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livingpalm1 's review for:
Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse
by Jennifer Worth, Nicola Barber
Call the Midwife is still one of my top five favorite television series of all time. I was a bit hesitant to read the original memoir because I thought it might reveal too many differences between the true-life story with what is shown on television. While the television series has gone past the original trilogy of true-life stories by Jennifer Worth, the episodes have remained compelling.
Probably the largest difference in the books is the greater amount of detail Ms. Worth shares about the pockets of depravity in post-war London's poverty -riddled East End. In my opinion, PBS sketches the realities with a soft touch and that serves the viewer well. In her writing, Worth describes in more harsh detail the prostitution, workhouses, abuse and crime she saw first-hand bicycling her way among the labyrinth of over-populated, under-resourced tenements. It was good for me to know these realities because I don't want to be too fragile to know the truth about poverty, misplaced bureaucracy, and human suffering. But I wouldn't have been able to watch it on television. (I should mention that both the books and the program contain depictions that could trigger stress for those who've experienced trauma -- especially pregnancy-related suffering.)
More importantly, knowing better the jagged details sharpened my appreciation for the nun-midwives and district nurses of Nonnatus House. Their gracious, dogged determination to be the hands and feet of their Savior to the suffering women and children (all people, actually) in the heart of a mid-twentieth century Dickensian world teaches me, incarnational love, just as it drew Jennifer Worth (nurse Jenny Lee in the program) to the Gospel.
Probably the largest difference in the books is the greater amount of detail Ms. Worth shares about the pockets of depravity in post-war London's poverty -riddled East End. In my opinion, PBS sketches the realities with a soft touch and that serves the viewer well. In her writing, Worth describes in more harsh detail the prostitution, workhouses, abuse and crime she saw first-hand bicycling her way among the labyrinth of over-populated, under-resourced tenements. It was good for me to know these realities because I don't want to be too fragile to know the truth about poverty, misplaced bureaucracy, and human suffering. But I wouldn't have been able to watch it on television. (I should mention that both the books and the program contain depictions that could trigger stress for those who've experienced trauma -- especially pregnancy-related suffering.)
More importantly, knowing better the jagged details sharpened my appreciation for the nun-midwives and district nurses of Nonnatus House. Their gracious, dogged determination to be the hands and feet of their Savior to the suffering women and children (all people, actually) in the heart of a mid-twentieth century Dickensian world teaches me, incarnational love, just as it drew Jennifer Worth (nurse Jenny Lee in the program) to the Gospel.