Clara and Mr. Tiffany Book Review

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland is an interesting novel, giving readers a glimpse into the behind the scenes world of the Tiffany Glass Company and the captive lives of women during the Victorian era. The decorative art pieces showcased in the company's Fifth Avenue store in New York belie their less glamorous happenings backstage.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

Clara Driscoll apparently was the creative genius behind Mr. Tiffany's legendary leaded glass lampshades. She was the one who came up with the idea and then with her department of female artists, fashioned designs inspired by nature. Louis Tiffany admits, "I've always thought that women have greater sensitivity to nuances of color than men do," but he takes all the credit for the finished products, untouched by the sacrifices given by his employees. The Tiffany girls were expected to remain single, couldn't vote and weren't allowed to join unions. It was a man's world and Clara, true to the era, accepts their lot in life. She asks her employees to pledge their commitment to the work over love, and most comply. Clara Driscoll's contributions to stained glass art were unrecognized until 2005, when letters she'd written were discovered.

Clara is frustrated by the limitations of womens' roles and does play a part in the slow process for gender equality by her dedication to her job and her promotion of unionizing female workers, but she still acquiesces to the men in her life, especially Tiffany. He is wealthy beyond belief, selfish and flamboyant, and disregards the feelings of his wife, daughters and female employees in all his decisions. Despite his flaws, Driscoll feels closely bonded to him, but he rarely returns the sentiment. One day she cries in his office over the death of Wilhelmina and he offers her one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs, which becomes a keepsake to cherish, wrapped in tissue and stored in a drawer at home. Later her expensive lamps become an unsustainable enterprise for the company and have to be discontinued. She is deflated that Tiffany allows this defeat, lamenting that he let "commerce triumph over art."

Vreeland's exhaustive historical research is evident in the book with her references to the erection of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, author O. Henry's appearance at a local restaurant, song and book titles, and the new subway. She mentions the brothels, mansions, lobster palaces and a stable on Broadway that Clara and her friends walk past on their way to Times Square the first New Year's Eve in 1907. They watch the giant ball lit with electric lightbulbs descend from a flagpole for the first time. The novel is written in the superb Vreeland style, and should be of interest to anyone who loves the Victorian era and especially, Tiffany glassware.

Sources:

Susan Vreeland, Clara and Mr. Tiffany (New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 2011).

http://www.tiffany.com/

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Roots by Alex Haley Book Review

Roots by Alex Haley

The underreported history of African-Americans comes to life in the classic story Roots by Alex Haley, a Pulitzer Prize Winner in 1977. Haley wrote that "preponderantly the histories have been written by the winners," meaning white people, thus the dearth of information about slave history. Haley pieced his own genealogy together through family lore, maritime and linguistic research and a poignant visit to Africa. His ancestor, Kunta Kinte, was kidnapped from Juffure, a village in Africa near the Gambia River, and shipped to Maryland to be sold as a slave. It is the story of hope, familial bonds and survival over the cruelty of mankind.

Roots by Alex Haley

Man's inhumanity to his fellow man is an overarching theme contrasted with the amazing resilience of the human spirit in Roots. The chain of misery begins with a king in Africa who sold his own people to slave traders. The slaves are then dehumanized and treated like livestock, detached from their families so they lose their sense of identity. Kinte determines that his only daughter will know who she is and where her roots lie, hence the name of the book and reason for his descendants' success. The family remains intact through the generations.

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Kinte must have been incredibly strong physically to survive being kidnapped, shipped like a commodity, sold and beaten. He endures the eighty-seven day ocean voyage under horrific conditions that kill off forty-two others and later, the amputation of his foot after an attempted escape. Hope is demonstrated by Kinte when he escapes from his master four times, looking for liberty and the way home to Africa. His progeny also survive inhumane treatment, broken promises, lies and unjust laws. Kinte's daughter Kizzy survives being ripped away from her parents and repeatedly raped by her new master. Chicken George and his children survive by obeying their masters, learning trades and always looking out for each other. Chicken George also hopes for freedom and finally obtains it from his master after five years of bonded service in England. He returns and leads his emancipated family to a new home in Tennessee after the Civil War.

The hypocrisy of America's culture is glaring, with "niggers" treated unequally in the land where "all men are created equal." Laws are passed that mete out severe punishments to blacks and coloreds while whites committing the same crimes receive no consequences. Fiddler tells Kinte that he thinks the purpose of Virginia's House of Burgess is to "pass more laws 'gainst niggers." White Christians attend church but ignore the clear teachings of the New Testament regarding the worth of human beings. Owners regard their slaves as animals yet they mate with the females. A child like Chicken George, sired by his master, is still a slave and the kinship unacknowledged.

Despite the atrocities in the biography, Haley manages to include some humor. In Africa, the men of Juffure speak "the language of men," which is a secret code of altered Mandinkan words. They couldn't prevent their women from gossiping and interfering in their affairs, so they devised a way to speak around them. Also, when Kinte gets a good look at white women, particularly an ugly one with "straw hair," he understands why white men go for black women. Slaves in the New World were all ears to their masters' conversations, though they acted like they didn't listen in. They feigned stupidity when it was convenient and pretended to be afraid when the Northern army was coming to liberate them. The humor helps to balance the seriousness of Haley's subject.

The United States was a land of colonies before 1776, with good and evil people planting their stakes during its formative years, and it is tragic that slavery was allowed to take root. John Adams in particular wanted to outlaw slavery in the Constitution of the new republic, but he was outvoted, postponing an inevitable crisis for 100 years when the issue was settled through a bloody Civil War. Then it took another century for the Civil Rights Amendment. Roots is a 900-page tome about the dark side of American history, shown through seven generations of one black family, and can help people understand why some African Americans bear a grudge toward the white man, though the injustice was so long ago. The book was translated into thirty-seven languages and made into a cinematic mini-series, and its status as an American classic is well deserved.

Source:

Alex Haley, Roots (NY, NY: Vanguard Books, 2004).

Read more book reviews:

• Queen by Alex Haley
• Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond by Essie Mae Washington-Williams
• Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland
• The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy
• Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward