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?

Madame de Treymes

Hey there, Edith...

Author: Edith Wharton

Category: This is one of those stories I’d always seen referenced in the Edith Wharton canon, but this is the first time I’ve read it.

My thoughts: While I think Edith Wharton is the bee’s knees, I have no problem admitting that I have met works of hers that I will never read again. Ethan Frome is at the top of this list. I didn’t like it, and I’m certain I’ll never have any desire to pick it up again (an aside: Ethan Frome was the first Edith Wharton novel I ever read, and I’m so glad that I didn’t form my opinion of her based on that novel.) Having said all of this, “Madame de Treymes” is somewhere in the middle of my Edith-Wharton-like-o’meter (Ethan Frome is on the “Didn’t care for it” side, while the brilliant trifecta of The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, and The Age of Innocence are on the “I will sing Edith Wharton’s praises forever” side of the spectrum). I didn’t love it, but it was pretty good. First, a little summary.

“Madame de Treymes” is the story of an American man, John Durham, who wants to help his American-born lover, Fanny de Malrive, obtain a divorce from her French husband so that the two (Durham and Fanny de Malrive) can marry. Fanny, whose title is Madame de Malrive is one of those dollar princesses that crossed the Atlantic Ocean and married Europeans in the late nineteenth century. I get the feeling that, during Wharton’s time in France, she met a lot of American dollar princesses, because it’s a theme that she explores this story, in The Custom of the Country, and in her unfinished novel, The Buccaneers. But Fanny is a more innocent soul than Undine Spragg from The Custom of the Country. And she, Fanny, faces some serious opposition from her husband’s family, who is steeped in tradition and refuses to consent to a divorce, despite Monsieur Malrive’s horrible behavior (it’s never explicitly said what he is guilty of, just as in The Age of Innocence, Count Olenski’s behavior is never revealed). The Malrive family is like the Corleone family (in fact, reading this story reminded me of a Mario Puzo quote: “The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, lies in its loyalty to each other.”) And the Malrive family is quite strong.

This story has elements of The Age of Innocence, The Custom of the Country, and The Portrait of a Lady. Madame de Treymes, the titular character and Madame de Malrive’s sister-in-law, reminded me of Madame Merle from The Portrait of a Lady (there are a lot of “Madams” in the Edith Wharton/Henry James world). Madame de Treymes cut from the same cloth as those intriguing French women one reads about in articles about how to achieve Gallic allure and mystery. She isn’t necessarily beautiful, but she has personality, and she definitely has an air of mystery and intrigue.

“Madame de Treymes” exposes the differences between European and American cultures. Namely, how the American can-do spirit clashes with strong European traditions. If I remember correctly, Henry James also did this in The Europeans, which I read in graduate school, and he definitely did it in The Portrait of a Lady. Also, I’m not sure if "Madame de Treymes" should be categorized as a really short novel, or a long short story. I liked it because it explores themes that Edith Wharton is good at writing about (complicated relationships; Americans moving in European society), but I’m not sure I’ll read it again.

Great passage: She had moved in surroundings through which one could hardly bounce and bang on the genial American plan without knocking the angles off a number of sacred institutions; and her acquired dexterity of movement seemed to Durham a crowning grace. It was a shock, now that he knew at what cost the dexterity had been acquired, to acknowledge this even to himself; he hated to think that she could owe anything to such conditions as she had been placed in.

Up next: Call the Midwife