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One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women--all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in--have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they've ever known or should they dare to escape?… (more)
A community of women in a Mennonite cult hold a debate in a barn about whether to leave their abusers or stay and fight.
I couldn't put this one down. Short, powerful, vital. I can't wait to see the movie, though so much of this story's power comes from its form in the written word. Definitely going to read more Toews. ( )
I so wanted to like this book, but I found it boring, taking me weeks to read. I appreciate the premise, and the writing was good, I was just not engaged with the style in which it was written.
I wouldn't say don’t read it, I would say be prepared for a slow move and some questions about what you just read.
I would like to explain what the book is about but the inside flap explains it all. Period. It’s all there. Read the flap, you’ve read the book. ( )
I finished Women Talking. It’s about isolated Mennonite women in Bolivia who are preyed upon and raped repeatedly by men from their compound. It happened in the middle of the night and the women are drugged. They are later told it was ghosts and/or devils. The women are illiterate, have no knowledge of their surroundings and do not speak the language of the country they are in. They spend two days discussing whether to stay or leave their cult. The book is narrated by a man who is taking notes of the women talking. To me having him narrate just complicates things. The book is well written but lacks something in my opinion. ( )
The story opens after women and children have been raped during the night for several years by a group of the men in this Mennonite community. The women are talking in a hay loft to decide whether they should stay and fight for their rights in this community or leave. Most of the men are gone into town trying to bail the sexual predators out of jail. August Epp the son of two banned parents is asked to make notes about the proceeding. The women in this community can neither read or write and are expected to do as the men say at all times. Men become members at the age of 15, but women are not eligible. The title is very apt as all that happens in this book is women talking in this extreme patriarchy. It is not a bit funny or humorous. ( )
Women Talking is inspired from the tragic story of the abuse suffered by women of a socially isolated Mennonite colony in Bolivia. It is an imagination of the discussion that some of the victims may have had about their future after their abusers were arrested and all the men of the colony had accompanied them to post their bail, leaving women, the victims, alone.
Women Talking is a heavily dialogue-driven novel, yet it doesn't overwhelm the reader at any point. The story focuses on 8 women representing 2 different families discussing a matter of great importance, and the flow of their conversation perfectly balances the revelation of each character's personality, their stance on the matter, their feelings towards their colony, and their unique traits. Much of the information about the colony and its residents is revealed through the dialogue between the women, while the remaining contextual gaps are filled by the narrator of the story, who has been tasked with taking the minutes of the meeting.
Women Talking discusses how different the idea of freedom is for every individual, and how it is truly shaped by one's experiences. It also acts as an inspiration for lazy people like this reviewer, to arrive at decisions and to act on those decisions as quickly as possible. The prose takes a 180 degree turn as the book reaches for a conclusion from the narrator's POV, which takes some effort to grasp, considering how smooth the rest of the reading experience is, but it perfectly encapsulates the dreamy state of the narrator as he looks to find meaning in his own life by drawing inspiration from the book's events. All in all, Women Talking is a great example of world building purely through dialogue, and doesn't let the reader zone out at any point. ( )
My name is August Epp -- irrelevant for all purposes, other than that I've been appointed the minute-taker for the women's meetings because the women are illiterate and unable to do it themselves.
Quotations
She went on to say that, in her opinion, doubt and uncertainty and questioning are inextricably bound together with faith.
Salome doesn't know about the straw in her hair. It sits above her ear, nestled in that space, like a librarian's No. 2 pencil.
I wanted to run after Autje and apologize for scaring her—but that would have scared her even more. Or perhaps my words are as ridiculous to her as they are to me, which is comforting only a little.
Pacifism, Agata says, is good. Any violence is unjustifiable. By staying in Molotschna, she says, we women would be betraying the central tenet of the Mennonite faith, which is pacifism, because by staying we would knowingly be placing ourselves in a direct collision course with violence, perpetrated by us or against us. We would be inviting harm. We would be in a state of war. We would turn Molotschna into a battlefield.
Salome continues to yell, her voice hoarse. Mariche, are you not afraid that your own sweet Julius will become a monster like his father because you do nothing to protect him, nothing to educate him, nothing to teach him the criminality of his father's ways, the depravity...
(I'll mention here that Mariche, in broken English, also told Ona to "fuck it off." So much of what exists in the outside world is kept out of Molotschna, but curses, like pain, always find a way in.)
Ona apologizes again and adds that she, too, was considering the verse from Philippians and thinking on what is good. Freedom is good, she says. It's better than slavery. And forgiveness is good, better than revenge. And hope for the unknown is good, better than hatred of the familiar.
But the men of Molotschna, and particularly the attackers, have not asked for forgiveness, Salome points out.
Forgiveness is moot, Ona insists, if not heartfelt. The only thing we must do is protect our God-given souls. We must find it in our own hearts to forgive the men of Molotschna, regardless of what Peters or anybody else expects of us and even if the men don't ask for it themselves and even if they claim their innocence all the way to their graves.
They are the same thing, really, Ona says, steadily. I believe that my soul, my essence, my intangible energy, is the presence of God within me, and that by bringing peace to my soul I am honouring God. If I can understand how these crimes my have occurred I am able to forgive these men. And I am almost able, certainly from a distance, to pity these men, and to love them. Love is good, and better than retaliation.
Imagine my hens, adds Agata, telling me to turn around and leave the premises when I show up to gather the eggs. Ona begs the women to stop making her laugh, she's afraid she'll go into premature labour. This makes them laugh harder! They even find it uproariously funny that I continue to write during all of this. Ona's laughter is the finest, the most exquisite sound in all of nature, filled with breath and promise, and the only sound she releases into the world that she doesn't also try to retrieve.
I insist that I don't, and nor doe it matter what I think. Ona stops laughing, barely. Do you think that's true, she asks, that it doesn't matter what you think? I blush. Maul my own head. She continues: How would you feel if in your entire lifetime it had never mattered what you thought?
Ona smiles back(!). But how are we to determine God's will, if not by thinking? I blush again and shake my head, resist the urge to claw it to pieces. Salome interrupts: That's easy, Ona, Peters will interpret it for us! The women howl with laughter yet again.
Yes, says Ona, I would say so. Peters said these men are evil, the perpetrators, but that's not true. It's the quest for power, on the part of Peters and the elders and on the part of the founders of Molotschna, that is responsible for these attacks, because in their quest for power, they needed to have those they'd have power over, and those people are us. And they have taught this lesson of power to the boys and men of Molotschna, and the boys and men of Molotschna have been excellent students. In that regard. But, says Mejal, don't we all want some type of power?
I'm reminded of Montaigne's statement: "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which a man knoweth least."
Knowledge is fluid, it changes, facts change, become un-facts.
The women in the loft have taught me that consciousness is resistance, that faith is action, that time is running out.
I asked her what good the minutes would do her and the other women if they were unable to read them? (But she may well have asked me instead, What good is it to be alive if you are not in the world?)
Maybe there was no reason for the women to have the minutes they couldn't read. The purpose, all along, was for me to take them.
Last words
I look at the boys, asleep, unconscious to be exact, and plead silently with them to tell me the truth.
One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm. While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women--all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in--have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they've ever known or should they dare to escape?
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I couldn't put this one down. Short, powerful, vital. I can't wait to see the movie, though so much of this story's power comes from its form in the written word. Definitely going to read more Toews. (