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Registration is open for Heart.Wants.Books Celebrates WITCHES…I mean Virtual Book Club to discuss Alix E. Harrow’s Once and Future Witches.  We have been (not so) patiently waiting to read this October 13, 2020 release (and may well start reading it on the book’s birthday).  Why so much excitement?  Harrow’s debut, The Ten Thousand Doors of January was a double Heart.Wants.Books favorite of 2020.  Join us to discuss her sophomore effort, and bonus points if you read both Harrow’s current books (she has another coming out October 5).  

The tricky part about The Awakening by Kate Chopin is that when we searched Overdrive for a library copy of the book the first hit was The Awakening by Nora Roberts and the second hit was The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening by L.J. Smith. I have never thought of any other book besides the Kate Chopin classic when thinking of this title. Lo and behold my brain is not wired for what the algorithm is used to answering. C’est la vie. When we picked this title to read for Banned Books month, I didn’t remember ever having read it before. Then I got a couple chapters in and realized, oh, yup, I definitely read it and wrote about it in high school for some AP English thing or other. Reasons why I would have picked up this title: Louisiana, especially New Orleans, settings, sensational female author of the time, and all the French patois. 

Kate Chopin, nee O’Flaherty, was born February 8, 1850, and died August 22, 1904. She was born and educated in St. Louis, Missouri. The majority of her education was conducted at a convent school, where she was, surprisingly, taught to make her own money and decisions, and to write regularly. She married Oscar Chopin in 1870 and moved to New Orleans where they had 6 children and lived until Oscar’s cotton brokerage went under. They then moved to Natchitoches parish to oversee small plantations and a general store. Oscar died in 1882, leaving her and the family greatly in debt. After selling the businesses, Chopin moved back to St. Louis to be near her mother, who subsequently died soon after. In the midst of these hardships, Chopin was encouraged to write, and her novels and short stories were published to some acclaim, mostly in periodicals in the 1890s. The Awakening was published in 1899 to much critical backlash. The themes, as you will see, were not deemed suitable for living a moral life. Publishers stopped producing copies, and it wasn’t until the following mid-century when the themes found a new readership and appreciation for her literary talent which places Kate Chopin as “one of America’s essential authors.”

I find The Awakening is an unconfirmed semi-autobiographical novel. It’s a rather short, quick read as compared to our typical choice of book. It focuses on a monied, upper class New Orleans society, where the families summer on the Gulf coast. (Yes, that’s me using summer as a verb.) Leonce Pontellier, the husband of our protagonist Edna, worked in the brokerage business in New Orleans, just as Oscar Chopin did. It seems that Leonce also hid his lack of funds behind continually spending money it was never confirmed he had. Edna was from Kentucky and was Presbyterian, not from St. Louis and Catholic as Chopin herself was, but still being from a more Northern state than Louisiana and therefore an outsider to New Orleans society. It would not be much of a stretch to think that perhaps the Chopins traveled to the gulf coast for several months of the year, that once a week Chopin would remain at home to entertain callers, and that they would have had paid help to take care of the house, cooking, and children. 

Oh, dear readers, was this perhaps a rough title emotionally to read at the moment, most definitely yes. Because I am, too, like Edna, finding myself dissatisfied with my day to day life. Enough to shake up my daily and weekly routines, to lay aside the actions that might be expected of me because they truly are not what I want to do – as Edna foregoes her Tuesdays at home for callers. This book was ill-received however, because of Edna’s falling in love with another man and having an affair of the heart if not a physical one, and her shirking her expected duties as a wife and mother. ‘Critics’ (read: men) don’t like it when a woman decides to acknowledge that she is a person first, then a wife and mother, and can and should do the things that bring her joy and fulfillment. I don’t condone anyone shirking responsibilities of children or home – but Edna didn’t have the responsibilities that we modern women have. She had maids, a cook, gardeners, a house boy, and a nanny figure for her children. Nothing important was being neglected at the house except her own needs and desires. I could discuss for several more paragraphs why her actions during the book should not be judged, but Nikki also needs to have her say. I’m giving Kate Chopin’s most well-known book four stars with the probability of a re-read at some point before I wander off into the sea.

What recent book seems to parallel things that are happening in your life?

~Ashley

This is an interesting time to read (or reread as is the case) Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.  As you’d expect from a book of that title, written by a woman, and published in 1899, this book is about Edna awakening to herself like a “some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun.”  Edna isn’t a “mother-woman” but she is the mother to two rambunctious, young boys and has taken them (and their “quadroon” – yes, that’s a term used to refer to several of women employed by the “genteel” families) to Grande Isle for the summer, where her husband joins them for the weekends when he’s not working in New Orleans.  This is where we find her, and through her relationships with others, she begins to find herself after what could be seen as sleepwalking through life.  

But what does that have to do with now?  Well, after feeling like I hibernated (more or less) for a year and change, I was ready to get back out into the world, and then that became even more challenging than before, and I feel like I’m going through my own awakening trying to figure out what “normal” is now because we are well past the “we can do anything for a short while” stage and the risks are too great for me to be out living my best life and ignoring them.  I’m also (albeit delayed a year) trying to figure out what it means for our family to have zero kids in daycare for the first time in nearly a decade, and how to make the most of the two years of drop offs at only one school we have left.  I have no answers, because other fires are landing in my lap, but I have so, SO many questions and I’m wondering what is next after feeling like our family has followed the typical path the mythical “they” prescribed for so long.

But the connection is…when The Awakening opens, Edna was doing what was expected of her, and it took a couple of people trying to love her well in their own ways to push her into searching to find herself.  Did she find herself in the most upstanding, responsible way?  Well, no, but I’d argue she didn’t even find herself really, and maybe she really did just go for a rest to try to figure the rest out where she felt most comfortable.  There’s something soothing about the pace of summer life and the sounds of the water that has me making sense of this.  As we are now solidly in fall, I’m thinking about seasonal transitions and how to make the most of this next one.  Would that I could go for a rest by the water (note: not in, but by) and take some dedicated time to figure it out.  

I also give The Awakening four stars.  It’s a beautifully written, likely semi-autobiographical story of a woman trying to live for herself after just reacting for so long to those around her.  It makes me want to be more intentional with my choices instead of just feeling like I’m struggling to hold on in this storm, and reminds me of the first time I read it, and the woman who put it into my college-student hands because she couldn’t believe I’d never read this essential text before.  

What’s a book that has you thinking purposefully about life?  

~Nikki 

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