Is this all we want from literature? To be able to say, "Wow, those days were awful!" with self-satisfied pearl clutching?
This book is false. This isIs this all we want from literature? To be able to say, "Wow, those days were awful!" with self-satisfied pearl clutching?
This book is false. This is not the way it was. Soldiers who returned from Vietnam were not treated unkindly or spat upon, there have been academic studies proving that only one percent ever encountered any scorn at all. Check Wikipedia for the myth.
There has never been any doubt that women were in Vietnam. Everyone who watches TV knows that where there is combat there will be MASH units complete with many women nurses and doctors. If we knew it, surely the army knew about it.
Terrible things happen doing war. When a writer pretends all of those terrible things happened to one person, it borders on ridiculous. We need to quit rewarding this sort of fake writing no matter how satisfying we may find it.
Also Miss Hannah please don't refer to those of us who protested the war as "dirty hippies." We were well educated college students using legal, peaceful protest to encourage our government to stop a war that was killing our friends and family by the thousands....more
I'm old, I was there in the 50's for the, "women can't be managers over men," "girls can't study draftinTake the hype with a grain of sodium chloride.
I'm old, I was there in the 50's for the, "women can't be managers over men," "girls can't study drafting or engineering ." I remember well the racism and sexism that went on daily.
But Bonnie Garmus forgets all the brilliant housewives who were organizational wizards, who did the bookkeeping for their husband's businesses, made clothes and curtains, cooked wonderful meals and made social changes through women's clubs. That was my mother. I also had a female doctor, an aunt who ran a financial business, and knew many women chemists who worked in the chemical plants in my town. Things weren't as terrible for the average woman as she wants us to believe.
A lot of things were unfair for women, but exaggerating them is false history. Lets not forget that those gender assignments resulted in thousands of young men dying in wars while women stayed home. Men worked for ten hours a day in factories and coal mines. The patriarchy always had a downside for men, too.
While trying to write a pro-feminist book Garmus managed to make every woman character, other than the protagonist, into a stupid, submissive, ugly person. She also stereotyped Christians in the most dishonest, bigoted, way I've ever seen. I've read Calvin's sophomoric argument against religion on message boards in a dozen forums. I wonder if she copied one of them word for word. At least the forums leave room for rebuttals.
Throughout the book we see beautiful, brilliant Elizabeth ever at the ready to spout her anachronistic social justice rants. Of course we never see her actually do anything for the downtrodden unless you count patronizing women through her show. Worse is her cooking lectures where she assumes superior knowledge over her listeners to a ridiculous degree.
Elizabeth spreads a message that science should replace religion, when it's perfectly possible to be a fan of science and a Christian at the same time. Ninety percent of Christian denominations believe in evolution and embrace new scientific discoveries.
Yet, if you read closely it's not science she worships but intelligence. She can't even toss out her random speech against Christians without saying they're all stupid. Education is a fine thing, but IQ is something we're largely born with. Demonizing the people with low IQ is as wrong as judging people based on race or gender and she does it over and over....more
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