| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
Tom Chaney: R725: The Help, the book behind the movie Of Writers and Their Books. Book Review by Tom Chaney The Help. by Kathryn Stockett. First printed 18 July 2010, reprinted now because of the buzz about the movie, The Help . The next earlier Tom Chaney Of Writers and Their Books column,Tom Chaney R724: Centre 6 - Harvard 0 By Tom Chaney Unseen Women I have just finished a most disturbing novel. It is The Help by Kathryn Stockett [G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2009]. Stockett, who is a young, white, woman from Jackson, Mississippi, has written about black servants in white families in the early 1960's in Jackson. The narrator in the novel is Miss Skeeter Phelan, a young, aspiring writer who decides to write about the black, female servants in the homes of her friends. The novel's three voices are those of Skeeter; Aibileen; and Minny -- house servant to Miss Hilly, a college classmate of Miss Skeeter. Hilly is villain enough for black and white Jackson alike. She campaigns to have Jackson ladies install extra toilets so delicate white derrieres are not placed where black butts have sat. Her Junior League ignores the poverty at home and raises money for "the Poor Starving Children of Africa." So Skeeter elects to persuade these women to tell their stories. Into those stories comes occasional news of the outside world. Medger Evers is shot in the same town. Rosa Parks rides, seated, in a bus nearby. And Aibileen helps her latest white charge to pretend a sit-in at Woolworth's. Bob Dylan even breaks into Skeeter's world singing "The Times They Are A-Changing" filling the narrator with optimism. I reckon she didn't listen to the whole album or she would have heard him sing "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." In that song William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie CarrollAnd the judge handed out strongly, for penalty and repentanceThe novel is compelling -- I liked it a lot -- but it is also disturbing from several directions. Stockett's Ebonics doesn't ring true even to my numb, 72-year-old white ears, and the fact that she is gratified by favorable reaction to The Help, suggests that "I think they were surprised that someone finally wrote about it." "Well," remarks Natalie Hopkinson, a black reviewer, "do you suppose she means they were surprised that someone white finely wrote about it?" And then Hopkinson proceeds to tell me and other ignorant white readers about the Blanche White series by black writer Barbara Neely who does, she opines, get the Ebonics right. Stockett has bravely ventured into turbid waters coming out pretty well on the other side. Her idea of this novel is somewhat akin to one written by a gentile writer trying to get inside the mind of a holocaust victim. We, as readers, are prepared to follow a novelist into the mind and world of a Roman emperor or any historical figure removed from us in culture and time. But I want to squinch about when I read of a white southern writer attempting to fathom the mind of contemporary black folks. Before I call this novel a "Help"ful failure, I have got to read Barbara Neely and return to Walter Mosley. There is a movie of The Help coming -- maybe it is already released -- I'd like to see it. The New York Times review of The Help began by reminding readers of Hattie McDaniel who won an Academy Award for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind: "Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making $7 a week being one." Her choices were limited. Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, planning his next meal, and occasionally selling books at THE BOOKSTORE Box 73 / 111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749. Phone (270) 786-3084. email: Tom Chaney bookstore@scrtc.com The BOOKSTORE This story was posted on 2011-08-28 08:37:17
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books:
Tom Chaney R724: Centre 6 - Harvard 0 Tom Chaney: R723: A review of Absolute Power Tom Chaney R722: The evil of ignorance Tom Chaney No. R721: Confusing the surface with layer underneath Tom Chaney No. R720. a review of Hannah Coulter Tom Chaney No. R719. Review of A Heckuva Job Tom Chaney No. R718: Robert Worth Bingham Tom Chaney: R717: Wm. Ellis, The Kentucky River, a review Tom Chaney: No. R716: A Grisham Addiction Tom Chaney: No. R715- Summertime reading View even more articles in topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
