Showalter: “I’m a big fan of humorous women’s writing, but I wouldn’t want to make it a literary category. Lorrie Moore is very funny.”
Rumpus: [This is a strictly rhetorical question: why the hell not make it a literary category?] The first hundred pages of The Bell Jar make me laugh aloud; both Sylvia Plath and Lorrie Moore combine humor with literariness. My favorite women writers take pieces from various genres and rearrange the familiar, like Gertrude Stein: “To many in the avant-garde, [Stein] was the very essence of modernism, writing in a combination of babble, nonsense, ‘chanting, automatic writing, Cubist painting, and atonal music.’” Stein can be unreadable, incomprehensible, self-indulgent, boring, difficult, and obscure. Joyce Carol Oates uses the full range of language (read as: obscenity) in her writing, which I enjoy. Do you consider these women major innovators of a “woman’s language”?
Showalter: “I don’t believe that there is a ‘women’s language.’ American women have had to fight for access to the full range of language, and until very recently were subject to more censorship and criticism for their language experiments than men.”
Rumpus: [Really? No “women’s language”?]
Showalter: [Maybe there’s a “women’s language.”]
Rumpus: [I couldn’t agree more.] I admire you not only for your commitment to women’s writing, but also your commitment to improving women’s lives. You speak of your friend Adrienne Rich, who “avowed at a memorial service for [Anne] Sexton,” that women’s writing “could not be in ‘self-trivialization, contempt for women, misplaced compassion, addiction.’ It could not be in suicide.” She said this in the 1970s, followed by, “Women writers would need the will to change.” How have you seen this change manifest since Rich asserted her wish?
Showalter: [I know women are still hurting and dealing with self-trivialization, contempt for women, misplaced compassion, addiction, and suicide, whether they’re writers or not. I ask women to empathize and understand we can sometimes change into fuzzy uneducated versions of ourselves. We as humans must have some right to be out of bounds a few times a year and remain unpunished by others and ourselves. While it’s an admirable goal for women’s writing to no longer be anchored in addiction and suicide, I allow that many women’s writing must be, for them; I cannot deny them their feelings or mode of expression, but art need not imitate life.]
Rumpus: Even so, women writers have had to disguise their writing as “private postscripts to letters or alleged ‘parodies’; their content was too bitter, intimate, and dark, their language too free and direct.” Because both life and writing about life can be unbearably difficult, some writers choose to hide behind fiction to mask what others consider madness. I struggle with writing about my personal life because much of it is humiliating. Better to bare it all, write the truth, and without shame call it the truth? Or is it better to preserve one’s dignity to sacrifice a story rich in honesty and vulnerability?
Showalter: [Better to preserve one’s dignity? Bitch, please.]
Rumpus: [Well said.] Gertrude Stein once said, “‘It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.’” I spend a lot of time doing nothing, so I’m encouraged. Stein wrote stories after looking at paintings of Cézanne and reading Flaubert; perhaps she proves that a rich interior life is all we need. When you write about women, how much of your writing comes from what is inside you and from what moves you, especially during the heights of nothingness?
Showalter: [For every nothing there is a something. If only for every Gertrude Stein there were an Alice B. Toklas.]
Rumpus: [Speaking of notorious couplings,] I want to talk about the “fundamental alliance” between femininity and insanity. You talked about it first: “these dual images of female insanity—madness as one of the wrongs of women; madness as the essential feminine nature unveiling itself before scientific male rationality—suggest the two ways that the relationship between women and madness has been perceived.” Why does our culture reinforce the link between femininity and insanity as women’s downfall? Examples of our culture doing this include: films such as He’s Just Not That into You, political figures like Sarah Palin, and my ex-boyfriends.
Showalter: [To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. Your ex-boyfriend’s professor said that to him once, and he said this to you in a similar discussion about madness, while breaking your heart. The two-dimensional men you’ve dated want to talk about the fundamental alliance between black and white, doubt and immobility, femininity and insanity; I do not.]
Rumpus: The House of Mirth depicts a heroine past thirty, unmarried, and ultimately dead of an overdose. Your astute observation of a woman’s place in such novels is succinctly well-said: “These novels pose the problem of female maturation in narrative terms: What can happen to the heroine as she grows up? What plots, transformations, and endings are imaginable for her? Is she capable of change at all?” I think these questions are poignant yet hopeful, and I want to ruminate on them. [Can you say more things like this?]
Showalter: [When I lost my first love (“lost” is not the most precise word here and neither is “love”), I told a friend, “I feel like I lost my arm.” She said, “Start writing with your left hand.” As we grow up, we learn about pain, which we feel is an ending. But it’s more. Pain is when someone craps on your soul. Pain is when someone turns out bad. Pain is failed expectation, again and again. We learn love is not enough. We learn, I hope, that enough is eventually enough.]
Rumpus: What makes you love the heroines in your favorite books? Individuality, autonomy, enthusiasm, avoidable flaws?
Showalter: [I love the weight of a character—the physical burden of life choices, hoarded and distorted regrets and triumphs—the details the body betrays, like fat around the stomach, dried blood from bitten lips, the unobserved piles of chewed nails; each character could weigh a million pounds if beauty never insisted.]
Rumpus: I write like a girl. Regarding her inability to finish The Events Leading Up to the Tragedy, Dorothy Parker said: “‘Dear God, please make me stop writing like a woman. For Jesus Christ’s sake, amen.’” I write about my life experiences, and that usually comes out as unfiltered emotion, unrequited love, and eventual discussion of my vagina as metaphor. You coined the term “gynocriticism,” which supports a female context for analysis and criticism of women’s literature, and encourages new literary models based on the female experience, rather than regurgitation of male theories and tradition. When will we start saying, “Dear God, thank you for making me write like a woman”? With contributions like Jury, is that time now?
Showalter: “The problems with ‘writing like a woman’ exclusively are a) that men can do it too if they want to, and b) it limits your range of creative expression.” [Allow me to discuss some other things. I believe women have a unique perspective. The fear of being read like a woman precedes writing like a woman. I wish you’d stop believing no one is going to read your writing or appreciate it; this makes your writing restrained, lackluster, and full of the hollow fear of what other people will think. Women are smart. They are funny. They can write about anything. Their writing is of consequence, for worse and for better. I wish your anxiety away, but only you can move it, with your hands, with your heart, with the sheer force of your bones and your thoughts and your words and the tangible within you and the intangible outside you; just move, force it, push your hands out in front of you, fingers spread, palms in full contact with that which obstructs your path. Push. Harder, faster, stronger. One foot in front of the other. Walk forward, hands forward, rock forward. You’re moving. Look at you go.]
Rumpus: Your book Inventing Herself (a book I intend to buy for every woman I know) is “not a history of perfect women, but of real women, whose mistakes and even tragedies are instructive and inspiring for women today who are still trying to invent themselves”; you follow the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft, Margaret Mead, Simone de Beauvoir, Zora Neale Hurston, Susan Sontag, and beyond. These women boldly worked, loved, and altered the world via their individual will and unbounded determination; yet they met tragic ends. I often explain to my mother that to be a writer means to suffer mercilessly and experiment with prescription medication. She pleads with me: can’t it be different? What means can contemporary women take to meet different ends than their sisters and saints?
Showalter: [I can’t answer these questions as you’d like. This is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And it’s just starting.]
Rumpus: [There are a few final notes I’d like to address. I believe within your work is a call for inspiration. You write, “By the end of the 18th century…novels have been dangerous, [because they] perverted judgment, mislead affections, and blinded understanding”; it was these novels that encouraged women to become dangerous, perverted, misled, and blinded writers themselves. How wonderful is that?]
Showalter: [Very.]
Rumpus: I am a nice Jewish girl with a college education. I’m of child-rearing age and aptitude. I don’t have plans for Rosh Hashanah this year. How do you feel about inviting me over to meet your son?
Showalter: “Elissa, if I celebrated Rosh Hashanah you would be high on my guest list! Mike [as in comedian Michael Showalter], however, is In a Relationship.” [Capitalization hers.]
Rumpus: [—]
Showalter: “I know this is a belated and very brief reply to your questions but hope you can make some use of it.”
Rumpus: [—]
***
Rumpus original art by Ilyse Magy.
13 responses
My imaginary response to this is that it’s [totally fucking brilliant].
Great piece. Will be going to the Joyce Carol Oates/Elaine Showalter talk/brunch at 92Y this weekend in NY. Interested to hear more on her thoughts about the fight for use of a full range of language.
Do you mean women’s studies in the fourth paragraph?
“because she is the leading feminist literary critic of our time and introduced women’s students into college curriculums”
Thanks for being my editor, Michelle! I’ll fix it now. Can you read all my stuff?
Nice piece. I don’t remember ever reading Elaine Showalter, and I call myself a Women’s Studies major. Will have to check out her book, although lit crit makes me itch.
A few things that come to mind:
Didn’t women invent the novel as literary form?
As a writer the term chick lit annoys me, but really, I don’t care. Who cares if the book gets published with a pink cover if it gets read? I come from a women’s magazine background where the Taliban articles were wedged between makeover stories and pieces about the hot new eyeshadow of the season, and it worked—the message was still received. I followed this model when writing my novels. I sandwich the serious lessons in between optimism, feminism, fashion and beauty. The serious stuff is very dark though and I have yet to find a publisher.
90% of the time I’m incapable of writing in my apartment—I have to get out.
Is feminism still a dirty word? Most women I know won’t admit to being one (never been my problem). I mean, look at all the women who voted for the man in last election…
I do read some of what you write, Elissa, and most of it is pretty damn good. Great spin on Showalter not showing up for most of your interview questions.
Elissa, this is brilliant and hilarious! Your questions and imaginary answers contain even more insight than the brief and tangentially related points in Showalter’s actual responses. But, also, your passion for her work makes me want to check out some of her books immediately (or, rather, whenever the library opens tomorrow).
And, of course, I can’t wait to read more of your work. I completely agree when you-as-imaginary-Elaine encourage yourself to please, please keep writing!
One more tiny editing comment: did you mean Kathy Acker, not Kathy Acher?
Thank you so much. Attending a school without any sort of Women’s Studies department (or emphasis in Women’s Studies via history classes,grrr) this was especially refreshing/wonderful/hilarious/helpful.
I tried to go to sleep after reading Michelle’s comment (the second one) and just couldn’t. It made me think of this quotation from Lorrie Moore in “How to Become a Writer”:
“The only happiness you have is writing something new, in the middle of the night, armpits damp, heart pounding, something no one has seen yet. You have only those brief, fragile, untested moments of exhilaration when you know: you are a genius.â€
It’s the middle of the night, armpits damp, heart pounding. Not so brief or fragile, but a real sense of exhilaration. Michelle, good god, woman, let’s get a drink.
I had a similar feeling when I wrote this piece. At the time, alone in my apartment, I said aloud, loudly, “WRITING-GASM!” Nothing feels better–except that one thing.
Anyway, the point is, a few things come to mind re: your things (and thank you for your contribution):
I personally haven’t read anywhere that women invented the novel as literary form. If it’s true, it’s not well attributed. A Jury of Her Peers is very much about this, the idea that women contributed in ways that have been concealed, misunderstood, and confused. I managed to confuse a few things myself…
When I was in high school, I subscribed to Marie Claire. Doing so made me feel sophisticated, worldly, prepared for sex, etc. (NB: magazines don’t prepare well for sex). In one issue, I read an article about women being sold into sex slavery. It scared the shit out of me. What scared me more was that the article was between ads for perfume and bras and diet pills. Lightbulb moment. Something is fucking wrong here. I was close with my European history teacher, one of my first female role models (she is a goddess), and just baffled, I showed it to her. I needed her to tell me why. She looked at me in a way that I interpreted as, “Yeah, this is the world, cupcake. I’m sorry you just figured it out. But deal with it.” Your comment turns it all around for me. “The message was still received.” Yes, you are right. Elaine made me rethink a few things, particularly my immature and thoughtless hatred of “chick lit,” for example.
In the uncut original interview questions, I asked Elaine if she was a feminist. She didn’t respond. Fair enough. And I can’t imagine what she could have said to that question. I, Elissa Bassist, would say this: That same history teacher taught the evils of “isms,” and I can understand why not everyone is into the label. But I know, secretly, that if you are a person who cares about equality for all people, you’re a feminist. If you’re a woman who’s in school or working or being a good mom, you’re a feminist. I know a ton of people, men and women, who are feminists and just refuse to use the term. Lots of my boyfriends have refused to use the term “boyfriend” or “relationship,” but that didn’t fool me. Words schmurds.
Want to send me your serious dark stuff? That’s my favorite kind. I think you’re right that you have to put it between optimism, humor, etc. I think that’s how Lorrie Moore gets away with it…balance, dimension, honesty. That woman is a black pit of despair, but she’s hilarious and smart as hell about it.
And, I have to say, even though E. Showalter didn’t respond to all my questions/insanity, she’s still my reason to get up in the morning.
Also, Michelle, most of what I write? Not all? Was it the Ayn Rand piece?
Thanks, Danni! Where’s The Rumpus proofreading department?
Will have to check out the Ayn Rand piece – she’s one of my favorites.
The Tale of Genji written by female courtesan Murasaki Shikibu in the eleventh century is considered to be the world’s first novel. We learned in my 1993 (gasp!) Women Novelists class that women, especially in the 1700-1800s invented the novel.
Wild, I worked for MC when that issue with the sex slavery article came out. Have a lot to say about the magazine business (and new media) but must get back to work writing headlines like ‘unwanted hair is gone—forever!’ If it will let me take a few months off later this year to rework my novel, it’s all worth it.
Looking forward to reading more of your stuff – Michelle
Nice, on Ayn Rand. You know the model for her supermen was a serial killer, right? http://exiledonline.com/atlas-shrieked-why-ayn-rands-right-wing-followers-are-scarier-than-the-manson-family-and-the-gruesome-story-of-the-serial-killer-who-stole-ayn-rands-heart/
You can Google around, there’s lots of stuff out there on this.
Showalter’s a little whacked on a few things, too. Like stating that certain illnesses are hysterical when you’re not qualified to assess. That’s kinda arrogant…when you don’t know what you don’t know. Plus, she totally misrepresented Tillie Olsen’s claim about Silences, at least as I recall it. And then she rebutted the wrong claim. I’m about to blog on this myself. Grrr.
I understand that Elaine Showalter has contributed to the field of feminist literary criticism, but in my eyes the damage she has done in the field of women’s health far outweighs any of her positive work. How could anyone outside the medical field presume to offer an “expert” opinion that serious, debilitating diseases like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are “hysteria?” Not only did she ignore countless articles in medical journals, the CDC, and the up to 4 million American patients, she also ignored the history of her own field. Multiple Sclerosis and polio were also once labeled as “hysteria?”. Most CFS patients are women, although many are men. Although she implies that it is a disease of white, rich women, like most diseases, poor people and people of color are at a greater risk. I truly don’t understand why she would use her power as a well-known feminist academic to undermine the efforts of millions of people to get their illness taken seriously. The medical establishment has a long history of ignoring and psychologizing diseases that affect mostly women; why would Elaine Showalter buy into that?
Ms. Showalter deserves public censure for what she’s done, not adoring praise. She’s the most anti-feminist feminist I’ve ever known.
Lee Davis
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