04-21-2010, 04:49 PM | #31 | ||
It's about the umbrella
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I loved that description about the rain! Plus, the one below.
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04-21-2010, 09:42 PM | #32 |
The Dank Side of the Moon
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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.....
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04-21-2010, 11:59 PM | #33 |
It's about the umbrella
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This is a nonfiction book. It's about her life when first married and on their chicken farm.
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04-22-2010, 02:39 AM | #34 | ||
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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. |
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04-22-2010, 03:36 AM | #35 | ||
It's about the umbrella
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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. |
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04-22-2010, 03:49 AM | #36 |
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I personally think that the baby was fiction...
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04-22-2010, 04:28 AM | #37 | |
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04-22-2010, 05:19 AM | #38 |
The Dank Side of the Moon
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04-22-2010, 06:43 PM | #39 |
Bah, humbug!
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"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"? Last edited by WT Sharpe; 04-22-2010 at 08:09 PM. |
04-22-2010, 08:07 PM | #40 |
Bah, humbug!
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"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. Last edited by WT Sharpe; 04-22-2010 at 08:13 PM. |
04-22-2010, 10:07 PM | #41 |
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Well, I have finished the book. I can't say I had a lot of laughs reading it so I wouldn't class it in the 'humour' category.
Nevertheless I enjoyed it as a timepiece, describing the daily life on a chicken farm with all the good, bad and ugly. Yes, I noticed her obviously negative comments about natives Indians but I took it as a sign of her education and the time. Shame she didn't take some time and effort to get to know them better. I also noticed the 'darker' things like the roaming abortion provider, the drunk Natives, the near rape experience. Again - that were those days. At least she did describe them. I fell in love with the time & place due to the food she described - wow. But then I fell out of love even faster when realising the sacrifices she made for it: getting up at 4 am (I'm not always in bed by then), lots of chicken, hard work. The description of the neighbours seemed rather on opposite ends of the spectrum. I have no doubt I would be more on Ma Kettle end of the scale. I am glad I read this book. I am glad I finished it. But I sure consider it a misvote for the 'humour' category of the book club. |
04-24-2010, 10:07 AM | #42 |
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Looking at the the Wikipedia page for Betty McDonald adds some new perspective.
- The daughters, Anne and Joan, were real; not fiction - She wrote about her life with Bob while she was married to her second husband - Her divorce from Bob must not have been to amicable as there was no contact between them afterwards - She was sued by the real family portrayed as the Kettles |
04-25-2010, 09:47 PM | #43 | |||
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I rather enjoyed the book, it was a light, easy read, and it gave me a couple giggles. I read this thread before the book, and I expected some much darker events, but I found it ok. One of the only thing that really bothered me was the Indian bashing - cultural phenomenon or not, it made me cringe. The other thing that really annoyed me was the structure - or lack thereof - of the book. I'm all for unchronological narration, but the theme and sub-theme classification was so disorganized! I got the impression that Mrs MacDonald wrote a lot of individual events and stories on specific themes, then shuffled them to make them fit with the season theme. (that was my first participation in the Book Club, ladies and gentlemen!) Last edited by Verencat; 04-25-2010 at 09:49 PM. |
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04-26-2010, 07:38 PM | #44 | ||
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Well, good job - hope you stick around |
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04-27-2010, 10:33 PM | #45 | |||
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