Faith, Freedom, and Women Talking

 

 Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, 

whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable,

 if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, 

think about these things.

  Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received 

and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Philippians 4: 8-9

Miriam Toews is a celebrated Canadian author who was born in a small Manitoba town. She grew up as a Mennonite, a Christian denomination which has a range of theological expressions. Fundamentalist Mennonites adhere to a form of community life and patriarchal theology which can be oppressive. Other Mennonites hold to traditional values of pacifism and forgiveness without living in the 16th century in terms of  dress, suspicion of technology, and misogyny. And of course they all happily make sturdy furniture all day long to sell in strip malls...kidding, I'm kidding!

While Toews came out of a conservative Mennonite tradition she has left that behind in her own life, in terms of a faith practice. It still infuses her excellent writing and it is at the heart of her latest novel, Women Talking.

The women who are talking in this story are part of a small Mennonite community in Bolivia. Toews unfolds a speculative narrative based on the true story of a group of women in what was called the Manitoba Mennonites who were drugged, then sexually violated by men from the community between 2005 and 2009 In the beginning the women thought they were being attacked by demons, only to discover this terrible, darkly conspiratorial violation of trust.

 

In Women Talking the men who have committed these crimes have been arrested, and so the women meet and discuss their options. Will they leave to begin a new life, or will they stay and openly resist the men when they are eventually released, or will they simply remain and resume some semblance of their previous life? In this repressive social order these women cannot read, or write, and some aren't able to spell their own names. They have lived in a hierarchical community where fourteen-year-old boys can direct grown women because they are considered "men." It is a man who has returned to the community after years away who acts as scribe for the women as they ponder the alternatives, a sympathetic figure named August who is considered less than a man by others because he does not fit the stereotypes of this agricultural lifestyle. August recalls that his father told him "that the twin pillars that guard the entrance to the shrine of religion are storytelling and cruelty." Sobering, but true?


I wasn't sure how I would respond to the book, but I was drawn into the story. Despite their repression through generations they think, speak, squabble, laugh, curse, sing, and encourage one another. In the end Women Talking is a theological treatise which is compelling and sophisticated. They wrestle with their own issues of forgiveness and peace-making, even as they address their betrayal and desire for personhood. Even though they literally know nothing of the world beyond them they are no longer willing to be treated as commodities.

Oh yes, one of the women quotes from Philippians 4, one of my favourite passages, and together they sing For the Beauty of the Earth, one of my favourite hymns.

Have you read this novel? Are you intrigued?