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Dear Ariana, Die, My Love (2017, tr. Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff. Original: Matate, Amor, 2012) is all about voice: a short musical piece of sustained rage,…… Read more “Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only”
Tag: Novel
What would you do if you broke bread and blood came out?
Dear Gayl, In Eva’s Man (1976), we follow Eva Medina Canada, a 43-year-old woman who has been convicted for murdering her lover, Davis Carter, by poisoning him with…… Read more “What would you do if you broke bread and blood came out?”
Something that was unassailable and inviolable
Dear Netty, The Seventh Cross (tr. Margo Bettauer Dembo, 2018. Original: Das siebte Kreuz, 1942) starts and ends at the same point – but, in the span…… Read more “Something that was unassailable and inviolable”
How can you lose something that’s growing within you, like a tree?
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?”
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”
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”
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,”
The most wonderful thing in the world must be to be a childless widow
Dear Elizabeth, Irony is your plaything in Diary of a Provincial Lady (1930), to the point where it starts to be slightly subversive. Written as a series…… Read more “The most wonderful thing in the world must be to be a childless widow”
I should be thankful to be called a Fury,
Dear Rhoda, “A woman’s soul is such a small room”, you write at some point in your novel Belinda (1883). You will trap your eponymous protagonist in…… Read more “I should be thankful to be called a Fury,”
