A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Prouix by Elaine Showalter

Elaine Showalter is an award winning literary critic and biographer who has spent her career focusing on women's literature.  A prior book she wrote in 1977, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing  was very well received and in 2009 she published A Jury of her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Prouix which centers around US women novelists, poets and playwrights from the 19th and 20th century.  

And what you discover after the first few pages of A Jury of Her Peers is that it's very difficult for most people to name 19th century American women writers after one gets through mentioning Louisa Mae Alcott, Emily Dickinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Kate Chopin.  Were no other US women publishing novels and poems between 1800 and 1899?  

A Jury of Her Peers is the book that fills in the blanks and not in a boring list sort of way.  Elaine Showalter is too good a writer for that.  A Jury of her Peers (the title is taken from a famous short story by Susan Glaspell) reads like a novel and it's a book not only of American women's literature but also American history itself. You learn such interesting facts.  For example in 1791 Susanna Rowson published Charlotte Temple.  It would remain the biggest bestselling novel in the US until Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin published in 1852.  

We learn about Lydia Maria Childs and Catherine Maria Sedgwick who in the 1820's published really fine novels: Hope Leslie and Hobomok. Childs and Sedgwick were passionate advocates for Native American rights and people may know Lydia Maria Childs as the author of the classic children's song "Over The River and Through the Woods" but there was much more to her story.  The 1850's spurred on by the overwhelming popularity of Jane Eyre saw a real flowering of American women's fiction.  Not everyone was pleased, particularly Nathaniel Hawthorne, although to his credit he knew good writing when  he saw it, hence his remarks about Fanny Fern's novel Ruth Hall published in the 1850's:

"The woman writes as if the devil was in her and that is the only condition under which a woman writes anything worth reading. ,,. when they throw off the restraints of decency and come before the public stark naked ... then their books are sure to possess character and value". 

We learn about the late 19th century and how regional writing and the short story came into fashion in the US with such writers as Rose Terry Cook, Sarah Orne Jewett,  Mary Wilkins Freeman, Helen Hunt Jackson, Kate Chopin, Alice Dunbar Nelson etc and then we move to the 20th century and such writers as Mary Austin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Susan Glapell, Zora Neal Hurston, Anzia Yezierska, Ellen Glasgow, Nella Larsen, Dorothy Parker and so many others.  

And as we get deeper into the 20th century the women novelists mentioned in A Jury of Her Peers and the time periods they lived through become more familiar and the impulse might be to put the book down and go on to something else.  But I am glad I didn't do that because the life stories of Flannery O'Conner, Shirley Jackson, Carson McCullers, Grace Metalious, Sylvia Plath and Amy Tan to name a few are worth reading about.  I did not know for example that Amy Tan's mother fled China and an abusive husband before the Communist revolution took over, leaving her three daughters behind.  But you can see from that real life story where the inspiration came for The Joy Luck Club.

They say that books lead you to other books and certainly that is true with A Jury of Her Peers. And what is even better is that practically all of the novels Elaine Showalter mentions are available via one's kindle at reasonable rates and sometimes at no cost at all.  Of course a number of these books are obscure for a reason, they are simply not that good, and Elaine Showalter doesn't shy away from saying so.  She makes an excellent guide as we go on this journey with her through American women's literature and American history as well.  

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (reposted from my archives 8/8/2017)

In 1993 bestselling author and adventure writer Jon Krakauer wrote an article for Outside magazine about a young hiker who in April 1992 walked into the wilds of Alaska.  He carried with him a hunting rifle, a ten pound bag of rice, a few books and very little else.  His name was Christopher McCandless and his plan was to live in isolation, hunting his own food and communing with nature.  Four months later McCandless' body was found by a group of hunters who had stumbled upon the abandoned bus he had been living in.  

Chris McCandless had starved to death.  The Alaskan river he had crossed to make his way into the wilderness was passable in April when he arrived but when the summer came and the ice melted, the river swelled making it impossible for Chris to cross back into civilization, effectively trapping him where he was.  He was only 24.

Jon Krakauer wrote the article for Outside Magazine but couldn't let go of the story.  He decided his article needed to be a book. The result is Into the Wild (published 1997) an engrossing and thought provoking read.

Who was Christopher McCandless and why two decades on are many still fascinated by his story?  Most of us do what is expected in life and when we are young and finished with school the next step is the job market.  Sure we would like to live a carefree existence but there are consequences to that kind of life and so we conform.  Chris McCandless was different. After graduating with honors from Emory University he decided he would not do what was expected.  He took the $24,000 his parents had given him for Law School and donated it to charity.  He then set out on a two-year penniless hitchhiking journey throughout the American West which would eventually lead him to Alaska. 

Jon Krakauer went back and interviewed the people Chris met during his two-year odyssey and they are interesting.  Many parts of the American West are filled with people who have fallen off the grid, hippies, seekers, drifters, eccentrics.  But even though many of the people Chris met were living on the margins, they were worried when Chris shared his Alaska plans. Some tried to talk him out of it. Others tried to get him to let his parents know where he was since he had not written or called them in two years.  But Chris would not listen.  There had been a falling out between Chris and his parents over a secret his father had been keeping.  Chris in addition to being very bright could be very judgemental.  

I heartily recommend Into the Wild.  Jon Krakauer is a fine writer and he not only writes about Chris McCandless' life but he tells us about other explorers and adventurers from the 19th and 20th century.  Young men who also set out on journeys they did not adequately prepare for.  Jon Krakauer quotes from Chris' journals and letters which gives you an indication of why he chose to live the way he did.  Krakauer doesn't shy away from how badly Chris hurt his parents.  The people Chris met on the road were also shaken by his death.  It's probably a major reason people don't skip town, change their names and set out on risky adventures, our obligations to others.

Cravings: How I Conquered Food by Judy Collins

"When I was controlled by food my soul shrank and my fear grew.  When I was abstinent, my soul grew and my body shrank.  When I was in the depths of my eating disorder, not only was I obsessed with food but my mind never stopped. The chatter, the talk, the back and forth, the internal argument was never-ending.  The peace of mind, quiet and serenity that I prayed for from the depths of my illness came with surrender.  It is something for which I am eternally grateful".  - Judy Collins

I have never been a smoker or had a problem with alcohol or drugs but I understand people who do because my addiction since I was a teenager has been food.  My weight is not good.  It's not healthy and over the years I have tried reading diet books and overeating memoirs but when it comes to sticking to a diet I have nothing but false starts.

And so a few weeks ago I was watching an interview on PBS with the legendary folk-singer Judy Collins.  She was very insightful in talking about her life and the current times we are living through.  After the interview I went to Amazon to see if Judy had written any books and it turns out she has written several.  One of her books, Cravings: How I Conquered Food published 2016, stood out in particular and so I decided to give it a read.   

It's a marvelous memoir about Judy Collins' life long struggle with food and bulimia and it's not every memoir that can boast a favorable review from the historian Ron Chernow and a starred review from Publisher's Weekly.  What makes Cravings so good is first Judy's writing.  She is not afraid to dig deep regarding her eating disorder and the answers she ultimately found with the 12 step program. 

Cravings is structured in an interesting way.  Chapters that deal with Judy Collins' life alternate with chapters devoted to the history of dieting.  I didn't know for example that  Lord Byron devised his own diet plan which consisted of tea, slices of toast, vegetables and chain smoking or that William the Conqueror fashioned his version of the liquid diet which involved drinking ale, beer, wine and nothing else.  

Fortunately as the centuries rolled on more medically sound nutritionists arrived and Judy tells their stories. Gaylord Hauser, for example, known in the 1940's as the Nutritionist to the Stars, Dr. Alfred Pennington who in 1953 published A New Concept in the Treatment of Obesity in the journal of the American Medical Association, Jean Nidetch the founder of Weight Watchers, Dr. Robert Atkins, Dr. Andrew Weil's Spontaneous Healing.  These diet plans began to show a pattern, eliminating starch, white bread, pasta, potatoes and drinking plenty of water.  Exercise and vitamins began to be added as well.

But Cravings is primarily a memoir of Judy Collins' personal struggles with food and also about her life.  She had a remarkable father, Charles Thomas Collins, blind since he was four but graduated with honors from the University of Idaho.  He was a fun loving man who inspired Judy to follow her dreams.  But he was addicted to alcohol and was never able to stop.  Judy writes about her mother, her siblings, the romances in her life, her friends and her music teacher, Dr. Antonia Brico, a famous musician in her own right, who was heartbroken when Judy as a teenager abandoned the piano to take up folk music and the guitar.  They would reconnect years later when Judy made a film about Dr. Brico, honoring her career.  

In Cravings Judy Collins is very generous to all the people she has known.  If she is hard  on anyone it's herself. Her life has been one of triumph and tragedy but today she is at peace, happily married for twenty-five years, a grandmother and she still tours, although at 82 not as often.  And because Judy wrote Cravings to help others she also includes the diet she has been following for many years.  It's strict but very simple.  I also like that her daily routine includes meditation.  Judy's life was changed years ago when she read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda.  The older I get the more fascinated I too become by meditation, Buddhism, past lives.  

Who should read Cravings?  I think anyone with an eating disorder or any form of addiction would benefit from Judy Collins' hard earned wisdom.  But I would expand that and say if you are stuck in your life, looking for a new path, you can also benefit from this book. I know I am going to try to incorporate what I learned from Cravings in my life but ultimately the teacher can provide the way but it's up to the students to follow through.

Here is New York by E. B. White

In 1948 E. B. White (the author of Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumphet of Swan) was asked by Holiday Magazine, to write an article about New York.  White was living in Maine at the time and didn't like traveling all that much but he agreed to stay at the Algonquin and spend a few weeks walking around Manhattan recording what he saw and how the city had changed since he had last lived there in the 1920's.  The result was Here is New York a classic essay later published as a book and described by critics as one of the great love letters written about the city: 

"New York is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along (whether a thousand-foot liner out of the East or a twenty-thousand-man convention out of the West) without inflicting the event on its inhabitants; so that every event is, in a sense, optional, and the inhabitant is in the happy position of  being able to choose his spectacle".

"Every block or two, in most residential sections of New York is a little main street.  A man starts for work in the morning and before he has gone two hundred yards he has completed half a dozen missions: bought a paper, left a pair of shoes to be soled, picked up a pack of cigarettes, ordered a bottle of whiskey to be dispatched in the opposite direction against his home-coming ... So complete is each neighborhood, and so strong a sense of neighborhood, that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than a country village".  

But is that still true about New York?  I haven't been there in a decade but I would guess that the newsstands where you could buy a newspaper and a cup of coffee have gone out of business and who gets their shoes soled these days? The Automat, Chock Full of Nuts and Scrafft's where you could sit down and have a nice lunch are long gone and let's not even start on what's happened to the bookstores. 

E. B. White understood all this and reflected in the 1940's that New York was becoming more crowded, louder and more hectic. The landmarks were being torn down and newer taller and more impersonal buildings were going up.  But White reminds us that New York is always changing and yet never quite loses it's magic and sense of possibility.  And anyone reading Here is New York today will be struck by how prescient E. B. White was in 1948 about the future:  

"The subtlest change in New York is something people don't speak much about but that is in everybody's mind.  The city, for the first time in it's long history, is destructable.  A single flight of planes no bigger than a flock of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers ... this lofty target scraping the skies and meeting the destroying planes halfway, home of all people and all nations, capital of everything, housing the deliberations by which the planes are to be stayed and their errand forestalled".  

Here is New York is about 50 pages and it's very Manhattan centric but it's packed with keen observations and insights about what makes the city tick.  Anyone who has ever lived in New York or is planning a visit will benefit from reading E.B. White's ode to the Big Apple.  Here is New York fulfills the 2021 Back to the Classics category - choose a travel classic.

The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

I don't regret focusing on the classics these past few years.  It's been a rewarding experience.  But if there is one drawback it's that I don't get to read as much contemporary fiction as I would like and so I am not sure who is out there right now worth reading.  Fortunately my good friend Iris has been keeping tabs on the new and talented authors and she has wonderful judgement.  Some time back for example Iris suggested The Secrets Between Us published 2018 by the Indian-American award winning novelist Thrity Umrigar.  Iris found the book excellent and I completely agree. This is not a book you want to miss.

The Secrets Between Us is set in present day Mumbai, India and tells the story of two elderly women, Bhima and Parvati who form a suprising friendship.  I say suprising because Bhima and Parvatti are very poor and rhey have been hurt badly by life and are not open to trusting others.  Bhima lives in a one room shack with her granddaughter Maya who she is trying to put through college.  She had a secure job for twenty years working as a house keeper for the wealthy Dubash family.  But when the family's son-in-law took advantage of Maya, Bhima could not continue working there and at age 60 Bhima worries where her next job is coming from.  

Parvati is a few years older than Bhima.  When Parvatti was twelve her father sold her to a house of prostitution where she stayed for many years until a disfiguring lump on her neck forced her to leave.  She married an abusive husband who when he died left her penniless.  When the novel begins Parvati earns her living selling vegetables on the street.  She barely has enough to feed herself.  

The lives of Bhima and Parvati and the betrayals they have faced can be hard to read.  Your heart breaks for them and what they've gone through but these two women are also strong, smart and feisty.  Parvati in particular can be quite funny in a bitter way.  After a rocky first meeting the two women decide to go into business together selling fruits and vegetables and a real bond develops.  

Two other characters in the book are Sunitra and Chitra a lesbian couple that Bhima  works part time for and at first Bhima doesn't know what to think.  But she begins to realize that Sunitra and Chitra are kind and good women who love each other and who treat Bhima not as a housekeeper and cook but as a friend. They are eager to help Maya succeed in college by offering their apartment so she can study.  All of the women in this novel are keeping secrets that separate them from others and a happier life.  As Bhima says to Parvati at one point:

"Parvati. Do all human beings keep secrets from one another?  Today you tell me about your life.  And then ten minutes later I run into Serabai.  And she -- she is being killed by the secrets she is keeping.  And Chitra baby says her own father and mother don't know that she moved to Mumbai for Sunitra.  Why do we all walk around like this, hiding from one another"?    Parvati's thumb circles the lump in a fast motion as she ponders the question.  "It isn't the words we speak that makes us who we are.  Or even the deeds we do.  It is the secrets buried in our hearts".  She looks sharply at Bhima  "People think that the ocean is made up of  waves and things that float on top.  But they forget -- the ocean is also what lies at the bottom, all the broken things stuck in the sand.  That, too, is the ocean".

Goodreads has called The Secrets Between Us "a dazzling story about gender, strength, friendship and second chances".  And though the poverty depicted is intense and there are scenes, particularly surrounding Parvatti's life, that are heartbreaking, The Secrets Between Us is an inspiring tale.  It's a novel that shows us the power of friendship to transform people's lives and that friendship is only possible when we reach out to others and not judge.  The Secrets Between Us is a sequel to Thrity Umrigar's bestselling 2006 novel The Space Between Us but both are stand alone books and I enjoyed The Secrets Between Us so much that I would advise you read it first.  Thank you Iris for a great reading experience. 

2021 Back to the Classics Challenge

A new year has arrived and let's hope 2021 is better for all of us.  Books of course always make things more bearable and so here are the books I plan to read this year for the 2021  Back to the Classics Challenge: 

I9th Century Classic -  Middlemarch by George Elliot - I had planned to read this novel last year but it's a long book and I kept putting it off.  This year I resolve to read it even if I never get around to posting because Middlemarch is not just a classic but one of the greatest novels in the English language.

20th Century Classic  -  Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammet - Years ago I read one of his short stories and remember thinking, boy he's good!  Red Harvest is the first volume in Hammet's collection of Continental Op hardboiled detective stories.

Woman Author -  So Big by Edna Ferber - A popular Pulitzer Prize winning novelist from the earlier part of the 20th century.  Well known in her day and you wonder did gender play a factor in why authors like Edna Ferber, Susan Glaspell and Ellen Glasgow (also early 20th century Pulitzer winners) aren't better known today?  

Classic in Translation - The Wife by Sigried Undset - This is the second book in Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy.  These novels are set in Norway during the Middle Ages and well written.

Classic by a New Author -  Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemmingway - First time reading him and this is a memoir about his time in Paris as a member of the lost generation in the 1920's.

Classic by a Favorite Author -  The Nether World by George Gissing - I have read his classic 19th century novels The Odd Women and New Grub Street and loved both books so The Nether World is next on the list.  

Classic Travel or Adventure  Novel - Here is New York by E. B. White.  A book length essay written in the 1940's in which the author walks around Manhattan writing down everything he sees.   Considered a classic love letter to New York.

Classic About an Animal - Call of The Wild by Jack London.  Kind of an obvious choice for this category.

Children's Classic - Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary -  I remember reading a book I liked when I was very young about a boy named Henry and his dog.  I don't remember the title but if Henry Huggins is the novel I read back then I was reading classics early.

Classic Play - Macbeth by William Shakespeare - I have read only one play by Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, and that's not enough.  Once again I am using the Shakespeare Made Easy edition.

Classic Comedy -   Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger.  Holden Caulfield is a troubled young teenager but also a very funny narrator as he goes after the phonies he sees all  around him. I loved this book as a teenager but does it hold up? 

Classic by Person of Color -The Street by Ann Petry - Karen K at Books and Chocolate (please check out her book blog under blogs I follow) is hosting this year's 2021 Back to the Classics Challenge.  She recently posted about The Street which centers around a  single mother living in Harlem during the 1940's trying to raise her young son.  This novel has been on my radar for a long time and so now is my time to give it a try.

Thanks once again Karen K for hosting this wonderful Classics Challenge and Happy New Year and Happy Reading to All! 

2020 Back to the Classics Wrap Up

Here is my 2020 Back to the Classics Wrap Up and thank you Karen K at Books and Chocolate (karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com) for once again hosting this annual event.  And so in 2020 I read the following classics: 

19th Century Classic - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's six classic novels that she completed and in this book you get to see Austen's tremendous talent taking shape.  But having now read Persuasion and Northanger Abbey I have to say that for me nothing compares to Pride and Prejudice.  Next up Emma which I hope to read next year.

20th Century Classic - The Plague by Albert Camus - The Plague as I understand is the second novel in Camus' trilogy (The Stranger, The Plague, The Fall).  All three are stand alone books but should be read in sequence to get the full effect.  I preferred The Plague to The Stranger.  It's a much more humane novel and really drives home the idea through its central characters that  the universe may be a chaotic place but one is obligated to make the world better regardless. 

Classic by a Woman Author - Fidelity by Susan Glaspell - Ms Glaspell was an early 20th century American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the 1930's.  Her novel Fidelity published 1915 is worth checking out and Glaspell deserves to be better known.

Classic in Translation - Bel Ami by Guy deMaupassant - Ruthiella at Booked For Life (please check out her excellent website under blogs I follow) recommended Bel Ami and I recommend it highly as well.  A great 19th century novel about Parisian society and a young rogue named George DuRoy determined to rise high in that society based on his good looks and charm.  

Classic by a Person of Color - Narrative of the life of a Slave by Frederick Douglass -  A classic American memoir by the 19th century abolitionist writer, orator and human rights advocate Frederick Douglass who grew up in slavery but escaped to freedom at age 18.  Its a powerful book about Douglass' early years and once read it stays with you.

A Genre Classic - The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green -  She wrote mystery novels in the 19th century and inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  I really enjoyed The Leavenworth Case and as with so many writers from years ago, she deserves to be better known.  

A Classic With A Place in the Title - To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf  - Modern Library lists To The Lighthouse as one of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century and Virginia Woolf is a brilliant writer.  I would start though with her classic A Room of One's Own which I loved.  I was impressed with To the Lighthouse but to get the most out of this book a second reading combined with knowledge about what the critics have said is required.

Classic with a Person's Name in the Title - The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald - Also named by Modern Library as one of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century.  Fitzgerald's classic novel of the Jazz Age.  A second reading required here too I think.

Classic with Nature in the Title - Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart - My first time reading Mary Stewart.  She is a mid-twentieth century British writer of classic romantic suspense novels.  A very nice change from all the heavy duty reading and I am so excited to have found this new author.

Classic about a Family - Father and Son by Edmund Gosse -  An excellent 19th century British memoir about growing up under the influence of a very religious father and how the son needed to eventually break away and find his own path.

An Adapted Classic - Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie -  An excellent book to start with if you have never read Agatha Christie and you should read her!

An Abandoned Classic - Dracula by Bram Stoker  After trying to read this novel over the years and never getting past page 50 or 60 I finally sat down and read it cover to cover.  Dracula is told in diary and letter form and it's not only a classic in the horror genre but a superior late Victorian novel as well.  

I wish everyone Happy Holidays and Health and Happiness in the New Year.  Thank you so much for reading my blog.  It's greatly appreciated.