Traveling With Pomegranates (8.9.2009) - By Sue Monk Kidd

After reading the reviews I realized that where the reader is in life will shape their opinion of this book. If you are in a similar place, a transition period, it will be great, otherwise it might come off a bit tiresome. Personally, I really liked it.

This is an important book for women doing deeper work on themselves. Sensitive and intuitive it celebrates our roots and our emotional journey being a mother and a daughter.The feminine aspect in our world has been so suppressed within our patriarchal society.
I wish I had the opportunity to do something like this with my own mother who is now 85years old.. Unfortunately she came from a generation where this kind of inner work was unavailable (except for a few people like Marion Woodman etc.)
My hope is that when my 17 year old daughter grows up more she and I will have an opportunity to connect with the kind of information that is expressed in this book and have some wonderful conversations.
I carried her over the hills of Crete in a baby carrier on my back when she was 8 months old. Her recent love of Greece comes from the romance and scenery in the movie Mama Mia and she has now states she wants to go to Greece.Hopefully this is a good sign for the future.
I wish to thank the authors for this book as I found them courageous in writing a book many woman would not understand and would criticize. The mantra I hear here is 'Be Yourself' 'Be Yourself'. Woman have not been themselves for a long long time. We have been too busy fitting in and pleasing others. We are slowly waking up and we have many more pioneer woman going in this direction of feminine freedom. I highly recommend you view Eve Ensler's video on Ted about the 'girl cell'. [...].
There is a very big underground (rising now) movement on the feminine re emerging into our society.

I related this to my relationship with my son too. I don't have a daughter but most of the emotions and situations could be applied to us. The timing was perfect for me to read this as I am struggling with the dynamic of how to let my son go and be independant yet also letting him know that I care and am here for him too.

I especially liked the beginning and all the reflections of the mother and her time of life. I related to her mythological journey as she toured the Mediterranean countries. The book lost me at the end, as I thought it droned on and offered less meaning than the first half gave.

A woman who travels with her adult daughter to Greece several times a year shouldn't whine so much. Unless you are into this kind of relationship, I'd say forgo this book.

I read this as a book club book, most of the members did not like the book because of this fact.

Sorry, AnnKidd, you missed the mark on this one!.

I most enjoyed reading the narrative searchings of these two women from both of their individual perspectives. It causes me to consider my own daughter's and mother's views of instances that we share.

Excellent read especially for women about all the changes that take place in ones life and questions that may arise. Sue M. Kidd explores and examines and continues to ask questions. In her travels, there is the time to reflect and journal. Her daughter joins her on these travels and is also figuring out how to navigate life. One of the gifts they both receive is what they learn from observing each other. I'm recommending to my sisters, daughters-in-law, and friends.

I bought this for my daughter because we are traveling to Greece together this summer and because she also expected to easily get into a Masters program and did not. She loved this book, although she cried through the middle of it because the author so clearly reflected exactly what she is feeling.

Simply, this was a beautifully written memoir of the simultaneous growth and life transitions of mother and daughter. Having just turned fifty with my only daughter graduating high school and heading to college, this book resonated deeply with me. This book was a journey and joyful read!

I revisited places that I have been and experienced them in a different way through the eyes of Sue and Ann. My daughter and granddaughters are going through the same time in their life with some of these inside experiences and it was great to relate the book to their emotions. I am the old woman and am loving it and loving looking back and looking forward to the future . It also encouraged me to search for another favorite book , Kathleen Norrises " meditations on Mary" with illustrations .

Travelling with Pomegranates provides an emotional journey, a parallel journey for women at very different life stages, their challenges, thier goals, their internal missions, and while they may not be able to communicate with each other, ultimately, their travels provide them the opportunity to share the same destination, while pursuing different ,but similar journeys. An awesome read!!! One of the best books I've read.

This book was nothing more than brash advertising and assistance from a successful novelist in an attempt to launch her daughter's first published work.It brought forth both feelings of anger and irritation with a Mother who views her life as ending at the age of 50 and a daughter who wallows in self pity and depression because she got rejected by ONE graduate school where she had hoped to hide away in a land of self indulgent academia. These two have too much time and money on their hands. Most of us cannot relate to repeated vacations to Greece to "find ourselves" and the author's obsessive attempts to "re-create" Mary, the Mother of Jesus, to fit her own emotional needs is unsettling at best.

I suppose the recession/depression we are currently experiencing colored my attitude while reading this book.It was hard to feel sorry for two women indulging themselves while three of my neighbors suffered foreclosure (all well over the age of 50.)

I did enjoy The Secret Life of Bees immensely but was not particularly interested in reading about how the book became reality.

her book the mermaid chair was much more interesting i liked it a lot. this book is not as good as the mermaid and I liked more the way her daughter wrote. she complained too much about her age and all this fascinating with Jesus mother was too much.

I was expecting more. This book is about a rekindled relationship between mother and her daughter. Two women grew apart and faced demons inside them. The older one couldn't redeem time. It was slipping away taking away her youth; the other one was too much depressed to know what she wanted to do in her life, fighting one major rejection that painted her life. Both by travelling together to discover Greek mythology figures and ancient ruins also travelled to France to fit pieces into a puzzle, to gain what was lost between them. That puzzle defined who they both were and what they were both destinied to do. Through these journeys they discovered themselves. Their testimonies were truthful and mirrored with pain. You can feel melancholy through the pages.

I didn't give more stars because two voices weren't dinstinct. That's a major flaw. After all, you have two generations of women. And it was too painful to read. The pain was a constant companion as regrets through the whole book. Descriptions of the places they both visited didn't lure me into being there with them. I skipped over them pausing over a few interesting facts. If they both loved what they witnessed, they should make readers fall in love with these surroundings as well. The organization of tbeir journeys was a bit disjointed.

I didn't care for femminists, how they separated themselves and how differently they viewed history and their surroundings-not in accord with my own opinions and beliefs(the daughter wanting to be married by a female minister, etc.), but I do respect their views and how honest both were throughout.

I have a lot of respect for spiritual journeys. I thoroughly enjoyed Sue Monk Kidd's The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine. Even though she headed in directions that don't appeal to me personally, I loved reading about her spiritual awakening.

This book, about Kidd's travels with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor as they both face times of crisis in their lives -- Sue as she enters the second half of life, Ann as she crosses over into adulthood -- may appeal in the same way to mothers and daughters trying to make their way toward each other and toward a truer version of their new selves.

Beyond that, I can't much recommend this book. It is a muddle of introspective thought that has little meaning except for the protagonists. The two women endlessly recount dreams they've had and look to the dreams for meaning, as they look to myths, statues and holy places for guidance. I'm not sure they're better off for having left the age-old traditions of faith that revere Father-Son images for their new Mother-Daughter imagery.

While they're praying to everyone but God -- Athena, the Black Madonna, the Virgin Mary, Demeter and Persephone, Joan of Arc -- they traipse around Greece, Turkey and France weeping about their fates. Ann is plunged into depression after being rejected by a grad-school program. Sue is having a typical mid-life crisis, even though she paints it a little more atypically. It is this indulgent international gnashing of teeth that truly put me off. Do you know what I wouldn't give to travel to these places? I sure wouldn't waste the privilege dragging around steeped in self-pity. I would have more readily considered their epiphanies if they had just stayed at home in Charleston (another place I love and could not be unhappy in!) and duked it out there. It made me long for Shirley Valentine as a traveling companion.

Just one sentence in a book can color your whole picture of an author. At one point, Sue relates how her own 75-year-old mother read Dissident Daughter and cried out in a letter, "Oh, Sue, I don't want to miss the dance!" Instead of jumping at the chance to forge a tie with her own mother -- a real person, not some vague uber-mother of myth or spiritual tradition -- Sue apparently brushes her off. "I have to tell myself what is true, that I didn't follow up on that bright opening the way I might have." She says she wishes for a "deeper connection" with her mother, but she can't be bothered to work at it. For me, this one sentence invalidated the entire agonized trek. Love the ones you're with, my dear.

Toward the end of the book, at her wedding, Ann chides herself: "Don't overthink." I wish she had thought of that sooner. She and Sue could have saved themselves a lot of grief. Just have your Big Fat Greek Wedding Southern style, cry and laugh and argue with your family and get over yourself. Then get back to writing.

A journey of a lifetime. She and her daughter share insights on issues that many are plagued with and their struggles to understand and grow and find each other and their purpose. The outcome is outstanding and soulful. There were countless times I had to put it down just to think about what they said or because I was laughing or crying. A beautiful amage to the love between a mother and daughter.
For anyone who loved "Secret Life of Bees", Sue shares her journey to finding herself and how the book was conceived. Wonderful insight into her journey.

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed Travelling With Pomegranates. Do I think you will enjoy this book? Well, that depends...

For me this is a "time and a place" book. It's a book about journeys, about a mother and daughter exploring Greece, France and themselves. They are at a crossroads - mother, Sue Monk Kidd at 50, is exploring what it is to be an aging woman, and Ann Kidd Taylor, in her early 20s, is trying to decide what she wants to do with her life.

It is also a book about writers. If you've read The Secret Life of Bees, then this may be of interest as it traces much of the evolution of that novel, and Sue Monk Kidd's transition from non-fiction to fiction writer. At the other end of the writing journey, her daughter is coming to terms with the possibility that she too could be a writer.

For me it was a convergence of timing and topic. I enjoyed the book a lot. In a different context I suspect it may be a bit slow.

If you're in a pilgrimage/personal journey head space, add this to your reading list, otherwise, it may not be your cup of tea.

I stumbled into this book through pure serendipity, as I was at a bookstore, and actually wondering at being there, when I didn't find a book. Nothing called to me. I was about to leave when I spotted this and it so deeply resonated. Why? Because I had just discussed the Demeter/Persephone story in my class for adults in retirement at Regis College, a class called Fire From The Gods, about the Greek contribution to our lives, about the gods and goddesses, those amazing stories with archetypal elements that do resonate for us all.

I found the book a very honest and poetic portrayal, from the perspective of mothers and daughters, and their particular life issues, one approaching fifty, and the other, about to truly enter womanhood, dealing with the issues of identity at that age, intimacy and separation. I gained insight into the creation of Sue Monk Kidd's novel about Lily, the Black Madonna, and the bees. The mystical/spiritual aspects of this book were appealing and rang quite true to me, in every way. I felt the honesty of the writing, and the deep lyrical and metaphoric connects that do apply to all of our lives. The fact I had used the Bolen books about the gods and goddesses in our lives and that these books deeply informed Sue Monk Kidd's life, was amazing. Also that I was about to teach the Virgin Goddesses and this was the focus of this book, namely Athena's influence on both writers.

As a travelogue it was fascinating too, and since I have personally visited so many of these places, I loved traveling again, seeing these places with fresh eyes, and in new perspectives.

Yes, I would recommend this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and had trouble putting it down.

Traveling With Pomegranates

Penguin, 2009

For me, the experience of reading is at its finest when I find myself immersed in my own story, but having it told by a different person in a different place at a different time and from a different perspective. It is what I refer to as the “shiver of recognition,” and it is something to which I aspire as a writer and hope for as a reader.

The shiver went on and on as I read Traveling with Pomegranates, co-authored by Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor, based on notes from their travels together in Europe over a period of three years. Their mythology-infused journeys provide a literal and metaphorical backdrop as each of the women struggles to define her place in the world. Sue, post 50, fears losing all that has defined her for decades; Ann, in her early 20’s, is terrified by her inability to find a purpose that will define her.

Despite the marked differences between Sue and myself—I am not a mother, I’ve not been to the places recounted in the book, and I do not share her fascination with the “feminine”—I knew Kidd’s story to be my own when she noted that the “two most powerful impulses in my life have been the urge to create and the urge to be—a set of opposites—and they have always clunked into each other.” Kidd’s willingness to share what most of us try to hide and her acceptance of the fact that the answers to life’s big questions do not arrive on command offered inspiration for my own life on almost every page.

Halfway through Traveling with Pomegranates, I returned the library copy, and bought my own, so that I could mark the passages that touched and inspired me. It is never far out from reach.

Sue and Ann Kidd intertwine their memories and interpretations with images of Mary, Athena, Joan of Arc, Persephone and Demeter, mostly from their desks in South Carolina. Their interpretation of these iconic matriarchs, daughters, and mothers and reflects different life-stages from emergence into adulthood to the transitions of menopause. Creativity is at the center and their approaches to developing their talents, nurturing and birthing their writings are well worth reading.