March 2013 Book Club: The Aviator's Wife by Melonie Benjamen

Hi Everyone,

Tuesday night turned out to be a very absorbing discussion of the book The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin. Even though the date was changed last minute due to icy weather conditions the night before, we still had 6 members in attendance Barb K., Barb D., Becky, Ginnie, Cheryl, and myself.

Those of you who missed book club Tuesday night, Becky had created a great compare / contrast matrix on Anne Lindbergh and Julia Child. Please, send it out as an email, Becky, so everyone can read it and then I can post it on our website. Your thoughtful work will be our chronicled response for The Aviator’s Wife.

Our book selection for the April meeting is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, however, I will have to reschedule our meeting date. I teach yoga on Thursday evenings which is the day of the week on which our original date, April 18, falls. Would Tuesday, April 16, Wednesday, April 17, or Tuesday, April 23 work for anyone? Send me your choices and I’ll reschedule for the most popular date.

Jody sent me the email posted below in reaction to Julia Child’s My Life In France. I love your reflections, Jody. I, too, recall the days of Sunday dinners; the warm memories around a crowded table are not forgotten, but sadly are no longer part of my life. The passages you selected, too, are ones I pondered on myself. Thank you for your great insight!

READ ON FOR JODY’S RESPONSE:

Hi Tammy,

Alas, I cannot figure out hot to post to the blog.  I will, however, share some thoughts about My life in France as pasted below.  I am sorry that I won't be at the meeting tonight.  Enjoy the pizza and have a great discussion!

One of the great themes I pondered while reading this book is the concept that food, so often, is a means for creating community and/or communion.  Undoubtedly, this thought jumps out at me because of discussions I have had in my Food Studies classes and because of long hours spent around the table participating in numerous “asados” during my year in Argentina. Food activities such as eating, cooking, harvesting, and even shopping, as evidenced by Julia’s “life-changing” (p.75) trips to Les Halles, are time-honored ways that humans come together, have a good time, learn to trust, and end up bonding.

Sadly, many of these traditional communal behaviors have lost favor in our modern American culture.  Extended families used to get together every week for Sunday dinner and without fail for the annual food-centric reunion with “the relatives.”  Now we often look for reasons not to show up.  Once upon a time it wasn’t unusual to pack a picnic, complete with homemade pie and cake, several times a summer and set off with friends and family for a state park.  When was the last time you shared that type of experience?  Years ago the small town I grew up in had an annual “Deer Hunter’s Breakfast.” The meal lasted for over 30 hours and brought many townspeople and others together as they cooked and ate in the local firehall.  Lots of good stories were told too.  Why did that successful event go by the wayside?

Although we sometimes still do these types of activities, I think it is not as often.  And while one can argue that buying and consuming food continues to be an important aspect of our many local festivals, the emphasis is not the same.  These events seem to be more about selling and making money than about developing camaraderie.  In reality, how often do we sit down to eat a meal even with those in our own household? I’m pretty sure it’s less often than when we were growing up.

I think there is a lot of lonely sucking-in of calories.  Is our frequent, often fruitless, and poundage-adding search for tantalizing flavor really an unrecognized need for communion with others? Might we possibly need to redirect how we think about food?  Could Julia Child help show us the way?

I smiled a lot as I read about Julia and Paul and vicariously experienced food-centered fellowship with them.  I liked the way they, largely via food, came to love the French People; their views are a refreshing alternative to the way Americans so often negatively characterize that nationality.  In one description Julia, with great insight, writes: “If a tourist enters a food stall thinking he’s going to be cheated, the salesman will sense this and obligingly cheat him.  But if a Frenchman senses that a visitor is delighted to be in his store, and takes a genuine interest in what is for sale, then he’ll just open up like a flower” (p. 75).   I think she is saying we are often responsible for creating our own bad experiences - perhaps this is a version of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

 And I love the way she and Paul really tried to get to know a place - “Paul and I liked to travel at the same slow pace.  He always knew so much about things, discovered hidden wonders, noticed ancient walls or indigenous smells… (p. 93).  She further writes of their adventures: “People at the U.S. Consulate had been aghast to learn that we were staying – by choice – in such a tiny, unfancy hotel.  But we hated the big swish luxury palaces that have no local flavor at all” (p. 166).  Julia and Paul were brave seekers of experience, sights, food, and people.  I like that.

As I was reading this book I felt a strong identification with Julia (and Paul).  I think this is because they had a brilliant intellectual curiosity coupled with a wonderfully artistic flair for life. Not that I’m brilliant or artistic, but, to me, their lifestyle is one worthy of aspiration.  I’d secretly like to be like them.  I think I might be more pleased than peeved that the director of my Food Studies Program once said to me, “you are the unusual combination of an analytic with a free spirit.”  Her characterization may explain a lot.

In an effort to describe the non-conformist Paul, Julia writes: “Paul and Charlie – the sons of an electrical engineer and a bohemian singer – shared a dual nature; they were extremely practical and could build you a house or wire your lamp without batting an eye; but they were also mystical, enjoyed the mumblings of fortune-tellers, and believed in the possibility of ghosts and flying saucers” (p. 117).  I love that out-of-kilter combo!  And of her marriage to Paul she writes, “He (her father) had assumed I would marry a Republican banker and settle in Pasadena to live a conventional life.  But if I’d done that I’d probably have turned into an alcoholic, as a number of my friends had.  Instead, I had married Paul Child, a painter, photographer, poet, and mid-level diplomat who had taken me to live in dirty, dreaded France.  I couldn’t have been happier” (p. 23)!  Julia embraced a voluptuous life with Paul. I find her off-beat path to happiness to be a delightful inspiration!

Feel free to forward.

Toodles,

Jody