Wallace Stegner, Political Correctness and Who We Are

Here in America, we live in an age of political correctness. From time to time, it mutates, or morphs, or goes so far as to shoot itself in the foot (the election of Donald Trump, for instance), but it refuses to go away.

And as a result, "ideological pigeonholing" has, in the words of  New York Times critic A.O. Scott, "become our dominant form of cultural analysis."

This observation appeared in Scott's lengthy appreciation of Wallace Stegner, an author known primarily for his depictions of the American West, both in fiction and in other forms of writing. Scott's piece, the lead article in the June 7, 2020, NYT weekly Book Review section, was identified as the first in a series called "The Americans" -- profiles of "writers who show us who we are."

The point, an introduction to the series explained, is to restore a sense of complexity to an America that is increasingly being parsed through the medium of "the simplified, sloganized language of politics."

A certain paradox associated with Stegner  makes him worth reading at a time "when we spend so much time mapping the fault lines between privilege and resentment and fighting over who is part of the elite and who is entitled to victim status." So said Scott.

Although known during his lifetime as "the Dean of Western Writers," the author,  who died in 1993,  thought of himself as an outsider, but not in the usual sense of the region. He was an advocate of community and a critic of the rugged individualism so central to the mythical ethos of the American West and what it long appears to have stood for.

The Times said the new series will include a variety of American authors -- "some well-known, some unjustly forgotten and some perpetually misunderstood."

Stegner probably fits into the middle group -- largely forgotten.

His work "is hardly a fixture on college syllabuses or in the pages of scholarly journals," Scott said. In addition, one might add, his name is pretty much totally absent from popular cultural.

Moreover, Scott noted, "there is no Library of America collection of his writings."

In the context of political correctness, Scott noted that Stegner's work has been criticized by, among others, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, a writer and member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe on the grounds that his works fail to significantly address the indigenous peoples of the region or a variety of non-white immigrant groups.

Well, Stegner's novels ("Angle of Repose" perhaps the most well known) are works of fiction, not sociological treatises. Novels certainly can be sociopolitical in nature, but they don't have to be. As Scott points out, Stegner was most concerned about marriage and, in particular, the nature of monogamous marriage. Stories generally need a setting and he chose the West.  All he needed to tell readers about the West is what was important to the lives of his particular characters.

Then again, one can argue Stegner's main concern -- monogamous marriage -- is sufficiently sociopolitical in and of itself.  Monogamy, with its "crags and chasms" is "the human undertaking around which all the others are organized," Scott said.

Perhaps Stegner's exploration of that topic, more than is depiction of the West" is his salient contribution to "who we are."

"American Dirt:" Cultural Appropriation, Polemical Fiction?

"In contemporary literary circles, there is a serious and legitimate sensitivity to people writing about heritages that are not their own because, at its worst, this practice perpetuates the evils of colonization, stealing the stories of oppressed people for the profit of the dominant."

That paragraph jumped out at me when it read Lauren Groff's review of the recent, rather controversial novel "American Dirt," by Jeanine Cummings, because it seemed to call into question the fundamental nature of fiction: it's invented so no holds barred.

Here's the very first thing the contemporary God of Knowledge, Wikipedia, has to say about it: "Fiction generally is a narrative form, in any medium, consisting of people, events, or places that are imaginary—in other words, not based strictly on history or fact."

Let's repeat that: not based strictly on history or fact.

So, whether "American Dirt" gets Mexican culture right or not doesn't matter. No one has to read -- or finish reading this book.  On the other hand, if you like the story whatever you think about the verisimilitude of the setting (how about any number of movies?), you can brush aside certain perceived shortcomings.  Groff said that despite her objections, weeks after reading "American Dirt," the story remained alive in her.

Novels are arguably mostly written to provide entertainment for readers and income for authors. But according to Groff, not all of them.  "American Dirt," she argues, falls into a category known as polemical fiction -- in effect, propaganda masquerading as literature. Polemical fiction, Groff says, is designed to make its readers act in a way that corresponds to the writer's vision and in her view, the purpose of "American Dirt" is "fiercely polemical."

If then, it is essentially propaganda, why was it  awarded a full-page review in the Jan. 26, 2020 New York Times Sunday "Book Review" section? Perhaps like the old comic strip "Pogo," which some newspapers eventually banished to the op-ed pages, Groff's review should have experienced a similar fate.

I wonder how she might characterize certain of Charles Dicken's novels, or Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness?"

But, then, when I first sent drafts my novella "Gina/Diane," which centers on a botched abortion, to female friends for comment, some were quick to see it as polemical, or to argue that if could be so interpreted even if I didn't intend it to be. But arguments could go either way, I pointed out. Because Gina's abortion had not gone well and had life-long consequences, it could be seen as a treatise against a woman's right to choose.  But it could also be seen as an argument in favor of safe, legal abortion procedures.

But what about perpetuating the evils of colonization by writing a story about a culture that is not one's own? I think I'll leave that one for another day -- and perhaps put on a CD of Puccini's opera "Madam Butterfly" to help me get through the pandemic.

 

Gender: a Contemporary Curiousity

Does gender matter? 

It's not a new question, but one that came freshly to mind when I read a book review in the June 4, 2020 New York Times. The piece, by Jennifer Szalai, takes a look at a recent book entitled "Surviving Autocracy" and as I perused it, I became more interested in the manner in which the piece was written than by what Szalai had to say about the book, or by what the book apparently has to say about the all-too-familiar state of American society.

The book is written by Masha Gessen, identified as an immigrant from Russia, and a gay parent who at one point confronted a Russian regime that threatened to remove children from same-sex families.

Does Gessen have a gender?  It's hard to know. The headshot accompanying the article is androgynous -- could be either a male of a female based on appearances.  But female perhaps, based on the name "Masha" -- in Russia traditionally a nickname for a woman named Maria, which, as it turns out, was Gessen's first name at birth.

But when reading Szalai's piece, what soon begins to strike one is the absence of any gender pronouns for the author.  So as Szalai quotes from or references the author, it is never "he  said" or "she said," but only "Gessen said" or, frequently, "Gessen writes."

The effect is a little like traditional Coca-Cola advertising where the name of the drink is simply repeated endlessly. One is almost gagging on the word "Gessen" by the time the article -- a third of a page spread -- is finished.

According to Wikipedia, Gessen is "non-binary" and uses they/them pronouns. But for Szalai to reference the author in that fashion would make it sound, to most readers, as if more than one person wrote the book. I've previously read articles written along those lines and they come across as not just confusing and disconcerting, but narcissistic.  It's all about me: I'm so important I can insist the meaning of the English language be changed. Plurals can be made singular if that's what happens to suit me personally and the rest of you are just have to go along with the ensuing confusion.

But that's where we are these days and I'm sure that what I've just written is about as politically incorrect as it gets.

Which brings me back to does gender matter? In this case, I suppose the answer has to be perhaps. Would one think differently about "Surviving Autocracy" if it were written by a woman, or a man as opposed to by a non-binary when Gessen's specific gripe about Russia has much to do with personal identify?

Mansfield and Woolf: Illumination Through Ordinary Lives

There is an interesting passage in Katherine Mansfield's short story "At the Bay" in which Stanley Burnell returns from a routine day at work, in a state of some angst because he left home that morning without saying good-by to his wife, Linda. As readers know, the omission was deliberate: he wanted to punish Linda for perceived indifference to his patriarchal privileges.

But now remorseful -- Stanley is fundamentally insecure and badly needs the support of his wife -- he pretends it was at least in part an oversight.

"Forgive me, darling, forgive me," Stanley says, leaping across a flower bed and taking Linda into his arms.

"Forgive you?" smiled Linda. "But whatever for?"

"Good God! You can't have forgotten," cried Stanley Burnell. "I've thought of nothing else all day. I've had a hell of a day.  I made up my mind to dash out and telegraph, and then I thought the wire mightn't reach you before I did.  I've been in tortures, Linda."

"But, Stanley," said Linda, "what must I forgive you for?"

"Linda!" -- Stanley was very hurt -- "didn't you realize -- you must have realized -- I went away without saying goodby to you this morning?  I can't imagine how I can have done such a thing. My confounded temper, of course,  But -- well" -- and he sighed and took her in his arms again -- "I've suffered enough for it today."

Just after that, Linda notices that Stanley has a pair of new gloves and pulls one on her hand, smiling as she does so -- turning her hand this way and that.

Stanley wanted to say, 'I was thinking of you the whole time I bought them.'  It was true, but for some reason he couldn't say it. "Let's go in," he said.

Stanley, for all his flaws -- one can easily view him as a pompous ass -- wants to tell the wife of his four children, a wife upon whom he is utterly emotionally dependent, that he loves her, but somehow he can't get it out, even indirectly. And when I read it, I was immediately reminded of a similar series of events in Virginia Woolf's book "Mrs. Dalloway."

Therein, Richard Dalloway, a member of Parliament, accepts an invitation to lunch with Lady Bruton, to which Clarissa isn't invited, leaving his emotionally fragile wife, on the eve of her big party, in a state of distress. At one point during the early afternoon, resting in a tiny bed, Clarissa has the urge to call out to her husband only to recall where he was lunching.

"He has left me; I am alone forever, she thought, folding her hands upon her knee."

To his credit, the ever-thoughtful Richard [readers see that characteristic a number of times in the story] is worried about his wife and and at the conclusion of the lunch [at which, as it turned out, his attendance was not really required], he wants to bring a significant present home to Clarissa, which he finds difficult to do because a bracelet he had once given her had not been a success. So he settles for a large bouquet of roses, and, of course, readers know Clarissa is first and foremost a lover of flowers.

For the next three pages of the book, readers follow along as Richard walks home, thinking of his happy, fulfilled life with Clarissa, and determined to tell her he loves her,  in so many words.

"... here he was, in the prime of life, walking to Westminster to tell Clarissa that he loved her.  Happiness is this, he thought."

But as he surprised her with the bouquet, he couldn't say it. "He could not bring himself to say he loved her; not in so many words."

As was the case with Stanley and Linda Burnell, in a sense it didn't matter. Taking the flowers from Richard, "she understood; she understood without him speaking; his Clarissa."

The inability of husbands to tell their wives, in so many words, that they love them is, I suspect, not at all uncommon, probably because it makes men feel vulnerable. And vulnerability, so common a sensation for women, is probably the last emotion a man wants to experience.

Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield were both friends and rivals from 1917 to Mansfield's death in 1923 -- despite very considerable differences in background and social status. "At the Bay" was published in 1922 and then "Mrs. Dalloway" in 1925.  Both stories are set within one day as is James Joyce's massive novel "Ulysses," serialized from 1918 to 1920 and first published in full in 1922.

Earlier, in 1918, Mansfield's story "Prelude" (one of her three stories about the Burnell family) had been completed at Virginia Woolf's urging and published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf. It was the second release from their hand-operated printing press, the first, entitled "Two Stories," contained Leonard's "Three Jews" and Virginia's "The Mark on the Wall." Such were the beginnings of the "The Hogarth Press."

Virginia Woolf was a strong believer in the notion that quotidian events should be the first and foremost concern of a writer -- and such is the focus of Katherine Mansfield's series of stories. It's a series one can view as a cycle on the state of women during the times in which she lived.

"Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day," Woolf said in her essay "Modern Fiction," which can be found in a book of her writing entitled "The Common Reader." 

"Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incidence scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than what is commonly thought small."

And in such fashion readers learn of Stanley Burnell and Richard Dalloway struggling to relate to their wives what is in their hearts  -- in the most ordinary of circumstances.  Such is life.

Ferrante's "The Days of Abandonment" Can Feel Out of Date

Emily Temple, a senior editor at Literary Hub, just published a recommended list of relatively short contemporary works of fiction entitled "The 50 Best Contemporary Novels Under 200 Pages." Sadly, my novella, Manhattan Morning isn't among them.

But that isn't why I bring this up. Rather, one of the books on Temple's list is "The Days of Abandonment," by Elena Ferrante, the author of a series of novels known as the Neapolitan Quartet.

"This is the real Ferrante. I mean, look, I love the Neapolitan series as much as everybody ... but in my opinion, this short novel about a woman unraveling is her true masterpiece," Temple says.

I am not a woman and therefor probably relatively unqualified to make the following observations, but I read this book and its depiction of a woman's place in a marriage struck me as out of date.

This is the story of Olga whose husband leaves her for a younger woman after 15 years of marriage, a distressing upheaval no doubt, but one that is particularly shattering for Ferrante's heroine because she feels her very identity has been wiped out.  That's because, and this seems particularly odd for an educated woman in a feminist-sensitive Western world, Olga has given herself over to her husband in totality on the believe that this is what love, in the context of marriage, is all about.

At a couple of points in the story, Olga enumerates lists of things that she did for her husband, starting with getting him through university and supporting him in his work life to the point where she had "made him what he had become." 

In the process, "I had put aside my own aspirations to go along with his," she says, noting that she "had had no work, any sort of work, even writing. for at least five years," as she took care of the house, the children and the family finances including the income taxes.

"While I was taking care of the children, I was expecting from Mario [her husband] a moment that never arrived, the moment when I would again be as I had been before my pregnancies, young, slender, energetic, shamelessly certain I could make of myself a memorable person."

Instead, she at one point spends several evenings searching through old photographs "for signs of my autonomy."

As she disintegrates, Olga feels not only the loss of her identity and sexuality, she most fundamentally feels increasingly vulnerable and, in the end, instead of remaking herself as an independent woman, settles for safety above all else in a relationship with an older neighbor.

Asked in an interview (re-published in her book "Frantumaglia," or jumbled fragments) if she would call "The Days of Abandonment" a feminist novel, Ferrante replied yes, and no.

"Yes, because it's sustained by the female reaction to abandonment, from Medea and Dido on. No, because it doesn't aim at telling what is the theoretically and practically correct reaction of the contemporary woman faced with the loss of the beloved man nor does it brand male behaviors as vile," Ferrante said.

Mario, Olga's husband, simply fell in love with someone else.

Lesbian Relationships as Overcoming the Patriarchy

My previous post provided a couple of examples of patriarchal behavior in domestic situations, both recently and about 100 years ago. The similarities were far more striking than the differences.

On a related note, here is actress Rachel Weisz' take on overcoming one aspect of the patriarchy, the notion that a man's wife belongs to him and that she should behave accordingly.

Weisz, despite being married to Daniel Craig, an actor who has now stared five times as one of the quintessential alpha males, James Bond, has apparently become a "queer icon" as a result of a number of film roles.

It's sort of like the notion: "you are what you wear."

These films, according to a profile in the 2019 "Greats" issue of T, the New York Times Style Magazine, have depicted Weisz "as someone with the clout to create the kinds of female roles that are rarely seen: women in intense, erotic relationships with other women, without apology or explanation."

Well, actually, Weisz does have an explanation. Later in the same article, she is quoted as saying: "There's something that happens in a scene when a woman is across from another woman. It sounds really pompous, but you are free from this history of ownership -- I mean that. It is really liberating."

In other words, free from the patriarchy.

Portraits of the Patriarchy

In this post, I will present two depictions of patriarchal behavior, the first written very recently and the second written about 100 years earlier.

The Jan. 26, 2020 issue of The New York Times Magazine contained an article about a new book by  a woman who transitioned to a man, relating what the author learned about masculinity from his father and grandfather.