Jane Bowles, Sylivia Plath and Ruth Fainlight
“In one sense, she was the perfect wife—I teased her that they might have served as the models for a nineteenthcentury marriage manual. Sylvia exhibited this same streak of obsessive domesticity. And I recognised it in myself. Regardless of all else, we were the product of the culture of the United States of America in the first half of the twentieth century, good examples of then-current ideas of femininity; also perhaps, we shared profounder self-destructive traits. Jane glorified in what she termed ‘feminine wiles.’ She was a shrewd and delighted observer of women in action, and a very successful player of those games. Sylvia tormented herself with impossible goals of domestic achievement. “Whether the artist can be a young woman/ is the first question”—not, please note, whether a young woman can be an artist—was the theme of much of my early poetry (and the first lines of a weaker example). The three of us struggled with the dichotomy of being writers’ wives as well as writers, and were maimed in our separate ways.”
The next woman walks to the microphone.
“I have a strained relationship with my daughter,” she begins. “And I want to know …”
“Your daughter is strange,” interrupts Sylvia.
Sylvia doesn’t pause. Other psychics will often reach around for some inner voice, but Sylvia answers the question instantly, in a low, smoky growl, sometimes before the person has even finished asking it.
“Your daughter is stubborn,” she says. “She’s selfish, narcissistic. Leave her alone.” The woman reluctantly nods. Tears roll down her cheeks.
“Don’t get too involved with her,” Sylvia says. “She’ll hurt you. Leave her alone. I don’t like her.”
“Thank you, Sylvia,” the woman says.
I love this. But Nabokov might mean it ironically, I have no idea. I will ask my professor and let you know. There is some music I enjoy, like the
Giant Skyflower Band and the 1966 Stevie Wonder record Up-Tight Everythings Alright and the Baby Boy Da Prince song The Way I Live. I thought about doing some sort of exploration of how music affects me emotionally, and blogging about it, but I can’t even get excited about learning why I’m not excited about listening to music. My friend Marie once suggested that she had amusia and I wondered if I did, too.I read “The Metamorphosis” tonight. I think I thought I had already read it, but once I began tonight it didn’t feel familiar and so I do not think I have read it before, or if I have, I was too young and read it too quickly. Oh man, so heartbreaking! The best story!
The sister began to play. The father and mother,
followed attentively, one on each side, the movements of
her hands. Attracted by the playing, Gregor had ventured
to advance a little further forward and his head was already
in the living room. He scarcely wondered about the fact
that recently he had had so little consideration for the
others; earlier this consideration had been something he
was proud of. And for that very reason he would’ve had at
this moment more reason to hide away, because as a result
of the dust which lay all over his room and flew around
with the slightest movement, he was totally covered in
dirt. On his back and his sides he carted around with him
dust, threads, hair, and remnants of food. His indifference
to everything was much too great for him to lie on his
back and scour himself on the carpet, as he often had done
earlier during the day. In spite of his condition he had no
timidity about inching forward a bit on the spotless floor
of the living room.
In any case, no one paid him any attention. The family
was all caught up in the violin playing. The lodgers, by
contrast, who for the moment had placed themselves, their
hands in their trouser pockets, behind the music stand
much too close to the sister, so that they could all see the
sheet music, something that must certainly bother the
sister, soon drew back to the window conversing in low
voices with bowed heads, where they then remained,
worriedly observed by the father. It now seemed really
clear that, having assumed they were to hear a beautiful or
entertaining violin recital, they were disappointed, and
were allowing their peace and quiet to be disturbed only
out of politeness. The way in which they all blew the
smoke from their cigars out of their noses and mouths in
particular led one to conclude that they were very
irritated. And yet his sister was playing so beautifully. Her
face was turned to the side, her gaze followed the score
intently and sadly. Gregor crept forward still a little further
and kept his head close against the floor in order to be able
to catch her gaze if possible. Was he an animal that music
so seized him? For him it was as if the way to the
unknown nourishment he craved was revealing itself to
him. He was determined to press forward right to his
sister, to tug at her dress and to indicate to her in this way
that she might still come with her violin into his room,
because here no one valued the recital as he wanted to
value it. He did not wish to let her go from his room any
more, at least not as long as he lived. His frightening
appearance would for the first time become useful for him.
He wanted to be at all the doors of his room
simultaneously and snarl back at the attackers. However,
his sister should not be compelled but would remain with
him voluntarily; she would sit next to him on the sofa,
bend down her ear to him, and he would then confide in
her that he firmly intended to send her to the conservatory
and that, if his misfortune had not arrived in the interim,
he would have declared all this last Christmas (had
Christmas really already come and gone?), and would have
brooked no argument. After this explanation his sister
would break out in tears of emotion, and Gregor would
lift himself up to her armpit and kiss her throat, which she,
from the time she started going to work, had left exposed
without a band or a collar.
‘Mr. Samsa,’ called out the middle lodger to the father,
and pointed his index finger, without uttering a further
word, at Gregor as he was moving slowly forward.
Can you talk some more about Diane Williams and NOON Magazine? Was NOON one of the first places to publish your work?
For me reading Diane Williams’s Excitability for the first time was like being saved from death. The world suddenly looked new to me — familiar and strange at once.
I wrote her a long incoherent letter, explaining my adoration inadequately, exclamatorily. She wrote back a nice short note saying, “If you’re ever in New York, we could meet.” I had only been to New York a couple of times and never unaccompanied. I had very little money at the time but I bought a plane ticket and a city map and went. To my astonishment she took me out for a very expensive dinner and we talked for hours. Much later I asked her why she had been so kind to me. She told me that many years before she had loved a certain writer’s work. She wrote to this writer and was also given an invitation. She also dropped everything and went to an unfamiliar place alone. The writer didn’t show up for their meeting. Diane waited for hours. I am very lucky to have benefited from that writer’s discourtesy.
That same year, Diane started NOON magazine and she put a story of mine in the first issue. NOON was one of the first places to publish my fiction. I am very grateful. The NOON authors I know, when we get together, we sit around and coo about how much we love Diane Williams and NOON. NOON is like an exclusive club that requires you work very hard to remain a member and I am willing to work hard. I am up to the challenge of being a member of the NOON club. Several NOON authors, when I meet them for the first time, behave as though we are long lost relations. Kim Chinquee said in an e-mail to me once before I’d even met her, “We are NOON sisters!” I was very moved because I have always felt so alone.
Diane is an amazing editor. She inspires excellence and demands discipline. More than an editor, she is an editor-artist. She has rejected my work several times, harshly, dismissively, unapologetically. The first time I was stunned. Clancy Martin and I now laugh about how she will take forty pages of writing and slash it down to two pages.
As a person, Diane is an incredibly elegant and charming woman. She has beautiful manners and a wide generosity. She is a role model in all ways. She is an intellectual but she is so cute about it. She has an old-fashioned politeness. If she doesn’t like an idea, she pretends not to understand it. It is hilarious because she is so brilliant. I often feel like she saved my life — and I know I’m not the only NOON author who feels this way. I had some dark years and through them she published my work in NOON and encouraged me to stay focused.
How did you find Diane Williams’ book?
A friend gave it to me.
Here is something strange. One of the reasons I decided to try writing in the first place was that I came across a book called Getting Jesus in the Mood by Anne Brashler. It different than anything I’d ever read and I loved it. I kept looking at other writings by the same author and, while I liked them, I didn’t connect with them in the same way or find them quite as exciting. A few years later, I was talking to Diane and I mentioned the book and how moving I found it and she said, “Oh, I edited that book.” Looking back now, I can see her handprints all over it.
I guess I am just a Diane Williams fan.
[Bookslut]
One of them, a fellow known as Uncle Tito (Carlos Mencia, crawling up from the bottom of the Comedy Central barrel), has a habit of saying shocking things to Eddie, waiting a beat, and then exclaiming, “I was only joking.” In its last, desperate moments, “The Heartbreak Kid” tries something similar, but the punch line comes too late to rescue this lame, long, ugly joke of a movie.
“The Heartbreak Kid” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has a lot of profanity and several displays of extravagant— and, under the circumstances, inexplicable — female sexual enthusiasm.
[NYT]
