From Maine to Japan

One of the things I appreciate most about my parents is that they always encouraged me to read books that widened my horizons, as a kid growing up in rural Maine. It was, alas, an encouragement doomed to some level of failure. Books with protaganists outside of my range of experience were more unintelligible to me than the fantasy that was my default reading. I remember being mystified by "Harriet the Spy"--the main character walked to her friends' houses? How was this possible? I had no idea what a "city block" or a "park" was, and the idea of having a nanny was simply gibberish. "Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry" was much less comprehensible to me than the Oz books. I simply have to hope that some of it stayed with me by...osmosis or something.

I remember my father encouraging me to read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" when I was in fifth grade. I know I read it, but I'm re-reading it now and it's all new to me. But it's good. The introduction of the new edition I'm reading is quite dismissive of the book, sending it off rather with a pat on its head for trying hard but ultimately failing to be fair to the slave experience. And yes, Stowe tends to dwell a great deal on the "simple, childlike nature" of most black people. I assume this is a natural result of attempting to appeal to an audience that probably isn't going to take well to images of really, really pissed-off slaves.

And yet...one of her main characters, the escaped slave George, is proud and bitter and quite ferocious in his denunciation of the United States, declaring he is no citizen of America and has no need to abide by its laws. He intends to fight being re-taken to his death or the deaths of others. He's pretty glorious, actually, and not simple and child-like at all.

I also feel rather like Uncle Tom gets rather a bad rap in history. His name has become synonymous with an African-American who cheerfully colludes with the system, and yet he's anything but. Admittedly, he does refuse to run away when his owner sells him--but not because he's faithful to his master, but because the deal was either Tom or all the other slaves on the plantation. He's doing it to save everyone else he cares about, not because he's fond of his Master (although, mind you, he is also that).

And although Tom is very religious and Stowe comes from a very religious background, Christianity isn't presented as some kind of sentimental cure-all. George is bitterly dismissive of Christianity, and everyone other than Tom has their outbursts of how no God could ever allow something as horrible as this to happen. Maybe the most interesting passage is when Eliza and her child make it to the other side of the Ohio River and are helped by a farmer, who is moved by her plight. Stowe says something like "Obviously this was an unlettered man; if he had more Bible learning as the learned classes have, he would have known it was wrong to help an escaped slave." Strong words for the sister of an renowned preacher...

Anyway, I have had reason lately to be appalled by how little I know of the "Peculiar Institution" of American slavery, so I've been trying to fill in the gaps. It's horrifying but oddly uplighting reading. The indomitable human spirit finds a way to survive and resist.