[Sorry--I started this last week but it took me a while to finish it! Have fun finishing this book and reading Anthem.]
Virginia Woolf wrote an essay (quite a long one) called "A Room of One's Own" in which she discusses the absolute impossibility of success women have faced in writing fiction. She believes that for a woman to be able to write fiction, she needs a room of her own--where she can go to think, to write, and a space that she can own, a place where she can be herself.
I think about her essay often when I read literature written by minorities or those who are oppressed. This past summer I took an African-American literature class, and it really opened my eyes to a lot of the things people struggle with when they are trying to work against public opinion. Those who work to enact change are often viewed as radical, and when we look back with the 20/20 vision of hindsight, sometimes I think we feel that they were perhaps too over the top. "Be a little more moderate," we might think. "It probably wasn't that bad."
But it was that bad, and most times when people rise out of the midst of oppression they have to overdo it so that their posterity can have a "normal" live--not too far to the right or to the left.
These are the kind of things I thought about when I took the African-American lit class. I really wanted to choose a book that highlighted the beautiful things I learned about African-American literature, but all of the books that we had read in that class required too much explaining to really understand what they did for the African-American world. So I chose In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens because, as a collection of essays, I thought it would be a perfect way to peek into the mind of an African-American writer. And, if you didn't have time, you could just read a few.
Do I feel uncomfortable when I read this kind of stuff? Of course. I feel uncomfortable that the atrocities that prompted the Civil Rights movement were so recent--just one generation ago. I feel uncomfortable that similar prejudices exist today, even if they are not so prevalent. But I also feel a real sense of empowerment. Just as the African-Americans sand "We shall overcome," they did overcome, and even though the world isn't perfect yet, it is a lot better.
But there is still a lot of prejudice in the world. This is why I believe it is our duty to become educated about others so we will "understand them better, and love them better" (anyone recognize that quote?). And, I believe that we can learn a lot about our own struggles through life and how to make an impact and a difference, even when everyone else says we can't.
I would love to hear any thoughts any of you had about any of the essays. The following are a few of my favorite quotes:
"So much of the satisfying work of life begins as an experiment; having learned this, no experiment is ever quite a failure." ("But Yet and Still the Cotton Gin Kept On Working")
"Your job...is to change the world. Nothing less or easier than that...the world is not good enought; we must make it better." ("A Talk: Convocation 1972)
Sorry, I am going to comment on the book, but I wanted to read a few more essays first since I haven't read that many. Thanks for the book club idea-it really is fun to be a part of.
ReplyDeleteHere are my thoughts on this book:
ReplyDeleteThe Good: It helped open my eyes to the injustices that took place. I was particularly struck by the irony of the man's family whose house was being bombed while he was out fighting/getting injured as he was defending the country in Vietnam. It was really sad to think about that. I have also seldom thought about black communities who weren't interested in integration. I can understand why they would feel that way.
The Not-So-Good: I didn't really feel a sense of empowerment. Of course, I only read a few essays, so perhaps there are some where things were more positive, but I felt like the essays I read just...ended. They never really resolved anything. I have kind of a hard time with the writing style that a lot of best-selling authors use these days. I see it as quite detached, just stating a bunch of facts without really drawing me in as much as "lesser quality" books do.
I'm excited to expand my reading experience and read some things I wouldn't normally pick out!
P.S. Can you make it so comments are e-mailed to me? I want to get an e-mail when people comment on books so I don't have to check all the time for new comments. Thanks! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm finally getting around to commenting. I was pretty busy in January - read a lot, but it amounted to about four potty-training books. Anyway, here are a few of my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI only read the two essays recommended, and I felt they built on each other (or at least related to each other) quite conveniently. Maybe if I'd read more I wouldn't have noticed the connection, but to me it seemed like the two gave a great discourse on role models.
I found the Zora article highly entertaining and it encouraged me to learn more about a woman I had never heard of. Maybe I'll even read one of her books one of these days. Walker's writing style was engaging and real. I was touched by Breanne's comments about the need for role models. Alice Walker was clearly searching for some information about a woman whom she looked up to as a hero, and I found her almost-worship of this woman whom she had never met to be striking. I appreciated her quest to learn more and to honor her hero.
Then I read "In Search of Our Mother's Gardens" and was struck with a great sadness and emptiness. I felt like Walker had the most incredible role model right in her own home, and even at the time of writing this essay, she still didn't seem to recognize or respect her mother for the unbelievably strong woman that she was. True, Walker used her as an example of someone who was an artist, but there was none of the love, admiration, and zeal to follow her mother that I felt when she spoke of Zora. I think Walker really missed out. From the little that I read, I came to admire her mother for the sense of inner strength that she showed. Rather than allowing herself to feel like a victim because of her race, or demonstrating a thirst to prove her worth above all else, Walker's mother sought, found, and created beauty in her world. That is my opinion of someone who truly overcomes.
I was motivated, not by Walker's views, but by what she left out. I caught a glimpse between the lines of her writing of a woman who was worth emulating, and I hope to be more like her mother. I was reminded of President Uchtdorf's talk about being creators. Too often I find myself like Walker, trying to fight against something, rather than finding the beauty and making more of it - which gives one a much greater feeling of liberation in the end. It also reminded me that my own mother is such a wonderful example of this, and if I open my eyes to the ordinary people around me, I can find so many role models, that there's no need to look much farther than my own home. I hope I can be that kind of mother to my children that they will be able to admire and wish to emulate.
A thought for Kaitlyn--one of the reasons that these essays just "ended" instead of drawing you in was because they were essays--short segments of a thought or an idea, presented at different places and during a 20 or 30 year period, if I recall correctly. They were addressing issues with different audiences, but hopefully you were able to get the "feeling" of what they were trying to express.
ReplyDelete