Discussion: The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald (spoliers)
 

Hey folks... lets get this party started. What did you think of this book. Did it make you smile, snicker, giggle, lol?

BOb

I'd like to add another question.

Do you think the book was more enjoyable (to you) due to having some experience with the situations described in the book or enjoyable due to having heard family stories about growing up in that era?

I haven't finished, but I find it a very entertaining read, but sometimes boring :eek: I've read a few other books in between.

I think there's a lot in there which is more funny to females than to males, such as her stillborn bread (I've made one of those as well in the early days of being married).

As an animal lover I don't understand how she can hate chickens, but I expect it's easier to chop their heads off if you do.

I have smiled, giggled and even laughed.

I think it was more enjoyable for me due to me being a woman.. :p

Betty MacDonald nicely captured my memories of growing up on a farm before electric power was connected. Some of the narrative was idealized (living between neighbors falling at two behavioral extremes), but she got the raw parts right. Humor was what made things bearable.

Chickens are not bright but they do have standards. One is pecking order. I used to confound them by dropping a big pile of feed in front of the chicken at the bottom of the pecking order and watch her struggle with an ethical dilemma until the top hens rushed over and took their share. How many people could do this?

I am surprised at how negative she is about her neighbors. I "flipped" back to the beginning to see if names were changed but I didn't see it. "Ma Kettle" sounds too much like the TV character of the same name.

The story makes me glad I have a nice cushy 8-5 job in a climate controlled office.

Yes! The discussion has started! Two days earlier than expected! (Well, a day and 52 minutes earlier, to be precise.)

As a comedic work, I found it lacking. There were moments of mirth, to be sure, and some interesting comedic descriptions of people, things, and events here and there, but as a whole I was disappointed in that regard. What it lacked in humor, however, I felt it made up in realism and characterization. You could almost see the dirt under the nails that planted and smell the sweat of the workers who toiled. The neighbors seemed like people you knew, or had at least met more than once. And I learned that next time I plant potatoes, make sure at least 3 eyes are in the slice planted!

Well, it wasn't quite a comedy as I expected, but it wasn't decidedely un-funny either. As I got about 2/3 in, I felt it started to drag and get boring.

She comes across as a social, well-educated person, and it can't have been all that funny for a 19-20 year old girl like her to be dragged to the back of beyond by her new husband. She's done quite a good job of presenting it all in a positive light.

I can't see she's especially negative about her neighbours. As with everyone else, including herself and her husband, she creates comedic characters out of people. As far as I understand, she quite liked the Kettle's. It wasn't as if she could do much in eth way to choose her company, she had to make the best of what was available.

I'm only half way through, so maybe the tone changes further in. But, so far, she describes the Kettles as lazy and filthy. Her description of her other neighbors focused on the wife's obsession with her inner body malfunctions and the wife's mother as being annoying.

I did get a chuckle out of Bob going over there to argue and finding Mrs. Kettle sitting in the open outhouse doing her business.

But what if they were lazy and filthy? She also describes the Kettle's as friendly and she appears to generally like/accept them. Perhaps you should hasten to read the rest of the book ;)

"Ma Kettle" sounds like the TV character, because the TV-Character was modeled after the Ma Kettle from the book :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_and_Pa_Kettle

Ma and Pa Kettle are comic characters who first appeared in the 1945 best-selling novel The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald about life on a chicken farm. She based them on real-life farming neighbors[1] in Washington state, U.S.A. In 1947, Universal Pictures adapted it into a film starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, with Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride as the Kettles. After positive audience reaction, Ma and Pa Kettle and their fifteen children became the subject a series of their own very popular comic films.

Betty MacDonald's characters Ma and Pa Kettle also appeared in television's first comedy serial, The Egg and I, which aired on CBS (September 3, 1951-August 1, 1952)[6]. Each episode was only 15 minutes long. Ma Kettle was played by Doris Rich and Pa Kettle was played by Frank Twedell. Betty Lynn (better known as Barney Fife's girlfriend Thelma Lou from The Andy Griffith Show) played Betty MacDonald in some episodes, including "Pa Turns Over A New Leaf" (which aired on May 21, 1952).

The 1980 satire film Loose Shoes (which also starred Bill Murray) included a sketch called "A Visit With Ma and Pa" where Ma Kettle was played by Ysabel MacCloskey and Pa Kettle was played by Walker Edmiston.

Animator Walter Lantz produced a short-lived cartoon series for Universal Pictures called "Maw and Paw," though only four cartoons were released between 1953 and 1955. The characters Maw and Paw (voiced by Grace Stafford and Dal McKennon) were based on the characters of Ma and Pa Kettle. The spellings of Maw and Paw Kettle appeared in the 1945 book [The Egg and I].


Oh, and I thorougly enjoyed reading the book, and had to chuckle quite often - even without personal chicken background ;)

I liked the part where they as children try to find out where babies come from, where the sister Mary end up proclaiming:
:rofl:

In another part the husband Bob and Betty herself hopes that working under pressure will make here more efficient and structured which ends with the following conclusion:
Two things in the book keeps coming back:
The relation to food in all it forms and Stove on which the food is prepared, you sure get a lot of reports on the stove all throughout the book.

To sum it all up from Bettys' perspective on hens:
Finally at the end Betty hopes for some not so early mornings when they're planning to move to a more modern house and Bob concludes this with:
:smack:

Yes, the food, I noticed that, too, and I felt not a little envy over all that fresh food she had access to :p

Ah the food. America! what a Wonderful Food! The seafood, the venison. Actually she potted it. No mention of scallops though. Maybe they do not have scallops on the West Coast. I have not finished the book yet. You started a little before the time. Never mind. I have been waiting this discussion for a long time. Go on please. I will catch up.

Speaking of food; I was disgusted when she described how her neighbors would boil everything. In one scene she was invited to dinner and they boiled a standing rib roast. Criminal!

The theme that struck me was time. Up at 4:00 AM and working until 7:00 PM. Yet, she also described days at the beach digging clams, etc. Also, I wondered how they managed while she was in the hospital for a couple of weeks for the birth of her girl.

Lila55: That is interesting about Ma and Pa Kettle. I didn't know those characters sprung from the book. I did not realize that the book had that much of an impact.

Darker things...
 

I'm surprised no one's commented on the darker observations she made in the novel, like the roaming hack abortion provider, the child molesting (hinted at) abusive and constantly drunk native Americans, and when she described a near-rape scene at her home one night.

Somehow everyone seems to be just not mentioning these parts of the story and focusing on the snicker-smile aspects of the farming life. I read into these parts a little more and thought about the darker side of living where and when she did...I'm just saying...

Overall I did not think the book was "funny" at all necessarily, and got tired of the constant anthropomorphism (sp?), "the mountain lifted her skirt, etc. etc."

I thought the book was interesting enough and am glad I took the time to read it, as I'm often in that area for work and for camping, fishing, etc. and it is the most beautiful country you could imagine.

For humor though, please do yourselves a favor and read Confederacy of Dunces, hilarious.

I just read Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and you're right. It is rip-roaring funny. Since the voting I also read Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse, which was funny in a Jeeves and Bertie way. Actually, it basically was a Jeeves and Bertie story, except it didn't have Jeeves, or Wooster, or any of the usual gang of supporting characters; but change the names, and there you are. I will say this for The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald: I believed that she had spent time on a chicken farm, whereas I felt that a chicken farm was just a backdrop for the Wodehouse story; and whether or not he had any personal experience with a chicken farm, it certainly seemed more like a slightly researched setting for a story rather than something of which he had actual knowledge.

I'm also now reading Lamb by Christopher Moore, and so far it's had more laugh-out-loud moments in the first three chapters than the entire text of The Egg and I.

I noticed it, too, I just hadn't got to it yet, okay ;) :) Anyway, I those observations were part of what made it less funny for me, and when I read it, I wished she'd brought it more out. Would have given the story more substance.

She also has a little girl, Anne, whom she infrequently mentions, at least in the first 70% of the book...

Anne could be the perfect baby, and therefore not requiring a mention.... I reckon that she would be at least 1 year old at 70% - surely (even at 6 months old) she would be part of the household as much as the other babies.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Before I began, I did some background reading about the time period and location, so I would have a better understanding of the context of the situations.

Here are some pictures of the area around that time. {Click on the picture to make it larger}
Attachment 50122A homestead Attachment 50123A potato patch

Attachment 50124Logging advancement with a "truck" Attachment 50125A saw mill where men could earn extra money

I agree it wasn't always laugh out loud (then again not everyone sees humor the same way), but I was able to picture her descriptions in my mind. It was like seeing a movie in my head as she described clothing and shoes trying to dry, getting water for the wash, starting the stove and running to do chores in between.

I spoke to my mom about this time period and she agreed that the only way you could make it though a day sometimes was to laugh about situations.

It must of been a complete shock to "do" for herself and be so far away from "civilized" people. From what I read about the background of this book, her stories about living in the backwoods were hilarious to others.

I grew up listening to my grandmother speak of living in Oklahoma and Missouri (dust bowl times) and moving to California (Steinbeck country). It was a never ending, day after day, struggle to just keep up and survive. Women (and men) gossiped while doing daily chores. Everyone knew everyone's business and freely entered houses and borrowed from others if something was needed.

If you didn't grow it, harvest it, and can it, you may not have any food during the winter. The stove was "life": heat for the house, to dry clothing, cooking, boil water for the wash, heat up the iron to iron the good clothes and tablecloths that the neighbors would see during "visits".

Excitement was taking a bath, dressing up, and going to "town". It was pretty much a full day trip to get to town, pick up supplies, and get back, but you were able to "see" other people and things. Maybe even bought material to make a dress or shirt.

The "darker aspects" that were mentioned, were just that. Something that was a part of life then as they are today. At least now days we have laws that help protect and support victims. Back then it was still accepted that a man would sometimes beat his wife and children, that a man would drink, that some how it was the woman at fault if she was raped, and a woman pretty much needed a man in order to live away from her parents. Most everyone knew what was going on, talked about it, but really didn't interfere in other people's "business". Divorce was just not "done". It truly was viewed as shameful if you could even get granted a divorce.

It was probably a more enjoyable read for me due to having grown up listening to stories of the time and having some experience with the situations. We had chickens and rabbits (Yuck, plucking and skinning), grew, harvested, and canned fruit and vegetables every year, sewed most of our clothing, lived outside of town, hung out the wash, etc.

Thanks for the pictures and the long post :) It's the kind of life most of my ancestors would have had (almost all peasants), but perhaps because it's a story from a land far away, I didn't immediately think of it. Your post helped to remind me of it. My fathers old enough to remember having plowed with horses when he first went into service on a farm as a teenager.

What a nice comment you gave as, Dreams. So generous of you, as always.

To me also the book is very pleasant to read. I have not finished as I enjoy it and I want to taste carefully its flavors. It is not a great book, whichever way one looks at it. But ...

The book took me right in a pre milk shakes time. Let me share my notes.

Expressions like "untrammeled girlishness" make me more than giggle. A whirling crowd of aunts, she cousins (cousinesses?), sisters, friends of sisters, sisters of friends came to my mind at set it to a nostalgic, admired and amused state.

"There is one thing about the chicken business: if a hen is lazy or uncooperative or disagreeable you can chop off her head and relieve the situation once and for all."
1) What a useful metaphor if one substitutes the word chicken with a choice from the list {coworker, relative, repair man, tennis partner, bridge partner, et alia ad libitum}.
2) I like this "once and for all". Very feminine. All the commanding women in my life have used it to fence off my masculine promptitude to ... postponement.

"It rained at least three of the seven days a week..". It is not so much the Cold Rain Forest climate that impresses me as the need to make clear the exact number of days in a week. My older daughter (35 and she made a grandad of me just few months ago) keeps admiring me because I can compute 10% of 100 without a glitch. She has a degree in science by the way.
Unless she wanted to express 3/7 which I have yet to encounter in the funny systems of Anglo Saxon's.

"Bats hanging upside down in the cellar, flying in the open bedroom windows" Reading this I remember the first time I heard a real scream, the one that my younger aunt let go in the middle of the night because she thought to have a bat entrapped in her coiffure.

An other reason for constant mirth is the description of the bossy and insensitive behaviors of dear Hubby and the obvious pleasures she has in his company. Mysteries of the feminine soul.

I totally disapprove of putting green peppers in the chowder.

Here's a line from the book worth pondering:

Why do more or less intelligent people go on honeymoons, anyway? I have yet to find a couple who enjoyed theirs.

My wife and I chose to forgo a honeymoon and instead go directly to setting up our home after reading about how honeymoons can add to the trauma that results from the major life change of marriage. After all this time, I can't begin to give the source for that article; but in terms of real life consequences, I suppose that fact that we've been married now for over 37 years should count for something.

Wouldn't that depend on what you put into the idea of a honeymoon? Among my friends and family I guess what could sum it up, is that it's an extra nice holiday, scheduled around the wedding. So no extra stress, just a nice trip together to an exotic destination. But this is of course a more modern definition, from people who are used to travelling to foreign countries and and have lived together in a relationship well before marriage already. It would have been much different in the time Betty MacDonald married.

I found a few more pictures. :) {click to make bigger}

Attachment 50157Attachment 50158Attachment 50159

I moved to Oregon during the late 70's and remember the weather during my time there as: raining, just rained, and going to rain. There was a t-shirt for tourists that said: "Oregonians don't tan, they rust." I can understand her feelings about the rain and just trying to have clean, dry clothing and shoes everyday.

The social class structure was interesting and somewhat carried over to present day. Yes, there was prejudice for "dirty Indians" (I'm part Indian) who did nothing much but drink (they usually couldn't get decent jobs off the reservation), but also "town folk" (small local towns), "city folk" (big cities), "backwoods", "hicks", "hillbillies", "white trash", etc.

When I read PG Wodehouse's book, Love Among the Chickens, I noted the class structure and found it funny that even though they were suppose to be "chicken farmers", there was still time to play golf and socialize with those of your social (or near social) standing.

I have a feeling that Betty's stories were toned down a bit for her book. I'm sure that the stories she told to her "city" friends went into a lot more detail and contained a lot more prejudicial comments about "backwoods folk" than what was published.

:chinscratch: I'm beginning to think the reason I liked this book was that it was like some of the stories that I heard from my family.

That is my impression also and what I read in Ea's comments. This is very good in a book. The evoking power. Touching? Reaching?

I think she aimed at writing a 'light', entertaining, and sale-able book. Not too serious, but I'm not sure whether she would be so much less prejudiced in the book than in real life. At the time it was published, would people have noticed? And maybe I'm going to sound cluless, but how prejudiced is she actually? Compared to the current level then? Compared to today? I find it difficult to gauge.

I also thought it was a book written for the general population, but still toned down.

According to my grandmother and mother, prejudice wasn't so "politically incorrect" back then. They just didn't like "them" people or thought "poorly" of "them" people. It wasn't until I was in my preteens and teens that it became embarrassing to be with my grandmother around others. When we tried to explain why she couldn't refer to people that way, she just thought it was a "load of ****". She never could understand why all of a sudden it was wrong.

I don't feel that Betty was any more or less prejudiced than people today. I just think that we have been made more aware of the fact that it is (possible lawsuits) and have learned to be careful of what we say and how we say it. I think what people of today see as prejudice in the book was (like you mentioned) probably not even noticed then. (Today, I cringe when I think about some of the terms my grandmother used to describe people.)

Both books made me very aware of how lucky I am to be living in this era with all the conveniences we have to make everyday living so easy.:)

Well, I've now finished, and I was happy to see that her daughter had a little more part in the last 30% of the book, even though we didn't get to know her personality (compared to all the different people and animals - even the nature!), and after the crazy woman had been around Anne smiled and lifted her arms up towards her mother.

I'm wondering if I have missed something about Betty's relationship with her baby daughter?

MacDonald's description of the weather reminded me of the month I spent in Washington. You learn pretty quickly to ignore the rain if you want to get out and see the sights.

It rained and rained and rained and rained. It drizzled—misted—drooled—spat—poured—and just plain rained. Some mornings were black and wild, with a storm raging in and out and around the mountains. Rain was driven under the doors and down the chimney, and Bob went to the chicken house swathed in oilskins like a Newfoundland fisherman and I huddled by the stove and brooded about inside toilets. Other days were just gray and low hanging with a continual pit-pat-pit-pat-pitta-patta-pitta-patta which became as vexing as listening to baby talk. Along about November I began to forget when it hadn't been raining and became as one with all the characters in all of the novels about rainy seasons, who rush around banging their heads against the walls, drinking water glasses of straight whiskey and moaning, "The rain! The rain! My God, the rain!"

I loved that description about the rain! Plus, the one below.

Which led me to smile when she wrote the below. :)

I haven't read the postings yet, and I tried reading more of the book today and I'm really just not getting into it....I think my brain is just stuck in non-fiction mode.....

This is a nonfiction book. It's about her life when first married and on their chicken farm. :)

You are both right, dear friend.

It is fiction in the sense of "narrative". It is nonfiction in the sense that it has not been invented, being about her life.

Dreams has given us fascinating details about that sort of life, with precious pictures and descriptions, and her personal testimony, through her grandmother. The egg and I plus dreams contributions becomes, not only in the eyes of dreams, almost an essay.

Personally I think that the book in itself is fiction. But I enjoyed dreams lore very much. I could also offer similar testimonies of rural lifestyles of those times, in an other geographical setting.

Thank you, beppe. It did read more like stories from my grandmother, which is probably why it was so enjoyable and easy for me to continue reading it.

I'd love to hear some. Ea's comment about her father with the plow horses was interesting also.

I think we tend to forget how lucky we are to live in a time with so many things to make everyday life easier to survive.

I personally think that the baby was fiction... :blink:

For what concern penicillin, and easy of moving around (volcanoes permitting), there is no doubt. For other things I am not so sure that we are better set up. My aunties and uncles for instance, and parents too (total of 11). They were kids or young people during the II WW. They were really hungry. The pictures show them very very slim. They, like everybody there, were in danger. But they were able to enjoy themselves. That generation is unique in the ability of being merry, with nothing. Now most of them are either dead or quite reduced in interactivity, but when they were, let's say functioning, they were the sparks of every party or social situation. Reversely, I belong to the golden Sons of the Flower generation. We have been free to do what we wanted, and to have "fun" with whatever and whomever we fancied. I observe my contemporaries and they just look aggravated. Back to "square" one. A part from the nice guys and girls of this site.:)

I think it's more fictionalized than non. But yes you are right.

"Tits herself appeared. She was a full-breasted young woman and, even though Mrs. Kettle had already explained that the name Tits was short for sister, I found it impossible to hear the name without flinching."
-- Betty MacDonald, The Egg and I.

Since when is "Tits" short for "sister"?

"The coast Indian is squat, bowlegged, swarthy, flat-faced, broad-nosed, dirty, diseased, ignorant and tricky."
-- Betty MacDonald, The Egg and I.

"Little red brothers or not, I didn't like Indians, and the more I saw of them the more I thought what an excellent thing it was to take that beautiful country away from them."
-- Betty MacDonald, ibid.


It's not difficult to see why the original residents of North America would find this book distasteful.