So much for “easy reads”

This month is brought to you by word Agency. Let’s dive right in.

The Sleeping Car Porter, by Suzette Mayr

What stood out most for me in this book was how effectively Suzette Mayr describes the state of extreme exhaustion. Exhaustion to the point of hallucination and loss of basic motor skills. The book made me want to take a nap – not out of boredom (it is most assuredly not boring), but out of her near perfect description of what it’s like to be that tired.

The sleeping care porters are tired because they’re required to serve passengers all day, closing up bunks each morning, washing linens, providing food, cleaning toilets, and re-opening bunks each night for sleeping. They’re busy all night as well, shining shoes, cleaning passageways, washing more linens, and answering to passengers in the night who need ladders to climb down from their sleeping bunks to use the bathroom. All the while, they are required to be on their best behaviour in order to earn much-needed tips to supplement their meager wagers, and to avoid being penalized with demerits, which means being fired if their demerit count reached 60. I think most of us are just a little too used to speaking our minds to really understand how demeaning this life must have been. To just stand there and take whatever is given or said to you, quietly begging for coins and trying to avoid negative reviews.

The book itself follows the story of one porter, Baxter, who desperately wants to earn enough money in tips to go back to university and complete his degree in dentistry. He gets demerits for having a dirty uniform after a passenger accidentally spills coffee on him, and with no merit-earning options he simply struggles to stay below the fire-able offense of reaching 60 before he has secured his dental school savings. To add to his difficulties, Baxter is gay, an illegal offense for which he can be imprisoned if found out. Baxter ends up working the lengthy Montreal to Vancouver run, continually trying to please a group of unruly passengers who call him “George” because they can’t be bothered to learn his actual name.

While I was reading, I remembered that my grandfather worked for the railway for many years after immigrating to Canada from Poland. I have no idea what he actually did, but I wish now I has asked more (or any) questions about that. There were probably some amazing stories there, sadly now lost.

My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell

When fifteen year old Vanessa transfers to a boarding school for her sophomore year of high school (that’s grade 10 for us Canadians), she becomes involved in an affair with her forty-two year old English teacher, Jacob Strane. Seventeen years later, another student publicly accuses Strane of sexual assault, and reaches out to Vanessa asking her to add her own story of abuse to the accusations. The trouble is that Vanessa doesn’t see herself as a victim of abuse (whaaattt????) and in fact believes that she and Strane fell deeply in love. I’m pretty sure I know what you’re thinking about this … situation, but here’s the thing. The story, both the past and the present, are written from Vanessa’s point of view, and she is a young woman who thinks she had as much agency in her own love story and the teacher who (allegedly) seduced her.

It’s a thought-provoking book that is sure to generate conflicted opinions and heated discussions. From my perspective, I am absolutely convinced that the teacher, Strane, is a sexual predator. I am certain that he manipulated Vanessa into falling in love with him, groomed her to consent to his sexual advances, and then gaslighted her into believing the reverse was true, that she lead him on instead. I am certain that he absolutely ruined her life. But the book reveals nuances and complexities, not the least of which is this. How do we deal with situations of abuse and assault where the women feel they have had agency and control over their own lives, and who feel they have consented to what they view as a real relationship based on love. How do we, in good conscience, tell them that all this time they have been molded, manipulated, and victimized by horrible men that do not actually love them? How do these women find and maintain self-worth in the face of these humiliating implications? I’m wondering if we are having the conversations incorrectly and without appropriate empathy. This book is troubling, but important.