Women Talking

Finished April 30

Women Talking by Miriam Toews

This book was inspired by a real life event that occured at a Mennonite colony in Bolivia named the Manitoba Colony. While eight men were convicted and jailed there, the assaults continued. Toews wrote this book as a reaction to those events. 

The book begins after the discovery that some men in this fictional Mennonite colony of Molotschna were using veterinary anaesthetic on women and girls in the the night and sexually assaulting them. Some of them are now pregnant. 

Most of the men in the community have gone to the city to try to bail out the men accused of the crimes. While they are gone, eight of the women and girls have decided to meet to talk about what they should do. August, a man who has returned to the community as an adult after his parents were ejected from the community when he was a child, has been asked to take minutes of the meeting. This is something that is gradually explained during the novel. 

The book is told through those minutes and through other observations by August that he has noted. 

The novel is slow-paced, almost all of it taking place in the loft of the barn where the women are meeting. The time period is only a couple of days and there is sometimes circular discussion, occasional moments of humour, and disagreements that make the time seem to stretch longer. The character with the most depth is August himself because he is the narrator. We see his sadness, his sense of loss, and his feelings of not belonging anywhere. The personalities of the various women and girls also comes out through their talk and small actions. 

This is a moving novel that gives the reader a lot to think about. It has since also been adapted into a film. 

Once Removed

Finished September 29
Once Removed by Andrew Unger

Timothy Heppner, the narrator of this novel is a writer. Mostly he's a ghostwriter for the older people in his small town in southern Manitoba. He also works for the town in the Parks and Recreation department mostly doing labouring jobs.
His wife, Katie is just finishing up her master's thesis. She is from the nearby town of Altfeld, which is preserving their heritage and even has an archives.
The town they live in, Edenfeld, was established in 1876 by Mennonite immigrants, but the current mayor has been whittling away at the town's heritage for years, to the point where very little remains of the original buildings, such as housebarns. Katie and Timothy are both members of the Preservation Society, a small group of citizens trying to stop the loss of heritage. The mayor, BLT Wiens is a fan of progression, which to him means erasing the town's past by renaming streets with names taken from Southern California, tearing down buildings to make way for desired big box stores, and discouraging the use of the Mennonite language, Plautdietsch.
The town is pretty insular, with one women as a prime example. Known as City Sheila, she moved to Edenfeld two decades ago, but is still referred to in that way. Timothy's best friend Randall also grew up here in Edenfeld, and his parents still live in the last remaining housebarn in town, with a patterned floor hidden under the kitchen linoleum, similar to the one depicted on the book cover. Randall also ghostwrites, but has a few of his own books published as well, something Timothy aspires for. They both revere Elsie Dyck, a former resident, whom legend says was driven out of town by the mayor for her writings that celebrate the town's heritage and culture.
The book's events take place over the course of a year, with the book divided into four sections by season, each headed with the season in Plautdietsch. As the book opens, Timothy is meeting with one of his ghostwriting clients, an older man working on his third book, and Timothy has done a lot of research to prepare for this meeting. So he is shocked when he is told that the man has decided to stop their relationship, with no explanation. As Timothy and Katie depend on the extra income he earns through his ghostwriting work, he worries about this. He also worries about any of the activities he does for the Preservation Society attracting unwanted attention from the mayor as he is concerned that could affect his employment with the town. As the group fights for the town's heritage, Timothy is assigned to write a book to tell the town's story. At first he worries about putting his own name on it, but over the course of collecting the historical material and writing it, he begins to take ownership.
My mother's side of the family is Mennonite, although non-practicing, and I could connect to this book immediately through some of these references. From the Great Oak of Chortitza, the town in Ukraine where my grandfather was born, to the Harder genealogy book, I knew the common heritage. But even if you don't, this book's central theme around the loss of our heritage is one all readers can relate to. Using humour to best effect, Unger shows how our heritage is of more value than often considered and something we should celebrate and learn about. His characters have depth and complexity and make you want to know more about them.
I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and encourage you to check out this debut novel for yourself.
The author, Andrew Unger, writers a satirical Mennonite news site from the heart of Manitoba's Mennonite country, Steinbach. The site is The Daily Bonnet, and well worth a look.

Mennonites Don't Dance

Finished August 27
Mennonites Don't Dance by Darcie Friesen Hossack
This collection of short stories has a base in the Mennonite community with all the main characters either living in a prairie Mennonite community, or coming from one. Some characters appear in more than one story, although in a subtle way.
Since I am half Mennonite myself, this book really appealed to me. I could relate to the culture and the values. Many of the themes here though go beyond any one culture and speak to family and how the attitudes and actions of our parents affect our lives into adulthood.
Some stories were sad, some happy, but all spoke of the relationship between people and family dynamics.
A great addition to Canadian short stories.

Irma Voth

Finished August 1
Irma Voth by Miriam Toews
Irma is 19, lives in a rural Mennonite community in Mexico, and has been ostracized by her father for marrying a young Mexican man. Her father has expected her to live in another house on the property in exchange for work. Her husband, Jorge, sticks around for a while, but then tells her she asks too many questions, and makes himself scarce.
When Irma's father rents the remaining house to a film crew making a movie, Irma is intrigued and finds herself working as a translator between the director and a German actress. Meanwhile Irma's younger sister Aggie is finding life under their father's rules unbearable and wants to run away.
As the situation deteriorates, Irma finds she must make a choice and face the past she has always denied. This is a strong story with elements of coming-of-age and independence. The characters are complex and interesting. A great read.

Audio Memoir

Finished May 18
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen, read by Hillary Huber
This memoir covers a time period in Janzen's life that began with a week in which her husband of 15 years left her for Bob from Gay.com and teenage driver caused a head-on car accident that gave her broken bones and bruises. As she deals with trying to sell the large house she can no longer afford on her own, and recovering from her emotional and physical injuries, she retreats to her parent's home in California. While brought up Mennonite, Janzen has strayed far from this beginning. She finds that the Mennonite community still welcomes her, and supports her in ways she hadn't expected. A combination of tales from her time spent recovering there, and reminiscences from earlier times (both growing up and her marriage), this is a humourous look at the Mennonite way of life and how it helps to deal with what life gives you.
Being of partial Mennonite heritage on my mother's side, I've been exposed to some of the traditions surrounding this way of life (I've made pluma moos, the plum soup she mentions, and have my grandma's recipe for zweibach). So that part of it was very interesting to me. I liked most of her humour, but did wonder about some of her family's reactions to being portrayed in the book. The narrative moves around a lot in time and I found it difficult to say exactly what order things happened in and where on the timeline. It did keep me entertained though and I'll be passing it on to my mother to see what she thinks of it.

Immigrant History

Finished August 22
Hard Passage: A Mennonite Family's Long Journey from Russia to Canada by Arthur Kroeger
I was interested in this book as I am of Mennonite heritage on my maternal side. The Kroeger family came from the same area in Russia (really the Ukraine) as my family did, the Chortiza-Rosenthal area. My grandfather was born in Chortiza and emigrated to Canada in 1923, the first year of the organized emigration from Russia to Canada. Kroeger's family came in 1926. My grandfather was reluctant to talk about his early life and while I have reminiscences from some of his siblings, this adds to my knowledge of the situation in Russia. Kroeger used a variety of published resources as well as his father's papers and photos to tell his story.
I found this book full of facts and yet very readable. I'm glad to have found it to add to my knowledge of my own family history.