Monday, November 24, 2008

The Gay Correspondent

Anu Jayanth: I have Lynn's permission to post this.

Lynn McJohn: This isn't always a consideration, and may have no bearing on your decision to bloggify, but it occurs to me that I haven't told you one thing that might influence your decision: I'm a gay woman, and you are a female author with an up-and-coming novel in a traditional, conservative environment. In the interests of full disclosure, so you can decide on the basis of career advancement and all like that... I'd love to see your take on the topic of voicelessness, or voice theft, but if you wanted to get real vague with the description of your correspondent, or leave that part out entirely, it would be very much your choice to make, with no assumptions either way.

Anu Jayanth: I'm straight -- this said very boringly, matter-of-factly. Also, I'm so far removed from India, geographically, and I don't quite know what it's like there. But tell me, you folks in India, is it really such a traditional, conservative environment as Lynn believes it is? Incidentally, I steeped my mind in Tarun Tejpal's, Alchemy of Desire, and Siddharth Dhanvant's, The Last Song of Dusk, to introduce a bit of sex in my novel :)

Lynn McJohn's first email:

Good Evening!

We haven't met, but you met a lady I work with, Rhonda, at the post office last weekend. She recommended your site as one I might enjoy. I'm awfully glad she did; I've just finished the first chapter of The Finger Puppet and am very impressed with the power of the story and the quality of the storytelling.

Anu Jayanth: Thank you :)

Lynn McJohn: Of particular interest is Tara's speech impediment. Are you familiar with Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior? In the book, Kingston's mother says she cut Kingston's frenum shortly after she was born, a traditional Chinese act intended to assert control over a female voice early (as circumcision both marks and warns a male child as to what's expected of him). Kingston's mother explains it to her as having quite a different purpose, however: "Your tongue would be able to move in any language. You'll be able to speak languages that are completely different from one another. You'll be able to pronounce anything."

Anu Jayanth: No, I havent read Kingston's, The Woman Warrior, but I'm aware of the Chinese practice. Tara's speech impediment was purely accidental. I wasnt thinking of voicelessness or women's issues. The story was sort of dwelling in me and it had to come out, that's all :)

3 comments:

Anu Jayanth said...

Here is the rest of Lynn's email, which I found very interesting.

I think there's such power in women's writing, in women's stories, in women's voices, and it is the power you find when the usual roads are all closed off. Having found that road, a woman explorer wants to leave markers for other women and for girls; this is one reason why the voices of women are so often silenced. The corkscrew nature of Kingston's mother's excuse for mutilating her infant daughter is an example: no matter how much they carve you up, my girl, even if I, your own mother, do it to you myself, it is not to make you weak, but to make you so powerful that nothing will stand in your way.

This unholy position, to be the protector of your daughters at the same time that you're living in a world that will never value them the way you do and demands that you do your best to destroy them, is examined at length, and with great emotional depth, in Toni Morrison's Beloved. (William Styron tried in Sophie's Choice, but for whatever reason, he chickened out and went for the Alice in Wonderland it-was-all-a-dream plot.) I don't think it's coincidence that all three (we're gonna leave Styron out of this for now) are told from the perspective of women who are estranged from their native cultures: Kingston is an American girl who grew up "steeped," as she puts it, "in China," as if her mother's homeland were a strong tea with an ineradicable stain. Sethe, the mother who faces a horrible choice in Beloved, is seen as neither fully Black (being female) nor as fully American (being Black), and Tara's story is separated from us by time, by culture, and even by language.

By coincidence, I'm working on an epic that touches on some of the same themes of how women raise their daughters in a hostile environment. Here's a small bit of fable set in India during (probably) the second century CE:

The legends told of a land cradled in the lap of a powerful river goddess, rich with forests, teeming with life. The humans fortunate enough to inhabit this place were likewise wealthy, sleek and pampered by their benevolent deity. Fruits fell from the abundant trees into their outstretched hands and the waters washed away any uncleanness and time passed, but no woman could tell of its extent save through the counting of her children and her children's children.

The women's roots ran deep into the land, air and earth and water and fire combining to feed and shelter them and their children. The men had roots too, but some did not acknowledge them, saying that the goddess did not cherish them, only the women, for to them She had given the knowledge of immortality, in the form of children.

And these men, say the legends, grew greedy to put their own stamp on the land, and they ripped out the forests and dammed up the rivers to remake their garden paradise. And when the women, wise in the ways of seasons, protested this folly, the men locked them away and forbid them their friends and set them to cooking and cleaning and bearing children. Many, many children, and as the populace grew, the women wept to see each child have a little less than the one before.

The men, in their arrogance, rebuilt the land the goddess had given them, thinking they could surely do better, and when the courageous women protested yet again, they set in place a priesthood to silence them once and for all. The priests took the goddess away from the people by making her a figure of evil, and they said the women were evil for being made in the shape of the goddess. They shut the women behind doors and took their stories and retold them, this time with men as the heroes, and they built up the men to think that they were lords over the winds and waves and forests. And the women worked with their hands to keep the world going, for the sake of their children, and they waited and kept their counsel.

The men behaved like lords, taking slaves and demanding tribute, occupying themselves with hunting the animals while the women labored and watched. And one by one the jangled animals withdrew past the boundaries of what they came to call, in warning and derision, The World of Men.

The burden of the people grew upon the land, and the goddess grew angry, sending first sickness and then monsoon to turn them from their course. But the men would not be turned, and the sickness became plague and the monsoon floods, and when the people had descended into misery, the women began to teach their children in secret, saying,

"The Earth is the Prithvi Sukhta, my Mother, and I am Her child.

"May the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth, flowing with waters and grains, vegetation and living creatures, nourish Her child.

"May the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth, hold Her child never far from Her life-giving breasts, and may She send Parjanya, the rain-bearing clouds, to ease the thirst of living creatures.

"May the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth, so rich with life, counteract that part of human nature that tempts Her child to imposition of will, aggression, subjugation of living creatures, or their annihilation.

"May the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth, grant to Her child the gift of harmony with other living creatures.

"May the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth, grant to Her child the gift of radiance.

"Wherever I go, whatever I do, whether I sit, stand, or move, may my actions be such as to avoid grieving the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth.

"I cherish the spirit of the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth, who shelters all who seek truth, all who are tolerant and understanding, all who grant strength and nourishment to others, all who express creativity in art and poetry and song.

"May the child of the Prithvi Sukhta, our Mother the Earth, live always in accordance with Her wisdom, compassion, and grace."

And when they had finished this teaching, the women took their daughters aside and said, There is a secret beyond this secret, and it belongs to the women and the girls, for the risk of sharing this with any man or boy is too great until they accept the wisdom of the Prithvi Sukhta. This belongs to women and to women alone, whose very bodies move to the rhythm of the Earth our Mother. And then they spoke to their daughters, saying,

"Sing to me, Muse, of the Warrior Woman, beautiful and strong, clever and wise, the guardian of the tiny portion of good amid seas and continents of evil...."


(I wasn't able to find a complete, comprehensive translation of the prayer to the Prithvi Sukhta and apologize for the liberties I've taken with it; it is entirely my responsibility for tackling a piece written in a language I don't read.)

I think what makes a lot of reviewers uncomfortable with women's voices being raised in power is that they think it's male-bashing. However, as someone said recently on either Feministe or Pam's House Blend, "That patriarchy is not a 'he'. The patriarchy is an 'it'." We are seeing evidence that the world is becoming wealthy and secure enough to combat the plague represented by the assumption of unearned privilege; one recent example of the establishment of meritocracy is the welcome and entirely overdue election of Barack Obama as President. (The Onion said things had gotten so rotten in the U.S. that we'd given up our long-cherished hobby of racism and elected the best guy for the job.) I hope that the sourpusses who twitch at the idea that you've valued a girl enough to tell her story will relax long enough to figure out what you're trying to tell them.

Congratulations on the book, and the success you're already having. May there be much, much more.

Regards,
Lynn

Razigan said...

Oh, i somehow took the time to read such a long and complex blog...

I know lesbian girls, and guys who r gay. But i don't know a Gay woman, as Lynn expresses..... OK. assumed.

India is still conservative, as far as homosex is concerned, but have advanced a lot in straight. What I mean is, Sex before marraige, extra marital affairs, divorces, etc, etc.

About amazons, I don't have voice to say anything....... But, all I know is - Sane people do no grow their children or women in hostile environment........

Anu Jayanth said...

Lynn would be pleased to read your comment, Razigan. And it must be OK to say 'gay woman', meaning she's a lesbian but I don't suppose we can call a homsexual male a lesbian :)