Author: sonechko

“Inside Things” or “Outside Things”? The Ambiguous Space of Dialogue in Autobiography of Red

I find the way that dialogue works in Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson compelling and confusing at the same time, reflective of what Carson wants the reader to question or think about. The choice of how to represent dialogue and distinguish which characters are speaking is a very deliberate one, it has to be,  because the novel is in verse. And, because the narration of the novel is ambiguous and nuanced. An example of this use of dialogue in verse that stuck with me is a scene of one-sided conversation between Geryon (who doesn’t speak) and his mother:

“Nobody sees him around, is it true he lives in a trailer park– that where you / go at night? / Geryon moved the focal ring from 3 to 3.5 meters. / Maybe I’ll just keep talking / and if I say anything intelligent you can take a picture of it. She inhaled. / I don’t trust people who / move around only at night. Exhaled. Yet I trust you. I lie in bed at night thinking, / Why didn’t I / teach the kid something useful. Well–she took a last pull on the cigarette– / you probably know / more about sex than I do — and turned to stub it in the sink as he clicked the shutter” (40).

Carson establishes the dialogue system early on in the novel — what is said out loud is in italics, and you can pretty much contextually estimate or guess who exactly is speaking, at least most of the time. However, in this section, dialogue gets a bit lost in the room. There are two people present: Geryon and his mother. But Geryon doesn’t speak or reply, he’s just there, listening. And so, as the mother continues her reverie, there is an increasing feeling of Geryon’s vocal absence, and his immersion in his camera. Perhaps that is why her speech gets jumbled. The line “Why didn’t I / teach the kid something useful” (40), is unexpectedly not italicized. It’s immediately noticeable because at that point, the italics have become recognizable as speech versus inner thought. So, Carson is having us question: where did those words come from?

There is a possibility, I think, that in that moment the space, mental or physical, between Geryon and his mother is blurred. Perhaps, since we as the readers receive the story from Geryon’s perspective, that is something that Geryon himself projects upon his mother. Or, more simply, that sentence is not said out loud, but something that the mother says inside her own head. A moment where lines are blurred, conventions or systems of thought or verse strayed away from. Is this a moment of queer space, perhaps?

What even this small moment, even a small difference in form like italics, plays with is the complexity of Geryon’s “inside” and “outside,” that is established early on. When are we inside Geryon’s head and which moments are outside?

 

Returning to Childhood: Agency, Love, and Care

Childhood is central to the plot, imagery, and meaning of Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo — childhood is the time and site of both creation love but also the absolutely brutal abuse and rape that Mala — Pohpoh — Ramchandin endures from her father from a very young age. There are many passages, however, especially in the beginning, where childhood is alluded to by Tyler, or compared to things that are not childish to diminish them. This puts childhood at the forefront of the novel immediately, and in association with Mala in her helpless old self.

“‘Mr. Tyler, I know that you had formal training… but that does not give you the authority to make up rules for yourself. You will always find troublesome residents but in the end, at their age, they are all like children. And when children misbehave, you have to discipline them'” (13-14).

This passage establishes a parallel between childhood and diminished value or agency of whatever it is compared to in that moment. In this case, Sister rids the elders in the home, especially Mala, of their agency as adults by telling Tyler “they are all like children” and “misbehave” (13). Mala had almost no agency as a child — she and her actions were owned by her father, and that connection is made before we as readers even know her story. However, the stripping of agency by others, by outsiders to her life, is contrasted by the way that Tyler treats her as lonely, misunderstood, and in need:

“I sat by her head, slipped my arm under her back and pulled her into my arms. I held her against my chest, rocking her until the first streaks of morning light broke through the pitch-black sky” (21).

As he “held her against [his] chest” Mala seems small, like a baby; the word “rocking” is associated with rocking a small child to sleep when they’re restless (21). Now, instead of child as a demeaning association, the imagery is of comfort, solemnness and melancholy of a crying baby. Someone is there for her in a way a parent would be, not only in a moment where she has no one by her side, but in a lifetime parental abuse as well as absence.

The imagery of a child in Mala in her present narrative as a very old woman is threaded throughout the novel. The imagery shifts to an air of innocence and childish joy and love, rather than child helplessness and lack of agency by the end: “She giggles and twitches her feet…On visiting days she wears a garland of snail shells about her neck” (247). The snail shells are representative of the small parts of love and play she had in her childhood, an image that is established throughout the novel. In her last years, perhaps Mala is reclaiming her childhood and the moments of care and love Pohpoh had amidst the horrible pain of her childhood cut short.

 

Queerness, Mangoes, and Streetlights

“You’re the Only One I Need” by Alejandro Heredia, an exploration of drag, queerness, femininity versus masculinity, gayness, is deeply rooted in its setting and qualities of setting. The physical setting of Santo Domingo is very central to the story, of course; but what I’m getting at is the more physical and visual qualities of the world that the characters interact with, and the importance of them to the story’s queerness. For example, the physicality, and almost bodily description, of eating a mango:

“[Fabio] claws for his [yellow] mango and tears into it with his teeth, makes a small hole in the flesh of the fruit. He massages the pulp into juice and sucks from the fruit every last drop of sun. When they are done, the skin of the mango is taut, wrinkled and saggy. Only the pit remains” (34).

The action of eating a mango is always very intimate in that way. It’s just that kind of fruit: the ripeness of it and the juice and the skin. But this description is long and detailed, every word deliberate, with so much language of touch and fleshiness. “He massages the pulp into juice and sucks from the fruit every last drop of sun” — massaging, very specific touch; pulp, the flesh of the fruit (34). They are eating the mango in a way that men perhaps are not “supposed” to do it. There is too much intimacy and enjoyment in it, too much touch and sweetness. This assumption is proved when “the girls laugh” (34), watching the boys eat this fruit in this perhaps “girly” or “gay” way. The mango is thus a symbol of their perceived femininity.

Once again I want to return to this sentence: “He massages the pulp into juice and sucks from the fruit every last drop of sun” (34), but now looking at the ending of it, “every last drop of sun.” If the mango is seen as a symbol for the perception of queerness or femininity to the outside world, then the light, the sun, that they are extracting from the mango can be read as a space and a moment of time when they can have a safe space for their queerness. That is, before the girls look at them and laugh.

Heredia plays with darkness and light, shadows and color all throughout the piece. When Ren and the two boys change into drag, they “turn to a dark alleyway, away from the light” — this is their private space, where they can be with themselves and their bodies. However, Ren then “continues the rest of his transformation before them, in the soft orange streetlight” (37). The description of light reminds me somehow of the mango: soft, orange or yellow, again light. The darkness may be their private space — but yellow, orange, soft flesh of the mango, the sun and the streetlight is the safe space for their queerness. Heredia’s work is thus thinking about queer spaces within a world where queerness is perhaps laughed at or hidden.

Your Body Wants to be Naked but You’re Wearing an Overcoat

The closest thing that Jeanette Winterson’s narrator of Written on the Body achieves to marriage prior to their relationship with Louise is their relationship with Jaqueline. But, that relationship is destroyed by the narrator’s lust and love for Louise, quickly, sharply, hurtfully. It was a settled relationship, content and calm, and not enough for our narrator:

“Jaqueline was an overcoat. She muffled my senses. With her I forgot about feeling and wallowed in contentment. Contentment is a feeling you say? Are you sure it’s not an absence of feeling?… Contentment is a positive side of resignation. It has its appeal but it’s no good wearing an overcoat and furry slippers and heavy gloves when what the body really wants is to be naked” (76).

They “wallowed in contentment” — interesting choice of words to put together (76). They contradict each other in meaning, or rather in the way people usually tend to use and think of these words. Wallowing has connotations of almost trudging or floating around in a state of sadness, boredom, self pity, maybe a combination of all. Contentment, on the other hand, is most often positive: it’s a happy feeling, a feeling that’s arguably something everybody searches for and wants: satisfaction in the state of homeostasis, of balance. But our narrator is not happy in contentment. In fact, for them contentment is an “absence of feeling” and part of the same feeling as “resignation” (76). Balance, quiet, consistency, even, is a resignation for them. Resignation from what? From desire, life, or real love? Just pure lust?

Why would you want to be wearing an overcoat when “what the body really wants is to be naked” (76)? But perhaps contentment becomes a feeling when it is with someone whose body wants to be naked with your naked body, and not smothered in overcoats. When it comes to Louise, all the narrator wants is a life with her; with her, contentment perhaps would be real contentment and not a resignation because Louise is not Jaqueline. But then again, how would we as readers know that the narrator doesn’t have this euphoric state in every relationship prior — they are unreliable, after all. By condemning contentment as a lack of feeling, the narrator contradicts themselves as they desperately seek out Louise as a partner, and when or if they receive that partnership and love, then wouldn’t that be contentment?