I've read about two dozen books I haven't posted about here, so will try to group them thematically in the next several posts. Might be an interesting way to look at several books at a time, so here are some selections that deal with incarceration and servitude.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass *****
by Frederick Douglass
This relatively short work was written when the famous runaway slave and abolitionist activist was in his 20s, and I don't understand why it's not required reading in high school. Douglass's style is bold, and full of restrained outrage. He gives a straightforward and wholly human account of his life. Had Douglass written nothing else after this short autobiography, he would deserve a place in American letters.
Douglass's story begins at age five, the age at which his grandmother, who raised him, delivered him like a parcel of goods to the plantation that owned both of them. Babies were routinely given to grandmothers as soon as possible in order to get mothers back to work quickly and to break the bond between mother and child that might prove problematic later on.
Once at the plantation, Douglass was at first given few tasks to do, and was forced to shift for himself. His time was chiefly spent trying to get enough to eat and not freeze to death in winter, and this meant battling for scarce necessities with other slave children--one other way to break down bonds between slaves and keep them more tractable.
After some time working on the plantation, Douglass was loaned out to a family in town as a laborer. This family at first welcomed Douglass as a member of the family, giving him warm clothing, a bed, and even teaching him some letters. However, it was illegal to teach a slave to read, and Douglass's lessons ended abruptly and his town family adopted less liberal policies on the advice of white neighbors with more experience with slaves. Douglass illustrates a point many abolitionists could not make from first hand observation: the deleterious effects of slavery on whites as well as blacks.
Douglass's town experiences, however, puts him in touch with the wider world as he labors in the harbor, and he begins to think about running away in his early teens. He learns to trick various white boys to teach him to read and write with challenges like, "I bet you don't know what letter comes after E." Attempts and plans to escape that are thwarted throw him into black depressions at times, though he eventually figures out a water route to Massachusetts, a route he declines to reveal in case other slaves make the same attempt.
Douglass was encouraged to write his narrative and to begin speaking about his experiences as a slave by white abolitionists in Massachusetts, whose meetings he attended after his escape. Their influence can be seen in the rather florid foreword to the narrative and in some of the final thoughts, in which Douglass tempers his criticism of Christian hypocrisy. Fortunately, what lies between is a compelling and articulate account that, in its specifics, forces the reader to face the human toll slavery exacted on our nation.
Peony: A Novel of China ****
by Pearl S. Buck
Peony is an indentured servant for a family of Chinese Jews in 19th Century Kaifeng, China. Wendy Abraham's afterword offers context for this fascinating population which came to China perhaps as early as the 1100s. Like most of Buck's novels, "Peony" is delicately and sensitively written, though it will doubtless seem dated to modern readers, and it does not have the power that her "Good Earth" trilogy has.
Ostensibly the novel is a romance; Peony is in love with the son of her Jewish masters, a love which she understands cannot be requited though it seems, at times, to be returned. But the love story is emblematic of the real affection the native Chinese of Kaifeng feel for the Jewish families who live there. The Buddhists see assimilation of the Jewish families through intermarriage as natural and desirable. People are people, each group seems to embrace the same values, as far as the Buddhists are concerned. But that readiness to embrace the Jewish population threatens its identity and separateness, the yearning that some of the Jews have to return to Palestine, despite the fact that their ancestral homeland is largely an abstract idea for many. The novel opens as the Kaifeng Jews have become largely assimilated, there is no one to replace the rabbi, who is frail and old. The synagogue has fallen into disrepair, and its carvings reflect Chinese mythology as much as stories from Jewish Scripture.
Peony's enslavement is wholly unlike the one Douglass describes in his narrative. While Chinese children were sold to rich families, they were taught to read and write, to appreciate aesthetics--whatever would bring honor, riches, and beauty to the homes of their masters. Good servants were often found spouses and released from service, though they were also subject to beatings and sometimes sexual predation while in service.
Fortunately, Peony is a girl of wit and intelligence, who is able to maintain her virtue and live a life that is largely self-directed despite her status as a slave. She is also generous and, in an interesting twist at the end of the novel, is elevated to a position of respect and responsibility.
Orange Is the New Black ****
Piper Kerman
I have not seen the TV show based on Kerman's memoir of her stint in a women's prison, but as Douglass humanizes the slave experience, Kerman humanizes women prisoners.
Kerman, who came from a well-to-do white family, ended up in prison by acting as a mule for a woman who was briefly her lover and a high-level mover of dope for an African drug lord. Kerman enjoyed a lot of free trips to exotic places, free drugs, and a lot of money, and was in denial about how dangerous all this was. Her trial seems to go on interminably after her arrest--she is free for a period of years, long enough to get married, have a career, and wage a lengthy legal battle. This part of the memoir is generally honest and free of whiny protestations that "I wasn't really that bad." Kerman makes it clear that she's not writing a memoir of victimization.
Neither is Kerman's memoir an expose a la "The Snakepit." Instead, it is a touching and sometimes funny account of how women in the medium security unit (Kerman is never sent to the maximum unit adjacent to her facility, and she keeps her nose clean and out of solitary) construct a society that is grimly nurturing. For instance, Kerman is met by her cell mates with a distance that borders on rudeness. But she is also given basic supplies that the women know she will need such as shower shoes and extra soap. From there on, she must catch on to rules that are confusing and sometimes frightening. Not making eye contact in the food line is one. Learning how to "read" the mostly male prison staff in order to stay out of trouble is another.
Fortunately, Kerman is adaptable and her memoir brings the reader an insider's look at the women women with whom she is imprisoned in a narrative that is unsentimental and often hilarious. (There are rumors that Martha Stewart will be sent to Kerman's facility, a turn of events both prisoners and staff view with dismay; Stewart, it turns out, is sent to another prison, to everyone's relief.) Small acts of kindness abound--a pedicure, a hairset, a crocheted shower kit bag, microwaved treats made with smuggled cafeteria ingredients, homemade birthday cards.
Kerman's prison mates are often poorly educated, addicted, sometimes not too bright, deprived, and feckless. There are ethnic and racial tensions. It's pretty clear some of them will be repeat offenders, and their lives will be short and brutal. But what's also clear is that, for the time they are incarcerated, these women have mostly chosen to be generous and kind. "Orange Is the New Black" turns out to be a book of grace and beauty. Kerman includes a list of women's prison resources in the back of the book.
White Rose **1/2
by Amy Ephron
This is a perfectly dreadful novel about the beautiful Evangelina Cisneros, whose imprisonment in Cuba by Spanish authorities, became a cause celebre in the U.S. before the Spanish American War. Cisneros was an enigmatic figure, and Ephron's novel merely sinks the story in more murk and ambiguity in a narrative that is devoid of any real tension or interest. Some nice period touches, but these don't save the book.
A Wrinkle in Time ***1/2
by Madeleine L'Engle
I might have given this book higher marks were I 45 years younger. It's a lively story about a Meg, a teenage girl, her eerily intelligent baby brother, Charles Wallace, and Meg's friend Calvin, who set out with three old ladies to rescue Meg's father, who is imprisoned in a dystopian alternate universe.
I realize this is a YA classic, and I like it's blend of literary allusions (everything from "Macbeth" to "The Wizard of Oz") and sci fi. However, I think a lot of that completely escaped YA readers in the 1960s (it would have escaped me), and probably does so now.
Still, the book was ahead of its time for offering a heroine in Meg who is homely, brave, and brainy, and not in the least interested in impressing Calvin by being a damsel in distress.
UPDATE, February 9, 2015: Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno" is an interesting read based on a real slave mutiny in South America. Critics disagree over where Melville's sympathies lie. However, "Billy Budd" and "Moby Dick" suggest (at least in my view) that Melville was continuing to explore notions of loyalty and community. The ship serves as a microcosm for human society. Nobody aboard any of Melville's ships is ever entirely innocent (not even Billy Budd, in his blind rage), but nobody is ever beyond redemption, either.
"Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House" by Elizabeth Keckley is the sad autobiography of Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker. Keckley was famous in Washington, D.C., among political wives. Mrs. Jefferson Davis was one of her customers, and Mr. Davis urged Keckley to go South before the Civil War started so she could be with her own people. Keckley seemed to like the Davises. They were polite, brought Keckley new clients, and paid on time. Next to Mary Todd Lincoln, who latched on to Keckley as a personal nurse, messenger, and who bilked her out of money and took her away from paying customers, you can see why Keckley remembered them fondly.
This is a perfectly dreadful novel about the beautiful Evangelina Cisneros, whose imprisonment in Cuba by Spanish authorities, became a cause celebre in the U.S. before the Spanish American War. Cisneros was an enigmatic figure, and Ephron's novel merely sinks the story in more murk and ambiguity in a narrative that is devoid of any real tension or interest. Some nice period touches, but these don't save the book.
A Wrinkle in Time ***1/2
by Madeleine L'Engle
I might have given this book higher marks were I 45 years younger. It's a lively story about a Meg, a teenage girl, her eerily intelligent baby brother, Charles Wallace, and Meg's friend Calvin, who set out with three old ladies to rescue Meg's father, who is imprisoned in a dystopian alternate universe.
I realize this is a YA classic, and I like it's blend of literary allusions (everything from "Macbeth" to "The Wizard of Oz") and sci fi. However, I think a lot of that completely escaped YA readers in the 1960s (it would have escaped me), and probably does so now.
Still, the book was ahead of its time for offering a heroine in Meg who is homely, brave, and brainy, and not in the least interested in impressing Calvin by being a damsel in distress.
UPDATE, February 9, 2015: Herman Melville's "Benito Cereno" is an interesting read based on a real slave mutiny in South America. Critics disagree over where Melville's sympathies lie. However, "Billy Budd" and "Moby Dick" suggest (at least in my view) that Melville was continuing to explore notions of loyalty and community. The ship serves as a microcosm for human society. Nobody aboard any of Melville's ships is ever entirely innocent (not even Billy Budd, in his blind rage), but nobody is ever beyond redemption, either.
"Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House" by Elizabeth Keckley is the sad autobiography of Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker. Keckley was famous in Washington, D.C., among political wives. Mrs. Jefferson Davis was one of her customers, and Mr. Davis urged Keckley to go South before the Civil War started so she could be with her own people. Keckley seemed to like the Davises. They were polite, brought Keckley new clients, and paid on time. Next to Mary Todd Lincoln, who latched on to Keckley as a personal nurse, messenger, and who bilked her out of money and took her away from paying customers, you can see why Keckley remembered them fondly.
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