<p>^^SouthJerseyChessMom: I linked to that review upthread yesterday, but couldn’t get it to copy onto my post. Thank you!!!</p>
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But I wonder: Is there a delightful carelessness to a first book? An energy that seems to be audacity but may, in fact, just be naivet</p>
<p>alh, there are many midwesterners/northerners here, and we value your perspective as a southerner. Don’t hold back on voice or anything else! </p>
<p>SJChessMom, thanks for the links—all very interesting, particularly your last post from the California Literary Review.</p>
<p>Has anyone read any reviews/comments/interviews about The Help by contemporary (female) black authors? Especially those raised in the south? I did a quick Google search without success, but it seems like there should be some commentary out there somewhere from those authors regarding both the accuracy and the “right” of Stockett’s use of voice.</p>
<p>I was also struck by the quote alh posted above re the “audacity” of a first book.</p>
<p>I think that quote would apply to many other authors in addition to Stockett. I’m going a little off-topic here, but doesn’t it seem like there are writers who have created something brilliant/controversial/complex with their first novels, but then subsequent works never quite measured up? (Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones…and so on). Why is that? It will be interesting to see what Stockett produces after The Help.</p>
<p>Thanks to Mary13 for starting the CC Book Club - great idea. I’m somewhat slow in posting my thoughts - again - but I spent the weekend away from home.</p>
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<p>I thought of Hilly as the stereotypical “mean girl” or “queen bee” - the stereotype existing because the “queen bee” exists. Usually we think of “mean girls” in the middle school or high school setting, but I have no trouble picturing Hilly starting young and then not relinquishing that role in her League setting.</p>
<p>Hilly loved her children. Does that make her a good mother? I find that question difficult. Minnie loved her children. Did that make her a good mother? She stayed in an abusive relationship. Skeeter’s mother: she loved Skeeter - I think, but man, what a complicated relationship. However, poor Mae Mobley - as a toddler, she already sensed a lack of love. Elizabeth clearly wasn’t a good mother - that’s the question that easy to answer.</p>
<p>Did the “help” love the children they helped raise. Easy answer for me: probably, some more than others, depending on the child. I taught kindergarten - I find it easy to give your heart to a child. After waving goodbye on the last day of each year, I would go to the teacher’s bathroom and shed a few tears. Hmm, maybe that’s why I don’t discount Hilly’s love for her children. I met parents I didn’t particularly like, but I knew the child was loved and that’s what counted. The unloved child always broke my heart. </p>
<p>I plan to post again later re “voice” as my Louisiana grandmother employed Alice and immediately after giving my grandmother my obligatory welcome hug, I would hightail it to the kitchen and spend as much time with Alice as possible.</p>
<p>^ I think the complexity of the relationships that you’ve described is one of the books greatest strengths. Characters aren’t purely good or purely evil…each is trying to find his or her way in a world that is unjust and slow to change. </p>
<p>In response to an earlier post:</p>
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<p>In the Acknowledgments, Stockett writes, “I took liberties with time, using the song “The Times They Are A-Changin,’” even though it was not released until 1964, and Shake ‘n Bake, which did not hit the shelves until 1965. The Jim Crow laws that appear in the book were abbreviated and taken from actual legislation that existed, at various times, across the South. Many thanks to Dorian Hastings and Elizabeth Wagner, the incredibly detailed copy editors, for pointing out these, my stubborn discrepancies, and helping me repair many others.”</p>
<p>In addition to the above, an online reviewer pointed out that Stockett also used the word “hippie.” (If I recall correctly, that’s how Stuart referred to his former girlfriend.) According to Wikipedia, “the first clearly contemporary use of the term appeared in print on September 5, 1965, in the article, “A New Haven for Beatniks”, by San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon.” The Help is set in 1962. </p>
<p>I’m not a writer and don’t know anything about the relationships between copy editors and authors, but I would think Dorian and Elizabeth would have pushed a little harder for Kathryn Stockett to repair the anachronisms. Why did Stockett insist on being admittedly “stubborn” about them? I’m as big a fan of Dylan as the next gal, but it seems like there would have been a plethora of wonderful (if less well-known) songs to choose from that were written before 1962. Again, maybe this is part of the “carelessness” of the first novelist mentioned earlier. If Stockett really never expected her book to get much attention (as she claims), then minor anachronisms might not have seemed important to her at the time of publication. As a reader, they didn’t bother me because I wasn’t even aware of them until after I’d finished the novel.</p>
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@alh: don’t eat the pie!!!</p>
<p>^ LOL :eek: !!</p>
<p>But Mary, as someone who grew up during that decade, those anachronisms leapt out at me. I thought it was probably analogous to the type of mistake I might make if I decided to write a novel set in the 40s and didn’t do my research. The “hippie” reference was particularly jarring – it wasn’t just the word being used, it was the whole idea that the girlfriend had gone out to the west coast to hang out with a long-haired guy before the Beatles challenged cultural norms with their mop-top look. (In 1962, men wore crew cuts – the counter-culture were beatniks, who wore crew cuts with neatly trimmed little beards – you didn’t see much hair anywhere).</p>
<p>There was a sea change in the way people looked, acted, and spoke in the 60s, and that sea change was closely tied and caught up in the civil rights movement – at least in my mind I can’t separate them out. I grew up in west Texas, not the deep south, but attitudes about (and toward) women were shifting in the 60’s along with attitudes about race. So I can’t really buy the idea of a group of women living with 1962 mindsets along with 1966 cultural references – it may only be a few short years, but they were the years that everything changed.</p>
<p>Back with thoughts about Celia and her relationship with Johnny.</p>
<p>I think Celia chases the approbation of Hilly and her minions because she wants to please Johnny. Perhaps some insecurity exists because she and Johnny had to marry. The miscarriage ends the pregnancy but not the marriage. For Celia, the world which she enters into upon marriage isn’t one she’s used to navigating, and it seems that Johnny wants her to make friends. Unfortunately, for Celia, the women Johnny suggests aren’t ever going to be receptive to Celia. I think the book picks a time in Celia’s life where she feels like a failure - and eventually thinks that the best thing for Johnny might be for her to leave. At the end of the book, I think Celia starts regaining lost ground, in terms of just who she is - and maybe in a few years, “Watch out, Hilly.” Minnie can certainly help with that process.</p>
<p>I think Johnny definitely appreciates the Marilyn Monroe looks, but loves Celia the woman. I can’t imagine Hilly going to any effort to change herself for Johnny. I have a feeling Johnny’s looks and money fit the image Hilly had when she pictured herself with a husband, but I’m not sure I consider that love. Johnny probably recognizes the difference also.</p>
<p>calmom, I can see how the anachronisms would be a drawback and a distraction for you. I was only a grade-schooler in the 1960’s—that decade is fuzzy for me and Stockett’s errors didn’t leap out as I read. However, I do now see this as a flaw in the novel, even if didn’t affect my initial enjoyment. So tell me, how or why do you think this happened? Simple carelessness or human error doesn’t seem like a reasonable excuse for a book released by a major publisher with multiple copy editors. Stockett’s Acknowledgment page suggests that she was told of the errors, but nonetheless chose to include them. She does not, however, explain why she made this choice. </p>
<p>ignatius, Johnny was one of those peripheral characters that I wish had been more fleshed out, but I guess there are limits on how many pages the author can devote to a minor character. If I had to fill in the blanks, I would say that he married Celia because he had to, but stayed married because he found he wanted to. My problem with Johnny is that he was clueless. Surely someone who knew Hilly as well as he did would know that mixing Hilly and Celia would be like oil and water, a disaster waiting to happen. If he had any sense, he would have gently directed Celia toward another group of friends. Maybe he was just so much in love with her that he thought everyone else would be, too. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. :)</p>
<p>I loved how all of the “big stories” of the book were wrapped up, but I found myself still wanting to know more about Celia’s story and to see how it would play out. I also wanted to be able to peer into the future to see how Hilly’s power based would likely dissolve in the coming years with those who had been afraid to stand up to her rethinking their behavior; for example, the character who always wore the long sleeves that Skeeter thought had psoriasis and who admitted to mental health challenges by the end and noted how her maid had been her rock during hard times.</p>
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<p>Johnny defines “clueless.” 
Partly I think Celia chooses not to share her difficulties; she defines “try, try again.” While Johnny seems aware of the differences between Celia and Hilly, mostly he thinks the differences in Celia’s favor. I also think that Hilly disguises her cruelty so that if you blink you miss it - unless you are the target. Remember how she knocks Skeeter off her League newspaper position. Only a few members catch what Hilly’s really doing. When Hilly makes the slur about Johnny meeting Celia selling hot dogs at an LSU game, Johnny frowns and Hilly pats his arm with an “I’m an old friend so I can say it” remark - and she waits til Celia isn’t present. Hilly spreads the rumors about Minnie stealing - only Minnie the target has the insight to know Hilly’s cruelty. In addition, I doubt that Johnny has another group of women that he can steer Celia toward. He dated Hilly in high school and seems from that same societal set. Still - painfully clueless.</p>
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Well, I have to say that the men of Jackson certainly seem to understand. ;)</p>
<p>Mary – I don’t know the “why” of the anachronisms. I can see why the author would feel that Dylan song lyrics were important – that is, that at that moment in the narrative it was important to punctuate that idea that times are changing – but I couldn’t figure the point of the hippie reference. </p>
<p>Anyway, its no big deal, it just is something that detracted from the overall sense of authenticity for me.</p>
<p>I’ll never look at chocolate pie the same… that whole “great awful” thing was brillant.</p>
<p>I had no dessert yesterday at all :(</p>
<p>Ignatius wrote:
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<p>I’m waaaaaaiting… :)</p>
<p>Ok…My Book club is comin’ to my house in a few days to discuss The Help. We have been meeting for 19 years once a month and we have read a pretty great list of books in that many years. I think there are two former Junior League Presidents in my group! We are also in a Southern state. It is my turn to be hostess.</p>
<p>I need help. I have paper down on all the floors and some mess in the house and construction underway and don’t feel like cooking much. Every day is a blur at the moment. I haven’t read but about 30 pages of The Help. Not sure I am a fan yet but I admit it is breezy and confidant sounding so far. So far the black characters seem more authentic than the white characters. But since I haven’t read it, I am not saying I know anything much.
We usually in fact order box dinners or such and all chip in 7-8 dollars or so…and the hostess does not have to go to an awful lot of trouble unless she just feels like cooking herself. Chocolate desert and wine and beer are regarded as the requirements. </p>
<p>No one will be mad at me if I do boring take out. However, I would like to be a bit more charming. I have read the scenes at the beginning re Ice Tea, some kind of egg dish and lessons in frying chickens and cooking green beans, but I am not going to be finished with the book before the meeting. </p>
<p>For Love in the Time of Cholera, we sipped Anisette and for Eudora Welty’s Member of the Wedding, we all wore bridesmaids dresses from eons ago languishing in our closets and there was a wedding punch served. sometimes we do get a bit theme ish re food.</p>
<p>Anyone have menu suggestions for my Book Club that might be fun tie-ins? </p>
<p>thanks, ya’ll.</p>
<p>You have to make a chocolate pie. :)</p>
<p>I quickly devoured The Help more than six months ago, when it first appeared on bookstore shelves. I felt that Stockett did a phenomenal job with the voices in the book. As a black women who was born into the segregated south (I’m 53yrs old), I find the voices of Minnie and Aibileen satisfyingly authentic, as I’ve known women who resembled them both. When they were young women, my mother and virtually all my aunts worked as domestics off and on. I remember eavesdropping on conversations during which they compared notes about the various white families for whom they cleaned. I personally don’t have a problem with Stockett presuming to speak in the voices of these women because that’s what writer’s do—if they’re any good, they have the ability to empathize their way into characters very different than themselves. They recognize what is fundamentally human in each of their characters and imagine how various social forces and historical circumstances shape the human heart. I don’t get the sense of outrage some people have expressed over Stockett’s audacity to speak in the voices of black domestics of the early sixties, their questioning of whether or not she had a “right”. In my view, a writer has a right to speak in any voice they feel capable of capturing. Heck, writers have written compellingly from the point of view of various animals (dogs, horses, cats and others), and been lauded for it. Why is it only when someone writes from the POV of someone of a different race, religion or ethnicity that people question their “right” to do so? I honestly don’t get it.</p>
<p>As an aside, while reading The Help, I was reminded of another book I read many years earlier. It’s a sociological study of sorts, which features numerous interviews with AfAm women who worked as domestics in the segregated south. I wondered if Ms. Stockett had the occasion to read this book prior to writing her novel. Though published by Temple University Press in 1987, it’s still available through Amazon.com.
[Amazon.com:</a> Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers (Labor And Social Change) (9780877224914): Judith Rollins: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Between-Women-Domestics-Employers-Social/dp/0877224919/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266367860&sr=1-9]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Between-Women-Domestics-Employers-Social/dp/0877224919/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266367860&sr=1-9)</p>
<p>Poetsheart, congratulations on being able to plod through that one! I just read the first paragraph and got bogged down already. Really:</p>
<p>“Any efforts to destroy relationships of domination must take the social-psychological dimensions of that domination into full account or, as history suggests, any more egalitarian economic arrangements that are established will eventuate into only new hierarchical forms.”</p>
<p>I’d rather read The Help!</p>
<p>poetsheart, great post. Thank you. And even apart from your convincing argument re “that’s what writers do,” there’s also the point that shouting down an author who produces a controversial work would be wrong from a free speech perspective, too. Yet I do understand why people question the “right” of an author to assume a particular voice. I think the questioning is done out of good faith—out of a desire to show respect for people who have suffered a great deal. If the writing is done right, wonderful, but if it’s done wrong, I imagine it could be hurtful or offensive. I’m trying to think of another example here…What if a man wrote a book in the first person voice of a woman who’d been raped? I wouldn’t deny him his right to do so, but I would want there to be a lot of conversation about why he chose to do this, and how well he accomplished the task. I think that’s the sort of dialogue that’s happening with The Help and I see it as a good thing.</p>