Jeanette Wintersons - "Why be Happy when you could be Normal?"

I have just read  wonderful book. In many ways, without the religion, it was like reading my own childhood. I found myself recognising themes all the way through, although my mother wasn't as extreme, thank God.

The themes of the book are important and all encompassing. They are written with great honesty & a remarkable lack of bias. The central theme is obviously the relationship between Jeanette, her step mother, her step father & their realtionship with eachother. The central role of a mother to a child is crucial to the adult that child becomes. Jeanette says she has "a sense of myself as a haunted house". The trouble with that, I have found, is that exorcism isn't easy. In Jeanettes case the picture is more blurred because she eventually does find her birth mother.

This particularly disfunctional family resulted in a woman who is obviously intelligent and talented making a real mark on the world through her writing. She doesn't shirk the difficult areas & doesn't make any attempt to play on the sympathy of the reader. That sympathy & admiration is, however, hers. In spades.

The theme of sex and sexuality is central to the book, as it is to Jeanette. The description of the exorcism, so Jeanette will be "normal", is harrowing. "Never let a boy touch you down there" was one of my mother's mantras. Being able to love & be loved, being happy with who you are seem fairly simple aspirations. "Most women can give - we're trained to it - but most women find it hard to receive".

Escaping from our demons can take many forms. The lifelong legacy of emotional turmoil left by a dominant mother is difficult to re-programme. "Living with life is very hard". Jeanette describes her anger & despair, her escape & attempted suicide, then her ultimate reconcilliation with her past. "Forgiveness redeems the past. Forgiveness unblocks the future". I think a lot of women need Dyno Rod to help them do this. Not everyone is as strong as Jeanette. She acknowledges this "I will always be recognisible by my scar".

We are the sum of our experience & how we deal with it. Pursuing happiness seems to be to be an admirable goal, yet so few really achieve it. Mothering is a very important skill. It can be taught & it should be.