In 2010, ten-year-old At (Li'l A) told me I should read The Hunger Games because it was postcolonial and feminist and I would like it.
I'm glad I did.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Shiva
You've hired this happiness
for the flowering day
it waits patiently
multitudinous
diegeticI'll never forget how you felt
green leaves rust-edged
their first voyages
whispers
sighs
As if you invented a beauty,
in a curl of misfortune
its willing trident
striking flint
delicious
_
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Sex and Stones (on Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone)
Abraham Verghese is a huge talent. He's saved and improved the lives of more people than I've ever even met, probably. And he knows more (about medicine, certainly, but also most other stuff) than I do. The new book--first novel--is an intense, politically questioning, resonant, transnational saga. The emotional yearning and sexual tension in the novel is immense. I loved it.
And I hated this:
In every account of sex, the women seem to sacrifice themselves. In both encounters that the plot revolves around, I wasn't sure if I were reading about coerced sex/rape: one woman has had a clitoridectomy and seems startled by the experience; another woman gives in to the fondling of a man she idolizes because he is in a drunken panic. Both women are younger and less privileged in a variety of ways including social position, education, and race. Unlike many other literary authors, Verghese is not averse to writing about sex (at length, even). So why then is the sex never playful and honest? Never HAPPY? Why is sex repeatedly the ultimate sacrifice a woman can ever make.
What is this shit?
Verghese's novel begins with twin brothers in the womb and ends with the an endorsement of a father-son connection. Whichever way you look at it, that's male centered (for the bros). Which would explain why all (all!) the women in the novel occupy subservient positions as mother figures (who sacrifice lives--literally by dying in childbirth or by neglecting their health and careers) or as sexual objects (those who share sex freely are typed as servient sex workers or literal servants; alternatively they are the sullied/undeserving siren who betrays).
Can it get worse?
Yes. Wait till the women die--in honest-to-goodness childbirth or of consumption. Some punitively patriarchal novelist could have written this... in the 19th century. I won't think about the acrobatic coincidences and biblical / spiritual / numerological rationalizing that occurs in the book--Verghese's writing can compensate for most of that. If there had just been one female character I could identify with or even one (one!!) female colleague who wasn't subject to elaborate sexualization and with whom the male characters had a respectful relationship, I'd have bought the book.
With more than just my money.
__
And I hated this:
In every account of sex, the women seem to sacrifice themselves. In both encounters that the plot revolves around, I wasn't sure if I were reading about coerced sex/rape: one woman has had a clitoridectomy and seems startled by the experience; another woman gives in to the fondling of a man she idolizes because he is in a drunken panic. Both women are younger and less privileged in a variety of ways including social position, education, and race. Unlike many other literary authors, Verghese is not averse to writing about sex (at length, even). So why then is the sex never playful and honest? Never HAPPY? Why is sex repeatedly the ultimate sacrifice a woman can ever make.
What is this shit?
Verghese's novel begins with twin brothers in the womb and ends with the an endorsement of a father-son connection. Whichever way you look at it, that's male centered (for the bros). Which would explain why all (all!) the women in the novel occupy subservient positions as mother figures (who sacrifice lives--literally by dying in childbirth or by neglecting their health and careers) or as sexual objects (those who share sex freely are typed as servient sex workers or literal servants; alternatively they are the sullied/undeserving siren who betrays).
Can it get worse?
Yes. Wait till the women die--in honest-to-goodness childbirth or of consumption. Some punitively patriarchal novelist could have written this... in the 19th century. I won't think about the acrobatic coincidences and biblical / spiritual / numerological rationalizing that occurs in the book--Verghese's writing can compensate for most of that. If there had just been one female character I could identify with or even one (one!!) female colleague who wasn't subject to elaborate sexualization and with whom the male characters had a respectful relationship, I'd have bought the book.
With more than just my money.
__
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Name Changer
Just now, from across another world (I'm heart-deep in an Abraham Verghese novel, about which more later), I heard the kids cheering their dad on as he got his bike ready for the hour-long ride to work tomorrow. "Go dad, GO~Go dad, GO." I could barely recognize their voices.
Baby A (4) doesn't sound like a baby or a toddler, she sounds like a grown kid.
Li'l A (12) doesn't sound little, and the amusingly high voice he seemed to have inherited from me has faded into a sound that's the drawl of a 24-year-old reddit denizen.
Renaming time. Henceforth, Li'l A is "At" and Baby A is "Nu."
So it is written.
__
Baby A (4) doesn't sound like a baby or a toddler, she sounds like a grown kid.
Li'l A (12) doesn't sound little, and the amusingly high voice he seemed to have inherited from me has faded into a sound that's the drawl of a 24-year-old reddit denizen.
Renaming time. Henceforth, Li'l A is "At" and Baby A is "Nu."
So it is written.
__
Monday, March 19, 2012
New neck of the woods
It's completely out of character in that I was born and bred a city kid and will never go camping in my life (if I can help it--all bets off in the zombie apocalypse). BUT I love this house miles from nowhere, nearly an hour from work, and miles down a dirt road. Big A doesn't believe me when I say I'd live there happily.
But the views are incredible. It's kind of a good thing, I suppose, that no moves are imminent since Big A still doesn't know where his workplace will be...
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Because a 17-year-old shouldn't be shot to death for "looking suspicious"
Read Michael Skolnik's piece on race profiling.
Sign the justice for Travon Martin petitions at change.org and the signon.org.
Call someone.
Make a noise.
Cry.
_
Friday, March 16, 2012
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under pressure
My mom and sis are on their way!! They'll get here tomorrow! I'm still finishing up some last-minute chores. I guess I could do them...
