San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 Novels of the West (53)
One of the highlights of baseball season used to be the Mets' road trip
into Pittsburgh, when Met broadcaster and former Pirate would get to explain
to listeners that the ballpark was called Three Rivers Stadium because
the city sits at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio
Rivers. Well, Ursula Hegi's much praised novel sits at the confluence
of several of the most annoying trends in literature: the conceit that
the handicapped partake of some special knowledge; the treatment of the
citizens of Nazi Germany as victims; and the general idea that the Holocaust
was completely aberrant rather than an organic outgrowth of German culture.
These pernicious theories intertwine in Hegi's story of Trudi Montag, a
dwarf librarian (librarians as heroes are another common theme, but we'll
assume a fairly benign one, simply intended to get libraries to stock the
book) in Germany who learns over the course of two World Wars the enormously
platitudinous truth that: "Being different is a secret that all human beings
share."
It's easy to see how this was chosen for Oprah's Book Club; there's
so much to make fun of here it's hard to decide where to start. Why
don't we just take the handicap angle, since we've discussed the Nazi stuff
elsewhere [see Orrin's review of Hitler's
Willing Executioners : Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (Daniel
Jonah Goldhagen) (Grade: A)]. One can hardly take
issue with the movement over recent years to more fully integrate the handicapped
into society and to recognize that they are capable of making valuable
contributions to our civic culture. But this admirable change in
social perception has been accompanied by a disturbing tendency to totemize
the handicapped. It is one thing to recognize the worth of handicapped
individuals, quite another to pretend that their very handicaps are actually
beneficial. We see this idiocy quite often in discussions of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, when writers like Doris Kearns Goodwin [see
Orrin's review of No Ordinary Time : Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt : The Home Front in World War II (Doris Kearns
Goodwin)(C+)] blithely assume that his polio gave
him a special sensitivity and insight to the needs of his fellow man, a
proposition which is at least arguable, but then fail to consider whether
it might also have left him an embittered wretch, determined to destroy
the lives of others more fortunate than himself. I do not mean to
suggest that such was the case, that the New Deal was simply a way of getting
even with the upper classes who kept him out of the Porcellian Club at
Harvard. Rather, I am pointing out that current politically correct
attitudes towards the "differently abled" preclude considering their conditions
as anything like a disability. Thus, where the dwarves of Wagner
and Germanic myth were relatively evil and the dwarf of Gunter Grass's
awful Tin Drum represented the emotional stunting of the German
people after Hitler, Hegi gives us the dwarf as a uniquely perceptive observer
of the human condition. Each of these seems equally malefic to me.
As Martin Luther King pleaded, we should judge people by the content of
their character. Treating the handicapped as if they had some kind
of specially heightened abilities is just as bigoted as treating them as
worthless.
This is a truly silly book and a thinly veiled attempt to excuse German
perpetration of the Holocaust. Stick with Daniel Goldhagen's
book instead.
(Reviewed:30-Mar-00)
Grade: (D)
Websites:
Book-related and General Links:
-Oprah
Book Club: Ursula Hegi
-PROFILE:
'Stone' breaks the grip of silence (USA Today)
-AUDIO
INTERVIEW: (Infoculture, CBC)
-REVIEW:
of WINTER Notes From Montana. By Rick Bass (Ursula Hegi, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE ALL-GIRL FOOTBALL TEAM. By Lewis Nordan (Ursula Hegi, NY Times
Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of LOST WEDDINGS By Maria Beig (Ursula Hegi, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of LITTLE TALES OF MISOGYNY. By Patricia Highsmith (Ursula
Hegi, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of WATCHING THE BODY BURN By Thomas Glynn (Ursula Hegi,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE UNLOVED: From the Diary of Perla S. By Arnost Lustig
(Ursula Hegi, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of PLANS FOR DEPARTURE. By Nayantara Sahgal (Ursula Hegi,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of PRISONER'S DILEMMA By Richard Powers (Ursula Hegi, NY
Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of COLLABORATORS By Janet Kauffman (Ursula Hegi, NY Times
Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of LONG WAY FROM HOME By Frederick Busch (Ursula Hegi,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of FRAUD By Anita Brookner (Ursula Hegi, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of THE LOSER By Thomas Bernhard. Translated by Jack Dawson
(Ursula Hegi, NY Times Book Review)
-ESSAY:
Reaching to the converted: Oprah's Book Club introduces readers to
people they already know -- themselves (Gavin McNett, Salon)
-ESSAY:
Synthesis/Analysis Paper by Emily Falcone
-REVIEW:
of STONES FROM THE RIVER By Ursula Hegi (Suzanne Ruta, NY Times Book
Review)
-REVIEW:
of Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi (Ruth Adams, Librarian,
Picks of the Pros)
-REVIEW:
Responsible To Our Time A novel of staying awake to injustice
(W. Dale Brown, Sojourners Magazine)
-REVIEW:
of Stones (Kent Chadwick, NORTHWEST BOOKS REGIONAL WRITERS
IN REVIEW)
-REVIEW:
of Stones (Mostly Fiction: recommended books by Ursula Hegi)
-REVIEW:
of Stones (Maggie Kamau, Africa Wired)
-ANNOTATED
REVIEW: Hegi, Ursula Stones from the River (Willms, Janice L., Medical
Humanities)
-REVIEWS:
of Stones From the River (Epinions)
-ESSAY:
After Oprah (ALA Book List)
-REVIEW:
of Tearing the Silence Being German in America. By Ursula Hegi (Walter
Reich, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
tearing the silence : on being german in America BY URSULA
HEGI (SALLY ECKHOFF, Salon)
-REVIEW:
of THE VISION OF EMMA BLAU By Ursula Hegi (Diana Postlethwaite, NY
Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of Vision of Emma Blau (Valerie Ryan, The Seattle Times)
-REVIEW:
of Vision of Emma Blau (Robert Clark, Washington Post Book World)
-REVIEW:
Vision of Emma Blau (Ann Patchett, Chicago Tribune)
-REVIEW:
of Vision of Emma Blau (MAUDE MCDANIEL, Book Page)
-REVIEW:
of SALT DANCER By Ursula Hegi (Abby Frucht, NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
of FLOATING IN MY MOTHER'S PALM By Ursula Hegi (Edward Hoagland, NY
Times Book Review)
Comments:
Orrin welcomes reader comments on his reviews.
Add yours here.
i do agree with the above comments. when in the book did it say that trudi, a handicapped person, had magical powers? you're a complete idiot to think or assume that is what Ursula hegi was trying to say. trudi was just simply insightful on life and others. she didn't have some special gift that came with her otherness. this is also a book about a small town in germany and it's people there. NOT about every german at the time. try reading a book before reviewing it.
- who cares
- Oct-04-2005, 11:48
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i like books on war and this book was cool, kinda long but it was alright to read. the guy/girl that reviewed it may have their own opinion but everyone that read it in my university english class enjoyed it.
- kon artyst
- Oct-14-2003, 12:59
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I think this was an amazing book which demonstrates how everyone is different and that's what makes us 'normal'. Your review mark was a D, I do believe that you did not read the book and just outlined it, or you're of the male sex.
- Mandi
- Oct-14-2003, 12:57
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You gave this book a grade of D. I give your review a grade of F, only because I don't know of anything lower.
RP
- Raybern Palaflor
- Jul-14-2003, 09:11
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