When She Woke

   Jordan, Hillary. When She Woke.  Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2011.

This is a good book, full of good ideas embedded in a good story.  Well, at least the first half is.  Let me catalogue these ideas for you.  But you’ll have to take word for it that the story intrigues. At least the first half.

1.      “She wondered how many of them were liars, their outer purity masking crimes as dark or darker than her own.  How many would be Chromes themselves, if the truth in their hearts were revealed?”  (172) Hannah is chromed—turned red—for the crime of an abortion in a US where church and state co-mingle and not in a good way.  So one has to wonder, as does our narrator, if the non-chromed have their own secrets and transgressions, especially those berating, rejecting, torturing, and murdering the chromes.  Are those crying the loudest cries of outrage, criminals or sinners themselves?

2.      “Had becoming a Red given her an extra sense, a knowledge of the hidden desires and evil in other hearts?” (185-6) Seriously, no.

3.      “We are feminists, not revolutionaries.” “Feminists. The word made Hannah bristle with distaste.  In her world, they were viewed as unnatural women who sought to overturn the order laid down by God, sabotage the family, emasculate men and, along with gays, atheists, abortionists, Satanists, pornographers and secular humanist, pervert the American way of life.” (206-7)  These “feminists” stand for  women persecuted for their rights—to abort, chose their lovers, preference their sexual choices, and defend themselves.  Their constant mantra is “It’s personal.” More on that later.

4.      “Why had they kept her life so small? Why had they never asked her what she wanted? At every possible turn, she saw, they’d chosen the path that would keep her weak and dependent.  Ant the fact that they wouldn’t see it that way, that they sincerely believed they’d acted in her best interest, didn’t make it any less true or any less culpable.” (253) “One by one, she’d conjured all the boxes she’d been put into: The good girl box and the good Christian box. The confines of her sewing room above the garage. The mistress box, played out in the boxes of all those indistinguishable hotel rooms…” (268) In the name of religion and all its claims of righteousness, her parents, the church, her associates, and the government have consigned women into boxes of motherhood, womanhood, wifehood—everything but sisterhood.  No matter, says our narrator, their alleged good intentions, the effect (and probably, the intent) is to stifle and conform.

5.      “It’s personal. Hannah fully grasped for the first time, the meaning of the words.  They weren’t just about choice or privacy; they were a declaration of self-worth, a demand for personal dignity. Their fundamental truth pealed inside of her, clarion bright.” (279) There’s a great speech in the movie You’ve Got Mail, when Kathleen Kelly announces that’s “It’s not personal” just means that it’s not personal to the person saying that.  But it’s personal to the person assailed.  Further, she ponders, what’s so wrong with actions and talk being personal.  That’s the very least, she contends, that our lives should be.  Her sentiment permeates the Novembrists’ agenda.  For each of the feminists is personal.

6.      “A wild exaltation seized her as she realized that she meant it; that she was laying claim to her life as she’d never done before. She had never felt more wholly alive than at this moment…” (289)  Sounds impressive but—and here’s what so very wrong with the second half—Hannah wants it all: her freedom and a last fling.  Thankfully, for her self-actualization, she realizes that she can’t continue her affair: “She’d just be putting herself into another box.” (331) But what chaffs me is that while she deserts her parents, allowing them to assume the worst about her life, she reconnects with the reverend. Her parents deserve more.  He deserves nothing.

7.      “You must set foot upon the path with nothing but yourself. It felt right and necessary, this letting go, this total surrender.  She had never in her life been this vulnerable, or felt this powerful.” (339) This is supposed to be her ultimate epiphany.  But is it her self-actualizing?  Let’s consider Maslow’s three criteria… 1. True, she knows now who she isn’t, but she has no clue who she is.  2. And I’ll grant that she finally rejects unhealthy forced acculturation. 3. But what’s missing is that she doesn’t contribute at all—zero—to a better world. Too bad. Jordan should have read her Maslow.