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Not for the squeamish or the fainthearted. Not for the indifferent or the complacent. Eve Ensler, famous for her play, The Vagina Monologues, has written an impassioned memoir which uses her personal story of enduring treatment for a huge, Stage IV uterine tumor, as a metaphor for our destruction of our planet and for our toleration of the atrocity of gang rape as a weapon of war. Again and again, Ensler shows us the links between her own ordeal and the ordeal of a suffering planet, especially its women.
Ensler became absorbed in the stories of these women, especially in Congo, who had been so savagely raped that they developed fistulae (a fistula is a tear in the vaginal wall), which made them permanently incontinent. Ensler was so horrified by their ordeals that she vowed to create, for these women, a refuge where they could heal, physically and emotionally. She pays tribute to a brilliant and selfless, heroic doctor, Dr. Mukwege, who has performed surgery on these damaged women, and to the women who, even if they cannot walk, still sing and dance, and who, in turn, help others like themselves. Ensler began fund-raising for a place, called City of Joy, where women could receive surgery to heal their bodies AND, at the same time, rescue their souls.
Given her own history, Ensler was shocked to discover the irony of a tumor the size of a grapefruit in her uterus. Although aware that something was wrong, she ignored the tumor until it had spread throughout her reproductive system, threatening her, at 57, with disfigurement and death. She shows us the links between her own personal denial and our collective denial of phenomena like global warming, the destruction of species, and the use of rape as a weapon of war.Read more ›
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
I picked up this book because I'm impressed with Ensler's work. I've been moved by the Vagina Monologues. I'm amazed by her efforts to improve conditions for women all over the world. Reading a memoir of hers made sense. I didn't know about the part of her life she chronicles in this book. I was simply blown away to be immediately immersed in her experience with cancer. She is so clear and graphic that I felt like I was by her side throughout her diagnosis and treatment. At the same time, there's nothing sensationalist or maudlin here. I couldn't put the book down. I finished it in a single afternoon. To have stopped would have been to abandon Eve. Somehow, the cancer ties into Ensler's earlier abuse and her work in the Congo. She is feeling what the women she works with feel. She is releasing her own pain and reestablishing herself as a new, more complete person. There is such passion here - and such hope. I will share this book with the cancer survivors in my circle and recommend it for any woman who has struggled with disease, abuse, or shame.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars "You must make up your mind. The reason that you have survived when so many have died was that y Eve was "raised in America . All value lies in the future, in the dream, in production. There is no present tense." And eve has always lived outside her body at full speed taking on every experience as deeply as she can delve. From self destructive, drug addled promiscuity, she has raised herself to bear unflinching witness to the violations and torture of women. She has served as an activist, facing down injustice and most recently the actual "policy" of rape in the Congo. She implies, and I believe, that her unflinching immersion in that which is impossible to see would protect her from more violation to herself.
Well that didn't work. She has stage three or maybe stage four b uterine cancer. And just like that she has entered the world of the invisible where people cannot bear to look. I am a looker, and I believe in bearing witness so I deeply appreciate this journal of her illness laced with the scenes of horror she has witnessed. The rhetoric can really get away from her, but she is so deeply sincere, I cannot deduct points. And you can always skip the purple prose if you like.
She is not every woman's woman. She sees exclusive love partnerships as suspect. This after all is the author of the Vagina Monologues. She is not a flincher and she has not softened the lights for this story. But it is a true look at her disease. I appreciate her presence in the now, and take the point she makes to do so ourselves.
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Although I have never read or seen on stage "The Vagina Monologues", I was of course aware of the extreme importance of Ensler's endeavor to raise the consciousness of humanity to the tremendous abuses suffered by women around the globe. "In the Body of the World" seems to carry this awareness to an entirely new level, however.
It is not a book that can be called "enjoyable" in any trivial way. It is harsh, harrowing, and definitely not for either the weak minded or squeamish. Both the blow-by-blow description of Ensler's terrible cancer therapy, as well as her recounting of the atrocities perpetrated on women around the world but especially in the Congo, require the use of the adjective "horrific", and even that seems completely inadequate. In addition, Ensler turns the harsh light of honesty on her own emotions and reactions, including her internal struggles at the time of her mother's death. The only analogy I can come up with is the effect of turning on a 1000 watt bulb in a room infested with vermin and seeing them scuttle for cover. Some of this narrative is without question the stuff of nightmares, as for instance when Ensler, dealing with an incredibly noxious abdominal abscess following her surgery, links it in gruesome detail with the Gulf oil spill.
And yet, somehow this book avoids being disgusting and discouraging. Two chapters especially stand out, and in fact lifted my spirits in an indescribable way. One, with the unlikely title of "Farting for Cindy", is an absolutely magnificent paean of tribute to the reality of self-giving love, often where one least expects to find it.Read more ›
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This item: In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection
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