Humor in MLBD

I've really enjoyed Rhoda Janzen's sense of humor in Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. Like Janzen, I also have quite frugal parents, and when she makes fun of that frugality, I can see my own experience of eating from dollar menus in a humorous light. I think that humor is partly why this book was so successful with such a broad audience. Humor is a form of honesty, and when I read this book, I am flattered that Janzen will so candidly reveal the weird and embarrassing quirks of her family life to me, a complete stranger.

It's something like being at a junior high slumber party with Janzen and hearing her tell embarrassing-but-funny stories about her mother drinking tuna juice or thinking that the word “boner” means “mistake.” Even if that exact experience hasn't actually happened to you, the reader, this humor provides a handle for you to grab onto to think about other funny things that your own parents have done, and to connect with the memoir. I was realizing the other day that the majority of college-student conversations are all about saying funny things, and I think this is because humor creates connections between people really well. It seems appropriate that a book about Mennonites and the community that they are so renowned for would be written in a humorous tone that fosters connection between author and reader, as well as between people in general.

Janzen manages to pull off a light-hearted tone even when she's talking about pretty serious subjects, but at times this humor seems like a defense. The little checklist box on page 13 comes to mind as an instance when Janzen is pretty humorously flippant about a really serious, sad event. She presents two options: “Yes, I want my husband to leave me pre-pee bag” or “No, I'd rather he left me post-pee bag.” I mean, it's really cool that she can talk about her nasty divorce with Nick in such an upbeat and funny way, but in some ways the candidness of her narration breaks down with this humor. As a reader, I begin to question whether Janzen is being completely honest with me; it seems that there must be painful emotions that she is covering up with this humor. She doesn't really talk much about her woundedness at all. Maybe this is intentional—maybe she worries that talking about her emotions would turn the narrative into a weepy, overly-sentimental story—but I feel less like her trusty slumber-party confidant when I begin to wonder if she is hiding something from me.

When the humor serves as a way of making connections between author and reader, then, it is effective for me, but when it breaks these connections by obscuring information, the humor seems somewhat superficial to me. This kind of relates to our discussion about what stories Mennonites choose to tell and what stories they choose to obscure. Is humor Janzen's more modern Mennonite way of hiding certain things that she doesn't want to reveal? And why would she be hesitant to express her feelings and emotions (assuming, of course, that she is hesitant to express them)?

Writing and Violence

Julia Kasdorf talks about the relationship between writing and violence in her essay “Writing Like a Mennonite" from the book A Capella. The concept that writing can be a violent act fascinates me, because I usually think of writing as a fairly passive occupation. But when you write about something that exposes painful incidents or reflects negatively on a person, I suppose this is, in some ways, violent. If, for instance, the character Hannah from Pearl Diver would have written the true story about her sister Marian's secret failure to play out the Dirk Willems role, this could have “violently” altered people's perceptions of Marian. I'm not totally convinced that “violent” is the right word to use here, but as Kasdorf writes, “The one who disturbs a perceived truth is felt to be an agressor” (180). So the writer who exposes these dark secrets is actively doing something to conquor them, and maybe to some Mennonites, this activeness signifies an unnecessary violence. It seems odd that Mennonites would equate activity with violence or aggression, especially since the early martyrs were, in their own way, acting out instead of passively accepting other people's beliefs.

Kasdorf also theorizes that writing is a way of splintering experience from words, which links it to violence. She writes, “As the ultimate disconnection from the life world, the ultimate dissociation, writing may be the most brilliant splintering trick of all” (179). This tactic of splitting the self in two, she says, is a Mennonite's way of avoiding actually having to deal directly with some trauma or issue. I don't quite understand how this works in terms of writing. But like Kasdorf points out, when you write, you express yourself all at once rather than having to hold an actual conversation with feedback from other people or the world (though this is not the case with these blogs). When you write you're usually separate from your body; the life in writing exists only in words on the page. So writing separates the body from the issues that are expressed through words, and in doing so, acts as a defense for the author. I think this is somewhat true. For me, writing definitely feels a lot safer than speaking; I can express things in writing that I would be really embarassed to say aloud. It's kind of unsettling to think of writing as a cop-out for speaking, though. Iis this splintering of ideas from body that occurs when we write really inflicting violence on the self? And how does this all relate to Mennonites and their anti-violence stances? These are some unresolved questions I still have after reading Kasdorf's piece.

Mennonites, you martyrs

I read the articles in the “Martyrs” issue of the Center for Mennonite Writing Journal. One article by Kirsten Beachy tells a number of stories rooted in Mennonite history about martyrs who did dramatic things to as a demonstration of their faith. Another entry is a series of poems by Rhoda Janzen that explores both historic and theoretical aspects of martyrdom. Julia Kasdorf writes a review of the film Pearl Diver, which she says upholds sacrifice as “a supreme virtue.” Jessica Baldanzi's review of the memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is maybe the least obviously relevant to the theme of martyrs, but Baldanzi seems to imply that the book is a modification (if not a rejection) of the traditional Mennonite memoir of hardship and sacrifice for some greater good. I like the mix of poetry, prose essay, and critical review in this issue; the essay approaches the theme of martyrs directly, the poetry symbolically, and the reviews provide evidence of martyrdom in current Mennonite culture. All of the entries are more modern, less dramatic takes on Mennonite martyr values, but they all seem to suggest that the concept of self-sacrifice as a virture is still alive and well in Mennonite culture.

One thing that struck me as I was reading these pieces was that our contemporary conceptions of martyrdom are very rooted in history, but we don't talk as much about martyrdom in theological terms anymore. In the Anabaptist stories from the past that Beachy relates, the characters are sacrificing their lives to stand up for their religious beliefs, so sacrifice has a distinct spiritual purpose. But in more modern Mennonite stories self-sacrifice has become a more community-oriented value that is not as directly inspired by faith. As Kasdorf puts it in her review of Pearl Diver, “The origins of a practice are so integrated into everyday life that they are not overtly conscious, and particular choices are made simply because they are what we do, who we are, or how it is.” Self-sacrifice has become so much of a cultural expectation in Mennonite communities that the act of martyrdom, which was originally done for the sole purpose of expressing one's faith, has now become somewhat detached from that faith. Beachy begins her essay by describing one modern form of secular Mennonite martyrdom: making do with used twist ties and sour milk. If you are Mennonite, you are expected to tolerate these less-than-perfect commoditites, but no one really thinks about that toleration as a religious act.

There is some degree of irony present as these authors discuss the theme of martyrdom. It seems that, in the modern version of martyrdom, the contemporary Mennonite seeks only to deprive him- or herself for the sake of humility. But by the act of writing, these Mennonite authors are drawing attention to themselves and their ideas, which destroys the anonymous humility that the modern conception of martyrdom strives for. In her poem “The Martyr Box” Rhoda Janzen writes, “Let them kill / you every day for / fifteen years. Slip / through the world / unseen, the ant that / wanders off the line. / To others, the grand / booboiseries of / Shakespeare—ambition, / lust, the marriage plot.” Clearly, though, Janzen herself is not slipping through the world unseen—she has in fact published a bestselling memoir and is trying as hard as she can to be seen. Since martyrs aren't physically dying anymore, the modern version of it requires Mennonites to be self-deprecating and avoid being too showy. But if this also means obscuring one's art—which can bring good and beautiful things into the world that are uniquely Mennonite—it seems more like senseless killing than martyrdom.