Not really, but I couldn't resist seeing as how it was just the anniversary of that other famous invasion and ride.
But a Mennonite did triumph in the Canada Reads elimination round last week. Miriam Toews - now there's a Mennonite name for you! - won with A Complicated Kindness. I hadn't heard of her or her book before, but she went up against a couple of other writers whose work I've either enjoyed, or have heard praised, so it must be a pretty good book. It certainly sounds interesting... though I'm holding off on non-essential book purchases for the next few months in order to whittle away at what I already have.
The novel is a bildungsroman, which I've been kind of hit or miss about - sometimes I love them and sometimes I loathe them, though with this one, the added twist that the protagonist is growing up in a Mennonite community will not doubt keep my interest when it might threaten to flag.
Just a couple of months ago I listened to another Mennonite author at Boskone of all places, talking about all things science fiction-y. Karl Schroeder's Lady of Mazes is on my wishlist and I'm thinking there might even be a chance that one of his books could end up in the dissertation, if nothing more than just a footnote. But again, I'll hold off getting that one till I've slogged through some of the other ones I still have to get through.
You know, for a group that only has 1.3 million members worldwide (compared to say 75 million Methodists or even 12 million Mormons), there seems to be a lot of prolific writers! Rudy Wiebe, A.E. Van Vogt are two others fiction writers that come to mind... and those are just the Canadian Mennonites. I'm sure there's more, but I've got enough to read right now, so I'll leave it at that.
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I reviewed a mennonite bildungsroman back in my reporting days. Can't seem to recall the title, but my hometown hospital even has a "post" for mennonites to hitch their buggies to.
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