I gotta say, it took me awhile to get into THE GRAVEDIGGER'S DAUGHTER.  It wasn't because the story isn't interesting, though.  I have so much to read for school for the summer, so it kept being put on the back burner.  It was a little difficult to get into because I wasn't sure if I was "getting" what I was reading, but I decided it didn't matter and I just sat back and "enjoyed" the story--as much as one can "enjoy" a story about physical abuse.  This is a difficult story to read because of the physical abuse as well as emotional abuse that takes place, but it is even more than a story of abuse; it is a story of overcoming abuse and making something of oneself.  Joyce Carol Oates demonstrates in this amazing story not only the power of escaping horrors, but also the fact that one can't escape one's past completely, no matter how hard we try.  Certain things can and do follow us all the days of our lives--and we're all the better for it.  I know that sounds like a contradiction, but if you read this amazing story, you'll understand exactly what I'm trying to say.  Oates certainly isn't afraid to say the unsayable or to write the unwritable.  Her story is one that makes the reader THINK and FEEL.  This is not a story for the faint of heart or if you're looking for a simple summer read.  I promise, though, that if you'll give it a chance, you won't be sorry.

A Story that sticks in the Imagination

As I’m reading 2 separate books about the holocaust currently (Sarah’s Key and The Storyteller), it strikes me like a bolt of lightening that most of my knowledge of the holocaust is about Hitler:  what HITLER did, how HITLER’S regime took over, SS soldiers, concentration camps.  Yes, there’s Schindler’s List, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Night, and others that focus on the victims of Hitler’s horrific crimes against humanity, but the truth remains that the vast majority of my knowledge of the Holocaust comes from my history lessons in my History classes and most of the lessons the teachers taught focused on Hitler and the “story” of the Holocaust from Hitler’s—not perspective, but at least what Hitler did more focusing on the Jews and others Hitler’s regime focused on killing.

I have to ask myself why the history books and teachers focus more on Hitler than the victims.  Why is Hitler’s name more well known than any names of any of heroes, Jewish and non-Jewish, including those who saved Jews (and the others) from destruction?

I don’t have any answers to the Why? question except to say that the only thing I can come up with is that as long as we focus on Hitler’s actions, we don’t have to FEEL.  Yes, Hitler was an evil man and he needed to be taken down a peg, but as long as we focus on him and what his regime did, our feelings about the Holocaust can stay separated from the reality. 

I haven’t begun to FEEL what happened during the Holocaust until I read the STORIES of the victims.  Yes, some of the stories I’ve been reading are works of Historical Fiction (Sarah’s Key and The Storyteller), but the truth remains that whether the story is a true memoir of someone who lived through it or a work of Historical Fiction where the essence of the story is what’s real but not the actual STORY that is told that these stories make readers like me FEEL.

Reading about Hitler is a way of separating myself from the true horror because sure, it’s awful what Hitler did, but since there aren’t any names or real faces of those who suffered, it’s not REAL what Hitler did.  These stories provide faces and names—reality.  And thus, FEELINGS…..

Jodi Picoult has, of course, done it again with her brilliant novel THE STORYTELLER.  I was riveted from beginning to end and I hated that the book came to an end at all.  She talks about how when an author ends a story without a true ending, it leaves the story forever with the reader because it's always in the reader's imagination.  She's so right.  I know a lot of people who hate stories that just end without a clear ending, but I am one who has always enjoyed them.  It's one of the reasons why GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell is so genius.  I have changed my mind 20 different times about the ending of that book and I like every one of my endings!  (Like Josef in THE STORYTELLER trying to write the ending of Minka's story, but can't find one that works....)  It's the reason why I refused, and continue to do so, to read or watch the sequel to GONE WITH THE WIND, SCARLETT.  I like the imaginings in my head of the ending of the original story and I don't want them "ruined" by someone else's imaginings!

As the granddaughter of a Jew myself, I really connected to Sage and her reaction to her grandmother and finally hearing her grandmother's story.  Sadly, my grandmother isn't around anymore for me to hear the whole story, but what I do remember is important and makes me proud of my heritage.

Great job, Jodi.  Great job.  Thanks for the GREAT read....