Reading Recluse<p>📗 "Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson" by Mary Rowlandson</p><p>Time for another strange text from the public domain. I hope it doesn't need to be said, but just in case: I don't read texts like these because I support of believe the offensive things they say. I read them because I find it interesting to see what people thought and did in different centuries, and I think it's helpful to see what kind of patterns persist and what ideas have changed over the years.</p><p>This is a memoir from 1682. It's from an English colonist who was kidnapped by Native Americans and held for ransom for a few months. It's short, confusing and a narrative mess, but standards were different back then.</p><p>I can't believe how you can have an author who has to see neighbors get murdered, whose child dies in her arms, and who somehow still manages to come across as the most unsympathetic person out there. I'm sorry she suffered, but I suffered having to read her words.</p><p>Obviously there is a lot of racism in here, along with a lot of slurs. Rowlandson doesn't skip an opportunity to describe her captors as horrific beasts, which is somewhat understandable with her anger and fear, but whenever they do anything kind or smart, she praises God for doing His Work through them. She makes their language sounds like animal grunts, but never seems to be surprised that they can talk back in English to her. I couldn't help but laugh when she was disgusted that her captors eat all sorts of animals she wouldn't ever eat, but then admires her god for providing so diversely for them.</p><p>I really can't get over the arrogance she has in a position of captivity. She is told to work, but refuses on Sabbath day and gets offended if that's not accepted as a good enough excuse. She does knitting, but gets angry if one person doesn't pay her for her work afterwards. She steals the food of another captive, a small child, and then praises the lord for making it taste so good! </p><p>At a certain point some Native Americans offer to help her leave and she declines, because she says she'll wait on God to save her. I swear, if her god exists, he must have been facepalming to hell and back when that happened.</p><p>It's interesting to read that this sold so well, even being called one of the first US bestsellers. How many people were literate then, and how much of a sensational read must this have been? It's disturbing to read about the violence she endured, but it's even more disturbing to research and read more about why such raids and kidnappings happened at all. </p><p><a href="https://c.im/tags/SerialReader" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SerialReader</span></a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/AmReading" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>AmReading</span></a></p>