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Not Becoming My Mother: Ruth Reichl

Berkeley Arts and Letters





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Partner:: Berkeley Arts and Letters
Location:: Hillside Club
Berkeley, CA
Event Date:: 05.10.09
Speaker:: Ruth Reichl
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Summary: Ruth Reichl admits that, "Like most women, I decided who my mother was long ago, sometime during childhood." But she built up the courage to go through an old box of her mother's letters, notes, and journals, spanning a lifetime from 1924 to 1988.

As Reichl pieces together the story of her mother's life from these scraps of paper, she discovers a woman she never really knew and how much she missed by not knowing her better when she was alive. Miriam Brudno dreamed of becoming a doctor, like her father, but was discouraged by her parents who feared no one would marry her. Instead, she embarked on a more ladylike profession, opening a bookshop where she corresponded with authors and intellectuals all over the globe.

She was almost thirty when she finally married and started a family, leaving her bookshop and her dreams behind. Smart and well-educated with too little to do to fill her days, Reichl's mother and her friends were often bored, miserable, and quietly rebellious. In Not Becoming in Mother, Reichl confronts the painful transition her mother made from a hopeful young woman to an increasingly unhappy older one and comes to understand the lessons of rebellion, independence, and self-acceptance that her mother succeeded in teaching her.

"As I came to know this new person, I began to see how much I owe her. Mom may not have realized her dreams...She did not have a happy life but she wanted one for me. And she made enormous emotional sacrifices to make sure that my life would not turn out like hers."

Bio

Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl is the editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine, the author of Comfort Me with Apples, Tender at the Bone, and Garlic & Sapphires, and the editor of the comprehensive Gourmet Cookbook.

She has been the restaurant critic of The New York Times and the food editor and restaurant critic of the Los Angeles Times.

Chapters

: Watch Full Program

55 min 34 sec

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01.: Introduction

02 min 03 sec

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02.: Mim Stories

05 min 23 sec

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03.: Putting Off Mother's Book

03 min 30 sec

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04.: Mother Born at the Worst Possible Time

05 min 27 sec

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05.: Researching Generations of Women

03 min 26 sec

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06.: Delving into Mother's Past

04 min 54 sec

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07.: A Pioneering Generation

01 min 50 sec

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08.: Q1: Mother's Appreciation of Success

01 min 43 sec

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09.: Q2: Bipolar Disorder Brought on by Unhappiness

02 min 05 sec

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10.: Q3: Mother's Relationship with Her Mother

01 min 24 sec

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11.: Q4: Delaying Motherhood

01 min 42 sec

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12.: Q5: Father

01 min 40 sec

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13.: Q6: What Son Could Write About

01 min 03 sec

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14.: Q7: Guilt of a Working Mother

01 min 57 sec

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15.: Q8: Son's Views on Hard-Working Mother

01 min 38 sec

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16.: Q9: Solutions for Women

03 min 23 sec

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17.: Q10: Expectation for Women to Raise Children

01 min 19 sec

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18.: Q11: Enjoyment of Work

02 min 05 sec

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19.: Q12: Body Image and Food

02 min 20 sec

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20.: Q13: Meeting Mother as an Adult

01 min 17 sec

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21.: Q14: Opinions of Characters in Memoirs

02 min 35 sec

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22.: Q15: One Regret

01 min 11 sec

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23.: Q16: Letting Son Grow Into His Own Person

01 min 29 sec

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: Watch Full Program

55 min 34 sec

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Ruth Reichl: Grateful Not to Be My Mother

06 min 16 sec

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Ruth Reichl Calls for a New Women's Movement

01 min 54 sec

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Watch Full Program

55 min 34 sec

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Encyclopædia Britannica Article

memoir: History or record composed from personal observation and experience. Closely related to autobiography, a memoir differs chiefly in the degree of emphasis on external events. Unlike writers of autobiography, who are concerned primarily with themselves as subject matter, writers of memoir usually have played roles in, or have closely observed, historical events, and their main purpose is describing or interpreting those events.; memoir on britannica.com

1 Comments

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samtheman

Posts: 14

Posted: 06.19.09, 03:39 PM

That is a really touching speech.

If you don't find your passion in life, you will always be bored. Take the chance to do something new, find your hobbies and pursue your passions. When you get old, you will need to live with yourself. You should be doing what you want by then rather than passing each day miserably. And the sooner you find it, the more at peace you will be with yourself. Go.

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