Miriam Toews - A Complicated Kindness

Coincidentally, I have re-read this book during the same time that we have been studying 1st Corinthians.  At the bible study class, I raised the difficulty of the first chapters of 1 Corinthians on the Apostle Paul's advice to shun the believer who indulges in sin. The standards that the Apostle Paul exhorts are extremely high and perhaps misapplied if taken too literally and without grace...I would much prefer Jesus' words...Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. Not necessarily condoning the sin but loving the weaker brother who perchance is not able to make it. I do not see much love in 'shunning'. This shunning business is indeed the central theme that is the subject of this book.  Another theme is the hypocrisy of those who sometimes are vocal with executing the shunning.

The story is told in through the eyes of Naomi Nickel about the demise of her family...as lived in the first sixteen years of her life. Her family made up of her parents Gertrude & Raymond Nickel and her sister Natasha & herself falls apart.  Naomi narrates the experiences through her own eyes, lest someone changes her understanding of events as they really happened...including, she realises that her mother has an affair with her teacher - an error of judgement because she does not even love him. The book is not linear and it goes back and forth as though remembering things as one would normally when recounting an experience.  There are a lot of gaps because as a child you aren't told everything and you need to piece the events for yourself to make sense of them.

Although the book is about the claustrophobic environment that the Nickels struggled in and the difficult choices that they had to make or choices that were made for them, I could not help juxtaposing it with the life that we now live in.  Sometimes our lives fall apart right before our eyes and there is nothing we can do to stop the melt down.   In the work place, in our families, in our clans, in our different associations...the pressure to conform is great and woe upon the one who does not conform...but even those who conform do not really thrive. So it is kind of like being between a rock and a hard place. Either way you lose.

Of course the kindness is complicated because there is the expectation that shunning would lead the non conformist to reconsider and return to the straight and narrow. (I digress by mentioning that I was recently encouraged by a quote I came across: 'an opinion is not a crime'. It is my belief that in order for societies to thrive its members must be left free to have opinions and that expecting everybody to conform to a certain pattern or way of thinking is often self destructing.)  Reading the book, I could not help wondering whether it is easier, as we tread upon this complicated world, to take the easier way and conform; pretend to conform or to go off on a tangent.  Being a non-comformist oftentimes disturbs the subtle order but might be beneficial in the long run...although not always, because it leaves a lot of hurt in its wake...like it did in Naomi's (and Raymond's life). Afterall Socrates paid for his life for 'propagating the art of fallacious discourse' and disturbing the peace.  Even a recent retrial, through a present & modern day enactment, did not lead to a unanimous acquital but more a hung jury. Had Galileo paid attention to the moral of Socrates story he might not have been charged with 'vehement suspision of heresy' by propagating that the sun stood firm and that the earth and other planets rotated around it...and lost his freedom and honour.

The book led me to thinking about semantics. Is a retreat a workshop or are they two different things? Reminds me of the famous saying that 'a rose by any other name is still a rose'.

I googled the author and wondered whether in effect, 'A complicated kindness' mirrors her own experiences given that she is a Mennonite. I also wondered about her religious order's  comments on the book...would it lead her to being shunned and excommunicated? Or would they reflect on the impact that they have on its followers.  I have never met a Mennonite but had the occasion to meet some Amish around the time I bought and first read the book.

I was drawn to the Nickel family and identified with their struggles. I would have wished that the book had happier memories and a happier ending and that the events weren't so tragic. 

At least Raymond leaves Naomi a verse from Isaiah - For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you with singing, and all the trees in the field shall clap their hands. After all, we need some hope in life that things will be better.

Shange and Bayeza - Some Sing, Some Cry

Poring through the pages of this book, I wondered what story line I would rant about. The book covers approximately 200 years - 7 generations of Mayfields - cramped into 560 pages.  I read somewhere about the beauty of learning history without having to move from one's location.

I picked the book during a recent visit to God's country and was drawn as much by the names of its writers  - Two sisters...Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza - as from the history it depicted. African American History intrigues me and this was a worthy book having just met at a conference, folks 'like me' from from Haiti, Turks & Caicos, Barbados, Trinidad, St Lucia... I could not help musing as I sat through the conference or on the metro, that one of the British Empire's great experiments really did impact the world in a grand way.

The book is matrilineal with the North Star being Mah Bette; of the first set of emancipated slaves and her blood flowing through generations of strong women. The blood mingles with that of men, also portrayed in the book, but their impact is peripheral to the story, as the characters, through the generations, look back to the North Star for guidance. The family, through generations, is remarkable, resilient and strong...standing out for one another and surviving.   The family is also whoever we chose to make family..."almost family" and "adoptive families" are sometimes the way we manage. I got to researching the book, read the acknowledgements and biographical notes and like many a book  - though fictionalised - a lot mirrors the life and ancestry of the writers.  I have always held that everybody has a story to tell. Sometimes we tell it, sometimes it passes orally down through generations and other times it dies in our hearts. The story is reminiscent of the Jefferson-Hemmings saga...some stories we take to our graves. I reckon in the complex relationships between slaves and their owners...the storyline and bloodline moves from mother to child rendering the male parent irrelevant.

I was drawn to Mah Bette, the most.  Mah Bette is an enigma. She has to be, given that she is the matriarch. She is pragmatic and the thread around which her descendants thrive. How did Julius Mayfield Snr bear children with his own daughter, Betty alias Mah Bette? Wasn't that contrary to the laws of nature even in the days of slavery? What is the eventual storyline of Julius Mayfield jnr who was stolen from Mah Bette at birth and passed as heir to the Mayfield fortune? Weren't the truths of his real origins self evident? What became of Mah Bette's daughter, Elma - Did she perpetuate the bloodline? How does Mah Bette's daughter, Blanche deny her on mother, even for expediency? 

The book does not dwell too much on the intrigues - the stories are told as a matter of fact - they are indeed tales of survival and betterment of oneself, by any means possible.  As always, one must play to the best of their ability, the cards that one is dealt. The storyline is complex and complicated and leaves more questions than answers.  Why did Tom Winrow disappear? What happened to Osceola Turner's parents. Who raped Eudora? What draws me to the book is that despite "losing" all her four children, Mah Bette is stoic and faces the challenges that are dealt her with pragmatism. She is rewarded with a fertile line and very many descendants who carry her name through 7 generations and possibly beyond.

Names intrigue me...each time I fill out a form, I wonder what is in a name? Osceola Turner - Turner was neither his father's name nor his mother's and Deacon Turner wasn't his blood brother. Elma Winrow - Winrow wasn't her father and in college, she went by Elma Diggs taking on her uncle's name. Deacon Turner changes his name to Deacon Holstein...taking on his wife's name. Lizzie Winrow names herself Mayfield Turner, dropping Lizzie and taking her boyfriend's name posthumously...In changing our names, we oftentimes desire to reinvent ourselves...To seek one's true identity.  Sometimes we seek to remove the preposterous burdens of the names bestowed upon us.  What pushed the authors to drop their "slave names" and adopt knew names when their parents and siblings didn't? Why do we, swahili speaking peoples, name our children Joy and not Furaha, Faith and not Amani, Grace and not Imani, Hope and not Tumaini? Which is one's true self...the one we choose and live or the one we are assigned? What is in a name? Why are we encouraged to pass our children with names such as Stacy, Stephanie, Nancy, Hillary, Winstone, Dieudonne, Diogratious and a multitude of other "strange" names.

Reading this book, I will never be able to pass someone without perchance marvelling that they were living a different story....Not necessarily their own but someone else's.