<p>I mostly agree with newccuser – I thought it was a pretty facile, feel good treatment of a topic that had profound influence on the lives of the woman who were involved both black and white.</p>
<p>Well, I’ve read Beloved, so I guess now I’ll have to read the book and compare. 
I liked Beloved, but I don’t think a book treating that kind of subject matter needs to be Beloved to have value.</p>
<p>Somehow I missed all the earlier hoopla about this book and haven’t read it, but now I will. Count me as another who grew up spending more time with my family’s black housekeepers than with my mother in my early years.
<p>I was too young to know or understand much of what was going on in the deep South in the early '60s, but I knew that bad men tried to hurt my father because he did things like helping a Catholic priest who worked with young black men; they telephoned death threats against him even after we moved to another state. My father was not from the South and he never met a black person until he was in the Army Air Corps in WW II, but he treated every one with respect and judged only by an individual’s character. </p>
<p>Anyway, I’m curious about the book but uncertain of how I’ll like it after reading some of the author’s interview remarks. It sounds like a book to borrow from the library rather than one to buy.</p>
<p>Definitely one to borrow, as there is no “replay” value in it ;)</p>
<p>“I don’t think a book treating that kind of subject matter needs to be Beloved to have value.”</p>
<p>I think I can agree with that (and also with the sentiment that not all needs to be Shakespeare). I think one reason why everyone seems to enjoy “The Help” is not because of the author’s actual technical writing skills (she doesn’t have much), but rather because of the times and perspectives she’s evoked from those who have had some sort of link with the era and theme themselves. Fair enough.</p>
<p>But with a “literary classic” like Beloved - it doesn’t have to resort to needing such a link to exist in order to speak to the reader emotionally. Morrison offers all the historical perspective of the period South, but also brings vivid multi-dimensional characters, prose, and plot development and requires critical thought from the reader - such that the book is able to contribute something to readers of all ages, races, and generations; not just those of the “my familiar lived in the South during this time, so I totally understand what Stockett is saying!” mold.</p>
<p>Well, just call me a “mid-age housewife”, etc etc (per newccuser’s post #15) because that book, for me, was not just an easy and engrossing read. It made me do a good deal of thinking about my own childhood and the things I wish I had been able to see and do something about…</p>
<p>Perhaps I will also enjoy the “much better, more high quality piece of literature” that newccuser suggested. Or maybe I am not high quality enough?</p>
<p>Not every book has to be fine literature. And thank goodness as a lot of fine literature is hardly ever read. Harry Potter certainly isn’t fine literature but the books are certainly beloved by many. The Help was/is enjoyed by many people and there is nothing wrong with that. I hope the movie is enjoyable too.</p>
<p>I have always wondered what African American women thought about it.</p>
<p>this thread is making me more intrigued to see the movie, especially after I checked out some of the actors involved.
Alison Janney, Sissy Spacek & Cicely Tyson?
sounds good.</p>
<p>I liked the book - it was a good summer read. However, I do think the characters are pretty shallow, and it’s not the Profound Statement on American Race Relations that some people I know want to make it out to be.</p>
<p>I probably won’t go see the movie but might catch it on Netflix later. For one thing, Hollywood southern accents always annoy me, especially in this case (I’m from the town - and indeed the neighborhood - where the book is set).</p>
<p>Anything, any medium, that get’s people thinking, talking, sharing, reflecting, discussing topics such as this, is valuable. If more people picked up this book because it wasn’t as heavy as others, so be it. Perhaps they talked about it with a friend. Maybe they didn’t agree. That’s okay as long as people are talking, and people are listening, then there is a chance we can move forward. Maybe because of this people were moved to share memories with younger family members who were too young to remember that time period. Perhaps you were not born yet but called an older family member who was to see if anything in the book resembled your family. These are good discussions to have and a good way to share history we can forget to pass down. So, yes it’s fiction, but if you start thinking about your own life and asking questions about your own family and others then it’s moved past the book and made even a small difference.</p>
<p>That’s my humble opinion…FWIW.</p>
<p>I also found The Help to be unimpressive and could never understand all the hoopla. I felt the story was a giant cliche–was anyone really not aware that black maids in the deep South were treated poorly notwithstanding their connections to the white children they cared for? This is basic American history, for goodness sake, and the subject has been addressed, often more interestingly, in books, movies and TV shows (“The Long Walk Home” with Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek comes to mind). I also felt many of the characters were caricatures and the plot melodramatic–I didn’t believe in Skeeter for one second. My guess is the movie will only highlight the book’s weaknesses. Different strokes, etc. (I found Beloved to be virtually unreadable, so perhaps I’m just hard to please.)</p>
<p>I really wanted to like The Help, but in the end I just couldn’t. It’s just one in too long a line of books written by white people trying to capture the black experience in the South. There is a lack of authenticity to it that I could not get beyond. Even the author of the book says she has no real idea what the experience was like for her family’s black maid but the book was her attempt at imagining it. </p>
<p>Yet I love “To Kill a Mockingbird” which, of course, was written by Harper Lee. I think it’s because I believed Scout’s perspective, which, of course, was Harper Lee’s own life experience as a child during that time in the South.</p>
<p>Which is not to say that one must have lived what they write. But in the case of “The Help”, I just didn’t buy into it.</p>
<p>What pugmadkate said. I had the same feeling about The Secret Life of Bees, which I thought was a much better written book. It just didn’t feel authentic. Harper Lee’s genius was that she understood that she could never relate the black experience, only the way she as white child experienced the world around herself.</p>
<p>I’m agreeing with pugmadkate and MommaJ on this one. I was bored with the book and unimpressed with the writing. But what bugged me the most was the poor writing of Southern dialect. Some writers do it very well but Stockett’s interpretation was pretty cliche, I thought. Half of my family is from Alabama so I know what I’m talking about in that respect.</p>
<p>I am looking forward to seeing it. Haven’t read the book, though.</p>