I recently came across a great book by Bonnie Garmus – „Lessons in Chemistry”. This time, for practical reasons, I opted for an audiobook (I’m still convincing myself of these, as I’m a big fan of paper books though) and listened to Elizabeth Zott’s story, mostly while walking. Following on from my previous post „How many fathers does a good book have” (soon the text will appear in English as well), here I can say many – the author, the translator, the audiobook reader, plus the whole staff behind it.
I was expecting a light (albeit not silly) book to give my brain a little rest. However, it quickly became apparent that the book touches many important strings and (sadly) many women can identify with the chemist’s story described. As well, it talks wonderfully about chemistry – that in the lab and in life.
The novel is set in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States, but it is no American dream at all. And even though the stories described by Bonnie Garmus took place about 70 years (!) ago, some situations are very current. Women scientists were inferior to male scientists because … they were simply not men. Having a brain and using it was very often reserved for one sex. As you can guess, Elizabeth Zott is precisely the one who has a brain and does not hesitate to use it : ) Consequently, she has an uphill battle because she does not like to make compromises that are unfavourable to her. But for the same reason, she also experiences many beautiful and important moments in her life. Which may give us hope that „karma returns” and life will compensate us for our good deeds and fidelity to principles and values.
I would recommend reading this book to anyone, not just women. Or maybe even more so to men? Maybe it will help them to open their eyes to certain behaviour (their own or that of their colleagues) and make them think about it? I don’t want to sound like a feminist who says what men are bad and guilty of everything. I don’t want to (and won’t) generalise. But it wasn’t that long ago that I noticed a colleague at work watching a speech by a politician on his computer. I had seen it the day before, so I went over and shared my impressions (it was quite characteristic time in Polish politics). And he looked at me with surprise and asked if I was a political science graduate. I replied even more surprised that no, I was just interested in the world.
In contrast, a few years earlier, another colleague almost picked his jaw up off the floor as I dropped in daily office conversation saying that it was quite surprising that Jose Mourinho had become coach of Manchester United. I can understand that he might have been surprised if I had revealed super-secret information that I had sourced from the FBI at the very least, but not commented on information that you could read about on any website, if only as soon as you logged out of your email. But it was about a football coach! If I had said that they were supposed to make a cinema version of „Barbie”, then maybe everything would have been ok. And the most interesting thing is that both colleagues have a wife and a daughter. And you don’t want to believe that they might not have thought of them as being able to do anything, do you? : )
„Lessons in Chemistry” by Bonnie Garmus – a book with a sense of humour and a reminder that … it’s 2024 and it’s nice if we’ve already done our homework from the past. Let’s treat each other with respect. Just that! ; )
Enjoy your reading!