Help.
Please help.
Because I don't know.
I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to say about this.
I don't know what to do or say because Kathryn Stockett wrote the wrong story.
Which is ironic, really, because one of Stockett's own characters manages to write the right story. Even more ironic is that it's Stockett's own author surrogate that writes the right story.
I'm so disappointed in the whole situation. I expected a blunt, hard-hitting, soulful examination of the lives of the South's colored maids in the 60s. What I got was a cowardly side-step around the issue.
I knew that The Help contained the writing of a book by the maids, facilitated by a white woman (named Skeeter), and that the employers of the maids who took part were in for some nasty shocks. That's fine. It's kind of taking the long way around the issue, but ultimately it shouldn't be terribly important.
But it was. Stockett wrote The Help about the writing of the fictitious book Help. Stockett wrote about the publishing of the book. Stockett's characters took real risks, faced real danger, overcame real obstacles and prejudices, and showed a bravery few people would have at the time.
The characters showed more bravery in their time than Stockett showed in the relatively soft-and-fluffy 2009.
Stockett told a few of the maids' stories, but most of the book was about the interactions between the white women and how afraid the maids and Skeeter were, and Skeeter's home life, relationships with her friends, and boyfriend. Most of the book's 450 pages are completely unnecessary and uninteresting. Even the maids' most shocking and tragic stories are stilted. The stories are referred to but the meat of the story goes into the personal interviews to be edited into characters' book that the actual living reader never gets to see.
This book could have been so much better. It could have been a couple of maids sitting around a card table telling stories about their past jobs that started with the good things, then as the night wore on got progressively more tragic. To keep the element of social change, they could have approached a sympathetic white character (like Skeeter), gotten it published, and then had the town's families recognize themselves. By taking the approach she did, Stockett never had to write anything too troubling, or too challenging. She took the easy way out. The commercial way out.
And I'm not sure which is worse, because they're really two halves of the same thing: Kathryn Stockett sacrificed her artistic integrity. She sold out. Yes, she's sold a lot of books but, as far as I'm concerned, they might as well be empty.
It's not that I can't enjoy a good light read, but even the parts that were supposed to be the most shocking or gut-wrenching fell short. Of course the maid cleaned up after her employer's wife had a miscarriage, who else was going to do it? Of course the maids did questionable things to the food they served you, do you think that it hasn't happened at every restaurant you've ever been to, ever? That the employers wives and maids never took care of each other after one of their husbands beat them? But those stories, the gritty ones, take up only paragraphs. And, unintentionally I hope, the author's tone is full of sunshine the whole time-- which is so weird.
Those women went through things we can't even imagine, and things we can. It's the author's job, it's Stockett's job, to research what happened as much as she could and then go the extra mile. Tell us something new. Come up with something we haven't thought of. That's what authors do. That's what artists do.
Maybe if she had been bold and taken the chance, maybe the book wouldn't be the success it is today, but that's the risk an artist takes.
And...I mean...I'm usually not one to call Mary Sue, because I'm sure all writers put something of themselves into characters, but MARY SUE. The best part is where, after the acknowledgements section, Stockett herself outs Skeeter as her Mary Sue. Doesn't even try to hide it. Nope. It's right out there. Skeeter is directly based on Stockett herself and (secretly, for safety reasons) receives the praise and sworn love and protection of the black community in The Help. I think I can guess what Stockett was hoping to achieve with this book.
If you're not expecting it to be a serious literary work of great social significance, you'll find The Help a pleasant beach read with a few smiles and maybe a gasp or two. You can even feel like you're being socially aware by reading a book dealing with race.
A begrudging 2.5 stars out of 5.
