Maud Martha, Once Again

My thoughts: Ok, I started to read Song of Solomon, then I got the urge to reread Maud Martha. October has been a crazy month for me, and I needed a nice, soothing read. Upon rereading Maud Martha, I was reminded of why I liked it so much in the first place. The language is so beautiful and the main character is freakin’ awesome. Even though it’s a novel, Maud Martha is about the inner workings of a real life. You feel as if she is a real person, who endured real things. She has real triumphs and real heartbreaks. Maud Martha is the kind of person who finds humanity in things that others may not. In one chapter, she refrains from killing a mouse because she imagines that life would be harder for the mouse’s family if it died. She empathizes with the rodent, because she knows a little something about struggle herself. After she lets the mouse go, she feels proud of herself: “A life had blundered its way into her power and it had been hers to preserve or destroy. She had not destroyed.” Thinking about this moment makes me smile.

Gwendolyn Brooks writes about intraracial discrimination among blacks based on skin shade in this novel—something Dorothy West wrote about in The Living Is Easy. Maud Martha notices it as a child, when people (even her own family members) treat her light-skinned sister Helen more favorably. And this follows her into adulthood. And, as I mentioned in my previous post about the book, she also experiences racial discrimination. Brooks writes, “There were scraps of baffled hate in her, hate with no eyes, no smile and—this she especially regretted, called her hungriest lack—not much voice.” At one point, she quits working as a maid because she knew that the white people she worked for thought of her as stupid and childlike, and she did not want to absorb their low opinion of her. This is a quiet moment of defiance that gives her a little bit of a voice to address that “baffled hate.” In spite of everything, Maud Martha loves and respects herself, loves life, and embraces its ups and downs. I needed to read something that was life-affirming, and this is the perfect read for such occasions. One last thing: I wonder how much of Gwendolyn Brooks is in the character of Maud Martha…She (Gwendolyn Brooks) was a great poet, but she wrote a hell of a novel!

Great passage (when Maud Martha’s husband takes her to a dance and spends most of the time dancing with a light-skinned lady—when Maud Martha herself is pregnant, no less): “I could,” considered Maud Martha, “go over there and scratch her upsweep down. I could spit on her back. I could scream. ‘Listen,’ I could scream, ‘I’m making a baby for this man and I mean to do it in peace.’”

But if the root was sour what business did she have up there hacking at a leaf?

Up next: I think I’ll read The Lilies of the Field

Chocolate Cake!

n.b. Wait until the cake cools to cut it--or it will fall apart like this. But it's still good.

I used to think making chocolate cake was quite complicated. Turns out, it’s easy-peasy. It’s one of the simplest cakes I’ve made ever made. I used the recipe on the back of the cocoa box—the one I bought because I wanted cocoa after reading Maud Martha (that book is truly the gift that keeps on giving). The cake was yummy—even though I forgot to add vanilla extract! Also, chocolate cake goes wonderfully with strawberries—which I ate with the cake to add a semblance of being healthy. I halved the recipe, but I’m including it here in its entirety (I must say, halving it was maybe the hardest part—thank goodness I learned fractions!)

Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake

2 cups of sugar

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup Hershey’s cocoa
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup of milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

 1. Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease and flour two 9-in. round baking pans.

 2. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla.; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes (I just stirred it with a spoon). Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour into pans.

 3. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in the center comes clean.

 4. Eat it up!

Cocoa

Orange slices go quite well with hot cocoa.

I wasn't kidding about the cocoa. Hopefully mine is as good as Maud Martha's. This isn't the first time a reading experience has influenced me to do something. When I was a kid, I (temporarily) stopped eating bacon after reading Charlotte's Web.

Maud Martha

Category: Maud Martha, written by Gwendolyn Brooks, is one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for years. At last, I read it.

My thoughts: Oh my goodness, this book is great! I love Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry (particularly “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon,” which is about the murder of Emmett Till), and her language is delicious in this novel. Reading Maud Martha is like drinking a really good cup of coffee or soaking in a hot bath (both of these things, incidentally, are good to do while reading).

Maud Martha is about the life of a black Chicago woman, starting when she is a child. In little chapters, we get glimpses of her inner life and experiences, and meet her family members and neighbors. Maud Martha is very likable. She is observant, smart, fiercely loyal, and makes a mean cup of cocoa. One of my favorite moments is when she ferociously defends her brother against several bullies. We see early on that this girl has guts. Another great moment is when Maud Martha’s mother says that there isn’t enough cinnamon in the gingerbread, but it’s still good (Thanks, mom!). Maud Martha calmly informs her mother that she likes nutmeg better than cinnamon. Something about this moment made me fall in love with her. I like to bake, and I totally agree with her on this one. Cinnamon is nice, but nutmeg has kick. Of course Maud Martha likes it better than cinnamon.

One vignette that is particularly poignant is her desire to attack the white Santa Claus who all but ignores her eager daughter. She then ponders the moment when her daughter will realize that discrimination will be thrown in her face, sometimes in unexpected ways, because of the color of her skin. Maud Martha sadly thinks of how she cannot protect her child from pain. Maud Martha herself struggles to maintain her dignity in a world where, because she is black and female, people make it difficult for her to do that.

I can’t overstate how beautiful the language in this book is. There were passages that I read again and again, and this is a book that I’m going to recommend to people. After that, I’m going to buy some cocoa.

Great passage (and this is one of many great ones): One walked out from the almost perfect wall, spitting at the fire squad. What difference did it make whether the firing squad understood or did not understand the manner of one’s retaliation or why one had to retaliate?

Next…I’m not sure. Probably Bonjour Tristesse.