Honor Moore

The poetry in this book has the same flaw that many of the era has; it is pretentious and precious at the same time. For some reason, people of the mid twentieth century thought they could change the world by writing poetry no one could understand...perhaps no one understands it because it is meaningless? While the women writing this poetry were part of the woman's movement, I would be hard pressed to call it feminist poetry. Most of it seemed to revolve around the same old patriarchal show more structures of man/woman relationships, sex, and so forth. Some of it was lesbian poetry, but that is not enough to make something feminist. It has to have something to do with the ideas and goals of the women's movement. Being part of that doesn't automatically make your poetry part of the women's movement. Overall, I would say it was not particularly satisfying. show less

It's very likely that the women's movement truly began in literature and poetry for when women had the power and ability to put pen to paper is where we began to get free.

The famous lines by Muriel Rukeyser, "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?"

(Foretelling the words "me too" by Turana Burke in 2006)

Answer: "the world would split open"

My rating is based on several points. First of all, I felt like this book conquered too much to digest. It was very hard for me reading through eras of historical information, most of it beyond my realm. I struggle with my poor history background. I acknowledge that. I didn't have many interesting teachers who knew how to bring history to life. Ironically, because of that, I did teach History one year and did so well that the other teachers were amazed at how I would introduce projects into show more their studies, and how much the at-risk students gained from them. But, enough about me. That was the first and last year I taught History. I struggled through History prep lessons ten times as hard as the students had to learn it. In short, I was more of the student, and it was very scary.

History is just not an interest of mine. An exception is the Diary of Anne Frank, which I LOVE! I feel like you could totally understand the 3 D experience of the Holocaust without picking up another historical book. That book concentrated on one time in History, and did it well. I felt like Our Revolution marched through too much information too rapidly, with so many characters throughout the story. It makes it hard to digest the lessons. I am very much a "lessons" person. I am the same way reading the Bible. The Old Testament is challenging with all of the names and stuff going on. The New Testament is about the lessons we should know. So that is my background in providing this review.

The second reason why I gave this story three stars is that I felt like the REAL story did not start closer til the middle of the book. Even though I know that the grandma was not supposed to be one of the "stars" of the show, she somehow was for a while. I have not read any of the other books in the series. I was fascinated by the grandma, and how she was highly intelligent, but not able to care for herself due to her mental disability. People understand so much more about those things now. I wonder if they even still shock people who have problems? Anyway, I was not impressed with Honor's mom as a young student in college, and playing the "hard-to-get" girl. I felt like the antics she pulled prolonged her from her eventual marriage with Paul Moore. BUT, once the story began (for me) after she married, everything that was written suggested to me that she had it all way together more than the average mom. I had only two children, and know ALL the struggles I went through, even spacing them 8 years apart. I even took off a total of 14 years from teaching due to issues my children had. I never once read about any issues that any of her nine plus children had. My grandma had nine children, and they all turned out quite well. How she was able to run a household and do all that charitable work supporting her husband is amazing to me. I know that Honor felt like her mom was not good to her because she slapped her three times in her life. I would have happily switched places. I grew up poor in the South in the Bible Belt, where using a belt was the rule. I understand Honor's struggle with the hardship of getting lost in the shuffle. It is even harder on a first child to be always expected to help more and do more.

I felt that Honor's view was that her mom was bad, and her dad was good. Yet, her mom supposedly did not cheat on her dad until well after she discovered his "alternate" lifestyle. And that is another thing that personally bothered me, because my faith does not believe in that "alternate lifestyle. It really didn't make sense. It seems like either the mom would have mentioned examples of how she knew Paul was unfaithful, or the children could look back and and realize that times gone and behaviors he exhibited were huge clues. I don't know how you can keep that kind of secret from nine children and a wife, unless all of them never expected him to come home at a decent time and spend any length of time there. I guess I will have to read the other book. It is hard when secondary characters in a memoir are barely addressed. It is hard to put the pieces together.

I felt bad that Honor's relationships with men seemed to be just as unstable as her mom's. However, I took offense to another reviewer stating that her mom was just like her grandma. NO, SHE WAS NOT! I take this personally, as my grandma's side had lots of mental illness, and suffered due to poverty (my rich grandfather divorced her and did little for her or the children he left behind, minus one child.) I know what it was like growing up wondering if I would have it, and being accused of having it because I was very much shy and an introvert. I will agree that both the grandma and mom had mental illness. But her grandma had it to the point that she didn't even realize it and could not function. Her mom had a series of events and hardships put on her (raising nine plus children, all kinds of charity work, her husband rejecting her), that her body and mind became tired and she fell into a huge depression. She need a break! She needed permission to stop being everything for everyone else and just be HERSELF! I think that was Jenny Moore's revelation. It is sad that she had the horrible car accident and later died of cancer, as that was when JENNY'S life began. She was on the upswing of not having to raise children. She could do anything she wanted. She could have a new relationship. It hurts that she died too soon. My mom died when she was in her early 50's. I so totally get it. My dad had retired 2 months earlier. She was happy, eating out, enjoying her 2 grands. When you think of an individual as worthy of a separate life, that means that they can selfishly pick for themselves. Then you realize it is tragedy when they never got to do so. However, Jenny did get to write. And that was probably the best legacy that Margaret left her. If I remember right, Margaret wrote as well as illustrated. And now it seems like Jenny has left her writing skills to Honor.

After reading this memoir, I am convinced that Honor was well-loved by her mom, and passed on the legacy to her. I love the name Honor. I felt like she took her time, and gave her a wonderful name, and wish the best for Honor in the years to come. I think that if Jenny had lived long enough, she would have apologized or explained her side of what raising all those siblings was like, moving over and over, and dealing with a husband who rejected her in the ultimate worse way possible. show less

Honor and I are the same age, and I found myself tracking with her on all the familial, churchly, priestly observations that she made in the course of her book. As a priest and a gay man, I appreciated walking along with both her and her father as they wrestled with what life and God had given them. I found this book difficult to put down.