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A review by pixie_d
The Human Comedy by Don Freeman, Michael Farmer, William Saroyan
2.0
I wish I could remember which book I read that listed this title, which prompted me to check it out from the library. I can't recall what they saw in it. Clearly it is supposed to be some uplifting WWII story to make all the average Joes and their families feel good about all the lives risked, and possibly destroyed or lost. But in this post-Me Too era I can't read it without seeing how all of what they imagine the servicemen (gender intended) "deserve" is firmly on the backs of the women and girls. The author seems to think they have no agency or authority over their own bodies, to start. Girls and women are objects meant to evoke feelings in the boys and men, who get to be the judge of who is the most beautiful -- and also the judge of which women are too old, fat, etc.: "an old battle-ax, horse-faced, sex-starved, dried-out, tall, skinny, gaunt, bony, absurd, and a mess." Keep your misogynistic hostility to yourself, asshole, I want to say.
You will read about kisses grabbed without warning much less permission, and probably think "Consent, ever heard of it?" Girls are also told who to marry, and the 14-year-old "man" (yes, the author repeatedly calls him that) of the house is enjoined by his older brother to not "allow" the sister and the neighbor/girlfriend to work, either. The kid lectures them, "And one of these days, Bess, you'll find, a guy you like (in fact her brother picks him). That's the only job you ought to be thinking about. Just because there happens to be a war in the world isn't a reason for everybody to go out of their heads. Just stay home where you belong and help Mama, and you help your father, Mary." I call severe bullshit on that, and can't help feeling sad as I recall the immense toll of the propaganda campaigns to deny women's dignity and freedoms after the war.
When the writer of the back book flap feels the need to mention the author's "unhappy and occasionally violent marriage," among other things, you know something was seriously wrong with that author. But readers with any awareness of our society at that time will be thoroughly chilled by the fact that it wasn't something wrong with just one guy. It was a mass effort to build up one segment of the population by pushing another down. Sickening. The hamfisted attempts to imbue one group with dignity cannot be written off as sentimental claptrap when they come at the (enormous) expense of another group's dignity. Sorry for the old-timey vocab there, but you can see it's in response to antiquated notions and behavior that will no longer go unnoticed. The act and experience of reading, like writing, always occurs in context.
Oh, and there was the "comedy" of a 4-year-old -- yes, 4! -- named Ulysses left to wander (intended) around, mostly and often completely unsupervised in a town based on Saroyan's home town of Fresno. Just to add to the distance one feels between that world and our own. Yikes!
You will read about kisses grabbed without warning much less permission, and probably think "Consent, ever heard of it?" Girls are also told who to marry, and the 14-year-old "man" (yes, the author repeatedly calls him that) of the house is enjoined by his older brother to not "allow" the sister and the neighbor/girlfriend to work, either. The kid lectures them, "And one of these days, Bess, you'll find, a guy you like (in fact her brother picks him). That's the only job you ought to be thinking about. Just because there happens to be a war in the world isn't a reason for everybody to go out of their heads. Just stay home where you belong and help Mama, and you help your father, Mary." I call severe bullshit on that, and can't help feeling sad as I recall the immense toll of the propaganda campaigns to deny women's dignity and freedoms after the war.
When the writer of the back book flap feels the need to mention the author's "unhappy and occasionally violent marriage," among other things, you know something was seriously wrong with that author. But readers with any awareness of our society at that time will be thoroughly chilled by the fact that it wasn't something wrong with just one guy. It was a mass effort to build up one segment of the population by pushing another down. Sickening. The hamfisted attempts to imbue one group with dignity cannot be written off as sentimental claptrap when they come at the (enormous) expense of another group's dignity. Sorry for the old-timey vocab there, but you can see it's in response to antiquated notions and behavior that will no longer go unnoticed. The act and experience of reading, like writing, always occurs in context.
Oh, and there was the "comedy" of a 4-year-old -- yes, 4! -- named Ulysses left to wander (intended) around, mostly and often completely unsupervised in a town based on Saroyan's home town of Fresno. Just to add to the distance one feels between that world and our own. Yikes!