Quotable women - Fay Weldon and Mary Gaitskill

No time for a full-length review of Fay Weldon's 2005 novel She May Not Leave (Atlantic Monthly Press). Pick up a copy of the remaindered hardcover for a song while you can. At first I thought it wasn't as delightfully acerbic as her previous work, but I changed my mind about that as got closer to the novel's climax and Weldon's trademark (at least I hope she's trademarked it) denouement, in which she gives a plot twist so definitive you're completely bowled over. I think one of the things I like best about Weldon's writing - in addition, of course, to the fact that she is the most pragmatic and realistic feminist I've ever encountered via the printed page - is that she really doesn't telegraph what's to come. She's sly. There are hints. But the story has sufficient propulsion that you note significant details without pondering them too much.

Anyway, two great passages/lines from She May Not Leave:

'"It's in the nature of women to report the bad behaviour of men to other women: he did this, then he said that, I can't stand it a minute longer. They don't expect to be taken seriously."

Serena agrees that it is certainly safer to report one's wrongs to other women than to men. She tells me how recently she was sounding off about Cranmer to a male friend and months later when she saw him again he said "thank God, you two are still together - I thought you were splitting up", and she couldn't even remember what the quarrel had been about, except that she had been very angry at the time. What woman ever can remember?'

And then there's the priceless (and oh so true) line: 'Anger is a great cure for fear.'

I started out well with Mary Gaitskill, reading (and loving) her first two books, Bad Behaviour and Two Girls, Fat and Thin. And then I don't know what happened - somehow I missed Because They Wanted To and Veronica. I'll have to catch up, because I believe she's one of the most important contemporary writers around. Don't Cry, her 2009 collection of short stories, leapt out at me from the library shelves though, and I snapped it up immediately. In some ways Gaitskill could be viewed as Fay Weldon's American granddaughter (I wonder what they'd both think of that notion?). 'Mirror Ball' is one of the more fanciful stories in this collection, but it deals with a subject that has long preoccupied Weldon: the soul-stealing effects of trying to be a heterosexual woman in a world that demands you be a feminist. 'The Agonized Face' tackles some of the issues of female solidarity, ground Weldon's trod many times, especially in her amazing story "Alopecia" (from Watching Me, Watching You).

The passage that really struck me from this collection was from another story though, 'Folk Song' - perhaps because I've got to know so many scientists recently on Twitter, and have watched the skeptic movement in the UK in particular adopt a very hostile and divisive stance - to homeopathy, to alternative medicine, and to those who still have faith - guaranteed to polarize opinion, couched in terms of ridicule I think is ultimately counter-productive. The scientists and skeptics for whom I have the most respect are those who admit that scientific research has an amoral aspect at its very heart - and this passage sums up that notion so very neatly:

'Yet with science, anything is possible. With science, rats have been tortured by electroshock each time they press a lever to get a food pellet. Rabbits have been injected with cancerous cells and then divided into control groups, one of which was petted and the other not, in order to investigate the role of affection in healing. Scientists do these experiments because they want to help. They want to alleviate physical suffering; they want to eradicate depression. To achieve their goal, they will take everything apart and put it back together a different way. They want heaven and they will go to hell to get there.'

Recently read

Story House, originally uploaded by The River Thief. Copyright Ruth Seeley 2008.

Since they're all due back at the library this week, it's time to do that blog post I've been intending for a couple of weeks now. Since the new year began I've been rather effortlessly reading more non-fiction than usual. I'm not quite sure what this is all about - perhaps I'm choosing better non-fiction, or perhaps it's better written these days?

The books on this shelf are actually the 'to read' pile but that's ok.

The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
The book's subtitled 'A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed' and ultimately I think I would have liked it to focus on just one of those things. It would probably be over-ambitious to expect it to really illuminate all three. I ended up wanting to know more about the Golden Spruce itself and its role in Haida myth, more about Grant Hadwin's madness (some commentary from his wife would have been nice, although I can understand refusing to discuss one's estranged, presumed dead husband with a writer), and more about the greed that's characterized the forestry industry globally.

Last Lovers by William Wharton
William Wharton's the guy who said something I thought was totally profound about love: 'What is love? It is passion, admiration and respect. If you have two, you have enough. If you have all three, you don't have to die to go to heaven.' I was hoping reading this novel would help me track down exactly where he said it, but no such luck.

This is an odd novel merely by virtue of the way it's told, with alternating first-person narratives by the only two characters. One is a middle-aged American painter who is living illegally in a garret, having turned his back on corporate success, his wife and his children, at least temporarily. The other is a 70-something Parisienne who has suffered from hysterical blindness since she discovered her mother dead in the bath, having slit her wrists, when she was 14. The bizarre love affair that evolves between the two is just the teensiest bit too creepy to be heartwarming. Apparently Birdy is the one to read, so I'm not saying no to the notion of reading another of his novels.

Big Women by Fay Weldon
Fay is nothing if not reliable. Her cynical narratives of (mostly) English second-wave feminists are always witty treats, and this one is no exception. Stephanie, Nancy, Layla, Zoe, Daffy, Alice, and later, Zoe's daughter Saffron, live, love, strive, and survive in London, feuding, stealing each other's husbands and lovers, creating a publishing empire. Naturally the empire implodes, but most of the women survive and, well, carry on, older and wiser but no less witty.

Bud Inc. by Ian Mulgrew
Highly entertaining although quite astonishing in its bias. Funny that, with its focus on the medical marijuana market, two studies should come to my attention within a week of reading this book about the dangers of marijuana: one a New Zealand study focusing on higher incidences of lung cancer and another on damage to teeth and gums from heavy marijuana smoking (defined as one joint a day). Still, I am grateful to finally have read an explanation of the difference between indica and sativa.

Recently read will hopefully become a regular feature of this blog.