Taking a Left at the ‘Right Use of Sex’:Myra Breckinridge

Catherine Dumas

ENG 498

Presentation outline on “Taking a Left at the ‘Right Use of Sex’[1]:Myra Breckinridge“

Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge is a revolutionary novel that was overlooked by the literary or academic institutions at the time of its publication in 1968. Through my research I have found that a large majority of critics viewed this novel as pornography or Camp. These labels are degraded forms of taxonomy that target certain works of art, in order to de-value their content. As a result the ouevre is not taken seriously either aesthetically, critically, or politically. In fact, Vidal is actually satirizing pornography and camp in the novel, the very mechanisms that dismiss his work. Brilliant.

It is my intention to move beyond these two categorizations which I find reductive and disregard Vidal’s discourse on the connections between sex, power and politics that are the critical underpinnings of his ground-breaking novel, Myra Breckinridge.

Secondary Sources:

• Susan M. Easton Problem of Pornography : Regulation and the Right to Free Speech.
• Susan Sontag “Notes on Camp”
• Kathryn Jergovich, graduate student at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She did a research assignment for Professor John Unsworth for a class entitled “20th-Century American Bestsellers”. (Spring 2006) Fortunately for me her topic was Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge.
• Robert F. Kiernan, Gore Vidal
• Donald E. Pease “America and the Vidal Chronicles”
• James Tatum “The Romanitas of Gore Vidal”
• Michel Foucault History of Sexuality

As well as some passages from of Gore Vidal’s essay’s: “Sex and the Law” (1965), “Sex Is Politics” (1975).                                                           

 

 

 

 

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[1] The American Social Hygiene Association cautioned worried citizens that through “the right use of sex” they could build solid families and a united nation (Neuman 12).

Human Nature: Predatory?

Before I forget I want to mention a word that Mitchell uses in most of the different sections we read: Hydra. Definitions (Encarta Dictionary)  1. Largest constellation: a constellation near the celestial equator

                                            2. many-headed monster: in Greek mythology, a monster that had nine heads and was killed by Heracles. When one head was cut off, another grew instantly in its place

                                         3. a freshwater organism: a freshwater polyp with a cylindrical body at one end and a mouth surrounded by tentacles at the other.

In the novel Hydra was the name of the nuclear reactor plant in L Rey, it was the name of the womb tanks in Sonmi, he described the Dermot Hoggins’ brothers  as the “Hoggins Hyrda” in Cavendish , on the very last page of the book (Mitchell’s diatribe) human nature is metaphorically referred to as “the many-headed hydra”. In each section Mitchell shows a world that is predatory. He takes us through history and beyond (into the future) giving us examples of a predatory nature of humanity.  Not everyone is a predator of course, there has to be the prey. Mitchell does include people who represent a glimmer of hope: Louisa Rey, her father, Meronym, Zachry, Sixsmith, Autua, Napier.

If human nature is “the many- headed hydra” whose heads will grow back if one is cut off it then it can’t be a good thing if Mitchell suggests that human nature is inherently predatory. Does the hydra only have 9 heads and can it be killed eventually? Will human nature and its “selfishness” ultimately end in “extinction” (508)?

 I think Mitchell is trying to tell us that it is up to us to take what he has given us in this novel as an outline of what has happened, is happening and quite possibly could happen if we aren’t careful of the predatory nature that consumes some people, who unfortunately and not coincidentally find themselves in positions of power, colonizers, corporations, Hitler, you know what I am talking about.

We need to be aware of those in power and how they dictate and controls us. We need to question the apparatus, the institutions that are in place.

And Away We Go…

•  The topic for my final paper: I will be assessing Vidal’s commentary on the connections between sex and politics by looking specifically at the dominant ideas of its particular historical moment, 1968. Sexuality/Politics/Power/Ideology.
• My primary text is Gore Vidals’ Myra Breckinridge.
• Plan of attack: I will revisit Douglas Eisner’s piece on Myra that we read in class. I have started to look at the predominant ideas about sex at this time. I found the following secondary sources on the Kinsey Reports:

An Experimental Study of Attitudes Towards Male Sex Behavior with Reference to Kinsey Findings Author(s): Clifford Kirkpatrick, Sheldon Stryker, Philip Buell Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 17, No. 5 (Oct., 1952), pp. 580-587

Published Reactions to the Kinsey Report Author(s): Erdman Palmore Source: Social Forces, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Dec., 1952), pp. 165-172

• I will also look into research on Masters and Johnson who pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1990s. I found an interesting tidbit:

From 1968 to 1977, the Masters and Johnson Institute ran a program to convert or revert homosexuals to heterosexuality. This program reported a 71.6% success rate over a six-year treatment period. At the time of their earlier work, homosexuality was considered a psychological disorder by the American Psychiatric Association^{. (WIKI)}

How insane is that????? Holy crap!!!!This is going to be an exciting ride…

• I have already looked at Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics: 1968. This piece looks promising. I will also look at commentary by others on Millet’s to engage in the conversation regarding sex culturally at the time.
• Vidal was deeply invested in the politics of the time, so I need to delve into research on Vidal and his politics. I will look at his essays. What was Vidal concerned about while writing Myra? What kind of historical/cultural phenomena does he talk about? I need to articulate the ways in which Myra is a commentary on the emerging connections between Sexuality and Politics that are occurring at the same time culturally.
• Kim suggested that I look at Todd Gitlin’s The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (1987) for an overview of the time period.
• I also need to look at secondary research on Myra.
• Kim also suggested that I look at Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Vol. I. He should be able to provide a model to analyze what I see in the novel and its surrounding influences.
• I may use Terry Eagleton to set up the idea that the novel is a part of its time, how this novel works, and what it can do. My focus is on how this novel works.

Let the games begin. Also, I will probably be going back to SUNY’s library after our field trip. It will be on a weekend. I live near ST. Rose & have a car, so if anyone is interested in carpooling to go & do some research, lemme know….

Old Georgie…that makes sense…

The futuristic Korea with under the corporatic rule is scary. In An Orison of Sonmi-451 the narrative is in the form of an interview between the archivist, representing the ruling ideology and Sonmi, the fabricant cloned for enslavement. One quote that stood out for me was Sonmi enlightening the stupefied “corp” historical recorder of what the real deal was:  ”Coporacy is built on slavery” (189) Slavery is a major thread throughout these sections. So are class structures, upstrata, downstrata (in this section). The archivist seems brainwashed by the Juche. Throughout the whole interview he responds like he really doesn’t know how evil corporacy is. Apparently, he is recording Sonmi’s version of what lead to her arrest & death sentence. I wonder how closely he will stick to her side of the story.

(The Juche is actually the name for the state ideology of North Korea and the political system based on it) It replaced Marxism in 1992. (WIKI)

 

Mitchell creates a world that doesn’t seem that far from reality in the future. We talked about the political commentary on the Bush Administration, terrorists, consumerism, allowing corporations to control the gov’t, sounds way too familiar. “Old Georgie”

The use of propaganda (the restaging of Yoona in the elevator, P.197) to maintain control through fear harkens back to the days of Hitler but can certainly relate to our media today. Control the masses through fear and/or religion. This is nothing new. But where is the truth?

Hawaii has been resurfacing throughout these sections. In Sonmi’s section it is the place they see on the 3-D. The place they will go when they receive their 12 stars. I have been there a few times. It is quite beautiful, especially the less developed islands like Kaui. Anyway, this is their reward for being good slaves, oops, I mean servers for Papa (Ronald McDonald???).  Next, we fast forward to Zachry in Sloosha’s Crossin’ An’ Ev’rythin’ After, which takes place in Hawaii.

We already posted about this section on Kelli’s blog so I won’t be redundant. I do want to mention that the fact that we are back on Hawaii after “The Fall” is not a coincidence. Hawaii’s first inhabitants were Polynesians, remember the Moriori from the Chatham Islands? They came from the Polynesian Isalnds also. The Valleymen are like the Moriori and the Kona are the Maori warriors who want to enslave them.

An Interview With David Mitchell

We found the author of “Cloud Atlas” in the Irish fishing village of Clonakilty, where he lives with his wife and daughter. Born in the English town of Seaport 34 years ago, he also has lived in Sicily and Hiroshima, Japan.

BW: What was the inspiration for “Cloud Atlas”?

DM: There wasn’t really a single Eureka moment. For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed. That said, three important sources spring to mind. First, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino — an experimental novel in which a sequence of narratives is interrupted but never picked up again — made a big impression on me when I was an undergraduate. I wondered what a novel might look like if a mirror were placed at the end of a book like Calvino’s so that the stories would be resolved in reverse.

Second, a mention of the Moriori people in Jared Diamond’s multidisciplinary Guns, Germs, and Steel led to a trip to the Chatham Islands and an encounter with New Zealand historian Michael King’s A Land Apart. His idea that there is nothing inevitable about civilization caught my curiosity. Knowledge can be forgotten as easily as, perhaps more easily than, it can be accrued. As a people, the Moriori “forgot” the existence of any other land and people but their own. When I heard this, my novelistic Geiger counter crackled.

Third, a book by Frederick Delius’s amanuensis, Eric Fenby, Delius: As I Knew Him, was worlds away from the Moriori but gave me the idea of Fenby’s evil twin, and the struggle between the exploited and the exploiter.

Perhaps all human interaction is about wanting and getting. (This needn’t be as bleak as it sounds — a consequence of getting can be giving, which presumably is what love is about.) Once I had these two ideas for novellas, I looked for other variations on the theme of predatory behavior — in the political, economic and personal arenas. These novellas seemed to marry well with the structure I had in mind: Each block of narrative is subsumed by the next, like a row of ever-bigger fish eating the one in front.

BW: What did you learn in the process of writing it?

DM: I learned that art is about people: Ideas are well and good, but without characters to hang them on, fiction falls limp. I learned that language is to the human experience what spectography is to light: Every word holds a tiny infinity of nuances, a genealogy, a social set of possible users, and that although a writer must sometimes pretend to use language lightly, he should never actually do so — the stuff is near sacred. I learned that maybe I should have a go at a linear narrative next time! I learned that the farther back in time you go, the denser the research required, and the more necessary it is to hide it.

BW: Did you write it as six separate stories?

DM: I did, but put indications where I would later cut and paste the novel into its final shape. The day I decided to do it that way was one of the major finishing posts of the novel. (I went to feed the ducks.)

BW: What was your model (which is something quite different from inspiration)?

DM: Each of the six sections has a model. My character Ewing was (pretty obviously) Melville, but with shorter sentences. Frobisher is Christopher Isherwood, especially in Lions and Shadows. Luisa Rey is any generic airport thriller. Cavendish is Cavendish — he has a short part in the “London” section of my first novel, Ghostwritten. The interview format for “Sonmi” I borrowed from gossip magazines in which a rather gushing hack interviews some celeb bigwig. Zachary owes (of course) a big debt to Riddley Walker, a novel by Russell Hoban, though some reviewers point to “Mad Max 3.” (Thanks guys.) I can’t claim that Don DeLillo’s monumental Underworld is a model for Cloud Atlas, but reading him always encourages me (like drinking) to take literary risks. (Both books, I just noticed, have upbeat endings, against the odds.)

BW:What, in your mind, distinguishes this book from your others?

DM: It has more of a conscience. I think this is because I am now a dad. I need the world to last another century and a half, not just see me to happy old age. •

 

 

 

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

“Comet Shaped Birthmark?…”Hull” is Hell…

Well first of all in the title Half Lives: The First Louisa Rey Story, half-life is a term for radioactive decay.  This section is set in the 1970′s when nuclear energy emerges as an alternate source.  In 1973 the Arab nations hit the US with an embargo on oil, OPEC. This forced the US to look for other means of power supplies. Of course in our capitalist system corporate greed seizes this opportunity. Mitchell’s commentary is on the evils of avarice within politics and big business that will stop at nothing to further their agenda. Some things never change. This is a common ideological thread that continues to permeate throughout the sections we have read thus far. In 1974 American’s witness the scandalous Watergate which implicated President Nixon as a major player in illegal wiretapping and espionage. Mitchell mentions Spiro Agnew on p.135. He was VP under Nixon during this time. He was investigated for extortion and ultimately resigned because of it. Also mentioned is Three Mile Island (107), which was a nuclear power plant in PA, that in 1979, accidentally leaked radioactivity.

 Mitchell’s narrative parallels the historical events of this time period by following journalist Louisa Rey. Again we are introduced to a main character who’s profession involves writing. The fact that she writes for a gossip rag is also indicative of the times. In this section we are introduced to Sixsmith. This continues the links between the previous sections. Louisa, Sixsmith & Forbisher connect. What’s the deal with the comet birthmark on Richard & Louisa? Reincarnation?  Historically comets were considered an omen of death, coming catastrophies. Also, why did Sixsmith have some “unread letters” from Forbisher (P.111)?

Pop 70′s references:

 Starsky & Hutch, The Incredible Hulk, Jaws, Bewitched, Carole King, Joni Mitchell. I was a kid in the 70′s. I remember a lot of this stuff.

Kim told us to think about Noir and detective novels while reading this section. I def see these elements. The detective/reporter/damsel in distress: Louisa. The hired gun: Bill Smoke, who gets off on seeing his victims die, he was a little miffed when he didn’t get to with Louisa. The femme fatale could be Fay Li. She’ll sell anyone out for the right price. “Money, power, the usual suspects”.

I found a passage that speaks to the ideology of this time period, it is Grimaldi’s inner thoughts on the “subject of power”:

Power. What do we mean? ‘The ability to determine another man’s luck.’ You men of science, building tycoons, and opinion formers: my jet could take off from La Guardia, and before I touched down in B.Y. you’d be a nobody. You Wall Street moguls, elected officials, judges, I might need more time to knock you off your perches, but your eventual downfall would be just as total.

Yet how is it some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as livestock? The answer is a holy trinity. First: God-given gifts of charisma. Second: the discipline to nurture these gifts to maturity, for through humanity’s topsoil is fertile with talent, only one seed in ten thousand will ever flower-for want of discipline. Third: the will to power. This is the enigma at the core of the various destinies of men. What drives some to accrue power where the majority of their compatriots lose, mishandle, or eschew power? Is it addiction? Wealth? Survival? Natural Selection? I propose these are all pretexts and results, not the root cause. The only answer can be’ There is no “Why.” This is our nature.’ ‘Who’ and ‘What’ run deeper than ‘Why. (129).

I think that the idea of the nature of man is a major theme throughout this novel. Mitchell is exploring this in a historical context as the novel progresses. What is the nature of man? Is it greed, the exploitation of others to obtain wealth? Does this ultimately result in self-destruction?

The next story, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, introduces us to yet another main character who is involved in a writing profession. Timothy Cavendish is the owner of a publishing firm. The narrative is written in the form of his memoir. The time is present day. As we all know memoir writing is the rage of the day. The form of the prose in this section is very similar to the writing of Martin Amis. I took Kim’s advice and went on Amazon to read a few pages of Money, Mitchell mirrors Amis’ writing style to a “T”. I found this online:

“Amis’s raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called “the new unpleasantness.” (WIKI)

Most of the reviews on Amis considered his prose in your face & shocking.

Once again we see capitalism, only now it is in the market of selling books. Big business. “Hardcovers, ladies and gentlemen’ (150). $$$$$. Ideology: “the decline of the genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste” (147). Talk about what makes a great novel. Grisholm anyone?

Another part that speaks to the an underlying theme of this novel is on P. 163, Cavendish reflects “You would think a place the size of England could easily hold the happenings in one humble life without much overlap…but no, we cross, crisscross, and recross our old tracks like figure skaters” . Along these lines I noticed some things that keep popping up: Cambridge, Caius (the University where Forbisher met SixSmith, Sixsmith’s neice went there), the #6 is everywhere, Hawaii, Pacific, the Hotel Regency)

I found something interesting about Hull, the place Cavendish flees to. It is a part of England also known as Kingston. Apparently, it was a fishing and whaling center. Also, it was the backdrop of the Abolition of the slave trade in Britain in 1833. (WIKI). Hmmm…

I must say I am enjoying the trip so far.

What’s with the #6???

I may be in the minority on this one, but I enjoyed both sections we read so far. The first section, the Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, did require some active reading by looking things up. You really have to do this when you read a piece that has so many references that you are unfamiliar with. First, to check to see if they are actual places, people or things, and second to know what they mean to get the full context. As I have said in the past, I like this investigative way of reading. With the advent of the internet, information is only keystrokes away. Not so much in my earlier days as a college student. Yay, for technology.

On of the first things I noticed in Ewings section was the name of a ship the Nellie. That was the name of Marlowe’s “cruising yawl” in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That and the talk of cannibalism gave me a sense of familiarity. I read excerpts from Melville’s, Moby Dick, last semester as well as early American travel narratives a few semesters ago. Maybe that’s why I felt comfortable reading this section since Mitchell is writing with this time period and themes in mind. Beside the different genre of writing it is important to note that Ewing is a Notary. He authenticates the legality of documents. The next section we have another character, Robert Forbisher, who works with written documents, or actually takes dictation and writes musical compositions,  an amanuensis. There seems to be patterns , motifs of the different genres in literature as well as different professions of writing.

As Kim mentioned in class, the first part is not about the character of Ewing in an individual sense entirely.  It is more about the worldview or the ideologies of the period of colonization in the late 19^th century. At first, because it took place on Chatham Isles (which is in New Zealand, thanks WIKI) I thought the focus was on the British colonization. However, as Kim pointed out Mitchell represents all the players, American, Dutch, Spanish, and the Maori themselves (“they (the Maori) proved themselves apt pupils of the English in ‘the dark arts of colonization’” (14).

Ewing’s oblivious nature to pretty much everything is annoying but even more importantly it is indicative of the mindset of the colonizers and the thought processes they cultivated to further their agenda. Through Ewing we get the language of the colonizer: savages, beast, blackamoor, demotic, nigger, darkie. We are familiar with this system of dehumanization. That whole scene with Autua is a perfect example of how fucked up it is that Ewing cannot see him as a person. But that’s the ideology of the time and has been a widespread feature of human history.

I looked in my Lit Theory book from 330 and found the theorist we read that referenced the colonization of Australia. It was Alan Lawson’s The Anxious Proximities of Settler Relations (1210). Basically, it was talking about the aboriginal claims to the lands. Lawson calls for a rewriting of the “bad history” of the old tropes that the colonizers used to justify their cause: primarily aboriginal cannibalism.

Letters From Zedelghem was hilarious. I thoroughly enjoyed the humor. This section we can zoom in on the character that is Robert Forbisher. Crap I have to go to class…I’ll finish this ASAP.

Back…

We talked about him briefly in class. He is a capitalist in the true sense of the word. He lives in a world where there is a market for everything (his musical knowledge, his body and the manuscripts he pilfers and sells to the sleazy, Jansch) that provide him with boundless opportunities.

It is important to note that it is 1931. We fast forward to a time in history that is between WWI & WWII. This is important because at this time in history art & the aesthetics were linked with power and the dictatorships of Europe. Hitler was very much interested in the arts and controlling them. Most of the composers, artists, poets had to go underground when WWII broke out.  This time period was full of disillusionment from WWI and the aftermath of the destruction. Many people in Europe had to flee their countries during the war, Vyvvan Ayers & his family fled to Scandinavia. This section reminds me of the piece I read on Lukacs. I think if we are to look at the ideologies of this time period we can’t ignore the continuance of capitalism, in the name of world dominance, according to Hitler, et al.

Richard finds Ewing’s travel journal on VA’s bookshelf. How did it get there? Also, his take on Dr. Goose was intriguing. Hmmm.

Heimatlosigkeit…yeah, I can say it…

When I started to read Lukacs I honestly felt a bit overwhelmed by the language. I turned to secondary sources to try to make sense of his piece. J.M Berstein’s Philosophy of the Novel: Lukacs, Marxism and the Dialectics of Form, David H. Miles, “Portrait of the Marxist as a Young Hegelian: Lukacs’ Theory of the Novel, Graham Good’s “Review Essay: Lukacs’ Theory of the Novel, and WIKI. This research helped me to grasp some of the main points in Lukacs’ theory. There were so many that we were not able to even touch on in class. We tried to focus on what we thought were most relevant for our purposes as we are examining what the novel is and most specifically with Lukacs, its origin historically.

Lukacs’ comes from a very German philosophical tradition and is heavily influenced by Hegel.

Hegel developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or “system”, to account in an integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, and psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy. In particular, he developed a concept of mind or spirit that manifested itself in a set of contradictions and oppositions that it ultimately integrated and united, such as those between nature and freedom, and immanence and transcendence, without eliminating either pole or reducing it to the other. His influential conceptions are of speculative logic or “dialectic,” “absolute idealism,” “Spirit,” negativity, sublation (Aufhebung in German), the “Master/Slave” dialectic, “ethical life,” and the importance of history. (WIKI)

Just in this paragraph from WIKI I can see the some of the language and ideas Lukacs uses in his theory about the novel. Lukacs is also influenced by Kant. The concepts of immanence and transcendence:

• “philosophical and metaphysical theories of the divine as existing and acting within the mind or the world. This concept generally contrasts or coexists with the idea of transcendence“
• “In the context of Kant‘s theory of knowledge Immanence means to remain in the boundaries of possible experience”
• “In modern philosophy, Kant introduced a new term – transcendental, thus instituting a new, third meaning. In his theory of knowledge, this concept is concerned with the conditions of possibility of knowledge itself. He also opposed the term transcendental to the term transcendent, the latter meaning “that, which goes beyond” (transcends) any possible knowledge of a human being. For him transcendental meant knowledge about our cognitive faculty with regard to how objects are possible a priori. “I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them.”He also equated transcendental with that which is “…in respect of the subject’s faculty of cognition.”Something is transcendental if it plays a role in the way in which the mind “constitutes” objects and makes it possible for us to experience them as objects in the first place. Ordinary knowledge is knowledge of objects; transcendental knowledge is knowledge of how it is possible for us to experience those objects as objects”
• “Eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1781) advocated a blend of rationalist and empiricist theories. Kant states, “although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that that it arises from experience” According to Kant, a priori knowledge is transcendental, or based on the form of all possible experience, while a posteriori knowledge is empirical, based on the content of experience. Kant states, “… it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself (sensuous impressions giving merely the occasion).”

In our presentation, Tabitha mentioned critic David Miles who argues that Lukacs theory has been “more praised than read” because of the intangible concepts and the reader to have extensive knowledge of German philosophy (22). Yes I think that it would make sense to do some research on Hegel & Kant to have some familiarity with the schools of thought from which Lukacs has been inspired by.

Bernstein suggests that “the function of Lukacs historiographical schema is not to forward a universal philosophy of history, but rather to aid in the establishing of the historical specificity, the historical uniqueness of the novel and its world., the world of capitalism” (47). In other words, Bernstein is suggesting that Lukacs’ contribution to the theory of the novel is to ascertain a starting point for the inception of the novel. He does this by examining the form of Epic literature which was pre-capitalist society, influenced by gods, then God. The novel appears when “god abandons man” or as Lukacs advocates “when man became lonely and could find meaning and substance only in his soul, whose home was nowhere” (210). This idea of “tanscendental homelessness” lends itself to the origin of the novel, its content and its form. Lukacs piece was written during WWI which has been a catalyst fro the Modern literary movement, much like WWII and Post-Modernism. Both were times of great disallusionment. In Lukacs writing of his theory on the novel we are getting his worldview at a particular time period in history. I would argue that the effect of history at the time something is written is inherently significant. Vidal’s Myra is a perfect example of Lukacs’ “historico-philosophy”. I would like to examine this correlation further.

I found Armstrong’ s opinion that “desire and sexuality”  as not being independent of political history very interesting.  The inclusion of the history of sexuality in understanding the novel as being crucial, makes sense to me. I can’t help but think of how Myra would fit here. Armstrong includes Foucault in her discussion, which also harkens back to Myra, sexuality, power, politics. Hmmm…

I also found Jameson’s theories compelling. He, like Lukacs & Armstrong sees history as a vital component of the novel. “He believes novels chronologically demonstrate the evolution of culture & power-political history” (B&K’s abstract). I am drawn to the historical aspects of these theorists. Brandon said that for Jameson, the novel reflects the morals of the time, Myra, Myra, Myra…

This is taken from Kate Millet’s “Sexual Politics” written in 1969, one year after Vidal published Myra.

“a disinterested examination of our system of sexual relationship must point out that the situation between the sexes now, and throughout history, is a case of that phenomenon Max Weber defined as herrschaft, a relationship of dominance and subordinance. What goes largely unexamined, often even unacknowledged (yet is institutionalised nonetheless) in our social order, is the birthright priority whereby males rule females. Through this system a most ingenious form of “interior colonisation” has been achieved. It is one which tends moreover to be sturdier than any form of segregation, and more rigorous than class stratification, more uniform, certainly more enduring. However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power” (Ch 2)

Bakhtin’s concept that there is no canon is something that I’d like to read more about. Why does he feel this way? How does he support this contention?

Turn The Page…

 A novel should make the reader want to keep turning the pages. I know this sounds basic, but is is crucial.  The narrative should be engaging from beginning to end. For the past few months I have been asking people questions about the novel: Why do you read what you read? What makes a good novel for you? Responses that keep coming up are: A novel is good: if I can’t put it down, if it keeps me up all night reading it, I think about it when I am not reading it, I have dreams about it, I want to read it again and again.

I have also been paying attention to this in my creative writing workshops. I have been having a difficult time reading some of the pieces written by some of my classmates. I know that this is a totally different level. I am just looking at the ability to engage the reader aspect. It is vital.

In Uses Of Enchantment, Julavits was successful at fulfilling this expectation for me. However, Julavits goes even further by making the reader want to, or have to, turn back the pages to check, examine, clarify, re-analyze possible connections that are essential to understanding certain plot points. For example, the cigarette case is first introduced in the beginning of the novel on P. 42 in the “What Might Have Happened” section. The next time it is mentioned is 15 years later in the “West Salem” section on P.55. This section is the present part of the narrative. It appears a third time on P. 246 in “Notes” when “Aunt Helen”/Paula/Mary’s mom goes to see Dr. Hammer with the cigarette case & a handwritten receipt. Later in that same section on p.262, hammer recalls the session with Mary & the game she suggest they play a that involved listing objects. The “Dented Silver Cigarette Case” is the first item on her list. 

The second time the cigarette case is mentioned we know that it is important, but we still don’t know to what extent completely. As a reader, I am keeping that in the storage bin of my brain for further reference as I continue reading, hoping of course, that it doesn’t get blown out by some huge crosswind, I am kidding. Julavits doesn’t mention the case until almost 200 pages later.  I am forced to go back to find the passages where it was first mentioned to piece it all together. Kim suggested that we do a very close reading of this novel. I see why. The cigarette case is just one of many parts of the whole that Julavits sprinkles throughout the entire novel. She wants the reader to work at making connections. I found this an effective way to keep me turning the pages of her novel.

Terry Eagleton: The novel is “one of the great revolutionary cultural forms of human history.” I have to agree with Eagleton. Since its inception the novel has evolved into a medium that allows people with radical, innovative ideas or perspectives on social, political, or cultural commentary or critique to have a voice. The novel is a fictional prose narrative. This allows the writer to utilize literary devices to engage the reader through form, imagery, characterization, allusions, POV, stream of consciousness, etc. The novel becomes the world that is created by the author. The author’s ideas, commentary, criticism or message permeate this world. As a reader we see the world as the writer sees it and it is up to us to draw our own conclusions.

A perfect example of a “great revolutionary” work is Vidal’s Myra. Vidal was ahead of his time. As Kim pointed out he came before Foucault’s theories on sexuality and power. By using the medium of the novel, Vidal  couches his social, political, & gender commentary/critique in a bizarre story about a man who changes into a woman… who rapes a man… who then falls in love with a woman… and goes back to being a man. This novel was considered pornography by some when it was first published. I am sure some people today may even think so. But there is so much going on in this book. That is the beauty of Vidal’s brilliance. He knows the whole concept of Myra was controversial at that time. He knew people would read it. But by reading it you are reading about the human condition as Vidal perceives it. His voice is being heard at a time, especially politically, when he wants it to be.

I Think I Know What K is…

One of the main themes in this novel is memory. In our last class, Kim asked the question “What does it mean to know something?” She directed us to a few passages that through analysis may provide some clarification:

The girl tells the man about the paper she wrote about a man who burned down a girl’s house:

“I based it on a book I read as a kid. Or at least I think I read it. I’ve never been able to find the actual book. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I just made the whole story up myself. I mean who would write a kid’s book about an arsonist who kills a whole family and then tries to kill a little girl…

I wonder if she knew something, the girl said. Do you think maybe she knew something she didn’t know she knew?

The real question is, the man said, pointing at a half eaten shrimp at her, if she has to be reminded that she knows something, does she really know it?

Maybe she blanked it out to save herself, the girl said. She knew if she knew this thing that someone would try to pry it out of her” (78).

I think the last part of this is Freud’s theory on repression. The first sentence, “Maybe she blanked it out to save herself”, is a defense mechanism against having to remember unpleasant experiences. The second part of the passage, “She knew if she knew this thing that someone would try to pry it out of her” appears to suggest a fear of the interrogations by the local authorities, or especially the psychoanalysts, as in Mary’s case.

I found something rather interesting while writing this post. I have The Freud Reader, edited by Peter Gay. It’s on my bookshelf collection from college courses I have taken. So when I started to analyze the passage above, I reached for it to look up Freud’s repression theories. I looked up repression in the index and went to the first page listed. Guess what Freud called this section…Draft K… Is this where Julavits/ Mary gets the K????? It is a memorandum he enclosed with a letter to a colleague. Draft K “deals with the vexed question of “choice of neurosis,” …defense activity (repression) and the nature of symptoms as compromises. …he thinks their origins go back to traumatic sexual experiences.” (Gay 89). Not only that but the first section is entitled The Neuroses Of Defence, (A Christmas Fairy Tale). As we have mentioned in class a few times Julavits has made allusions to children’s fairy tales. The title of this novel is taken from Bruno Bettelheim’s 1975 book, in which he analyzes fairy tales in terms of Freudian psychoanalysis. Kim explained that he was against the sanitizing of stories that are told to children. His argument being that the children need to know that bad things happen in the world. It prepares them to deal with life.

Another significant passage to examine found in the “Notes” section. It is Mary’s third session with Hammer and he introduces the term “paramnesia”:

“Mary pretended to be entranced by my bookshelves. I wondered if she suffered from “true amnesia” — gaps into which not only very old memories have fallen but recent events as well. Often “paramnesias” form to fill these gaps—stories that take the place of memory, memories which can conveniently disappear at the point a patient tries to put them into words. Often this disappearance is due to subverted shame—meaning that Mary’s seemingly disingenuous forgetting could be the result of a force exerted by her unconscious” (99).

 

Mary’s motivation…

“The kiss did not ruin her; her mother’s slap did. And so years later, when she had read Dora, the book ingnited a chain of electric connections. She thought of herself like a bulb in a string of Christmas lights; one bad bulb left the bulbs after it in darkness. So she ignited herself, and the string reached back and back and back, and she became emboldened not only by her own injustice but by a continuum of injustices linking her to Bettina and Dora and Dorcas Hobbs and Abagail Lake and beyond. She’d begun playing games, games inside of games inside of games. But now when she tried to visualize that string of lights, all she could see was an expanding brightness that erased more than it revealed” (128).

In this passage Mary is recalling the kiss by Kurt, her parent’s friend. Her mother found out through one of her sister’s and instead of consoling Mary, she is slapped for lying. It is clear that at this point this is where Mary began to repress as a defense against her mother’s anger. This repression was “ignited by a chain of electric connections” beginning with Freud’s Dora. She identified with other women who had been unjustly accused of something. She was encouraged by finding “a continuum of injustices” in “Bettina and Dora and Dorcas Hobbs and Abagail Lake and beyond”. I think the problem with Mary identifying with all of these women is in the way she does it. It’s almost as if all the women’s stories become one with Mary’s. Now that Mary wants to remember what her story is, it is almost impossible “to visualize that string of lights”. The only thing Mary can see when she looks back is “an expanding brightness that erased more than it revealed”.  I believe that Julavits wants the reader to experience the same difficulty that Mary is having in trying to sort out the truth. That would explain Julavitz’s choices in the form of this novel.