Post your thoughts about the book in the comments here. Below are the discussion questions found at the end of the book, post your thoughts in the comments below each question. You don't have to have actually read the book to participate, most of the topics use the book as a jumping off point for interesting topics.
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I Think I May Have A Screw Loose
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I saw my podiatrist yesterday. One part of my foot is still hurting (it's
been almost two months since the surgery). He thinks it may be one of the
screws ...
4 comments:
You had asked in an earlier post about whether or not we have personally been affected by our mothers and are the way we are because of them. I was affected by my mother in a huge way. I've always seen her as very subservient and I've always hated to see her constantly being taken advantage of. By her friends, her family, her co-workers -- everyone. She complains about it all the time but never could do anything about it. I have overcompensated for this in my own life and have become rather bitchy and dominant and I don't take crap from anyone for the most part. I can't say it was the right choice to have decided to be this way, since it comes with its own set of problems (difficulty making friends!) and a tendency to be irritated a lot of the time, etc. lol But I knew I didn't want to be like her, so now this is the way I am.
I've responded to a couple and will come back for more later when I have more time. Great questions!
I have to confess that the book held less charm for me this second go-around than the warm fuzzy love I felt for it the first time. I'm not sure why that is, except that I found myself getting really annoyed with some of the broad brush caricatures that most of the "girls" were painted with, and which I guess I didn't notice so much before. Courtney in particular. I wanted to strangle her about fourteen different times in this reading, whereas I remember thinking wholly different about her years back. This time, it was as if I were reading a different book somehow.
I can remember a part of the book when the "girls" were taking their first creative writing class, and they each wrote and read aloud a story. Harriet wrote about a doll or stuffed animal, something superficial. She was feeling very self conscious as she listened to the very literary stories of the other girls. But, when she read her story suddenly everyone was discussing the deeper meaning. When she objected to this explaining that there was no deeper meaning her professor told her that once you have finished writing a story it is no longer yours. What you intended is not really the point, it is what the audience thinks...
All that to say, not sure this is what Lee Smith intended but what I choose to get out of the story is that each of these women are described in a way to get the reader to jump to a conclusion. Haven't you known a school teacher in her 40's who has never been married and just had a hysterectomy? With only this knowledge wouldn't you "know" her, judge her, have an opinion about her and all her ideas. Same is true of the seemingly perfect Courtney. Successful husband, perfect body, perfect clothes, perfect makeup, always the president of all the right committees and having perfect scrapbooks of all her perfection. Don't you know her? Judge her, hate her and everything she says and does.
I think that was the point of the book, we put women into little categories and judge them based on our assumptions of those categories. Like Hilary Clinton, no one talks about her ideas, we want to put her in a category and then we decide if we like her and we decide if we like any of her ideas based on the category we have put her in, not on her ideas or politics.
Even other bloggers, we go their profile and see those little details that tell us if we like them, if they are like us or one of those women. So each of the characters in the book was a hyper-stereotype of the categories we put women into and judge them by.
I have been trying for the last few years to see people as not good or bad, but as both. To not hate someone just because they are one of those women and to not like everything about someone just because they are one of those women. I have some friends whose child rearing ideas are very much in conflict with mine. Instead of hating them and making fun of them or telling them how stupid they are I have been trying to see some other aspect about them which is similar to me and build a friendship based on those things.
Not sure this is what the author intended but I am think the book was about making snap judgments about women and about ourselves, basing our entire lives on things that are just snap judgments.
Great job with the questions, can't wait until the next book that I read.
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