50 in '10: #3
Jan. 17th, 2010 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Title: The Egg and I
Author: Betty MacDonald
Length: 278 pages
I read gardening and farming blogs, and further my interest by having the mainstay of my daily online reading be blogs about the same. The Egg and I is somewhat famous for having a film made of it, which then spawned the further Ma and Pa Kettle movies, which I vaugely remember. So when I found the book at the library bookshop for a dollar, I snagged it, intending to read it maybe on the flight to England or maybe on the way back.
It isn't like modern farming memoirs. It was written in the 1940s about the author's life on a chicken ranch in the 1930s, and doesn't come to a neat and tidy conclusion about an underlying theme like most of the memoirs I've read do. Instead the author writes about various interests and events during that period of her life that interest or amuse her. I do have to say that certain sections are gustatorially sinful. ^_^ I also end up wondering if the Kettles in any roundabout way ended up inspiring the Ogg clain in Pratchett's Discworld books. The book is definitely an interesting read for its window into the past, and I'm going to keep a mental eye out for MacDonald's other three books should I ever stumble across them. Her way with prose is nice.
Verdict: recommended if you have interest in farming or the culture of the rural 1930s. Possibly not for everyone, though.
Author: Betty MacDonald
Length: 278 pages
I read gardening and farming blogs, and further my interest by having the mainstay of my daily online reading be blogs about the same. The Egg and I is somewhat famous for having a film made of it, which then spawned the further Ma and Pa Kettle movies, which I vaugely remember. So when I found the book at the library bookshop for a dollar, I snagged it, intending to read it maybe on the flight to England or maybe on the way back.
It isn't like modern farming memoirs. It was written in the 1940s about the author's life on a chicken ranch in the 1930s, and doesn't come to a neat and tidy conclusion about an underlying theme like most of the memoirs I've read do. Instead the author writes about various interests and events during that period of her life that interest or amuse her. I do have to say that certain sections are gustatorially sinful. ^_^ I also end up wondering if the Kettles in any roundabout way ended up inspiring the Ogg clain in Pratchett's Discworld books. The book is definitely an interesting read for its window into the past, and I'm going to keep a mental eye out for MacDonald's other three books should I ever stumble across them. Her way with prose is nice.
Verdict: recommended if you have interest in farming or the culture of the rural 1930s. Possibly not for everyone, though.
