Literary London
Jeez, it has been a minute since I last posted a review. I never expected it to be this bad. But starting grad school was more overwhelming than I thought (well, it still is) but now I think I can breathe a little and actually take a minute or two to relax and take in my new surroundings.
Thankfully, I have reviews saved up from the summer (oh leisure time, I sort of miss you already). I've also been thinking, since I really don't have time for "fun" reading anymore, I will explore literary parts of London and blog about it here. There's so, so much that I want to explore: I found a Buzzfeed list of many Harry Potter-related sites, a list of indie bookshops, plus historical sites like the British Library. It'll force me to see the city (and balance it with my obligatory pile of readings) but also experience its incredible literary history firsthand.
It's a goal, at any rate.
Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth
When twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood’s most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are the true stories of the people Worth met who grew up in the dreaded workhouse, a Dickensian institution that limped on into the middle of the twentieth century.
Though these are stories of unimaginable hardship, what shines through each is the resilience of the human spirit and the strength, courage, and humor of people determined to build a future for themselves against the odds. This is an enduring work of literary nonfiction, at once a warmhearted coming-of-age story and a startling look at people’s lives in the poorest section of postwar London.
Even if I weren’t already a fan of the popular BBC series (now in its third season), I would still be impressed by Jennifer Worth’s writing. The stories and personalities she captures in her memoir are so vivid and moving that sometimes it’s hard to remember that this isn’t fiction-that these events happened to real people. In this installment, Worth goes beyond her experiences in the birthing rooms to focus on workhouse survivors, and their stories of hardship are at times upsetting to read. A relic of the 19th century, workhouses were designed to help the poor and indigent, but instead of helping them get back on their feet, they simply sunk them further into poverty; to make matters worse, abuses of all kind ran rampant, and many families were separated. Some, like Jenny’s friend Jane, managed to build a life after leaving the workhouse, but others, like Peggy and Frank, an orphaned brother and sister, were too scarred by their time in such an abusive institution that they never fully recovered.
Another highlight of the memoir is Jenny’s time with Mr. Collett, a lonely widower and Boer War veteran. His stories of living through two World Wars were fascinating and moving, but it also made me realize that in the 1950s it was almost taboo to talk about such unsightly topics; the norm was to try to forget about them, and move on, but for veterans like Mr. Collett, that was almost impossible to do. Which is why I came to have a fuller appreciation for Jennifer Worth’s memoir: It’s not only a record of her unusual career in the East End, in the midst of all the social and economic changes taking place, but also oral history, preserving the lives of a London that some would say is practically extinct now.
N.B. I live in a neighborhood that's quite close, geographically, to East End. Although I haven't made it out there yet, sometimes walking around makes me think what it would've been like in the 1950s, in streets packed with families and children.
Thankfully, I have reviews saved up from the summer (oh leisure time, I sort of miss you already). I've also been thinking, since I really don't have time for "fun" reading anymore, I will explore literary parts of London and blog about it here. There's so, so much that I want to explore: I found a Buzzfeed list of many Harry Potter-related sites, a list of indie bookshops, plus historical sites like the British Library. It'll force me to see the city (and balance it with my obligatory pile of readings) but also experience its incredible literary history firsthand.
It's a goal, at any rate.
Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth
When twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood’s most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are the true stories of the people Worth met who grew up in the dreaded workhouse, a Dickensian institution that limped on into the middle of the twentieth century.
Though these are stories of unimaginable hardship, what shines through each is the resilience of the human spirit and the strength, courage, and humor of people determined to build a future for themselves against the odds. This is an enduring work of literary nonfiction, at once a warmhearted coming-of-age story and a startling look at people’s lives in the poorest section of postwar London.
Even if I weren’t already a fan of the popular BBC series (now in its third season), I would still be impressed by Jennifer Worth’s writing. The stories and personalities she captures in her memoir are so vivid and moving that sometimes it’s hard to remember that this isn’t fiction-that these events happened to real people. In this installment, Worth goes beyond her experiences in the birthing rooms to focus on workhouse survivors, and their stories of hardship are at times upsetting to read. A relic of the 19th century, workhouses were designed to help the poor and indigent, but instead of helping them get back on their feet, they simply sunk them further into poverty; to make matters worse, abuses of all kind ran rampant, and many families were separated. Some, like Jenny’s friend Jane, managed to build a life after leaving the workhouse, but others, like Peggy and Frank, an orphaned brother and sister, were too scarred by their time in such an abusive institution that they never fully recovered.
Another highlight of the memoir is Jenny’s time with Mr. Collett, a lonely widower and Boer War veteran. His stories of living through two World Wars were fascinating and moving, but it also made me realize that in the 1950s it was almost taboo to talk about such unsightly topics; the norm was to try to forget about them, and move on, but for veterans like Mr. Collett, that was almost impossible to do. Which is why I came to have a fuller appreciation for Jennifer Worth’s memoir: It’s not only a record of her unusual career in the East End, in the midst of all the social and economic changes taking place, but also oral history, preserving the lives of a London that some would say is practically extinct now.
N.B. I live in a neighborhood that's quite close, geographically, to East End. Although I haven't made it out there yet, sometimes walking around makes me think what it would've been like in the 1950s, in streets packed with families and children.