Women Talking

I would give it a 3.5/5.

I understand what the author was trying to do, but (in all honesty) I found it very boring to read. Sad? Yes. Compelling? Sure. Thought provoking? Absolutely. But boring.

At the end, it would have really helped it altogether for me if we would have seen the reaction of the men once they returned. Then finish with the rabbit and the squirrel reflection. Especially since we are following along with a story told by a man who stayed behind. I wanted to see the consequences, even if it was just a glimpse.

I liked the ending, which cast a new light on what I had been finding annoyingly abstract, unnecessarily philosophical conversations of the “women talking,” their ruminations over whether to stay in or leave their abusive community. Why all this debate, just leave already! But in the end, the question I should have paid more attention to – why one of the women asked a man to record the conversations in a language they did not understand and could not read – was answered as the purpose for the whole exercise, which was quite a neat narrative trick. It almost made me forgive the absurdity of the style of recording, which was completely impossible; there's no way the transcriber would be able to write down word for word dialogue in the way he supposedly did.

Thematically, the question is how, whether, why one can forgive an unforgiveable act. This also was answered in the ending, which showed that one way, at least, is not to try to pay back the attacker, which only continues the cycle of suffering, nor to get back what he stole from you, which is impossible, but to give, give something positive to another who is suffering, give of yourself without being asked or demanded of or attacked. That is my personal experience as well, that difficult as it may be to open up and be vulnerable and real when you've been so wounded, it is the only way to stop the trauma from having control over you.

This was an interesting read after having enjoyed the movie. There are meaningful differences and it's dense enough that it didn't feel like I was just playing the movie through in my head again.

There are a lot of sort of philosophical and religious debates topics here that aren't strikingly original, but are still interesting to explore (if you truly believed in eternal salvation, why would you ever stop trying to save those you care about?). There's a large cast of characters with different viewpoints and experiences, and there is plenty of the titular talk to that kept me engrossed.

I did find it a bit strange that even with this title, the entire thing is from the point of view of a make narrator, but it does make sense in the context of the story, and I found the final monologue to be very moving.

Definitely recommend this whether you've seen the movie or not.

👍🏼Pick It: for an intricate and tangled look inside true events that read like a dystopian
👎🏼Skip It: If you're expecting a loud Handsmaid's Tale-esque revolution

Miriam Toews authored one of my 2018 Favorite Reads (All My Puny Sorrows), so I cracked this one open with first-born expectations.

And she came to the story with a full arsenal:
* Firsthand experience in Mennonite culture.
* Matchmaker Queen between readable word and unspeakable pain.

Unfortunately, this was a fumble. I found the plot painstakingly slow with little resolve.

Dubbing a male to narrate contradicted and eliminated her first-row opportunity and responsibility to convey the story of the voiceless.

August is seen as unmanly because he's not a farmer, and seen as an outsider because his parents were excommunicated and he was raised mostly outside of his Mennonite community. Perhaps for those reasons, he is asked by Ona, his childhood friend, to take minutes for a group of Mennonite women who are meeting to decide how to respond to their repeated assault and rape by men in their community. August is the narrator of this novel, which records the deliberations of the women as they struggle to come to agreement about what they will do, and what reasons support their decision.

The novel is dialogue interspersed with narrative about what the women are doing as they talk, so we get a physical sense of the women and their characters. Some are full of rage, some sad, some cynical and sarcastic. They are young and old and they are family to each other, literal mothers, daughters, and sisters, as well as cousins and neighbors. Their conversation digs into the conditions of their life and their culture and exposes their vulnerability to harm at the hands of the men in their community, as well as their earnest desire to be true to their faith—to cultivate love and forgiveness, and to forgo violence. These are heavy themes, but no one makes long speeches. One woman's habit of using stories about her two elderly horses, Ruth and Cheryl, to illustrate her points is met with eye rolling and impatience from the other women. One of the powers of this book is that the characters are full enough to make what is essentially a theological and philosophical argument feel like a natural conversation.

August himself comes to participate in the conversation and in the action the women end up taking. His additions of his own thoughts to the narrative of the meeting adds important background and deep poignance to the novel. I loved this book.

3.75 stars, which I'll be rounding up to 4.
This was a difficult read for me.
Being naturally averse to theological talk and having dabbed for too long a time with philosophy and its meandering musings, I have to admit I really struggled with staying interested in the weird, meandering thoughts of brainwashed, ignorant (I mean this in the most non-judgemental way possible) women.

Book talk aside, I shudder at the thought that such insular, coercitive realities as the Mennonite colony described in the book still exist in this day and age.

My review will echo others. In short, this is an deadened, back-and-forth circular discussion on the topic of whether to leave or stay in light of horrific abuse, all viewed through a religious Mennonite lens. The story throws some jabs, and the ending did pull some heartstrings, but ultimately I'm left confused and annoyed.

I think the biggest misstep in this novel that cascaded into other issues is the method of which the story is told. No speech is direct. Everything, save for our narrator, is spoken in passive statements, and it serves to deaden a lot of emotion about the situation at hand, as well as removing a large bit of personality from each character. There were a few moments of creepy, chill-up-your-spine implications and sudden, graphic depictions - all of which had heavier impact due to the otherwise banal narration - but overall it only served to turn much of the story into a slog.

The narrator's gender didn't bother me as much as his long-winded inserts did. Separate from him explaining certain cultural nuances, the insert of his background or his encounters outside the meeting felt frustrating. What really chapped my hide however were the comments and odes about one character he pines for. In the context of what this novel is centered on, it comes across as almost... creepy. It's all soft and emotional, but like, she's pregnant because she was raped. I'm not sure if this is to grow the narrator's character, or to illustrate a statement on men overall, but either way it was, also, annoying.

Based on other reviews, it seems as if the choices made here were stylistic, in which case I can confidently say the style is not for me. I think if this had been handled a bit differently, and maybe some choices - in narrator, particularly - were changed, this would be rated much higher. As it stands however, I didn't much care for it.

“She may have glanced in my direction when she said this, but I cannot tell for certain. “My” direction is in the same direction as the window (directly behind me), which is filthy and crawling with flies and looks out at the miles and miles of fields and sky and galaxies beyond that, and then to infinity. So perhaps not.”

A community of women in a Mennonite cult hold a debate in a barn about whether to leave their abusers or stay and fight.

I couldn't put this one down. Short, powerful, vital. I can't wait to see the movie, though so much of this story's power comes from its form in the written word. Definitely going to read more Toews.

This is based on the horrific real life story of a couple of men in a Mennonite community in Bolivia, drugging and raping the women for many years. Chamber-play style, we spend two days with 3 generations of women of 2 families, while they sit and talk and debate if the women of the community should stay to fight or leave. They are angry and fear for the safety of their children, but they also want to find a way to deal with this that doesn't conflict with their beliefs. They are believers, they live a life of obeying their husbands. They are illiterate, cut off from the world, ignorant of certain words and concepts that relate to their situation. But they are also like all of us, some are stubborn, some are full of doubt, some are forgiving, some are murderous.

Gruesome story, fascinating premises. About reconciling what you believe in with the culture it created. About being revolutionary, while being afraid of the word. The writing does a good job of not over-focusing at the gruesome deeds at its root. Toews also takes good care of giving outsiders a window into the life of Mennonites women without belittling them.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the fact that the whole thing, i mean the ENTIRE thing is written from August's (A MAN'S) perspective....... HELLO IT'S WOMEN TALKING where are the women :( Someone I talked to about this book tried to argue that this is the point and some kind of meta-commentary but I just wanted women to write some pieces of this :/

an interesting read and an even better research topic to look into the real story!!

Back in the mid 2000's there was a small Mennonite outpost in Boliva where the women were waking up in a daze, their bedsheets soiled with blood, dirt and semen. Naturally they were dismissed as crazy, or at the very least guilty of some sort of adulterous behaviour. But the women began talking and soon it was clear it was happening to dozens of others. Demons! A plague from God! What are you going to do?

It wasn't until two men were caught breaking into a neighbours house, armed with a veterinarian spray used to anesthetize cows were the women taken seriously. The men promptly named names and 9 men were arrested.

Miriam Toews takes that as a jumping off point for her latest novel where the women in her imagined Mennonite community are faced with the return of the guilty men in 48 hours. The women are ordered to forgive the rapists lest their souls be damned to hell, and the women responsible for damning them would be judged in the eyes of God and would have to be excommunicated. The women are faced with a decision: Do Nothing, Stay and Fight, or Leave.

A timely and incredibly powerful read that explores how these women fight for the right to be heard in a patriarchal society that has essentially stacked the deck against them. Toews does an incredible job playing these ideas of justice, retribution, forgiveness and grace in the recorded conversations of the women that is by turns funny, warm, exasperating and hopeful. Hidden in a barn loft the clock is ticking and a decision must be made.