Social Activist is Proposed for Sainthood
This is out of chronological order with my previous posts, because it's not about France (I'll add more on that later). It's a book review which I submitted for a monthly contest of the Southwest Writers, and I won an honorable mention, so I thought it was worthy of posting here. I have also submitted it as a review to Amazon.com
Social Activist is Proposed for Sainthood
Book Review by Joan Saks Berman
As I was thinking about writing this review of Rosalie Riegle's book Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her, I started reading Mary Pipher's newest book, Writing to Change the World. She quotes James Baldwin:
You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't….The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way…people look at reality, then you can change it.
Pipher says, "Good writing enlarges readers' knowledge of the world, or empowers readers to act for the common good, or even inspires other good writing." Just as Dorothy Day wrote her newspaper for these reasons, Rosalie Riegle writes about Day to remember her and her work for the common good, as well as to empower and inspire her readers in the same direction. This is a book of interviews going back to 1988 and Riegle's second book on Day's work, following Voices from the Catholic Worker.
Dorothy Day was the co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker in 1933. It is both a newspaper and a community movement. The ideology inspiring it has been described as "Christian Anarchist."
Although I am neither a Christian nor an anarchist, through the years my life has crossed paths with those involved in the Catholic Worker movement. The first one I remember was Michael Harrington, who spent time at the Catholic Worker House in New York in the fifties. He was one of the many people interviewed by Riegle for her book. In the early sixties, he stayed with my husband and me when he came to Bloomington, Indiana to speak for the Young Peoples Socialist League at a public meeting at Indiana University. We stayed up into the night talking about the problems of the world and their possible solutions, and we were fascinated by his stories of his time there. In the sixties, he was a leading socialist and gained national fame with his book The Other America, which is credited with inspiring Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.
Another interview was with Karl Meyer, who was householder of a Catholic Worker House in Chicago during the time I was there, and known as a peace activist. While they lived in Chicago, Glenn and Anne, a couple who were among my best friends, visited the Catholic Worker house often. After I moved to New Mexico, I met an artist who had spent time living in a rural Catholic Worker community in New York state when she was a single mother with a young child. Then, in 1996, I met and became friends with Rosalie Riegle at the International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Adelaide, Australia. At that time she was already working on this book. Her book has makes me understand her better as well as being inspired by Day and her followers.
Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her by Rosalie G. Riegle
Orbis Books, 2003, 1st edition, hardcover, 207pp. + index
Social Activist is Proposed for Sainthood
Book Review by Joan Saks Berman
As I was thinking about writing this review of Rosalie Riegle's book Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her, I started reading Mary Pipher's newest book, Writing to Change the World. She quotes James Baldwin:
You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't….The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way…people look at reality, then you can change it.
Pipher says, "Good writing enlarges readers' knowledge of the world, or empowers readers to act for the common good, or even inspires other good writing." Just as Dorothy Day wrote her newspaper for these reasons, Rosalie Riegle writes about Day to remember her and her work for the common good, as well as to empower and inspire her readers in the same direction. This is a book of interviews going back to 1988 and Riegle's second book on Day's work, following Voices from the Catholic Worker.
Dorothy Day was the co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker in 1933. It is both a newspaper and a community movement. The ideology inspiring it has been described as "Christian Anarchist."
Although I am neither a Christian nor an anarchist, through the years my life has crossed paths with those involved in the Catholic Worker movement. The first one I remember was Michael Harrington, who spent time at the Catholic Worker House in New York in the fifties. He was one of the many people interviewed by Riegle for her book. In the early sixties, he stayed with my husband and me when he came to Bloomington, Indiana to speak for the Young Peoples Socialist League at a public meeting at Indiana University. We stayed up into the night talking about the problems of the world and their possible solutions, and we were fascinated by his stories of his time there. In the sixties, he was a leading socialist and gained national fame with his book The Other America, which is credited with inspiring Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.
Another interview was with Karl Meyer, who was householder of a Catholic Worker House in Chicago during the time I was there, and known as a peace activist. While they lived in Chicago, Glenn and Anne, a couple who were among my best friends, visited the Catholic Worker house often. After I moved to New Mexico, I met an artist who had spent time living in a rural Catholic Worker community in New York state when she was a single mother with a young child. Then, in 1996, I met and became friends with Rosalie Riegle at the International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Adelaide, Australia. At that time she was already working on this book. Her book has makes me understand her better as well as being inspired by Day and her followers.
Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her by Rosalie G. Riegle
Orbis Books, 2003, 1st edition, hardcover, 207pp. + index
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