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May 2013: Kathryn Stockett, The Help

I hope that this discussion is lively and goes better than last months.

To debate:

de·bate (d-bt)
v. de·bat·ed, de·bat·ing, de·bates
v.intr.
1. To consider something; deliberate.
2. To engage in argument by discussing opposing points.
3. To engage in a formal discussion or argument. See Synonyms at discuss.
4. Obsolete To fight or quarrel.
v.tr.
1. To deliberate on; consider.
2. To dispute or argue about.
3. To discuss or argue (a question, for example) formally.
4. Obsolete To fight or argue for or over.
n.
1. A discussion involving opposing points; an argument.
2. Deliberation; consideration: passed the motion with little debate.
3. A formal contest of argumentation in which two opposing teams defend and attack a given proposition
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I hope that there are lots of lively debates about this book!
 
oh blimey a. I forgot to read it b. its may the first ... happy workers day to all and let the festivities commence :)
 
Oh crap. I forgot as well! I will go dig it up and plow through it this weekend. I've got a drive that's 3 hours long. That ought to do it.
 
Ok to get the ball rolling on this discussion -

when I saw the movie I thought that there were a lot of aspects of growing up with Black help that I, as a white South African who grew up with a 'maid' could identify with, although much of the type of racism explored in the movie was very different.

I'm sorry I can't help but drawing on and comparing the book and the movie as I can't just eliminate the fact that my first experience with the material was through the movie.


However as I am now about half way through the book, I think that any discussion that simply focuses on the racism aspect of it, will miss the point entirely. Obviously you can't ignore it, it's there kind of a like nagging toothache or ugly wallpaper in the background, but its not central to the story. (It was more central in the movie which I suspect colours people's views when they read the book).

To me the book hinges on this:

"Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision." Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. "You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today? "
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I also saw the film before I read the book, which, in a way, is a bit of a shame as I already knew what the ending was going to be like. So it became a little bit like spotting things I'd seen in the film such as Celia Foote having her rather voluminous bosoms on display all the time, and Minny's cake story.

As expected though, the book's narrative is much more extensive than the film is due to (obviously) time constraints which limits what events can be put in the film etc.

Racism is more of an undercurrent theme (if such a term can be used?) in the book and not nearly as prominent as it is in the film. It is constantly there though, but treated in a way that implies that that was just the way life was, for both the white elite and the black maids. It isn't actively pointed out in a way to say that racism is wrong and ought to be frowned upon, no matter what age you happened to grow up in.

Rather than focusing on racism, Stockett pays much more attention to the intricacies of the relationships between Skeeter and her friends and family, Skeeter and the maids, and the maids amongst each other.

The first is very similar to typical friendships one has in secondary school, girls who share their gossip and inner troubles. However, this friendship isn't all rosy as it soon wanes once Skeeter no longer obliges to her friends', and in particular Hilly's, every whim. It then culminates in Skeeter being shunned by all young women who are considered to belong to one of the higher echelons of society.

Skeeter gets along with the black help but in an awkward sort of manner. At first her approaching the maids comes across as uncomfortable from both sides, but as the story progresses, she gets along with them much better than she did with her friends.
Obviously, these relationships are more difficult to maintain as it was far from the norm for a white girl to socialise, in her free time, with the help.

As for the maids, they socialise with each other as any other social group would, with some who are more brave (Aibileen, Minny, etc) and some who do not dare speak up against the establishment, be it in writing or through talking.

In short, to me the novel is not so much about racism as it is about friendships and peer pressure. Skeeter evolves from someone who would do as expected or told and who was shy about stepping out of this behavioural pattern to someone who dares to express herself without caring about what others may have to say about it.
 
Yes that is almost exactly the feeling I'm getting from the book. It's more about relationships between women set against the backdrop of how life was then. No different from setting the book in any other context.

I think the whole racism issue that I know has surrounded the book from various other comments here and there on the net, results more from how sensitized some people are and how sensitized some people want every one to be to the issue.

I think I'm coming to think of the issue in terms of the statement I quoted earlier -

"You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today? "

There are always going to be some fools that think less of you for some fool reason - you're white, black, asian, hispanic, or not enough of the above, you are female, you are .... etc etc etc and you can get all up in arms about it or you can just simply refuse to believe what 'them fools' are saying about you today.

There are times when it's necessary to stand up against what is wrong, it just isn't necessary ALL the time, and sometimes doing so can even be counterproductive and hold people in a very negative mindset.
 
Polly Parrot said:
Stealing this from the other thread about The Help, a slightly different opinion about the book by the Associaton of Black Women Historians.
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that would be a perfect example as well as specifically one of the one's I was referring to when I mention 'those who WANT us to be hyper-sensitized' to the issue.

Honestly is so much fuss made over historically exactitude in fiction set in other time zone when it isn't being presented as historically accurate? I haven't read anywhere that the author was trying to make a historically accurate account of the time, or make a civil rights statement or anything other than create a work of fiction about relationships and about learning to stand on your own two feet.

I would say this was more a 'coming-of-age' novel for Skeeter than anything else.

In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities.
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May I ask - so what? Does EVERY book have to be so SER-I-OUS? Not to take anything away from anything that any one went through at that time but honestly there comes a time when its counterproductive to keep fighting so hard. Everyone gets tired of it, and it holds you in a very negative mental space about the issues. If you see monsters under the bed at every turn, then monsters have a tendency to show up. Turn the flashlight on and recognise that at least some of the monsters are the product of your own imagination and move on. There is more to life than beating a dead horse. Not only that but as long as you are looking backward, you aren't looking forward and taking responsibility for how things are now.
 
I haven't seen the movie yet (but I intend on doing it very soon) I only read the book. I have to say, to me it felt like a very clever way to portray racism. The author doesn't shout RACISM on the reader's face, instead the reader perceives the racism in what was the costumary and accepted way of the time. I agree with Meadow that The Help is mostly a coming-of-age novel and I thought it was very interesting to slowly see Skeeter come to terms with what we all already knew.
 
yup I agree Landslide. You don't have to shout it all tge time, we know, and it was more interesting to explore the intricacies of the relationships. As much as we might like to think every one was out shouting about civil rights there were a lot of folks who just tried to get on as best they could to put food on the table.
 
Seems to me that with novels such as this one a lot of people criticising it for lack of historical accuracy tend to forget that is a novel, a work of fiction, not a history book.
 
Polly Parrot said:
Seems to me that with novels such as this one a lot of people criticising it for lack of historical accuracy tend to forget that is a novel, a work of fiction, not a history book.
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And it doesn't lay claim to be a work of historical fiction which you reasonably do expect to be of a higher order of accuracy.
 
It actually says so in the afterword:

The Help is fiction, by and large. Still, as I wrote it, I wondered an awful lot what my family would think of it, and what Demetrie [her family's black help, red] would have thought too, even though she was long dead. I was scared, a lot of the time, that I was crossing a terrible line, writing in the voice of a black person. I was afraid I would fail to describe a relationship that was so intensely influential in my life, so loving, so grossly stereotyped in American history and literature.

[...]

What I am sure about is this: I don't presume to think that I know what it really felt like to be a black woman in Mississippi, especially in the 1960s. I don't think it is something any white woman on the other end of a black woman's paycheck could ever truly understand.
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aah well see there you have it.

I thought that there was a lot in it that was authentic. If you are not writing from the usual point of view of those directly involved in the civil rights movement, but from the point of view of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, believing what the prevailing 'truth' is, struggling to find their own way through life, then I thought there was a lot more to it that was authentic than not.
 
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