Tag: Gender

Culture Corner

Boston Book Festival, Part I: The Panels

Geoff W

This past weekend was the third annual Boston Book Festival and I am proud to say I’ve attended all three. Each year there have been a few hiccups, but the festival gets bigger and (for the most part) better each year. I apologize ahead of time as this is a VERY long post. Suffice to say I enjoyed the festival and am looking forward to next year’s event. Stay tuned as later this week I will post about the AWESOME workshop I attended and the books I (shouldn’t have) bought and the keynote.

One of the hardest things to do is decide which panels/discussions I want to attend. With a schedule like this:

it’s no wonder it’s hard to decide. (You can see a detailed version with links here.) Although I originally planned to attend four panels, a workshop and the keynote; and there were plenty other workshops I would love to have attended, I only attended three panels, a workshop and the keynote. Below are my thoughts/review of the panels.
Click here to read about the panels I attended…

Books

Book 56: Slammerkin – Emma Donoghue

Geoff W

What a stark contrast to Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. I’m not sure if this is because a woman wrote this novel, or if it’s because she wrote it over 60 years later. The handling of rough trade/prostitution and women in this novel is miles beyond the poor treatment and overt misogyny of Miller’s novel. Donoghue also empowers her female characters so much so that they seem to control their own destiny, and definitely their own choices regardless of whether they choose the easy road or not, on various occasions.

Set in 17th century London, Slammerkin is the story of Mary Saunders and her short-lived life. It is about passion/desire/lust for beautiful things and a better existence. An incredibly bright and intelligent child, Mary at the age of 14 does something incredibly stupid and short-minded. She has sex with a ribbon peddler for a ribbon and winds up pregnant. Disowned by her family and raped by a battalion of soldiers, Doll, the very same prostitute which caught Mary’s imagination with the red ribbon, rescues her from the ditch and certain death. The two are inseparable until Mary comes down with a deathly cough and Doll forces her to go to a charity hospital. While in the hospital Mary learns needlework, embroidery and stitchery, ironically the same trade/skills her mother wanted to teach her.

Click here for the recommendation, quotes and rest of the review…

Books

Book 50: Bastard Out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison

Geoff W

Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy AllisonBastard Out of Carolina is the story of Ruth Anne “Bone” Cartwright. It’s a story about survival and about perseverance. Although I thought it was sad, it was empowering. I can understand why it wasn’t required reading in High School, but with everything we hear and read on the news these days, may as well have been.

The novel starts off with Bone recounting the story of her birth and her mom’s struggles to get a birth certificate for her that doesn’t have ‘ILLEGITIMATE’ stamped across the bottom third in bright red letters. And the struggles keep coming for Bone and her mom. Her mom, after marrying a loving man who dies within a few years, finally has met a man ‘Daddy Glen’ who treats her right, however as the book progresses we learn how he treats Bone.

Click here for Quotes from the novel and to continue reading…

Books

Book 47: The Help – Kathryn Stockett

Geoff W

The Help - Kathryn StockettAfter hearing Emma Donoghue recommend this book, I of course immediately added it to my list of books to read. So I was ecstatic when I flew home to NC for my aunt Miriam’s wedding that another aunt had a copy I could borrow!

The Help is a fascinating snapshot of the lives of three women, Skeeter—a young college educated white socialite (a bit of an outcast), Aibileen—a black maid who specializes in raising white children, and Minny—a spit-fire black maid who has made her fair share of enemies and works for a woman with secrets that would shock anyone.

Told over one year from the alternating perspectives of Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny we encounter 1960s Jackson, Mississippi and the myriad connections between ‘the help’ and the bosses. Skeeter an aspiring writer made an editor contact in New York who recommends she write about what bothers her and after spending time with her childhood friends, Skeeter realizes how bad ‘the help’ are treated and what they must know. After a series of events in which Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny are thrust together, the idea to author a book exposing the lives of working black women is born, conveniently also called The Help.

Click here for quotes and to continue reading…

Book Group, Books

Book 1: White Teeth – Zadie Smith

Geoff W

White Teeth was a much more interesting read than I thought it would be. It was originally selected as one of the book group books for our AmeriCorps book group, but that sort of fell to the wayside a few months ago and I’d already purchased it.

As I was reading the book it constantly reminded me of little things in England, from mentioning my Uni (Leeds) to some of the towns and places I’d visited to foods and colloquialisms, and I think this made it much easier to read and more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Last year I attempted to read On Beauty, also by Zadie Smith, and couldn’t get through the first chapter.

Overall, the book itself was much easier to read and much more enjoyable than I first expected it to be. I attempted to read On Beauty, also by Zadie Smith, last year and couldn’t get past the first chapter. I believe a large portion of my enjoyment of this book were the title chapters, they clearly connected the title to the rest of the book, even if sometimes I kept wondering why the book was titled such.

Click here to continue reading.