Steve’s review of The Egg and I (Betty MacDonald Memoirs, #1) > Likes and Comments
24 likes · Like
Common sense abounds in this review. How can an actual encounter and direct description of incidents be considered racist? It was a good book. I did some reading about the author and come to find out she did leave her husband after three years. I thought all the way through how hard he expected her to work. I didn't think it would work out for me!
The racism in this book is incredibly blatant - and very ugly. So much so that her daughters, decades later, apologized for it in a foreword written in subsequent editions of the book.
"How can an actual encounter and direct description of incidents be considered racist? "
If her remarks were based on 'actual encounters', I might have a different opinion, but they're not - they are sweeping judgements of an entire people group. For example: "The coast Indian is squat, bow-legged, swarthy, flat-faced, broad-nosed, dirty, diseased, ignorant and tricky." And that's one of her milder comments.
She also says "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."
Generalised vitriol is not 'direct description'.
If you read her subsequent memoir "The Plague and I" you'll see that her understanding of and tolerance for people of other races underwent a dramatic shift. In that book, she tells about the nine months she spent in a TB sanatorium, where people of all races and ethnicities lived in close proximity. She grew especially close to a Japanese-American girl and a black woman, and spoke up sharply at another patient's racist comments.
back to top
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Michelle
(new)
May 19, 2019 01:30AM
Common sense abounds in this review. How can an actual encounter and direct description of incidents be considered racist? It was a good book. I did some reading about the author and come to find out she did leave her husband after three years. I thought all the way through how hard he expected her to work. I didn't think it would work out for me!
reply
|
flag
The racism in this book is incredibly blatant - and very ugly. So much so that her daughters, decades later, apologized for it in a foreword written in subsequent editions of the book.
"How can an actual encounter and direct description of incidents be considered racist? "If her remarks were based on 'actual encounters', I might have a different opinion, but they're not - they are sweeping judgements of an entire people group. For example: "The coast Indian is squat, bow-legged, swarthy, flat-faced, broad-nosed, dirty, diseased, ignorant and tricky." And that's one of her milder comments.
She also says "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."
Generalised vitriol is not 'direct description'.
If you read her subsequent memoir "The Plague and I" you'll see that her understanding of and tolerance for people of other races underwent a dramatic shift. In that book, she tells about the nine months she spent in a TB sanatorium, where people of all races and ethnicities lived in close proximity. She grew especially close to a Japanese-American girl and a black woman, and spoke up sharply at another patient's racist comments.
