We are just back from a week in Algonquin Park and the Cathedral of the Trees worship ministry there. We paddled, hiked, and swam, often, so we're home to rest up from our vacation.
We also kicked back and read without any sense of tasks which "really ought to be done." I read Tara Westover's remarkable autobiography, Educated, in one long gulp and I wrote in my journal that it was both fascinating and disturbing. Westover was one of a brood of children whose births were never registered and who spent no time in the public education system, at least the younger four. This meant that four of the seven learned to read and write but little more in terms of formal education. Three, including Tara, managed to get into college and astonishingly eventually achieved doctorates. Even though she essentially sneaked into college at 17, never having heard of the Holocaust nor aware that Europe was a continent, she received her doctorate from Cambridge a decade later.
Along the way to adulthood the children were required to work in family businesses from an early age. The construction and salvaging work done by the father was dangerous and there were many injuries to the kids.
Even more disturbing is the psychological and spiritual damage done to the whole family, including the mother, who all lived under the patriarchal control of the disturbed father. It was a bizarre mash-up of apocalyptic Mormonism, survivalism, and racism. The suspicion of government in any form, along with distrust of educational institutions and conventional medicine borders on the insane. How three of the children managed to excel beyond this smothering, suspicious milieu is mind-boggling.
In the end I was both grateful for reading this testament to the human spirit and relieved to be finished. It was though I had held my breath for hours, awaiting the next injustice or catastrophe.
Tara does not share if she has any religious faith or spirituality remaining after finally breaking free of the toxic orbit of her parents and some of her siblings. It would be entirely understandable if she doesn't, yet I also hope that she finds strength in a God of love, acceptance and inclusivity.
Have any of you read Educated? What was your response to Tara Westover's story?
3 comments:
David, you are going to have to start a lending library with all of these recommendations ! (This looks like a really good read !)
Our neighbourhood book club read "Educated" this past spring. It was a really good read and I would highly recommend it. Hard to believe at times that it could be a true story. How did the children in that family make it to adulthood? Tara's determination to educate herself was inspiring. The book generated lots of good discussion at our book club.
Book clubs are such a worthwhile way to enter into conversation about intriguing subjects. Another club with members from a former congregation is reading The Overstory by Richard Powers, on Ruth's recommendation. It is a complex but inspiring work of fiction which deserves dialogue -- or multi-logue. Of course, most book clubs are filled with men eager to talk! Thanks Judy and Shirley.
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