Call the Midwife

Granola with a side of midwifery.

Author: Jennifer Worth

Category: I had never heard of this book until September, when the miniseries on which it is based came on PBS.

My thoughts: This book is wonderful! I really enjoyed the miniseries (almost to the point of obsession), and when it ended I thought, “I must read the book.” I have a great affinity for midwives, because my late maternal grandmother gave birth to thirteen healthy babies with the aid of a midwife (and, hopefully, some sort of painkiller). Call the Midwife is about the experiences of Jenny Lee (Worth’s maiden name), a young nurse trained in midwifery. She goes to live and work with the nuns at Nonnatus House, who are expert midwives, in the late 1950s. Nonnatus House was located in the East End of London, and is a gritty setting for our refined young nurse. I don’t ever remember reading a book with such a palpable sense of how everything smelled. Worth really makes it clear the odor of her environment, from the gross-smelling, filthy streets that house neighborhood brothels to the pungent ladyparts of her patients (who, bless their hearts, didn’t have access to daily baths). Worth is a great narrator—smart, funny, and compassionate. And she clearly knew what she was doing in regards to midwifery (lucky for all the East End mommies and babies she helped deliver). And she injects humor into a story that has its share of horrors—I shall not soon forget the story of Mary, a teenage Irish prostitute whose friend (and fellow prostitute) died after a horrible back-alley abortion.

In the TV series Call the Midwife, I particularly loved the character of Chummy, an awkward but endearing aristocratic nurse. She isn’t as prominent in the book, though, unfortunately. Worth writes that she thought the very tall Chummy was “a bloke in drag” upon first meeting her (an aside—I love the word “bloke.” I strongly believe that it needs to find its way into American English.) The nuns of Nonnatus House made me think, honestly, of how I would imagine a sorority house to be (with some very chaste sorority sisters). The women live together in close quarters, and personalities clash. Worth realizes that even though the nuns have taken vows of poverty and chastity, they are still human. However, she realizes that they are more flexible and understanding than one would expect nuns to be (I really don’t have that much experience with nuns, but I’ve heard a few stories of terrifying nuns from people who went to Catholic schools. Call the Midwife humanizes nuns a little, in my opinion).

The book is set in an interesting time period for England—the late 1950s. It’s after World War II, but the specter of war is still present via the huge craters in the earth from where the Germans bombed the East End during the Blitz. The immigration of African and West Indian immigrants also exploded during this time. Birth control was introduced just a few years after the story is set, and this severely limited the number of babies the midwives were called upon to deliver (but I’m sure the mothers were happy). Like several of the books I’ve read this year, Call the Midwife is quite far removed from my life. I’ve never even been to London, much less the East End. However, not only did I love this book, but I’ve been recommending it a lot to people. I feel as though people who are far removed from the life and experiences of those depicted in the book can still find inspiration in the book and be moved by it. Perhaps it’s because we all had a woman in our lives who undertook the painful and extraordinary journey of bringing us into this world.

Great passage (which illustrates Worth’s humor): Her mother was in her element, and bursting with pride. She was also just about bursting out of her tight-fitting purple taffeta suit. (Why is it that women always dress so outrageously for weddings? Look around you, and you will see middle-aged women in things that should have left behind with their twenties, drawn tightly across expanding backsides, pulled in at the waist, emphasising folds of flesh that would be better covered; ridiculous hairdos; ludicrous hats; kamikaze shoes.) Bella’s mother and several of her aunts had fashionable veils to their hats, which made eating rather difficult, so they pushed their veils up, and pinned them to the tops of their heads, which made the hats look even more absurd.

Up next: I have no idea! Any suggestions?