An Engaging Read

Just finished a good book. It's Ami McKay's The Birth House. It's lively, it's different in style, it's well-researched with much historically accurate detail, and it's an altogether delightful first novel. That's my opinion. My book group discussed the book two months ago and I wasn't able to go at the time, but I heard that the book was given a rather mixed review with some being disappointed. Yes, I agree, it did seem a little far-fetched with the author pulling in every possible historic event of the years from 1917 to about 1920: the war, the suffragette movement, the Halifax Explosion, a Boston molasses company blown up (true - someone checked!) and so on all in the same book. But, hey, why quibble? It was possible.

The book was on the best seller lists for several months and most people have probably heard the author's intriguing story: she and her partner had moved to the small community of Scots Bay, Nova Scotia from Chicago and found out that the old house they'd bought with a view to renovating was actually once the home of the local midwife and was known locally as the birth house. There's lots of information about it on the author's website as well as all kinds of other interesting bits and pieces.

Fascinating to me and lending an air of authenticity was the local interest of the setting: I can see the line of the North Mountain in the distance from my kitchen window and the many small communities mentioned in the book are just part of the local area around here. However, I wouldn't ordinarily like a book expressly because there were local place names in it. The book would have to have some sort of universality in its theme. I'm reminded of the works of David Adams Richards with their setting on the Miramichi in New Brunswick. There's a familiarity to Richards because his books are set in the area in which I grew up, and that adds an extra dimension for me as I read them.

One of the charms of The Birth House is that it's written as a diary or journal. But, in addition to the written journal entries the author of the journal (the main character, the midwife Dora Rare) has inserted many clippings from the local newspaper, quirky old advertisements from magazines, letters and so on. Thus, it's more of a scrapbook than a journal. This reminds me of an on-going project being carrried out by one of the professors in the Womens Studies Program at nearby Acadia University . She is interested in how women have kept scrapbooks to record and save their family history and as a means of collecting pertinent details of their experiences. About a month ago I was interviewed about a few of the scrapbooks I've kept for various reasons and I spent an interesting morning in conversation about the topic. Art, it seems, imitates life. Or is it the other way round?

Food For Thought

Last week I was reading Noam Chomsky's 2003 work Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. Chomsky is a leading US intellectual, an activist, although cosidered a "dissident" in some circles. He must surely be a thorn in the side of the Bush administration.

There were a number of points in Chomsky's book that I thought were overly one-sided: there can be fear-mongering on the "left" as well as fear-mongering on the "right," however, overall it is a hard-hitting analysis of US foreign and domestic policy that traces its historical development from the end of the Second World War right up till today's involvement in Iraq.

Chomsky says that what the US wants - its stated strategy - is permanent global hegemony, with force if necessary, and, he warns, this threatens the survival of humanity eventually because it can only lead to an escalation of hostilities between the US and those countries that become its unwilling "victims."

We can only hope that Chomsky is wrong and that it is not an "either/or" choice. Does Chomsky hold out any hope? Yes, against the world's only military superpower, he holds that there is another superpower and this is world public opinion. Thus, our only option is to educate ourselves about the aims of the US, present alternative viewpoints, speak out against violent solutions, and influence (in any way we can) the American populace that has little understanding of how it is being manipulated to support an outrageously costly militarization at the expense of social programs.

Chomsky believes that the only solutions against "terror" are addressing underlying grievances, seeing things from the other side's perspective, trying to find honourable solutions, mutual respect, and applying to ourselves the standards we impose on others. (An example of the last might be that if the US does not want other countries to have "weapons of mass destruction," it must be willing to get rid of its own.)

Chomsky does point out that it is not the American people but the the policies of the US government that are at fault. His argument is that the US is hated (and feared) by much of the world because it supports corrupt and brutal governments and opposes political and economic progress which is opposed to its own interests.

Green

There is so much "green" talk on the news and in conversations around town these days! Green has become the new synonym, the short form for any and all environmentally friendly, ecologically conscious effort, plan, or undertaking from supporting an anti-idling campaign to buying local produce to not using pesticides.

I was thinking of "green" as just the colour green, as I was driving home from town this morning and looking at the trees around here still in their winter greyness! It seems that spring is late and cold this year - that is, the real spring with green leaves and flowers and everything bursting forth in colourful profusion! It just hasn't happened here yet and I say "bring it on"! Let us have green! Nile green, emerald green, that lovely yellow-green of new growth! It's time!!