The Luminist by David Rocklin

Photography comprises the bright, tensile thread in the sweep of The Luminist, drawing tight a narrative that shifts between the prejudices and passions of Victorian England and those of colonial Ceylon.  It binds the destinies of Catherine Colebrook, the proper wife of a fading diplomat, who rebels against every convention to chase the romance of science through her lens, and Eligius, an Indian teenager thrust into servitude after his father is killed demanding native rights. (from the front book flap)

By the time I picked up David Rocklin's The Luminist, I'd forgotten the main gist of the plot and setting, so I didn't know what to expect.  It's historical fiction, set in Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka) in the first half of the 19th century and is loosely based on the life of Julia Margaret Cameron, a British photographer.

I've never thought about what the early, still-just-exploring, don't-even-really-have-a-name-for-it-yet days of photography must have been like for the pioneers in the field.  I enjoyed learning more about it, and learning about it all in the context of Ceylon in the same time period.  I found the ending extremely satisfying -- certainly didn't tie up all loose ends, but left one with a sense of hope for redemption and completion.

Theme Thursday -- Shapes -- Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

Hosted by Reading Between the Pages
Rules:
*A theme will be posted each week on Thursday
*Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading that features the theme
*Post it and don't forget to mention the author and title of the book
*Event is open for the whole week
*Link back to Reading Between the Pages
This week's theme is shapes.

Cover of Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

More than one account mentions her skill as a quilter.  One says that when the refugees were hiding in the woods by day, "she pulled out her patchwork, and sewed together little bits, perhaps not more than an inch square, which were afterwards made into comforters for the fugitives in Canada."  (There is no evidence, however, that quilts hanging on clotheslines guided Tubman or any other runaway on a journey to freedom.)

page 120, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

I chose this quote because I'm always fascinated when I accept a given story or explanation as fact only to learn, many years later, that perhaps it's not all so clear cut....  I'm intrigued by the notion that quilts were never used as a form of communicating to fugitive slaves -- especially considering how often I've seen it presented as a fact.

Celebrating Girls: Nurturing and Empowering Our Daughters by Virginia Beane Rutter

I can't remember where I first heard about Celebrating Girls but it's been sitting on my to be read shelf for quite a while now.  Published in 1996, it speaks to any woman who has a relationship with a growing girl.  The author is a Jungian, so if that school of thought makes you uncomfortable, some aspects of this book may do so as well.

A few chapter titles:

Three: Bathing: Nourishing Emotional Integrity
Six:  Dressing: Developing Social Awareness
Eight:   Storytelling: Teaching and Learning
Ten:  Walking into Beauty:  Coming of Age and Sexuality

From the first chapter:
"Our task is to invest our daughters' everyday care with purpose, intention, and awareness of their feminine value, and then to create celebrations to mark the passages in their lives.  Broadly speaking, I use the word celebration to mean a conscious attention to making the girls in your life feel that they matter -- to you, to the family, to the community, to the world."(3)

From the third chapter:
"Vacillating, ambivalent feelings are part of growing up and developing emotional maturity.  As a mother, it is easy to get caught up in the tide of your daughter's feelings and try to solve her problems for her.  But it is best to ride the waves with her, maintaining some inner detachment so you do not get invested in either extreme." (30)

Rutter speaks of a mother who gave her 13 year old Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth "to educate her about the cosmetic industry's manipulation of women and girls". (73)  I'm not very familiar with this book, but I like the idea.

From the sixth chapter:
"Social development is important for a girl's self-empowerment, but if you do not want a daughter who just goes along with the crowd, she needs to feel that she has the ability to make changes and choices of her own, not based on peer pressure or your pressure.  This is a delicate balancing act we are asking our daughters to perform -- to be comfortable being exactly who they are (self-expression) and at the same time taking other people and social convention into account (social development)

The object is to be a woman who is in touch with her own needs and creativity and also considers others.  Because, historically, girls have been taught to consider others first, we must be sure that we honor our daughters' individuality and self-expression.  Amazingly, this development often takes shape around the clothes they wear." (88)

This book has given me the opportunity to reflect on the way I care for my body and for my daughter's body.  I want that time to be a pleasant and gentle time.  I hope to talk to her about some of the author's ideas and anecdotes sometime soon.

If I were to say one downfall of the book for me, it would be the somewhat frequent suggestion to use rewards for good behavior, etc.  But I know this is just an idiosyncrasy of mine and it will most likely not bother most other readers.

A Woman's Worth by Marianne Williamson

A key to mothering is to visualize our children as the adults we would love them to become:   strong, happy, serious, loving.  Now imagine what kind of mother they must have had to grow into such fabulous grown-ups.  And whatever that is, becoming it is the task that lies before us. (p. 110)

When we listen deeply to another person, we gain the power that comes from joining.  Trying to put across our own idea or wish without first finding common emotional ground with the child or other adult will only bring out resistance, whether acted out now or later. (p.111)

So I say to myself, What would it take for us to remember our worth?  How good we are, and how complete and loving and lovable.  Men shouldn't have to bear the burden of our remembrance.  It's not their function to remind us we are goddesses.  It's our function to remember it and then reveal it to the world.  When we remember, they will too.  The light will be dazzling.  (p. 136)