by JoAnn McCaig
“Well.”
“Did you have stitches?”
“Yes. Twelve. This is very — ”
“Yes it is.”
He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes. “Strange.”
We fell silent for a while. Then I said, “Listen. There really is a place called Richdale. Could I show it to you? I could take you there. It’s where my imagination comes from. I want you to see it. It’s about a six-hour drive. We could get there before nightfall, but we’d have to stay over in the next town and come back tomorrow. Could you delay your flight? Just for a day?”
He hesitated only a moment. “Yes. I believe I could.”
The phone calls and child care arrangements and dog-feeding instructions were accomplished in just over an hour and we were on our way. We talked very little in the car. The landscape seemed to mesmerize him; he murmured, “Where I come from, a six-hour drive ends you up in Italy.”
“Well here it just barely gets you into the next province.”
It’s a raw day, the wind is chilly, and dusk is threatening to fall as we pull into Richdale. I show him the sledding hill first, then what’s left of the town. The cemetery comes last, just as the light begins to go. We take our time, wandering separately in the small enclosure. He wants to see everything, take everything in. He finds the solitary stone inscribed for “wee Mary” that kicked my first novel into being. It’s over in a windswept corner, and he crouches and runs his hands over the blackened lettering.
I just watch him, mostly. Smelling the sage kicked up by the wind. ’til he finally straightens, tries to pinpoint the horizon. Then he walks over to where I am standing. I bend down, pick a sprig of sage from the earth at my feet. “Hold out your hand,” I say and press it into his palm, close his hand over it and twist it in my own to crush the buds. “Now smell.”
He raises his hand to his face and opens it, inhales. I see it in his eyes. He gets it, now. He knows what I know. The wind’s cold. I shiver, move toward him. “Put your arms around me . . . please.” And he steps close, lifting his hand above my head, as if blessing me. Lets the crushed sage fall, works it into my hair with his fine white hands, then he pulls me close to his chest in the raw wind.
And perhaps, just perhaps, a trucker barrelling down the highway that evening glanced over into the graveyard, and what he saw was a woman standing there all alone. Tossing her head back and laughing with joy, then dancing and waving her arms in the wind. All by herself in the waning light. And maybe he thought to himself, “Crazy broad, headcase.” So what?
APPENDIX # 1: A PLACE AT THE TABLE
In which the Author replies to her critics, with footnotes.
DISCLAIMER:
ALL OF THIS IS COMPLETELY TRUE
Scene One: Interior. Day. Coffee shop at a small college. Zoom in to a table occupied by a group including Man of Letters and several young people, all of whom appear to be vying for the attention of M of L.
Young Woman: So, what are you going to do once term ends and you’re rid of the gang of us? Go back to being a Major Canadian Novelist?
M of L: Probably stare at my hands a lot and fall into a deep depression.
Young Man: When is your next book coming out anyway?
Scene Two: Exterior. Day. Woman of Letters hurries to catch up to Man of Letters, who is walking ahead of her. We see her get his attention and engage him in conversation, but can’t hear what’s being said at first, until the camera zooms closer.
W of L: I mean, after my friend read it, she gave me this look and said, “It’s great to see this kind of thing being said by a middle-aged woman. I mean, this is the kind of fantasy a man would write.” So that got me interested in finding out what a man would think of it.
M of L: I suppose I could read it if you like.
W of L: Well, thanks, I appreciate this. Wow, look at those iris. Amazing, huh.
M of L: (stretches, squints, almost grimaces) I guess so.5
Scene Three: Interior. A faculty office. Papers and books scattered everywhere. Woman of Letters on the phone.
W of L: So. I got his critique today. He left it in my mailbox.
Voice from phone, male: So, what did he say?
W of L: Well, he had obviously read it carefully, and began with all the usual nice things. He’s been a teacher for decades, he knows what to say, but then . . .
Voice: Then what?
W of L: Well, some of it seemed a bit harsh, but you know, it’s exactly what I need to hear right now. Because the things he’s objecting to, the metafiction, the feminism, are things I’m going to need to be able to defend —
Voice: Why should you have to defend them?
W of L: Hell, you’ve read it. You know exactly why.
Scene Four: 3:17 PM Cafeteria. Woman waits, file folder before her. Man sits down, hands woman a book.
M of L: Thanks for the piece on Updike.
W of L: Wasn’t it hilarious?
M of L: Yes. Yes, it was.6
Scene Five: Same day. 3:37 PM. Man and woman deep in conversation in cafeteria. Two tables away is a younger woman, a former student of the Woman of Letters, sitting alone, reading. Zoom in to Woman of Letters clearly offering something. Man of Letters waves her away, refuses the offer of food or drink. She has a pile of notes spread out before her. Man sits across, arms folded.
W of L: Well, no writer can expect to please every reader, and obviously I didn’t please you. But that’s okay.
M of L: “That’s okay?” “You can’t please everybody?”
W of L: Yeah. (looks at him)
M of L: You have failed. I don’t buy it. It’s Russian dolls, nothing in the last one. Why would anyone want to read this?
W of L: Whoa. Come on now, that’s a bit harsh.7
M of L: What I’m saying is that even if it is just a fantasy, it’s off. I have spent a lot of time in England, and I can tell you that your portrayal of Leland is just off. And you risk boring or losing your reader if your portrait isn’t believable, isn’t right.8
W of L: But she invented him, she’s never been to England, all she knows is what she’s read and imagined, so —
M of L: Yes, I know, but it’s still off. And another thing is, so this is just a fantasy, so she’s aroused, she’s horny . . . so what? On the whole, I’m not sure that metafiction is even relevant here. What if you just got rid of Jay and Leland and focussed on Janet, on her story, and her struggles? That’s what really works in this manuscript.
W of L: But the metafiction is the point. I’m getting the feeling that you just plain don’t like the form I’ve chosen or the idea behind it. To me, metafiction is one of the most interesting ways available to interrogate what creativity and literary authority actually mean!
M of L: (thinks) Well, I guess there’s Tristram Shandy.
W of L: Come on, can’t you name a metafictional text you enjoyed that was written in the last century?
M of L: (thinks) Oh I don’t know, John Fowles, I guess.
W of L: The movie version was masterful.
M of L: I didn’t like the movie, but I believe I quite liked the book.9
W of L: What about a metafictional work by a woman?
M of L: (thinks. A long time.) Nothing comes to mind.
W of L: Munro’s story “Material”! Or what about Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen?
M of L: Canadian. I haven’t read them.
W of L: Schoemperlen’s book is wonderful, it’s infuriating. She keeps butting up against the reader’s hunger for narrative, deflecting it, teasing, saying yeah yeah I know you want to hear what happens next, but here, listen to this first, isn’t this amazing?
M of L: I’m not at all sure that infuriating the reader is what you want to be doing. And anyway, I’ve always found Munro pretty nasty. To both men and women, really. But particularly to men.
W of L: Nasty? (Looks away. A longer pause. Turns back, deep breath.) What about Margaret Laurence, then? Her depictions of desir
e and sexuality in The Diviners?
M of L: Laurence gets it wrong. There’s something off, the men are shadowy. Really, I think a lot of women writers are quite sexist in their depiction of relationships between men and women. They don’t get men right. They don’t get sexuality right.
W of L: I, um. Wow. (deep breath, long pause.) You said “a lot of women writers.” Can you name a female writer who does get it right then? Sexuality, relationships?
M of L: I’m trying to think.10
W of L: What about George Eliot? What about the Brontes? I mean, here you are on at me for inventing this supposedly perfect romance, but isn’t that exactly what women novelists do? What Charlotte and Emily did? They had little or no experience, beyond their father and brother, and look what they created!
M of L: I think Emily was a much more hard-minded woman than Charlotte. Much more hard minded11 than anybody realized.
W of L: Look, one of the very few places you got it right was when you said that okay, maybe I needed the romantic fantasy as a cover, as permission, as a place to hide so I could write this book, so I could say what I said. But I still think that without that layered structure, of fantasy within fantasy, I don’t know. It’s the very bones of the book.
M of L: I’m telling you it doesn’t work. Using metafiction for what is basically just a generic romance.
W of L: (visibly frustrated now, scans her notes, stabs a finger on a typed line) Now here’s something I must take exception to. How can you possibly say that the agonizing about the rape fantasy is just an accident of the author’s feminism rather than anything significant to do with character? That Jay’s just a mouthpiece for some feminist agenda? It’s where she lives, it’s what she is! It’s not just . . . for effect, or something. Not some device. I mean, really, was Lily Briscoe just some mouthpiece for Woolf ’s feminist agenda? Gimme a break.
M of L: (shrugs, then smiles slyly) Now I know that one thing you did want to talk about was the eroticism —
W of L: (pulls back her chair, withdrawing) No, not really. It’s not that big an issue with me anymore, now that I’ve completed this draft. I mean, there I was thinking that this was so racy and then my twenty-one-year-old son apologized, at Halloween, for borrowing an extension cord from my house, because he’d used up all the money for his bondage costume on a ball gag. So I’m thinking, hell, this is nothing.12
Scene Six: entrance to the cafeteria. Man and woman saying goodbye.
W of L: Well, thanks for this.
M of L: (smirking, surprised) You’re more than welcome.
An awkward moment, then she reaches up and gives him a clumsy hug. He seems embarrassed.13
Scene Seven: Several days later. Women’s locker room, college gym. Middle-aged woman approaches Woman of Letters.
MAW: You look tired. How’s the work going?
W of L: Well. Not so good. I feel kind of stuck these days. I’ve actually decided to set the manuscript aside for now. Maybe start something else.14
MAW: C’mon. I’m just heading over to the cafeteria for a bowl of soup.
Pan back as the women cross the courtyard, conversation inaudible. Enter the cafeteria.
Cut to Man of Letters at a table at the corner of the café with two other Men of Letters. The two women seat themselves as far away as possible. The occasional loud bursts of laughter from the men’s table are audible.
Scene Eight: Auditorium, five minutes before a literary reading at the college.
Man of Letters stands awkwardly at the entrance, looking overdressed in a sports jacket and tie. (He is the featured reader this evening.) Woman of Letters arrives late and is searching for a place to sit. As she moves up the aisle, Man of Letters catches her eye. Sheepish. Pleading, even. So, as she moves up the aisle to take her seat, she touches his elbow.15 He is stiff with nervous tension.
W of L: Break a leg, guy.
M of L: (smiles) Thanks.16
He approaches the podium and the crowd welcomes him with applause. In the reading, from the first pages of his novel in progress, an expositional passage describes the narrator’s precocious lust for the mother of a childhood friend. In the Q&A, nobody asks, “So he’s aroused, so what?”
Final Scene: A blank wall, top of chair visible.
W of L: (offscreen) Okay. Is it on? Okay, listen . . . (appears onscreen, sits, faces camera) I lied. Okay? I lied. I did want to seduce him. But not sexually. I wanted him to be bowled over, I wanted not his blessing, but my power. Over him. I wanted a place at the table. Did you notice all the tables Jay comes to? Just a place at the table. The grownup’s table, too. I never seem to be invited to sit with the grownups. It pisses me off. And I don’t want to be invited or asked. Or made a place. I have a place. At the table. It’s mine, goddammit.17 (looks intently into camera lens for a very long time.) Okay. That’s it, then. (rises, moves off screen.)
Blank wall, chair top. A clicking sound.
Black.
5 “The inability to appreciate flowers is a sign of clinical depression.” The Botany of Desire.
6 David Foster Wallace’s savaging of John Updike’s novel is collected in his book of essays titled Consider the Lobster. In the essay, Wallace refers to Updike as a GMN — great male narcissist — and finds that the central flaw of Updike’s latest novel is its “bizarre adolescent belief that getting to have sex with whomever one wants whenever one wants to is a cure for human despair” (59). Only after Woman of Letters loaned Man of Letters the piece did she remember that his wife is often referred to by gossips as “Poor Eileen.”
7 Because in the twenty minutes they have spent together, he has gone from “a bit off ” to “off ” to “not believable” to “doing it badly” to “failure.” That’s a long slope and she suspects he’s gone down it because she has not admitted she was wrong. She has not apologized. She has not cried.
8 “For Heath Stanford [linguistics professor], a defining feature of ‘substantive works of fiction’ is unpredictability. She arrived at this definition after discovering that most of the hundreds of serious readers she interviewed have had to deal, one way or another, with personal unpredictability . . . people whose lives haven’t followed the course they were expected to: . . . [such as] women whose lives have turned out to be radically different from their mothers’. This last group is particularly large.” From “Why Bother?” by Jonathan Franzen, collected in How to be Alone.
9 “The novelist is still a god, since he creates (and not even the most aleatory avant-garde novel has managed to extirpate its author completely); what has changed is that we are no longer the gods of the Victorian image, omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image, with freedom our first principle, not authority.” John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, ch. 13, quoted in On Histories and Stories by A.S. Byatt.
10 “Those in whom virtues not acquired by their merit, and which they feel unequal to it, inspire humility, are the few and the best few.” John Stuart Mill, “The Subjection of Women.”
11 The term “hard-minded” cannot be found in any dictionary.
12 “You are right that with me everything ends in great erotic scenes. I have the feeling that a scene of physical love generates an extremely sharp light which suddenly reveals the essence of characters and sums up their life situation . . . And precisely because it is the deepest region of life the question posed to sexuality is the deepest question. This is why my book of variations can end with no variations but this.” Milan Kundera, interviewed by Philip Roth, in the Afterword to the Penguin edition of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
13 Adrienne Rich argues that one of the ways that women sabotage themselves is through “addiction to male approval; as long as you can find a man to vouch for you, sexually or intellectually, you must be somehow all right, your existence vindicated, whatever the price you pay.” From her eulogy for Anne Sexton, 1974.
14 “A second chance — that’s the delusion. There never was to be but one. We work in the d
ark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” Henry James, “The Middle Years,” quoted in David Lodge’s Author, Author. Lodge follows this quote with these lines: “He [Henry James] was not quite sure himself exactly what the last two sentences meant; like the speeches of Hamlet or Lear they contained more than any prosaic paraphrase could express. If he were to die tomorrow, he would be happy to have them inscribed on his tombstone.”
15 “and into this delicious fecundity, this fountain and spray of life, the fatal sterility of the male plunged itself, like a beak of brass, barren and bare. He wanted sympathy.” To the Lighthouse .
16 “Here he was, close upon her again, greedy, distraught. Well, thought Lily in despair, letting her right hand fall at her side, it would be simpler then to have it over. Surely she could imitate from recollection the glow, the rhapsody, the self-surrender she had seen on so many women’s faces (on Mrs. Ramsay’s for instance) when on some occasion like this they blazed up — she could remember the look on Mrs. Ramsay’s face — into a rapture of sympathy, of delight in the reward they had, which, though the reason of it escaped her, evidently conferred on them the most supreme bliss of which human nature was capable. Here he was, stopped by her side. She would give him what she could.” To the Lighthouse.
17 “Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.” Don De Lillo, quoted in “Why Bother?”
APPENDIX # 2: EPILOGUE
A letter arrived, about a year after my novel came out. Forwarded by the publisher of the book you, the reader, now hold in your hands.18 “It’s the weirdest thing,” the letter begins, “a friend recommended your novel to me, someone who was tired of hearing me complain that women mystify me. And so I opened the book and a few pages in I read of this young girl being rescued from a party on a Gulf Island. The incident you described resonated deeply with me, reminded me of a night and a morning I spent many years ago when I was living near the ferry landing on Quadra. Can you guess where this is headed? The author photo on the cover of your book, well. There’s no mistake. Don’t know what to say next. Except maybe that it’s kind of cool to know that I have been remembered in this way.”
