England, 1472: Edmond Paston writes a letter to his older brother John. Edmond, a twenty-something younger son of a prominent gentry family living unhappily at home, complains that their widowed mother has unfairly fired his favorite servant Gregory. He relates the shocking story behind Gregory’s firing:
It happened by chance that he had a knave’s lust, in plain terms to fuck a whore, and he did so in the rabbit-warren-yard. By chance he was spied by two plowmen of my mother’s, who were as delighted as he was by the situation, and they asked him if they could have a share in it, and as company required, he did not say no, so that the plowmen had her all night in their stable and Gregory was completely rid of her and, as he swears, did not have sex with her inside my mother’s house. Notwithstanding my mother thinks that he is the originator of the incident; as a result, there is no option but for him to leave.
Edmond spares no detail in narrating his employee’s actions to his brother. His point in telling this sordid tale is to emphasize the unfairness of Gregory’s firing: Gregory swears he did not have sex with anyone under Margaret Paston’s roof — he had sex with her outdoors in the rabbit-warren-yard, not indoors like the plowmen — but Margaret, ever unreasonable and overbearing, blames him anyway for instigating the whole thing. Edmond begs his brother to hire Gregory, whom he insists is “as true as any man alive.”
It seems a bit odd that Edmond would tell this story as justification for why John should hire Gregory: He’s the best servant ever! Yeah, sometimes he gets carried away with lust and fucks whores and maybe facilitated something that sounds like it might have been a gang rape, but he only commits his sexual indiscretions outdoors! But despite the 546-year difference, there’s nothing about Edmond’s letter—excusing sexual misconduct, treating women as tradable commodities without agency, valuing a man’s reputation more than the harm he’s caused—that should feel unfamiliar to us in the present day.
This tale shared between brothers sheds light on the long history of our current views of consent, the social power of the term “whore,” and the role of exchanging obscene material — photos, videos, stories — in shaping bonds among men. By casting Gregory’s crime as merely “fuck[ing] a whore” (he would have written the Middle English “quene”), Edmond implies that the woman has consented to everything. It is not clear whether she is a professional sex worker or if Edmond simply uses the term to remove blame from his servant, as “quene” could designate a prostitute, a lower-status woman, a woman with a bad reputation, or any woman you wanted to insult. Edmond’s choice to call the woman a “quene” removes both the possibility for her to say no, and the necessity of her saying yes. By calling her a “quene,” Edmond ensures that the exchange between Gregory and the plowmen can always potentially be read as three men haggling over the price of a hire for the night. His word choice erases the possibility of sexual violence, shifts responsibility away from Gregory, and allows the woman to be blamed for what happens to her.
It wasn’t me, bro, he seems to say.
Edmond’s depiction of consent here illustrates how the label of “whore” operates. He claims that the plowmen, aroused by the sight of their colleague having sex, ask Gregory if they can go next. They do not ask the woman. Her consent is bypassed altogether, as the label of “quene” nullifies her right to say no. We do not know if she consented or objected, and Edmond makes it clear that it would not have mattered either way. Furthermore, Edmond claims that Gregory is unable to refuse his co-workers’ request by framing it as a “require[ment]” of “company,” part of the code of relations among a close-knit community of men. His depiction of Gregory granting sexual access to his partner because his bond with his co-workers “require[s]” him to do so both minimizes Gregory’s actions and excuses his choice to hand the woman over to the plowmen for the rest of the night. It wasn’t me, bro, he seems to say.
This story has chilling contemporary parallels, illustrating how little has changed when it comes to consent, slut-shaming, and obscene sexual storytelling among groups of men. Since March 2016, nine federal Title IX lawsuits have been filed against Baylor University, alleging that the university mishandled scores of rapes committed by members of its football team. One of these lawsuits, filed in May 2017 by a former member of Baylor’s volleyball team, contains disturbing links to Edmond Paston’s tale of the three servants and the “quene.” In the suit, the woman alleges that that the school’s football players regularly participated in gang rapes of freshman women, including her, as a “team bonding” activity. She recounts how she was drugged and raped by as few as four and as many as eight Baylor football players at an off-campus party in February of her freshman year. She “remembers lying on her back, unable to move and staring at glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling as the football players took turns raping her.” She claims that the men later bragged of “running train” on her; they minimized her rape by referring to it as “a little bit of playtime” and “fooling around”; and they blamed her for the assault, dismissing her as “easy.”
The plaintiff in the Baylor case alleges that the football players circulated photos and videos of themselves assaulting semi-conscious women after drugging them. While their use of technology to re-perpetrate sexual assault is new, their sharing of women’s exploitation for the purposes of male bonding is decidedly medieval. In this alleged trafficking of women’s trauma so that all the team’s members can participate collectively in their violation and relive the assault together, the Baylor players echo Edmond Paston’s choice to write down his employees’ sexual deeds in lurid detail to convince his brother John to hire Gregory, using the tale to illustrate the unfairness of Gregory’s firing by their overbearing buzzkill of a mother. The circulation of the story from servant to master, and then from younger brother to elder brother, illustrates how sexual storytelling can serve as a means of bonding and entertainment among men, whether it be in a 15th-century wax-sealed letter or a 21st-century group text.
Sexual storytelling can serve as a means of bonding and entertainment among men, whether in the 15th century or the 21st.
By painting the women they exploit as “easy,” as “whores,” both medieval and modern men are able to recast rape as consensual and to avoid all blame by using the woman’s alleged previous sexual activity as an excuse for her violation. And by minimizing their actions — as “playtime,” as an attack of “lust” — they refuse to acknowledge any harm they cause.
The dynamics among the Paston employees as well as the Baylor football teammates demonstrate the workings of sexual pressure and violence among men: Gregory is unable to “say no” to his co-workers due to the requirements of shared “company,” just as the Baylor football team’s freshman players were allegedly hazed by their older teammates, who required them to bring female guests with them to off-campus team parties so that the older teammates could drug and rape them. In each case, men are “required” by the code of their all-male community — whether a group of employees or teammates — to become complicit in the assault and exploitation of their female partners and friends. Women’s consent is viewed as a non-issue, as belonging instead to the man who turns her over to the wolves and claims he has no choice.
My research focuses on sexual violence in the Middle Ages and today. I read a lot of awful things. And I am always struck by how similar those awful things are in spite of the differences in time, in space, in technology. Sometimes the details stick in my head like splinters: the glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars in the Baylor lawsuit, Gregory’s insistence that he was “completely rid of” the woman after he handed her off to his co-workers.
I cannot stop thinking about the Baylor freshman staring up at an artificial starry sky, a false heaven; the “quene” trapped in a stable all night by two plowmen with nowhere to go, surrounded by livestock and animal shit. And I think about how much the two women might share in spite of the five and a half centuries separating them: that feeling when your heart goes numb with fear, the sickening realization that your consent does not matter and never did, the glint in their eyes and the smirk on their faces once they’ve decided among themselves what they are going to do to you. As we grapple with issues of consent and power in our own culture, medieval texts like the Paston letters can help us see the hideous taproot of the problem, reaching down deep and straight and sure through the centuries. You cannot eradicate a plant unless you destroy at least part of its taproot. I imagine pulling it up whole and marveling at how at how very long it is; how ugly, how gnarled, how covered in sticky earth.
Writers are often great observers, but we aren’t always good listeners. Our stories share knowledge and create empathy in the reader, but the dark side of our work is the ego it sometimes takes to sustain it. Writing, especially something as long and thankless as an entire book, requires a belief in the importance of one’s own voice, even in the face of skeptics and critics. We rely on our words to crawl into hearts and change minds. In fact, though, the most radical thing those with powerful voices can do in times of conflict is listen.
One author who taught me to listen to women’s stories in particular was Margaret Atwood, perhaps the best-known writer in Canadian literature. Her books taught me that women’s stories were just as important as men’s. Her protagonists survived bullying in Cat’s Eye, monstrous political oppression in the Handmaid’s Tale, and a kind of armageddon in the Maddaddam trilogy. Yet in the past few years, Atwood has shown that her ability to tell compelling stories about fictional women far outstrips her ability to listen to real ones.
Atwood has shown that her ability to tell compelling stories about fictional women far outstrips her ability to listen to real ones.
My split with Atwood began with her support of Steven Galloway, the former head of the creative writing department at the University of British Columbia where I earned my MFA. In 2015, Galloway had been suspended after a number of students filed formal complaints that included sexual harassment and inappropriate sexual behavior. In newspapers and online, a number of famous writers spoke out on Galloway’s behalf without ever bothering to ask whether the complaints might be true. Their outcry culminated in #UBCAccountable, an open letter calling for due process for Galloway despite that he had a union and labor laws to protect him and no criminal charges have ever been filed. Atwood signed that letter and wrote about why in the Walrus, a national magazine. Then she used her considerable Twitter presence to bite back at anyone who disagreed with her.
In a recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail, Atwood once again called out the women who criticized her, positioning herself as a rational being standing up for justice against a backlash of orthodox feminist zealots. She went on to take Galloway’s innocence as a given and argue that his firing was an injustice on the same level as that against Steven Truscott, a man who was arrested at 14 years old and spent ten years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. Her version of the Galloway narrative has been widely debunked, but that didn’t temper her certainty or the strength of her voice. She ended by calling for unity, which is admirable, but asked that readers unify under her version of the narrative in support of her reputation as a feminist rather than each other. What she didn’t seem to realize was that the criticism was never about her right to express her opinion. It was about the moral responsibility we all have to choose when to speak and when to listen.
Criticism of Atwood was never about her right to express her opinion. It was about the moral responsibility we all have to choose when to speak and when to listen.
It’s hard to explain how disappointing all this has been. Before it started, I often defended Atwood against criticism about her prickly public persona. Being a woman writer in Canadian literature, I argued, meant developing a hard shell. I remember coming across her poem “You Fit Into Me” in a CanLit textbook in undergrad and laughing so hard I cried. “You fit into me/like a hook into an eye,” she wrote, “a fish hook/an open eye.” I loved how unsentimental the image was, how in a few lines it demolished love poetry as a kind of violence.
Though she came from a background of far more privilege than I did, Atwood’s uncompromising refusal to soften to the expectations of a woman writer was inspiring. From her and those who came slightly before — Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence — I learned that women of my mother’s and grandmother’s generations lived under a never-ending campaign aimed at breaking down their self-trust. They often worked in isolation and in competition with each other, forced to advocate for themselves against a system that would rather they disappear. Having Atwood’s texts gave me a foundation of strength. Foolishly, I thought she would appreciate seeing the same uncompromising commitment to change in the generations that followed her. I thought she would be willing to listen to reason.
Atwood is not the only Canadian author to ignore the importance of listening. Over the past few years, some of our most venerated authors have produced a great number of words about Galloway’s firing, writing as if those who had filed official complaints against him were characters in a novel. They used their considerable rhetorical skills and personal fame in support of a man accused of hurting his students without considering the damage he might have done to those students. They rode roughshod over one woman in particular, the main complainant in the case, who doesn’t even get the dignity of a name or an opportunity to defend herself publicly because of labor law that protects the accused.
Some signers of the letter have revised their statements, said they’re interested in justice for all, yet the fact remains that not one of those authors thought to contact the complainants and ask what they might need for support before signing. As they wrote press releases and personal statements demanding transparency and justice, never once did they think to contact the main complainant, through her lawyer or through other complainants who’ve named themselves in newspaper articles. The signers said they felt bullied, but it never occurred to them that they might be bullies, too, ones with the ability to control the narrative on a much grander scale than their detractors. Even the recent CanLit Accountable open letter from former Concordia University graduate Mike Spry, which highlights his complicity in a culture of toxic masculinity and abuse in their creative writing program, was written and posted without input from the victims. Without consultation, even well-meaning advocacy feels a lot like aggression.
Without consultation, even well-meaning advocacy feels a lot like aggression.
It’s not that I’m angry with Atwood and those other authors I once admired. More than anything, I’m sad for them. I see them as people who, out of fear or carelessness, have hardened themselves against the voices of those who have less power. They have robbed themselves of a great deal of wonder by drawing a line between who is worth listening to and who isn’t. In her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard writes about what happens when we put aside our assumptions about what we deem normal and construct an “artificial obvious” that allows us to see new and extraordinary things. Dillard watches the air, the grass, the trees with patience and openness, and the world rewards her with incredible beauty. I believe this principle can be applied to listening, too.
Really listening requires full body presence. It requires you to soften and let go of the fear, the urge to argue, and the instinct to control the narrative. It takes a comfort with silence and a willingness to accept that your turn to talk may never come, that what’s happening might not be about you at all. This doesn’t mean internalizing every call-out on social media, but rather acknowledging how your voice carries and reaching out to those who have less power with compassion, respect, and openness. It requires you see them first as individual human beings with names, lives, and experiences you might not have imagined. We’ve assumed for too long that the onus for reaching out is on the less powerful. We must work to upend that imbalance and make space for women of color, Indigenous women, trans women, and others who have been left out of feminism in the past.
Over the past few years, I’ve been working on tempering my voice to make more space for listening. I’ve seen the beauty this openness reveals first-hand in the students I’ve worked with who come from different linguistic backgrounds and struggle with academic English. A few have told me about teachers who have dismissed them out of hand, assumed they weren’t worth listening to, or spoken over them. I’ve never met a student who didn’t have something worth saying inside them. Some just take more time than others.
Indeed, we live in a time when there are endless opportunities to learn about the stories of others in their own words. Just this weekend at the first anniversary of the Women’s March, I stood with a thousand other women and allies on a windy shelf overlooking Vancouver’s spectacular North Shore Mountains and heard Musqueam activist Rhiannon Bennett speak about the way the issues addressed by the #metoo movement disproportionately affect Indigenous women. I heard Hailey Heartless argue with wit and clarity for the life-and-death necessity of including sex workers like herself in feminist discussions. I wiped away tears as Noor Fadel read her poem “I Forgive You,” addressed to the man who attacked her on a crowded SkyTrain for wearing a hijab. As woman after woman told stories of violence, familiar and unfamiliar, I felt awed and grateful, even when the things they said called attention to the many privileges I hold as a white cis woman who was born in Canada. Some have condemned this multiplicity of voices as a descent into disorder and chaos. I see it as an opportunity to move toward an equitable society.
The greatest block to really listening is not the noise of the world, but that voice inside that protects us, centers us, rattles with outrage or disbelief. I still respect the ways Atwood made space for women’s narratives in literature against tremendous pressure, but I can’t help but feel like all those years of protecting herself are what’s holding her back from hearing the voices of the women around her now, making it difficult for her to see the beauty in the moment. If we’re going to find a way forward, we’re all going to have to learn to listen.
I ’ve gotten used to the fact that I can’t talk about women with my straight female friends the way I can talk about men. When I talk about men, my friends hum with encouragement, bubble with excitement over the possibility of what could happen. They give their seal of approval (“he works for Goldman? Nice”) or disapproval (“his mattress is on the floor!? Honey…”), eager to share their own dating triumphs or horrors. In turn, I’m genuinely eager to hear them, but they can’t relate. It’s a one-sided conversation, almost like a diary entry.
Years ago I began to retreat to literature and film to find similar narratives to mine. It was easy to find such on the fringe, in indie films that premiere at small festivals and novels deep within my college’s library. When it came to movies I can see in my hometown movie theater, the ones that are buzzed about for months by everyone from critics to subway commuters, I often came up short. The characters were predominantly straight, rarely gay, never bisexual. I never saw a mainstream film that reflected my experience until Call Me By Your Name.
The characters were predominantly straight, rarely gay, never bisexual. I never saw a mainstream film that reflected my experience until ‘Call Me By Your Name.’
Every year, one LGBTQ movie seems to generate enough buzz to make its way into the mainstream. The pinnacle of this was Moonlight, which not only made back its budget over ten-fold, but it took home the Oscar for Best Picture. Last year that singular movie was Call Me By Your Name, based on the 2007 novel by André Aciman. Watching the trailer and reading early reviews about the film from the Sundance Film Festival compelled me to get my hands on the source material before seeing the film.
Elio, an Italian teenager, is the narrator of the story. During one summer in the 1980s, a Columbia professor named Oliver stays with him and his family. Part 1 of the novel is an incredible build-up. Elio and Oliver meet each other, and Elio is instantly enamored (as is Oliver with him, though the reader only sees Elio’s side). At times, Elio is so peeved he has this unobtainable crush that he talks about killing Oliver, then himself. There’s a line in the beginning of Part 2, though, that struck me more than anything:
Did I want to be like him? Did I want to be him? Or did I just want to have him?
I froze. I reread the line 10 times. This was the first time I’ve had my thoughts read back to me. Elio had just been waxing poetic about Oliver’s muscular shoulders while being incensed that he was apparently sleeping with a multitude of women around town.
For the first time, I found my experience validated by the dance I was seeing on screen. The way I’m attracted to women is inherently different than my attraction to men; it’s difficult to process alone, in my head, without anyone to talk to. The line between attraction and admiration to women is one I walk almost daily. It’s sharing a glance with a fellow commuter on the 6 train. It’s an Instagram photo suggested to me on the explore page, a woman draped in natural light in her bedroom. Do I want to be with this woman, or do I want to just be her? This ambivalence is something I experience often, but I don’t share it with anyone — and here it was repeated directly to me in this book.
This ambivalence is something I experience often, but I don’t share it with anyone — and here it was repeated directly to me in this book.
Elio and Oliver do sleep together. All the while, Elio also sleeps with a woman named Marzia. At one point, he balances sexual relationships with both of them:
Barely half an hour ago I was asking Oliver to fuck me and now here I was about to make love to Marzia, and yet neither had anything to do with the other except through Elio, who happened to be one and the same person.
This occurs several times in the novel, where Elio compares Oliver and Marzia. Elio kisses Oliver the way he kisses Marzia; the way Oliver smells like the sea reminds him of the way Marzia smelled.
Elio and Marzia’s relationship eventually fizzles away, but not before numerous sexual encounters and dates. They never have a proper goodbye. Rather, Elio rushes to Rome to be with Oliver.
It’s clear that Elio was in love with Oliver and not with Marzia. This isn’t because Marzia wasn’t a man, though. It’s because she wasn’t Oliver.
It’s clear that Elio was in love with Oliver and not with Marzia. This isn’t because Marzia wasn’t a man, though. It’s because she wasn’t Oliver.
Stories that are made into mainstream LGBTQ films tend to have similar narratives. The protagonist has experienced only hetero relationships, along with a void that’s always been there. They feel disdain: with themselves for feeling this way or with their partner for not filling that void.
Such is the case with Brokeback Mountain (the mainstream queer movie of 2005) and with The Price of Salt, on which the film Carol (the mainstream queer movie of 2015) is based. In Brokeback, Ennis and Jack are drawn together despite impossible circumstances, as are Carol and Therese in Carol.
The spouses in those stories are antagonists. Who can forget when Michelle William’s Alma spits out, “Jack nasty!” in Brokeback or when Kyle Chandler’s Harge demands custody for his and Carol’s child.
But Marzia isn’t an antagonist in Call Me By Your Name. If anything, she is a distraction Elio willingly takes when he thinks he and Oliver won’t ever go beyond acquaintanceship. Even after the two men consummate their relationship, Elio keeps up his fling with Marzia. While Elio is never in love with Marzia, he is genuinely attracted to her physically and sexually. If anything, I’d argue this shows how layered Elio’s sexuality is. Is he homo-romantic and bisexual, or bi-romantic as well? Regardless of the answer, his orientation remains more complex than other LGBTQ characters in mainstream lit and film.
In other narratives, the character then meets their “person,” someone of the same gender. The void is filled, but not for long. Due to societal pressures or deep-seated self-hatred, the two don’t end up together. One (or both) may die, and they’re ultimately miserable if they live.
Brokeback Mountain is a clear example of this. Jack’s line, “I wish I knew how to quit you” prompts Ennis to insist he’s “like this” because of him. Their sexualities are afflictions, mars to their characters that they want to be without. Jack eventually dies, and Ennis cries into his blood-soaked shirt.
Brokeback is the first “gay movie” I remember seeing. I was maybe 11 or 12, and the concept of sex scenes, let alone gay sex scenes, was still taboo. I was alone and told no one that I watched it; I don’t know if I meant it to be a secret, but it remained one regardless.
In my rewatchings of Brokeback (and readings of the short story on which it’s based), I feel the same disconnect I did at that age. I was watching people that were far away from me, both in location and mindset. They were gay and ashamed. They were trapped in their marriages yet repulsed by the only person who gave them joy, another man. I couldn’t relate.
In my rewatchings of Brokeback Mountain, I feel the same disconnect I did the first time. I was watching people that were far away from me, both in location and mindset. They were gay and ashamed. I couldn’t relate.
My first experience watching Carol was much different than that of Brokeback. I saw it where it premiered to critical and audience acclaim, the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. I was almost 21, secure in my queer identity and excited that I would not only see a celebrated film with queer characters, but queer women at that.
Upon viewing, though, I felt that same disconnect. There was a lingering sense of shame, of detestment towards Carol’s family — and Carol’s husband, too, was as vitriolic as the wives in Brokeback.
In The Price of Salt, Carol is stripped of everything because of her sexuality. Not only can she and Therese not be together, but she allows her abusive husband to get what he wants out of fear of being found out. She lives, but what kind of life is she left with? The novel ends on a hopeful note, but it’s ambivalent at best and tragic at worst.
Brokeback Mountain and The Price of Salt are in the gay literature canon, and they should be. I’m not arguing that they aren’t stories that should be told. It’s also very true that queer people throughout history (and in the present day) have experienced the intense pain that these characters have, and this pain should be projected on screens in thousands of theaters across the country.
But there are so many more stories to be told. Stories that I relate to should be projected on those screens, too. I don’t have the comfort of hearing them in my real life, of exchanging stories with friends over wine or Facebook messenger — and I know I’m not alone.
It’s true that queer people throughout history have experienced intense pain, and this pain should be projected on screens. But there are so many more stories to be told.
If anything, what I see about queerness online is concentrated on how people (men) are trying to push a new identity into the lexicon: “mostly straight.” It’s so pervasive, in fact, that there’s a new book all about the term — and more men identify as “mostly straight” than either gay or bisexual.
The concept is one that frustrates me, but doesn’t shock me: men who are not straight but also not gay would rather identify as predominantly straight than queer, or bi, or anything else. It encourages a binary in sexuality: there is either straight or gay. The fact that I live in this gray area is somehow an additional other. Reading headlines like “More Men Than You Think Identify As ‘Mostly Straight’” makes me question myself again, reinforces the loneliness I feel.
I picked up Call Me By Your Name to feel less alone.
This book does retain some of that classic narrative. Elio and Oliver don’t end up together. The unfortunate part of the novel is that they only share that summer — as Ennis and Jack only share Brokeback Mountain — but it didn’t destroy Elio’s life.
When they are together 20 years after their whirlwind relationship, Elio’s flooded with memories. He wants Oliver to call him by his name again. It’s bittersweet, it’s melancholic and the reader can’t help but think “what might have been”…but Elio isn’t crying into Oliver’s shirt.
One fundamental difference is that Elio’s goes went on without Oliver. There’s also no sense of him wanting to “quit” Oliver, of seeing his sexuality as a burden.
Years after the summer they spent together, Elio reflected on his life post-Oliver and “the people whose bed [he’s] shared”:
Fancy this, I might say: at the time I knew Oliver, I still hadn’t met so-and-so. Yet life without so-and-so was simply unthinkable.
People. The people Elio’s shared his bed with. “So-and-so” is genderless. Elio’s coming-of-age that summer was a distinctively queer one, not a gay one.
Of course I don’t know if this was Aciman’s intention. I don’t know if he set out to buck the trends of Brokeback Mountain, Carol, and other mainstream queer stories, which are so often gay stories. Perhaps I’m projecting my own desire to read a character like me onto this novel.
I want a lot of things out of queer media that will take years to obtain, maybe beyond my lifetime. I want more than one LGBTQ film a year to be celebrated by the mainstream media. I want more protagonists like Elio. I want more female protagonists like Elio.
I want more protagonists like Elio. I want more female protagonists like Elio.
Upon seeing Call Me By Your Name, I was delighted that it remained mostly true to the novel. What was left out was the last section, which takes place 20 years after Elio and Oliver’s summer together. The film left out the fact that Elio fell in love with people other than Oliver, but nonetheless kept his encounters with both Oliver and Marzia. And thankfully, Marzia still wasn’t an antagonist.
The film is now part of the group adapted from LGBTQ literature that have reached awards recognition. That group is unfortunately small, but CMBYN nonetheless separates itself in its portrayal of sexuality. But I still want more characters whose sexual fluidity is apparent and explicit like Elio’s. I want them to acknowledge that gender doesn’t determine attraction and that sometimes there’s a gray area between lust and reverence, and that’s okay. I want stories where queer isn’t synonymous with gay. I want “mostly straight” characters to acknowledge they are queer and accept, maybe even love, that about themselves.
They had arranged to meet at 11 a.m. She arrived at 10:30. I know I must be there early or I won’t go at all. Why am I going. Am I in love. No. One doesn’t question. In love with the situation. Hope of love. Out of boredom. A few days by the sea. A hotel. Room overlooking sand. Gulls. Beach. Breakfast in bed. Meals served by gracious smiling waiters. But the land there is flat. Dreary. Endless. Though the sea. The sea. The whole Front to myself. But what if it rains all the time. It drizzled now as she looked out of the station. Cabs swished by. People rushed through barriers. Escape. Escape with my lover. But he isn’t even that. In her small room. On her single bed they had gone so far. Fully clothed. No we’ll wait it wouldn’t be fair I have to leave you soon. Now the weekend he would prove to be
She clutched her bag. Glanced at the clock. And there he was. His hat cuckoo-perched on an unfinished nest. Dressed in a new suit. Mac just cleaned over his arm. Hullo love. If people stopped to look they would think we were father and daughter on our way to an aunt’s funeral. They don’t look. But think dirty old man. As he takes my arm. My bag.
The train. Carriages with long seats. Without divisions. Seats that make one aware of sagging shoulders. She straightened up. Straightened her skirt. Haven’t seen that dress before love — new? He removed his hat. It nestled beside him. He had washed his hair. Had a bad shave. Without adding the bits of cotton wool. The train shuttled forward. Stopped. Now I could say I’ve changed my mind I can’t go on with it I feel ill. Well how are things sweet? OK had a row with the wife oh some trivial domestic thing anyway makes it easier. Looks as if it might clear up. Brighter in the west — forecast said it would. How long does it take? About two hours love should be there in time for a beer and brunch in a nice pub somewhere. The rest of the carriage empty. Maybe someone will get in at the next stop. Pray that someone gets in. Ininininininin the train chugged on over the bridge. Children threw stones into the river. He had on the green shirt. She remarked once how nice he looked in green. Matches your eyes. Eyes now stared directly at her. Was he thinking of the night. Nights ahead. Nights he had saved up for. Relishing in cosy domestic mornings. Reading the papers together. Quietly sipping tea. Quietly satisfied. Three. Four mornings ahead of them. Already I’m thinking in the third person. Seeing us as another passenger might. But no one got in at the next station. He leaned over and took her hand. She looked out of the window. Looked back at him. Cigarette? Her hand released. She dived into her bag. They lit up. He sank back. She took out a paperback. Looked at the words lumped together. Spaces between paragraphs.
The train stopped. A woman with a child got in. The child held a blue teddy bear nearly bigger than herself. They sat opposite. The woman looked across once. The child more than once. Giggling she approached. Adjusted the bear’s arms. What’s his name then? Tethy. He’s nice isn’t he? She passed the bear over. He took it and balanced it on his knees. The child started crying gimmee back gimmee gimmee Tethy gimmee. Judy come here don’t disturb the gentleman there’s a good girl. He smiled and handed the bear over. It growled. The child giggled and passed it over to me. Do you want to hold Tethy it’s his burfday. She sucked her thumb and watched. Watching. He watched.
The houses crammed together. Back yards where men leaned on spades. Women in doorways dried their hands on aprons. Fields where boys played football. In small parks girls paused over prams. The sky strips of blue. Houses spread out. Fields. Cows. Sheep. Away from civilisation. Away from the little rituals they had been going through. Manipulated. Meetings in pubs. Fish and chips afterwards. Parties where she danced. Flirted. While he looked on. Hurried fumblings. Kisses. In a cab. Long talks by the gas fire. Holding hands in the cinema. Being shown off to his friends at dinner parties. I’m so glad he’s found you he does need someone bless him and you seem so suited his wife as you probably know is
The child bounced the bear on the seat. I looked at the paperback. This autobiographical novel is a brazen confession of rebellion, trespass and blatant sexual exploitation in a world of intellectual despair and moral chaos. She closed the book. He looked up from the newspaper. His shoes highly polished. Crease in trousers nicely creased. Oh so nicely creased. Creases under his eyes. Around his mouth. Anticipation anticipation anti anti antiantiantiantiantianti. The train rattled on. The child talked to the bear. Tethy Tethy my Tethy is a naughty Tethy. The woman put away her knitting. They got out. He leaned over. It’s going to be great just great love I know it will. Pressure on my knee. Only another half hour to go love. A dozen hours to come. No. Perhaps he will want to in the afternoon. An after lunch doze. I closed my eyes. Opened. More fields. More boys kicking in an orgy of mud. Men tinkered with cars. Station after station. Signals. Tunnels. Hedges. Then the sea. Flat grey. Flat washed green land on the left. Well this is it love — here I’ll take your case. The hat flew on.
The wind waited round every corner. Narrow streets. Pinched faces already with the Sunday roast and glazed T.V. look. Girls. Hair in rollers. Queued in the butchers. Wondering if Jim. Fred. Or Harry will be at the dance tonight. Which pub love — what about this one looks OK doesn’t it? Thin widow polished the glasses. Glass topped tables. Round. Dartboard pockmarked. Old men leaned on the bar. Looked up. Dismissed. Side-long glances. Two whiskies please. Thank you. Hungry? Mmmmmm. We’ll have lunch at the hotel. Which hotel? Oh I don’t know we’ll find one — look around take our time I know there are at least three good ones on the Front. Looks like it’s going to clear up Sir. Yes forecast said it would. Thank you Sir good day Miss.
Sky darker grey. Smell of sea. Fish. Tar. Well which hotel love — what about this one it’s a three star one should be OK hope the food’s good. Woman behind the register looked up. Yes we would like a double room preferably facing the sea. How long will you be staying Sir? Oh couple of days. Twin beds or double? Double please. He leaned over. Signed the book. Will you be taking lunch Sir? Yes. Lunch is served from one to two thank you Sir. Small man picked up the luggage. Struggled up three. Four flights of stairs. Doors pale yellow. Dark yellow carpet with pink flowered pattern. A door opened. His hand jingled money in his pocket. Thrust out at the appropriate time. Thank you Sir. Thank you. Door closed. Yellow wallpaper. Yellow bedspread. Pink carpet. Shiny insect-yellow dressing table. Chintz curtains. But it doesn’t even overlook the sea. Ah well love it doesn’t matter does it I mean
Wardrobe door creaked. Hangers. Thin wire hangers clanged. Covered by my two dresses. He’s lying on the bed. Already already. I’m terribly hungry. Sighing he lurched off. Patted the eiderdown into place. My hair into place. Makeup renewed. Eyes averted. His. In the corridor past numerous yellow doors. One opened. An old man lay on the single bed. Looked up at the lamp shade. Sorry I thought it was the bathroom. Deaf. Must be deaf. Or maybe dead. A narrow bathroom. Huge Victorian bath. Pipes gurgled. The sea. A narrow dimension of winter sea from the window if pushed wide enough. Some men dragged in nets. Silently. Children screamed around them. Plug pulled. And it all came tumbling down. Down down down
Into the restaurant. Empty tables. He had chosen one near the window. Terrace. Limp bunting the wind ignored. He passed over the menu. Thin-lipped waitress stood by. Five minutes to two. Dying for her cup of tea. Feet up. Snooze. Is the dover sole nice? Yes Sir. Well we’ll have that I think — sounds good doesn’t it love? The waitress jabbed her notepad. Suppressed a yawn. The sea yawned out. In. Enclosed by glass. A bowl of artificial flowers. His hands spread out on his knees. What names did you sign? Mine of course love for both of us they never ask anyway. Other hotels. Other girls. Other weekends. The waitress tighter-lipped. The fish flat. Dry yellow. Little dishes with lumps of potatoes like ice cream dropped on a pavement. Vegetables as though chewed already. Looks good love doesn’t it? And it is good. It will be good. I can’t survive it all unless it’s going to be good. It’s up to me the whole thing. The next four days. Nights. I can love him. It will be all right once we’ve made it. Everything will be all right then. It’s just this interminable waiting. Gosh you were hungry what about afters love — peach melba? No just coffee. At the corner of his mouth a piece of dover sole. I want to giggle. He folds his napkin. Well what about a little nap? I think I’ll have another coffee you go on up I’ll join you in a minute. The waitress peered round the door again. And again. He yawned. Smiled. Walked across and out.
Will that be all Madam? Yes thank you. Perhaps Madam wouldn’t mind having her coffee in the lounge? And Madam went into the empty lounge. Heavy chintz chairs politely arranged. Politely waited. God why am I here. Well make the best of it. On the stairs the elderly bellboy stood back. Did he wink. Perhaps just a nervous tic. Which door. What number. Oh God. Smile arranged. Held. Hullo love. He pushed the newspaper aside. Red silk dressing gown. Hair on chest. She slid out of her dress. Hung it up. He had already drawn the curtains. Yellow light seeped through, She climbed over him. I love you. Her feet cold she put them between his legs. Adjusted her head. His mouth in her hair. His lips nuzzled. Came further down. She closed her eyes. Turned towards him. Take this off — here. No I’ll do it. She unsnapped her brassiere. Lovely breasts you know that lovely. He held them. Held on to them. Her hand wandered over him. Clutched his hair. Legs. A little lump. Perhaps his finger. No can’t be. His hands. One hand pressed her breasts. The other on her belly. Moved down. His weight moved over her. I feel the weight of my own body. Not like this oh not now not now not like this. She felt for him. How small. He slid down. Adjusted his body’s length to hers. Measuring. A game of poker. Pause. Grunt. Intake of breath. Wait a minute love. Here. She took hold of him. Started rubbing. The lump became a knot. Sorry love. What is it? I don’t know maybe it’s because I love you so much you know frightened I won’t satisfy you enough oh I don’t know. Cigarette? They lay stiff. Side by side. Stared at the smoke. Ceiling. Cracked yellow. Someone padded along the corridor. Sound of rain. We need time plenty of time and we have plenty of time love — sleepy? Yes. Try and get some sleep then. She curled up under the sheet. He got up. Think I’ll do a little exploring of the town get a bottle of whisky or something.
She sat up. Stared at the lamp shade. Sank down. Pulled the sheet over her head. Pushed it away. Got up. Sat in front of the mirror. Opened the drawers. Hotel headed notepaper. A few hairpins. She went out into the bathroom. Spray spattered on to the empty Front. Over the blue railings freshly painted. Half of them yet to be painted. In three months all would be a nice bright blue. The bandstand full of dapper little uniformed men who would pluck. Bang away with their brass instruments. Whether it was raining or not. Holidaymakers in paper hats. Plastic macs. Would eat ice cream. Their faces attempting to expand in a fortnight’s ‘away from it all’. She went back into their room. Their room that had been hundreds of other couples’ scene of illicit love. After all married couples have twin beds. Well usually. At least the chambermaid wouldn’t giggle with the others when changing the sheets this time. Or maybe she will. After all
After all. She took a dress down. No best to put the same one on. They’ll know. They. The staff had nothing better to do than conclude. Make insinuations. As if they cared. Really. She put on the other dress and went down into the lounge. Was the rest of the hotel empty then. But no. Two women she hadn’t noticed resumed talking. Huddled amongst the flowered covered chairs. A fire had been lit. She drew up a chair. Picked at a magazine. The erotic facts recorded. The most intimate characteristics of woman’s sexuality. PARTIAL CONTENTS. Legend of the female organs, of the vulva, the clitoris, destruction of the hymen, circumcision of girls, the female breast, breast of Europeans, African, Asiatic women etc. Fingers dug into her bag. A young man stood in the doorway. Have you a light please? Thank you thank you very much. He took a chair. Sat behind her. He has a nice mouth. Thick hair. Rather nice smiling eyes. Is he alone. Hullo love what a lovely fire — found a good pub — well interesting — full of fishermen they’ve had a good day apparently good catch. Did you get the whisky? Yes it’s up in our room. The young man rose. A girl in the doorway. Smiled up. He smiled down. Gosh it’s damned cold out though got quite wet walking the streets — it’s a nice town hasn’t changed much since I came here last — like some tea love?
She poured the tea. He spread out his hands towards the fire. Shall we have it in our room we can put a little whisky in it then? He balanced the tray. It rattled as he climbed the stairs. Behind her. The elderly bellboy stood aside. Obviously hasn’t a nervous tick. Wish we had a nice room facing the sea — still at least one can see it from the bathroom window. I can ask to change love. Oh no don’t bother it doesn’t matter really — what time’s dinner? Hungry already? No just wondered. Seven I think. What shall we do? Could go to the films though I don’t think there’s much on. Could go to that fishermen’s pub perhaps. Of course you haven’t really seen the town yet — and there’s a ruin too — tenth century castle I believe — it’s worth seeing has dungeons and things. Is it free? No you have to pay.
They sipped tea laced with whisky. He lay on the bed. She sat on the edge. He edged her down. They kissed. A long kiss. A searching of tongues. God you do excite me love. Maybe we ought to try it with clothes on it seems that
A knock on the door. Yes? Sorry Sir just wanted to turn down the bed. Oh don’t bother thank you. Just as you wish Sir — Madam. Damn maybe we should have rented a cottage after all. Stop worrying. I’m not worrying — well not really. He lit two cigarettes and handed her one. No thanks. Let him see. See see seeeeeeeeeee-see. The sea whooshed down. Below. Far away. Away from the walls closing in. His face close. Closer. What’s the matter love? Nothing — nothing’s the matter — what time is it? She reached for his wrist. Hair crawled down and then stopped as if surprised by the sudden lumps. She leaned over. Away. Back again. And undid his shirt. She licked him. His face came up from the pillow. Oh love love love let’s wait until tonight shall we — be better that way be all right then we’ll have plenty of time.
They sat at the same table overlooking the terrace. Waves of whiteness curled. Uncurled. Lights along the Front hovered over circles of wetness. The middle table surrounded by young men. Laughing. Joking rugger type youths talking about rugger. The tight-lipped waitress tightly smiled. What about trying the steak this time love? Overdone medium or rare Sir? Medium I think with peas and roast. Thank you Sir. Two of the youths glanced across. Father and daughter act. But he caught hold of her hand as she helped him to some gravy. The youths glanced away. Loud laughter. I think it’s stopped raining perhaps we can take a breath of fresh air afterwards love would you like that?
Along the Front. Deserted. Long sloping pavements. Carefully avoiding the puddles. She took her shoes off and ran. Laughing. On to the beach. Down to the water’s edge. She heard him panting. Crunching over the pebbles. Her hair over her eyes. She did not sweep away. Lights of the town distant. The sky uplifted from the heaving mass of darkness. That was the sea. Sound of sea. Sounds of other seas. Other days. Spent in other places. Under foreign skies. But I can’t afford to indulge. It’s not fair fair fair fairee fairee fairee. Gulls swooped out of the folds of darkness. Tips of white unfolded into expanse of whiteness. Above her. She laughed into the wind. With the wind. Her face tilted towards his. Make love to me make love make love to meeeeee. Ah love what here it’s so damned cold. He embraced her. She shook against him. Shook with uncontrollable laughter. He gently lifted her face up. We will tonight love or if not then tomorrow eh we have a few days yet. I’m cold let’s go back — or go and have a drink.
They went into the public bar. Men looked up. Paused in laughter. Shall we try the saloon love? No let’s go back to the hotel. They passed a large hotel that looked closed. But waiters gazed out of long windows. Maybe we should have gone there better food perhaps. Oh I don’t know looks pretty grim to me. But at least the rooms all face the sea love.
They went into the hotel bar. The youths roared. Raring to get high. Or already high. Slapped each other on the back. We have got that whisky in our room shall we go up love? They sat on the edge of the bed. Drank from the tooth glasses. Until the bottle was nearly empty. Well I’m turning in love. But it’s only nine o’ clock. Oh well we can get up early — might be a nice day.
She shook out her nightdress. Went into the bathroom. Sat on the toilet and waited for the bath to fill. Water lukewarm. Someone rattled the handle. She stopped singing. Love can I come in? Shivering she reached for the latch. Thought you might like your back scratched. Mmmmmmmm. He pulled his shirt sleeves up and knelt. Applied soap over his hands. Wrists. Have you locked the door? Yes love. He applied his hands over her. Breasts. Belly. What about my back? Just a sec. Oh it’s cold. Here. He held the towel out. Giggling she wrapped it round herself. Here I’ll dry you. He rubbed her body. Knelt and kissed her toes. She wriggled. Love love love oh dear love. You better go first or else someone will see us. Oh what the hell. Well you better. She locked the door. Sat on the toilet. Opened the towel and looked at herself. I’m not in love and that’s all there is to it. She pulled the plug. Notinlovenotinlovenotin. The pipes. Behind walls. Water rushed out. Into the sea.
He lay on the bed. Smoking. Green striped pyjamas. Still smelling of detergent. His wife had ironed. She slid down beside him. He switched the light off. I’d rather have it on sweet. He switched the light on. His hand. Hands. She flung off her nightdress. Bent over him. His breathing quickened. She caught her breath and took him in her mouth. Like a little boy’s. But gradually
She spread her legs out and felt for him again with her hands. Kiss me kiss me there. He obeyed. She held his head. Held on to his head. Hair. Closed her eyes. Held her breath. And froze. She watched herself. Her body. Her lumps of flesh solidified. Love love what is it — what’s happened are you all right? She opened her mouth. The scream couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Be forced out. It lay. Struggled. Thumped within the blood cells. Ribs. That closed in on the scream. That became separated. Someone else’s scream. The child. The girl. The virgin. The woman. Until they joined forces. Screamed at the person outside who refused to collaborate. She felt him lift her from him. Gently put the sheet. Blankets over her shoulders. Let’s try and sleep shall we — we’re both tired and had too much to drink and in the morning it’ll be all right. She felt his back against her back. She waited. Stared into the dark. Was he staring into that too? But no. He was already asleep. Snoring. Little grunts at first. God I hope he’s not the whistling kind. The snores grew louder. She sat up. Reached for a cigarette. What is it love — can’t you sleep? No. Maybe if you… I can’t sleep if you snore can I. Was I — sorry you should give me a nudge. She jabbed out the cigarette. Turned over. And waited. The snores came as before. Yet not as before had been. Heavier. Insistent. Demanding. She nudged him. He grunted and rolled over on to his back. She closed her eyes. Put the pillow half over her head. The snoring continued. Grew louder. The whole room vibrated. She hurled herself up. Was I snoring again? Yes. Oh God — look I’ll sleep over there in the chair. He took the eiderdown off. The pillow. And huddled into the chair. You can’t sleep there can you sweet? Well what else can we do? I don’t know — wish you’d brought your ear plugs — wish I even had some sleeping pills. She watched the dot of his cigarette move upwards. Down. It’s really quite comfortable love it’s better this way. She moved over to the warmth where his body had been. And waited. The snores came. Every minute. I could time them like a woman in labour. Less than a minute. She got up and went out.
She leaned her head out of the bathroom window. The rain made her face wetter. The scream moved up into the lump. A fist thrust in her throat. Spread out. The scream emerged in a coughing bout. I’ll leave tomorrow. Catch the first train back. Go and pack now. Wait at the station. Maybe there’s a late train. She sat on the toilet. Shivered. What a situation to find myself in. No one to blame except myself. The handle rattled. Are you all right love? Yes yes. I could try and sleep in here but then someone will want to use the damned place. She opened the window wider. Lines of white broke up the shore. Waves of blackness swallowed up the houses. I’m so cold so cold. She opened the door but closed it as someone came along the corridor. She waited for silence. She tried again and ran into the room. He smoked. Hunched in the chair. We should have got separate rooms. Perhaps tomorrow we can go to another hotel. No I’m going back. Oh my dear…
She buried herself in the bed. Against the wall. I’ll wait until you’re asleep first love. She heard the lighter click. Shut. Pause. Sound of doors. Opened. Closed. The lighter clicked. She waited. Waited for the next click. And the first faint light to edge in through the curtains. Soon the light came. A thin light that brought the relief of shadows. She could see him. Heard him turn. Confined to eiderdown. Chair. She closed her eyes. When she opened them the room was speckled with light. He was shaving. Did you get any sleep love? A bit what about you? Not really. His face paper yellow. Pink eyes. He grinned. At least it’s not raining — in fact it’s a gorgeous day and we’ll go and have a look at that castle unless of course you are going back? I don’t know just don’t know we can’t obviously go on like this can we? Oh my dear love love love — come on let’s have a good breakfast and then go out shall we?
She decided she really didn’t want any breakfast. Just a cup of tea. So he went down alone. She dressed slowly. Glanced in the mirror. What a sight. But what did it matter. She had decided. The scene had already been set long before they ever came here.
They met in the foyer and walked out along the Front. On to the pier. In silence. Watched the men fling their fishing lines in. A few fish struggled. Thumped around on the iron grilles. Gave a final twitch then slid down with the others in the basket.
The castle surrounded by a moat of dryness. The guide asked if they wanted to be shown around. They walked round together. The guide went back to sleep. Round walls with scaffolding. Crumbling walls. Walls that were no longer walls. Large rooms with wooden floors. Jewellery and fossils under glass. Please Do Not Touch notices everywhere. Smell of must. Please Do Not Smoke round every corner. Endless passage that was not so endless. The castle was round. A dungeon she quietly went into while he looked up at a sword. She heard him go past. She shrank into the darker corner of the cell. His footsteps grew fainter. Above her. She looked through the narrow bars. At the triangle patch of grass. Please Do Not Throw Litter Here. Please Keep Off The Grass. She saw him standing on the fortress. He leaned against a cannon. His hand thrust upwards. Shielded his eyes. He must be looking out to sea. She heard his footsteps approach. She stifled a giggle. And walked out. Oh there you are were you hiding? No I wondered where you were. Well we’ve seen just about everything I think. What about the other dungeons? OK. They walked again the narrow passage. Where no sun had entered. God what a place I could imagine a murder here — in fact you could well… She sprang back. Her mouth open. Closed into a closed smile as his hands came out. Oh don’t frighten me like that. Stupid — God your imagination love. All the same it is frightening. And she sprang from the wall. Ran past him. Laughing. Screaming out. You won’t catch me never ever never. She heard her voice bounce back. And his laughter. His gasps. Until he had caught her up. They held hands. Crossed the drawbridge. Thanked the guide who gave them a pamphlet history of the castle. Who went back to sleep behind his desk.
They went into a seafront cafe and ordered coffee. Lovely day Sir — Miss. A group of girls entered and went over to the juke box. Hypnotised by the choice. Oh there’s nothing here not even the Rolling Stones. They sat down. Nudged each other. Giggled. I have to go back. Oh love. Well. They stared into their cups. He looked up. Across. She looked down. His shoes were covered in seaweed. Sand. She nodded. Give it a day just another day love I mean we’ve hardly been here and
They walked through streets. Past houses that never varied with their lace curtains. Back gardens. Shrubberies. Back yards with washing. Parts of bicycles. Spare parts of cars. Boys in fields played football. Curtained windows. People still in bed. Or yawned over newspapers. Or watched the television.
In the restaurant their table was occupied by the young couple. The middle table surrounded by women. Middle aged with hats. Hats with feathers. Without feathers. Bits of veil. One woman stood up to give a speech, They all clapped. The young couple leaned towards each other. Their plates full of unfinished food.
The afternoon came. Went. And the night. Repetitive of the night before. Yet not quite. They got drunk. But didn’t attempt to make love. Attempted to sleep. And the morning faced their faces now white. They walked by the sea. She finally said they would go could go back together. They went for a final drink in the large hotel. Sat encased by glass and aspidistras. Without talking. If accidentally they touched they apologised. Looked at each other when the other wasn’t looking. The sky expanded in blueness. Their mouths sucked in as the plants sucked in the water the waiter sprayed from a plastic watering can.
They packed their things. She waited outside. Watched him pay the bill. Smile at the woman behind the desk. The elderly bellboy brought out the luggage. Winked with both eyes. Had a good time Miss — glad the weather cleared up for you — come back again won’t you — taxi Sir? No thanks we’ll walk. They walked up the street. Away from the sea. Past the pub with the glass topped tables. Shall we have a drink? Have one at the station I think love if there’s time. The bar closed. They sat in the buffet and had a cup of tea. Lukewarm. The train roared in. The carriages separated by glass doors. A corridor. They went into an empty carriage. Hope no one gets in. So do I. He brought out half a bottle of whisky and opened it. Passed over. She took a tiny sip then a longer one and handed it back. The train moved out. Wheels clanked along. Past the sun-splashed sea. Pale green slice of land that spread out into deeper green. The deeper blue. I’m sorry love really I am. So am I. But I can see you — I mean we will still see each other after we get back? I think not I mean it is impossible isn’t it you can see that. At each station they looked out. No one got in. Or if they did they looked once into the carriage then passed on along the corridor. She leaned over. Held his hand. Pressed. He sighed. I hate it to end like this but
The fields. Hedges vanished. Suburbs crawled in and out. The football fields now dry. Now empty. The river red flecked with white. The power station powered out its smoke. They walked through the barrier. Paused in the half empty station. Well. Well? Well I’ll ’phone you. No it won’t be any use will it? Well then it’s goodbye — goodbye love. And he rushed into the underground. She caught a bus back. Asked the conductor for change. Climbed the stairs to her room. And lay on the bed. The telephone rang. She opened the door quietly. Heard someone talk.
She took out a cigarette. Put it back. And collapsed on the bed. Got up and searched for the change. Went down on to the second floor and put the money in the box. His voice. As though he had a cold. She heard her own. That was not her own. Voice. Look let’s meet up some time this week and talk about it. When? Thursday? What about tomorrow? Tonight? OK I’ll come round? Yes — see you later then. She put the receiver carefully down. Went up to her room and unpacked. Washed her face and applied makeup. The face she saw was smiling little smiles that broke into a wide grin.
When the death knell sounded last week for both The Awl and The Hairpin, the websites that set the tone of the late-2000s internet, it felt to me like the end of everything. Like all of The Awl’s and The Hairpin’s children, readers and writers alike, were suddenly cast out of our cozy room and thrust back into the harsh, sobering daylight of the internet of today — which Alex Balk, co-founder of The Awl, describes as a “cyst deep inside the asshole of some demon’s buttocks that you would be forced to spend each day draining.” (If you didn’t know what The Awl voice was like, well, you do now.)
I spent hours trawling Twitter, trying to make sense of it, trying to understand why it felt so awful. It wasn’t only because I knew that I would never be able to write for The Awl again. It was more that the few pieces I did write there felt like the best of me; they were the pieces that made me fall back in love with writing. The kind of writing motivated not by the worshipping of false idols but by a sincere, unwavering enthusiasm for the subject at hand. And other writers felt that way too — my entire feed was littered with eulogies, which ran the gamut from sentimental to irreverent. The overarching theme was this: Because The Awl and The Hairpin let writers write the weird and wonderful pieces they always wanted to write but could not find a home for, both sites were unclassifiable, boundary-defying, and, as a result, groundbreaking. In short, there was something about these sites — not only their voice, but their sensibility — that broadened our idea of what writing on the internet could be.
There was something about these sites — not only their voice, but their sensibility — that broadened our idea of what writing on the internet could be.
“By the time I joined in 2011 to manage features,” beloved former Awl editor Carrie Frye told me over email, “there was already a well-established sense that the site had room for all kinds of styles and approaches. You could go big and whole-hog ambitious, or you could go chatty, short and companionable, or nerdy, or frothy creme pie, or totally weirdo wonderful; you could send in reporting, or criticism, or dives into archives and favorite rabbit-holes, or personal essays, and so on.” And this freewheeling, rollicking, genre-spanning panoply is what made these sites such anomalies. In many ways, they were the last vestiges of that good, old internet Balk describes in “Letters Sent” — the one that “was a thing you were excited to be part of.” The one that “led you to things you weren’t even aware you were interested in” — like the agave plant’s asparagus death fetish or how to make a doll into a wine glass in 23 easy steps or pouring juice in your boyfriend’s dickhole. Everything covered on The Awl and The Hairpin is exhilaratingly unfashionable and un-newsworthy and beside the point. Indeed, it renders the point irrelevant. Which raises the question: What even is a “point”?
Paradoxically, The Awl and The Hairpin, in their seeming pointlessness, championed a different, more deviant kind of point, which was this: unbridled passion should always prevail. If what’s driving you is pay or cachet or social relevancy, you’re going to sink into a deep, dark pit of self-deceit. And you’re going to hate yourself. “There are people who care way too much, about something, anything, everything — love, art, politics, ideas, music, other people,” writes former Awl contributor Heather Havrilesky in The Cut. “And then there are people who narrow all of that noise and commotion down to one single point of light: career success.The people who care about nothing but career success will tell you that unpopular things are unimportant, and things that don’t pay well enough are uniformly pointless. Anyone who doesn’t reward you handsomely for your work is automatically disrespecting you. Anyone who ignores you over and over isn’t just busy, but is bad and worthless and should be punished for it. Every relationship is transactional and those who don’t see it that way are naïve. But the best things I’ve ever done in my life fly in the face of those assumptions.”
This was the underlying creed of both The Awl and The Hairpin: one must take those “career success above all” assumptions to court and destroy them. The sites’ very existence was a clarion call to both writers and readers to embrace absurdity and shrug off the status quo. They were two pariahs fighting against the commerce of the internet, which was increasing in homogeneity, as well as its milled “content,” which was so often created for traffic purposes. They were crusaders against commodification, revolutionaries before the revolution was co-opted by Pepsi. Their kind of anarchic creed stood in stark contrast to everything that larger commercial enterprises championed, which was (and is) hot takes and scoops. “Media consumption is controlled these days by centralized tech platforms — Facebook, Twitter,” writes Jia Tolentino in her recent tribute to the sites, “whose algorithms favor what is viral, newsy, reactionary, easily decontextualized, and of general appeal.” The Awl and The Hairpin were none of these things.
Their kind of anarchic creed stood in stark contrast to everything that larger commercial enterprises championed, which was (and is) hot takes and scoops.
The Awl’s sensibility feels like a Russian nesting doll of digressions — digressions without any clear main thesis that they were digressing from. How far, how deep, how fucked up, how weird, how nonsensical can we get? In fact, it’s not entirely dissimilar to watching Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, whose origin date is more or less contemporaneous with The Awl’s and The Hairpin’s. Both the sites and the show embody a form of blithe meaninglessness that is very much of an era — and that we should be very sorry to lose. “The only way to deal with an unfree world,” writes Albert Camus, “ is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” That was the modus operandi for both The Awl and The Hairpin, and we need more of it. Especially now.
Like Adult Swim, the adult-oriented nighttime programming block of Cartoon Network that housed Tim and Eric, The Awl and The Hairpin say more in their ostensible meaninglessness than most dense academic prose every could. They both also straddle that beautiful line between not insulting your intelligence or sense of humor and not asking you to make sense of it.
Though so many Awl and Hairpin pieces leave me with more questions than I had before reading them, I am resigned to, even elated at the distinct possibility that most, if not all, of those questions are unanswerable. And I derive great joy from the fact that most Awl and Hairpin pieces are simply uncategorizable. It’s like they’ve gone off the grid or extricated themselves from the matrix of convention. They’ve done what we’ve all dreamt of doing: sticking it to the man, fucking off, and finding that ever elusive freedom. From what? The quotidian, the rat race, and everything that is boring. And perhaps most importantly, everything that is driven purely by profit.
Take Sarah Miller’s “Brad and Angie Go To Meet The African Pee Generator Girls.” Maybe, like me, when you first read it you thought: What the shit is this? In it, Angelina Jolie drags her whole family (Brad, Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax) over to Africa to find the “strong young African women who had just invented this amazing generator that made electricity out of human urine,” only to discover that these girls can’t just make something run using pee. They have to USE ELECTRICITY TO GET THE ELECTRICITY.
If you remember the “pee generator girls” story, though — it was a real story, with fake hype — it becomes clear that there’s a subversive logic underlying the piece’s apparent whimsicality. It’s an inside joke, lampooning the way that so many other sites were using a story about young African women inventing a urine-powered generator to get clicks. While those sites were acting in accordance with the internet attention economy, The Awl (through Miller) was acting in accordance with itself. The piece was a massive fuck you to the media’s fixation with clickbait concerning two sources of profitable traffic: “science news” and celebrity gossip. Other stories about the pee generator girls said “we don’t care if this is true, as long as you read it.” Miller’s piece said “I don’t really care if you read this, as long as I’m having fun.”
I can’t help but think of the Dadaist and Surrealist movements of the early 20th century. They were both (especially Dadaism) defiantly anti-art, committed to dismantling the traditional bourgeois notions of what art is. Stemming from this ideology, aren’t The Awl and The Hairpin exemplars of anti-writing, in a way? They house a great deal of content that goes against the grain of conventional writing practices and journalistic customs such as ledes and nut grafs. Some pieces are so rife with grammatical and syntactical transgressions (i.e.: odd, sometimes excessive, use of punctuation and cap locks galore) that I imagine it would send many old school editors into an absolute tizzy of indignation as though some rogue took a shit on their good china. Those who adhere to the tenets of tried-and-true writing methods, I imagine, not only find the content distasteful, but an affront to their very professional, and even personal, existence. Sometimes rules are meant to be learned and subsequently broken no matter the consequence. That’s freedom. That’s art.
The sensibility that both The Awl and The Hairpin employ is one of subversion. Thematically, formally, and stylistically, the sites diverged from the customary practice which, for most digital publications, was dependent upon Takes and what former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio called “traffic-whoring duty” and “gutter journalism.” The Awl and The Hairpin didn’t give a shit about traffic. And everything about the content they’ve peddled is testament to that, as well as their anarchic inclinations and propensity toward anti-commodification. The reason that The Awl voice reads as a kind of insurrection is because it was not a virtual product; it was a manifestation of a passionate pursuit. But now, in 2018, we’re seeing the kind of mercenary spirit, which invariably arises from massive commercial enterprises, with increasing frequency.
The reason that The Awl voice reads as a kind of insurrection is because it was not a virtual product; it was a manifestation of a passionate pursuit.
When writers are assigned tasks that are solely dedicated to driving traffic to so-and-so site at all costs, they are bound to produce varying degrees of shit. Not always, but inevitably some. And it’ll either obliterate morale or inflate it with a false, perhaps arbitrarily earned, sense of accomplishment. This is literally the antithesis of what The Awl and The Hairpin stand for. They were a respite from that kind of model, which is why their imminent end is all the more devastating. So, what does this signal for the forthcoming crop of writers, for the future of media, for online writing? Are we well and truly fucked?
There is a reason that the overall reaction to The Awl and The Hairpin’s fast approaching end was one of deep incredulity and woe. I don’t know about you, but my first thought was: Shit, our idols really are dead and our enemies really are in power. Both sites embody everything that stands in stark contrast to the most baleful byproducts of capitalism, chief among them, he who shall not be named and his confederacy of dunces. But as I continued to trawl Twitter and as I continued to read the tributes pouring forth, I felt hopeful. Like none of us were going to give up that good fight. And I could remember the last time I felt this way: It was at the Women’s March in D.C. one year ago. In the midst of great turmoil, we were able to muster a staggering amount of strength. In our united opposition to evil, we were able to give shape to our already set, though dormant, democratic impulses.
Just like I enjoyed seeing a sea of incendiary banners and listening to those righteous chants, I enjoyed hearing what everyone else’s favorite Awl and Hairpin pieces were, because it says a lot about their character: what gets them off, what makes them tick, what makes them gush and swell with pleasure. It also proves to me that though The Awl and The Hairpin will soon belong to the annals of the past, the Awlish sensibility will live on. And so will the camaraderie amongst weirdos it spawned.
I don’t know about you, but my first thought was: Shit, our idols really are dead and our enemies really are in power.
I thought The Awl — unlike the rest of the internet, so riddled with clickbait and so innately ephemeral in its up-to-dateness — had no expiration date. That the Weather Reviews would just go on ad infinitum as though they always existed. That every time a bizarre idea for a piece was percolating in my mind, I would have The Awl to, if not accept it, at least listen to and appreciate it.
But maybe I’m missing the point, which is this: The Awl and The Hairpin, despite all odds, existed. And they gave us a glimpse of a less traffic-driven world.
Each month “Unfinished Business” will examine an unfinished work left behind by one of our greatest authors. What might have been genius, and what might have been better left locked in the drawer? How and why do we read these final words from our favorite writers — and what would they have to say about it? We’ll piece together the rumors and fragments and notes to find the real story.
The year 2009 brought us Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, and Dan Brown’s third Robert Langdon novel. Whatever the biggest literary splash of the year was, it is safe to say that it was not the publication of The Original of Laura, a 32-year-old incomplete novel by Vladimir Nabokov.
It was supposed to be. The year before, when Nabokov’s son Dmitri announced at long last he had decided to publish the abandoned manuscript rather than following his father’s final order to burn it, the BBC announced that its release was “likely to be the literary event of 2009.” Instead, the book went almost unnoticed, and the critics who did notice it were unimpressed.
By 2008, when he made his final call on whether to go against his father’s wishes, Dmitri had agonized over the decision for much of his life. The request to destroy the unfinished novel was delivered by Vladimir on his deathbed to his wife (and Dmitri’s mother) Vera. She promised him she would burn the manuscript, but instead kept it locked in a Swiss bank vault away from reading eyes. But when she passed away in 1991, the partially-written book became Dmitri’s responsibility. He was torn — should he respect his father’s last request, or his mother’s hesitations?
Dmitri was torn — should he respect his father’s last request, or his mother’s hesitations?
It would take Dmitri almost 18 years to make up his mind. On the one hand, a promise was a promise. Nabokov may have felt that the manuscript was embarrassingly incomplete. On the other, hadn’t his own father lectured his students about how “fortunate” it was that Max Brod had not obeyed Kafka’s wish to burn his papers, and lamented Gogol’s decision to burn the sequels to Lost Souls? Was it not a tragedy that Lord Byron’s publisher had burned his scandalous memoir — against the poet’s wishes? And where would literature be if the Emperor Augustus had listened to Virgil’s deathbed request? Minus one Aeneid, at least.
“Dmitri’s dilemma” as it became known, divided critics and authors, even before a single page of the book had been released. An article in TheTimes of London asked how he should weigh “the demands of the literary world versus the posthumous rights of an author over his art.” Slate critic Ron Rosenbaum wrote pleadingly to Dmitri to save the work, while Tom Stoppard argued sternly against publication in TheTimes Literary Supplement. “It’s perfectly straightforward. Nabokov wanted it burnt, so burn it.” But others, like Edmund White, took the view that Nabokov was likely not really serious when he made the request. “If a writer really wants something destroyed, he burns it.” John Banville called the decision a “difficult and painful one” but eventually argued that “a great writer is always worth reading, even at his worst.”
Meanwhile, the literary world began to speculate on what the novel could be — there were rumors that it was highly erotic, which would have been unusual. Others speculated that it might have light to shed on accusations that Nabokov had plagiarized parts of Lolita or that it would address suspicions about his childhood abuse. In the imaginations of Nabokov’s devotees, The Original of Laura became the missing piece to any and every puzzle.
In the imaginations of Nabokov’s devotees, ‘The Original of Laura’ became the missing piece to any and every puzzle.
Tantalizing tidbits of the text kept popping up over that 18 years. Dmitri at one point read a few portions of Laura out loud to a centennial gathering of adoring scholars at Cornell. Some later claimed to have privately been permitted to read the entire, brilliant manuscript. The literary journal The Nabokovian held a contest of its members to see who could write the best replication of Nabokov’s style, and then published the winners alongside what they claimed to be two real fragments from Laura. Which were real? Which were the imitations?
In 1998 an essay on The Original of Laura by a Swiss scholar named Michel Desommelier was published on the Nabokov fan website Zembla, containing what were purported to be several excerpts from the novel. These were then verified as authentic by other scholars and even Dmitri himself. But they weren’t authentic. The whole thing turned out to be a loving and elaborate prank concocted by the site’s editor Jeff Edmunds.
If it all sounds a little like something out of a Nabokov novel, that may be no accident. Unfinished books, unanswerable questions, meta-games of uncertainty and imagination were just the kind of thing Nabokov most liked to engage in on the page. And as long as Laura remained unpublished, Nabokov fans had an everlasting puzzle. They could be like V. in The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, brooding over the literary works of a deceased icon, trying to figure out which parts were real. Or biographer Charles Kinbote in Pale Fire, and his wild speculative annotations of the not-quite-finished poem of John Shade — the origin of “Zembla,” a fictional kingdom that Kinbote invents in his footnotes.
Before his death, Nabokov himself had teased readers about his book-in-progress, saying that while the manuscript was “not quite finished,” it had already been “completed in his mind.” He spoke of it mysteriously, majestically. “I must have gone through it some 50 times, and in my diurnal delirium kept reading it aloud to a small dream audience in a walled garden,” he told The New York Times in 1976. “My audience consisted of peacocks, pigeons, my long dead parents, two cypresses, several young nurses crouching around, and a family doctor so old as to be almost invisible. Perhaps because of my stumblings and fits of coughing, the story of my poor Laura had less success with my listeners than it will have, I hope, with intelligent reviewers when properly published.”
But when, 32 years later, Dmitri finally released the novel to audiences, it would not find much succeess at all with those intelligent reviewers in Vladimir’s imagination.
In an interview with BBC2’s Newsnight about the ultimate decision to publish, Dmitri reasoned that his father “would have reacted in a sober and less dramatic way if he didn’t see death staring him in the face. He certainly would not have wanted it destroyed. He would have finished it.” Dmitri went on to explain that his father had once told him that Laura was among his most important books. “One doesn’t name a book one intends to destroy.”
Most critics, however, might have preferred he had.
Dmitri said his father had once told him that Laura was among his most important books. “One doesn’t name a book one intends to destroy.” Most critics, however, might have preferred he had.
The Wall Street Journal compared reading the book to watching Lou Gehrig try to play baseball after his illness in 1939. A German reviewer called it a “labyrinthine, overgrown garden without a gazebo in its center.” And Martin Amis, in The Guardian, felt that it was a cataclysmic disaster. “When a writer starts to come off the rails,” he wrote, “you expect skidmarks and broken glass; with Nabokov, naturally, the eruption is on the scale of a nuclear accident.”
Originally titled Dying is Fun, the novel was briefly to be called The Opposite of Laura before it was finally named The Original of Laura. The plot revolves around a scholar named Philip Wild who marries a woman named Flora because she reminds him of a previous lover named Aurora — the novel is meant to be the real story behind a novel that the narrator has written called My Laura, which has become a bestseller. Part of the story revolves around Flora, Aurora, and Laura. The rest centers on Philip’s preoccupation with his own death — of his long-standing fantasies of being able to erase himself like a figure on a chalk board, a wish for “self-deletion.”
This is about all that can be said of what turned out to be not even a manuscript but 138 handwritten notecards. Nabokov often used these for his first drafts before setting them into a final order for Vera to type up. The Laura cards had not yet been set in any kind of order, with only the first 60 or so forming any kind of linear narrative. Altogether the text totaled only around 30 typed pages. To those who had waited and wondered about Laura since the late 1970s, it must have been a little underwhelming.
To stretch 30 pages into something resembling a finished novel, the book was published by Knopf on heavy stock, with a color reproduction on each page of the original card, complete with scribbles and cross-outs, with the cleaned-up text typed below. Each image is cleverly perforated so that it might be punched out, like something on the back of a cereal box, and reshuffled in whatever order the reader pleased.
This construction is a reminder that the book should never have been judged as if it were complete. Indeed, there is no way to read it without being perpetually reminded of its incompleteness. As you flip the simple, smudgy cards, the book all but vanishes in your hands. And it is glorious — to be able to see the work as work, not a masterpiece but a process. Cut short by death, but in a fun way.
To drive the point home, the first and final pages are a reproduction of a single graph-lined paper, on which Nabokov was working out, perhaps, the right word to use somewhere. “Efface” is circled at the top, followed by, “expunge, erase, delete, rub out, (something scribbled out completely), wipe out, obliterate.”
The book should never have been judged as if it were complete. Indeed, there is no way to read it without being perpetually reminded of its incompleteness.
It is likely that, despite what Dmitri claimed about the novel’s importance, he knew it was no tour de force. According to The Guardian, his cousin Ivan, a publisher in France, had urged him to go ahead and destroy it. He and Dmitri had each read Laura, and Ivan recalled, “we were all of the same opinion. It was just a torso, and not a glorious torso.”
Dmitri’s real motivating factor, according to Ivan, was that Dmitri himself was not well. In his 70s and facing both steep medical bills and a poor prognosis, publishing the manuscript was more a financial decision than anything else. Indeed, he would pass away only a few years later.
In his forward to The Original of Laura, Dmitri owned up to some of this, admitting that he first read the note cards during a stay in the hospital. He wrote that once he had, the dilemma changed. The story became real in his mind. While he knew it was an “embryonic masterpiece” at best, he could no longer conceive of destroying it, even if he was not sure he ought to let anyone else see.
“Should I be damned or thanked?” he asks, in the forward. “‘But why, Mr. Nabokov, why did you really decide to publish Laura?’ Well, I am a nice guy, and, having noticed that people the world over find themselves on a first-name basis with me as they empathize with ‘Dmitri’s dilemma,’ I felt it would be kind to alleviate their sufferings.”
It is a bequest, then, to us — we the readers, we the puzzle-solvers. We Nabokovians and Zemblans. We who know that surely the notecards should not have been burned, just as, surely, they should not have been expected to be something they are not.
What they are is a frustrating, fabulous pile of fragments that can never be fully assembled. A dream ended by death, what remains is rough, resistant, and full of human flaw. They are, mostly, what is not there — the gaps and empty pages of one last story that never left the master’s mind. In this, I suspect Nabokov would have been quite pleased.
In the summer of 1816, a pregnant, unwed teenager had a nightmare.
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin — not yet Mary Shelley — was at Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with her lover, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The rainy summer often forced them indoors. Once, at the villa that Lord Byron was renting on the lakeshore, the party entertained one another by reading from a recent anthology of German ghost stories, Fantasmagoriana. Byron challenged them to each write a horrific fiction. “Have you thought of a story?” Shelley recalled that she was asked each morning — “and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.”
Then she suffered what would become one of the most famous nightmares in history: “I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.” The narrative grew in her imagination, and she followed it. Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus was published — anonymously, like so many novels of the time — in 1818. Not until the second edition four years later did Shelley put her name on the title page.
New ways of thinking about nature (and human nature) require new ways of writing, and the writer we now consider the founder of science fiction saw the need for fresh metaphors while still a teenager. She confidently declared her position, midway between science and fancy, in her introduction to the first edition: “It was recommended by the novelty of the situations which it develops; and, however impossible as a physical fact, affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of human passions more comprehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can yield.”
Young Mary’s first novel has lasted, in part, because the central figure quickly strode off the page and into popular culture.
Shelley’s sentence could serve as a manifesto for her novel’s successors and for fantastic tales in general. Frankenstein explored the ancient themes of literature: anguished dread of mortality, the consequences of obsession— inevitably hubris and its consequent ate—and the divine retribution that in mythology always follows overweening pride.
The Penguin Classics bicentennial edition is out this month.
Young Mary’s first novel has lasted, in part, because the central figure quickly strode off the page and into popular culture. Nowadays the cobbled-together, nameless “monster” — long mistakenly known by his creator’s name — is familiar to millions who have never read the novel. He is a stock figure in horror movies, a favorite of editorial cartoonists, a cautionary fable about science.
Tales of creation gone awry range from Pinocchio to the Gingerbread Man, from the Clay Boy of Czech folktales to the endless recreations of the protean monster conjured by Victor Frankenstein. The critic Michael Dirda listed some of Mary Shelley’s themes apparent to an attentive reader: “the persistent interconnection of sex, birth, and death; the mirroring of monster and creator; the conflict between instinctive goodness and the societal creation of the criminal; the power of nature to soften and civilize; the human yearning for sympathy and love.”
In the 200 years since the novel’s publication, we’ve had bad imitations and truly inspired Frankenstinian progeny. Spanning the late 1800s to the Brexit era, here are 8 books that owe their life to the original creator.
The first book inspired by young Mary’s 1818 book was her own 1831 revision of it. By this time, she had published other novels, established herself, somewhat transcended her scandalous youth, and become the keeper of the Romantics’ flame. The 1818 edition presents a stronger, unadulterated view of Shelley’s dark vision. In her introduction to the 1831 update, Shelley explicitly stated, “I have changed no portion of the story,” and claimed that her revisions were limited to matters of style. Actually she greatly altered the spirit and implications of the story. She also saluted the memory of her brief but life-changing romance with Percy Shelley, who had died in a boating accident on the north-western coast of Italy in 1822. And she removed the epigraph that haunted the opening in 1818, from Milton’s Paradise Lost:
Robert Louis Stevenson’s now legendary 1886 novella TheStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde could not have been written without Shelley’s pioneer novel. Stevenson wove many contemporary issues into his story, beginning with well-known case studies of dual personality, but they gained resonance when he mixed in evolutionary fears and the recent notion of the violent criminal as an atavistic reversion to our species’ brute past. Like Shelley, Stevenson explored the horror of unleashing the primitive id. Two years later, when Jack the Ripper began to terrorize Whitechapel, the newspapers immediately referred to Mr. Hyde, to the lurking midnight viciousness of humanity.
In the original Hebrew Bible and the later Christian Psalms, the word golem meant a kind of unformed material, a potent clay. Over time it became the name of the classic Hebrew Frankenstein, an anthropoid creature formed of mundane earth and animated by supernatural rather than by science-fictional methods. Victim and villain, as potent in its ambiguity as Frankenstein’s monster, the golem stalks through folklore and into recent literature. It is difficult to imagine a more dryly amusing monster story than “The Golem” (1955) by the richly talented Avram Davidson, known mostly for his science fiction. It’s available in numerous collections.
The British science fiction writer and historian of science fiction, Brian Aldiss, sent a time-traveling twenty-first-century character back to Shelley’s time in his bloody but thoughtful 1990 novel Frankenstein Unbound. The title and big-picture themes echo the work of both Mary Shelley and her husband Percy’s poetic drama Prometheus Unbound. Roger Corman, director of everything from a series of Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price to the pioneer biker movie The Wild Angels, adapted Aldiss’s novel in 1990.
Frankenstein lumbered easily into the twentieth century. 2009 saw publication of The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley’s versatile and prolific countryman, Peter Ackroyd. Author of books about everyone from the poet Thomas Chatterton to London Underground, as well as of a biography of Dickens as manically creative and long-winded as its subject, Ackroyd knows how to conjure the past. This novel is sometimes pastel in hue and pedestrian in pacing, but it reaches heights of thoughtful homage to Shelley’s original.
As recently as 2013, Stephanie Hemphill tackled a lyrical free-verse account of creator and monster in Hideous Love. As in her verse novel Your Own, Sylvia, about Sylvia Plath, Hemphill was inspired again by the genesis of a troubled young female writer. She focuses on Shelley rather than upon Frankenstein and his monster, but young Mary’s Gothic imagination grew out of this period.
In 2015 Jon Skovron published a book that I have not yet read but which is on my bedside table. The beautifully refractive title Man Made Boy hints at the complexity and wit of this acclaimed YA novel built around the story of Boy, the ill-fated offspring of Frankenstein’s monster and his equally scary bride. Boy has never walked freely in the world above the catacombs beneath Times Square, from which he and his family and other legendary monsters appear in public as a theater troupe. As much a child of the new millennium as of mythic monsters, Boy is a computer wizard who conjures a virus that, naturally, gets as out of control as the genesis of his own parents.
In the era of Trump and Brexit, it should be no surprise that the mythic tale of a raging monster inspired by blind hubris continues to flourish. The bleak year of 2016 saw publication of Spare and Found Parts, an elegant and thoughtful debut YA novel by Sarah Maria Griffin. Set in an apocalyptic near-future following a technological breakdown, the story follows Nell Starling-Crane, whose loudly ticking clockwork heart sets her apart even from the many other characters whose prosthetic augmentations enable them to survive in this anti-technology era. Secretly outwitting the ban against technology, young Nell builds an android whose creation and adventures raise as many thoughtful questions as its inspiration — Mary Shelley’s nightmare precisely two centuries earlier.
The first time I fought back against a man, it was a boy. I was twelve. It was snowing.
The boy in question had been trying to force my friend’s face into a snowbank while she wept. I don’t remember his name, or what he looked like, or much about what happened save the rage I felt. One minute we were standing on icy North Carolina streets in oversized ski coats, the next we were in the snowbank and my fist was full of his hair and I was pulling him off her and shoving him face first into the snow. I remember holding his head down as he squirmed and my friend cried and her sister jumped up and down clapping and singing “he’s going to get frostbite, make him get frostbite.”
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Judith and the Head of Holofernes, 1530
This is that frightening wilderness of girlhood. That brazen and ferocious place of the untamed. We are still allowed to be bold.
I let him up when concerned parents came running over at the sound of our fight.
“You could have smothered him, you could have given him frostbite, you could have seriously hurt him.”
Twelve-year-old girls do not respond, “I know. That was the point.”
Nobody asked: but why did you do it? What drove you to it? All they saw was a girl going mad.
Here’s a story:
Holofernes is busy invading the land of the Israelites with the Assyrian army. During this time Judith, a widow, and her maid Salome, infiltrate the Assyrian army with promises to sell out their people.
On the fourth day of the siege Holofernes gives a banquet. He goes to Bagoas, his aide, and says “Go and persuade that Hebrew woman Judith to come and join me. I should be disgraced if I let a woman like her go without seducing her. If I do not seduce her, everyone will laugh at me!”
Bagoas tells Judith Holofernes’ orders and she goes to his tent accordingly. Holofernes, overwhelmed by her beauty, is seized with a violent desire to sleep with her. Indeed, since the first day he saw her, he had been waiting for an opportunity to seduce her.
Cristofano Allori, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1613
“Drink then!” Holofernes says. “Enjoy yourself!”
Judith replies, “I am delighted to do so, my lord, for since my birth I have never felt my life more worthwhile than today.”
Holofernes is so enchanted with her that he drinks far more wine than he had on any other day in his life. Eventually, it grows late and his staff and officers hurry away to their beds and Judith and Salome are left alone in the tent with Holofernes who has collapsed, wine-sodden, on his bed.
After stationing Salome outside to keep watch and pretend that everything is fine, Judith goes to the bedpost by Holofernes’ head and takes down his scimitar. Coming closer to the bed she grabs his head by his hair and says, “Make me strong today, Lord God of Israel!”
She strikes twice at his neck with all her might and cuts off his head.
Note: It is in the twelfth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign over the Assyrians that the Book of Judith begins.
Later, my mom says that while she is proud I stood up for my friend, I should “make sure to use words next time. Don’t learn to think with fists.”
Never mind that we had shouted at the boy till we were hoarse but he didn’t stop. We flung tears at him, we screamed. He kept going and going. My friend’s sister had pulled at his arm but she was younger and smaller. I was his size, or thereabouts, and so it fell to me to do the defending.
Only later did I wonder where all those protective parents were when we had been wailing. When our words were met with silence, what other weapons did we have?
My mom says that while she is proud I stood up for my friend, I should ‘make sure to use words next time.’
Why is Judith, who disrupted the natural order by taking on the man’s role of defender and soldier, positioned as a hero within the early modern Christian narrative? Indeed, she is so honored she was envisioned, from early 4th-century Church fathers onwards, as a prototype Virgin Mary, a particularly sacred position to occupy in that time.
Here’s the tension: we have Judith as hero and admirable woman who killed her would-be rapist, but women today, stepping forward to name their assaulters are liars, rumor-mongers, sluts. Why this contrast, despite the married themes of resistance?
Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, c. 1598–1599
Much of this comes from the structuring of Judith’s story and her character. Within the Book of Judith, accepted into the Christian canon by the aptly named Pope Innocent I, there is delineation of Good and Evil. The Good represented by the Israelites and the Evil by the Assyrians. In the invasion scenario, in which this story operates, there is little to no space for conflicting morality or questioning who is in the right for their actions, no matter how gruesome. The stakes are too high. It is these extremes that allow for Judith’s story to function as a tale of heroics rather than one of “poor choices.”
This complicates Judith’s actions and the reception of her as hero. Judith is a devout woman with phenomenal faith in the Lord, saving the Israelites from a cruel and ruthless invader by ingratiating herself with the Assyrians and eventually beheading their general. In this situation Judith’s story cements the fact that resistance is only acceptable when acted out by certain people, performing in a certain manner, and in a limited set of situations.
Despite these complications, Judith has long been positioned as a hero by Christians. While she always had her admirers, her heyday was predominantly in the early modern period (roughly mid-1400 to late 1700), when some of the most famous imagery of her was produced. The peak was from 1500 to late 1600, most especially in Italy. Much of this has to do with the alignment of Florence with the “underdog” identity. In contrast with the big players on the peninsular stage — the Habsburgs, Rome, Milan — Florence saw itself as David against Goliath, Judith against Holofernes. All of this is to say that during this period there was an escalation in the adoration of Judith and the homage paid to her in prayer and in paintings.
The acceptance of Judith as a hero worthy of commemoration relies on two married aspects of her story and character: religiosity and purity.
The acceptance of Judith as a hero relies on two married aspects of her story and character: religiosity and purity.
Judith exemplifies the ideal religious woman and therefore is permitted to act in traditionally immoral ways. She dines with a man who is not her husband, wears revealing clothing, spends time in a war camp without a male chaperone, and eventually commits murder. While these acts were done in extreme circumstances, and for the sake of saving her people, another woman doing them of less visible devotion to the Lord would have been tainted.
In the end, her actions are permitted not only because she is a religious woman, but also because she remains pure and virtuous. Judith is not raped. There is no taint on her physically or spiritually. Oh, Holofernes wants to, intends to, but he is dead before he can try. Had he succeeded, the Book of Judith would most likely be a very different story.
In the current #MeToo outpourings we see the expectations that Judith lived up to mapped onto the experiences of survivors coming forward.
When a story is told by a survivor it is dissected. Torn apart to see if the woman’s character stands up to the saintly expectations. If the woman was drinking, at a party, has done something wrong in the past, her entire story becomes risible. She is not virtuous enough to believe; not pure enough to mourn the “loss” of.
During trials this becomes especially prescient, although it plays out every day, in one way or another, on social media. In rape and assault trials it is the woman’s character on the stand, not her assailant’s. The moment there is nuance: she was raped but continued on in the relationship; she was coerced; she was drunk; she said “yes, yes, but not that” but he did it anyway, it becomes a requirement to see how worthy the woman is of “forgiveness” for her “mistakes” that clearly lead to this moment.
It is that appalling paradox where the more the woman said no, the more she resisted, the more she is believed. But, the more silenced she was during the assault, the more silenced she is coming forward. The more un-Godly her life, the less important her words. As if the inches of skin shown or drinks had work backwards against the number of words you are allowed to have to make your experience believed.
Many of the stories coming out now, especially those involving powerful men, are further complicated by the positioning of men’s “love” as “God-like” and “desirable,” and so women are supposed to react by feeling “honored” for the supposed “blessing” of this male attention. Men say “I want,” and women say “thank you.”
Judith herself responded to Holofernes with, “I am delighted to do so, my lord, for since my birth I have never felt my life more worthwhile than today.”
Men say ‘I want,’ and women say ‘thank you.’
Judith’s story, if Holofernes had succeeded, would not bear up well under the scrutiny of trial or social media. He was a powerful man deigning to pay attention to this widow. There would be accusations that she lead him on, that she knowingly went to his house, that she drank with him. And, in the end, her words would be thrown back at her: why did you say you felt worthwhile when he asked you to drink? Why didn’t you just say no?
Women’s words are weaponized against them to silence and delegitimize.
Note: If you are virtuous and God-fearing you will not be assaulted. If you are assaulted you are then, necessarily, not virtuous or God-fearing.
It becomes complicated, being taught that you must worship a being that will love you whether you want it or not. A being that will send His spirit to move through you whether you want it or not. A being whose non-consensual love is supposed to keep you safe.
If God’s love is unconditional, without end, and non-consensual, where lies my spiritual virtue? Or is that, like my physical virtue, a conquest to be taken?
When Judith prays to the Lord He answers her. She credits all her strength and success in defeating Holofernes to the Lord and her faith in Him.
The first time I prayed in earnest was after seeing an X-Files episode where the Devil comes out of the closet to impregnate a woman. I was seven and staying at my dad’s house in a bedroom that the previous occupant died in. His clothes were in my closet.
The next time I prayed in earnest was after watching Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Convinced Dracula was lurking in my closet, I hid beneath sheets and whispered prayers until I fell asleep. I prayed away much of my youth to closets.
At the time, I subscribed my spiritual safety and preservation of holy virtue from blood suckers and demons to this obsessive praying.
However, I lost what minimal faith I had when I learned in Sunday school that my grandpa and cousin were going to hell since they weren’t Christians. I objected that they were the best people I knew. The most moral, kind, brutally truthful and honest people. The youth pastor said, “It doesn’t matter if they haven’t accepted Christ as their savior.”
It becomes complicated, being taught that you must worship a being that will love you whether you want it or not.
At fifteen I began taking a train and bus to school as we lived a town over. On the bus route an older man began talking to me. He must have been in his mid to late 20s. I remember the dirty blond hair, pockmarks, and his penchant for wearing all black and Metallica t-shirts. I was going to a Catholic high school and wore my uniform grey pleated skirt to the knees, polo shirt, cardigan, knee socks, black shoes, hair in a ponytail.
I was doing everything right. I was covered, I didn’t instigate conversation, I had my old Nokia cell phone in hand.
But I was also taught to be polite and that when someone asks you a question you’re supposed to respond. He asked me about Monty Python and the Napoleon biography I carried around. Before long he was buying me gifts and liked to lean across the aisle and touch my shoulder. He invited me to a beach party at the end of the school year. It’d be fun, a bunch of his friends on the beach, a bonfire, some barbecue.
I considered it. I spoke with my friends about it. Constructed lies to tell my mom should she ask. I looked for him in the days following to tell him that I would go even though I felt, rather than knew, something was wrong. I had even figured out the bus route there.
But shortly after that invite, he stopped showing up on the bus. The driver, a gentle, older man, said, “he switched routes.”
I didn’t pray through the entirety of it, even as I became increasingly uncomfortable and aware that something was off. I am no Judith. I find prayer lacks purpose, my words to Him frail, without strength.
I’ve little patience for the supposed protection devotion to the Lord is meant to supply. I long stopped praying to God for safety from closet devils and vampires.
I credit my escape to sheer dumb luck in bus drivers.
Judith’s story can be read as that “ideal” assault we’re taught to expect. A pure, virtuous woman fights off her assaulter and is not “used.” Her resistance is before and during the attack.
This is how we have always been told it’s supposed to be: woman in dark alleyway is attacked by a man, screams, shouts, beats him off, runs. Saves her virtue. She’ll still be shamed for having been in the dark alleyway, for having worn something inviting, but at least she did the right thing of fighting off the assailant. At least she preserved her honor.
Being assaulted only to fight back after is not how the story is supposed to go. Then it’s not self-defense. Then it’s just a ruined woman taking revenge.
“If you were truly scared, truly didn’t want it, why didn’t you scream? Why didn’t you run? Why didn’t you fight back?”
Being assaulted only to fight back after is not how the story is supposed to go.
Any positioning of “how assault is supposed to go” ignores the many valid reasons of why people don’t fight back: the power dynamic of the relationship, fear, inability to resist and so on and so forth. These reasons are often also tied to why many don’t report. Such questions also undermine the fact that most assault and abuse situations do not fit one specific narrative, making it more difficult for many survivors not only to articulate their experiences, but also to be believed.
The absence of narrative, of words, is important. A fatigue of language occurs when you do not have adequate means to express your experiences. The way we cross-examine survivors whose assault doesn’t fit the expected narrative — “Why didn’t your assault look like Judith’s? Like that one show? Like we heard about in sex-ed?” — facilitates the fatigue. It seeks to remove words (“assault,” “abuse,” “rape”) from the already-limited vocabulary survivors can use to tell their stories.
On top of that, women fighting back are understood as angry, disruptive and dangerous to the social structures that benefit (predominantly white, straight, cis) men. If we are to fight, we’re only to do it in the strictest of circumstances which have been pre-approved for us: stranger in a dark street. Stranger in a car. Stranger in your home. Stranger.
No one gives you the language for when you know the person and everyone you know knows the person. No one gives you the language for when it’s a small, and already marginalized, community. No one gives you the language for when it’s your friend or partner or parent or teacher.
Judith, to the benefit of her posthumous image, had that “perfect” story. Holofernes was a stranger, the general of an invading army. Judith was a devout woman who performed her religious duties to perfection thus solidifying her credibility within her community. This is not to take away from Judith’s experience, but to position the acceptance of her resistance compared to other women who have resisted now, and throughout time, only to face smear campaigns and violence.
It is impossible for us to live up to the expectations of womanly saintliness thrust upon us when, by our very words, we admit we are no Judith, let alone a Virgin Mary.
By not reaching the sword in time we are become Magdalenes.
Here’s another story:
I was drunk at a party with a guy I’d been on a few dates with who was a friend of a co-worker. We went up to my room. I said “yes, yes, but not that.” He ignored the “not that,” which, in this case, was sex without a condom. I only realized what happened when it was over. He was asleep (curled up, hair on my pillow. I find his briefs under my bed a week later). I washed off and go downstairs crying. He was kicked out by a friend, but somehow came back inside and went up to my room and wanted to touch me, kiss me, his face was pressed between the door and the frame ‘Here’s Johnny’ style and he was saying “but I love you, I love you, I love you” and I was shaking and didn’t want to make a big deal of everything and once he was gone I was fine. Everything was fine. I just had to get the morning after pill and deal with an STI six months later because I was pissing blood and he was violating me all over again.
Afterwards, I don’t know whether my co-workers talked about me behind my back. But I know how they talked about another woman who was assaulted after I left that workplace because a year later a colleague messaged me, “do you want to know the latest drama?”
I said I did. I then heard how they thought she made it up, or exaggerated, or blew the entire situation out of proportion. I know how they said she was “ruining the atmosphere” and how all sides of the story should be heard and if she doesn’t like it here, she should just leave. I know the vicious way they gossiped about her online and how they, like so many, reduced her experience to “drama” and “sex scandal.”
I was drunk and wearing revealing clothing. I had gone on dates with the guy. He was a nice dude with a young son. He was a musician and talented. I don’t know how they talked about me, but I can guess.
I didn’t do anything to stop him because I didn’t have a chance. There wasn’t even a moment for prayer.
Note: A believable woman is pure, devout, sacred, untouched and, above all, rational.
A believable woman is pure, devout, sacred, untouched and, above all, rational.
Note: No woman who is pure, devout, sacred, untouched, and rational should find herself in a situation to be assaulted. If she does, it had better be for a good reason. Like stopping an invading army.
“Drink then!” Holofernes says. “Enjoy yourself!”
Getting a person drunk, the oldest trick in the book. Alcohol is, after all, the original date rape drug.
When I was 19 my first boyfriend, then 24, liked to make date rape jokes. If I called them that he’d become patronizing and say that it’s “just humor. Another glass of madeira, m’dear?” He liked to tell me that I was an old soul; if I was as mature as he thought I was, he said, I’d be interested in the kinds of sex he was proposing. He’d compare me to his ex-girlfriend, saying, “well she liked it when we did this or that, so you should too. Should we have another cider?”
I was roofied at a bar when I was 20. I had gone out with a friend to an event that was supposed to be safe and ended up wandering the streets. I have only two memories from that night: curling up on the ground outside a store front thinking I’ll just sleep there for the night, and two very helpful young men getting me a cab, paying for it and a bottle of water and sending me home. I was extraordinarily lucky, all things considered.
The next morning the friend asked, “but are you sure you were roofied? Are you sure you’re not overreacting? Are you sure? It was a queer event, we were in a safe space. That couldn’t have happened.”
Then there was the girl I dated for a time who liked to make sure we didn’t eat and that I drank a lot so I was too drunk to put up much of a fight when it came to sex. She’d undo my bra strap in public while talking about the need for consent. She had all the right lingo for it, all those good words about boundaries and the importance of enthusiasm.
I am unlearning my inability to say no. My inability to use words to negotiate for myself. When I learned “don’t learn to think with your fists” I also learned that I am to be nice and accommodating and I shouldn’t be a burden. That there was nothing worse than taking up space and being difficult.
At least when Judith went to the Assyrians she knew she was in enemy territory. Especially while the wine flowed. At least Judith knew she would have to go to all lengths to keep herself safe. At least Judith knew how to use a sword on top of how to pray.
Women are taught prayers, words of gentleness, but not how to fight.
When Judith is portrayed in early modern art she is most often shown at the height of her triumph. Her hand in Holofernes’ hair, his own sword through his neck, there is blood, her grim determination contrasted with his pain.
While in the Biblical story Salome, the maid, is not present during the beheading, I think it important that in the art she is. In Gentileschi’s magnificent Judith Slaying Holofernes, Salome is even holding the man down as Judith cuts. There is as much rage on her face as on Judith’s. It is important to note that these captivating portraits of Judith by Gentileschi are most likely born out of her own experience of rape.
Gentileschi’s story, like many, is not the ideal. She continued the affair with the man who raped her, hoping he would marry her and bestow upon her that respectability necessary for women of her time. Without it, she would be without “honor” and “virtue.” It is no surprise that we can easily trace her face onto Judith’s in all three of the paintings she completed based on this story.
In our current beheading process it is necessary for there to be those who hold down and those who hack the head off. Sometimes, we take turns. Survivors are supporting each other as we each come out of the darkness and behead the monster — in this case, patriarchy, rape culture, toxic masculinity.
The use of intimate space in most paintings of Judith inverts our usual portrayal of assault. It is Holofernes’ bed that is defiled, not Judith’s. It is his tent made uncanny as a result of the repercussions of his violence.
When survivor’s pain is used as a muse it is our blood on the sheets. In these paintings it is Holofernes’ soaking the white linen. It is his bed that becomes un-familiarized by the act of violence rather than the woman’s. It is his tent, his home in foreign land, which becomes horror.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, c.1625
The intimate lighting, sumptuous curtains, the details of side tables, used sheets, cushions, pillows all add to the homely nature which is disturbed by the brutal act we are witnessing. But, as much as it is brutal, it is also cleansing.
Holofernes is cast into the dark. With his twisted, grotesque head bundled away in a sack, he is rendered irrelevant. In Gentleschi’s Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, it is difficult to even see Holofernes’ head so obscured is it in shadow. It is Judith and Salome in the light.
This is not the painting of modern times. Even now, those coming forward with stories of abuse, assault and rape are met with silence, with accusations against their name, their integrity. Often, it is the survivor who is interpreted as monstrous for wanting justice. It is them pushed into shadows. Even more so when their abuser is popular, powerful, famous, artistic. These people go too far! They’re ruining careers of talented men! (Never mind the careers of talented women who have been silenced and suppressed by these powerful men.) Then, the litany of questions: Why didn’t you say something sooner? What are you getting out of this? What if you’re lying? Where’s the proof?
In our current beheading process it is necessary for there to be those who hold down and those who hack the head off.
While the stories gain a wider audience than anything in Judith’s time (or Gentileschi’s) and, as a result, are able to generate greater conversations about rape culture, feminism, and assault there remains strong backlashes. Women have been hounded off social media after receiving hundreds of rape and death threats. Some women have found themselves black-balled in their chosen occupation either by their assaulters or by their assaulters’ friends.
In some cases, those coming forward risk doxxing, or worse. They risk their homes becoming unsafe, unfamiliar, yet again. Home becoming horror because they resisted. Because they did not act as a proper victim should and play the correct role within that limited script we are given.
It should be the perpetrators of assault experiencing a fatigue of language. It should be their homes becoming uncanny, not their victims and survivors.
Fede Galizia, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1596
Sometimes, I go back through the texts sent to me by Mr. STI. He texted me for more than four months afterwards, cataloguing all the places around town he saw me. “Hey I just saw you at X grocery store” or “I think I saw you at the gym” or “Was that you at the taco place.” I think he thought it romantic. Or flattering. Or he saw Love Actually one too many times.
The first night I met him someone described him as “a hotter, young Johnny Depp” which, as a compliment, has aged badly. Thinking on him now, I think he looked a bit like Holofernes. Longish hair, trimmed beard, tall. The last message he sent me was, “hey, I saw you yesterday in the grocery store at Plaza Bella.” It was sent at 6:38pm.
What draws me to Judith is the part of her that was twelve-year old me. She had that wildness that fought back. Somewhere along the way I lost my ability to grab a man by his hair to stop him from hurting others.
This is, perhaps, why men are so scared of the #MeToo deluge, the lists we make, the whisper networks we create. Because it’s the one space our words do matter and have power — even if they didn’t protect us when we needed them, at least they can protect others.
We are trying to reach up to the scimitar on the bedpost. When we do, the world should be frightened.
Note: When Judith returned with the head of Holofernes she held it up for all her people to see and said, “Look, the head of Holofernes cut off by the hand of a woman.”
The perfect novel for the Me Too movement was released in the U.S. October 2017 — the month the Weinstein revelations broke. You couldn’t ask for more brilliant cosmic timing — except that few Americans seem to be reading or talking about Naomi Alderman’s The Power. During the holidays I searched display after display of new releases at our massive suburban Barnes and Noble and couldn’t find it. It was missing from Washington, DC’s left-leaning Busboys and Poets. The Power has been critically lauded — it won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in the UK and made plenty of “Best Books” lists for 2017 here in the U.S. By now it should be launching a thousand thinkpieces, but instead…silence. How can this be?
The premise of the novel is straightforward and mesmerizing: teenage girls suddenly acquire the ability to cause pain and death by twisting an electric “skein” inside their collarbones and sending out a charge through their hands. Their rage is “pure and white and electric” as they rain vengeance down on their rapists and abusers. Talk about “time’s up.” Reading this novel against the background of each new sexual harassment revelation this past fall was exhilarating — and terrifying. I was surprised at how viscerally I recognized the anger in The Power; I could almost feel it sizzling in my own collarbone, traveling down my limbs. Yes, I thought, here is a white-hot blade to divide truth from lies, just from unjust. Yes, women’s anger will be one of the things that saves us.
Not so fast, Alderman warns.
As sweet as it is to see justice meted out, The Power will not let us rest here. Alderman rejects the sentimental assumption that if women had life-and-death power they would always use it benignly. A foster kid reinvents herself as Mother Eve, founds an appealing new religion based on nurture and healing, but asserts her authority through deception. A girl named Roxy takes over her powerful crime family and expands its reach by selling a new drug that is also a weapon. Most brutally, the women who emerge from the sex trafficking capital of the world themselves become sexual torturers, rapists and mass-murderers. Alderman seems to suggest that power itself is the problem. Anyone who has it, male or female, will abuse it — in one of the book’s refrains — just because they can.
Alderman seems to suggest that power itself is the problem. Anyone who has it, male or female, will abuse it just because they can.
This isn’t how the “Me Too” movement has unfolded — women have come forward to change the balance of power without abusing power themselves; they’ve called for a new ethos of dignity and respect that benefits men and women alike. But the “Me Too” movement must grapple with the same questions The Power does: how did we allow this culture of abuse to stand for so long? And how do we undertake the hard work of imagining the world differently?
Reading The Power during the sexual harassment allegations gave me an uncomfortable answer to that first question: The culture of abuse has persisted because too many of us, myself included, have been complicit. I discovered that I’m much more alarmed and disgusted by sexual abuse when it’s perpetuated against men. For example, the book describes male genital mutilation or “curbing,” which not only limits male pleasure but makes it “impossible for a man to achieve an erection without skein stimulation by a woman” and leaves many of its victims unable to orgasm without pain. Obscene, almost unthinkable that a man’s body would be made to betray itself in this way; that such suffering would be wreaked at the very center of who he is. And yet. Of course. Whole cultures have justified — still justify — doing this to women.
As I watched where my sympathies landed in Alderman’s alternative reality, I realized that the sexual abuse of women is so familiar — such constant background music, such a 21st-century narrative cliché — that it no longer registers with the visceral force it should. When the Weinstein revelations first came out, I confess that I shrugged. I thought: in an industry where beauty and charisma are for sale, of course this is how it works. I wasn’t so much surprised by the men’s behavior as by everyone around them who sort of knew, who behaved as though this was sort of okay. Alderman’s upside-down world shocked me into understanding that I’m one of those people. I’ve let my expectations be set by cultural norms that are hostile to women.
I realized that the sexual abuse of women is so familiar that it no longer registers with the visceral force it should.
So how do we imagine different norms, a different world? It can’t be a coincidence that the “Me Too” movement began in Hollywood, where our cultural myths are writ large. The Power asks us to think about who gets to make those myths. In one delicious aside we learn that once the women take over, men’s movie clubs mushroom underground. The men watch “particular kinds of movie over and over again: the ones with explosions and helicopter crashes and guns and muscles and punching.” And I think of the energy I’ve wasted pretending this narrow genre of movies is interesting. I’ve nodded along to the idea that they are universally appealing, “blockbusters,” while movies that have actual relevance to my life as a woman are small, minor, lucky to break even — or worse, “chick lit.”
In another scene, the novel’s only male protagonist, a journalist from Lagos, files his reports about the dark side of women’s new power and is told: “Sorry, not something we can sell right now.” No violence is necessary to kill a story those in power don’t wish to hear; all they have to do is shrug in the direction of the marketplace. It’s not enough for new stories to be told — as we’ve seen with the “Me Too” movement, they also need to be seen, believed, and shared.
No violence is necessary to kill a story those in power don’t wish to hear; all they have to do is shrug in the direction of the marketplace.
This returns us to the question of why The Power itself hasn’t made a bigger splash, despite the brilliance of its timing. Instead we spent the end of 2017 talking about the retread of Blade Runner and the latest Star Wars movie. Yes, the last Jedi turns out to be a young woman, and the movie gives us female leaders played indelibly by Carrie Fisher and Laura Dern, but the patriarchal backbone of the story remains unmistakable. The question at its emotional core is still: Who’s your father? Our culture has grown more comfortable with female protagonists, but the silence around The Power suggests it still can’t make much space for female anger. Instead it seeks comfort by returning to the old stories.
Nothing will change until we start reading and telling new stories.
The new stories may not be so comforting. I flinched at the apocalyptic violence of Alderman’s vision and wanted to reject her apparent pessimism about how women would use their power, but it stimulated far deeper and more lasting reflection than — say — Wonder Woman’s idealized vision of female benevolence. I could disagree with Alderman’s premise that men’s power has come from their ability to physically harm women, but only if I asked myself where I thought it came from. How is it that women throughout history have allowed this to happen, and how have they been resisting all along? If women would wield power differently, then how? And how would we resist the temptations of corruption? If we are brave and honest enough to say “Me too,” then we are brave and honest enough to ask ourselves these questions.
If women would wield power differently, then how? And how would we resist the temptations of corruption?
Alderman’s speculative fiction spurred my own: what if we applied “extreme vetting” to the problem of mass shootings and made a law that only women can use firearms? What if we remade all the guns so the triggers would only respond to people with a double-x chromosome? What if we changed the Constitution so that only women lawmakers were permitted to make laws affecting birth control and abortion? What if all the pro-choice and pro-life women got together and closed the door and fought and cried and told their truths, and emerged with a vision of human rights that accounts for the fact that we all enter this earth through a woman’s body? What if we treated sexual violence as the gender terrorism it is and made it a point of patriotism and pride and our existential survival as a nation to mobilize all our resources to fight it?
The Power not only revitalizes the revolutionary power of speculative fiction; it does what the best literature does, helping us see that the world could be different. This is exactly the complex, difficult, unsparingly truthful imagining we need to do now.
My first encounter with the poetry of William Butler Yeats came not in high school or college, or even in my endless days spent in my town’s public library. It came from the Cranberries.
It was 1994 and I, like everyone else I knew, walked around with their song “Zombie” in my head pretty much every day, crushing out on Dolores O’Riordan’s mysterious ability to growl and lilt at the same time, wishing I had the nerve to chop off all my hair and dye it platinum to copy her pixie cut. I didn’t know it at the time, but when I finally bought the album No Need to Argue (on cassette!), I was about to get a crash course in what would become one of my literary obsessions: how women haunt (and are haunted by) the male poets that came before them.
Most of the laments and tributes published since Dolores O’Riordan’s sudden death focus on her voice, not her lyrics. This is understandable: without that iconic vocal sound (New York Times: “plaintive” but “flinty;” Vulture: “cracking” and “yawping”), there would be no such thing as the Cranberries. But what mattered most to me about the Cranberries wasn’t their sound: it was the moldering body of William Butler Yeats, and the way Dolores O’Riordan seemed to be dancing on it.
It wasn’t a hit or even a single, but the song that obsessed me most from those early Cranberries albums was “Yeats’ Grave,” from No Need to Argue. (Later, I’d encounter W.H. Auden’s version of Yeats’ corpse — “The words of a dead man / Are modified in the guts of the living.” Is this a poetic rite of passage, this Yeatsian grave-watching?) What I loved about “Yeats’ Grave” as a teenage girl just starting to write her own poetry was the drama of it — the swooping, rather taunting tone of it, the suggestion of romance and humanness behind the legendary writer’s name. The song was about Yeats but also not about him: it seemed to be about O’Riordan, too, and maybe about any young woman who is reckoning with the Dead White Men in all the bookshelves.
Now, I can see more clearly the structure behind that drama I sensed; after all, I’ve spent my adult life learning how lyric poetry works. So here’s a bit of analysis, my adult self explaining to teenage me why the song matters.
The song’s speaker identifies with Yeats, both in his life (imagining sitting with him at the Lake Isle of Innisfree) and in death (speaking “here / in the grave” with him). To complicate matters further, O’Riordan then quotes Yeats in the song, speaking lines from “No Second Troy.”
Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire?
This poem, about Maud Gonne, the Irish feminist and revolutionary with whom Yeats was deeply obsessed, compares Gonne to a new Helen but with no “Troy for her to burn.”
It’s unsettling, hearing O’Riordan recite the lines above; it makes Yeats seem both romantic and a bit ridiculous, especially since the song goes on to tell us that Gonne had someone else. (“Sad that Maud Gonne couldn’t stay,” O’Riordan sings, “but she had MacBride anyway.” That’s John MacBride, whom she married.) Here’s Yeats, imagining his sexual interests as being of world-historical importance, and here’s this young woman, stealing his words for her own purpose.
The song was about Yeats but also not about him: it seemed to be about any young woman who is reckoning with the Dead White Men in all the bookshelves.
It’s almost like Maud Gonne herself is speaking back to Yeats, confronting him with his own inability to have “courage equal to desire.” Ghosts talking back to ghosts! I didn’t know you were allowed to do that in poetry — but, it turned out, that is often what it means to be a woman poet.
I’ve found this kind of grave-digging in many of the women poets who have influenced me as a writer. As the Irish feminist poet Eavan Boland writes in her essay “The Rooms of Other Women Poets,” “All women poets have one thing in common. They are all daughters of fathers. Not simply daughters of a natural father, but also daughters within — and therefore sometimes entrapped by — the literature they seek to add to.” Muriel Rukeyser rewrote the myths of ancient Greece to bring women from the margins to the center. Sylvia Plath dug up her father and drove a stake through his heart. Adrienne Rich went excavating in her bookshelves and found women buried inside. Boland traced the maps of Ireland to find the famine roads.
This is not the only way to be a woman writer — but it is important work, this reckoning with the dead. As the poet Marilyn Hacker said in an interview: “Traditional narrative and lyric forms have been used by women for centuries-even if our professors of Western literature never mentioned Marie de France or Christine de Pisan. The language that we use was as much created and invented by women as by men. But generation after generation, women’s contributions get edged out, written out.”
After listening to the Cranberries, I started reading some Yeats — and I loved his work, but I also felt like I had something of an edge on him. I know about you, old man. I was ready to look not just at the lines of his poetry but at the white spaces between them, at who was being written out, or rewritten to his liking. And in fact, in one of his final poems, Yeats brutally accuses himself of cherishing his mythologies more than real people: “Players and painted stage took all my love / And not those things that they were emblems of.” “Sad that Maud Gonne couldn’t stay,” indeed.
I didn’t know any of this literary history back in 1994, when I was yowling “WHAT’S IN YOUR HEEEEEEEE-EAD” along to my dual-cassette player. I just knew that I had never heard a woman sing like Dolores O’Riordan sang, and I had never heard a woman claim her space alongside the greats like that. I suspect that Yeats would be disappointed in me as a scholar for discussing his poetry in conversation with pop music — but the difference between what counts as Very Serious Poetry and what counts as frivolous song has always been political, and it has often been gendered. It is, in fact, part of how “women’s contributions get edged out” of poetic history.
The difference between what counts as Very Serious Poetry and what counts as frivolous song has always been political, and it has often been gendered.
There are worse ways to be introduced to canonical literature than by a hot, stompy-booted Irish woman from MTV; in fact, I’d say most ways are worse. So let this be another tribute to Dolores O’Riordan, for giving me the grandeur of Yeats’s words, spoken in a woman’s voice.
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