OBOC2007

The city of Chicago has made their choice for this fall's One Book, One Chicago: Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Published in 1952, The Crucible, was written as a allegory on the McCarthy era. His depiction of the mass hysteria during the Salem witch trials was meant to show us the way of our errors during "the red scare."

And since the Salem witch trials have come up...I learned, rather interestingly, last night while reading Glut that the witch trails were (on at least one level) a result of the printing press! Today we take printing as a given but when it was first discovered by the masses it caused a whole lot of bloodshed. "The problem?" you ask. A shift in thinking. Everyone was suddenly forced to alter their outlet for expressing themselves; from a oral and image driven culture to a very left brain linear word context. The printing press as a result caused mass hysteria. As the old tradition, one which held women in a almost mystical regard (think virgin Mary) went out the window and mass organizations began to form (again because of the printing press) women started getting burned at the stake. And in Germany, where the press was invented, and most widely used for the first 100 years after its creation, the witch burnings were by far the most severe.

I've gotten off the subject. If you want to join in on the fun of reading The Crucible with the city (you don't have to be in the city itself), take a peak at the official guidebook, which gives you a concise history of the era, CPL resources, additional reading and of course locations of book clubs meeting around the city. Also noteworthy, the Steppenwolf is producing the play and the hubby and I are going to try and go if you are interested in joining us.