with his students and those students loved this book that I failed to comprehend the religiousness mentioned in the body of the post.
This book. This book is about those God-fearing God-loving people who give all and live the dream.
I do not mean to offend those Christians. It seems to be that I’m being horrible.
but I . do . not. care.
I didn’t care for the rest of the story. I didn’t care what happened to Ron. I didn’t care what happened to Denver. I felt sad but not about Debbie – she was so secure in her Lord that she is in a better place I’m sure of it and it all smacked of LOOK AT US GOD LOVES US IN OUR SUFFERING AND WE ARE TREATED TO THE wonderfulness of God that it just appalls me.
I’m assuming that my feelings about it all are irrelevant anyway and that Ron and Denver come out all happy regardless and that they just don’t need any reaction from me as a reader so I will just mosey on along, if that’s OK.
I apologize. I must reiterate that I am confused. As a Christian with my own way of understanding my relationship with my faith, I just don’t need to read a book like this and I
am baffled.
I want to know if I’m missing some godly sign that I need to pay attention.
Am I a big fat sinner for not embracing this book?
What hooked me into this book at the initial idea in the first place?
Am I only proving myself as a swirly thought maniac?!??!
I’ll stop now.
I gave up on this book on page 165. I have spent entirely more and too much time on wondering about my own reaction to this book rather than the book itself that I just have to stop.
It’s personal and it’s disturbing. And I’ll shut up NOW.
Thank you.
[updated: so it's guilt that I'm feeling, huh? ok. I know what I need to do. Again, thank you. I'll stop trying to edit the crazy post. And - I don't want to say that the book is bad - I just didn't want to read it anymore.]
π
* I used to be a Vocation Education Supervisor for a state in the midwest. I loved that job and I absolutely hated it for opposite and conflicting reasons. So goes life. I recruited and trained and supported teachers who taught the vocational trades and who were put down and ridiculed and received annoying treatment from high falutin’ annoying ‘real’ educators that it mostly encouraged me to be enraged all the time.
*** My husband is going to a conference in Phoenix and I get to tag along. I just found out.
PS. I’m very much enjoying the book I am now reading once I got over the guilt of giving up on SKODAS: It’s Wordy Shipmates - it’s very entertaining.
Thoughts 
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, original pub 1962 Recorded Books 1994, 6 discs
Huh.
I hear of these titles; cited as favorites read when a child and I wonder. Did I read this? Why do I have no recollections of favorite books – am I just too old?! eeeeak! say it ain’t so!
I just don’t remember too many books but can (upon hard-thinking) recall that I read the Ramona (I think that’s the character) books. I read Nancy Drew and that ilk. I know I loved the Chronicles of Narnia but those are more tween books than children’s books, right?
Heck, I don’t even remember Good Night Moon. My mother assures me that she read books to me and that I read books all the time, but unfortunately, not much documentation exists to prove any of it.
Probably, what all this means is that it is quite obvious I don’t have kids myself and thus haven’t had any reason to trip down a literary memory lane…
So.
When a read-along was announced for the beloved A Wrinkle in Time book(s), I decided that I needed to cross this classic off the list.
I went to the library. The library had two extremely grubby (germ-infested) hardbacks. AND ONE AUDIO – and only six discs! Yippee! ” The audio would be the absolutely perfect way to enjoy this!”, so I thought. I could listen as a child does?
Somehow I missed the very first sentence – did I tell you that I’m not much of an auditory learner? Sure, if I were to see the words, “It was a dark and stormy night.” I would have referenced it as one of the most well-known opening sentences to any book ever, right?
Well, that went right over my head even with the words visible on the button for the discussion challenge?!?!?! sigh…
But I did get the experience of the hurricane conditions and the sounds of a big storm as it hammered the house – especially from Meg’s bedroom clear up in the attic. I was quickly entranced into the story – the sensations and the experience.
Charles Wallace was my favorite of the kids. I was nothing like Meg as a child so I couldn’t relate to her obstinance at all. Of course, I found the mother to be all too perfect, but whatever. And I quickly guessed – after checking the published date – that the father must be on some secret government mission.
I had assumed these books were much older but still twentieth century. But I had NO IDEA that this was science fiction and space travel! And mythical creatures and other worlds!! And religious? nope. Didn’t know that.
The religion didn’t bother me. I’m not what you’d call religious but I have a belief set heavily grounded in Christian theology having gone to parochial school for my elementary years. And when the story pressed the children for earthly fighters against evil, I was glad that the list wasn’t only Jesus Christ but included Ghandi, too. I suppose that was just a scrap of acknowledgment to ‘other’ varieties of faith. Sure, I can understand that it could come across as heavy-handed on the push for Christian definition of good but it didn’t bother me – I just rolled with it.
What bothered me was the play out of the rescue – it seemed to chunk and clunk along. After the wonderful build up to what was going to be the mission; OH! they are going to rescue Father! Mrs. Whatsit and her friends are ANGELS! cool. (and I heard Mrs. WITCH not ‘which’ – I wonder what else I missed?!)
The first half was better than the second half. When I was in the middle of the last disc and the story had to wrap up soon; I was more impatient than Meg to GET ON WITH IT ALREADY. Surely, we will not abandon Charles Wallace to the evil IT brain.
and it was over so fast, I almost replayed it but decided it was over so what was I really going to catch in that two minutes that I can’t figure out?
I did enjoy the set up and opening scenes. I adored Charles Wallace. I liked the idea of tessering!
In fact, this TESSERACT stuff really caught my attention because on one of my stints as a computer programmer, I worked with a software application called Tesseract. I had no idea this was a ‘real’ or known word! I only knew it as the name of the application and thought it made up. HUH, again.
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HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
Welcome to Mailbox Monday! 
Actually, I’m listing all the books I brought into the house from all sources and not just the ones I found inside my mailbox…
From my dear friend JoAnne, the Book Zombie, via bookmooch: Stewart O’Nan’s Songs for the Missing
From the library: audio- A Wrinkle in Time / Madeline L’Engle – for discussion soon!
Purchased from the library booksale cart: Guns Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies / Jared Diamond
Purchased from the White Birch Bookstore in North Conway NH: The Fiction Class by Susan Breen, When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale, and The Best American Short Stories 2009 Edited by Alice Sebold (my husband picked this! I’ll see if I can’t somehow trick him into reviewing a few).
Purchased from Borders because I was buying a book as a gift and thought I would just check on a few books I keep saying I want to read, so I came home with the paperback of Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72 by Hunter S Thompson. I suppose I was somewhat influenced by all the ads on TV right now trying to convince me that Scott Brown is horrible and anti-woman and that Martha Coakley is horrible and wants to spend all my money. I can’t wait for tomorrow’s election day so that the ads will stop and my phone will cease to ring.
In other news, I ordered cards from Moo – thank you Book Line & Sinker! – that I won and hope to give out with bookmooch and possibly at the book blogger convention in NYC in May.
HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
Thoughts Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Harcourt Inc 1925, 194 pages
***** WOOLF IN WINTER DISCUSSION JAN 15 at Sarah’s Blog ********
Unfortunately, I am scheduled away for most of Friday and into Saturday so this fun discussion will have to start without me. AND I still have over 100 pages to read as I type this up and schedule for January 15.
So I’m going to do my own stream of consciousness rambling right here that may not have the eloquence and beauty of Woolf’s amazing prose but will discuss my thoughts of why I am reading this, why I read it originally, why I am RE-reading this, why I love it and perhaps I will even address some of the questions from the Reader’s Guide in the back of the book. Shall we get started? I’ll warn you: this may get very very long. I’m just going to pour out whatever is in my head and let it be. Good luck. I will not in the least be offended if you decide to skip out and buy your own flowers for a party somewhere else.
What flowers would you buy if you were planning a party? I would buy daisies. 
Big bright happy daisies…
Around 2000 or later, after reading Lord of the Rings in time to see the movies, I looked for a similar reading project and discovered everyone talking about Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. Perfect! Just what I was looking for. And so, I decided to read Mrs. Dalloway first.
I remember thinking the pacing was so fast! I remember thinking I should start again and read it immediately (I didn’t.) I have always thought I should re-read it and so when The Flashback Challenge was suggested, I put it on the list. When I discovered other book bloggers were planning on the Woolf in Winter, I knew NOW was the time.
I have a track record of really slacking on my reading in January. Rather the first two weeks… But WOW! to jump into Clarissa’s day and follow not just her thoughts as she leaves the house and loves to walk in London and everyone wonders which member of royalty is in that car that just drove by, but get a glimpse in the heads of poor Lucretia feeling so very alone, protective of her husband, angry at the doctor who pooh-poohs her that there is anything at all the matter and her missing Italy so. It just reminds me of how swirly in my head my own thoughts get and how much I have to do and how little I get done and does it really matter. Self recognition – recognizing thoughts and judging if the thought is worthy. It’s exhausting.
Of course it matters! That’s what Ms Woolf wants us to recognize. Each snap of a thought synapse, every memory that pops up, any silly inconsequential event that lies buried in time just may have had a huge difference – or not- in how our lives unfold.
As my husband likes to say, everything we do is like a drop in the water and we can watch or miss the ripples that go out endlessly over the ocean…
I don’t have any understanding or recognition of how startling this was as an experiment in novel form, but I love to be inside people’s heads. I believe Woolf is masterful in Mrs. Dalloway to bring along the reader and see/feel/experience her fears and doubts and regrets. Of course, she couldn’t have married Peter! Oh, what a disaster that would have been. But. Oh the passion she missed, yes?
*** I’m still at the point when he barges in to see her while she is mending her dress.
[And, of course, her servants like her. She has time to mend her own dress; she needn't take the servants away from party prepping duties to attend to her ooops! ripped green dress that she could wear anywhere. And those pangs of jealousy - not being invited to lunch. Darn.]
She looked at Peter Walsh; her look passing through all that time and that emotion, reached him doubtfully; settles on him tearfully; and rose and fluttered away, as a bird touches a branch and rises and flutters away.
She hasn’t seen him in twenty years but it’s plainly obvious that rarely a day goes by in her perfect little life that she doesn’t somehow think of him. She wants to talk about the old days and hold on to strange memory of the fun and energy of their youth! But Peter hates to be reminded of what he had then; and then have to give her up and see her marry that ‘respectable gentleman.’ Oh what they both missed out on…
“Well, and what’s happened to you?” she said. So before a battle begins, the horses paw the ground; toss their heads; the light shines on their flanks; their necks curve. So Peter Walsh and Clarissa, sitting side by side on the blue sofa, challenged each other.
Woolf creates with such IMAGERY! such sweeping emotion in few words, short sentences and really long sentences full of semi-colons. You must jump in the river and let it carry you where it will. Every word feels easy yet deliberate. Every paragraph is carefully constructed. It’s only a few thoughts, a few moments in time.
Omigod! There is SO. MUCH. HERE. I’m 50 pages in and I want to talk about Peter, her daughter, her health issues, and Septimus’ madness. and SALLY!
My memory is faulty. I have never been a re-reader of books but maybe I just wasn’t ready – whatever that means. I can’t say I’ve every really tried to re-read. (is the dash needed? re-read or just reread?) and yet this book has one of the most famous of first lines. I would only guess how I think I might be able to just recall how the rest of this goes – so I won’t. ha! Yet it is familiar.
I’m enjoying the richness of the detail. The going back and forth of what is happening and the private thoughts of those experiencing what is happening. Something yet is going to happen! Something dreadful? Likely some kind of miscommunication and misunderstanding – dotdotdot. I only vaguely recall how the Septimus story line crosses with the party and all it’s goings-on. It was that stupid doctor, right? casually mentioning what crap he had to deal with (or didn’t really have to deal with) that day. Makes me mad.
If I were in a writing workshop and it was suggested we take a day in the life - I could do it. I would be able to do this stream of consciousness, build the background and wrap it around the drudgery of a few hour’s tasks, cross it with activities at my neighbor’s house* and let the two worlds collide. But it would be too close. too raw, I think.
No, I couldn’t, wouldn’t do it.
So I’ll just decide to stare up into the sky and see what the plane is trying to write in puffs of smoke… It is a “T” and then an “O”… wait for it – yes, it’s a “F” and then another. TOFFEE. It’s an advert for toffee candies.
And we miss what we were waiting for anyway. Staring up into the sky… ”Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans.”
I think I’ll buy myself some daisies.
Prayers for all in need.
Prayers for all in need.
* Not to change the subject or anything, but I both want to share what weighs heavy on the heart and I don’t – I’m sure you understand. And the tragedy in Haiti is also heart-heavy. Isn’t that such a great way to say it? Great as in big, not as in wonderful. If you have read Mountains Beyond Mountains, you are familiar with Dr. Farmer and the amazing organization called Partners in Health that addresses health concerns all over the world. I mention PIH because I believe that they have the resources available and already in place to do much to help the Haitian people and I encourage anyone/everyone to contribute to their work. Thank you. Listening to A Wrinkle in Time was good for me – I finished it Thursday. See? I have changed the subject some more.
For Reading Challenge(s): Woolf in Winter, Women Unbound, Flashback, Global: Europe
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HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
Imagine, if you will, a group of people in ancient times experiencing a natural disaster that not only cuts them off from other cultures and peoples of the world, but has a result that all males die off. However, consider that one of the remaining women SOMEHOW finds herself pregnant and wa la! An isolated yet progressive civilization of women survives and thrives over thousands of years.
Charlotte (daughter of Mary and mother of Katharine; niece of Isabella, Harriet and Catherine) imagines this female-Utopia and writes about it in Herland.
Thoughts 
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dover Publications 1998 (originally 1915), 124 pages
MOTIVATION for READING: For the Women Unbound Challenge. Acquired via Bookmooch. This might also work for the 2010 Global Reading Challenge because it is set “somewhere” in South America. This is the first time to read this author and I can blame Litlove‘s comment at my initial Women Unbound Challenge for bringing Charlotte to my attention.
I propose (but am likely wrong) that Charlotte was at the right time (early 20th century) and place (USA) to imagine Herland. Expeditions around the world were discovering new peoples on our planet, Science was furiously hypothesizing and proposing ideas that astounded the world and women were challenging notions of gender abilities and characteristics.
I had the epiphany thought of “Hey! This is where the stereotype of AMAZON WOMAN must have come from!?” while reading this.
The setup was clever: three gentleman go exploring based on a rumor of a female-only country and this text is the journal that tells what they found.
Copied and tweaked just a bit from Wiki:
Gender and defining it is a central theme in Herland, and Gilman seems to be saying that gender is socially constructed rather than something definitive and unchangeable. For instance, the women of Herland are loving mothers, yet are also strong, independent, and, in some ways, have masculine qualities, such as having short hair. … out of the three male leads, one seems least afraid of speaking his mind and showing his feelings. It is not unintentional that, when the three male characters are imprisoned by the Herlanders, their hair grows long, which Gilman does to symbolically link them to womenkind. Gender reversal is used throughout the novel: the women have short hair, the men have long hair; the women teach while the men learn; the women are physically stronger than the men, etc.
What I just couldn’t get over was the concept of marriage and why the men were so eager for it. (oh yea, for the s – e – x?) And the spontaneous pregnancy concept – even though texts exist today that explore how this may be a future possibility – was too convenient. And my skeptical mind must protest that just because it is women, that such a society would OF COURSE be nothing but wonderful – crime-free, disease-free, unpleasantness-free. I guess, as I believe in HUMANS and am a proponent of love and respect for all, I still have doubts that we can escape the basest of human behaviors just be ridding the planet of one of the genders, cough-cough EXCUSE ME – the male gender.
NOT however to say that Charlotte hated men. The women of Herland actually embrace the concept of male and study the idea of re-introducing the Y chromosome to their society and I do realize that this story was a way to highlight how HUMAN we all are and should not be labeled with weaknesses and characteristics based on gender. So I do get it. I just couldn’t quite suspend the disbelief.
Over all, my vote is for clever, keen and original.
Reading this and then jumping into my next book, Mrs. Dalloway, I find myself wondering what Virginia Woolf thought about Charlotte and her writings. So excuse me while I go see where such an internet search will lead me…
Many online resources exist for you to read this online if you so desire. Just google it.
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HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
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