Composing a Life by Mary Catherine Bateson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Composing a Life
Book Review: myopic
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a well-written and well thought out book. The reason I give it three stars is for its very limited focus. Bateson leads the reader to believe that we will learn about different life choices, different stories, and different outcomes from the women she followed. We don't. All of the women she follows are upper middle class or above; they are either academics themselves or swimming in the same pond as professors; all of them (with one exception) have children, a husband, and access to everything life has to offer.
These are interesting stories, but from an anthropologist's daughter I expected more. Why not expand the research to include a few women who were faced with welfare, or violence, or non-conformist husbands or children? Women who had no access to education and still managed to "compose a life" despite terrible hardship? Women who propelled themselves into jobs or environments no one would have expected? Anything really...to give this book variety.
How can we truly learn how to "compose a life" unless we've seen many different ways to do so? This book is only inspirational to blessed upper middle class "liberals" who are within Bateson's own sphere. While it could have been great, it was only so-so.