Unraveled Wednesday: 12/13/23

I'm joining Kat and fellow Unravelers for Unraveled Wednesday with what may be the last of my Christmas knitting, two pairs of Hot Waffles for the boys. 

The waffle pattern is hidden in the variegation of the yarn but I thought they might be a little warmer if I knit them in dk yarn in the waffle pattern. My sons both have large hands so I'm a little concerned that they might be too small, but I know they fit me quite well. I can always knit them replacement mitts in my usual Jacoby pattern if these don't fit. 

Reading brought three finishes this week. Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich is nonfiction that details how pervasive positive thinking has become in American culture, but I'm not sure that it is undermining America (I blame certain politicians, Congress, and the Supreme Court for that.) I do agree with Ehrenreich's premise that we are confronted with relentless positive thinking which can do real harm in some situations, and this is made clear in the opening chapter where she writes about everything she is confronted with as a cancer patient. Cancer patients need and deserve to feel happy and hopeful but I don't think commercializing and infantilizing them will help with a serious disease.

"To me, the most disturbing product, though, was the breast cancer teddy bears. I have identified four distinct lines, or species, of these creatures, including “Carol,” the Remembrance Bear; “Hope,” the Breast Cancer Research Bear; the “Susan Bear,” named for Nancy Brinkler’s deceased sister Susan; and the new Nick and Nora Wish Upon a Star Bear, available, along with the Susan Bear, at the Komen Foundation website’s “marketplace.”

The biggest problem I had with this three-star book was that much of it felt redundant. Ehrenreich has written some excellent articles on the subject for Mother Jones and The New Yorker, and this book would have been better if the pertinent information had been edited down to a magazine article.

The second book I read was another piece of nonfiction, Poverty by America by sociologist Matthew Desmond. I had just listened to Mitt Romney's "Meet the Press" interview, and while he didn't speak specifically about poverty, I'd love to invite Senator Romney and Liz Cheney (while I disagree with her politics, I think she is a brave person who does the right thing) to dinner and ask them what their thoughts are about this book. Matthew Desmond's basic premise is that poverty continues in America because the rest of us benefit from it. To understand poverty we have to look to ourselves — "we the secure, the insured, the housed, the college educated, the protected, the lucky." That is a bitter pill to swallow but after reading Poverty, by America, I can't disagree. “Capitalism is inherently about workers trying to get as much, and owners trying to give as little, as possible,” Desmond writes. The news and people's lives are full of examples that show how true this is, and poverty persists because workers have lost so many battles with owners.

The toughest part to read is Desmond's "solution": “Poverty will be abolished in America only when a mass movement demands it.” Given politics today, I simply can't see that happening. However, after reading this book, I can better understand my personal involvement.

Last was The Frozen River, a three-star historical fiction. The best thing about The Frozen River is that it has an intriguing main character, Martha Ballard, who was a real-life midwife in the mid-1700s in Maine. She kept a detailed diary from the time she was 50 until her death 27 years later, so many details are known about her daily life, especially the 816 babies she delivered. In addition to attending births, her duties included observing autopsies and giving testimony in court. Ariel Lawhon brings all of these together in this book when a man accused of rape is discovered dead and frozen in the Kennebec River.

I enjoyed the midwifery details along with Martha's herbal pharmaceuticals, but for me, there were too many complications added by making the story a mystery. In addition to the dead man, a judge is also implicated in the rape, and he happens to control the Ballard family's lease on their property. One of Martha's sons was seen fighting with the dead man before he died. Martha Ballard in the book comes across as somewhat self-righteous and the use of modern prose felt disruptive for a story that was set in 1789. The misogyny, hardship, and disease that Martha and many of the other women experienced in the late 1700s do come across clearly. Debbie was kind enough to recommend the nonfiction book A Midwife's Tale which is based on Martha Ballard's diary without fictionalization. I'll be reading that one soon. 

What are you making and reading this week?