Such glorious weather, scenery, walking and conversation.
All posts by MJS
Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson: Thursday Book Club review
The Thursday Book Club discussed the book CASTE – by Isabel Wilkerson. It was a “heavy” read in terms of subject matter, researched detail, and shocking truths. Wilkerson compares the centuries old caste system in India, the time bound ‘caste’ system the Nazis imposed on Jews in the 30’s and 40’s, to the caste system beginning with slavery in the US before the US was a country and continuing today.
Her liberal inclusion of horrific stories and historical facts is shocking and disturbing. For example, blacks were still being lynched in the American South up to 1972! She differentiates between caste, race, and class. There is potential for movement with race and class – but within caste – you will never be able to change your position as seen by society.
In spite of the deeply disturbing content, every member at the discussion group agreed that this is a book that needs to be read to help understand the continuing systemic caste system at play in the US today. One observation was it offered a better understanding of why there was such a backlash against Obama compared to the seemingly blind loyalty to Trump.
Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winner journalist, was the first woman of African American descent to receive the Pulitzer Prize for journalism. Her thesis in Caste is that American culture and economics even today is still built on slavery and its impact. Whereas Germany, shamed by the holocaust, has taken extreme steps to acknowledge, apologize, and honour the victims of the holocaust, many Americans still applaud and honour the Confederate flag and generals who fought to keep millions of blacks enslaved and treated as less than human.
The book opened for our readers insight into this dark side of American history. Though disturbing, they were grateful to have this more fulsome understanding. Conversations included questions about our own treatment of indigenous peoples, the internment of the Japanese, and questions of racial profiling by the police here. As a final question we looked at where we – white privileged women – saw ourselves in the caste system. We all agreed we were pretty much at the top of the heap – the only ones above us were white men…
This is not a book for light reading – but it is a book to help us understand, think about, and respond to current and disturbing issues around systemic racism in American society and politics– and sadly in many other societies around the world.
PS – the book has been made into a movie – ORIGIN by Ava Duverny. Hopefully it will be here soon.
Janet K and Linda T
Walking group!
An author brings her own book, in Ukrainian!
It’s not often that a book club member gets to talk about their own book whose author copies just arrived the same day. And especially when that book is a new foreign language edition of a classic favourite. This is Monday lunch book group member Marsha Skrypuch and her most popular novel, Making Bombs for Hitler, but in the Ukrainian language edition — beautiful!
April 2024 newsletter
Monday Book Club: Snow Road Station by Elizabeth Hay
This was our last ZOOM mtg for the winter and we are all looking forward to “pressing the flesh” in April. But we enjoyed discussing Snow Road Station by Elizabeth Hay. In the winter of 2008, Lulu, a 62 year old actor, lands a dream role in a Samuel Beckett play.
She has a limited time to learn it but she manages the first few performances and then starts to flub her lines. From there her career and life begin to unravel. Acting has been central to
Lulu’s life. In her sixties now, a sexy, unfooled woman well-versed in taking risks, out of work, humiliated, she escapes to a family wedding and an old friend at Stone Road Station. She decides she is through with drama. She thinks she wants peace. She finds anything but…At the centre of it all is the friendship between Lulu and Nan. As the two women contemplate growing old, they surrender certain long-held dreams and confront the limits of the choices they’ve made and the messy feelings that kept them apart for decades. Snow Road Station is not so much a story with a plot. Rather it is a series of life relationships and changes – some harsh and imposed, others slowly emerging and evolving.
Several other characters, mostly men, share in these tangled relationships and we watch them as they emerge and evolve and settle. The difficult work of making maple syrup is a central theme. The work itself is often where the intersection of characters and their conversations occur. Stone Road Station opens with a marriage and the promise of social cohesion. However, things quickly begin to fall apart: the nuptials are threatened, Lulu loses her place in the world. But the story closes with the establishment of new romantic relationships and the birth of a much-loved child — a child who, in many ways, restores Lulu to herself. Everyone gave this book a thumbs up – it is tender and insightful. Losses often open the way
for new and wonderful opportunities at any age.
Linda Tripp
April speaker: Living an authentic life, Joan Grundy
Book Review: How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone
A compelling look at the seamy underside of the fashion industry, told from the perspective of a vulnerable young person who had more of a backbone than most right from the beginning but was still manipulated and abused. Instead of letting herself remain a victim, she used her visibility became an advocate for others in order to help change the system. This book will also go a long way in doing that. Thank you, Cameron Russell, for sharing your experiences in what must have been a very painful memoir to write.
March 2024 newsletter
In March, we listen to three women refugees: Syria, Zimbabwe, Ukraine
The March program will showcase the accounts of three women, former refugees, who came to Brantford from different parts of the world (Syria, Zimbabwe, and Ukraine). The women will tell their stories through questions, such as what caused them to become refugees, what were some of their experiences in their home country, and what are the struggles they have encountered in adjusting to life in Canada. Mieke Schroeder, who has been involved in sponsorship of refugees for many years, will facilitate the program. We thank Mieke for organizing this program which will give us a greater insight into the journey that refugees take as they create new lives in Canada.
