Word: womanities
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...things stood out right away. On the first bus from New York we saw two soldiers waiting in front of us, bound for Charlotte, in camouflage fatigues and jackets with their names and little American flags. It was a night bus, and I remember being feverishly watchful: a woman speaking into her phone—“operator”—in the dark, giant silver factories outside Baltimore, the whitewashed obelisk memorial as we coasted into empty Washington...
...California on some hilltops you can see clear to New York. I asked an old Mexican woman with a shopping cart where the water was. She said Superior. I thought that meant better: better than home, yes, I said. Really it was the name of the street to the sea. Sitting on a beach in Summerland, California, I thought about seasons, remembering, oceans, glory...
...dried up in San Antonio. We joked that maybe they turned it off on Tuesdays. Somehow it was better in dryness: the Alamo dusty and the cathedrals whitewashed and spare, the lights hanging over the riverbed, the mariachis on the cobblestones. Walking into the Catredal de San Fernando, a woman with many bags walked around me towards the altar, huffing and taking deep breaths...
...riveters of Oshkosh, Wis. We went to a factory where they were manufacturing off-road vehicles that could withstand the Afghan Taliban's powerful new IEDs. The workers were heavyset, rough-hewn men and women in unlaced boots, jeans, flannel shirts and goggles. Gates' patriotic speech moved them. One woman told me that whenever she didn't feel like doing her job tightening those screws, she reminded herself that she would be saving the life of Johnny from next door. Most of the workers travel long distances to the factory. All along the road to the airport were boarded...
...final and titular story of the book exemplifies this tendency. It is Munro’s imagining of a short period in the life of an exceptional woman from history: Sophia Kovalevsky, a mathematician and novelist who lived in the late 19th century. Munro writes that she encountered Sophia’s story in an encyclopedia, and the story begins to read more like a factual entry than anything else. Sophia is a fascinating character and a perfect example of a powerful woman, but by portraying her as a saint, Munro makes this woman less accessible to her readers...