My friend Esther gave me a book called Women Who Write Are Dangerous for Christmas. At first I thought I would go through it systematically, reading one essay a day about different women writers. Instead I’ve been dabbling. I flip through the pages and find an author that intrigues me and read her story.
In the section called The Discovery of Childhood I read about Johanna Spyri the author of Heidi. It was a story I loved as a child. I reread Heidi in the fall of 2017 when we were cycling in Switzerland. In Women Who Write Are Dangerous I was interested to learn that after she married and had a son Johanna suffered from depression as indeed do several characters in her famous novel. It was in writing that Johanna found personal satisfaction and a measure of healing from her depression just as the characters in her novel find healing in nature and in new and restored relationships. In 1871 it was dangerous for a woman to openly say that she found creative pursuits more fullfilling than marriage and parenthood but Johanna did just that.
In the section called Women’s Voices in World Literature I read about Toni Morrison the African American author of so many great novels. Just thinking about her book Beloved evokes the heartsick feeling it gave me. In Women Who Write Are Dangerous I was interested to learn that Toni says she has never addressed herself specifically to an African American audience. Imagination she says is a force without gender, nationality or race preferences. When you think about how imagination can be an agent for change Morrison’s idea might seem dangerous to some people, especially those who prefer the status quo in our world.
I am going to keep dabbling in Women Who Write Are Dangerous. Thanks Esther for a great Christmas gift.
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