Customer Reviews

With a Daughter's Eye: Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, A

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Margaret Mead was one of my heroines when I was growing up. How fascinating to read this biography which is a blend of intellectual and up close and personal history of her. To have her husband, Gregory Bateson included is icing on the cake. Mary Catherine has done an extremely creditble job. For example, she writes, "Margaret always emphasized the importance of recording first impressions . . . for . . . the informed eye has its own blindness as it begins to take for granted things that were initially bizarre." As I read of Margaret's reaction to Mary Catherine's wedding -- that it must be a format that reflected Margaret and Gregory's place in the world, rather than just the personal joy and celebration of a daughter, I had to wonder if Mary Catherine ever connected the above passage to her own children. This daughter writes with a fairly clear eye about her parents. They are neither great untouchable icons, nor are they flawed little humans. I suspect she did a great deal of balancing in her own emotions to come up with the portraits she painted because, in truth, we have three portraits here, all interconnected and somehow, ongoing. Not a superficial book.

I enjoyed the careful description of two legendary lives observed by the author as a daughter and an anthropologist. As a piece of anthropological writing, a certain distance is maintained when the author tells of her memories of growing up with her parents and the relationship between them. Yet, I can still detect her sadness and love in the seemingly unemotional and impersonal writing style. Often, significant feelings are embedded in the scientific explaination of her parents' theories and ideas. I not only gained a better understanding of the field of anthropology, but also find the "differences" (such as different kinds of families, marriages, choices, ideas, personalities) that we encounter in life as descriped by the author enriching.