I loved her example of the people smoking and drinking in the 1940s -- I read a lot of mysteries written then and in the 1930s, and it's shocking to see how many people always have a martini or cigarette in hand, just as a matter of course. (And we won't even get into the radio commercials from the old time radio shows that talk about the health benefits of Camels, etc.) And the casual racism.... wow. Just a totally different world than we're used to, and it's the one my parents grew up in.
I just read a mystery which does an amazing job of showing different world-views with complete conviction -- it's set in modern day Africa, but the characters who live and breathe witchcraft and other beliefs are totally sincere and totally enmeshed. It helps that the author lived in Ghana for his first 18 years, and that his father was Ghanan, but still... I recommend it for a way to show beliefs that might seem totally out there in a way that makes them understandable and believable to a modern American viewpoint -- it's called "Wife of the gods" by Kwei Quartey.
I got interested in it after Orson Scott Card recommended it. Amazing for a first novel, and while the mystery can be considered slight, the people's attitudes and the characters MAKE the story for me.
If you watch the wonderful "Thin Man" films from the 40s, you see that everyone (particularly Nick Charles) is always drinking. Always. And I remember parties my parents went to or threw, where all the adults were drinking pretty constantly; it's not that we don't drink now, but someone who didn't drink they stood out like a sore thumb.
The books are pretty much exactly the same way. I'll see if I can find one (or more) of the movies.
I think it's really interesting how many people nowadays don't remember how much the "past is a different country". I'm working my hardest to make sure my grandchildren don't think that way -- we actually had a long talk with my eight-year-old grandson about the Depression on Wednesday, as he was reading about it in school, and thought it only affected African-Americans.
We watch a lot of old films with my daughters; watching Adam's Rib, which I love (and whose cultural assumptions I skate right over, because 1) I am old, and 2) it's Tracy and Hepburn and how can I not love it?) my older daughter turned around to me and said "do those men realize they are belittling every single woman in the movie? THEY'RE BELITTLING KATHARINE HEPBURN!"
Which led to an interesting discussion about Feminism, and no, dear, it wasn't just being strident, humorless, or not wearing a bra. (She doesn't think she's a feminist. She is, she just doesn't know it.)
I just read a mystery which does an amazing job of showing different world-views with complete conviction -- it's set in modern day Africa, but the characters who live and breathe witchcraft and other beliefs are totally sincere and totally enmeshed. It helps that the author lived in Ghana for his first 18 years, and that his father was Ghanan, but still... I recommend it for a way to show beliefs that might seem totally out there in a way that makes them understandable and believable to a modern American viewpoint -- it's called "Wife of the gods" by Kwei Quartey.
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I think it's really interesting how many people nowadays don't remember how much the "past is a different country". I'm working my hardest to make sure my grandchildren don't think that way -- we actually had a long talk with my eight-year-old grandson about the Depression on Wednesday, as he was reading about it in school, and thought it only affected African-Americans.
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Which led to an interesting discussion about Feminism, and no, dear, it wasn't just being strident, humorless, or not wearing a bra. (She doesn't think she's a feminist. She is, she just doesn't know it.)
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