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Book Talk.
Feb. 15th, 2009 09:41 pmFor the past few months on various literary blogs and assorted magazines have been talking about the book 2666. The general reaction among the literary folk is, "OMGBECKY this is amazing." Apparently it is vast and intense -at least with people who use terms like "heteronormative" in papers. I am curious about it. I suspect I may have to save it until after I give birth. Right now I have pregnant brain and it makes concentrating on many books to be a difficult task. It drives me completely insane at times because I see books I think I would like to read. At times getting through an issue of The New Yorker is like trying to read Ulysses.
Moan moan whine whine.
Enough of that.
At the very least I can reread certain favorite books and who knows maybe it is time for my yearly read of I Capture The Castle.
I am nearly done with the book Singled Out. That is about the surplus women after WWI and how many got on with their lives. Prior to WWI there were about a million more women in England than men but after the immense loss of life during WWI, there were about two million more women than men. It approaches a lot of the cultural trials many faced. (many women were raised with the plan that what they were to do was to get married and have children and for many it was dashed) It was kind of a cruel irony in that there were these critics who seemed to blame these women for existing and how it was their own fault for ending up sexually repressed spinsters who ruin the rest of society and yet it was the patriarchy that was in essence responsible for the situation. But the book doesn't spend all of the time on the doom and gloom. (so many sad stories of girls who lost their boyfriends/fiances and knew at the age of 20 that they would never love again) It also focuses on women who got into professions previously closed to them, ones who realized that marriage and children would never have suited them so they went to work or went on adventures around the world. Some had a pretty heady sex lives and did as they pleased. In some ways I think many women now have these ladies to thank for kind of rebelling against a lot of expectations and attitudes to be their own person. The author makes an interesting point that for all the romantic talk about "the lost generation" and those bright lights that died on the field, in some ways one of the few good things to come out of the war was the furthered independence and education of women. The book is interesting for the interviews with elderly ladies who recall their lives (some very trying and hard and others a real lark) and for the anecdotes about well-known women in a variety of professions. I think the book could have used tighter editing as it wanders all over the place at times. And the author goes back repeatedly to a few specific women over and over. (I think she had a girl crush on Winifred Holby) Still an interesting read and something I might pass on to someone else if they were interested in this kind of history.
Moan moan whine whine.
Enough of that.
At the very least I can reread certain favorite books and who knows maybe it is time for my yearly read of I Capture The Castle.
I am nearly done with the book Singled Out. That is about the surplus women after WWI and how many got on with their lives. Prior to WWI there were about a million more women in England than men but after the immense loss of life during WWI, there were about two million more women than men. It approaches a lot of the cultural trials many faced. (many women were raised with the plan that what they were to do was to get married and have children and for many it was dashed) It was kind of a cruel irony in that there were these critics who seemed to blame these women for existing and how it was their own fault for ending up sexually repressed spinsters who ruin the rest of society and yet it was the patriarchy that was in essence responsible for the situation. But the book doesn't spend all of the time on the doom and gloom. (so many sad stories of girls who lost their boyfriends/fiances and knew at the age of 20 that they would never love again) It also focuses on women who got into professions previously closed to them, ones who realized that marriage and children would never have suited them so they went to work or went on adventures around the world. Some had a pretty heady sex lives and did as they pleased. In some ways I think many women now have these ladies to thank for kind of rebelling against a lot of expectations and attitudes to be their own person. The author makes an interesting point that for all the romantic talk about "the lost generation" and those bright lights that died on the field, in some ways one of the few good things to come out of the war was the furthered independence and education of women. The book is interesting for the interviews with elderly ladies who recall their lives (some very trying and hard and others a real lark) and for the anecdotes about well-known women in a variety of professions. I think the book could have used tighter editing as it wanders all over the place at times. And the author goes back repeatedly to a few specific women over and over. (I think she had a girl crush on Winifred Holby) Still an interesting read and something I might pass on to someone else if they were interested in this kind of history.
