Colette, motherhood, etc

Hi, all! I’ve recently acquired many new subscribers, possibly because of my post about Agnes and her “cancellation.” I fear that these new subscribers may expect political commentary and will be disappointed to discover that most of what I write and think about is literature in translation, and that I generally use Substack as a kind of newsletter to inform people about what I’ve written elsewhere and not as a platform for writing itself. I do sometimes comment on political-ish events, and I’ve become more interested in political philosophy lately—but I’m not some kind of anti-wokeness evangelist, and most of the political stuff I write are screeds against social conservatism (see this post about Jordan Peterson for a representative sample), so if you’re craving or expecting more cancellation content, you will probably not find it here. (Another day, I will find the time to write a meta-screed about Adorno’s notion of “ticket thinking,” which is such a helpful concept; a person engaged in “ticket thinking” holds that, if you subscribe to one view that’s usually found on a more comprehensive “ticket,” you also subscribe to every other view on the ticket. The “Agnes shouldn’t have to be bullied on Twitter because she took her kids’ Halloween candy, sheesh” view, for whatever reason, often appears on the “WOKENESS IS RUINING COLLEGE CAMPUSES” ticket. Its placement here is unfortunate, as is the prevalence of ticket-thinking more generally. I guess whatever I write on this, if I do, will qualify as “political.”) Anyway, if you’re interested in French novels and that sort of thing, GREAT. I have two new things out in the world and two recommendations for you.

What I have out:

-a piece for Bookforum about the French novelist, pioneering gender-bender, and incorrigible libertine Colette, whom I love so much that she may be my favorite novelist of all time, or so I’ll think until I read Henry James again. I could write about her forever—I’m heartbroken that I didn’t have space in the piece to discuss the sensuality of her prose, and her many visceral descriptions of food (as when a character gorges herself on overripe bananas and reports that it’s like eating velvet)—and I recommend everything she’s written, without exception. She has an incredible range: she writes essayistic meditations, vignettes bursting with visual detail, meditative proto auto-fiction, and realist novels, all of them wonderful. Her first series, the mischievous and autobiographical Claudine novels about her girlhood and marriage, are wonderful; her wistful and more mature autobiographical novel, The Vagabond, is equally wonderful; her manifesto on sexuality and gender, The Pure and Impure, is very very wonderful. Perhaps most wonderful of all are the Cheri novels, newly translated, which I had so much fun reviewing: https://www.bookforum.com/print/2904/colette-s-classic-novels-of-a-prostitute-and-her-young-ex-lover-25173

-I believe writers should not talk and, more importantly, that they should not be held to what they say, a position I laid out in more detail in Gawker here. I myself talk to figure out what I believe, not to convey what I already know I believe, and so much of what I find myself voicing in conversation, often to my surprise, is exploratory, and I often change my mind about much of it later. The German writer Kleist has a lovely feuilleton in which he argues that we don’t really mean anything prior to speaking it, and that what we say evolves into what we think as we say it. Kleist could convince me if anyone could, but I often have to hear myself saying in order to realize just how much I don’t mean it. Nonetheless, against my better judgment, I sometimes go on podcasts, and I couldn’t resist appearing on Manifesto!, probably my favorite podcast ever, to discuss the iconclastic feminist Shulamith Firestone and the brilliant contemporary novelist Sheila Heti. What unites them is their interest in motherhood and whether it’s a good idea. (I’m still undecided about whether it’s a good idea for me, personally, but still strongly committed to the idea that it can be just as fulfilling for women to make art or lead lives of the mind, as I argued here. Obviously, people who want babies should have them. I might turn out to be one of these people. If I do, I will probably still enjoy Firestone’s unforgettable description of giving birth as akin to “shitting a pumpkin.”) Anyway, here’s the podcast, which was EXTREMELY fun to record: https://manifesto.fireside.fm/48.

I will also be doing another talk about how I hate talking (lolol), this time on January 18 with the estimable Agnes Callard as part of her Night Owls series at UChicago: https://philosophy.uchicago.edu/undergraduate/extra-curricular-events/night-owls. I think it will be livestreamed, and I’ll keep you all apprised of the details.

What I recommend:

Final order of business: two writers I love have just started Substacks! The first is the novelist Garth Greenwell, one of the finest prose stylists working today, in my opinion. I think about this essay on relevance he wrote a while back all the time. I’m sure his Substack will be great; it’s here:

https://garthgreenwell.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=profile_page.

The second is the essayist Kamran Javadizadeh, who writes beautifully about poetry, among other things. For a sample of some of his work I’ve adored, here’s this incredibly moving essay he wrote about the moon. His Substack can be found here:

Coming soon