Chickens are just the fall guy in this funny, blunt tale of life on the Olympic Peninsula

December 16, 2024 / 9:01 am

caption: The KUOW Book Club is reading "The Egg and I" by Betty MacDonald in December 2024.

This is KUOW's book club, and we just read through the first half of Betty MacDonald Pacific Northwest classic "The Egg and I." I'm your club guide, Katie Campbell. Let's get into it.

h, Betty.

I find myself muttering that to myself a lot while reading "The Egg and I." Sometimes it's a sort of guffaw in response to a blunt observation she makes that has me just about slapping my knee with a laugh. Sometimes it's in exasperation at the old-fashioned (but not entirely forgotten) brand of racism that crops up a little too frequently. And sometimes it's in pity for this woman who clearly employed humor to mask the hurt she so often felt thanks to her husband.

We'll get to each of these "Oh, Betty" moments. But first, I have to address something rather odd: Betty MacDonald might be my distant relative!

Her given name, she says in the first chapter, was Anne Elizabeth Campbell, and she was born in Boulder, Colo., where my dad happened to have been born. Now, I know these are coincidences. There are a lot of Campbells in the world. We're certainly not all related, as evidenced by my lack of canned soup money — and my overreliance on jokes like that when I introduce myself. But this bit gave me pause:

One of my father's family names was Campbell. The Campbells came to Virginia from Scotland. THE EGG AND I, PAGE 13

Again, this is a common origin story for anyone with the name Campbell, but it fits pretty well with what I heard growing up. Suffice to say, I'm curious. And I'm going to try to deduce whether Betty and I are related at all before we finish reading. So, stay tuned!

With that out of the way, I also want to address the not infrequent racism directed at Native Americans. In the foreword to the book, written in the 1980s, Betty's own children tried to get ahead of this.

We are certain that if Betty were alive today, she would address the plight of the American Indian in a much different manner. We feel that she only meant to turn what was to her a frightening situation into a lighthearted encounter. Remember, she had been brought up to be a lady — one who in those days was completely unprepared to handle the problems she dealt with so blithely in "The Egg." The egg and i, page 8

I don't intend to rehash this explanation — although I don't think being a "lady" is a valid excuse — but I think it's important to say that the issue is less with Betty's racist comments and more with the existence of this prejudice then and now. The stereotypes she applies to some of her Native neighbors on the Olympic Peninsula were not her own creation but were a perpetuation of racism that has resulted in land being stolen, cultures being attacked, families being displaced, and generations left to pick up the pieces. Even suggesting Betty simply misunderstood and mischaracterized the "plight" of Native people seems to suggest it is only their "plight" that should be understood at all. The book is not strictly about these issues, of course, but I've been disappointed and frustrated when Betty seemingly tries to turn the racism of the day into humor. She's funny enough without that nonsense.

I didn't just cringe at the casual racism, though. I also cringed as it became clear that some of her humor was a pretty mask over a truly rotten situation.

Consider this passage about life on the growing farm with her husband, Bob:

Of course, I chose that most inconvenient time to have the baby and her arrival quite typified the tempo of our life. I rode the fifty-odd miles to town sitting on her head, and the moment I reached the hospital she popped out, red-haired and weighing eight and a half pounds. When I came home from the hospital after two weeks of blissful rest, everything on the ranch had been producing and I was greeted by the squealing of baby pigs, the squeaking of baby goslings, the baaing of a heifer calf, the mewing of tiny kittens, the yelping of a puppy and the stronger louder yeeping of the chicks. All of the small eat-often screamers were assigned to my care and I found that feeding of them all and Bob and me was a perpetual task. ... Bob's life was harried, and our marriage became a halloo from the brooder house porch to the manure pile; a call for help when pulling a stump or unrolling some wire; a few grunts at mealtime as we choked down our food and turned the leaves of the seed catalogues and Government bulletins. THE EGG AND I, PAGE 108

This comically desperate accounting of the mouths to feed would have been funnier if Betty did not express surprise, even confusion on the next page when Bob deigned to give her a kiss on the back of her neck.

Betty likes to point fingers at the chickens, blaming them for much of her misery. The problem seems to be to be less the farm and more Bob. It was his dream to have this operation, and Betty was raised to help her man be fulfilled.

What did I think about it? Why, Mother had taught me that a husband must be happy in his work and if Bob wanted to be happy in the chicken business I didn't care. I knew how to make mayonnaise and mitre sheet corners and light candles for dinner, so, chickens or insurance, I could hold up my end. That's what I thought. That's what women think when their husbands become dewy-eyed at the sight of their breakfast eggs and start making plans for taking the life savings and plunging into the chicken business. The egg and i, page 39

Oh, Betty. Sure, you didn't care. Everyone who has ever said that definitely meant it. See, this is the other problem with raising people to be "ladies." They're led to believe this is the only way.

Betty was experiencing this marital angst at a time when she was expected to deal with it politely — and not expected to go and do something like become a best-selling author. She beat the odds in that regard and seems to have been an early feminist comic of sorts, even if she may not have seen herself that way. She reflects on the difficulty, loneliness, and frustration of her farm life with the kind of comedy that resonated in the 1940s and 50s, like "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" if Midge was first a chicken farmer.

I do wonder what kind of writer Betty might have been in the 2020s. There are moments of poetry, especially when she reflects on the Olympic Mountains, that hints at a desire to say more.

These Olympics have none of the soft curves and girlish plumpness of Eastern mountains. They are goddesses, full-breasted, broad-hipped, towering and untouchable. ... Now I know that that country is describable only by superlatives. Most rugged, most westerly, greatest, deepest, largest, wildest, gamiest, richest, most fertile, loneliest, most desolate — they all belong to the coast country. The Egg and i, pages 40-41

Betty may not have been perfect, but I doubt I've read a more reverent passage about the Olympics — and we read "The Good Rain" just a few months ago!

I hope to see my maybe-relative show more reverence for the peoples who admired that land long before she did and show less reverence for the whims of Bob. We will see.

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Katie Campbell
Online Editor/Reporter

Katie joined KUOW's online team as an editor and reporter in 2024, after serving three years as senior producer of the local Morning Edition program. In addition to reporting on the news of the day, she brings readers some levity with a weekly news quiz and curates the KUOW Book Club.
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