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Bezig met laden... Helen Keller: A Life (editie 1999)door Dorothy Herrmann
Informatie over het werkHelen Keller: A Life door Dorothy Herrmann
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Helen Keller: A Life, Dorothy Hermann's detailed and informative biography of Helen Keller is eye-opening, showing not only her many accomplishments, but also detailing Helen Keller's political and religious beliefs, her advocacy for the disabled, her life-long commitment against racism and bigotry. Although the narrative reads easily and is for the most part quite engaging, the text does have the tendency to become rather plodding and overly detailed at times, which unfortunately creates some emotional distance to the characters and episodes described. I learned much about Helen Keller, her teacher Annie Sullivan and late 19th, early and middle 20th century America, but I never felt all that emotionally connected to the characters, to the events, more like a dispassionate observer than an active participant. I so appreciate that Dorothy Hermann has endeavoured to portray Helen Keller realistically. Often described as a saint by her supporters and a fraud by her detractors, she was neither. Helen Keller was a remarkable, strong-willed and intelligent woman; she should not be simply regarded as an icon for the disabled (or as a fraud, a cheater, as some mean-spirited individuals have claimed). She was a flesh-and-blood person with ideas, beliefs, feelings, a zest for life, but also an individual with faults and foibles like everyone. Helen Keller: A Life allows the reader to get to know who Helen Keller really was, her personality, her spirit, her very being (beyond her public image, Helen Keller was a woman who lived life to the fullest, who loved, who yearned and who also made her share of mistakes). geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Dorothy Herrmann's biography of Helen Keller takes us through Helen's long, eventful life, a life that would have crushed a woman less stoic and adaptable - and less protected. She was either venerated as a saint or damned as a fraud. And one of the most persistent controversies surrounding her had to do with her relationship to the fiercely devoted Annie, through whom she largely expressed herself. Dorothy Herrmann explores these questions: Was Annie Sullivan a "miracle worker" or a domineering, emotionally troubled woman who shrewdly realized that making a deaf-blind girl of average intelligence appear extraordinary was her ticket to fame and fortune? Was she merely an instrument through which Helen's "brilliance" could manifest itself? Or was Annie herself the genius, the exceptionally gifted and sensitive one? Herrmann describes the nature of Helen's strange, sensorily deprived world. (Was it a black and silent tomb?) And she shows how Helen was so cheerful about her disabilities, often appearing in public as the soul of radiance and altruism. (Was it Helen's real self that emerged at age seven, when she was transformed by language from a savage, animal-like creature into a human being? Or was it a false persona manufactured by the driven Annie Sullivan?). Dorothy Herrmann tells why, despite her romantic involvements, Helen was never permitted to marry. She shows us the woman who, to communicate with the outside world, relied totally on those who knew the manual finger language. For almost her entire life, these people, some of whom were jealous or dogmatic, were the key to Helen's world. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)362.4Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Social problems of & services to groups of people People with disabilitesLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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It is hard to understand what it would be to experience life with no hearing or sight but to function and thrive is what this woman did and along with the daily obstacle she had to reckon the emotional strains it imposed along with the struggle to control her by a number of people. Herrmann does a good job in delving into the complexities of these challenges and also covers the spiritual and political leanings of Hellen which gives us a complete picture of this captivating human being. ( )