(no subject)
A big Fuck You to the people building a house down the street who started jack hammering at 7:00 this morning and continued for two and a half hours. It's the most intrusive noise ever, and impossible to sleep through, and NOT EVERYONE WORKS 9-5 AND IS THEREFORE AWAKE AT 7 AM. There are a lot of students and other people on non-conventional schedules in this RESIDENTIAL neighbourhood, and it's completely inappropriate to be so loud so early. And then stopping at 9:30? Couldn't you have done it later in the day then?
And I finally finished Gone to Soldiers last night, so as I drifted in and out of consciousness this morning, the hammering was machine gunfire in my dreams. What an excellent book. So many women who had the opportunity to find out who they were, only to get forced out of their factory jobs and abandoned by unions, get shut out of the benefits that the rest of the people fighting in the war got (in the case of the WASPS), be unwelcome in their countries and villages, left to put back together so many broken men. When I think of history, I often think of the 50s as isolated, not having a context, but this book reminded me of the context, of what they were a reaction to. People in north america living on rations for years finally being able to spend the money they had saved during the war on appliances, made in factories that created jobs for soldiers coming home. Women having the sense of entitlement to do work besides the typical women's work they'd always done, of laundry, childcare, secretaries; government and men having to find ways to convince them that it was unpatriotic, unladylike, unnecessary, thus trying to reinstate the rigid prewar gender roles. Too late for some women. People and offices specializing in intelligence needing something new to do, creating an enemy out of communists so that war, the thing that kept their jobs, could continue. Hope for a new world government, a new peaceful way of life, that the mistakes of the past wouldn't be repeated, that intervention would save us from another world war. So many displaced people in Europe, stateless, not welcomed in their home countries and not wanting to go back to where the government, the people, had let them be deported in the first place. Even after everything they'd gone through in the camps, not being seen as refugees, not able to come to north america. Hope for a new land.
The 40s seem so far away to me, I guess partly because my parents were born in the 50s. But we're still reacting against that political climate. I forget that, sometimes, I get frustrated and wonder why we can't just move beyond it. I forget there's a context.
That's not the best part of the book, the best part is the characters, the stories. War is so bizarre.
*
I am quite pleased that I don't yet know who won at the oscars. It's the kind of news that's hard to escape, and as soon as I get to school I'm sure I'll hear all about it, but I like it when the all-penetrating media machine fails to reach me for a little while. So much gets shoved down our throats that it feels like a victory to avoid it, even for a few hours.
And I finally finished Gone to Soldiers last night, so as I drifted in and out of consciousness this morning, the hammering was machine gunfire in my dreams. What an excellent book. So many women who had the opportunity to find out who they were, only to get forced out of their factory jobs and abandoned by unions, get shut out of the benefits that the rest of the people fighting in the war got (in the case of the WASPS), be unwelcome in their countries and villages, left to put back together so many broken men. When I think of history, I often think of the 50s as isolated, not having a context, but this book reminded me of the context, of what they were a reaction to. People in north america living on rations for years finally being able to spend the money they had saved during the war on appliances, made in factories that created jobs for soldiers coming home. Women having the sense of entitlement to do work besides the typical women's work they'd always done, of laundry, childcare, secretaries; government and men having to find ways to convince them that it was unpatriotic, unladylike, unnecessary, thus trying to reinstate the rigid prewar gender roles. Too late for some women. People and offices specializing in intelligence needing something new to do, creating an enemy out of communists so that war, the thing that kept their jobs, could continue. Hope for a new world government, a new peaceful way of life, that the mistakes of the past wouldn't be repeated, that intervention would save us from another world war. So many displaced people in Europe, stateless, not welcomed in their home countries and not wanting to go back to where the government, the people, had let them be deported in the first place. Even after everything they'd gone through in the camps, not being seen as refugees, not able to come to north america. Hope for a new land.
The 40s seem so far away to me, I guess partly because my parents were born in the 50s. But we're still reacting against that political climate. I forget that, sometimes, I get frustrated and wonder why we can't just move beyond it. I forget there's a context.
That's not the best part of the book, the best part is the characters, the stories. War is so bizarre.
*
I am quite pleased that I don't yet know who won at the oscars. It's the kind of news that's hard to escape, and as soon as I get to school I'm sure I'll hear all about it, but I like it when the all-penetrating media machine fails to reach me for a little while. So much gets shoved down our throats that it feels like a victory to avoid it, even for a few hours.