martyrological bluebeard ftw
wolodymyr has been saying some very smart things about popular cultural objects concerning bad mothering/parenting, which has prompted me to wonder what the hell Henry Selick would do with the novels of Sheri Tepper (or anyone - who would even attempt to adapt Grass??). This is tangential to what prompted it, but. Just to say. There are various ways to put your heroine through her paces, but Tepper's cuts most frighteningly for me (it's the same passion in every book, only with different stations). I feel dirty afterward, like I've broken some promise to myself. And yet I've read nearly everything she's ever written.
It's not that these stories of annihilating patriarchy (and all its effects, including the terrible and helpless passivity of its mothers) don't tell some truth that is both cathartic in the telling and partisan in its relation to political activism [these novels do mean to intervene]), but that there is some weird enjoyment of identifying with the suffering of the daughter sold into all kinds of murderous slavery as her hero's journey provokes redemption and justice throughout the land. I don't have a problem with ideologically overt sf, but there's something unsettling about the enjoyment of both passivity and power her novels enact. You're helpless in an overwhelming and cascading tide of events AND you're the secret weapon of a heterodox spirituality laboring in obscurity for generations. You're the MacGuffin, initiating events all around you and yet helpless. It squicks me out: this is martyrdom feminism, and I hate having to say it.
NB: I'm citing a Christian:
“Martyrdom names and approach to knowledge and a way of life more generally which assumes that the truth of Christ cannot somehow be secured, but is rather a gift received and lived out in vulnerable yet hopeful giving in return. On such a reading, the martyr is not one who dies for or because of her beliefs. Rather, the death of the martyr is in some meaningful way the very expression of belief itself. Martyrdom does not arise out of a feeling of control over death. Rather, it is but an expression of a way of life that gives up the assumption of being in control.” (p. 137)
I understand that this is a powerful way to present the horrific present moment (think about Octavia Butler's Kindred, and how it shows the terrible double bind of intimacy with those who are oblivious to their cruelty against you - see this interesting review). And really it's a recognizable rendering of the position of the individual in the midst of social/historical change. But such an identificatory strategy (at least in the hands of Tepper) disavows helplessness somehow: redemptive action on the surface, quietism below.
What's the promise I'm breaking to myself? Ressentiment addiction? But the societal structures she depicts are accurate (i.e. violently unjust) and one isn't personally responsible for their creation, so no bad faith? *sigh* Legacy and culpability - how to untangle them?
It's a problem.
/tangent
It's not that these stories of annihilating patriarchy (and all its effects, including the terrible and helpless passivity of its mothers) don't tell some truth that is both cathartic in the telling and partisan in its relation to political activism [these novels do mean to intervene]), but that there is some weird enjoyment of identifying with the suffering of the daughter sold into all kinds of murderous slavery as her hero's journey provokes redemption and justice throughout the land. I don't have a problem with ideologically overt sf, but there's something unsettling about the enjoyment of both passivity and power her novels enact. You're helpless in an overwhelming and cascading tide of events AND you're the secret weapon of a heterodox spirituality laboring in obscurity for generations. You're the MacGuffin, initiating events all around you and yet helpless. It squicks me out: this is martyrdom feminism, and I hate having to say it.
NB: I'm citing a Christian:
“Martyrdom names and approach to knowledge and a way of life more generally which assumes that the truth of Christ cannot somehow be secured, but is rather a gift received and lived out in vulnerable yet hopeful giving in return. On such a reading, the martyr is not one who dies for or because of her beliefs. Rather, the death of the martyr is in some meaningful way the very expression of belief itself. Martyrdom does not arise out of a feeling of control over death. Rather, it is but an expression of a way of life that gives up the assumption of being in control.” (p. 137)
I understand that this is a powerful way to present the horrific present moment (think about Octavia Butler's Kindred, and how it shows the terrible double bind of intimacy with those who are oblivious to their cruelty against you - see this interesting review). And really it's a recognizable rendering of the position of the individual in the midst of social/historical change. But such an identificatory strategy (at least in the hands of Tepper) disavows helplessness somehow: redemptive action on the surface, quietism below.
What's the promise I'm breaking to myself? Ressentiment addiction? But the societal structures she depicts are accurate (i.e. violently unjust) and one isn't personally responsible for their creation, so no bad faith? *sigh* Legacy and culpability - how to untangle them?
It's a problem.
/tangent