Cover Image: Women Talking

Women Talking

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I have to say, this book was just as powerful as I thought it would be. It’s full of deep, thoughtful discussion and the voices of each of the women ring true. It’s a powerful story and Toews does a brilliant job of processing this story and interpreting it into fascinating dialogue. The women are being tested in their faith, in their loyalty, in the very orientation of their place in their colony. If you love philosophical discussion, empowering women’s stories, and realistic fiction, this book melds all of these into a compelling story that will keep you invested. While the writing is, at times, too flowery and abstract, Toews still keeps it grounded in the women’s words, in what they are feeling/thinking/processing. This book, called Women Talking is made up of just that, women talking. To each other, to their children, to August, their minutes keeper. It is women's’ voices that make up the fabric of this novel and that is by and large what makes it so compelling. For once, the women in this colony are taking control of their future and it is a powerful thing.

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This is one of the best books I have ever read. Its heart is so big, it covers the surface of the earth.

Toews' contribution to the #metoo moment from inside a Mennonite community in Bolivia (this is a true story) is not only a tribute to the hundreds of women who were terrified and injured in this particular historical event, but also to all the women all over the world who took their courage in their hands and TALKED: to each other, to the public. Women talked, and in talking allowed other women to talk, and THINGS CHANGED.

So this is about the seismic power of women's talking. Women's talking -- to each other, for one -- creates community, creates culture, breaks bondage, reframes patriarchy. The women who talk in Toews' book do all of this and so much more: they connect, they love, they rage, they grieve, they comfort, they disclose, they respect, they are humble and strong, they are passionate and moderating. In the course of two days they create a bond with each other that transcends age and personal differences, even old grudges. There is no western culture in which men are allowed the same kind of passionate, liberating talk. Let's use it more, women.

What Toews does here with language (the women are illiterate and also speak an old oral language that has no written version) is phenomenal. One can imagine literary devices that would not have necessitated the interposing of a man between the women and their words. How about an omniscient narrator? But no, that would have been cheating, would it not? So Toews presents this book as the minutes of the meeting the women convene to discuss their next move after the magnitude of the sexual violence has been ascertained. On the one hand, this makes the words of the book the words of a man, who not only transcribes but also translates. On the other hand, it recasts masculinity. This particular man is vilified by the community for his sensitivity, his "femininity." August, the minute-taker, a man, ends up playing an essential role in the salvation of the women, and, in the process, he is saved himself.

Amazing book. Amazing literary achievement. I honestly cannot think of a better book in the whole history of books.

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Women Talking is a novelization of historical events which took place in a remote Mennonite village in the early 2000's. Over a series of years, women and children were drugged in their sleep and brutally raped and beaten often multiple times. These crimes are known as the ghost rapes of Bolivia. Miriam Toews has taken the events but given them a twist. The story takes place over 48 hours in which a group of women who have been victimized, meet to determine their destiny. Will they 1) stay and do nothing 2) stay and fight or 3) leave the village and seek out a new future.
What follows is a heartbreakingly courageous journey in the psyche of survivors of spiritual, physical and sexual abuse, misogyny, fundamentalism, and patriarchal societies. As the women discuss their options, we realize how isolated they are as a community. They do not speak the language of the non-Mennonite communities around them. They cannot read or write. They have no marketable skills and it seems that very few people believe their story. Underlying all these facts is the fundamental indoctrination they have received which tells them that any choice they make other than remaining, forgiving and submitting will damn their souls to hell for eternity.
The various physical and mental/emotional repercussions of the abuse are achingly terrible and the courage the ladies show as they wrestle with how to escape, how to survive and how to remain faithful to their God is told with breathtaking skill. Miriam Toews has taken a terrible nightmare and imbued it with the beauty of the human spirit and hope for a better future.

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Once again, I’m so impressed with Toews’ ability to tackle a devastating and heartbreaking story with humor and grace. While this wasn’t quite All My Puny Sorrows levels for me (a book so hilarious and depressing that I literally cried and laughed at the same time, which gave me such a nasty case of the hiccups) this was another enjoyable and very thought-provoking read.

Not much action to be found in these pages—it really is just women talking—and while there are tense moments to keep you on your toes, the novel is truly a testimony to sisterhood and friendships. If you’re into ruminations and arguments about religion, patriarchy, power, love, trauma, and our tenuous grasp on self-worth in the face of despair and an uncertain future, then you’ll definitely get a kick out of this one! There’s also the occasional random fact about dragonflies and butterflies, and I very much appreciated these bonus entomology lessons. (That’s not sarcasm; I’m for sure pulling these knowledge nuggets out next time I’m in trapped in an uncomfortable, awkward lull in a conversation with a stranger. Oh no, is this why I can’t make friends?)

There’s a delicious undertone of the note-taker being the only male in the group. Is he a sympathetic character, a victim like the women, or an unreliable narrator, untrustworthy in his translations and, well, manhood? However you choose to see him can drastically change the tone of the story, and I love this hidden darkness simmering beneath the surface of something seemingly plain and straightforward. (Much like the evil corrupting the Mennonite community itself…!)

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In a hayloft, several women gather, with only a single man present to take notes on their urgent conversation. The subject of discussion: what to do about their situation as residents of a remote colony where, they’ve just learned, the nighttime violations they’ve experienced were the work of not ghosts, but men who drugged them to rape and molest.

It’s a horrific scenario, all the more so because it’s based on truth. In 2011, a group of men from a Mennonite colony in Bolivia were convicted of drugging and abusing well over a hundred community members — mostly women and girls, including very young children, although some men and boys were also raped. The perpetrators sprayed animal anesthetic to render their victims unconscious, and the attacks continued for half a decade.

Miriam Toews’s new novel considers what might have gone through the minds of the colony’s women upon learning the abominable truth behind their symptoms. The book unfolds like a dystopian fiction, and to the very end it’s shocking to imagine that while the specific characters are the author’s inventions, their circumstances are very real and very recent.

While the book grows suspenseful in its final pages, as the women put a plan into action and grapple with its implications, for most of its 240-page length Women Talking is reflective, often philosophical. It’s rich with metaphor, almost to a fault — particularly in the early pages, when we’re anxious to have the scene set and context explained. These are women who’ve essentially lived their lives outside of time, the author seems to be emphasizing. A sense of urgency is foreign to them.

The book, which was published internationally last year and arrives in America on a wave of praise from the likes of Margaret Atwood, considers at length the women’s crisis of faith. Why has God caused His sons to act this way, and what does He expect his daughters to do in response? He commands women to obey their husbands, but He also implores them to protect their children. What are the women to do when those duties come into conflict?

With no quotation marks, Women Talking flows like a stream of consciousness, explained by the fact that the text is ostensibly the verbatim notes of the narrator August, a prodigal son who has his own troubled history to grapple with. Characters gradually emerge — like the outspoken Salome and a pair of spirited teenagers — but the cumulative effect is as if the women of the colony were different voices in a single mind.

To stay, to leave, to fight, to love, to heal, to harm…the community’s grief has left these women with all of those impulses. By the novel’s end, their path has become clear, but not as clear as the inherent violence of a patriarchal order.

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Interesting concept but I didn't care for the dialogue. I felt sorry for the women and everything they went through

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A unique and powerful addition to the growing canon of MeToo type literature.

This one begins with a terrible, true story. But Toews is much more concerned with the future than the past, particularly how the group of women who have been victims will move forward and determine their own future, despite the disadvantages of lifetimes of isolation and illiteracy. We get to know the women entirely through their own words, as they meet to discuss their options and make plans.

I will be thinking about these women for a long time to come.

With thanks to Bloomsbury USA and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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Toews' latest is a devastating, honest, and powerful story based on the real-life events of a Mennonite community in Bolivia. The women of Molotschna, a remote and isolated community is destroyed by a series of rapes committed by the men of the community on many of the women and children. The story is through the POV of August, a once exiled member of the community and trusted friend of the women as they debate what to do in the wake of this devastation. The story is heartbreaking and Toews does a remarkable job of making these characters real. I couldn't put this down.

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I love the fight and spunk that the author gave the women but since her use of male narrator limited the story to the confines of a hay loft and what women would be willing to divulge to a man, the story lacked depth. She manages to show the struggle of women trying to deal with the destruction of trust within their community and the challenge to their faith which they know only through the men that have destroyed that trust. It is very well done, I just wish there had been so much more to it.

All in all it was a good quick read but I would have loved to see so more.

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Very interesting premise based on real life events, but the execution of it was lacking. It's the dialogue of the one man taking notes of the women's meeting as they plan to escape the colony. It would have been so much more interesting if told from the perspective of the women. August (the narrator)'s story seemed more like a distraction to me. I wanted to know more about the women, but it never went there.

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Miram Toews does it again! Her novel about a group of mennonite women who come together to discuss being attacked at night by demons. They learn that these attacks are not being perpetrated by demons, but rather by men who are drugging them and raping them at night. This book was a powerful reminder that rape happens in all communities around the world. Toews said this was a fictionalized story based on a real event in a mennonite community in Bolivia.
The men go to town to bail out the rapists and while the men are gone the women have to make a decision to either stay or leave?
I loved this book. I thought it was so interesting to see what happens inside a rural secular society. And I think Miriam Toews is a beautiful and poignant writer. I like how the novel was written as a series of transcriptions from meetings amongst the women.
One caution - if you dislike reading writing that is in dialect you might not like this, but hopefully if this is the case, an audio version will be available.

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The women in this book have been dealt a hand of crappy cards.
AND I MEAN *CRAPPY*!!!!!
The women need to talk.
With only 2 days free until the men in their community return - (its their intension to bring back the lovely rapists who have been in jail to give them back their RAPING-LEADERSHIP... cuz they are such nice wholesome decent men)...
Ha!!!!!
So.....while the men are away..., the women will play ( with one man allowed to play too).....
Eight women meet secretly- - ‘barn-style’ group-emergency-chat gathering.
What the f#~k solution can they agree upon that will protect them in the future?

A couple of the women are pregnant already - ( greetings, daddy?), and several daughters were also RAPED!!!!!
The word *violated* is just not BIG ENOUGH!!!

The year was 2011 when the two-day ‘talk-a-thon’ took place. The RAPES took place in the years 2005-2006. Over 100 women were RAPED!!!!

I wonder how many times I need to write the word RAPE - before the devastating REALITY syncs into every cell of our HEARING THIS? And what’s the plan to STOP IT?/!!!!!!

NOTE... ( this might sound trite), when talking about RAPE...( not intended), but ...
Geeeeee- we each know how hard it is to make changes in our OWN LIVES...
We are FAMILIAR with our crappy problems - to change them FOR THE BETTER - is one of the hardest things a human being does FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT.
People resist change. Change creates upset.... it’s frightening. THINKING about change - talking about it - is a start - but even for THE MOST INDEPENDENT POWERHOUSE women today - who believes in civil rights - justice - their life working - has STRUGGLES CHANGING......their environment- diet- and habits... etc.

Yet - these 8 women - whom have ONLY KNOWN this lifestyle - are expected to clap their hands over a solid solution???
Good luck!

These are RELIGIOUS women!!! Their thought reasoning is specific.
God - (their faith) - is a strong force. They haven’t been raised to think freely.

The women couldn’t read or write. ( of course). Welcome to their ‘religious ‘ community!!! (Wow- even in the year 2011)
That type of ‘organized-religion’ is one I wouldn’t wish for my worse enemy.
THIS IS NOT the 1600’s.
Who knew that in the years 2000+, illiterate was desired.... in ANY community -religious or otherwise!!!!!!
It’s Religious brainwash if the women felt ‘not reading’ was being faithful to their God.

*August Ebb* - was the only man - also a part of the 2-day ‘talk-a-thon’.
He was the ‘minutes-note-taking’-guy. The women trusted August to have their best interest at heart.
However.....
God- forbid - the eight women could trust their own voices ‘together’ without the need of a MAN for help.
Yep... fitting!!! It’s the community the Mennonite women knew!
Men were always granted more power than women...
So why would this ‘women’s talking’ gathering be any different.

See the problem about solution solving?
“What if the rapists are released on bail and return to the colony and find that there are no girls and women here, and begin to use these boys, the 13 and 14-year-olds, as targets for their attack?
One of the females ( Mejal) chimes in.
“Surely we can’t be afraid of boys this age? Why couldn’t they join us?

Ona ( another woman speaks):
“August, you’re the boys teacher. What is your feeling about this? Do your boys at this age pose a threat to our girls and women?
August must stop his transcribing in order to properly answer her question.
“I’m simply not capable of containing my happiness and surprise at being asked a question by Ona, formulating my answer, communicating it in Low German, and translating it instantly in my mind to English—while almost simultaneously writing in English translation on paper”.
August’s answer: Ha... teasing... don’t expect me to give you spoilers!
However - his answer ‘is’ in two-parts.

Yet....NO ANSWER is clear- cut- and dry when it comes to looking at religious beliefs - forgiveness - repenting - education -sinners - heaven - and hell.

The women in the community talked & talked... discussing/arguing/laughing at times/ debated.... ultimately about how to take their lives back after these horrific RAPES!!!

Based on a real-life event....
Dystopian Fiction written in a unique format...(very visual to imagine)
Miriam Toews took a god-awful terrifying- subject -made it personal -offering readers the possibility for our own added interactive discussions.
Perfect book club pick!

Thank You Bloomsbury Publishing, Netgalley, and Miriam Toews

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Amazing premise, terrible execution. I could not finish it-- I got about 50% through and had to put it down because I just didn't want to spend my time on something I did not enjoy.

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I wasn’t as in to this as I expected, though it delivered exactly what it promised, so I rounded up for that. The women talking ended up kind of going in circles quite a bit, and I was a little bored at parts. That said, given its based on true events, I think it’s an interesting story to get out there and I’m glad I read it.

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I keep wanting to love this author's style, bit so far I haven't completely warmed to her. l' LL give the next one another try though. Thanks for the arc!

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[I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

Release date: 4/2/19
Rating: 4/5 stars
Genre: Women's fiction/historical fiction
Features: Strong women, Mennonite faith, community tragedy, crimes against women
Quotes:

"But is forgiveness that it coerced true forgiveness? . . . And isn't the lie of pretending to forgive with words but not with one's heart a more grievous sin than to simply no forgive? Can't there be a category of forgiveness that is up to God alone . . . ?

"Peters said these men are evil, the perpetrators, but that's not true. It's the quest for power . . . that is responsible for these attacks."

"We are wasting time . . . by passing this burden, this sack of stones, from one to the next, by pushing our pain away. We mustn't do this . . . Let's absorb it, each of us . . . Let's inhale it, let's digest it, let's process it into fuel."


Wow. What a stellar, thought-provoking novel. I flew through the book in a few days, and am still mulling over what I read.

To give some background, this book is a fictionalized account based on actual events that happened in a Bolivian Mennonite community between 2005 and 2009. (Here is a link about the event: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-14688458) Over a hundred women were raped at night by men in their community after being drugged by belladonna, a chemical often used to anesthetize cows. Toews' story picks up after the attacks have happened and the men have left the community and gone to town for a few days to post bail for the attackers. In their absence, eight women have secretly met in a barn loft to discuss what they should: should they leave the community, or stay? One man is present to take meeting notes for the women.

This book had such strong and fascinating characters. Although the women in the community were unable to read and write (and only knew the Bible from what the men had taught them), they had such intellectual and thoughtful ways of discussing the tragedy that had happened and what to do about it. They had to wrestle with their beliefs as Mennonites and their personal goals of protecting themselves and their children. I had to wonder what I would do in their situation, when all I knew was my community, I couldn't read or write, I was discouraged to think for myself, and I had no idea what lay outside in the world. Would I decide to leave, for a hopefully better life for me and my children? Or would I stay, hoping things would change for the better or fearful of what would happen if I left?

This book is for anyone who enjoys reading about strong women and dealing with a community tragedy.

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This novel reads like dystopian fiction but the real horror is that it’s based on true events that occurred just a decade ago.

As Toews explains in a note preceding the book, between 2005 and 2009 there was a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia in which the girls and women would wake up in the morning groggy, bruised and violated. The attacks were attributed to ghosts and demons, and the women were accused of lying or hysteria. As it turns out, eight men from the colony had been drugging and raping them.

This fictionalized account of these events follows the conversations between a group of women in the colony over the course of two days as they determine what to do with this knowledge: Should they remain in the colony, the only home they’ve ever known, and do nothing? Should they fight back? Or should they leave?

The narrative unravels like one of Plato’s dialogues, with the women using reason and discourse to address notions of faith, duty, justice, agency and righteousness. (If they stay, for example, that will inevitably compel them to violence, which will violate a core tenet of their pacifist faith, therefore the right choice is to leave.)

This is one of those novels that feels both timely and timeless. It’s thought-provoking and would make for good discussion at a book club.

I appreciated Toews’ clever approach to the narrative, as well as the philosophical discussions that took place between the women, but I struggled to connect with the story and the characters the way I would have liked to. I almost wish it had been written as a play or a dialogue instead of a novel, because most of the filler outside of the women talking failed to hold my attention.

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I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Excellent novel about a scandal in a Mennonite community. Spellbinding story that parallels real life events in a compound near Bolivia.

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I had to stop And think for a little more than a day on what my rating of this would be, had to separate my feelingsso I could judge what Toews has accomplished by writing this book. Quite frankly, this book made me so angry for the women in this Mennonite enclosed colony in Canada. Between 2005 and 2009, over 100 women and children were drugged and raped by male members of their sect. The youngest was three, a great part of what made me so angry. These women were expected to forgive their rapists and just carry on as if nothing had occurred. There is more to this, but that is all I'm saying about the men.

Toews, from a Mennonite background, much like these women, decided to give them the voice they probably did not actually have. Or maybe they did, I don't know that. So a group of women get together, to decide whether they are going to leave the colony or stay. The only man present, August, trusted, has is own back story, a very interesting one. It is while they talk that we learn of their lives in the colony, where they are so little valued that they are not taught to read or write, not allowed to express their likes or dislikes, completely powerless. Another huge source of my anger. In a short amount of pages, Toews accomplishes much, provides insights, and shows the remarkable courage of these women. Quite a revelation and accomplishment both.

Not a thrill a minute, there is some repetition as the women talk through their beliefs, their options and how their decisions will be accomplished. Yet, much is said, much is learned. Toews is an excellent author and one of my goals this year is to read the books by her that I have not yet read.

This is a link to an article I found on why Toews wrote this book. Quite informative.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/18/miriam-toews-interview-women-talking-mennonite

ARC from Netgalley.

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In the loft of a barn, the women of a Mennonite community in Bolivia meet to talk about what they should do, how they could move forward to protect themselves and their daughters from more of the vicious rapes they have endured as they were drugged in the middle of the night. I would have found this hard to imagine if not for this opening sentence of a note by the author before the book begins:

“Between 2005 and 2009, in a remote Mennonite colony in Bolivia (named the Manitoba Colony, after the province in Canada from which the colonists had emigrated in the mid-1900’s), hundreds of girls and women would wake up in the morning feeling drowsy and in pain, their bodies bruised and bleeding, having been attacked in the night. The attacks were attributed to ghosts and demons. Some members of the community felt the women were being made to suffer by God or Satan as punishment for their sins; many accused the women of lying for attention or to cover up adultery; still others believed everything was the result of wild, female imagination.” (See the links to some news stories I have posted at the end.)

That this novel is based on a true story makes this such a horrific and powerful story, as we listen to the women talk to each other about their options and to the only man left at the colony, August, a teacher who takes minutes for them since these women have never been allowed to read or write. The rest of the men have gone to bail out the rapists who were taken into police custody for their safety, the safety of the men not the women. Meanwhile these women struggle with what to do to keep their daughters safe. The discussions are difficult, philosophical, religious, practical and heartbreaking as they recount their experiences. Should they do nothing? Should they stay and fight? Should they leave? The middle of the book felt a little slow, but then I thought that these discussions seemed realistic; it was not an easy decision to make. While this was their story, I was moved by August’s connection to them. This is one of those books that was so impactful and definitely a powerful telling of the awful things that happened to many of the women in the real sect. I woke up thinking about these women, wanting to know what happened after the ending. Kudos to Miriam Toews for not forgetting these women.


Thanks as always to Esil and Diane for our monthly read together. A terrific discussion!

I received an advanced copy of this book from Bloomsbury through NetGalley.

Articles on the events this was based on:

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2087711,00.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-14688458

https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/books/how-miriam-toews-gave-a-voice-to-the-rape-victims-of-the-horrific-bolivian-mennonite-atrocity

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