We've Come a Long Way, Baby

The Fab 5 tackled an unusually large book--both in size and topic--tonight. We discussed When Everything Changed by Gail Collins. With a subtitle like "The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present," readers should be prepared for a march through history.

In 1960, women were idealized as the June Cleavers of the world--well-groomed, stay-at-home mothers and wives with abundant homemaking, child-rearing and entertainment skills. They were also being arrested in some places for wearing pants in public and excluded from some male-only Executive Flights (unless they were the stewardesses, expected to bend over and light the passengers' cigars). Black women faced even stronger, higher barriers to career and acceptance.

This book works its way through the history of the fight for equal rights for women, including the way it became intertwined with the civil rights movement. So much of this is history that I've heard hints of, but never knew the whole story.

Growing up, we heard about the Equal Rights Amendment, and we knew the names of Friedan and Steinem, but generally the comments were negative, and the famous women's names were the punch lines to jokes. Most of the positive words for the ERA came from sitcoms and the Schoolhouse Rock segment. While none of us felt convinced that our mothers, for instance, were opposed to women being welcome as lawyers or doctors at equal pay to men, we think the negative response to the movement was due to the anti-housewife, anti-traditional-home feeling of the struggle.

All of us were fascinated by the stories and anecdotes. The first female U.S. Senator, Margaret Chase Smith, was barred from the Senate lounge, and when she was a member of the Naval Affairs Committee, "one of the staff members took her for a walk during long sessions so the men would have a break from the burden of a female presence." The stories of the black women who fought for civil rights, and at the same time, for the rights of women, are more amazing.

Sonya suggested that the book is a bit one-sided, ignoring the fact that many women at the time were happy to be stay-at-home mothers and wives, and Barbara noted that there wasn't, in the description of all the household labor, much mention of what "traditional" roles men took on at home--yardwork, heavy work, etc.

We had a bit of a discussion of what it means to have a career versus having a job. Only Barbara feels like she has a "career," and none of us feel that we are the ambitious types who want to move up and up. Barbara is also noted that being a stay-at-home mom encompassed some of the best years of her life.

As for homemaking, we all find different parts of it satisfying. For Nancy, it's cooking. For Barbara, canning is a fulfilling task. Sonya enjoys making the home a beautiful place to be. I can't say that I've found my niche in homemaking, though I do enjoy entertaining.

The revolutionaries seem disappointed by the later generations' decisions to drop out of the workforce to have children. They may have wished careers for us all, but we find that the real result for us is that we have that option, whether or not we choose to pursue it. That is something we are thankful for.

And pants. We're very thankful for pants. Though after spending a day at an amusement park last week, I think I see why the traditionalists were worried about the slippery slope of fashion. Yikes.

The Hunger Games Wrap Up

Well. I can breathe again. I've been immersed in the latest, and last, installment of the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins.

Now, what to say about it. Without giving anything away!

As grim as the premise is, the first two books struck me as keeping a little distance from the gore that resulted from the story. I didn't often have to look closely at the suffering of those who died. I thought that was in good keeping with the themes of oppression and abuse of power. Life is sacred, that the suffering of someone you do not know still matters, and the reason for the violence in the story was to point that out. It wasn't necessary to witness every gruesome detail.

Mockingjay is much more grisly. This is a book about war, and it spares us little. Reading the trilogy as a whole, I think that this book continues to push the reader to examine the effects of war, violence, and abuse of power. Indeed, it's impossible to miss those effects. While this does not diminish my estimation of the series--I don't believe that "nice" stories are the only ones worth reading--it does make me reconsider what age group for which I'd recommend them. A mature 12 or 13 year old can probably handle this, but there are many disturbing images, and I'd be cautious who I share them with. That said, my 11-year-old started reading The Hunger Games yesterday, and now I'm wondering if that was such a great idea! At least, having read them myself, I can talk about the books with her.

I heard Suzanne Collins on NPR last year when Catching Fire came out, and I believe she said that she came up with the idea for this series when she was channel-surfing and flipped between a story on child soldiers and a reality show. She says that if you combine the two, you get gladiators. The commentator asked her about the darkness and violence in the story, and she said something to the effect that we don't give children enough credit for knowing and interpreting the world we live in. She says that violence finds its way into their lives. We want to candy coat it, but they know better.

Certainly, if they read this series, they will know better. They'll also be offered various ways to look at violence and oppression. One choice is to use it as a sick sort of entertainment--picking favorites, watching disaster, getting a secret thrill from the proceedings--be it war between two entities, an exploitative reality game show, an epic disaster. Another choice is to shut it out, pretend it doesn't exist, and live our happily, relatively luxurious lives in ignorance. A third choice is to feel true compassion and reach out for change.

Another theme that is particularly strong in the third installment is the cost of survival. Whether helpless victims, unwilling participants or idealistic revolutionaries, surviving violence takes its toll on everyone. Coming into power changes people. And in particular, killing another human being (or many) changes a person profoundly. Given her initial impulse for the books, a story on child soldiers, this last theme makes perfect sense and is made painfully clear to the reader. It's hard for me to imagine someone "enjoying" the violence in the story in the same way as a spectacular special effects moment in an action movie. All of the characters, whether on the side of the heroine or not, are presented as human and cannot be dismissed lightly.

Mockingjay is a powerful book. Looking through discussions online, I see that much of the speculation surrounding it has to do with whether the heroine Katniss will end up with either Gale or Peeta. While I enjoyed speculating about that myself, readers looking for the Jacob/Edward tension of the Twilight books or the Pam/Jim progression of "The Office" should look elsewhere. This is a book about the pain of being manipulated, the horror of war and the horrible choices one is forced to make in such situations, where few are innocent and everyone has a motivation of his or her own.

Collins keeps the reader wrapped in the tension, refusing to allow readers to take a break when the chapter ends.

And while the novel is grim, it does offer hope. There are also brief moments of beauty. As a parent, I'd like to see that hope and beauty show up a bit earlier or in larger doses for my child. Contrarily, as a reader myself, I feel that any more would just negate the horror that the characters experience. And let's not delude ourselves--there are horrors, as well as beauty, everywhere. So, how will we respond? If we ignore the suffering in the world, can we truly appreciate the beauty? And if we constantly view horror while feeling ourselves detached and safe from it, how long will it be until we are so jaded that we can't see it for what it is?

Literary Junk Food

Recently I asked my friends on Facebook what snacks they buy at the gas station when they're on a road trip. I received an unprecedented response! A couple of principled people responded with "water" or "I hate snacks from the gas station." Most, however, gleefully admitted the various crap they ingest on such occasions, "edible food-like substances" as Michael Pollan describes them, that they normally do not allow themselves.

When I'm reading, I do the same thing. Being in 2 book clubs and reviewing books for a Christian magazine means that I am usually reading something that I expect will enlighten me or enrich my life in the process. Most of the time this leaves me happy and fulfilled. But every once in a while I get tired of reading useful and/or literary books. I want to read something just for the fun of it. Sometimes something truly crappy.

So, in the spirit of all of those who confessed their road trip preferences--cheesy popcorn, Sprees, Twizzlers, Reeses and mountains of soda--here are some of the books I've picked up for the pure guilty pleasure of some fun.

As a teen, I started out with sweet Christian romances like Janette Oke's Love Comes Softly, moved on to the First Love by Silhouette series, and moved with alarming speed into the less sweet, less sacred realm of romance novels for adults. My older, married sister was a great resource for this. But now, I like to think I've put that all behind me. After all, I still have a crystal clear memory of reading a Danielle Steel novel on a class trip, and having my friend Holly pick it up and do a random dramatic reading. The line she hit on? "She felt as though her insides were flying out her ears." Sorry, don't remember the context, but I can guess.

But I don't think I've gotten so far, really. Last year I picked up Twilight by Stephenie Meyer out of curiosity about all the press, and I was hooked. It isn't far off from some of the novels I read in high school. Lots of burning desire and longing gazes. Many people salute the books for having a teen couple who don't have sex until they're married. Since sex is just about all that occupies their minds, it's hard to take that too seriously. The writing is cliched, but the storyline is fun and satisfies all my inner teen's dreams of my misfit self being swept up by the most beautiful man in the world, who finds me utterly fascinating and protects me every moment. The fourth book is truly awful, and reading it diminished some of the fun of the preceding installments. And yes, I read them all.

Other things I read just for the fluff and nonnutritional value: The Nanny Diaries (so-so on the fun scale) and both Bridget Jones novels (the first is one of my all-time fluff favorites). My most recent venture into junk reading was (some of you may want to brace yourselves for the title) Good Christian Bitches by Kim Gatlin. This book takes place in a very wealthy part of Dallas, near where I spent middle school and high school years, and it is meant to be a fun skewering of mean-spirited "Christian" rich girls by a woman who appears to claim the same designation for herself. I couldn't resist, thinking that it would be fun to see a Christian writing some good-humored satire about her own circles. It fell flat--a poorly written story about mean-spirited people doing mean-spirited things, with no Christianity that I could recognize. So that one was the equivalent of Dutch licorice for me--looked like candy, had the texture of candy, but tasted like, well, crap.

There are some books that can be read just for the fun of it, but aren't just fluff. Off the top of my head I think of Grand Opening by Jon Hassler, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (especially if you skip over some of the more preachy environmental stuff) and Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns.

In the end, I find that a fluffy detour leaves me hungry for more satisfying fare. What is your literary junk food?

Reading in Place

The majority of the last 2 weeks found me in New Mexico, mostly in the Santa Fe area. I spent a little time, on my own and with my husband after he joined me, exploring the area. It is wonderful! Moderate, dry and lovely.

During our time, we visited the cathedral in Santa Fe, the Taos Pueblo, Kit Carson's home, and the Sandia Mountains. I loved all of these places, but I loved them even more after reading Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather.

I started this book several years ago when the Neland Women's Book Club read this title. I got about halfway through it and ran out of time (this happens to me frequently enough, which you might know if you've read earlier postings!). I always meant to come back to it. I came back to it this week, and I remembered very little from the earlier reading! I think I'd been rushing through in an effort to get to the end, comprehending less than usual.

This time around, I started again from the beginning. The book is beautiful, and the priests, Father Latour and Father Vaillant, are the kind of missionaries I always wanted to be. I've had a strong attraction to mission work all of my life, and if I ever did it for a longer period of time, I'd want to be like these men--dedicated, loving and becoming part of the community.

This is not to say they are perfect. Father Latour has a love for material things, and his dream, almost obsession, of building a cathedral is something I don't entirely understand. Why bring European architecture to a mission field in the New World? However, having seen the cathedral, I can appreciate the inclination to build something beautiful but simple, in keeping with the field where he was stationed. Father Latour's character was based on a real-life priest, who played a big part in building the existing cathedral.

He also has trouble forming deep connections with new people. That strikes me as a very real issue for any person in ministry. At some point, many of us feel as though our lives are "full" enough, and don't so much need more people in our lives. This, of course, misses the point that others may need someone in their lives, and I may be just the person to fill that need.

Father Vaillant is a wonderful character. He is earthy, passionate and temperamental. Yet his deep love of people opens their hearts to him. He is also open to God's guidance, no matter where it may bring him.

Cather, though sometimes bound in the language of her time (this book was published in 1927) had a great respect for the culture and spirituality of both the Catholic priests and the native Americans in her book. She also imbues the story with a strong sense of history--the priest arrives in the "wild west" and watches it become more and more "civilized."

Episodic in nature, this novel is different from most of the fiction that I read. So often the plot structure of the novel is the driving force. This book is an examination of character, two lives in particular. This makes for a different reading experience than something that starts with a problem and ends with a resolution. In some novels this episodic nature would lead the reader to lose interest in the story. Cather's great beauty and sympathy, as well as the rich history she alludes to, makes this novel interesting from start to finish.

A side note to the novel is Kit Carson. He shows up frequently in the book. We visited his former home in Taos, and learned a bit about his history. He was a well respected frontiersman, a real mountain man who spent a good part of his life moving around the independent western states. He was idealized in his time, made into a sort of folk hero. Cather portrays him in a very positive manner as well. It is interesting to consider whether this was the influence of her times or the truth of the matter.

In an earlier moment of enthusiasm and idealism, I promised to read both Cather's book and Tony Hillerman's The Blessing Way. I started this one first, but my husband needed a book, so I passed in on to him and soldiered on with Death Comes for the Archbishop. He (a much faster reader than myself) read The Blessing Way. I asked for his opinion of it so that I could report on it in some way, so here goes: "It was a quick read, with easy words." He meant this as a joke, but my limited experience with the first chapters tells me that he's right, in a good way. Hillerman explores the rituals and customs of this particular Indian tribe, and he turns them into a good setting for a mystery. I hope to read more of it sometime!

So, I recommend these books for anyone heading to New Mexico soon. They have enriched my experience of the area.

Halfway There

How many of you can put a book down without finishing it? This is a skill I have lost over the years. In high school and college, I left a large number of titles unfinished, even untouched! But now, even if I know a book is terrible, I generally have some strange compulsion to finish it. If I have to put a book down, it will clutter a corner of my mind with mental post-it notes nagging me to get back to it.

A couple of times a year I find myself searching desperately for a good piece of fiction to recommend in the magazine I work for, The Banner, and I end up reading bits and pieces. For one reason or another, certain books just aren't right, even if I like them, and I have to give them up to start something else. A couple of weeks ago I read about a quarter of The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, which was (so far) about a young Jewish man who goes to school in Paris, leaving his home in Hungary behind, on the brink of World War II. For various reasons, it wasn't working for my purposes, but I was enjoying it and was very sorry to put it down.

Then there are the books that I read for book club but don't finish in time. I end up setting them on the shelf with a bookmark lodged in them against the day nothing else is calling for my attention (whenever that might be). Right now that encompasses The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, as well as a book the Fab 5 read about 3 years ago, Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran about her experience as a spy for the CIA. I'll even confess that I never actually read the last little bit of Chris Cleave's Little Bee, about a young Nigerian woman who flees illegally to England, in spite of the fact that the book was compelling, and I liked it! Since we talked about the ending at book club, and I skimmed through it pretty thoroughly, the urgency to read every last word has passed.

This week I'm feeling particularly bereft about a partly-read book. The Neland Women's Book Club is reading Mary Barton, the first novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, the same author who wrote Cranford (which was turned into a great PBS mini-series with Judi Dench). It's an old-fashioned tale, a book which would never see the light of day now with it's preachy undertones and strangely self-asserting omniscient narrator. But I'm enjoying it and have gotten very interested in what will happen to the title character. Unfortunately, I was using the library copy from the college I stayed at in Santa Fe, and I had to return it when I checked out. I was about halfway when I slid it into the book return.

Here's the truly awful part. I only have a week and a couple of days left to read it. The Grand Rapids Library system has one whole copy, which some other Nelander has no doubt squirreled away on her shelf. Schuler's Books didn't have it, and no bookstore in Santa Fe appears to have a copy. So even though I have time and would like to finish it, at this point I have no copy to read!

Books come alive in my imagination, and a half-read book leaves a lonely ghost haunting the back stairways and storage rooms of my mind. What books are haunting you?

Metallica, Coming Soon to a Church Near You

Pastor John Van Sloten preaches on many topics in his sermons. He is dedicated to looking for the way that God reveals himself through both the Bible and through his other "text," creation. While it's easy to imagine that we can find God in a forest or on a mountaintop, Van Sloten contends in his book The Day Metallica Came to Church that we can find God in culture, which is also his creation. Whatever people produce through the talents God has given them is also an extension of his creation. And he can reveal himself through that creation. In fact, he says that creation, including culture, helps to illuminate Scripture, not only the other way around.

The book starts with a challenge that Van Sloten received to preach a sermon on the music of Metallica. He took it seriously, and found that some of Metallica's angry lyrics echoed the anger at injustice that is found in the words of the prophet Jeremiah. Since then he has gone on to explore (and preach on) the ways he sees God in all of culture--movies, architecture, art--the list goes on and on. It sounds like this was not always a comfortable transition for his church.

As I finished reading this book at The Glen Workshop, a retreat for Christians interested in the arts, I found myself thinking that some of his theology is intuitive for artists. Christians who are searching to express beauty in their music, words, painting, and films often sense that they see God revealed in all sorts of creative work, even if the person doing the creating is not a Christian.

Van Sloten explains the theology behind this. It has a lot to do with common grace, a term many of us know but don't always think through. He says, "God's goodness surrounds all people. God's truthful light doesn't discriminate; it shines everywhere. And it's shining more brightly and consistently than we realize."

I'll admit I am not immediately attracted to theology books. This one particularly interests me because it examines the connections between God and the culture where I live, engage and create. These are the same connections that I find so exhilarating when I attend the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College. Journals like Image, Ruminate and The Other Journal seek the same intersection. The book Through A Screen Darkly, by Christian film critic Jeffrey Overstreet, explores the same themes in film.

Take a look around you. Yes, God speaks to us in the wind and in the storm. He might also be speaking to you through that movie on Friday night.