I still puzzle over this blogging phenomenon; why we feel the need to publish our thoughts and share opinions with strangers. However, blogging has brought me some unique experiences, things I would have never tried if I wasn’t in the virtual world meeting new people.
For example, last week I reviewed a book on-line with someone I “met” through blogging. And it was great fun. My virtual book club was with Carolyn of Black and (A)broad. She had contacted me to suggest we read Feminista by Erica Kennedy. Carolyn had read my posts Happy Housewives and Slummy Mummy and the Feminists where I discuss modern feminism being about choice. She had read an interview with Erica Kennedy and been reminded of my comments, so thought we might like to review the book.
Erica Kennedy caused a furore of response on her blog when she defined Feminista using photos of celebrities to illustrate her points. In interviews she seemed eloquent “I never felt comfortable calling myself a feminist because that word has so many negative connotations. The stereotype of the hairy, man-hating woman...Feminista is...the modern woman who is making her own choices... Being a feminista is about tapping into our unique female attributes and living authentically instead of defining ourselves by male standards of success.”
With this as background, Carolyn and I were excited about reading the book, looking forward to a new perspective on feminism for the modern woman. Sadly we were disappointed. Feminista is more chick lit than thought provoking; too much name-dropping Fashionista and, despite what EK had said, too much anti-male aggression to appeal to me.
So what’s it about? Sydney Zamora, who writes for a celebrity magazine and is very dismissive of all her friends who have deserted her by getting married and becoming obsessed with their children, decides she needs to get married. The novel is her quest for a husband.
EK does raise a lot of issues of interest to women – salary inequality; the meaning of marriage - but sadly she deals with them through extended rants by Sydney, angry soliloquies which alienated me and thus lost any impact. I felt the author was pressing points that bug her in life, overtly using her heroine as a voice. That became distracting.
Sydney for us was too judgemental of everyone around her; too negative a character to be a positive role model for today’s women. She’s supposed to be “smart as hell” but spent too much time drifting through her life and moaning, not taking control. The Feminista image didn’t work for us; too abrasive - and too much high fashion. I cannot get excited about $795 “Lanvin flats” worn by Elle Macpherson like Sydney does. To me that is not empowering. But high fashion is not my thing and I’m sure there are many women who would relate to this definition.
We agreed that a new label is needed. Carolyn said “I think the time for "feminism" to be used to describe our situation has come to a close. We need to think of a new word or concept to talk about women like you and me, for example. For me it's about support. I may not agree with your CHOICE to give up your career to stay at home and care for your children but that doesn't matter. I'm not here to judge your choices. As a "feminist" I'm here to give you the support your need to help you execute your choice. I'm not into the judgement thing, and if there's one thing that turned me off of the main character, it's that she was so judgemental... Anger. That's what got the movements started so many decades ago. I'm not sure if anger is driving women today. Maybe it is. But my guess is that we're looking for support. Anger is an outdated notion, in my opinion.”
There were some things we liked; it’s an interesting insight into New York celebrity/society life. There’s a fun story in there which picks up pace – despite the twee ending. I liked the cover! Some readers do get the Feminista message. “Sydney is trying to work out her politics in a messy world which doesn't always cooperate with her...I think Kennedy does an excellent job of portraying Sydney's struggles to figure it all out.” (Amazon reviewer). Others don’t. A comment on EK’s blog was critical of the misconceived marketing pitch EK is using, which indeed drew us in with false expectations. “How you even attempt to link this book to a pseudo-intellectual debate on feminism is offensive. Honestly Sydney a new order feminist? What?!? She isn't even a good character in a bad chick lit novel. And this is a bad chick lit novel & nothing more.”
For Carolyn and I, Feminista is New York Fashionista chick lit. Read it if you enjoy hearing about clothes, shoes, bags, trendy restaurants and celebrity parties. But if you want a read to challenge your mind on what makes the modern, thinking woman, it’s not necessarily for you.
Click here to read Carolyn’s review
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Reviews. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Monday, 23 November 2009
Book Club – Review of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and reflections on war.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was my selection for Book Club. After I’d read it I felt a bit guilty for inflicting such a harrowing tale on a group of mums. I cried when I finished it. I was on a train. The man next to me was very tactful about not noticing the woman next to him dabbing her eyes. But I must have been slightly naive not to have realised that a story of a girl and a Jew in Nazi Germany narrated by Death would be harrowing.
I chose it because it came with enthusiastic endorsement from another book club. All reviews were endlessly positive. On one of my “What are you Reading” postings a mother said she felt it was her “unwavering duty to extol its virtues.” When I read this I was half way through and wondered if I had the right book. I’d loved the opening pages when Death introduces himself. They were obtusely written and made me think about what the words were trying to say. I liked that challenge. I also loved some of the descriptions: “The streets were ruptured veins. Blood streamed till it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there like driftwood after the flood.” I found this very powerful imagery. But then the book went flat, I, and others at Book Club, felt it fell into a rather dull narration of the girl, Liesel’s, life. But it regained momentum to close with an intense ending, the words that made me cry.
At our book club we didn’t rave about The Book Thief. But we were touched. Perhaps we were influenced by the poignancy of the week we discussed it in; our meeting was two days after Armistice Day; the media full of war and its images and emotions. Waiting in a Post Office queue my eye had been caught by The Guardian’s front page. It was a photograph of those watching the parade of coffins through Wootton Bassett. A young woman with short cropped hair is crying, her face crumpled, mouth downturned in anguish. A man in black tie and jacket has his arm around her shoulder, looking towards her with worry and concern. Behind them a man with a white goatee and red beret, medals and badges on his black waistcoat, is saluting, staring straight ahead. For me it encapsulated war – the devastation of loss but the steadfast loyalty. I felt tears pricking my eyes in that Post Office queue. I bought the paper, the image stuck in my journal to remind me of those emotions.
This was the week Mrs Janes was haranguing Gordon Brown about the loss of her son. This was the week I’d read an article describing how soldiers had been killed and maimed in an old mine field in Afghanistan, one laid by the Soviet’s 25 years ago. They’d suffered terrible loss because the wrong helicopter had tried to land on top of them, setting off the mines. I was devastated by the futility – men killed and maimed due to incompetence, and with no apparent gain in the wider war; the war with no tangible front to fight towards, with no tangible enemy to hold back from our borders. A war which therefore makes the phrase “your son died making a huge contribution to the security of our country” seem nothing but political hyperbole.
With these thoughts and images in mind we discussed The Book Thief. It seemed relevant, for The Book Thief is a book about loss.
Like many I studied Hitler and the Second World War at school. When a subject is perceived to be well known, it’s easy to become blasé. The power of The Book Thief is that the story is told from the perspective of Germans, a Jew, and Death. Whereas it’s easy to become numbed by familiarity, through this clever use of alternative angles, Zusak has revitalised events we thought we all knew, illuminating, vibrantly, the rawness of the war and all the terrible suffering. This, we felt, was its strongest point.
It’s the story of the war away from the front, how it affected normal German families; how our bombs hit them. Death is the narrator, but don’t let that put you off. We felt “he” was almost humanised; we saw his compassion for the souls of those he carried away and ironically, through Death we are able to reflect on human nature “I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugliness and their beauty, and I wonder how the same things can be both”. Such astute reflections personify Death; it suddenly seems less harsh and more explicable. “I am not violent. I am not malicious. I am a result.” The message is, don’t be afraid of Death but dying, and it is the human race which controls the rate of that “...sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls. A few bombs usually do the trick. Or some gas chambers, or the chitchat of faraway guns.”
The Book Thief has many themes. The theme we discussed most was the German perspective of the war and Hitler. I loved how Max, a Jewish character, described Hitler in a story he wrote: “There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else. He would find himself a small strange moustache. He would one day rule the world.” These words said so much, about Max’s bitterness. His clever ridicule of Hitler belittles him despite his absolute power. Words were Hitler’s power. “Without words, the Fuhrer was nothing” Liesel says. Max boxes with Hitler in his mind, a clever scene illustrating Hitler’s powers of manipulation and persuasion. Of soldiers leading a parade of Jews, Death comments “they had the Fuhrer in their eyes”.
“Words” was my favourite theme of The Book Thief. Words are personified, they have power. Liesel loves books, she’s so desperate for them she steals them, hence the title. She learns the potency of words; she reads to her neighbours as they stand listening to bombs in a cellar, giving comfort with her words. In one of the most poignant scenes of the book she recites passages of one of Max’s stories back to him as he is lead away to Dachau – “to concentrate” (a clever play on words which in itself says so much). Max is part of a parade of broken Jews, marched through the town. Liesel steps out of the crowd to call out his words. It gave me goosebumps, an emotive scene of words empowering Max, giving him pride, a physical and mental lift from his stooping desolation.
There is so much suffering in The Book Thief, so much we can barely comprehend what it must have been like; it is difficult for us to truly empathise with the scale of World War 2, the fear, loss and deprivation that people lived under for years and years. At Book Club we agreed that we had taken much away from the book, some were still thinking about it days and weeks after finishing. I have many terrible images: mothers searching through rubble for lost children, desperately calling their names; Liesel seeing her dead brother; a wife clutching her husband’s accordion through the night, wondering if he will return from the fight; Jews scratching desperately at the doors of gas chambers before Death takes them; a mother told her son has died at Stalingrad; another mother told by Nazi officials “we’ve come for your son”. Would we be able to cope with just one aspect of such suffering? We have no idea what it feels like to, for example, leave our beds and run to a shelter to stand and listen to bombs dropping, wondering if we will survive.
We hear on Armistice Day that it’s important to remember. I agree. Only by reflecting on the horrors of what has passed can we try and avoid a repeat. But as remembered this year, the generation who experienced the horrors of the First World War has now passed on. Dr Rowan Williams said “those with first hand memories are no more, the baton of remembrance will have to be taken up by others...the generation that has passed walked forward with vision and bravery and held together the bonds of our society, our continent, our commonwealth through a terrible century. May we learn the lessons they learned. And God save us from learning them the way they had to.”
Although I cannot join other readers in raving that The Book Thief is the best book I have ever read, I do think it is a book of immense power. There are important messages within it, issues thrown into new clarity by its unique style and different perspective. Reading this book can help us reflect on the reality of war, human nature and the suffering of others.
I chose it because it came with enthusiastic endorsement from another book club. All reviews were endlessly positive. On one of my “What are you Reading” postings a mother said she felt it was her “unwavering duty to extol its virtues.” When I read this I was half way through and wondered if I had the right book. I’d loved the opening pages when Death introduces himself. They were obtusely written and made me think about what the words were trying to say. I liked that challenge. I also loved some of the descriptions: “The streets were ruptured veins. Blood streamed till it was dried on the road, and the bodies were stuck there like driftwood after the flood.” I found this very powerful imagery. But then the book went flat, I, and others at Book Club, felt it fell into a rather dull narration of the girl, Liesel’s, life. But it regained momentum to close with an intense ending, the words that made me cry.
At our book club we didn’t rave about The Book Thief. But we were touched. Perhaps we were influenced by the poignancy of the week we discussed it in; our meeting was two days after Armistice Day; the media full of war and its images and emotions. Waiting in a Post Office queue my eye had been caught by The Guardian’s front page. It was a photograph of those watching the parade of coffins through Wootton Bassett. A young woman with short cropped hair is crying, her face crumpled, mouth downturned in anguish. A man in black tie and jacket has his arm around her shoulder, looking towards her with worry and concern. Behind them a man with a white goatee and red beret, medals and badges on his black waistcoat, is saluting, staring straight ahead. For me it encapsulated war – the devastation of loss but the steadfast loyalty. I felt tears pricking my eyes in that Post Office queue. I bought the paper, the image stuck in my journal to remind me of those emotions.
This was the week Mrs Janes was haranguing Gordon Brown about the loss of her son. This was the week I’d read an article describing how soldiers had been killed and maimed in an old mine field in Afghanistan, one laid by the Soviet’s 25 years ago. They’d suffered terrible loss because the wrong helicopter had tried to land on top of them, setting off the mines. I was devastated by the futility – men killed and maimed due to incompetence, and with no apparent gain in the wider war; the war with no tangible front to fight towards, with no tangible enemy to hold back from our borders. A war which therefore makes the phrase “your son died making a huge contribution to the security of our country” seem nothing but political hyperbole.
With these thoughts and images in mind we discussed The Book Thief. It seemed relevant, for The Book Thief is a book about loss.
Like many I studied Hitler and the Second World War at school. When a subject is perceived to be well known, it’s easy to become blasé. The power of The Book Thief is that the story is told from the perspective of Germans, a Jew, and Death. Whereas it’s easy to become numbed by familiarity, through this clever use of alternative angles, Zusak has revitalised events we thought we all knew, illuminating, vibrantly, the rawness of the war and all the terrible suffering. This, we felt, was its strongest point.
It’s the story of the war away from the front, how it affected normal German families; how our bombs hit them. Death is the narrator, but don’t let that put you off. We felt “he” was almost humanised; we saw his compassion for the souls of those he carried away and ironically, through Death we are able to reflect on human nature “I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugliness and their beauty, and I wonder how the same things can be both”. Such astute reflections personify Death; it suddenly seems less harsh and more explicable. “I am not violent. I am not malicious. I am a result.” The message is, don’t be afraid of Death but dying, and it is the human race which controls the rate of that “...sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls. A few bombs usually do the trick. Or some gas chambers, or the chitchat of faraway guns.”
The Book Thief has many themes. The theme we discussed most was the German perspective of the war and Hitler. I loved how Max, a Jewish character, described Hitler in a story he wrote: “There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else. He would find himself a small strange moustache. He would one day rule the world.” These words said so much, about Max’s bitterness. His clever ridicule of Hitler belittles him despite his absolute power. Words were Hitler’s power. “Without words, the Fuhrer was nothing” Liesel says. Max boxes with Hitler in his mind, a clever scene illustrating Hitler’s powers of manipulation and persuasion. Of soldiers leading a parade of Jews, Death comments “they had the Fuhrer in their eyes”.
“Words” was my favourite theme of The Book Thief. Words are personified, they have power. Liesel loves books, she’s so desperate for them she steals them, hence the title. She learns the potency of words; she reads to her neighbours as they stand listening to bombs in a cellar, giving comfort with her words. In one of the most poignant scenes of the book she recites passages of one of Max’s stories back to him as he is lead away to Dachau – “to concentrate” (a clever play on words which in itself says so much). Max is part of a parade of broken Jews, marched through the town. Liesel steps out of the crowd to call out his words. It gave me goosebumps, an emotive scene of words empowering Max, giving him pride, a physical and mental lift from his stooping desolation.
There is so much suffering in The Book Thief, so much we can barely comprehend what it must have been like; it is difficult for us to truly empathise with the scale of World War 2, the fear, loss and deprivation that people lived under for years and years. At Book Club we agreed that we had taken much away from the book, some were still thinking about it days and weeks after finishing. I have many terrible images: mothers searching through rubble for lost children, desperately calling their names; Liesel seeing her dead brother; a wife clutching her husband’s accordion through the night, wondering if he will return from the fight; Jews scratching desperately at the doors of gas chambers before Death takes them; a mother told her son has died at Stalingrad; another mother told by Nazi officials “we’ve come for your son”. Would we be able to cope with just one aspect of such suffering? We have no idea what it feels like to, for example, leave our beds and run to a shelter to stand and listen to bombs dropping, wondering if we will survive.
We hear on Armistice Day that it’s important to remember. I agree. Only by reflecting on the horrors of what has passed can we try and avoid a repeat. But as remembered this year, the generation who experienced the horrors of the First World War has now passed on. Dr Rowan Williams said “those with first hand memories are no more, the baton of remembrance will have to be taken up by others...the generation that has passed walked forward with vision and bravery and held together the bonds of our society, our continent, our commonwealth through a terrible century. May we learn the lessons they learned. And God save us from learning them the way they had to.”
Although I cannot join other readers in raving that The Book Thief is the best book I have ever read, I do think it is a book of immense power. There are important messages within it, issues thrown into new clarity by its unique style and different perspective. Reading this book can help us reflect on the reality of war, human nature and the suffering of others.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Superpowers for Parents by Dr Stephen Briers
Following on from the last posts about books, books, books it seems apt to comment that amazon.co.uk is dangerous; one book leads to another. They are very good at linking books so that while looking at one title, another pops up and you think “that looks interesting” and click. Before you know it there are ten books in your basket. And I’m the sucker who buys them all.
A virtual “chain of books” is how I came across Dr Stephen Brier’s Superpowers for Parents: The Psychology of Great Parenting and Happy Children. It’s a very interesting parenting book and I have really enjoyed it.
I became a fan of Dr B reading his introduction. “Previous generations of parents would probably shake their head in wonder at the idea of us all striving to be better parents. In the old days, childrearing was just common sense or a traditional way of doing things, handed down largely unquestioned from one generation to the next...our parenting, like so many aspects of modern life, is now subject to constant scrutiny and evaluation from both within and without. Never has parenting been such a self-conscious and guilt-stricken affair.”
The best summary of what the book is about is in the epilogue. SB says he wrote the book with three goals in mind. One, to try and help parents understand WHY children misbehave. Two, that skirmishes we have with our children are nothing compared to the internal battles our children have with their own feelings and impulses and three, to encourage a shift in emphasis in parenting beyond the management of children’s behaviour to embrace the broader opportunities and privileges and to acknowledge our duty to equip them with the psychological skills they need.
As I enjoy understanding the psychology of what children do I found it fascinating. Superpowers is all about how your child views the world and the emotions they are experiencing – emotions that are often more than they know how to deal with. It’s not so much about how to cope with bad behaviour but what emotions might be causing the bad behaviour and how to help control them.
I can already see it translating into my understanding of how my children are behaving, and maybe why, every day. It has already changed my approach to some situations, trying to stop and think how they are feeling and the effect that is having. (Although having written that I’ve not been terribly patient with my three year old lately, we always seem to be rushing and I always seem to be dragging him along, chivvying him to hurry – and I don’t need SB to tell me that’s not positive for anyone. We need to slow down and not always try and cram so much into every minute, but that’s not always possible, especially when you are doing everything on your own. I think we are all ready for the pause that is Half Term.)
An Amazon reviewer commented “I have found since reading this book that I am much more aware of my own responses and attitude towards children's behaviour and speech in school as well as at home.” This comment was in relation to a child who was always negative about what happened to them – “I never win because I am such a loser” etc. This is all about “core beliefs” and how important it is to “ensure our children construct healthy core beliefs about themselves”.
SB encourages us to look at problems from a different perspective – often there will be a completely unexpected cause or more involved problem. He gives an example of a boy who did a “mind map” about why he was always late for school with the result that his parents learnt he was overtired because he was keeping himself awake to avoid nightmares and anxiety attacks.
One of my favourite sections is about why children are angels at school then come home and turn into horrors. “it is precisely because he is behaving well at school...the exercise of self control in one context may be using up available resources in the other.” You may say this is obvious but appreciating the processes Dr B explains has helped me be more understanding with my children:
A virtual “chain of books” is how I came across Dr Stephen Brier’s Superpowers for Parents: The Psychology of Great Parenting and Happy Children. It’s a very interesting parenting book and I have really enjoyed it.
I became a fan of Dr B reading his introduction. “Previous generations of parents would probably shake their head in wonder at the idea of us all striving to be better parents. In the old days, childrearing was just common sense or a traditional way of doing things, handed down largely unquestioned from one generation to the next...our parenting, like so many aspects of modern life, is now subject to constant scrutiny and evaluation from both within and without. Never has parenting been such a self-conscious and guilt-stricken affair.”
The best summary of what the book is about is in the epilogue. SB says he wrote the book with three goals in mind. One, to try and help parents understand WHY children misbehave. Two, that skirmishes we have with our children are nothing compared to the internal battles our children have with their own feelings and impulses and three, to encourage a shift in emphasis in parenting beyond the management of children’s behaviour to embrace the broader opportunities and privileges and to acknowledge our duty to equip them with the psychological skills they need.
As I enjoy understanding the psychology of what children do I found it fascinating. Superpowers is all about how your child views the world and the emotions they are experiencing – emotions that are often more than they know how to deal with. It’s not so much about how to cope with bad behaviour but what emotions might be causing the bad behaviour and how to help control them.
I can already see it translating into my understanding of how my children are behaving, and maybe why, every day. It has already changed my approach to some situations, trying to stop and think how they are feeling and the effect that is having. (Although having written that I’ve not been terribly patient with my three year old lately, we always seem to be rushing and I always seem to be dragging him along, chivvying him to hurry – and I don’t need SB to tell me that’s not positive for anyone. We need to slow down and not always try and cram so much into every minute, but that’s not always possible, especially when you are doing everything on your own. I think we are all ready for the pause that is Half Term.)
An Amazon reviewer commented “I have found since reading this book that I am much more aware of my own responses and attitude towards children's behaviour and speech in school as well as at home.” This comment was in relation to a child who was always negative about what happened to them – “I never win because I am such a loser” etc. This is all about “core beliefs” and how important it is to “ensure our children construct healthy core beliefs about themselves”.
SB encourages us to look at problems from a different perspective – often there will be a completely unexpected cause or more involved problem. He gives an example of a boy who did a “mind map” about why he was always late for school with the result that his parents learnt he was overtired because he was keeping himself awake to avoid nightmares and anxiety attacks.
One of my favourite sections is about why children are angels at school then come home and turn into horrors. “it is precisely because he is behaving well at school...the exercise of self control in one context may be using up available resources in the other.” You may say this is obvious but appreciating the processes Dr B explains has helped me be more understanding with my children:
- the brain’s processing power, and in particular our capacity to devote conscious attention to things, is a finite resource;
- adults have already automated many aspects of our lives, children are still assimilating many of the skills we take for granted so their concentration is being taxed to a much greater degree just by the routine business of daily life;
- mental tasks involving a lot of processing power may have an effect on children’s ability to keep their behaviour in check because self control is a form of mental labour;
- self control is like a muscle and can increased with exercise but also pushed to the point of fatigue;
- if we can help our children become more efficient at some mental tasks then we can lighten the load of the “prefrontal cortex” leaving more resources available for other functions such as self control;
- to help children master themselves we need to adopt a holistic approach that recognises how the different systems connect up and influence each other;
- carrot and stick approach may take certain behaviour out of context – we can ignore the fact that children’s ability to behave well is just one outcome of the mastery of several distinct but interrelated mental skills.
At times the book deals with some pretty intense and difficult situations, more than the “why have you just hit your brother again?” issues I am currently struggling with. However, the point is that those everyday problems might be derived from deeper reasons – the superpower is to spot them. SB hopes to equip you and your child with skills to best deal with the difficult situations, or hopefully avoid them in the first place. I have definitely learnt techniques I can use now and could come back to should certain problems arise. I have also been encouraged to realise how helpful things I have been doing naturally actually are.
I also found Superpowers beneficial for my own emotional development; there are different strategies we can all learn. Harnessing your own emotions and personality is so important as a parent because your children learn by copying you.
I have enjoyed reading this book – it is not heavy going – and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about why their children are reacting in such a way and long term ways to help – there aren’t your standard “quick fixes” for behaviour. There are also some great quotes used, such as one from Thomas Edison: “I haven’t failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work”.
Monday, 12 October 2009
What Are You Reading?
I’ve borrowed this idea from my friend Alastair, who in turn borrowed it from another blogger. I love books and always find it fascinating to hear what other people are reading. Therefore, the idea of this post is to get as many people as possible to share:
1. What they have just read
2. What they are reading now
3. What they are planning to read next.
What to read next is always one of my favourite decisions. I spend ages pondering it, staring at spines on my shelf wondering where to go next.
Alastair has a huge community of followers, many reading adventuring books about marathons and adventures on ice. I felt slightly conspicuous with my contribution, the only person to include a parenting book! I would love to build up a similar community of readers to respond to mine and each other’s thoughts. (I’m anxious this is a little presumptuous for a blogging nobody like me but I feel inspired to try!)
Therefore, I’m making this post in the hope of tempting you to comment and become involved. Please let me know what you enjoy – or don’t – about my blog so that I know what is most entertaining or interesting.
My book list is as follows:
1. What they have just read
2. What they are reading now
3. What they are planning to read next.
What to read next is always one of my favourite decisions. I spend ages pondering it, staring at spines on my shelf wondering where to go next.
Alastair has a huge community of followers, many reading adventuring books about marathons and adventures on ice. I felt slightly conspicuous with my contribution, the only person to include a parenting book! I would love to build up a similar community of readers to respond to mine and each other’s thoughts. (I’m anxious this is a little presumptuous for a blogging nobody like me but I feel inspired to try!)
Therefore, I’m making this post in the hope of tempting you to comment and become involved. Please let me know what you enjoy – or don’t – about my blog so that I know what is most entertaining or interesting.
My book list is as follows:
- Love My Rifle More Than You – Kayla Williams (reviewed below)
- Superpowers for Parents – Dr Stephen Briers (I need all the help I can get! Have nearly finished and will review it here when I have).
- Am still enjoying pondering what’s next. Might be The Book Thief by Markus Zusak because I’m hosting a book club on that in November. Or it might be Feminista by Erica Kennedy, mentioned to me by a fellow blogger.
I look forward to hearing what you are reading...
Monday, 28 September 2009
Love My Rifle More Than You by Kayla Williams
Kayla Williams enlisted in the US army at the age of twenty-three and learnt Arabic in order to be Military Intelligence. She was posted to Iraq, staying for a year. This book was sold as telling how it was to be “Young and Female in the US Army.”
On some pages I was really disappointed, on others I was fascinated. The beginning is frustrating, lots of anecdotes about the injustices of sexual inequality then compromising paragraphs about “partying with the guys” and having casual sex. I’d heard Williams on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and was attracted to the book by her seeming intelligence and eloquence. This I was not getting from Love My Rifle. Just a lot of sex and swearing.
However, once in Iraq, in between the swearing and gripes about the reality of being female, there were interesting insights. All depressing.
War is degrading and dehumanising. It turns people crazy so that they do things they wouldn’t normally do. Williams describes the situations they live in; the clothes you have to wear, the heat, the deprivations, no showers or toilets - if you had dysentery, would you like to deal with it holding a plastic bag to your mouth and one to your backside with nowhere to wash? And the pressure of wondering if you are going to get killed, what that does to you and your attitude towards locals – “If you see someone heading toward you, he could be approaching to offer you information. He could have an explosive device strapped to his waist and be about to kill you. He might want to ask for food. You have to make that call – instantaneously...It did occur to me that I was seeing a part of myself I would never have seen otherwise”.
But if you spend time in this aggressive and unnatural environment, you’re going to lose the connection to what is normal and acceptable in regular society. Williams’ war wasn’t really about killing people but about living in uncomfortable conditions doing not a lot that seems productive. This book allowed me a little more understanding about how people can be warped into committing atrocities. It made me think that war, the way it’s fought and lived, can never be productive for anyone on any side.
It was the small, seemingly insignificant details which I found most distressing and did most damage to my opinion of the US army. For example, when they are in convoy they hurl their rubbish out of the trucks. I imagined thousands of American soldiers littering Iraq with plastic bottles and chocolate wrappers, an image of utter ignorance and disrespect.
Williams describes the depressing incompetence of the military; inept officers; no apparent coherent strategy; soldiers just hanging around getting nervous and as a result intimidating Iraqis; orders to secure locations with razor wire, ending healthy and uplifting interaction with local people. “You had to wonder if the subsequent souring of relations with the locals was connected to the escalation in our security. Whether when you cut people’s access off to their religious shrines and began to treat them like criminals, they then maybe started to act like criminals?”
There were sections of the book when I felt Williams belittles her intelligence and let herself down – but then she was just being honest about what she’d done and they were aspects of her character I wasn’t so keen on – she admits she learnt much from the army. I’m still not sure what work she actually DID, “running ops” was just listening I think, but that’s probably just a fault of my ignorance. But her reflections and mental wrangling were interesting – and reassuring. Speaking Arabic she is able to interact and relate to Iraqis on a positive level, they’re not all just “the enemy” a categorisation she admits many soldiers default to when they are constantly being shot at or ambushed. It’s interesting to see her culture shock when she returns home, how she views her compatriots having seen a very different life. “Everyone in America was fat. Everyone was on some stupid diet. How could a diet encourage you to eat bacon and forbid you to eat bananas?”
She’s not positive about the war; she went into the army for financial rather than ideological reasons. Was that foolish or naive? But at least she questions the deeper purpose of what exactly was trying to be achieved in Iraq. “The more we know about what brought about this war in the first place, the harder and harder it gets. It was a year of my life. And what the fuck for? What was it all about? Not having an answer for that makes it hard. Makes it feel dirty.” Soldiers are professional; war is what they’re paid to do. That may be so, but as this book so vividly shows, soldiers are also human.
As for the reflections on being Young and Female in the US Army, this is a tough issue. If you are a female in a male dominated environment, do you put up and shut up or do you feel angry about men looking at your boobs as you walk across the “chow” hall? Surrounded by hundreds of young men, full of fear and adrenaline, sexually frustrated, can you do your job properly or is the sexually-discriminating reality that you are, as a woman, by definition a distraction, a temptation, however good at your job you might be? Can there ever be true equality in such an unnatural social situation?
On some pages I was really disappointed, on others I was fascinated. The beginning is frustrating, lots of anecdotes about the injustices of sexual inequality then compromising paragraphs about “partying with the guys” and having casual sex. I’d heard Williams on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and was attracted to the book by her seeming intelligence and eloquence. This I was not getting from Love My Rifle. Just a lot of sex and swearing.
However, once in Iraq, in between the swearing and gripes about the reality of being female, there were interesting insights. All depressing.
War is degrading and dehumanising. It turns people crazy so that they do things they wouldn’t normally do. Williams describes the situations they live in; the clothes you have to wear, the heat, the deprivations, no showers or toilets - if you had dysentery, would you like to deal with it holding a plastic bag to your mouth and one to your backside with nowhere to wash? And the pressure of wondering if you are going to get killed, what that does to you and your attitude towards locals – “If you see someone heading toward you, he could be approaching to offer you information. He could have an explosive device strapped to his waist and be about to kill you. He might want to ask for food. You have to make that call – instantaneously...It did occur to me that I was seeing a part of myself I would never have seen otherwise”.
But if you spend time in this aggressive and unnatural environment, you’re going to lose the connection to what is normal and acceptable in regular society. Williams’ war wasn’t really about killing people but about living in uncomfortable conditions doing not a lot that seems productive. This book allowed me a little more understanding about how people can be warped into committing atrocities. It made me think that war, the way it’s fought and lived, can never be productive for anyone on any side.
It was the small, seemingly insignificant details which I found most distressing and did most damage to my opinion of the US army. For example, when they are in convoy they hurl their rubbish out of the trucks. I imagined thousands of American soldiers littering Iraq with plastic bottles and chocolate wrappers, an image of utter ignorance and disrespect.
Williams describes the depressing incompetence of the military; inept officers; no apparent coherent strategy; soldiers just hanging around getting nervous and as a result intimidating Iraqis; orders to secure locations with razor wire, ending healthy and uplifting interaction with local people. “You had to wonder if the subsequent souring of relations with the locals was connected to the escalation in our security. Whether when you cut people’s access off to their religious shrines and began to treat them like criminals, they then maybe started to act like criminals?”
There were sections of the book when I felt Williams belittles her intelligence and let herself down – but then she was just being honest about what she’d done and they were aspects of her character I wasn’t so keen on – she admits she learnt much from the army. I’m still not sure what work she actually DID, “running ops” was just listening I think, but that’s probably just a fault of my ignorance. But her reflections and mental wrangling were interesting – and reassuring. Speaking Arabic she is able to interact and relate to Iraqis on a positive level, they’re not all just “the enemy” a categorisation she admits many soldiers default to when they are constantly being shot at or ambushed. It’s interesting to see her culture shock when she returns home, how she views her compatriots having seen a very different life. “Everyone in America was fat. Everyone was on some stupid diet. How could a diet encourage you to eat bacon and forbid you to eat bananas?”
She’s not positive about the war; she went into the army for financial rather than ideological reasons. Was that foolish or naive? But at least she questions the deeper purpose of what exactly was trying to be achieved in Iraq. “The more we know about what brought about this war in the first place, the harder and harder it gets. It was a year of my life. And what the fuck for? What was it all about? Not having an answer for that makes it hard. Makes it feel dirty.” Soldiers are professional; war is what they’re paid to do. That may be so, but as this book so vividly shows, soldiers are also human.
As for the reflections on being Young and Female in the US Army, this is a tough issue. If you are a female in a male dominated environment, do you put up and shut up or do you feel angry about men looking at your boobs as you walk across the “chow” hall? Surrounded by hundreds of young men, full of fear and adrenaline, sexually frustrated, can you do your job properly or is the sexually-discriminating reality that you are, as a woman, by definition a distraction, a temptation, however good at your job you might be? Can there ever be true equality in such an unnatural social situation?
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Book Club - Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
If you are thinking of reading Notes from an Exhibition and don’t want your reading of it tarnished, best to skip this post.
Every reader comes to a book with their own mental history and therefore will read it in a completely different way, perceiving it in absolute opposites. This happened at our first Book Club with Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale.
Notes from an Exhibition is simply about a family dominated by a bipolar, artistic mother. After her death the characters reflect on pieces of their lives, gradually revealing significant events and how they struggled, died and survived.
I loved the book. During the days I read it I floated along in its hold, absorbed by the characters. I found it very meditative, the calm way in which the reader was drawn into each character’s reflections. I found the style gripping, the way Gale gradually feeds bit of information from different directions, as remembered by different people. I wanted to keep reading, hoping, being an obsessive for detail, that I would find out exactly what had happened to everyone, but knowing there would be pieces left for my imagination. Aware of this I concentrated while I read, going back to check information Gale had snuck in to earlier chapters before I knew what I was looking for.
So while I was sucked in and utterly absorbed, other members of the Book Club were unmoved, wondering when the story would start as they got to the end. “If it had been a film on late at night I wouldn’t have stayed up to watch it,” D said. Some thought nothing “happened” whereas I’d had to stop myself reading, forcing myself to take a break after some chapters so that I could properly absorb what had happened rather than racing further into the narrative – when I’m enjoying a book I often speed through it and feel sad afterwards that I may have missed the nuances.
Each chapter is preceded by a “Note from an Exhibition” – finally you understand the slightly obscure title. Many of us really liked these notes, finding they gave so much insight in themselves. Gale uses detail and I loved the way that just by noticing who had loaned the picture to the exhibition, for example, you could deduce another strand of the story. Others found these notes distracting; at times you did have to work at launching into a new theme and character at the start of every chapter. Someone commented that the date of the item described helped to cement the fragmented narrative in time. A most interesting remark came at the end of the evening, just as we were drifting into discussing the issues of our real lives rather than fiction. Maybe there was no exhibition, H suggested, maybe Rachel herself was the exhibition and the Notes, and chapters, reflections on her and how she influenced her family rather than commentaries on art.
It’s certain that this is a book about the effect of a “difficult” (Gale’s word not mine) mother on her family. After reading it I decided that the book sold on the back cover was not the book I’d read. The blurb talks of “a painful need for answers” about Rachel’s death and I’d assumed there was suspicion of murder and some sort of investigation. In fact, Rachel’s death as an incident is, for me, insufficiently explained. We learn she was making a terrible noise, made a rambling call to her son Hedley and flung some stones through a window, but then we understand that she keeled over with an unexpected heart attack. The GP among us felt this was unrealistic; with what we knew of her, a sudden, fatal heart attack was unlikely. Someone else commented that as she needed to die for the story to take place, but Gale didn’t want the violence of suicide she’d tried so often, he had few options left of how to frame her death.
Thinking about this I wonder whether over introspection of books is an inherent problem with book clubs? I remember feeling turned off reading by A’Level English Literature because I grew tired of tearing books apart rather than just enjoying them. N commented that as she finished Notes from an Exhibition she felt she liked it, but the more she thought about it the more she found inconsistencies and flaws she didn’t like. I had loved the book but by the end of our discussion wondered if my love of it had been marred by points raised – we agreed to rate the books before we arrived at Book Club next time to prevent any contamination of our initial opinions. No author will ever get everything “right” for every reader. Is our need to discuss and analyse therefore fair on an author? Are we in danger of retrospectively spoiling the reading experience for ourselves? A book has to be tangible to draw you in but how much scrutiny should a book have to withstand to be worthy?
Stephen Fry comments on the front cover that “this book is complete perfection”. After reading, and before other’s critiques at Book Club, I agreed with him. Despite my reappraisal I would consider including Notes from an Exhibition on my list of Top Ten Books. This list is still being compiled. It’s impossible to conclude; how to chose just ten books from the many who have given me so much? The most interesting issue, I’ve decided, when choosing your favourite books, is the criteria you chose by. My criteria is “would I read the book again?” There are so many books to read and so little time, re-reading is a luxury I rarely do, which is sad because the same books could offer me many things if I took time to read them at different stages of my life. The time-of-life, place and atmosphere in which you read a book have such an influence on your reaction to it. I read many significant books when I was too young, too intellectually immature, and they have therefore been lost to me. I know I should take the time to try them again.
F said that a favourite book for her would be one about which she could really remember something; so many books are read, absorbed and forgotten. H said a favourite book was one she thought about all the time and just wanted to read – certainly with Notes from an Exhibition my family must have thought I had some ailment as I snuck off to the toilet more than usual, my furtive way of grabbing a few quiet reading moments.
N said a favourite book was one that made her re-evaluate how she saw things and that she hadn’t gained that from Notes from an Exhibition. I, in contrast, did. Gale’s style is for each character to shares their reflections of the past so that our understanding of what actually happened is modified with each new piece of knowledge. I liked this reminder that things aren’t always as we first perceive them to be and that a different opinion or version of events can be a valuable way to find the truth.
There is much in Notes from an Exhibition to take away; images of Cornwall, thoughts on the relationship between mental illness and creative genius and, most interestingly for me, Quakerism. Antony, Rachel’s husband, is a Quaker and the religion permeates the whole book. Its gentle thread was a scaffold holding the book, and characters, together. Through all the pain and chaos, wherever they were in the world, the family members attended Meetings, giving them, and the book, a focus of calm reassurance.
Rachel is portrayed as erratic and selfish, not a good mother figure. Absorbed in her work she neglects her children and is not a natural homemaker. I felt too ashamed to admit that a small part of me could identify with Rachel, the obsessive, compelling desire to create something (with me it’s writing) and the guilt felt when your mental distraction impacts on your family.
Antony is calm, honest and good. Many felt him a weak character, or at least underdeveloped. Was it realistic that he, a quiet studious recluse, would give his life supporting Rachel? But then on the penultimate page we’re told that "he was so practised at thinking of Antony as Rachel's minder" but maybe “it was she who constrained Antony”. How frustrating, N said, that this was not developed. What drove Antony to “care” for Rachel – duty, entrapment, love? N felt a lot of interesting issues were thrown in as asides towards the end of the book without the chance to explore them.
But even with these perceived flaws, even after our discussions and criticisms, I still highly recommend Notes from an Exhibition. I found it a gentle but riveting read, a book with absorbing characters that I wanted to find time to read about. I wanted to know what happened to them, I was compelled. I like to read books set in places as I visit them and will definitely be taking a Patrick Gale book with me next time I travel to Cornwall.
Every reader comes to a book with their own mental history and therefore will read it in a completely different way, perceiving it in absolute opposites. This happened at our first Book Club with Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale.
Notes from an Exhibition is simply about a family dominated by a bipolar, artistic mother. After her death the characters reflect on pieces of their lives, gradually revealing significant events and how they struggled, died and survived.
I loved the book. During the days I read it I floated along in its hold, absorbed by the characters. I found it very meditative, the calm way in which the reader was drawn into each character’s reflections. I found the style gripping, the way Gale gradually feeds bit of information from different directions, as remembered by different people. I wanted to keep reading, hoping, being an obsessive for detail, that I would find out exactly what had happened to everyone, but knowing there would be pieces left for my imagination. Aware of this I concentrated while I read, going back to check information Gale had snuck in to earlier chapters before I knew what I was looking for.
So while I was sucked in and utterly absorbed, other members of the Book Club were unmoved, wondering when the story would start as they got to the end. “If it had been a film on late at night I wouldn’t have stayed up to watch it,” D said. Some thought nothing “happened” whereas I’d had to stop myself reading, forcing myself to take a break after some chapters so that I could properly absorb what had happened rather than racing further into the narrative – when I’m enjoying a book I often speed through it and feel sad afterwards that I may have missed the nuances.
Each chapter is preceded by a “Note from an Exhibition” – finally you understand the slightly obscure title. Many of us really liked these notes, finding they gave so much insight in themselves. Gale uses detail and I loved the way that just by noticing who had loaned the picture to the exhibition, for example, you could deduce another strand of the story. Others found these notes distracting; at times you did have to work at launching into a new theme and character at the start of every chapter. Someone commented that the date of the item described helped to cement the fragmented narrative in time. A most interesting remark came at the end of the evening, just as we were drifting into discussing the issues of our real lives rather than fiction. Maybe there was no exhibition, H suggested, maybe Rachel herself was the exhibition and the Notes, and chapters, reflections on her and how she influenced her family rather than commentaries on art.
It’s certain that this is a book about the effect of a “difficult” (Gale’s word not mine) mother on her family. After reading it I decided that the book sold on the back cover was not the book I’d read. The blurb talks of “a painful need for answers” about Rachel’s death and I’d assumed there was suspicion of murder and some sort of investigation. In fact, Rachel’s death as an incident is, for me, insufficiently explained. We learn she was making a terrible noise, made a rambling call to her son Hedley and flung some stones through a window, but then we understand that she keeled over with an unexpected heart attack. The GP among us felt this was unrealistic; with what we knew of her, a sudden, fatal heart attack was unlikely. Someone else commented that as she needed to die for the story to take place, but Gale didn’t want the violence of suicide she’d tried so often, he had few options left of how to frame her death.
Thinking about this I wonder whether over introspection of books is an inherent problem with book clubs? I remember feeling turned off reading by A’Level English Literature because I grew tired of tearing books apart rather than just enjoying them. N commented that as she finished Notes from an Exhibition she felt she liked it, but the more she thought about it the more she found inconsistencies and flaws she didn’t like. I had loved the book but by the end of our discussion wondered if my love of it had been marred by points raised – we agreed to rate the books before we arrived at Book Club next time to prevent any contamination of our initial opinions. No author will ever get everything “right” for every reader. Is our need to discuss and analyse therefore fair on an author? Are we in danger of retrospectively spoiling the reading experience for ourselves? A book has to be tangible to draw you in but how much scrutiny should a book have to withstand to be worthy?
Stephen Fry comments on the front cover that “this book is complete perfection”. After reading, and before other’s critiques at Book Club, I agreed with him. Despite my reappraisal I would consider including Notes from an Exhibition on my list of Top Ten Books. This list is still being compiled. It’s impossible to conclude; how to chose just ten books from the many who have given me so much? The most interesting issue, I’ve decided, when choosing your favourite books, is the criteria you chose by. My criteria is “would I read the book again?” There are so many books to read and so little time, re-reading is a luxury I rarely do, which is sad because the same books could offer me many things if I took time to read them at different stages of my life. The time-of-life, place and atmosphere in which you read a book have such an influence on your reaction to it. I read many significant books when I was too young, too intellectually immature, and they have therefore been lost to me. I know I should take the time to try them again.
F said that a favourite book for her would be one about which she could really remember something; so many books are read, absorbed and forgotten. H said a favourite book was one she thought about all the time and just wanted to read – certainly with Notes from an Exhibition my family must have thought I had some ailment as I snuck off to the toilet more than usual, my furtive way of grabbing a few quiet reading moments.
N said a favourite book was one that made her re-evaluate how she saw things and that she hadn’t gained that from Notes from an Exhibition. I, in contrast, did. Gale’s style is for each character to shares their reflections of the past so that our understanding of what actually happened is modified with each new piece of knowledge. I liked this reminder that things aren’t always as we first perceive them to be and that a different opinion or version of events can be a valuable way to find the truth.
There is much in Notes from an Exhibition to take away; images of Cornwall, thoughts on the relationship between mental illness and creative genius and, most interestingly for me, Quakerism. Antony, Rachel’s husband, is a Quaker and the religion permeates the whole book. Its gentle thread was a scaffold holding the book, and characters, together. Through all the pain and chaos, wherever they were in the world, the family members attended Meetings, giving them, and the book, a focus of calm reassurance.
Rachel is portrayed as erratic and selfish, not a good mother figure. Absorbed in her work she neglects her children and is not a natural homemaker. I felt too ashamed to admit that a small part of me could identify with Rachel, the obsessive, compelling desire to create something (with me it’s writing) and the guilt felt when your mental distraction impacts on your family.
Antony is calm, honest and good. Many felt him a weak character, or at least underdeveloped. Was it realistic that he, a quiet studious recluse, would give his life supporting Rachel? But then on the penultimate page we’re told that "he was so practised at thinking of Antony as Rachel's minder" but maybe “it was she who constrained Antony”. How frustrating, N said, that this was not developed. What drove Antony to “care” for Rachel – duty, entrapment, love? N felt a lot of interesting issues were thrown in as asides towards the end of the book without the chance to explore them.
But even with these perceived flaws, even after our discussions and criticisms, I still highly recommend Notes from an Exhibition. I found it a gentle but riveting read, a book with absorbing characters that I wanted to find time to read about. I wanted to know what happened to them, I was compelled. I like to read books set in places as I visit them and will definitely be taking a Patrick Gale book with me next time I travel to Cornwall.
Friday, 21 August 2009
Slummy Mummy and the Feminists: Why do we Categorise Mothers?
In my review of “mummy lit” I have yet to read The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill – but it is on my shelf.
However, I have been doing some Internet research and came across some interesting comments on the book by Katie Roiphe on Slate. She writes “What is being celebrated here is the mindlessness of a certain type of child-rearing, a mindlessness we as a culture are currently infatuated with.”
That resonates with me because I’m wondering why mothers and housewives have become stereotyped in modern literature as being demented or desperate, proud to be exhaustingly scatty and never in control, self-obsessed with their own neuroses. In the “mummy book” I’m writing I hope to create a heroine who more reasoned mothers can relate to. With three children she will of course have stresses and periods of chaos in her life but her story will share the humour found in simply raising children and the issues you encounter without creating a whirlwind of disasters.
I googled “Katie Roiphe” and got sucked into more interesting but time consuming reading. She is a writer, professor and feminist. I thought she had some pertinent points. In an interview in The Sunday Times she said “We think we can create the perfect child by giving them the right music lessons or choosing the right pushchair...When I was a child, children played, and I don’t remember expecting my mother to give me her attention no matter what she was doing...There is a danger in the way we focus on raising our children...”
These are issues I find myself thinking about a lot as I ponder what it is to be a modern woman and mother and I was starting to respect Katie Roiphe’s opinion. But many people don’t it seems. On an American blog I found vitriol over her suggestion that using a child’s photo on your Facebook profile indicates a loss of your identity to your children. The comments went beyond the Facebook issue, and I agreed with many. “Maybe I am wrong...” wrote Laundry and Children “...but I always thought that feminism was about affording women choices...why is it that the “feminists” seem to think that the only choice that is acceptable is to be a working women?”
I am touching on a huge discussion, one which creates much diversity of opinion. But so, it seems, do mothers. “There is something weird about the way mothers are ranged against each other, like football teams; the yummy ones against the slummy ones, the at-home ones against the working ones; the traditional ones against the modern ones...” writes Zoe Williams in The Guardian, interviewing Liz Fraser whose A Spoonful of Sugar I am currently reading.
These are subjects which I hope to come back to with more thoughts. But as I tidied up the house this morning I was wondering, maybe naively, why we have to categorise mothers in such a seemingly negative way. Can’t we just all be Mothers?
However, I have been doing some Internet research and came across some interesting comments on the book by Katie Roiphe on Slate. She writes “What is being celebrated here is the mindlessness of a certain type of child-rearing, a mindlessness we as a culture are currently infatuated with.”
That resonates with me because I’m wondering why mothers and housewives have become stereotyped in modern literature as being demented or desperate, proud to be exhaustingly scatty and never in control, self-obsessed with their own neuroses. In the “mummy book” I’m writing I hope to create a heroine who more reasoned mothers can relate to. With three children she will of course have stresses and periods of chaos in her life but her story will share the humour found in simply raising children and the issues you encounter without creating a whirlwind of disasters.
I googled “Katie Roiphe” and got sucked into more interesting but time consuming reading. She is a writer, professor and feminist. I thought she had some pertinent points. In an interview in The Sunday Times she said “We think we can create the perfect child by giving them the right music lessons or choosing the right pushchair...When I was a child, children played, and I don’t remember expecting my mother to give me her attention no matter what she was doing...There is a danger in the way we focus on raising our children...”
These are issues I find myself thinking about a lot as I ponder what it is to be a modern woman and mother and I was starting to respect Katie Roiphe’s opinion. But many people don’t it seems. On an American blog I found vitriol over her suggestion that using a child’s photo on your Facebook profile indicates a loss of your identity to your children. The comments went beyond the Facebook issue, and I agreed with many. “Maybe I am wrong...” wrote Laundry and Children “...but I always thought that feminism was about affording women choices...why is it that the “feminists” seem to think that the only choice that is acceptable is to be a working women?”
I am touching on a huge discussion, one which creates much diversity of opinion. But so, it seems, do mothers. “There is something weird about the way mothers are ranged against each other, like football teams; the yummy ones against the slummy ones, the at-home ones against the working ones; the traditional ones against the modern ones...” writes Zoe Williams in The Guardian, interviewing Liz Fraser whose A Spoonful of Sugar I am currently reading.
These are subjects which I hope to come back to with more thoughts. But as I tidied up the house this morning I was wondering, maybe naively, why we have to categorise mothers in such a seemingly negative way. Can’t we just all be Mothers?
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
Me Time: Selfish or Altruistic?
In my current trawl through Mummy Lit (researching the market for the book I hope to write) I have just come across a section charmingly titled “Who The Fuck Am I?”
I sometimes wonder in this modern age if we spend too much time thinking about ourselves – what I want, me time, who am I? Is it good to be aware of yourself, does it make you a happier person, or has it been overdone with the result of creating a selfish society of people ultimately out for themselves?
Modern women/mothers can be very “me” centric; we are told to be by books, magazines and television, told to find “me” time amongst the chaos. I wondered if this was the result of feminism awakening us to ourselves or the selfish slant of modern society? But then reading Can Any Mother Help Me? I realised that women of history were interested in what they wanted too, but, being less empowered, were less able to get it and therefore often discontented.
Is our obsession with Me Time because, as mothers, we can’t just take it? If my husband wants to get a haircut he goes to the barbers. If I want a haircut I have to try and find someone to look after at least one child and get an appointment which fits in with picking up the others. Which is why I rarely go to the hairdresser!
I don’t really mind. I am immersed in my role as a mother, enjoying it, most of the time, and learning that the more you put in to it the more you really do get out of it. However, I am human and I do have my wobbles. Would they be fewer if I had more Me Time?
All modern parenting books talk about “me” time as if it were a right. But what I’m wondering about is whether this makes us selfish and therefore no longer capable of devoting ourselves entirely to family life? Is this a problem or does it create a healthier balance for all, ie, parents who are more fulfilled and therefore happier and children who can appreciate that not every minute of every day should revolve around them?
My Me Time is when the children are asleep – I guard it very jealously, this is why I get very crabby at five past seven, five minutes into “my” time, if they are chafing against my requests to clean teeth or being silly, fighting, whining they can’t get to sleep, coming out into the kitchen to ask for a drink. (As I write this the three year old is whining that his older brother is keeping him awake, I am ignoring him, in a minute I will tell him very sharply to go back to bed!)
I’ve learnt that I need some silence in my evenings to keep me sane. At the moment I’m having lots of silent evenings as my husband is working in Bangladesh for a month and a half. This has left me with three children in an unreasonably wet summer holiday (I’ve risen to the challenge and we are enjoying it – no deadlines and time to do lots of things we can’t do within the restrictions of a school schedule), but the bonus is lots of silence in the evenings for reading, writing and thinking projects – I apologise if this is making me too introspective.
I’ve just read a novel (yes, another benefit of being on my own is a lot of reading) about a group of mothers who were entirely “me” centric, dragging their babies between bars and beauticians or leaving them with nannies. At first I was scathing but became more tolerant when I remembered how debilitating having a first baby can be. Looking through my journal from when I had T they are full of my anxieties about doing things right and the overwhelming realisation that this is my responsibility, forever. This can be very isolating. I was lucky; I had a great family and community around me for support. If your pre-baby life has been consumed with a dynamic job, fashionable clothes, weight-loss, heeled shoes and socialising it must be a huge shock to have to put someone else’s priorities first. Many women struggle with this, hence the media call for Me Time.
So, Me Time, is it a good or bad obsession? We are all human, even mothers who are supposed to give selflessly to their children. I read a great quote in Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys “A mother needs others to support her, so that she can relax and do this important work. She needs to be cared for, so that she can care for her baby.” My question is, does the modern drive for Me Time make us unreasonably selfish or produce people more in touch with what makes them happier, ultimately benefiting us all?
NB, the charmingly titled section is in The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide by Liz Fraser and is actually quite helpful with lots of useful advice on why having children will completely change you and your life and how to cope with this. Hearing that other mums struggle with the same things as me and how they cope is always my greatest therapy.
I sometimes wonder in this modern age if we spend too much time thinking about ourselves – what I want, me time, who am I? Is it good to be aware of yourself, does it make you a happier person, or has it been overdone with the result of creating a selfish society of people ultimately out for themselves?
Modern women/mothers can be very “me” centric; we are told to be by books, magazines and television, told to find “me” time amongst the chaos. I wondered if this was the result of feminism awakening us to ourselves or the selfish slant of modern society? But then reading Can Any Mother Help Me? I realised that women of history were interested in what they wanted too, but, being less empowered, were less able to get it and therefore often discontented.
Is our obsession with Me Time because, as mothers, we can’t just take it? If my husband wants to get a haircut he goes to the barbers. If I want a haircut I have to try and find someone to look after at least one child and get an appointment which fits in with picking up the others. Which is why I rarely go to the hairdresser!
I don’t really mind. I am immersed in my role as a mother, enjoying it, most of the time, and learning that the more you put in to it the more you really do get out of it. However, I am human and I do have my wobbles. Would they be fewer if I had more Me Time?
All modern parenting books talk about “me” time as if it were a right. But what I’m wondering about is whether this makes us selfish and therefore no longer capable of devoting ourselves entirely to family life? Is this a problem or does it create a healthier balance for all, ie, parents who are more fulfilled and therefore happier and children who can appreciate that not every minute of every day should revolve around them?
My Me Time is when the children are asleep – I guard it very jealously, this is why I get very crabby at five past seven, five minutes into “my” time, if they are chafing against my requests to clean teeth or being silly, fighting, whining they can’t get to sleep, coming out into the kitchen to ask for a drink. (As I write this the three year old is whining that his older brother is keeping him awake, I am ignoring him, in a minute I will tell him very sharply to go back to bed!)
I’ve learnt that I need some silence in my evenings to keep me sane. At the moment I’m having lots of silent evenings as my husband is working in Bangladesh for a month and a half. This has left me with three children in an unreasonably wet summer holiday (I’ve risen to the challenge and we are enjoying it – no deadlines and time to do lots of things we can’t do within the restrictions of a school schedule), but the bonus is lots of silence in the evenings for reading, writing and thinking projects – I apologise if this is making me too introspective.
I’ve just read a novel (yes, another benefit of being on my own is a lot of reading) about a group of mothers who were entirely “me” centric, dragging their babies between bars and beauticians or leaving them with nannies. At first I was scathing but became more tolerant when I remembered how debilitating having a first baby can be. Looking through my journal from when I had T they are full of my anxieties about doing things right and the overwhelming realisation that this is my responsibility, forever. This can be very isolating. I was lucky; I had a great family and community around me for support. If your pre-baby life has been consumed with a dynamic job, fashionable clothes, weight-loss, heeled shoes and socialising it must be a huge shock to have to put someone else’s priorities first. Many women struggle with this, hence the media call for Me Time.
So, Me Time, is it a good or bad obsession? We are all human, even mothers who are supposed to give selflessly to their children. I read a great quote in Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys “A mother needs others to support her, so that she can relax and do this important work. She needs to be cared for, so that she can care for her baby.” My question is, does the modern drive for Me Time make us unreasonably selfish or produce people more in touch with what makes them happier, ultimately benefiting us all?
NB, the charmingly titled section is in The Yummy Mummy’s Survival Guide by Liz Fraser and is actually quite helpful with lots of useful advice on why having children will completely change you and your life and how to cope with this. Hearing that other mums struggle with the same things as me and how they cope is always my greatest therapy.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Happy Housewives
Do we moan too much? Darla Shine, author of Happy Housewives, says yes. The basic premise of her book is that housewives spend too much time moaning about how hard their lives are when really we should count our blessings and get on with it. “When did it become fashionable to be an out-of-control mother on the edge?”
Darla chats at you from her kitchen island about how great it is to be a housewife. She shares her journey of how she came to terms with giving up her career in television to raise her “babies” and learnt to love her new role.
It’s not for everyone. Darla argues that every mum should stay at home with their children, leaving behind careers like she did. I’m sure many women would love to do this but don’t have the choice, they have to earn money. Darla is rich and spoilt and fairly disengaged from reality - one important criterion for her new house was that it had to have a swimming pool and she was annoyed to discover there was no built-in barbecue. She’s American and does things stuffy English girls like me don’t approve of, like waking up her seven year old son just to tell him he can stay home from school to watch movies with her.
But I loved the book. It was great to have such a chirpy endorsement of what I do, especially when some people do put you down, albeit unintentionally – one friend referred in passing to my “dropping out”, the implication being it was negative to leave law for housewifery.
This week I could hear Darla’s voice echoing around my house, spurring me on; one morning I’d already damp-dusted every room and finished the ironing by 8.30. “Happy housewife?” I thought, rinsing out a pooey terry-towelling nappy. Yes. It’s smelly but fulfilling when you really go for it and think you’re doing a good job and can see you’ve achieved. There’s nothing more satisfying than watching your children scoff down something you’ve cooked. The converse is of course that there’s nothing more demoralising than having them refuse to eat something you’ve spent time and effort on, but Darla has an answer for that – “It’s okay to admit that some days really do suck”.
A lot of what Darla says is just common sense to me – but obviously not to other people! A lot of what she says is shallow and something I can’t relate to. A lot of what she says made me think – after a hard day, “would you want to come home to you?” A lot of what she says is hysterical - “I read a report that only 30 percent of married women were having orgasms on a regular basis...No wonder the women at the PTA are a bunch of crazy bitches”.
But the central message is sound. It’s all about celebrating, being proud of being a stay at home mum whilst recognising the realities – “Some days I look at my children when they’re out of control and I wonder why they’re misbehaving, what I’m doing wrong.” - and how to cope with them.
Happy Housewives is very much aimed at a certain market of women with choice and Darla has been criticised for her simplistic attitude of what’s right and wrong for women and their children. But the success of the book, website and now radio show demonstrates how many women relate to what she says – for all her faults she has touched a nerve, found a gap in the market that women want to be filled.
Darla is trying to start a revolution “Let’s fight this stupid image these desperate housewives are giving us”. Her message is simple but effective, stop moaning and work at things and you will enjoy yourself and feel more fulfilled. You can’t have it all, she says. “I think something will suffer, either your marriage, your kids or your sanity”. She’s old fashioned in her approach; many reviewers don’t like the slant she takes on husbands – “They want only three things in life: attention, appreciation, and sex”. But I’m sure husbands would approve of her recommendations – don’t nag him to death and don’t use motherhood as an excuse for not having sex! Relationships aside she’s encouraging some really important things for society like trying to bring families together for meal times, home cooking and talking to your children, basics which are lost in today’s world to the detriment of everyone.
She takes on feminists – “I’m annoyed that they’ve dropped the ball for women at home”. I would argue that feminism means having choice and that women like me choosing to stay in the home is liberating. We are empowered because giving up our careers to take on this domestic role is not imposed on us, as it was in the 1920’s with the marriage bar as described in a book I reviewed recently, Jenna Bailey’s “Can Any Mother Help Me?” Those mothers felt resentment as they were forced to give up jobs. We can now decide that being at home is better for our families and chose to do so and therefore feel more fulfilled. Fashion is changing I think, it’s not unusual for thinking women to elect be in the home and not the office. I’ve seen the other side and am grateful for the life I can now have. Darla would agree entirely – “Let him freeze his ass off on the train while I sleep...”
Happy Housewives is a fun book with a message. There are practical tips; when it comes to housework, “if you think it, do it” recipes and web links. I think I’m naturally a housewife, I like wearing my apron, so I didn’t need much encouragement from Darla. But it’s refreshing to have someone so excited about what you do.
Darla chats at you from her kitchen island about how great it is to be a housewife. She shares her journey of how she came to terms with giving up her career in television to raise her “babies” and learnt to love her new role.
It’s not for everyone. Darla argues that every mum should stay at home with their children, leaving behind careers like she did. I’m sure many women would love to do this but don’t have the choice, they have to earn money. Darla is rich and spoilt and fairly disengaged from reality - one important criterion for her new house was that it had to have a swimming pool and she was annoyed to discover there was no built-in barbecue. She’s American and does things stuffy English girls like me don’t approve of, like waking up her seven year old son just to tell him he can stay home from school to watch movies with her.
But I loved the book. It was great to have such a chirpy endorsement of what I do, especially when some people do put you down, albeit unintentionally – one friend referred in passing to my “dropping out”, the implication being it was negative to leave law for housewifery.
This week I could hear Darla’s voice echoing around my house, spurring me on; one morning I’d already damp-dusted every room and finished the ironing by 8.30. “Happy housewife?” I thought, rinsing out a pooey terry-towelling nappy. Yes. It’s smelly but fulfilling when you really go for it and think you’re doing a good job and can see you’ve achieved. There’s nothing more satisfying than watching your children scoff down something you’ve cooked. The converse is of course that there’s nothing more demoralising than having them refuse to eat something you’ve spent time and effort on, but Darla has an answer for that – “It’s okay to admit that some days really do suck”.
A lot of what Darla says is just common sense to me – but obviously not to other people! A lot of what she says is shallow and something I can’t relate to. A lot of what she says made me think – after a hard day, “would you want to come home to you?” A lot of what she says is hysterical - “I read a report that only 30 percent of married women were having orgasms on a regular basis...No wonder the women at the PTA are a bunch of crazy bitches”.
But the central message is sound. It’s all about celebrating, being proud of being a stay at home mum whilst recognising the realities – “Some days I look at my children when they’re out of control and I wonder why they’re misbehaving, what I’m doing wrong.” - and how to cope with them.
Happy Housewives is very much aimed at a certain market of women with choice and Darla has been criticised for her simplistic attitude of what’s right and wrong for women and their children. But the success of the book, website and now radio show demonstrates how many women relate to what she says – for all her faults she has touched a nerve, found a gap in the market that women want to be filled.
Darla is trying to start a revolution “Let’s fight this stupid image these desperate housewives are giving us”. Her message is simple but effective, stop moaning and work at things and you will enjoy yourself and feel more fulfilled. You can’t have it all, she says. “I think something will suffer, either your marriage, your kids or your sanity”. She’s old fashioned in her approach; many reviewers don’t like the slant she takes on husbands – “They want only three things in life: attention, appreciation, and sex”. But I’m sure husbands would approve of her recommendations – don’t nag him to death and don’t use motherhood as an excuse for not having sex! Relationships aside she’s encouraging some really important things for society like trying to bring families together for meal times, home cooking and talking to your children, basics which are lost in today’s world to the detriment of everyone.
She takes on feminists – “I’m annoyed that they’ve dropped the ball for women at home”. I would argue that feminism means having choice and that women like me choosing to stay in the home is liberating. We are empowered because giving up our careers to take on this domestic role is not imposed on us, as it was in the 1920’s with the marriage bar as described in a book I reviewed recently, Jenna Bailey’s “Can Any Mother Help Me?” Those mothers felt resentment as they were forced to give up jobs. We can now decide that being at home is better for our families and chose to do so and therefore feel more fulfilled. Fashion is changing I think, it’s not unusual for thinking women to elect be in the home and not the office. I’ve seen the other side and am grateful for the life I can now have. Darla would agree entirely – “Let him freeze his ass off on the train while I sleep...”
Happy Housewives is a fun book with a message. There are practical tips; when it comes to housework, “if you think it, do it” recipes and web links. I think I’m naturally a housewife, I like wearing my apron, so I didn’t need much encouragement from Darla. But it’s refreshing to have someone so excited about what you do.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
Can Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey
In 1935 a young mother wrote a letter to Nursery World asking “Can any mother help me? I live a very lonely life...can any reader suggest an occupation that will intrigue me and exclude “thinking” and cost nothing!” Through this letter the Cooperative Correspondence Club, CCC, was formed by a group of women who wrote to each other through a private magazine that was circulated between them. Jenna Bailey was researching material for her Master’s thesis and came across the collection of correspondence. Can Any Mother Help Me? is a selection of what she discovered.
The women came from different backgrounds but were united by their roles as housewives and mothers and their isolation within those roles. In the 1920’s “marriage bars” were implemented so that women had to give up some professions, like teaching, when they married. Many resented this and struggled with negative feelings about what they had sacrificed to raise a family. Some were isolated from communities or family and rarely had the opportunity to speak with other adults or mothers. Thus the CCC became a lifeline for them to share emotions and experiences.
When researching for the Suzanne Kamata interview I started thinking about “mummy bloggers” and their networks. Reading this book it occurred to me that the CCC was the original mummy blog network, just through a different medium. What I love about this book is that it demonstrates how the issues of motherhood transcend time; what members of the CCC were writing, I could be saying to my friends today. Mothers always have and still do find great emotional benefit through sharing and communicating, all that has changed is how they communicate, and the immediacy of that communication.
This book offers unique unedited anecdotes about how life was really lived, without the sheen history can give. The women were born at the end of the Victorian era and lived through two world wars so saw enormous change in their lives. Some are still alive today. It is a great book to help me put things in perspective. I felt humbled by their struggles. If I ever start to moan again about how hard my life is I shall think of Accidia who had seven children, “made” her own electricity, had no washing machine or vacuum and very little hot water - it took thirty minutes to boil the kettle!
It also helped to read the snippets of her children’s behaviour and so realise that children of history behaved in exactly the same way as ours do today. So often I chastise myself that my children are riotous compared to the Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard generation but from what Accidia wrote I take comfort that all children are just children “frequently maddening, infuriating, worrying, silly, exasperating...but extraordinarily interesting and delightful beings”.
Reading what these mothers struggled with has made me realise how relatively easy we have it in our modern world and wonder whether we moan too much. With modern conveniences to help us we have time and energy to complain; we are almost encouraged to complain, call our dissatisfactions “syndromes” and seek therapy.
We are also liberated and enlightened in comparison. We have choice, maybe too much choice, about how and when we work, how and where we give birth, what we expect from our husbands and what we expect from ourselves. The women of the CCC could only dream of some of the freedoms we have but these freedoms have just created a different type of pressure and expectations for mothers of our generation.
Ultimately the power of this book for me is that it highlights how important a support network is for mums of any generation or culture. Whether through extended family living together in a compound, a toddler group, blog network, Internet chat room or correspondence club, there is such therapy in sharing experiences. The CCC wrote to each other “in an effort to escape their isolation and make connections with other mothers”. When you realise you are not alone and that the problems you are experiencing are normal, suddenly you don’t feel so bad. There is such danger in isolation.
I also felt inspired by this book to enjoy my role and domesticity and make the most of my life in its current form. Despite their limitations these women were not “just” mothers; they showed extraordinary resourcefulness in what they did with their lives.
Being an obsessive writer I could really relate to these women, to how they read and wrote and thought and worried and shared these emotions with each other. One noted “I write to CCC to help clarify my thoughts” and I can understand that entirely. In fact, reading Can Any Mother Help Me? has given me lots more to think about while I ponder (probably too much) motherhood; what it means and how I do it. There will, no doubt, be more blog posts to follow on the issues it's raised...
The women came from different backgrounds but were united by their roles as housewives and mothers and their isolation within those roles. In the 1920’s “marriage bars” were implemented so that women had to give up some professions, like teaching, when they married. Many resented this and struggled with negative feelings about what they had sacrificed to raise a family. Some were isolated from communities or family and rarely had the opportunity to speak with other adults or mothers. Thus the CCC became a lifeline for them to share emotions and experiences.
When researching for the Suzanne Kamata interview I started thinking about “mummy bloggers” and their networks. Reading this book it occurred to me that the CCC was the original mummy blog network, just through a different medium. What I love about this book is that it demonstrates how the issues of motherhood transcend time; what members of the CCC were writing, I could be saying to my friends today. Mothers always have and still do find great emotional benefit through sharing and communicating, all that has changed is how they communicate, and the immediacy of that communication.
This book offers unique unedited anecdotes about how life was really lived, without the sheen history can give. The women were born at the end of the Victorian era and lived through two world wars so saw enormous change in their lives. Some are still alive today. It is a great book to help me put things in perspective. I felt humbled by their struggles. If I ever start to moan again about how hard my life is I shall think of Accidia who had seven children, “made” her own electricity, had no washing machine or vacuum and very little hot water - it took thirty minutes to boil the kettle!
It also helped to read the snippets of her children’s behaviour and so realise that children of history behaved in exactly the same way as ours do today. So often I chastise myself that my children are riotous compared to the Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard generation but from what Accidia wrote I take comfort that all children are just children “frequently maddening, infuriating, worrying, silly, exasperating...but extraordinarily interesting and delightful beings”.
Reading what these mothers struggled with has made me realise how relatively easy we have it in our modern world and wonder whether we moan too much. With modern conveniences to help us we have time and energy to complain; we are almost encouraged to complain, call our dissatisfactions “syndromes” and seek therapy.
We are also liberated and enlightened in comparison. We have choice, maybe too much choice, about how and when we work, how and where we give birth, what we expect from our husbands and what we expect from ourselves. The women of the CCC could only dream of some of the freedoms we have but these freedoms have just created a different type of pressure and expectations for mothers of our generation.
Ultimately the power of this book for me is that it highlights how important a support network is for mums of any generation or culture. Whether through extended family living together in a compound, a toddler group, blog network, Internet chat room or correspondence club, there is such therapy in sharing experiences. The CCC wrote to each other “in an effort to escape their isolation and make connections with other mothers”. When you realise you are not alone and that the problems you are experiencing are normal, suddenly you don’t feel so bad. There is such danger in isolation.
I also felt inspired by this book to enjoy my role and domesticity and make the most of my life in its current form. Despite their limitations these women were not “just” mothers; they showed extraordinary resourcefulness in what they did with their lives.
Being an obsessive writer I could really relate to these women, to how they read and wrote and thought and worried and shared these emotions with each other. One noted “I write to CCC to help clarify my thoughts” and I can understand that entirely. In fact, reading Can Any Mother Help Me? has given me lots more to think about while I ponder (probably too much) motherhood; what it means and how I do it. There will, no doubt, be more blog posts to follow on the issues it's raised...
Friday, 3 July 2009
Mother's Day by Kirsty Scott
I’ve just finished reading Mother’s Day by Kirsty Scott. I came to it with scepticism for I am a book snob and derogatory about anything with large, pastel italicised writing on the cover. I only chose it for research – I’m trying to read other “mummy-lit” to learn about the competition for the book I’m planning to write – and had dismissed it as trash before I’d even started.
I was pleasantly surprised. I hate clichés in writing and was expecting many; in mummy-lit we are all neurotic and constantly swigging Chardonnay. I nearly gave up on page 3 when Alison, working mum, starts moaning about being 11 rather than 9 stone. Weight is another obsession of mummy-lit; I’d already discarded one book after the third whine about how terrible it was to be so disgustingly huge at 10 stone 4 – I was ecstatic to get down to 10 stone 4!
However, if you overlook the few clichés, there are some great characters in the book and I became completely absorbed. It was easy to read, a great distraction. I was drawn in, thinking about the book all day – always the greatest compliment to any author. I tried to get into bed early to read. I failed, to get into bed early, so just ended up reading too late into the night to be healthy when at least one of your three young children will think it’s fine to start the day at 6am.
The story follows three mums who meet in the playground of a posh private school. Don’t be put off by the back cover blurb; it’s much better and less clichéd that it sounds. There are some fantastic observations about relationships with children and partners, some sharp dialogue and comic moments all mums can relate to. There’s a slightly contrived happy ending with everything working out for everyone, but it’s not the sort of book that wants to leave the reader feeling disatisfied for a character.
Enthused by this mummy-lit experience I will go back to the 10 stone 4-loathsome selfish character and see if she has any more to offer...
I was pleasantly surprised. I hate clichés in writing and was expecting many; in mummy-lit we are all neurotic and constantly swigging Chardonnay. I nearly gave up on page 3 when Alison, working mum, starts moaning about being 11 rather than 9 stone. Weight is another obsession of mummy-lit; I’d already discarded one book after the third whine about how terrible it was to be so disgustingly huge at 10 stone 4 – I was ecstatic to get down to 10 stone 4!
However, if you overlook the few clichés, there are some great characters in the book and I became completely absorbed. It was easy to read, a great distraction. I was drawn in, thinking about the book all day – always the greatest compliment to any author. I tried to get into bed early to read. I failed, to get into bed early, so just ended up reading too late into the night to be healthy when at least one of your three young children will think it’s fine to start the day at 6am.
The story follows three mums who meet in the playground of a posh private school. Don’t be put off by the back cover blurb; it’s much better and less clichéd that it sounds. There are some fantastic observations about relationships with children and partners, some sharp dialogue and comic moments all mums can relate to. There’s a slightly contrived happy ending with everything working out for everyone, but it’s not the sort of book that wants to leave the reader feeling disatisfied for a character.
Enthused by this mummy-lit experience I will go back to the 10 stone 4-loathsome selfish character and see if she has any more to offer...
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Book Awards
I was very excited to learn that Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering, in which I have a chapter, has won recognition at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. It has been named winner in the Parenting and Anthology categories and is third place Grand Prize winner in the nonfiction category. This is an exciting achievement for all the authors and the editor, Suzanne Kamata.
http://www.indiebookawards.com/2009_winners_and_finalists.php
I can recommend it as a very touching and thought-provoking book. If you are interested you can buy it on Amazon
http://www.indiebookawards.com/2009_winners_and_finalists.php
I can recommend it as a very touching and thought-provoking book. If you are interested you can buy it on Amazon
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Call Me Okaasan
When Revolution Baby was published I worked hard at marketing, thinking, naively, I could get it all done before Baby 3 was born. I hadn’t appreciated the effect of momentum and how one feature would lead to another. This is how I’ve been introduced to some fantastic projects, and ended up writing much more often than I’d expected with a new baby.
I was very flattered to be asked to contribute to an anthology about multi-cultural mothering. Feeling slightly unqualified I wrote about my experiences of ante-natal care when abroad, sent it off and didn’t think much more of it.
Last week the book arrived with the postman – Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering, edited by Suzanne Kamata. I started to read it and was engrossed.
The main marketing quote is “Whether through intercultural marriage, international adoption or peripatetic lifestyles, families these days are increasingly multicultural. In this collection, women around the world ponder the unique joys and challenges of raising children across two or more cultures.”
I have found it to be a very interesting commentary on motherhood. Written from alternative perspectives it allows you to see everyday issues from different angles. Some of the essays I enjoyed because I could particularly relate to the sentiments, some are thought provoking, some are beautifully and lyrically written, some expose the rawest emotions of motherhood and some show how the simplest issues can become complicated.
I think it’s a really special book about alternative family lifestyles. I have been touched by it and feel very honoured to have been involved.
You can buy it on Amazon or find out more at Suzanne’s website, http://www.suzannekamata.com/.
I was very flattered to be asked to contribute to an anthology about multi-cultural mothering. Feeling slightly unqualified I wrote about my experiences of ante-natal care when abroad, sent it off and didn’t think much more of it.
Last week the book arrived with the postman – Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering, edited by Suzanne Kamata. I started to read it and was engrossed.
The main marketing quote is “Whether through intercultural marriage, international adoption or peripatetic lifestyles, families these days are increasingly multicultural. In this collection, women around the world ponder the unique joys and challenges of raising children across two or more cultures.”
I have found it to be a very interesting commentary on motherhood. Written from alternative perspectives it allows you to see everyday issues from different angles. Some of the essays I enjoyed because I could particularly relate to the sentiments, some are thought provoking, some are beautifully and lyrically written, some expose the rawest emotions of motherhood and some show how the simplest issues can become complicated.
I think it’s a really special book about alternative family lifestyles. I have been touched by it and feel very honoured to have been involved.
You can buy it on Amazon or find out more at Suzanne’s website, http://www.suzannekamata.com/.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Odyssey Guide to the Kyrgyz Republic
If you are thinking of visiting Kyrgyzstan I can recommend the Odyssey guide to the Kyrgyz Republic.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kyrgyz-Republic-Heart-Central-Odyssey/dp/9622177913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222266223&sr=8-1
The third edition has recently been put together by dedicated authors Rowan Stewart and Susie Weldon and was launched last week at Daunt Books in London.
I am especially excited about this guide because some of my photographs have been used in it. After years of taking hundreds of photos and wondering whether I could ever do anything with them apart from stick them in my own albums, it's great to see some published.
If you are interested in finding out more, Rowan, Susie and I are speaking about Kyrgyzstan at Stanfords travel bookshop in London on Wednesday 22nd October 2008.
http://www.stanfords.co.uk/events/rowan-stewart-and-safia-farr-an-odyssey-evening-kyrgyzstan,129,EV.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kyrgyz-Republic-Heart-Central-Odyssey/dp/9622177913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222266223&sr=8-1
The third edition has recently been put together by dedicated authors Rowan Stewart and Susie Weldon and was launched last week at Daunt Books in London.
I am especially excited about this guide because some of my photographs have been used in it. After years of taking hundreds of photos and wondering whether I could ever do anything with them apart from stick them in my own albums, it's great to see some published.
If you are interested in finding out more, Rowan, Susie and I are speaking about Kyrgyzstan at Stanfords travel bookshop in London on Wednesday 22nd October 2008.
http://www.stanfords.co.uk/events/rowan-stewart-and-safia-farr-an-odyssey-evening-kyrgyzstan,129,EV.html
Friday, 19 September 2008
Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov
For anyone who is interested in experiencing a flavour of Kyrgyz life I can recommend Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov. It is a short but poignant love story, wonderfully evocative of Kyrgyz rural life. His descriptions transported me back to the huge expanses of valley, sky and mountain in Central Asia, the true remoteness and stillness of countryside untouched by our fast, modern world.
Chingiz Aitmatov is Kyrgyzstan's best known modern writer, described as a "great writer, thinker and humanitarian". Many of his books are renowned for his descriptions of life in the Soviet Union.
Jamilia is widely available in the UK and on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jamilia-Chingiz-Aitmatov/dp/1846590329
Chingiz Aitmatov is Kyrgyzstan's best known modern writer, described as a "great writer, thinker and humanitarian". Many of his books are renowned for his descriptions of life in the Soviet Union.
Jamilia is widely available in the UK and on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jamilia-Chingiz-Aitmatov/dp/1846590329
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