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Friday, April 15
A Certain Kind of Woman
by
Kiosan
on Fri 15 Apr 2005 02:48 PM EDT
In honor of National Poetry Month :
I have gone out, a possessed witch
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disalign.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.
(Her Kind, 1959)
Anne Sexton, dead thanks to suicide at the age of 45 in 1974, was one of the first of the great confessional poets.
In fact, if you ever asked her, she insisted that she was the only confessional poet.
Sexton was among the first to tackle such taboos as incest, mental illness, addiction and abortion. Her work broached the falsely placid waters of the 1950s and 60s, and led readers behind the wizard’s curtain to look at the inner workings of her "ordinary" life.
"Because there was no other place to flee to,/ I came back to the scene of the disordered senses." (Flee On Your Donkey, 1962)
If anyone could be poster child for the disordered senses, it would be Sexton. She was an alcoholic. She smoked too much. She was desperately mentally unstable. Anne Sexton was constantly suicidal, carrying "kill me pills" in her purse. She was a housewife and mother on the verge of total mental collapse in 1956 when her therapist finally suggested poetry might help. Sexton thought this might be worth a try, and so launched a career that would last only 18 years. She was a literary genius who won a Pulitzer Prize during her short, tormented career precisely because she kept returning to the scene of her disordered senses again and again, bleeding out her inner drama across pages of verse and dragging us, helplessly fascinated along with her.
Biographer Diane Wood Middlebrook, who wrote Anne Sexton: A Biography, is obviously a fan of Sexton’s work. Her appreciation, as well as the cooperation of Sexton’s family in making available even medical records and other private papers, enable Middlebrook to treat her subject with a sort of gentle understanding of the many people Anne Sexton felt compelled to be. The author never grows so much enamored of her subject, however, that she becomes blind to her faults. Middlebrook chronicles Sexton’s personal failures and triumphs with the same deft touch that offers an unusually balanced perspective on an unusually unbalanced woman.
The book has a few slow points (most true biographies do), but manages to keep the reader’s attention more than engaged over some 400 pages. Anyone who is intrigued by the work of Sexton, or who has a secret fascination with breaking the taboos of the mid-twentieth century, will find this an interesting and unforgettable read.
Wednesday, April 13
The Dreaded, Virulent, Really Kinda Cool Book Meme
by
Kiosan
on Wed 13 Apr 2005 01:16 PM EDT
The Dark Wraith, thinking, quite kindly, that this little corner of the blogosphere could do with some attention (for which I am grateful, by the way, as I happen to both like Mr. Wraith and agree with him on this subject), tagged me with the dreaded Book Meme circulating the blogs at this moment along with the Unitarian Jihad.
Joining the Jihad as The Shotgun of Compassion may have contributed to my vulnerability, depicting, as it does, my willingness to occasionally join the crowd – if, of course, it looks as though the crowd is having a grand time, and no one appears to be near a cliff edge or dressed as a rodent. I do quite like the name, though. But I digress.
Mr. Wraith, again being the ever-polite soul that he is, asked me to join in the fun. Being a Southern Lady myself, and constitutionally incapable of refusing any invitation rendered in such gentlemanly fashion (well, almost any. There are certain kinds of invitations that, no matter how politely rendered, The Shotgun of Compassion entertains neither difficulty nor qualms in turning down), I naturally had to accept.
Besides which, it does look like fun, and I don’t see any furry costumes lurking, so here goes:
You are stuck inside "Fahrenheit 451." Which book would you be?
Hmm, I’d have to memorize both Don Quixote and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (having played Alice once, I’ve got a decent headstart on the latter).
Not quite within the rules, I know, choosing two, but I have been known to change rules I don’t like.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Doesn’t every girl have a crush on Mark Darcy? There have been other, lighter flirtations here and there, I suppose, but Mr. Darcy remains constant, as ever and as expected.
What is the last book you bought?
Do people generally buy just one at a time? I am unfamiliar with this doctrine. You can dress me up, as dear Hubby says, but you cannot take me to a bookstore. My last spree included the following:
The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it has Undermined Women, Susan Douglas and Meredith Micheals
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson
A Fine Young Man: What Parents, Mentors & Educators can do to Shape Adolescent Boys into Exceptional Men, Michael Gurian
Protecting the Gift, Gavin de Becker
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
Robot Dreams, Isaac Asimov
The French Laundry Cookbook, Thomas Keller, et al
Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country, Rosalind Miles
Conquistador, S.M. Stirling
What are you currently reading?
Blogs. No, really, I am. Unfortunately, I don’t get much of a chance to actually sit and enjoy a good read these days, so I save my books for business trips, when I’ve got whole stretches of lovely time in airports, without my children requiring my immediate and undivided attention. Until then, I read blogs. And news. And Southern Living.
Okay, okay. I finished up Lies, Conquistador, and Robot on my last business trip. I’ll probably start Guenevere and A Fine Young Man next, provided something else doesn’t catch my eye first.
Five books you would take to a deserted island:
I cannot accept this rule as written, and herewith make notice of alteration. While I will, somewhat reluctantly, remain in keeping with the spirit of the suggestion, and name only five works, those works shall be either cycles or canons which may or may not be bound together in a single volume. Should the original architects of the book meme virus take issue with this, they are welcome to contact my local librarian, who will surely defend me with all the zealousness inherent in the profession.
Of course, this alteration assumes that I will be pleasantly marooned with sufficient amenities, and not tossed off the edge of a wobbly plank and forced to swim to shore only to find that the original cast of Survivor labored under more convenient circumstances.
Thus, without further ado, my choices:
Dune (Full Cycle), Frank Herbert. A brilliant series, I find myself returning to Dune again and again. I could not possibly leave it behind. It would be well that no one asked me to do so, as The Shotgun of Compassion has been known to have a hair trigger.
The Ultimate Hichhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Full Cycle), Douglas Adams. Adams makes me laugh. Out loud. Such a thing is rare, for me, in a book, equaled only by Irving’s The World According to Garp, but Garp is just one novel, and the Ultimate Hitchhikers edition contains six. Thus enslaved by greed, I choose Adams.
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Allen Poe. "For the love of God, Montresor!" Certainly, at least, for the love of Poe.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare. Absolutely essential, and I am unanimous in this. Do not question The Shotgun of Compassion.
Everything Doctor Seuss and the Encyclopedia Britannica, in one canon, with regular updates sent to the island. In reverse, I’d have to have the full Encyclopedia because I’ve never had the chance to read it from beginning to end, and this would be a perfect opportunity. Regular updates as new editions are published would, of course, be absolutely essential to keeping abreast of recent past history whilst locked in the solitary confinement of my (presumably) beautiful island. Seuss I would take because he’s Seuss, and fun, and Yertle the Turtle is about the best lesson on civil rights one can give to a person, no matter how small. I’d have to commission this special edition prior to embarkation. Please provide a minimum 90 days notice prior to departure. Black out dates may apply.
This completes the winnowing forced upon me by the virulent meme and my own goodwill. With apologies to so many authors I adore, but who had to be left behind. Perhaps I’ll spend some of my isolation developing a site like NetFlix, only for books.
I will, however, be glad to bid the Brontës farewell, and Mr. Melville.
Now, as to passing the contagion on, The Shotgun of Compassion hereby infects the following:
- Shakespeare’s Sister at Shakespeare’s Sister, because I’m shocked she hasn’t got it yet and I thoroughly enjoy her blog.
- Misty at Expostulation, because my prognosticative senses tell me The Mists of Avalon are calling, and because I really want to know.
- And Tbee at The buzz of the tbee, just because.
Tuesday, April 12
What the Others Wouldn't Tell You
by
Kiosan
on Tue 12 Apr 2005 08:13 PM EDT
Behold, the power of words:
Taxes. Welfare. Feminist. Abortion. Mother.
Even with no elaboration, no hint of context, each word is endowed with psychosocial and personal meaning far beyond the boundaries explored by Webster or the OED. The words are so infected with connotation that they can, and often do, generate heated debates in and of themselves, and I have never met anyone who can honestly claim immunity. I certainly suffer from the blessing/curse that is my own opinion, particularly, being both a woman and a mother, regarding feminism and motherhood.
So, it was with some interest, as well as no little personal bias, that I picked up Naomi Wolf’s Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood. I expected, I suppose, a manifesto of sorts, complete with railing against a misogynistic society, and going on about stubborn, dull men, and women who should learn to live without them . Thoroughly prepared to disparage both Ms. Wolf’s notions and her presentation, and amuse my husband and myself in the process, I took the book home. After all, the author is well known for her previous title, The Beauty Myth, and was roundly criticized for its perceived anti-feminine bias. Further, such maunderings are, sadly, what most have come to expect from feminist literature – regardless of the actual nature of that literature. The dichotomy that lives in me, feminine and feminist, prepared to do battle with whatever windmills Wolf might conceive. Rather than battle, however, I found myself thinking we should get together for a beer.
I want to record and do honor not to the fantasy but to the real thing.
“So many of us face the journey [to motherhood] filled with misconceptions.” Thus Wolf posits the basic theory of her book. Relying on published studies and personal research conducted during and after her own two journeys, as well as on anecdotal evidence supplied by her own experience and that of her peers, Ms. Wolf set out to demystify pregnancy and motherhood, and to debunk many of the social constructs that have evolved around it in today’s American culture. Presented in three parts (Pregnancy, Birth, and New Life), the author covers the good, the bad, and the ugly in her dissection of procreation: birth-as-miracle, birth-as-industry, and birth-as-reality.
Our birth-as-miracle sentimentality tells us that the birth of a child is the most joyful moment in a woman’s life. True, but it can also be the most bloody, painful, frightening, and violent moment in her life, yet pregnant women will rarely, if ever, hear this. Perhaps the omission stems from a noble desire to shield a delicate creature from an ugly scene, perhaps some even honestly believe that blood, fear, and pain need not accompany the brilliance that is birth – perhaps they think that in ignoring it, it might go away. However, in attempting to shield women from the brutal trial that is part and parcel of the miracle, we do women a grand disservice - we disassociate them, however briefly, from the birth-as-reality, and in so doing relegate them to spectators rather than participants in what is one of the most momentous events one can experience. A trial known can be prepared for. A woman who knows what she is facing can bolster her courage, her energy, her psychic reserves, but a woman led unaware into such a situation can only recoil in shock and hope that it will soon be over.
Additionally, strict birth-as-miracle thinking often forces women to make the transition from individual to parent with little to no psychological support. We are told, by literature, media, and other women, that motherhood ought to be an all-consuming, all-fulfilling badge; that, as mothers, it is selfish and, worse, abnormal to mourn the loss of self that comes with such an awesome privilege. While parenthood is an awesome privilege, and while motherhood in specific is consuming and fulfilling, it is, in fact, perfectly normal to mourn the loss of one’s previous identity. Not only normal, but also necessary for continued mental health. Motherhood changes every single aspect of life. No woman is the same postpartum as she was before giving birth, nor should she be expected to be, and those approaching such a threshold must make peace with the change if they are to cross whole to the other side. Even women who have dreamed all of their lives of being mothers need time to acknowledge and embrace the fundamental change in themselves. Those women, any women, who feel pressure to simply accept this change of identity without coming to terms with it (and most women feel this pressure) will likely have some trouble adjusting later on.
Having given birth once, none of the realities of birth and new motherhood shocked me. I know the physical pain, the change of self, the guilt of feeling that change. Just as I know the joy that walks and breathes in my child. As I read these sections, I could nod and say “yes, Naomi, I, too, wish I had known it. All of it.” And I could vow to myself to be more honest about the realities with other women, should they ever ask, than most people had been with me.
In my delivery, I was an adjunct; I had almost no role.
But the birth-as-industry elements stunned and astonished me. I considered myself reasonably well-educated on birth and the medical industry. Having done my homework while pregnant with my last child, I knew, for instance, that episiotomies (cutting the perineal muscle) were fairly routine in hospitals, and that this was because surgical incisions were far easier to clean and repair than tears sustained during the act of birth. And that’s true, for the doctor. Whereas ragged, natural tears are difficult to stitch and not terribly attractive, they are also often superficial and affect more surface tissue than anything else. An episiotomy, however, involves cutting muscle and, while it is easier to stitch, the cut often requires longer to heal (due to the multiple layers involved) and affects sexual satisfaction, sometimes even causing severe pain during intercourse, for years to come.
The medical profession tends to view pregnancy and birth as an illness, and treats the process in those terms, making interventions such as inducements, epidurals, and surgeries routine protocol. Hospital births are often timed according to the Friedman Curve, developed in the 1970s, which holds that “women having their first babies should expect to dilate 1.2 centimeters for every hour of active labor.” However, Ms. Wolf notes subsequent research that finds that a full 20 percent of low-risk women do not progress at that rate. What happens to the women who fall outside the curve? Often, though slower labor is completely natural and within reason, these women are “helped” along with Pitocin drips or c-sections (according to the text, in 1999, one in four babies in America were delivered by cesarean section).
Is this “bad?” Not necessarily so. Some births do require medical assistance, some women do need medical pain management and assistance, and there should be no shame in this – provided all women are fully informed of the ramifications of those actions. Sadly, most – even those who educate themselves and ask all of the right questions – are not. Is this the fault of our medical practitioners? Again, not necessarily so. While they do bear some responsibility for our current over-medicalized birth process, we the public also bear some blame. Interventions are practiced routinely, not simply for the benefit of an OB's tight schedule, but also out of fear of litigation.
In lambasting the medical profession as extreme, however, Ms. Wolf also takes into account the other end of the spectrum: the naturalists. “Natural Childbirth” as a philosophy believes in birth without any medical intervention. Early proponents of the principle even went so far as to publish texts stating that child birth need not be accompanied by pain – that, essentially, pain was all in our heads. We could simply ignore it, or breathe through it, or, preferably, not be told about it and it wouldn’t exist.
Pardon me while I snort at this idea.
While taking both medicalists and naturalists to task for rampant extremism, Wolf is able to find valid points in both philosophies, and suggests that both cultures could stand to learn a thing or two from one another. I tend to agree. Ideally, a woman’s birth process should be free of medical intervention whenever possible. But she should also have that intervention available should the need arise – without fear of recriminations later on, whether self-imposed or external.
…capitalism happened to the women’s movement, and a real gender revolution did not.
Wolf also takes on daycare and our woefully inadequate choices when it comes to caring for our children. Comparing U.S. systems and choices to those in Europe and Canada, she makes a strong case for the overhaul of our offerings and the attitudes that have produced them.
She couples this with a discussion of the effects of children on a previously egalitarian marriage. I suppose the two will often go hand-in-hand. Statistically, after all, most women still handle the bulk of the childcare and child-related decisions. Her discussion of childcare industry issues is cogent, grounded, and well presented. Some may be turned off, however, by her coverage of marriage after children and her presentation of the inevitable gender-inequality that will follow it, because it is here that she strays from studies and general research and leaps into the arena of anecdotal evidence. While the concerns she raises are certainly valid, and merit some thought by both men and women, I dislike her assumption of their universal application. While gender inequity certainly still exists, and must be addressed, I hesitate to categorize all marital adjustments to new birth as power plays and/or capitulations, however unconscious they may be.
Throughout the text, Wolf writes forcefully, with an enviable conviction that stirs the blood, and with a surprising humor that keeps the reader engaged in even the driest of her material. Where most of the literature recommended to expectant mothers sentimentalizes the process, glosses over the difficulties, and sometimes outright ignores the concerns many women feel, Wolf offers an overall well-balanced view of an event that is life-altering in every sense. I highly recommend it to all mothers, mothers-to-be, and women in general. Even those who don’t care for “feminism” or its current connotations would benefit from Naomi Wolf’s intelligent, honest portrayal of such a greatly mythologized process in Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood.
Sunday, April 10
The Dangers of Hitchhiking
by
Kiosan
on Sun 10 Apr 2005 09:04 PM EDT
**Okay people, this article is not about all the bad things that can happen to you if you hitchhike. To get that, go here.**
Great science fiction novels don’t seem to translate well to the big screen. Why? Because there’s a great deal more to great sci-fi than robots, cool gadgets, time travel, and nifty FX. The bulk of great sci-fi isn’t the first level primary story, but the back story and subtext, the political intricacy and social commentary – the subtleties of which are extremely difficult to capture in a mere two hour time span, especially when filmmakers are concentrating more on the robots, cool gadgets, time travel, and nifty FX.
Take Dune, for example, one of the near-universally accepted examples of “great” in the genre. In the novel, Frank Herbert tackles much, much more than space travel and sand worms, he also takes on religious propaganda and how it can be used to control entire populations, environmentalism, and socio-political manipulation by the elite. Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land elaborated on institutional corruption and religious deconstruction. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 took on censorship and totalitarianism. Ursula K. LeGuin’s novels dealt subtlety with racism (purposefully, none of her protagonists were white), and her The Left Hand of Darkness addressed gender roles in society.
Douglas Adams, too, with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, while absolutely hilarious on its face, and worthy of its following for its humor alone, involves more than simply reminding travelers to always have a towel to hand. Adams quietly comments, underneath the hysterical, satirical style, on contemporary religion and media, and on political machinations seemingly inherent in patriarchal culture.
It is, unfortunately, the quiet comments – which lend the book its sense of long-term greatness – which will necessarily have to be overlooked when squashing it into approximately two hours of cinematic oooh-factor. Such glossiness did a disservice to Dune, (remember that debacle with Kyle Maclachlan?), and to even the Sci-Fi channel’s adaptation of Earthsea (though changing the protagonist to Caucasian certainly didn’t help), so I cannot help but fear that the upcoming big screen showing of Hitchhiker will, of a necessity, lack some of the soul that makes the book both so enjoyable and so worthwhile.
And this makes me sad. Both because those not acquainted with the novel will not receive a full introduction, and because Adams' subtext seems particularly relevant now. The typical cinematic butchery of a literary work feels even more pronounced given the current socio-political climate here.
Even though it's likely just a serendipitous coincidence while producers are focused, as producers are wont to be, on capitalizing on a death or tragedy in pursuit of glorious profits.
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