This is not the narrative I prefer
Currently reading: Kate Zambreno, Heroines, which is both interesting, and thoroughly exasperating.
This may be about my age, or class, or something, but I am made tired by her fascination with the, if not actually mad, thus diagnosed, wives of literary men, whose own reaching towards a creative identity was cannibalised or thwarted by their husbands.
The stories I prefer are about women who had inner demons, nervous breakdowns, awful relationships with awful men, and nonetheless wrote their novels, got their commissions in on time whether this was for women's magazines or literary periodicals, and made a living at what they were doing. Possibly also engaging in political and social activism.
The story of the Brontes piles up the tragedy, but we are still left with their novels.
Before she ran off with G H Lewes or started writing novels, Ms Evans was a serious writer and editor.
Rebecca West had a fairly horrible life (involving several horrible men including her own son, mommy-blamer extraordinaire) but she made a living by journalism and reviewing even when (one may possibly presume to hypothesise) she felt that this constant hustle to suppoort herself and her offspring took away time and resources she might have preferred to devote to novels.
I also think of V Woolf applying occupational therapy in the form of learning a physical craft (printing) in order to set up a publishing enterprise with Leonard. Not to mention, she was a working writer (reviews, essays, etc).
Of course, we note that it may well be sound advice to the aspirant literary woman not to marry a writer, or at least, not one with up-himself ideas about his ART.
Having to make a living, or at least, earn some money at the game, may also be a significant element (do you like my Marxist hat? does it suit me?).
In Alison Lurie's The Truth About Lorin Jones, the protag, Polly, sets out to write about Jones as a tragic-victim female artist, and then finds that the truth was All More Complicated.
There is some kind of glamour imputed to this narrative of oppression and erasure and exploitation, or at least a fascination, that I find problematic. (Doesn't help that Zambreno references a well-known work on women and madness that I also find problematic.) This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2247313.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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