the help

i have been keeping up with my new years resolution to read a book every month, i just haven't written about them since january because i have been reading books in the chronicles of narnia and i wanted to wait until i finished the entire series to write about them. but, while i was in vegas, i decided to pick up my mom's copy of "the help". i started it on a tuesday and finished it the next tuesday, i just couldn't put it down! if you haven't read it (and most of you probably have already) DO IT! i wouldn't let myself see the movie until i finished the book so last night, matt and i watched it. although not nearly as good as the book, it was a good movie and if you haven't seen it or read the book, the least you can do is go to redbox and rent the movie.

now for some thoughts on the book. the first thing that really hit me about it is how recent this history really is. my dad didn't go to an integrated school until 8th grade, and he said it wasn't pretty and he lived in south florida! my grandparents never went to integrated schools. my grandmother always had a maid, and they were very poor, but everyone had a maid then. my grandmother loved her maids, the ones she grew up with and the ones she had in her own home, and she has told me a story of loosing a friend because her friend came in and saw my grandmother and her maid eating lunch together at the same table, because my grandmother didn't care. this was in alabama, which must have been such a crazy place to live during all of the civil rights movement. but thinking of how recent this is helps you to understand why there are still such strong racial tensions among so many people and communities. i figure it this way; if it takes 4 years of a new band director for there to be a real real change in the program, it will probably take at least the same for there to be a real change in race relations, except that's generations. so that would make my parents gen1, us gen2, evan gen3, and his children gen4. hopefully my grandchildren will be the true color blind generation and it won't take any longer than that.

the second thing that i saw in this book was the theme of love. that i saw even more clearly through the movie, probably because you felt the emotions so fast, since the movie is so much shorter than the book. the whole book deals with inconvenient and painful love. first there is the love that the maids have for the children they care for. they love them like their own children and yet, sadly for them, someday, they must say goodbye to them, probably forever. i wonder how many children, then and now, are raised by someone other than their parents who love them so much and who they never thank or tell them they love them in return. it's not their fault, their children, but it doesn't make it any easier on the person caring for them. then their is the love for a family member who doesn't treat you right and the love for a family member who has passed. both of those are loved i am not familiar with and hope never to be. but i can only imagine the pain because i know how much i love to be with my family and friends and cannot imagine my life without them. also the conflict of the white women who want to love their help, but it simply is not acceptable. i think of skeeter's mom, and how sad that story is when she fires constantine. what a confused woman she was.

these are my "brief" thoughts. i could go on and on and would love to with anyone who wants to talk about the book. go read it. you will feel accomplished because it is long and happy because it is good.