Reading Rhoda Janzen's memoir riles me up a little bit. I feel at times like she's being a little too flippant, boiling Mennonites down to the stereotypical bits like borscht and a Quirky mother (as Jeff Gundy puts it). While it's fine and even fun to read these little Mennonite "inside jokes" (borscht- haha, it turns your tupperwares pink, etc) I get a little frustrated with Janzen for taking the easy way out with these things.
Of course, I justify what she does by saying she needs and was intending to reach a wider audience than just Mennonites, and in attempting to do so must de-dynamize some of what she writes.
At times it seems to me as though she's trivializing a community that I feel a very strong tie to, that I truly love and feel fortunate to belong in.
Which brings me to the question I asked in my previous post, which was, in thinking about MLBD in relation to Pearl Diver, Why does Janzen choose to tell the stories she does and where might she have taken a cue from Hannah and chosen to leave something out in respect to her community or someone she was close to?
Though Janzen does have some fairly interesting and honest and insightful things to say about growing up in a Mennonite family and really speaks to me as a reader in the way that I feel I can relate to the way she's grown up and the struggles she faces as a person nebulously of the Mennonite faith today, she still strikes me as taking advantage of the quirks and intricacies of the Mennonite community to sell her book (oh my goodness! a Menno in a little black dress -- so scandalous! she talks about tits, what a rebel!). I wish she didn't rely so heavily on generalizations and shock value for the success of the story.
Which all makes me feel more negatively in retrospect than I actually feel while reading the book. It's an engaging, entertaining read, which makes me struggle all the more with the question I asked in my last post, and feel like I'll be asking throughout this class, "How does a writer decide what stories to tell, especially a writer that feels they owe something to someone or some community?"
Annie, I agree very much with you. I think that's exactly why this book is simply funny/amusing to outside readers, but in Mennonite circles, it is more than that--it is controversial. (My grandma just rolled her eyes when I told her I'm reading it, for example.)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to discuss this issue in class. I think it compares a little to Pearl Diver...perhaps you/I feel taken advantage in our "story" just the way Marian was afraid she would feel if Hannah published the murder story. In her eyes, it was taking her personal story and distorting it in ways she didn't want distorted.
However, if Janzen is Hannah in this parallel, she believes that she has a right to tell the story because it is indeed HER story.
Yeah, I kind of agree too. I really like the humor in the book, but in some ways it feels like a defense—a way of talking about these pretty serious issues of Mennonite identity without having to be too personally invested in them.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to think about what an author is leaving out, or criticize her for leaving those things out. Overall I feel like Janzen is pretty blunt about the more negative aspects of Mennonites, so it doesn't necessarily seem like she's leaving the negative stuff out to protect them. But she might be condensing what being a Mennonite means into little trivial symbols (frugality at McDonalds, etc.), while failing to explore the more complex parts of Mennonite identity.
I don't really care for the humor in this book. It seems more cynical than anything. I suppose if I had parents like hers I would be too but I definately wouldn't let it show in a book. But it seems like the humor is the only thing she has going for her in this book. She had alot of things happen to her that do make for a good book but I don't care for the way she writes about it. It seems so blunt. She talks about her husband leaving her but doesn't give us any detail. And then she pretty much says oh and the same week I was in a bad car accident and moves on. I keep thinking of the Writing the Memoir class some of us are in and how I don't want to take this approach in my writing. And it does raise questions about audience and privacy and how, as writers, to deal successfully with the two.
ReplyDeleteWhile MILBD wasn't my favorite book, I didn't find it quite as annoying as other people seem to have. Many people on this tread seem to take issue with its humor and bluntness. While I am not a fan of the genre, bluntness is just something that comes with memoir. This book is not nearly as blunt as many lesser examples of memoir. Also the humor is something that elevates it gar beyond the average depressing story of someone's life.
ReplyDeleteAnnie, I also definitely agree. It seems as if Janzen is toeing a fine line between telling it like it is and writing what would be the most entertaining for a modern, secular audience, making it frustrating for those who know what she's talking about and have our own takes on her subjects. I guess this didn't go as far as annoy me, but it was something that was picked up on, and should be discussed.
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