Yes, it is still summer. I have noticed people have already taken to doing the old, “wow, how did the summer pass by this quickly!!” thing. Well, it hasn’t. And for me, it won’t. Not until, oh say, October, when you will have to pry the flip flops off my cold feet. Not that anyone would be interested in doing such a thing. I’m getting off track.
Back to summer reading: I’ve just become aware of Reinventing the Rose. I have not read it yet, but the main character wants to keep her baby, and her boyfriend wants to force her to abort. The author, Kenneth J. Harvey, details the development of the embryo alongside the court battle between the mother and the father. Here’s the plot summary:
As a fatherless girl with a mother who persistently encouraged her daughter’s artistic temperament, Anna Wells is highly sensitive to the life developing in her when she discovers she is pregnant. Anna’s gynecologist boyfriend, Kevin, considers the time just not right to have children, so Anna moves to a 100-year-old house in Bareneed, an abandoned cove in Newfoundland, where she takes comfort in renovating the interior of her new home and working on a series of paintings detailing roses.
Paralleling Anna’s own journey is a minutely detailed, day-by-day development of the embryo. All goes well until a car arrives delivering a court summons. Kevin has filed a statement of claim seeking the termination of the embryo as “return of property.”
One night, while still in Bareneed and upset over the impending legal action, Anna discovers an abandoned little girl almost frozen to death in her front yard. Mysterious circumstances continue to surround the children in Bareneed as pro-choice and pro-life factions marshal their forces.
As I said, I haven’t read it, but I will note this: Detailing embryology rarely leads individuals to cherish “abortion rights” because it is so miraculous and there is so much going on at such high speeds, all concealed in utero. This Canadian author is quite prolific and one can only hope that Reinventing the Rose might cause a reader or two to reinvent their thoughts on life, when it begins and why that matters.
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Hmmmm, the plot of the novel sounds similar to that of Life Classes, a Canadian movie released in the late eighties. The heroine of the piece, an artist, was pregnant and painted pictures of the evolving baby in her womb.