The Invention of Wings

Both audiobook narrators did a great job portraying their characters. I was interested by the notes at the end to learn the Grimke sisters were real, and felt rather let down by my own historical knowledge. I'd never read a SMK before, but I see the appeal.

The Invention of Wings is one of my PopSugar Reading Challenge books, for the prompt “A Book from a Celebrity Book Club.” It was Oprah's 3rd pick for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. Oprah interviewed Sue Monk Kidd in the January 2014 issue of O Magazine.

I can definitely see why Oprah was so affected by this book; the two main characters are Sarah Grimké, an early abolitionist and women's rights activist, and Hetty Handful, the slave gifted to her by her mother when she turned 11. In an afterword, Kidd explains that she did try to stay mostly historically accurate, and Handful was gifted to Sarah when she was 11, though she apparently died not long after. In Kidd's book, however, Handful survives. Sarah and her younger sister, Angelina, were real people, and really did most of what is ascribed to them in the book, though Kidd passes a couple of their deeds from one sister to the other. The Grimkés were from Charleston, South Carolina, and born into an aristocratic, slave-owning family headed by a prestigious judge. Their abolitionist actions get them exiled from Charleston and from their church. Meanwhile, Hetty, her ownership having returned to Sarah's mother, dreams of freedom and plots rebellions of her own.

I was a little wary going into this book; I've read a couple of Oprah's picks before, and generally found them dry and uninteresting. This one, though, was very well written. The voices of both women came through clearly, as did some of the brutality of slavery. Kidd also wrote The Secret Life of Bees, which got a lot of attention. If it's anything like this, I might have to finally read that as well.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

I loved the juxtaposition between the two characters–Sarah and Handful–who are both prisoners/slaves to the societal norms of the time: Handful being an actual slave in the American south and Sarah being held back with the expectations of being a women in the 1800's. While the narrative is slow for the most part, the events are most interesting. I have never heard of Sarah Grimke, the real-life abolitionist, so it was interesting to hear some of the events or the situations that Sarah experienced in order to change the world around her.

Easy read and enjoyable with insights of life during slavery.

Quotes:
“To remain silent in the face of evil is itself a form of evil.”

“Color prejudice is at the bottom of everything. If it's not fixed, the plight of the Negro will continue long after abolition.”

“Professor Julius Lester, which I kept propped on my desk: “History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own.”

Readable, predictable. Didn't leave the impact it seemed it might.

I absolutely loved this book. It wasn't until I finished that is realized that the Grimke sisters were real inspirational women in our history. I like to think that I'd have their bravery during that time.

Amazing. Wish I had written this myself.

I can't believe the characters of Sarah and Angelina Grimke were based on real sisters who were female pioneers in the abolitionist and feminist movements. I was thrilled to learn this and only wish I had learned about them sooner back in high school and/or college history classes!

When I began this book, I was excited to see what the story held. I had heard about Sue Monk Kidd from her other books, and this was approved by Oprah's book club. Sadly, not even Oprah's seal of approval can save this book for me.

There are two big issues that stop me from truly liking An Invention of Wings, and that is the pacing and the writing style.

Firstly, the point of view is good, but I felt that it tended to drag at times, especially when we were reading Sarah's parts. Handful's POV is good, but Sarah's are when the plot slows down significantly, because all we deal with is the problem of not being the first female lawyer. Once that is out of the plot, we are left with Sarah trying to find a husband...which, for me, was not very thrilling, and tended to slow the novel down. After Sarah's father dies, the novel finally begins to move beyond a snail's pace, and we get to see what Sarah is like, but even this was not necessarily interesting. This is because, again, we spend time with her looking for a career and trying to find herself in this world where no one wanted to deal with her due to her thoughts on slavery. Meanwhile, Handful is a slave that has to deal with her being a slave, and trying to survive. These viewpoints are good, if handled well, but sadly the pacing is just so slow that I could not help but lose interest.

That leads me into my next point, the writing. While it is fine, it isn't anything spectacular. It is merely serviceable and little else. I think this is because of how the author tells us many different things, instead of showing them to us. The novel is split up into different sections that take plac over a period of months, and even years. We then switch viewpoints between Handful and Sarah. This means that we are constantly being told information to set up each viewpoint, such as “ I went back to Charleston to take care of mother because father died...” Sadly, this writing tended to stick out the most for me, and prevented me from connecting with the characters. This, along with a lack of sensory details, tends to make for a writing style that lacks any punch. If you want to find a book that does this well, I'd recommend Kindred by Octavia Butler. The writing style there is full of sensory details and an excellent dilemma, which I won't spoil.

Then there are other things here that just annoy me from a historical perspective, such as a comment on the 3/5th rule meaning that a slave was counted as 3/5th a person. This isn't true. The 3/5th compromise was a way to count population within the House of Representatives within the states that allowed slavery. There were those that wanted all slaves to be counted as part of the population (mainly those states in the south). Those other states disagreed, saying that because they were considered property, and were not even given the right to vote, why should hey be given the ability to control the house? Instead, a compromise was called, that came to be known as the 3/5th compromise. With this, every 3 out of 5 slaves that someone owned would count toward population. The owners would line up slaves and count every three and add them to the population. Beyond that, they were given no rights, and offered no freedoms. They were used to perpetuate the system of slavery, and nothing else.

Beyond these issues, the book was good, but that is it, merely serviceable, and little else. If I were to fix these problems, I would first work by making it more historically accurate, and cutting out Handful's story entirely and focus on Sarah's story and her fight for Women's Rights. According to the Author's Note, Handful died shortly after she and Sarah were caught trying to be taught how to read. This could be changed a bit to make it more significant for Sarah, and it could change her to want to fight for the abolition of slavery, and women's rights. Then the novel could focus more on her fight for rights, instead of her looking for a husband and wearing pretty dresses.

This novel was good, but it needs serious editing. I did like how the novel showed different positions regarding slavery. It is true that many people thought the slaves should go back to Africa, then there were those who should believe that slaves should be free, but they shouldn't be granted rights like white people. Still, these small facts don't keep me from giving it a low score. I have to say that I give it a two out of five.

My Mom raved about this book after listening to an audiobook version, so, of course, I had to see what all the hubbub was about. Okay, and the book showed up on a number of best-of-2014 book lists.

I often don't enjoy fictional stories based on historical characters (“Loving Frank,” for example, was a real drag), so I approached the book with some trepidation. Perhaps, Sue Monk Kidd's extensive research (don't miss the author's note at the end) helped to bring out the character's voices more than in other historical fiction I've read. To be honest, I did not know much about the Grimke sisters and would like to learn more given their ground-breaking abolition and women's rights activities.

In this novel, unlike another book I just read, switching narrators was an effective tool for seeing the story from a house slave in a well-to-do antebellum Charleston and a young woman who owns this same slave. I found the characters of Charlotte and Handful to be particularly well-drawn; these sections were in technicolor without being overdone. Also, Sarah Grimke's struggles between social propriety, expectations and hope for a loving husband and children, and social justice were also well-done.

While “The Invention of Wings” wasn't one of my favorite books of the year, it was enjoyable and I'm glad I listened to Mom.