Source of book: I own this
This book is unique, and more than a bit weird. But maybe I should start with the author.
Jane Bowles (nee Auer) was the spouse of Paul Bowles, a writer and composer, whose equally weird book, The Sheltering Sky, is one I read last year. In that post, I talk a good bit about the two of them and their unorthodox relationship, so I won’t repeat all of it in this post.
As a quick summary, Paul was bisexual, Jane was either bisexual or lesbian, but in any case had a strong bias toward women. After they married, they both continued to sleep with other people, but Jane limited herself to women - in fact, when the two of them traveled, she would go to the lesbian bars.
Two Serious Ladies is not exactly autobiographical, in that the specific events are not retellings of Jane’s life. However, one of the two parallel plots has some connection to the Bowles’ honeymoon in Central America, and also Jane’s long affair with a Mexican woman a few years later. However, the actual plot of the book is mostly imaginary.
Jane suffered from mental illness and alcoholism, both of which contributed to her ill health and early death. Paul lovingly cared for her, despite the marriage becoming platonic within a couple years.
The Bowles’ ran in a largely queer literary and musical circle before their move to Morocco in 1948: Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, Aaron Copland, Gypsy Rose Lee, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, and others.
Two Serious Ladies is Bowles’ only novel, and it is the sort of work that other writers love, but never gained a high level of popularity with the general public. “Cult classic” is an apt description. Notably, Tennessee Williams and John Waters both named the book as their favorite.
The book is definitely modernist, defying genres and expectations. The “plot,” such as it is, is fragmented, and very little actually happens. What does happen is mostly referred to obliquely, and much of the book is dialogue, not action.
Furthermore, there are two main plots, which intersect only at the beginning and the end.
The two “serious ladies” are Christina Goering, a wealthy middle-aged spinster; and Frieda Copperfield, a recently married woman. Both are “society” sorts, but don’t fit well in the milieu. After they meet at a party, their paths diverge, and they only see each other at the very end of the book, where they find they are both changed by their journeys.
Frieda Copperfield takes a trip to Panama with her husband, but it does not go well. They turn out to be fundamentally incompatible in significant ways. But more than that, Frieda decides to break free from convention and expectations and goes wandering in the seedy side of town, eventually falling in love with a young prostitute, who she eventually brings back to the United States.
Christina, meanwhile, decides to pursue her increasingly bizarre ascetic religious beliefs by moving to a dilapidated house on a remote part of an island. And, as far as I can tell, to somehow find “redemption” in playing the prostitute in a series of sordid affairs with random men.
Oh, and joining her in her island house are an impoverished young woman, Miss Gamelon, who may or may not have a crush on Christina; Arnold, a good-for-nothing lie-about young man who ostensibly “works” in real estate, but ends up just taking up a bedroom and eating. And then, Arnold’s father shows up, on a hiatus from living with his haridan of a wife (Arnold’s mother) claiming he has a crush on Christina.
If all this sounds surreal…it is. The writing isn’t terribly difficult or anything, but it is very modernist, surrealist, and existentialist.
The sex is definitely implied, and even mentioned directly, but it is never on-screen. But sexuality is simmering below the surface throughout the book.
The core of the journey for both women is to find and engage in some form of transgressive sex, in the one case with a prostitute, and the other as a prostitute. And for both, they are seeking a form of redemption, a breaking free of roles and expectations. But also, both seem significantly worse for the wear afterward, if that makes sense.
I would describe the book as an experience more than it is a story. Rather than trying too hard to figure out what is going on, it helps to just see it as an experience described through a haze of time, circumstance, and booze.
There were a handful of lines that stood out for me. I’ll start with one from the beginning, where Christina’s very odd childhood is described. She is clearly neurodivergent - very strongly so, and probably autistic - and finds religion to be a coping mechanism, a way of at least interacting with other children.
Even then she wore the look of certain fanatics who think of themselves as leaders without once having gained the respect of a single human being.
A fascinating conversation occurs between Christina and Miss Gamelon, when Christina announces her intention to move to the island.
“However, in order to work out my own little idea of salvation I really believe that it is necessary for me to live in some more tawdry place and particularly in some place where I was not born.”
“In my opinion,” said Miss Gamelon, “you could perfectly well work out your salvation during certain hours of the day without having to move everything.”
“No,” said Miss Goering, “that would not be in accordance with the spirit of the age.”
Miss Gamelon shifted in her chair.
“The spirit of the age, whatever that is,” she said, “I’m sure it can get along beautifully without you - probably would prefer it.”
One of the early arguments between the Copperfields is where to stay in Panama. Frieda, who is bankrolling the trip, wants to stay some place nice, while her husband chooses this cheap, seedy place near the red light district. And when she protests, he does that “hurt feelings” thing that both sexes do, despite claims to the contrary.
He was like a baby and Mrs. Copperfield was obliged to comfort him. He had a trick way of making her feel responsible.
Later in this section, though, she also throws it back on him by insisting she is unhappy, without knowing entirely why.
In the last of the three sections, the one about Christina’s strange adventures, there is an episode where she talks to this random old man about the new cabaret in the small town she travels to on the mainland. He explains why he thinks the place - which the young people love - is dangerous and threatening. And man, is it an old man shaking his cane at progress rant.
“There’s one thing wrong,” said the man growing more and more interested, “and that’s that the’ve got a nigger there that jumps up and down in front of a mirror in his room all day long until he sweats and then he does the same thing in front of these lads and lassies and they think he’s playing them music. He’s got an expensive instrument all right, because I know where he bought it and I’m not saying whether or not he paid for it, but I know he sticks it in his mouth and then starts moving around with his long arms like the arms of a spider and they just won’t listen to nothin’ else but him.”
He goes on to wax nostalgic about the old theater, with acts like poodles jumping through flaming hoops. And then drags out the same old saw that we here these days about “millennials.”
“Of course people were older then and they cared for their money better and they didn’t want to see a black jumping up and down. They would rather prefer to put a new roof on their house.”
I mean, in case you thought that any of this was new. It’s just the same old stupidity directed at the young by the old. God, I hope I never get old that way. And, from what I can tell, neither does Christina.
My version of this book is a Library of America hardback that contains Bowles’ play In the Summer House, as well as her short stories and fragments. She didn’t write that much, actually, but what she did write is quite interesting. I will have to return to this book in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment