Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
Exhausting!
Thankfully, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to drag myself through a book. To be fair, Mennonite… was doomed to fail because I thought it was fiction but it turned out to be yet another memoir! After just finishing Eat, Pray, Love, I wasn’t thrilled about reading another woman’s journey. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize my mistake till the 3rd chapter and then I was obliged to finish.
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress documents Rhoda Janzen’s journey as she meanders between her Mennonite roots and secular society. The story follows her from a long-skirted, stiff-banged Mennonite girl to the educated, “liberal” woman newly separated from her atheist, now-gay husband. From her own confession, she would have loved to stay in her secular world had it not been for her husband leaving their 15-year marriage for a gay guy named Bob. So when she was ejected from the world that she loved, she went the only place she knew where to go: home.
Rhoda Janzen believes herself to be a woman of discernment. She was quick to discern the illogical nature of her parents’ beliefs and hastily departed. She took a 180° turn from her roots, achieved academic accolades (traditionally frowned on in Mennonite culture), and married an atheist. It was almost as if she pointedly decided to do the exact opposite of her original beliefs. She would have stayed in this world she had created except, unfortunately, it happened to implode. Describing her 15 year marriage as tumultuous would be putting it lightly. Her accounts rang of domestic abuse just not the physical kind. Despite the mental abuse and the cheating, she still would have stayed if her husband hadn’t left her “for a guy named Bob he met on Gay.com”. She repeated this phrase throughout her narrative as a running joke. Too bad it wasn’t funny.
Janzen asserts she had left her roots but it was challenging to agree. Yes, she is an educated woman with a career but she is also an obsequious woman who bends over backwards to meet her bipolar husband’s immediate wants and needs. She is the woman that takes his verbal lashings yet still seeks his affection. She is a woman that allows her intellect, body, and spirit to be abused by a man. She does all these things because she loves him even though he doesn’t love her or himself. It is challenging to believe she is a truly liberal and secular woman. Because that woman would have left the first time he called her a cunt, made her feel repulsive, or left her stranded in a dangerous neighborhood. She did leave sometimes but she always came back. The woman that Rhoda Janzen thinks she is - that world-wise, knowledgeable, free-thinking, autonomous woman - is not really her. Reading this novel reminds you how tough it is to really leave your roots and strike out on a different path. Rhoda Janzen, in her marriage, was very much a Mennonite because she took all that hatred and tried her best to return love (just like Christ did); she remained hard-working and efficient (as a good Mennonite does); she served others before herself; and she was unwilling to leave her marriage for good even though the world would tell her she had every right to go. Rhoda Janzen may have departed in some superficial ways but her core principles and values are still very much embedded in her Mennonite roots.
“So, how was the story?” you ask… "Not good", I reply. Two major flaws permeate themselves into the fabric of this memoir.
First, it doesn’t read like a story being told. This memoir began from emails sent to friends detailing her retreat back to her parents’ home. Imagine reading an email stream where you only see the outgoing messages. That is the writing style of Mennonite. The whole story just comes off as disjointed.
Second, she forgot her audience. She wrote as if I was one of her email recipients: a friend with a concerned interest in her life. But I was nothing but a stranger curious to learn more about Mennonites. Her writing did not inspire a connection to her audience. She threw her material at us assuming we already cared. And that’s what was forgotten in the transformation from personal emails to a memoir. She forgot to change the language; she forgot to adjust the frame for the new picture she was trying to create.
The semi-good thing about this memoir was that I satisfied my curiosity about Mennonite culture. It was full of Mennonite tales, history, culture, and lots of recipes like Borscht and Cottetlen. I learned so much about their peculiar brand of Christianity (akin to Amish in its abhorrence of anything mainstream); but the thing I learned the most about them is this: They’re BORING! Nothing about them was interesting or enlightening or even humorous. Janzen seemed to think Mennonites hit all three of these things unfortunately. I’ve never read a book so assured of its own humor and brilliance. It was like reading a Carrot Top routine. It was that bad.
Maybe Mennonites aren’t that boring; maybe it was the author’s fault. Let’s just hope that’s the case.
Rating: 1 star (Applaud the courage to write a book but don’t even get this from the library)
