I am further inspired by domesticity and I thought it best to include reviews of things I actually liked. Each include servants, an idea which appeals to one greatly-one was made for a maid. The novel The Help is unique in that everyone I know who has read it, loved it-it is The Shawshank Redemption of the book group society ,with nicer uniforms. It's quite worth reading for the characters' names alone; Aibileen, Minny, Skeeter and I know someone who briefly considered asking the husband to reverse his vasectomy so that she could try to have a baby girl called Mae Mobley.
I think the title has misled the British and many do not at first realise it indicates the maids' viewpoint in the Deep South of the last century. Also it has been called Gone with the Wind, from 'the other side' or similar guff and even though I left out all the Civil War bits when I read Gone with The Wind, it is clear that The Help is much smaller in scale. Nevertheless it is an original and engaging way of telling the story of the Civil Rights Struggle. Scarlett O'Hara's magnificent Mammy,after all, couldn't read or write and seemed pretty happy with her lot especially after Mistah Rhett got her that red taffeta petticoat. Decades on, Aibileen puts in 12-14 hour days doing all the childcare and housework in the white people's homes and she has to get the bloody bus and buy her own uniforms! Like Gone with the Wind, The Help contains a good dose of humour especially the parts that feature Minny whose mistress seem to be a dizzier and sexier version of Marilyn Monroe, if that's possible . Minny is kept secret from the man of the house and some of the Southern white ladies. When you find out the meaning of what she calls 'the Terrible Awful',you will understand.
I am missing what Julian of Ulster Television calls 'Downtown Abbey'. There's no greater contrast than 'I'm A Celebrity...' haggard faces, rats tails for hair, sludge-coloured clothing; puts me in mind of school trips to Ardnabannon. I thought Downton rather pedestrian plotwise but this matters not a jot with the house and clothes to look at and the thought of all those servants and four meals a day. I keep getting the urge to bathe and dress for dinner after an enormous tea. I am thinking of getting someone in just to run baths, make me chocolate pots and call me 'M'lady'.
Devastating description of life for black American women in the south before civil rights. And yet, it has universal resonance. If you've ever had any help at all in your house, particularly someone in to mind your children, this book can make you feel very uncomfortable.
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