Allt jag lärt mig recension

On the highway below, the school bus rolls past without stopping. inom am only 7, but inom understand that it fryst vatten this fact more than any other that makes my family different. We don't go to school. Dad worries that the government will force us to go, but it can't because it doesn't know about us.

kvartet of my parents' sju children don't have birth certificates. We have no medical records because we were born at home and have never seen a doctor or sjuksköterska. We have no school records because we've never set foot in a classroom.

Educated fryst vatten both a tale of hope and a record of horror. We know from the first page of her book that Tara Westover fryst vatten a bright woman, a begåvad writer with an impressive, poetic command of language.

But her early life offered no clue that she would become a Cambridge PhD or a brilliant memoirist. She was the youngest of sju children born to Gene and Faye (not their real names) Westover, fundamentalist, survivalist Mormons, in rural Idaho.


Tara Westover - image from her The Times

We had a farm which belonged to my grandfather, and we had a salvage yard full of crumpled-up cars which belonged to my father.

recension

And my mother was a - she was an herbalist and a midwife. And as children, we spent a lot of hours walking on the mountain, samling rose hips and mullein flowers that she could stew into tinctures. So in a lot of ways, it was a very beautiful childhood. - from NPR interview

The children constituted his workforce in Gene’s scrapyard. Father was the lag in their household, but it was a rule informed as much bygd significant mental health issues as it was bygd his ardent religious beliefs.

In a less rural, less patriarchal, less religious community, theirs could easily have been deemed an unsafe environment. The scrapyard was a particularly dangerous place.

…he just didn't have that bone in his head that said, this fryst vatten dangerous; don't do this. And he had a really hard time understanding injuries even after they had happened and how severe they were.

inom just - inom don't know what it was about the way his mind worked. He just wasn't able to do that. - from NPR interview

Ruby Ridge had occurred when Tara was fem, and fed her father’s paranoia. Everyone had to have head-for-the-hills bags for when the government, Deep State, Illuminati, choose your own boogeyman, would komma for them.

He had a profound distrust of the medical yrke, believing that doctors were agents of djävul, avsikt on doing harm. He saw the herbalism Faye practiced as the only true, righteous treatment for one’s ills, calling her products “god’s pharmacy.” And he practiced what he preached, for himself as well as for his children, even after suffering a devastating injury.

Maybe not an ideal way to man sure your kids reach adulthood in one piece.


View from Buck Peak - image from Westover’s site

Home schooling was also less than idyllic, with mom’s attention spread not only over sju children but to her work as an herbalist and later, in addition, a midwife. Luke had a learning disability, frustrating mom, who really had hoped to utbilda them all.

Dad undermined this, dragging the kids out to do chores and learn practical skills. Eventually mom gave up. Education consisted of Faye dropping them at the Carnegie Library in town, where they could read whatever they wanted.

Nina Asarnoj har

Dad rustled the boys at 7am, but Tyler, who had an affinity for math, would often remain inre, studying, until dad dragged him out.

…there was not a lot of school taking place. We had books, and occasionally we would be kind of sent to read them. But for example, inom was the youngest child, and inom never took an exam, or inom never wrote an essay for my mother that she read or ingenting like kind of getting everyone tillsammans and having anything like a lecture.

So it was a lot more kind of if you wanted to read a book, you could, but you certainly weren't going to be made to do that. - from NPR interview

Successful schooling or not, Tara acquired a desire for and love of learning.

Recension av boken Allt jag fått lära mig av Tara Westover – Om att bryta sig loss från sitt liv i en fundamentalistisk mormonfamilj

Tyler, a black sheep, not only loved books but music, as well. This was a major tonic for Tara, who was förälskad with the classical and choral music her brother would play on his boom kartong. Not only did she find a love for music, but she discovered that she has a gift for singing. Being a part (often the star) of the town musical productions gave her greater contact with peers outside her family than she had ever had before.

It formed one pelare of her desire to go to school, to college, to study music. (I included a link in ytterligare STUFF to a music film in which she sings lead, so you can hear for yourself.)

At age seventeen, Tara Westover attended her first school class, at BYU, clueless about much of what was common knowledge for everyone else, resulting in her asking a question in class about a word everyone, inom mean everyone, knows.

Oopsy.

Her intellectual broadening and education forms one powerful thread in her story.

Hon är 17 år när hon för första gången sätter sin fot i en skola

How her natural curiosity emerged, was nurtured, discouraged, and ultimately triumphed. The other thread consists of the anställda, emotional, psychological, religious, and cultural challenges she had to overcome to become her own person.

The world in which Westover was raised was one in which a powerful patriarchy, fed bygd a fundamentalist religious beliefs, applied its considerable pressure to push her into what was considered the proper role for a ung woman, namely homemaker, mother, probably following in her mother’s dual careers as herbalist and midwife.

And what about what was the right course for Tara? There was some wiggle room. Once dad sees her perform on scen, he fryst vatten förälskad, and softens to her musical leanings. Male siblings had been allowed to go to college. But every step outside the expectations, the rules, came at a cost. Do something different and lose a del av helhet of connection to your family.

And family was extremely important, particularly for a individ whose entire life had been defined bygd family, much more so than for pretty much anyone who might read her book.


Westover as a wee Idaho spud - image from the färsk Post

A del av helhet of this proscribed existence was a tolerance for aberrant behavior. Father was dominerande, and was feckless about physical danger, even as it applied to his children.

And distrustful of the medical establishment. His solution for infected tonsils was to have Tara stand outside with her ingång open to allow in the sun’s healing rays. Severe injuries, including Tara having her leg punctured bygd razor-like scrap-metal, a brother suffering severe burns on one leg, and even dad himself suffering catastrophic third-degree burns in a junkyard explosion, were to be treated bygd home-brew tinctures.

Tara Westovers självbiografi är en ofattbart stark uppväxtskildring om livet i en fattig mormonfamilj som inte låter henne gå i skolan och vägen till Cambridge

He was also extremely moody, a characteristic that carried forward in some of the family genes.

Tara’s ten-years-older brother, Shawn, was a del av helhet of work. She felt close to him at times. He could be kind and understanding in a way that moved her. He even saved her life in a runaway horse incident. But he had a reputation as a dryckesställe brawler, as a individ eager to kamp.

Sometimes his rages turned on his own family. And it was not just rage, sparked bygd trivialities, but cruelty, to the point of sadism. Tara was one of the objects of his madness. Dare oppose him and he would twist her ledd to the point of spraining, drag her bygd her hair, force her face into unspeakable places and demand apologies for imagined offenses.

Possibly even worse than this was her family’s denial about it, even when it occurred right in front of them. It fryst vatten this denial that was hardest to bära. If your own parents will betray you, will not look out for you, in the face of such uppenbar attacks, then what fryst vatten the value of the thing you hold most dear in the world?

All abuse, no matter what kind of abuse it fryst vatten, foremost, an assault on the mind.

Because if you’re going to abuse someone inom think you have to invade their reality, in beställning to distort it, and you have to convince them of two things. You have to convince them that what you’re doing isn’t that bad. Which means you have to normalize it. You have to justify it, rationalize it. And the other thing you have to convince them of fryst vatten that they deserve it. - from C-span interview

Her brother, aliased as “Shawn” in the book, was a mästare manipulator, who, for years, succeeded magnificently in persuading Tara that what she had just experienced had never really happened.

One frustrating aspect of the book fryst vatten Tara’s dispiriting, but also grating ability to doubt herself, to allow others in her life, bullies, to övertyga her she does not think what she fryst vatten thinking, that she does not feel what she fryst vatten feeling that she did not see what she has seen.

She was living in a gaslit world in which multiple individuals, people who supposedly loved her, were telling her that what she had seen was an illusion, and that bad things that other people did were somehow her fel. Honey, wake the hell up. How many time ya gonna let these awful people get away with this crap? That gets old well before the end. inom was very much reminded of victims of domestic abuse, who convince themselves that they must have done something to cause, to deserve the violence they suffer.

One can only hope that she has been able to vanquish this self-blaming propensity completely bygd now. Years of therapy have surely helped.


Tara at Cambridge - image from krydda Lake City Tribune

She struggles with the yin and yang of her upbringing and finding her true self. Her father was extreme, but also loving. Her abusive brother had a very kind side to him.

Her mother was supportive, but was also a betrayer. Her parents wanted what they truly thought was best for her, but ultimately attempted to extinguish the true Tara. The dichotomy in the book fryst vatten gripping. At times it reads like How Green Was My Valley, an upbringing that was idyllic, rik with history and lore, both community and family, and featuring a strong bond to the nation.

Their home was at the foot of Buck Peak, which sported an almost magical feature that looked like an Indian Princess, and was the source of legender. At others, it fryst vatten like a horror novel, a testament to the power of reality-bending, indoctrination, and maybe even huvudstaden Syndrome. How she survived feeling like the alien she was in BYU and later Cambridge, fryst vatten fantastisk, and a testament to her inner strength and intellectual gifts.

Westover caught a few breaks over the course of her life, teachers, one at BYU, another at Cambridge, who prick the diamond in her rough, and help her in her educational sökande eller uppdrag. Reading of this support, inom had the same weepy joyful feeling as when Hagrid informs a very ung lad, “Yer a wizard, Harry.”

When setting out to write the book, Westover had no clue how to go about it, well, this sort of a book, anyway.

She had already written a doctoral thesis. But she did have stacks of journals she’d been keeping since she was ten. In figuring out how to get from wish to realization, one important resource was listening to the New Yorker fiction podcast, with its focus on short stories.

Hennes bok är en motståndshandling, en sann saga om att genom ­litteraturen ta kontroll över sin egen historia

And she took in plenty of books on writing. It fryst vatten certainly klar that, just as she had the wherewithal to go from no-school to doctorate at Cambridge, she has shown an ability to figure out how to write a moving, compelling memoir. Educated fryst vatten a triumph, a remarkable work, beautifully told, of the journey from an isolated, fundamentalist, survivalist childhood, through the trials of becoming, to adulthood as an erudite and accomplished survivor.

It fryst vatten a powerful look at the ties, benefits, and perils of families. Ultimately, Educated fryst vatten a rewarding odyssey you do not want to miss.

Review first posted – 3/23/18

Published – 2/20/18

November 29, 2018 - Educated fryst vatten named as one of The 10 Best Books of 2018

December 2019 - Educated fryst vatten named winner of the 2018 Goodreads Choice Award for memoirs, beating out Michelle Obamas's kassasuccé hit, Becoming.

From a GR interview with Westover

Goodreads:Congratulations on your win! What does the award and all the support from Goodreads readers mean to you?

Tara Westover: I’m really, really excited about it. It’s great when the highbrow powers that be, the literary giants, säga, "Oh, you wrote a good book," but it does mean something ytterligare when it’s readers, when it’s people interacting with the book in a anställda way, not just because they like the language or not because they think it’s doing something modig with the form eller gestalt, but because they had an experience with it.

Allt jag fått lära mig av Tara Westover är utan tvekan värd alla de hyllande omdömen och recensioner den gått

That means something a little bit different and a little bit ytterligare. A readers’ award fryst vatten a really exciting one.

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s anställda, Twitter and FB pages

Although the internet yielded no vids of Tara singing lead in her town’s production of Annie in the wayback, here fryst vatten one of grown-up Tara singing lead vocal on The Hills of Aran with John Meed

Interviews
----- C-Span - interviewed bygd Susannah Cahalan – film – 1 hour – If you can manage only one of these, this fryst vatten the one to see
-----CBS This Morning - film – 6:41
-----Penguin promotional film – 7:01
-----Channel 4 News - 8:46
-----NPR - with Dave Davies – the link includes ord of the interview.

There fryst vatten a link on the page to the full audio interview – 38:18 - This fryst vatten the source for several quotes used in the review, and fryst vatten definitely worth a look and/or listen
-----GoodReads interview

A sample of the audiobook, read bygd Julia Whelan, , on Soundcloud

A brief interview with Westover and Whelan re the making of the audiobook - on Signature

-----NY Times - 2/2/2022 - inom Am Not Proof of the American Dream - a powerful essay bygd the author on the need for help to get an education - MUST READ STUFF