“You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view–until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
-Atticus Finch, speaking to his daughter Scout, in chapter 3 of To Kill A Mockingbird
A big help
Kathryn Stockett is white. She’s got money. She went to college. At present, she’s A Going Concern in literary circles: her first novel, The Help, has been made into a major motion picture that will be released today. Kathryn’s current success, I believe, has something to do with the fearless honesty with which she took Atticus’s advice: she climbed into the dark skin of her characters, and walked around in it.
If you have not read The Help, you have missed a rare treat. It is pitch-perfect southern fiction, which means it is hilarious, heart-wrenching, deep, full of biting immensely quotable wit, and brutal honesty. Kathryn writes as only a southern woman can: the ink that fuels her pen flows from her heart. The story reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird in many ways, and Harper Lee’s gentle Calpurnia reminded me of Stockett’s Aibileen. Both women exude a powerful quiet love for the children in their care. To Kill a Mockingbird starts out with such humor that when it smacks you with its importance, you nearly fall out of your chair, and the same is true in The Help.
My favorite piece of fiction
The writing in both of these stories is beautiful, like the view from the creaking swing hanging from the deep porch of an old southern home at dusk, where the evening breeze brings the smell of the magnolias and the hickory wood burning in the bar-be-que grill out back and the feeling of the cold tea slipping down your hot throat mingles with the view of the land and the deep southern sky, and looking out at it, you find yourself wiping your wet eyes because the simplicity of the moment has released your quiet tears.
Because of the slower pace, southerners observe things longer, and good southern writers pen such observations as these:
“ Maycomb was a tired old town, even in 1932 when I first knew it. Somehow, it was hotter then. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning; ladies bathed before noon, after their 3 o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frosting from sweating and sweet talcum. The day was twenty-four hours long, but it seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go and nothing to buy… and no money to buy it with. Although Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself… That summer, I was six years old.”
-from To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee“If chocolate was a sound, it would have been Constantine’s voice singing. If singing was a color, it would have been the color of that chocolate.”
-from The Help, Kathryn Stockett
Growing up can hurt
Fair warning: both books will break your heart, and then put it back together again, and as soon as you’ve finished them, you will want nothing more than to start over on page one, with the full knowledge that your heart is about to be broken again. But it’s ok-scar tissue is very strong.
It bothers me immensely that The Help is seen as a “chic’s story”. Granted, there are no alien invasions, no major car chases, no secret agents, no gratuitous sex, no monsters (save for Mrs. Hilly Holbrook, who is completely terrifying), and no explosions (except for Minny…). But, this is a novel for people. And I think I heard once that even men are people. Men can appreciate a good fight between good and evil, and just because the soldiers in this war are dressed in the deceptively demure armor of the late 1960′s, doesn’t mean the battle is any less vicious. Besides, guys are always trying to figure out what in the world makes women do the weird things we do, and seeing the underworld of female relationships can shed some light on why certain things “just aren’t done”. Male or female, if you have a heart, and it can be touched by the struggle, the love and the humanity of others, then this is a story you should read.
Armed, and extremely dangerous
Scout learned there was “some skill involved in being a girl”, and that “there’s just one kind of folks: folks”. Mae Mobley learned she was smart, she was kind, and she was important, and because of Skeeter and Minny, Aibileen learned those things, too. These are stories of growth and of courage, and the lessons they learned can make our world better if we will learn them, too. So, read The Help, and learn, and grow.
And, after you read, make you a caramel cake and go see the movie…I hear it’s fabulous.