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Dear Karin, Crisis (tr. Amanda Doxtater, 2020. Original: Kris, 1934) is a book that resists being defined, a book that resists solidifying into a unified form of…… Read more “How can you lose something that’s growing within you, like a tree?”
Category: Scarlet Letters
Not everyone is true enough to hear the truth,
Dear Karin, Reading Kallocain (2019, tr. David McDuff. Original: 1940) feels very much like taking a small dose of Kallocain: it grows on us, building from the…… Read more “Not everyone is true enough to hear the truth,”
Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board
Dear Zora, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) follows a woman’s emotional journey which reads almost like an odyssey – a series of incidents through which the…… Read more “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board”
No human being ever believed she was the right person in the right place
Dear Charlotte, A Struggle for Fame (1883) explores the way social judgements based on nationality, class, and gender give shape to one’s identity and one’s opportunities in…… Read more “No human being ever believed she was the right person in the right place”
Some strange and fundamental innocence
Dear Gamel, One Way of Love – ways of love, one-way love, love’s way, way too much love, on one’s way to love. What am I to…… Read more “Some strange and fundamental innocence”
The salvage of memory
Dear Dorothy, Can one violate a memory by trying too hard to remain loyal to it? At the beginning of your novella Olivia (1949), you offer us…… Read more “The salvage of memory”
Appearances, she knew now, had a way sometimes of not fitting facts
Dear Nella, Passing (1929) is a book about being labelled, being defined by other people based on what they see (and on the prejudices they carry). It…… Read more “Appearances, she knew now, had a way sometimes of not fitting facts”
The tough game of unspeakable interests
Dear Carmen, In A Luta (‘The Struggle’, 1909), we have the unfolding of multiple struggles: Celina’s existential dilemma, as she is torn between her need for social…… Read more “The tough game of unspeakable interests”
Fame and glory, insatiable libertines,
Dear Délia, I spent the past couple of weeks immersed in three of your recently rediscovered novels: Aurélia (1883), Lésbia (1890), and Celeste (1893). In all of…… Read more “Fame and glory, insatiable libertines,”
A confused consciousness of untouched treasures
Dear André, The Immoralist, tr. Dorothy Bussy (1930. Original: L’Immoraliste ,1902) is framed as your protagonist’s confession, as he tells the tale of his moral downfall to…… Read more “A confused consciousness of untouched treasures”
Like an image made of snow
Dear Edith, In The Age of Innocence (1920), you manage to do, on the level of writing, the same thing you set out to do on the…… Read more “Like an image made of snow”
The alphabet of my childhood
Dear Hella, Running just beneath the nostalgic waters of The Black Lake (tr. Ina Rilke, 2012. Original: Oeroeg, 1948), there is a disturbing current of tainted innocence: at…… Read more “The alphabet of my childhood”
What you call sin I call the great spirit of love
Dear Christa, This story seems to have had many lives. It started as a play, first performed in 1930, in Leipzig, as Ritter Nérestan (“Knight Nérestan”), and…… Read more “What you call sin I call the great spirit of love”
You’re neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad
Dear John, Is The Well of Loneliness (1928) the most depressing queer novel ever written? Judging by its contenders in early twentieth-century fiction, it can be tough to…… Read more “You’re neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad”
Solitary and savage had been her life
Dear Elizabeth, The collection Gothic Tales, edited by Laura Kranzler (2000), comprises your most famous ghost stories published from 1851 to 1861. Reading those stories is like…… Read more “Solitary and savage had been her life”
I too have my vocation,
Dear Elizabeth, In Aurora Leigh (1856), you push your protagonist to make an impossible choice between two instances of her personality: her womanhood and her art. By…… Read more “I too have my vocation,”
Eat me, drink me, love me
Dear Christina, Your Goblin Market (1862) is a poem which teasingly resists a fixed interpretation. Is it a feminist tale / an anti-capitalist warning / a Christian…… Read more “Eat me, drink me, love me”
Harp of wild and dream-like strain,
Dear Emily, Gondal – an imaginary island in the North Pacific, created by you and Anne and peopled with flawed, implacable characters often driven into epic battles…… Read more “Harp of wild and dream-like strain,”
