The way this memoir jumps around in time was a problem for me at first, but I suspect that's because I was reading very slowly. I'm not sure what the The way this memoir jumps around in time was a problem for me at first, but I suspect that's because I was reading very slowly. I'm not sure what the intention behind the time shifts was. Until it reaches the Rivonia trial, the narrative builds impressions of the Bernsteins' lives in South Africa during the period when all organisations, publications and individuals opposing apartheid were increasingly suppressed. Their house was raided numerous times, books and papers confiscated, meetings with their associates forbidden. Hilda's husband, Rusty (Lionel), was put under house arrest.
Bernstein's account shows how every avenue of peaceful protest against apartheid (or anything else for that matter) was closed. It also offers an interesting picture of what life was like for white South Africans. Only occasionally does her story reveal details of how she set herself against white-supremacy and apartheid (although her denial of any inherent racial inferiority is obviously the foundation of her activism); on holiday with her two youngest children and two children of a friend, she is challenged by a fellow guest in the hotel who praises the achievements of "the white man in Africa", saying "I suppose you don't agree". She agreed that the achievements were very great, but argued that now the whites must see that things were changing; they could not keep things frozen in time.
Rusty Bernstein was a defendant in the Rivonia trial (at which Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders and associates were sentences to life imprisonment) and Hilda provides a wonderful, detailed account of the trial which well describes the characters of the defendants and the judge, the defense counsel's skill and motivations for getting involved, as well as conveying her emotional experience. The progress of the story after the trial is gripping and I don't want to spoil it :)...more
At the outset of this memoir I was wondering how it could be so long... how could there be so much to say about the monotony of solitary confinement oAt the outset of this memoir I was wondering how it could be so long... how could there be so much to say about the monotony of solitary confinement or the struggle to survive in a labour camp without the account itself becoming tedious? One reason is Jenny's incredible memory. She never talks about her abilities or experiences as exceptional, but a number of episodes in the story reveal her literary knowledge and memory as outstanding. These talents, as well as resourcefulness, good luck, and the help of people who like her somehow kept their integrity, helped her to survive, sustaining her will, feeding her spirit. This book is one of those that shows you how much a person can survive and how much you the reader have to be grateful for. I felt every scene of it in my own body. ...more
'Oh Lester, let me do that! The idea of your darning stockings! It's dreadful enough your having to do the housework!'
'Eva darned them a good many yea
'Oh Lester, let me do that! The idea of your darning stockings! It's dreadful enough your having to do the housework!'
'Eva darned them a good many years,' he said, with some warmth, 'and did the housework. Why shouldn't I?' He looked at her hard and went on 'Do you know what you are saying to me...? You are telling me that you really think that home-making is a poor, mean, cheap job beneath the dignity of anybody who can do anything else.'
Mattie shouted indignantly, 'Lester Knapp, how dare you say such a thing! I never dreamed of having such an awful idea... Home-making is the noblest work anybody can do!'
'Why pity me then?' asked Lester with a grin, drawing his needle in and out of the little stocking.
Evangeline Knapp is perfectly suited to be a successful business woman, while as a home-maker she is micro-managing, overbearing and miserable. Her children are crushed to the point of illness by her impatience and resentment, but her friends pity and admire her. Eva’s husband Lester works in an accounting office, where he is miserable, absent-minded, and disliked by his colleagues. He has the potential to be a sympathetic, nurturing parent who brings creative thought to the problems of housework, and lives his mind’s idle moments in poetic reflection. The enforcement of USian gender roles by the community leaves the family in a bind.
The crystal clear scenario so crisply laid out by Dorothy Canfield Fisher is impossible to misunderstand; it is an extended feminist thought experiment that indicts the social body for policing gender, and asserts the value of autonomy. The oppression of Evangeline impacts her family as badly as it does her. Dorothy Canfield Fisher said that this novel was for the rights of children, not for women. This checks out for me – I was more engaged with the children, and while I sympathised with Evangeline, she seemed like a mighty machine at times; cold, powerful, automatic. The novel asserts the importance of innate character traits and drives, and sees the parent as responsible for leading out the potential of the child. Each person, in an ideal world, would be helped by parents to become whole, and then find fullfilment in the right kind of activity.
The individualistic philosophy is too strong for my coffee, the (dated) tips on how to be a great salesperson or department store manager too numerous, and the Christian literary quotes and references not to my taste. The style of parenting critiqued here has become duly unfashionable (I am not a parent, so can hardly comment further). Yet, I still enjoyed the book a lot. It reminded me strongly of The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead, which is also a manifesto for the humanity and rights of the child = )...more
Berridge is a generous-spirited radical, inhabiting every perspective with insight and commitment. Her aristocrats have virtues which she values and wBerridge is a generous-spirited radical, inhabiting every perspective with insight and commitment. Her aristocrats have virtues which she values and which redeem them personally, but do not justify their overprivileged status.
The critical even-handedness Berridge so masterfully deploys is, I feel, particularly effective in 'Snowstorm' which explores the fraught emotional territories of motherhood and medicine to reveal the debasing potential of certain ethics of care and self-sacrifice. In the delicately nuanced comparison of a worldly young pregnant woman and a female gynaecologist in charge of a maternity hospital under the chronic additional tension of evacuation, Berridge allows the latter bitter envy, and a measure of consolation....more
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