Monday, August 12, 2013

The Help


It did not surprise me a whole lot to find a lot of cribs about this book on goodreads. The real mystery for me was how it ended up being a bestseller! I did not really have a lot of issues with the factual inaccuracies and so on because I am Indian and my knowledge of the civil rights movement/southern culture/local dialects is quite limited. Also, having grown up on a diet of Bollywood movies, being real and correct are not mandatory to my appreciation of anything. You could take pretty much any topic, douse it in melodrama and stir up a rabble rouser which would entertain me greatly. Oh and I'd buy all of it. But there is a cardinal rule to that sort of thing. You can't be boring. And Stockett is! When I'd finished the book I actually stopped and wondered what was in all those pages! Did this book have an editor? Pretty much the only portions that worked for me were those involving Aibileen and Mae Mobley. I felt like rushing off to the crib to wake up my own two year old and hug him! i held back, thank God! He's not at his most friendly when woken up and hugged but coming back - those bits sprang off the pages and came to life. The rest was a very forgettable mess.

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