QUIET MINDS: "EROTIC"

02 December 2011

"EROTIC"

Years ago I took a class about writing sex. It’s not easy to do. It’s embarrassing and inappropriate. I don’t even usually like sex scenes in books or movies. On the other hand I do have pretty strong opinions about what works as sexy and what is simply humiliating. A lot of what is advertised as “erotic” is humiliating stuff done to women. I don’t have any use for that. Maybe when I was a girl, but I’m a woman who has lived, and sex is something private and glorious, not something I’d share.

A few years ago a class had a discussion about what qualifies as “erotic.” I contended that most media got eroticism wrong, that what was erotic wasn’t what I most often found with that label.

The Big Easy is erotic, but so is The Scent of Green Papayas. There’s no nudity in either of those movies and different as they are, both of them are about love. It’s not about what is shown that makes a film sexy, it’s about the sense of sexual closeness. It’s about desire and love and compassion and gentleness. Isn’t that what you wish sex were always all about?

The best sex-writing instructor I ever had was Charlotte Watson Sherman, from The Flight of the Mind. She gave our class a series of creative exercises that culminated in some pretty amazing writing.

I don’t write sex scenes, or at least I haven’t so far outside of classes. But I do think that sex is a natural expression of passion and love. I wouldn’t appreciate any expression of love that separated expression, passion, and love. Just sayin.

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BOOKS READ in 2012, January through June

19 BOOKS SINCE JANUARY 2012
• ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION (July 2012) has a wonderful story by my friend Felicity Shoulders, "Long Night on Red Rock." My husband ordered it for me so that I could read that story, but once it arived I found one by Megan Lindholm—an author I've enjoyed from years ago. Also, a great review of Atwood's book on FS and Fantasy and Robert Silverberg's remarks about choosing not to keep up with notepad technology. I read it cover to cover.
• PROMISE OT TO TELL by Jennifer McMahon (2007) is a ghost story and a murder mystery. I finished it, but I didn't love it. I kept hoping I would.
• ARE YOU MY MOTHER? by Alison Bechdel (2012) is a "comic drama" graphic memoir. Bechdel's therapist calls her "adorable" which is pretty true, especially when I saw her in person. She's charming and funny and real. But she's also smart and her exploration of her own life, mind, and relationships—especially with her mother—is a far more compelling and provocative read than I expected. In my teens I was fascinated by psychiatry. Here it is all spread out and illustrated in words and pictures I can read.
• HOME by Toni Morrison (2012) is the newest and shortest of our Nobel Laureate’s novels. Frank Money comes home from the Korean war damaged, as many have before him. In brief passages, Frank speaks as if to the author, and the chapters explore the points of view of many characters—thus developing a complete picture in the way she explored long ago in her first novel The Bluest Eye. It joins a great line-up of novels that explore the pain of soldiers returning from war—such as Ceremony.
• manuscript by a friend. Though not the first time I've done this, it was a very interesting experience. I read an early draft and had to turn my line-editing radar off as best I could and focus on the big stuff. Fun. Some day I'll get to brag that I read it in ms.
• DIARY OF A MAD HOUSEWIFE by Sue Kaufman (1967) is the novel on which the 1970 film is based. (My husband graduated high school in 1967; I did in 1970 when we saw and loved the film, which is terrific but not available on DVD.) Betinna Balser, called "teen" by her husband, a disappointed liberal-turned frantic capitalist, begins a secret diary as a means of hanging on to the shreds of her sanity in this domestic comedy. I regret it's taken me this long to discover the novel, which is, of course, even better than the film. As best I can recall, the film's dialogue is mostly straight out of this book. Bettina slowly comes unhinged as she tries to accept her role as obedient and supportive wife to her domineering husband without losing herself in the process. It might be a bit dated—I'd like to think women don't do this anymore—but the story still reads as fresh. The film's ending is probably more realistic, but the novel is satisfying and both are wickedly funny.
• THE SENSE OF AN ENDING by Julian Barnes (2011) is the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner. There have been exceptions, but most often I love the Booker winners. This one involves an older man confronted with his life by the return of people from his past—one alive, one dead. Retired, divorced, solitary, he muses that "what you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed." This short novel reviews an entire life with sense, sensitivity, and the cold, hard light of experience. I read it in one long gulp and I was sorry when it ended.
• WILD: FROM LOST TO FOUND ON THE PACIFIC CREST TRAIL by Cheryl Strayed (2012) is a memoir by a courageous woman. Strayed's mother died before her 44th birthday and Strayed (then 22) tries to hold things together and falls pretty much apart herself in the process. I read a few reviews who criticize Strayed for her mistakes—I have the opposite reaction. Here is a woman willing to own her errors rather than cry woe is me. Strayed hikes a brutal trail through high desert and snow, meets rattlesnakes and bears, and makes some friends while determinedly continuing alone. She talks a lot about fear, her mother, her regret for ruining her marriage. She beats herself up physically and accepts blame for everything that goes wrong—and a lot does go wrong. I haven't read a more brutally honest, humorous and humble, and beautifully wise memoir in a long time. I laughed, moaned, and cried a little at the end. From Southern California to the Columbia River through wild country, she finds herself. This was not my journey, but I could connect to every step.
• THE CHRONICLES OF HARRIS BURDICK edited by Chris Van Allsburg (2001) provides stories by 14 great authors for Van Allsburg's illustrations. I've used the original book, which has 14 marvelous and mysterious illustrations with captions and story titles to trigger student writing. Here Stephen King and Sherman Alexie and others do what I and my students have done. I was worried that I wouldn't like their versions, but they are almost without exception fabulous in every sense of the word. "The Third Floor Bedroom" is my favorite drawing and I loved the story. Even M.T. Anderson, whose writing I didn't love, provides a marvelous story. These are not really children's stories, or perhaps in these days of THE HUNGER GAMES, the darkness here is what we give children these days. In any event, I highly recommend both the original book of prompts, and this story collection.
• TALES FROM OUTER SUBURBIA by Shaun Tan (2009) is a collection of illustrated stories. The title story has two boys finding a man in a deep sea diving suit wandering their neighborhood. Tan is the author of THE ARRIVAL, which is fabulous. These little stories, such as "Make Your Own Pet" and "Alert But Not Alarmed" about anti-ballistic missiles in suburban backyards, are pretty wonderful too. Some stories are almost entirely illustration, but most are a marvelous mix—wonderful tales and Tan's incredible illustrations.
• THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS retold and illustrated by Peter Sis (2011) is a unique presentation of a 12th century Persian epic poem. The illustrations are appealing, but the text was a little lean. Nevertheless, this is a handsome and unique book.
• PASSING by Nella Larson (1929), is from the Harlem Rennaisance, a short novel about the perils of passing, of pretending to what you do not feel, of racial and sexual identity, of mistaking the pretense of normalcy for a real life.
• NO ONE IS HERE EXCEPT ALL OF US by Ramona Ausubel (2012) is a novel about a Romanian village that decides to remake the world as a strategy for evading the coming holocaust. The strategy doesn't work, and for me, neither does this novel. I loved Ausubel's One Story offering, “Safe Passage” and expected I would love this too. The first hint that I might not was her New Yorker story that most people seem to have loved, but which I couldn't quite believe. And then the novel arrived and I began reading. The premise is brilliant. Ironically, since so many people (including me) admire Ausubel's skill as a writer, the writing is the problem for me. Characters are held at a distance. Reviewers refer to the fairy-tale feel, and perhaps that's what they mean. I felt always held at arm's length from these people, even as the story dips into the minds of multiple characters. The point of view shifts from first person to omniscient to limited third without ever settling. It's a problem of narrative distance. I cannot quite catch hold of these people as if the author didn't hold them close and so neither do I. Their dreams and suffering are not mine. It is a story about people rather than a story of them. Perhaps she wasn't ready for a novel, perhaps she wanted too much from herself to write such a novel. Perhaps, if this had been a short story (a longish one), I would have loved it. Perhaps I am wrong. In any event, although I love magic realism and I love fables and fairy tales, and I loved "Safe Passages," I do not love this book. Perhaps another time.
• A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan (2010) won the Pulitzer. I’d avoided it because I’d not been much impressed with The Invisible Circus. But then I read a couple of Jennifer Egan’s short stories and was impressed enough that I decided I should read her newest prize-winning novel. So I’ve been slogging through it for a month. Several of the stories I’d already read and some of them recently and with pleasure. I liked “Safari” in the 2011 BASS. I had not read “Selling the General” before finding it here, but it’s my favorite. Seventy-six pages are given over to “Great Rock and Roll Pauses” which had not been published previously and that doesn’t surprise me. I suppose it’s memorable, but it’s also an ugly and sterile graphic in an age when graphics are sophisticated and intimate, and it’s a boring story—not forgivable in any form. The stories in this book—and this is not remotely a novel, regardless of the claim on the cover—involve several recurring characters, most of whom are rich or entitled, mostly both. They do not seem to be living in the world the rest of us live in. And while this is literally true for the final story, set in the future, it’s also true that these people seem not to face wars or social movements or genuine poverty or even an interest in caring for their children until they’re old enough to misuse drugs. Music and fame are at the center of some stories, and serve as connective tissue. That and drug abuse.
• FINNISH LESSONS: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? By Pasi Sahlberg (2011) reviews the astonishing success of the Finnish school system, which a few decades ago was once of the weakest among industrialized nations, but is today the poster child for excellence. Finland worked toward a simple goal, beginning in the 1970s: equity. All Finnish children should have access to a good education regardless of where they lived, north or south, rich or poor, urban or rural. Their example presents a series of troubling paradoxes for American school reform, but with only 4% of their children living in poverty, Finland also has an enormous advantages over the US with 22% of our children living in poverty. Graphs in this book as well as other research in America point to poverty as the single most significant impediment to improving American schools. Well-supported by international studies and an insider’s understanding, Sahlberg explains how the Finns developed a system that suddenly attracted international attention when the results of international review found Finnish students performing above nearly every nation in the world beginning in 2000. They did it by demanding professionalism from their teachers and granting them respect and autonomy, trusting schools to work to develop strong curriculum by focusing on creativity and access, and eliminating most testing and all private education. In fact, they did the exact opposite of the current trend in America which focuses on school choice, competition, teacher accountability, standards-based curriculum, and regular high-stakes testing. Further, their teachers spend fewer hours in the classroom and their children do a lot less homework, with the result that they learn more.
• "GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES" by Anita Loos (1925) is the novel that inspired the Marilyn Monroe/Jane Russell film by the same name. The characters in that film are pretty faithful to this novel, which is written as a series of diary entries by Lorelei, hence the quotes around the title because that's our girl talking. She is a terrible speller, is find of certain turns of phrase which she repeats endlessly without annoying this reader (it's a voicy book), and thick about just about everything except money and manipulating men into doing what she wishes. I found the book funny to read aloud a few choice bits to my husband. Just as in the film, Dorothy is the one with the dry sense of humor and wicked tongue. The film version includes a few characters from the book, but the novel's plot is considerably slimmed down. Lorelei is analyzed by "Dr. Froyd" who is amazed to find someone lacking any inhibitions: "So he asked me if I really never wanted to do a thing that I did not do... So he called in his assistance and he pointed at me and talked to his assistance quite a lot in the Viennese landguage." (Those are not my typos, btw, that's pure Lorelei.) Wikipedia has this book published in 1927, but my copy lists the first printing in November, 1925. The illustrations by Ralph Barton are 1920s camp.
• THE SECRET OF CASA GRANDE by Helen Randolph (1936) is a racist, classist, and rather dreadful book written for girls during the same period as the original Nancy Drew stories. It's possible that Nancy Drew was as terrible as this and I simply don't remember—I remember them as bad, not offensive in places. Young women "ejaculated" a comment twice, and every awful habit of bad writing I was taught to avoid in my MFA program is clearly illustrated in the pages of this book. I read the whole thing in two sittings, just to say I had. I'm sure I've read worse, but I couldn't tell you what.
• THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2011 edited by Geraldine Brooks with Heidi Pitlor as series editor (2011) is an excellent collection. From the introductions through the author's notes, I found only one piece that failed to impress, and a wide range of truly inspiring work. Each book in the series shows not only the times from which it was collected and the eye of the editor, but often also some particular concern. Here I found many stories that dealt with entire lifetimes—childhood to death. Mark Slouka, in his notes explaining the source of his story, "The Hare's Mask" explains: ". . . I sensed a story about history's losses, time's compensations, and a child's ability to misread the world. I had to mix three generations. It was easy enough; in my heart they were already blurred." In mine too.
• OFFSHORE by Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) presents an oddball collection of people living on permanently moored boats on the Thames. A young woman and her two daughters whose husband does not understand the attraction of living on a leaky craft, a wealthy man of the City whose wife is similarly unimpressed and wishes they could simply buy a lovely house in the country, an aging sailor hoping to escape in time, a prostitute who suffers a thief to store stolen goods on his craft. The boats themselves become characters: the Dreadnought, Lord Jim, Maurice, and Grace are much like their owners—falling apart, perfectly polished, leaking, punctured and drowned.
NOTE: One of the disadvantages of paying close attention to writing, of being a writer, is that poor writing puts you off. I gave up on more books in the year since completing my MFA than I had in the fifty-odd years before that. December 30, 2010 I began posting book titles as I finished them. I begin a new list here as soon as I complete a book in each 6-month period. Older reviews are archived as posts on this blog.

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02 December 2011

"EROTIC"

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