Monday, September 18, 2006
1930's East Village lesbian novel
I just finished reading Djuna Barnes' dense, Modernist and brilliant short book, Nightwood (1936) . In short, the book is about one feeling: jealousy. If you've ever been in love--passionately, madly, furiously--and that person did not value that, that is what this glossy-worded book is about. The novel begins in 1880, but takes place in Paris in the '30s. Robin, the young American girl is the main character who leaves her husband for another woman, Nora. But, Nora is not enough. Soon, she's stolen by Jenny, the young girl who doesn't love herself so steals other people's girls to make up for it. Shaped by the high-minded and linguistically mesmerizing musings of The Doctor, the wise old American philosopher always espousing advice and hating himself, the novel is like none I've ever read. Melodramatic is how it might sound, but it is a progressive, magical impressionistic book that is intense, powerful and loud.
That feeling, the one where it hurts in your chest, two bottles of wine later, it still hurts. Pulsating, like a mute heartbeat. The entire novel is that pulse, stretched out, until the pain dulls.
