|
Rating:  - Thought provoking
Audre Lorde gives a good idea of exactly what she's feeling in her journals, even down to the negative aspects of her disease that some would more than likely keep to themselves. I appreciate her frankness and willingness to open up to other women thinking the same things.
The thoughts bounced around a bit but overall I appreciate her putting her journey into words.
Rating:  - Courageous Memoir
Lorde's book will be of interest to those battling breast cancer and feminists, but also to anyone wanting to learn from a difficult experience. Lorde teaches us how to speak out against the injuustices done women, what it's like to survive in a hostile, male-chauvinist universe. Although the book is sad the wisdom it contains readily makes up for its difficcult content. Lorde's struggle is successful because she manages to rise above the difficulties caused by breast cancer--being one-breasted, for example--and overcome them. Her book is visionary.
Rating:  - A survivor , but not a believer in this...
I think this is an important book for breast cancer survivors to read. It has made me think about a lot of things regarding my recovering.
However, I can't help but feel...how? Inferior? Shallow? Like a wimp? I can't even think of a word for it...for choosing to wear a prosthesis and for looking forward to my reconstruction. As if somehow, if I was a better woman or I was a better feminist or a braver survivor I could say, "Forget it!" and walk around the world proudly showing off my one-breasted-ness under my t-shirt.
This book is important because it's made me think hard about my post-cancer decisions. However, in the long run, I don't believe Lorde's opinions, experiences, and observations will be helpful for my continued survival.
If you have chosen to wear a prothesis or to get reconstruction, don't look to this book for affirmation, you will just get judgement, although Lorde opines that it is not her *intent* to judge.
I also think this book needs to be read in context of the time it was written. Breast cancer care has come a long way in the last 20 years. Lorde's belief that chemotherapy and radiation are in themselves carcinogenic may be true in the most extreme situation, in the most narrow sense, but nowadays the benefits by far outweigh the risks. Thousands upon thousands of survivors are around to attest to that.
Sadly, maybe I'm not feminist enough or woman enough to risk my life in order to make the personal political, to prove a point. In reading "The Cancer Journals", I found that Audre Lorde was. And even though it wasn't all doom and gloom, and despite her joyful exultation of the loving women that cared for her, at the end of the book I found it all a little too sad.
Rating: - It's a great tool in overcomming the fear of breast cancer.
I cried through most of this book. Not out of pity for what Audre was going through, but simply because I have seldom seen anyone face such a crisis with such nobility and strength. On some level I think we all fear breast cancer. This book took the terror out of it for me and made me feel that if I were to end up with cancer that I would somehow come through it okay. Audre demonstrates that no matter how bad things get there is something to be learned and gained by the experience. She is a very inspiring and admirable women. She deals with the issue from both a practical, political, intellectual standpoint as well as an emotional one. I would recomend this book for anyone who has, or knows anyone with cancer, and for anyone who simply gets overwhelmed by the thought of someday getting breast cancer.She took on a tough and painful subject with the sensitivity and style of the poet she was , and gave us some wisdom to live by.
Rating:  - Striking continuation of food-fest/allegorical galcommentary
Following on the tremendously sensual roast-beef scene in Zami, Lourde here rejects beef after coming to terms with the oppressive white system that probably imposed hormone-ridden substandard products on people of colour. I think this is very brave. I'd like to propose that in memory of Lourde all self-respecting womyn reject mass-produced beef products. A great book. And very eye-opening.
page 1 of 1
|
