The Egg and I, and I

I just finished reading The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald, she of Miss Piggle-Wiggle fame.  (Reid has never heard of Miss Piggle-Wiggle, which makes me deeply sorry for him.)  The book was apparently a massive hit when it was published in the 1940s, proving that our culture's current romanticization of chicken raising and back-to-the-land adventures is actually pretty old news.*  But what is it about the telling of the hardships of farm life that, illogically, makes us long for the bad-old-days of planting and canning and hauling water?  As an long-time devotee of the Little House books, I can't quite explain my predilection, but I can say that this book scratches the vicarious farming itch quite well. 

As a 20-year-old Seattleite, MacDonald falls in love with an older, gainfully employed man, who, soon after their wedding, tells her of his dream to run a chicken ranch.  Trained by her mother to support a husband's whims, MacDonald shoulders the plow, more literally than she had hoped to do, and throws herself into the relentless work of a ranch in the remote mountains of the Olympic Peninsula.

The book could probably described as a comic farce: city girl bumbling along in the wilderness, surrounded by eccentric, larger-than-life characters (so THIS is where Ma and Pa Kettle come from--I'd heard the reference, but never knew who they actually were).  But, at the same time, it is a meditation on loneliness and alienation, which simmer right below the comic surface:

Being lonely all of the time, I used to harbor the idea, as who has not, that I was one of the few very fortunate people who was absolutely self-sufficient and that if I could just find myself a little haunt far from the clawing hands of civilization with its telephones, electric appliances, artificial amusements and people--people more than anything--I would be contented for the rest of my life.  Well, someone called my bluff and I found that after nine months spent mostly in the stimulating company of the mountains, trees, the rain, Stove, and the chickens, I would have swooned with anticipation of a visit from a Mongolian idiot.  And if the clawing hands of civilization could only have run a few telephone and light wires in there they could have had my self-sufficient right arm to chop up for the insulators.

About nine months after she arrives on the farm, she finds herself with a baby as well as a barn full of chickens to look after, and it's hard not to conclude that "women's work" is often a good deal more strenuous, or at least more isolating, than "men's work."   I've been drawing inspiration from MacDonald these days, as I adjust to baby-minding and home-making as a full-time enterprise. When laundry starts to seem overwhelmingly onerous, I can at least feel grateful that I don't have to haul the water and stoke the fire in order to wash Eleanor's endless stream of dirty clothes.  At the same time, and this is maybe where the longing for our mythical agrarian past comes in, the sense of purpose and necessity that accompanies the farm chores could actually be comforting.  It's not that laundry is so bad, but it's the doubt about whether you should be doing something more worthwhile, or that justifies your student loans, that can really throw you into crisis. 

The other dark, but not-quite-spoken, undercurrent in the book is the conflict in Betty and Bob's marriage.  She doesn't mention it, but when I looked up some biographical details about her, I wasn't surprised to find out that she left the ranch and her husband soon after the events chronicled in the book.  Her references to him are generally amusing, but also frequently indignant about his lack of attention and ignorance of her needs. 

Perhaps I've painted an unfairly grim picture of the book.  It's fun, it really is.  And if I had to choose a guide to the wilderness, I'd go with Betty MacDonald over Ma Ingalls any day. 



*I'm sure you could do a fascinating analysis of this drive and how it relates to our current political and socioeconomic reality, but for now I'll be content with making some sweeping, completely anecdotal, claims.