To WWTTA
February 12, 2005
Re: Jhabvala, New York, Tale 7: "Temptress"
I hope someone else does a close reading of this week's first story because I am genuinely puzzled about what is the author's stance. Close readings, which are partly what I've been attempting here (not wholly as postings are also an informal genre more like letters than essays), depend on the reader deciding or feeling sure what is the author's stance towards her material. I decided not to attempt "Out Of India" with my students not only because I feel her stories will offend many of them or evoke in them highly moralistic responses (which they may or may not attribute to her), but because I myself was at sea about a number.
I've been mentioning how I didn't know how I was meant to take the stories focusing on a heroine who is promiscuous, wanders about in abysmal poverty and is alternatively despised or clamored over (sucked up to) by all: "The Temptress" at the center of this story is such a type grown old: here she is greedy, lazy, smelly, a sycophant, first adulated and then fled from; her acolytes are dupes who themselves lives aimless useless lives. Jhabvala seems to be showing us how the popular image of New York culture (as say projected in the ads of the New Yorker) as meaningful, glamorous, or seriously emotionally fraught is nonsense: the world of the city is filled with people desperately eeking out a living taking in one another's washing. She shows that here and it is true of many in the city. The tiny park area Ma and Ross meet in is one I'm familiar with: I think Jhabvala really is pointing to at tiny square at 72nd Street: it exists in a sea of filth, noise, large criss-crossing boulevards, and she uses it as a symbol of the hollowness and fakery of these lives.
However, satire (as I understand it) is simply ill-nature unless the satirist first includes him or herself in the vision and second compassionates the characters. I've tried to suggest where Jhabvala fits in in her first 6 stories and hope I've suggested where she takes real pity -- and where she fails (I regard this as a failure), but where is the pity here? What have we gained when we finish this story? Unless it is the kind of insight a Swift would provide or Austen in some of her harsher moments as when she mocks a fat sighing old woman who deludes herself she is in mourning for a useless son (rather like Arun) and suggests that the best thing that could have happened was his death as it rid her and the family of someone thick, unmanageable, useless, a creature utterly of his or her appetites -- which is just about what all the characters are here.
Except I'm not sure she doesn't feel for them. If she does, she has not offered any reasons for compassion. If she means to blame social forces, her concentration has been too narrow -- as opposed to the wider net she casts in "Expiation" and "Development and Progress." I know there are those on this list who may feel she has in her first 8 stories seen Indians through Westernized eyes; in these 2 stories she has not begun to present the environment and dehumanizing patterns of life in New York City, there's no sense of the immigrant past it's rooted in, and the deep abrasiveness of the people as a way of barricading themselves against the huge numbers of people drenched in anomie. Even here though I'm not sure as after all this pattern of Ma is one she shows in many other stories, except the derelict desperate heroine who belongs nowhere and in seeking escape finds her very body under attack is a type she consistently presents in many places she visualizes.
Ellen
Re: Jhabvala, New York, Tale 7: "Temptress" or Ma
I just thought about the heroine's name. Here's another which in English is savage with irony: Ma. Here we have the ultimate bad mother. She stinks.
And in New York City the moniker so prevalent across the US is not used -- or wasn't when I was growing up. Mothers were called Ma not Mom (thus sparing women from being referred to as Moms as if the term defined them). I still call my mother Ma. When I first left NYC I found Mom as a term cloying and am still not comfortable with it. In England mothers are to their children Mummy or Mum which to my ears has different set of connotations from Mom. Much is in a vowel sound.
Maybe this is a very bitter story and I'm unable to face up to this?
I've written this separate posting just on the name and its allegorical resonances in English to point to a story we read on Trollope-l about 4 years ago now: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's "The Lost Ghost." I just put the conversational thread we had about this online and discovered we discussed thoroughly -- and I think illuminatingly the repeated use of transgressive mothers in fiction, one of whom is at the center of Wilkins's chilling ghost tale. Most of the time they are blamed for having a sex life outside the home; "The Lost Ghost" falls in line with this:
http://www.jimandellen.org/gothic/Ghost.FreemanLostGhost.html
Jhabvala's Ma is rather the mother-woman who has no income, no place, no meaning, nothing but her much vaunted power to soothe. She ends up disgusting all.
Maybe she should've got a job? Then she could have contributed to the rent. Gone to graduate school and written learned papers, gone to conferences? It's never too late and NYC has them cheap (joke alert joke alert joke ...) Certainly put on some deodorant. Shave. What can the woman be thinking of ....
You see I think Jhabvala means to send up the people in the story who use and then drop Ma and I don't see where she has succeeded in making her invective against them clear. Tammy has some human guilt but not enough. But then who wouldn't tire of "Ma"?
Ellen
Re : Jhabvala, New York, Tale 8: "Summer by the Sea:" Mother Bea
Here I felt more that I understood the story and (even better from the point of view of pleasure) I sympathized with the central "reflector" -- to use Henry James's phrase.
The story is another one where we focus on a mother called Mother (archetypally) through most of the story as seen by her daughter, Susie. In this case the two women are in temperament unalike; the mother is one of these exhibitionist materialistic types who seem to enjoy life through fulfilling their appetites and showing off whatever they have that they feel the world is willing to admire or tolerate. Mother, though, continually embarrasses and makes her Susie uncomfortable (as such a Mother would me); she verbally harasses and insults Susie fundamentally: for Susie's withdrawn retreating character, Susie's lack of any desire to assert herself or have a worldly position or career, and for Susie's life choice which was to marry a nervous sensitive gay man, Boy (archetypally named too), who is financially dependent on Suzie's inheritance (which Susie's father made). Mother will go so far in her needling as to tell her daughter Boy doesn't love her and has married Susie for her money. This is cruel. Mother needles Susie because Boy won't get Susie pregnant (maybe rarely has sex with her) and attracts to him idle male drones, Hamid obviously and the young English scholar who may admire Boy's art scholarship.
Nonetheless, Susie asserts and through nuances shows she loves and can sympathize with this Mother. I suggest that as a writer Jhabvala has set herself the challenge of presenting a traditional moral or ethical heroine of traditional romance (good natured, grave, serious, compassionating others -- like Boy's mother and wretched sisters) and presenting the traditional ethical view. So Susie is reliable: she does really see truly and we are to accept she sees clearly and see that her views are decent and humane. The trick or interest is that Jhabvala also wants us to see how useless and counterproductive and destructive are these traditional values, how they wreak such havoc on Susie's inner life that the only way she can get peace when Boy (her husband in traditional romance upon whom she is dependent) is take sleeping pills at night.
An ultimate subversion of the traditional romance genre is the aim. In A Backward Glance we were to take Judy's morality as not only good and true and just but the one to follow even if it's not working because the world she's surrounded by is perniciously ordered. Here our Fanny Price/ Anne Elliot type is destroyed by her acceptance and humanity. So the reliable narrator turns out to be unreliable. When people spit in her face, Susie ought really not to say it's raining. She'd do better to spit back. The best she does here is hold up an umbrella (sleeping pills) or busy herself making jam no one wants to eat and which she burns the pot with so she has to spend time scrubbing it. But Jhabvala genuinely compassionates and identifies and ends her story with Susie's question: "why can't I care for him the way he is?"
Jhabvala has subverted traditional romance by putting before us the traditional heroine and making us feel for her in her desperate submissiveness all the while we are appalled at it. She pities and sees the tragedy at the heart of traditional feminine romance, the waste, the self-destructiveness and yet says why not? Is there another choice? This reminds me of her Judy who gives her life-savings to her husband and obediently gets on the train with him and begins to laugh at some fleeting exhilaration. Who are we to judge?
Nonethless, this is another story which might anger feminists, especially those who argue for seeking power, for careers, against "losers." And in particular, the depiction of the sexy mother is grating, and meant to be grating. She is making a fool out of herself and doesn't care; we are to see she just loves what physical pleasure Hamid offers: she will even make love in front of her daughter with him. She takes, takes, takes; yes she will in an offmoment show pity and offer (say) to take Linda and her brood in, and if Linda was such a fool as to take the offer, the homelife that would ensue is one Austen's Mrs Elton would rightly predict wouldn't last more than one rent cycle. (That's Mrs Elton's comment on Emma and Mr Knightley's decision to live with Emma's father in his house at the close of Emma; it's the penultimate sentence in the novel.) Valerie wonders what her scar is from: I suggest it could be anything, but I imagined a Caesarian section of the old style. That would make just such a scar as people object to but which one could wear a bikini with. I have such a scar and have been spoken aside to when I wore a two-piece bathing suit after I was scarred. I didn't want to wear that suit; my husband liked to see me in a two-piece and I owned one and was cheap, but after that unkind comment I switched back to one piece bathing suits ever after. Mother is stronger than me; so too Susie for if Mother spoke to me the way she does to Susie, she'd find herself in her car headed for the train station within the time it would take me to pack for her. We are not to like Mother but she is real and Jhabvala pushes her in our faces. Get used to it, face it. We have here another Sumitra and the voice about her is suffering from her presence yet kind to her.
So I feel that feminists who get angry would be wrong. The story generally shows women to be vulnerable economically and emotionally. It was Susie's father who made the money. The wretchedness and misery of Paula, Evie and Linda come from a lifestyle where men can easily leave women. Boy is a actually a catch. A catch. An art historian who gets sabbaticals and has graduate students follow him about. That says it all.
How do these women spend their lives? Busying themselves. The tasks they chose (linen closet -- wow, how many women all my life have told me they actually regularly clean out linen closets -- I always wonder what it is there is to clean?) are in the famous formulation of Beauvoir: immanent. I thought this story as it played out in the nuances, imagery, little scenes as brilliant as "Development and Progress." I think I could make the argument in a full essay (and be persuasive) that these two are the most brilliant in the collection thus far (I've not read ahead), deepest, finest, most humane and thickly artful.
There is much play made about gay men and homosexuality which is a speciality of Jhabvala. So to speak. She often has gay men at the center of her tales. Their powerlessness parallels her heterosexual heroines' powerlessness. Their flaws and faults prey on the heroines; in this case the moral horror of the piece is Hamid. His behavior is appalling and outrageous and yet the world doesn't say anything because well because he's there and makes a little fun, plays games. We are to assume he's good at sex I suppose. He is also very clever, witty, and doesn't go too far.
I was particularly taken by her use of stories within stories. I really remembered Freeman's "Lost Ghost" because there's another story where we have several mothers, all of whom provide mirroring stories at the heart of which is the transgressive mother and another poignant loving mother who adopts the child ghost and whom the child ghost takes away to death. The heart or climactic moment of the story seemed to me where Hamid tells our heroine the story of a movie. Obviously he tells it so as to hint to the heroine he'd like to go to bed with her now that Boy is gone. It's the story of a man who sleeps with both a mother and daughter but loves this cowboy male. Hamid sleeps with Mother and loves Boy but he's not yet beded Susie. Susie though has wisely taken a sleeping pill so no sex there is to be had. He turns to her mother and then begins to tell the story of his life which it appears is another mother tale: this time of a man who was taken in and taken good care of by this older woman, but after a while the police are called in and the daughter takes the mother to the hospital. The parallel is obvious -- does he want an invitation? If so, he doesn't get one. Bea is much more selfish and wary than that. The inner story also mirrors the story of Linda and Evie.
In this case I enjoyed the ease and grace of the style against the queasiness and discomfort of the satiric exposure and sternly alert compassion.
Ellen
Re: Jhabvala, New York, Tale 8: "Summer by the Sea:" Names & Smells
A separate posting for the names: Bea. Jhabvala is a genuinely learned well-read writer. It's not too much to think she has a ironic allusion to Dante's Beatrice. Look at what she's become. Living into middle age: "Golden Oldie." The allusion is to the idiotic radio stations which call their "hits" golden oldies. There's lots of these kinds of details in the story. She's also beatific. She's joyous, is she not?
Susie is another name like Kitty. We are descending from traditional heroines (Katharine, Susan) to their diminished descendants: nicknames.
Terry is a sort of neuter name and also English. I have come across gay people who rename themselves this way: Tori, Toni, Terri. Terry apparently has a posh accent he's not adverse to using to assert himself.
I did forget to mention how Bea is, like Ma, accused of smelling. She too stinks of female smells. In this story I began to see that the source of this is a satire on American phobias about hygiene. Americans are neurotic when it comes to their bodies: not only diet, diet, diet, go to gyms and work out, but shave shave shave (use hot wax lest a hair show when you wear your bathing suit if you are a woman). How dare a woman have a smell? And this kind of oppressive norm is used to scapegoat people very effectively, particularly in grade and middle schools.
And this is a satire on that class of people Fitzgerald's Gatsby so admired and wanted to be part of. How they've come down in fiction. The last I read about them was in Cheevers's short fiction: he was an alcoholic like Boy's father who drowned because he was too drunk to stay up in the waves.
Cheers to all,
Ellen
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala, New York, Tale 8: "A Summer By The Sea"
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Good morning all -- hope that this day finds you in good health & spirits --
First, let me say that I agree with Ellen with respect to "Temptress" -- maybe we're not on the exact same page -- but the story presented its levels of difficulties (as does "A Summer by the Sea") -- and I found myself struggling to understand exactly what I was to take away from both stories actually, although "Temptress" more than "A Summer by the Sea". As a writer, I'm even more perplexed, because the narrative structure of "Temptress" seems to go against everything I understand about story (even the post-modern form of story -- yes, I know that post-modern is a term that many disagree with -- but it's useful for me in contextualizing a specific type of writing - - a writing that is more "experimental" with respect to narrative structure; a writing that plays with narration, with the position of the reader vis a vis the text, writing that is often obsessed with destruction -- and from destruction (no novel idea here) construction) -- but at any rate, let me attempt, for whatever my two cents are worth, my understanding of "A Summer by the Sea".
First, both stories are quite textual -- they invite a plethora of readings, perhaps each reading so separate from each other that it takes each reading in order to form a larger reading (if I'm making sense here) -- sort of like the pi phenomenon in psychology where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That said, I'm only going to attempt one sliver of a reading.
Tennessee William's _A Street Car Name Desire_ seemed to resonate within this story. The mother, Bea, had echoes of Blanche Debois -- albeit older.
Mom strutting around in a bikini -- good for her that she can -- but there's a suggestion that she really shouldn't be: a) the mention of her scar above her chest (open heart surgery? breast surgery? We're not sure -- I think it must be open heart surgery -- the scar from a mastectomy would be concealed with the bikini top -- and one would think, given the criticism of mom -- that there would be some repulsion to her wearing a bikini sans breast.) At any rate, if it is open heart, then of course, a neatly arranged metaphor for the fact that Mom where's her heart on her sleeve. The fact that mom struts about in a bikini suggests that mom wants to be younger than she is and this is met with contempt. "You don't know anything about these things. You never did." I am her only daughter, and it's one of the regrets of her life that I haven't turned out to be fun-loving and sexy, like her. "He's my type," she told me about Hamid. "We have the same chemistry" (165). There, is of course, a sense of irony here from the narrator. 2) The other Dubois-esq quality -- Mom doesn't want to see -- the light "hurts my eyes" (178). Well, what is it that these people don't want to see? It seems clear that they all know what's going on.
So, we have mom, strutting about in her bikini a la Dubois; daughter tolerating it, Terry, another house guest worried about Bea and Hamid, and Boy, the husband. There is a meniage- a-trois underfoot (sorry for the spelling). "We could hear them arguing inside -- or rather, Boy arguing. He tried to keep his voice low, so that we couldn't hear what he said, but that just made it more intense and passionate. Hamid made only an occasional remark, in a soft voice, as if he wanted to cool him down, But Boy was not cooled down.
"Well, I can't stand it,' Mother said at last. She went down the porch steps, onto the beach, into the dark. I could see her pacing up and down there, like a firefly in her spangly dress and jewels'" (167).
It's obvious here that Hamid and "Boy" are having an affair and Mother wants in on the action -- not with Boy -- but with Hamid who, it is suggested and excuse the vulgar term, swings both ways. Okay. So what? How are we to read this? I can only go back to mom - who is, despite the fact that this is a first person narrative told through Susie's lens, the center of the story. And like the other matriarchs or central females in the previous stories, she too wears jewels -- ornamentation of her outside appearance is important. We don't know enough about her character to know for certain if inside she is empty with respect to "character" and therefore the outward dress is necessary in order to cover up for any lack of real person. As an aside, I did laugh at mom's naivete, if you will, her quickness to stereotype when she said, "Everyone knows they're ambidextrous over there. It's all right over there. It's expected'" (168) -- we can almost see mom salivating at the opportunity for a creative romp in the hay -- and, of course, her ignorance about another culture rings loudly -- but this ignorance is not what the story is about. I'm not sure what the story is about, to be frank.
"Boy" -- uh huh -- he is obviously gay, and Susie endures this, ignores it -- whatever -- we're not quite given the exact reason why she's content in this arranged marriage. Yes, she enjoys his company -- so perhaps it's a matter of companionship -- or perhaps it's because it ruffled mom's feathers initially -- but that has now backfired as mom likes or at least tolerates Boy. I was struck by the line "He doesn't want me to know these things about him, so I have to pretend I don't" (169). Key line there -- although it's not directly connected to announcing that Boy is gay.
So, here I am left to wonder about Susie -- mom's out flirting with Hamid, Boy's lover, and Hamid doesn't seem to mind. Susie doesn't care as long as she's not a witness to it and what she doesn't know won't hurt her. But who is she? She is an extremely passive character (a post- modern technique, or at least how I understand it.) -- And I'm not sure what to make by her passivity -- the story goes on around her -- she casually mentions it to us the reader, and there seems to be no real point. The only sign of her anger is when she burns the peach jelly -- albeit a passive aggressive move -- and she made the jelly/jam -- whatever, because Boy had gone into the city and she couldn't sleep without him -- for whatever reason, she is dependent on him. Why, we're not really sure. Susie allows her husband to have his flings while she tidies up the house. "Actually, Terry himself was one of the people who taught me that it's not good to care too much. I was like him once -- for instance, when he and Boy were very much involved with each other -- and I used to torment myself by spying, speculating, finding out. But now I don't do that any more" (172). Okay -- why? How are we to read Susie? Why is she so passive; what is really at stake here for her? I return to the last line "Maybe I like things the way they are. No one ever tells me that it's wrong for me to love Mother for the way she is and not for how she is supposed to be. Then why not Boy -- why can't I care for him the way he is?" The last line can be read two ways -- 1) addressing the reader -- if i can love mom this way then of course i can love my husband this way or 2) addressing the self -- why can't i love Boy even though he's gay and not want more from him. It's an interesting moment in a story that is relatively chaotic -- a story that wants to distract the reader (as Susie wants to distract herself) from what is really at issue. Meanwhile, Mom lives and let lives as long as she can salsa her way past her own pain; Susie takes sleeping pills and desperately tries to ignore what's going on; and Boy screws his little entourage -- a la Michael Jackson -- it just seemed that the story wanted to invite us to consider that this idyllic summer cottage on an expensive piece of property on the Eastern Coast was as strange as Jackson's Wonderland.
But, even after offering these musings, I'm still not quite sure what to take away from the story -- or what it is that I'm being asked to understand/imagine. I know I'm abnormally obtuse -- so perhaps that's it. But I was puzzled. There doesn't have to be any meaning beneath the surface -- and the surface is what I offered above -- but I guess I want there to be. We talk about characters and stories that are "satisfying" to readers -- I guess, for me, the question becomes is this story 'satisfying" although that question is subjective.
I will make one tiny comment on technicality -- 1) there are a few verb tense shifts in the story -- they startled me although they were justifiable -- one moment we're talking about the past -- the next we're in the present -- but the the tenses were not consistent -- and I couldn't completely comprehend why the tense shift -- I know that writers aren't supposed to do things haphazardly -- and certainly a skilled writer such as Jhabvala wouldn't -- nevertheless it's there; 2) When Boy goes to take care of his sister -- other than to invite us to consider what is "crazy" and where is the psych ward -- Belleview or in the cottage -- the moment was a tad bit too easy - - a way for Boy to exit the scene so that Hamid and Bea could enter and have their tryst.
So, my thoughts. I'm really interested and looking forward to reading what others think -- this story has me a bit perplexed --
Valerie
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala, New York, Tale 7: "Temptress" or Ma
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Hi All --
My two cents on "Temptress" a story that stumped me quite frankly. -- Ellen's comment on "ma" and the reference to the name is well taken and certainly a useful way to enter the text -- thank you, Ellen, as usual, great insights.
To play devil's advocate, let me just make a few musings about the text.
1) While we could read "ma" as stinky -- she's certainly portrayed that way, we are also invited to consider her "magical" powers albeit "silly" magical powers, and in this way, I wondered if the text wanted to invite us to consider spirituality versus lack of faith -- or worldly versus unworldly: "At that, Tammy could not repress a cry: for it was exactly what she herself was always wishing for, to get out of this world into a completely other one" (138). Indeed, the central conflict of this story, at least how I read it, is this tension between the worldly and the unworldly -- of which Ma represents -- or wants to represent -- she's really a moderate here -- able to use the desire of those who seek something beyond themselves to her advantage. She's a soothsayer, a conduit, a novelty that those in New York can readily suspend their belief because Ma represents an exotic country with exotic beliefs, at least to these New Yorkers -- mostly blue collar types (the waitress, the sales clerks, etc etc.) Of course, Ross sees through her -- but even he is seeking another world -- to be with Grace, to connect with Tammy as a father/grandfather/lover -- all three -- perhaps in that order.
2) The story is extremely surrealistic and unbelievable -- we're not in any world we can believe and yet the story is grounded in a "real" enough world -- a city with a park, an apartment with furniture -- and yet the events that take place among these "real" things are anything but real. We've talked about "unreliable" versus "reliable" and if we can apply those terms to story (I'm not sure that we can) -- could we argue that this story is completely unreliable/unbelievable? It's difficult to suspend our belief -- or at least it was for me. Tammy, another passive female, "inherits" Ross and Ma -- and la -de-da --so what? All these people roam in and out of the house? Ma splashes herself with oils and proceeds to take over the house, Ross, the kitchen and so what? Life goes on? Tammy goes to school to take classes and leaves the apartment to its own devices? I found this a bit incredulous. And then the ante is upped with Doktor -- a quasi guru of sorts who marries whomever follows him -- another charlatan. And nobody's raising an eyebrow except Ross? And Ross is "in the middle of the ... traffic without being a part of it" (143). Except it ain't Ross who's telling the story -- it's a third person omniscient narrator -- and the story would have more credibility -- readers might be able to latch onto something substantial if it were Ross who were telling the story since he seems to be the only "sane" one in the bunch -- and even he isn't believable -- or his circumstances aren't -- i mean, who really picks up someone off a park bench in New York, let alone, and brings them home? Further, there seems to be some discrepancy with respect to time and age in the story -- perhaps a signal that this story is intended to be surrealistic -- Tammy met Ross when she was 13 -- that was ten years ago -- putting her at 23 (145)-- and we know that Minnie and Tammy were college room-mates -- and Minnie married then divorced then traveled -- how she found Ma -- I suppose this time frame could allow for all of this activity -- but it seems, again, a bit incredulous. I think the central question this story invites is: Are we to believe it? And if so, what is it that we are to believe? The story itself with its "Gothic facade" certainly invites us not to believe it (155) -- it's utterly surreal, a type of slapstick, with Grace's ghost lurking at every corner. And maybe that's just the point -- what we believe, whom we beleive we have a responsibility to challenge with thought.
In the end, Ross goes back to Tammy. Okay -- yeah? I'm thinking about what I know about story -- and if I accept the premise that story is about a character with a desire this desire creates conflict, the character changes -- however small -- this story is certainly novel in its desire to resist that structure -- and for that it is interesting. But it is a "Gothic facade" -- and perhaps that is how we are to read it -- help? Someone else to illuminate this problematic tale? Perhaps the next reading will allow me to say, ahh, yes, -- how did I miss that -- Valerie
Ellen Moody Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 My feeling about 'The Temptress' is that it isn't mainly/only a
realistic story, but partly a sort of allegory about the seductive
appeal of religious cults. Ma seems to be someone whom Tammy and
Minnie have picked out to be their guru because they don't want the
responsibility of thinking and deciding for themselves - I think
this is one reason for the archetypal mother name which Ellen wrote
about. Ma is a mother figure taken to extremes - someone who will
listen and support you endlessly, and smooth all those worrying
thoughts out of your brain.
Most of the smells associated with Ma are to do with seductive
qualities - oils, perfume, rich food. The line which jumped out at
me about her was this one: "...she looked like a hundred-year-old
witch but like a temptress too, gleaming and glittering with oil and
silk and gold."
The other smell mentioned is of the homeless people who go to seek
comfort from her - the uncomfortable side of being a guru which
Tammy and Minnie don't want to think about.
The way Ma starts to wear older clothes and sometimes not wear her
teeth suggests how at ease she is with herself, and I think that is
part of her appeal to Tammy and the many others who join her mini-
cult - the feeling that she will always accept and support them,
give them mothering. Ross tells Ma that Tammy has had enough of
mothers, but has she?
On a more realistic level, as well as being a type, Ma comes across
vividly as an individual with the ability to enjoy life, from ice
cream to movies, and also to build up a business (shades of Farida
here). I have the feeling Jhabvala enjoys her as a character.
By contrast, the rival guru, the cold, threatening figure 'The
Doktor' (a name which immediately conjures up vague images of Freud)
does not accept in a motherly way, but piles on guilt and blames
Tammy for everything, while still wanting to take possession of her
apartment. He is more of an angry father figure.
Tammy herself is presented as someone who can't live in the present
and is really looking for someone else to take on the responsibility
of her own life... "she seemed always to be straining upward, in the
direction of something beyond her reach." She is prey for any cult
or psychological fashion.
I'm interested to see where this story is placed, at the start of
the 'Upper East' section - showing how the West reaches for a
particular image of India, which is quite different from the
pictures painted in the previous stories.
The edition I'm reading has two full-page pictures at the start of
the two sections, first of a temple in Delhi and then of Beaver
Street off Wall Street, New York City - I'm not sure what to make of
these two pictures. In a way they seem quite similar because both
feature tall buildings, but I suppose the US picture is a temple of
commerce.
The very last line of the story seems double-edged to me.
"Anyway, he did not feel safe till he was in the opposite part of
the city, the part he knew so well, and outside Tammy's apartment
building and then inside that marble vault, where the doormen were
all new, for the old ones had followed Ma and had lost interest in
holding down their jobs."
This suggests the danger of falling into any cult and the need to
cling on to the business of everyday life - but that phrase "marble
vault" suggests death, and is in stark contrast to the warm image of
Ma's new apartment.
All the best, Re: Jhabvala: 'The Temptress'
Dear Judy and all,
Speaking generally I read the story in the way Judy
has. This reading fits what Jhabvala herself says
about her attitude towards Indian mysticism:
Both gurus are self-deluded fakes; the way the others
are attracted to her and for a while find comfort
in her is a measure of the meaninglessness of
their lives. I didn't see that the male could
be a metaphor for a father as Ma is for a mother.
But yes. And "doktor" widens the irony
and apprehension both about about men
as fathers and men as doctors.
I did think that the depiction of New York City in
this tale connects it directly to Jhabvala's depictions
of India: both places are filled with people equally
on the edge economically, equally without ties
they are loyal to in any deep or committed
sense; both places are filled literally with
garbage. That central square on 72nd Street
is awful, and if she did not have that one
in mind, there are several others quite similar
I could cite going up Broadway.
However -- and I don't know why -- I'm just not
satisfied with this reading. There is something
else going on here more interesting, and to my
mind it relates not to Farida (who is hard-nosed
pragmatic careerist, networking for all she's
worth, her blood is for sale), but the women
in the stories who eschew materialism and
worldly success and act in ways that allow
the world to (excuse the expression but it
contains my idea) shit on them.
My question is one I've been asking myself today
with respect to James's fictions -- I've just finished
listening to The Portrait of a Lady. I really did
come close to tears at the moment of Ralph's
death, and found the ending (once again) singularly
wrenching. The last third of the novel is among
the great psychological/ethical narratives in English.
Where does Jhabvala stand in her fictions?
Where is she? In great novelistic art characters
function as metaphors for the author's decisions
in life and they work out a dialectic going
on inside the author's perception of existence.
Is someone like Ma an act of self-flagellation
on Jhabvala's part for Jhabvala's own recoil?
Who is Ma tempting? In what way? I'm
suggesting she tempts Jhabvala daily
and daily Jhabvala falls. The temptation
is the writing of fiction whose vision which
might turn most people away from Jhabvala.
So Jhabvala is Ma as she is the wandering
heroines.
Now I'm moving away from reading the narratives
as shaming and scapegoating ironic/satires.
I thought "A Summer by the Sea" was much
less a satire than all the previous stories,
more like traditional romance (except the
archetypes are made into modern variants).
I found very moving that last sentence in
"A Summer by the Sea:" "why can't I care
for him the way he is?" In the end of both
stories the characters are seeking a safety
that cannot be had. This is one side
of the dialectic going on in the fictions;
the other is the urge to break out, one which
is always punished.
It's these sorts of answers I seek to
feel I'm in communication with Jhabvala
through her fiction and with the conversation
she sets up with the readers and other
texts about her and people's lives,
particularly women's and gay men's.
Ellen
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 Ellen Moody Hi All --
We've had a variant of this conversation previously -- and I find it interesting to enter a text
vis a vis the author's position inside of it -- or to question the author's position in the text.
I find Ellen's quote and way of entering the text fascinating -- and I'm in no way arguing
against it -- rather I'm trying to grapple with understanding this way of reading.
I certainly do not want to position myself as a "writer" commenting on the text -- but I do find
it fascinating that there does seem to be, at least from my point of view, different ways of
imagining the text between the writerly perspective and the readerly one -- and I don't think this
is anything new -- good grief -- get a few writers and lit people in a room (at least this has been
my experience) -- and let the games begin -- actually it's quite fun -- I'm being serious. (And to
make a frank confession, I often find myself seriously intimidated during these conversations --
someone trained in lit seems to be at a great advantage with respect to complete understanding
of the text over someone who writes what is read.)
Perhaps I should take the position that Ellen's theory about characters as metaphors for the
author is one hundred percent on. To be honest, characters come from weird places and are
products of writers; however, this is not the way that I've come to understand characters, so
when I'm invited to consider the argument of characters as metaphor it does destabilize me --
but it also allows me to re-examine what I've been taught.
My understanding of the "I" and why writers might take that position in any writing -- fiction,
poetry, creative non-fiction, etc -- is to establish not only a position of authority but more
intriguingly to create; to write in "I" is to construct a character. It cannot always be assumed that
the pronoun antecedent for the "I", at least how I want to understand it, is the "author". The very
act of writing creates -- so, of course, the implied or explicit "I" becomes complicated when I am
asked to consider an author's position inside a text -- frankly, I do not know what to do with that
way of reading -- it's as strange to me as a computer blue-print for programming.
That said, what is interesting to me about Jhabvala is the conversation that seems to be
emerging, for me at least, with her short stories and in particular the female characters and
contemporary female works -- the embedded concerns that some contemporary books by female
authors and their female characters invite us to consider. Perhaps this is because I lack a serious
understanding and knowledge of "romance" and 18th/19th century lit and my specialty is so
narrow (although I am on this board to push myself outside of my comfort zone and to learn).
"Great Expectations" began to gel for me what I had begun to suspect -- there is an
interesting dialog between Jhabvala's work and some contemporary female writer's work. This
intertextuality might be a stretch but nevertheless intriguing --- and I hope to have my thoughts
clear enough to be able to talk about that tomorrow -- Valerie
Re: Jhabvala and Henry James
Dear Ellen --
Thank you for your reply -- and I have to say your last paragraph clears things up for me -- I
agree with you 100% there -- the line is blurred and becoming increasingly blurred -- and the
whole idea of truth in fiction, etc, etc --
And further when you note how Henry James "thinks" with respect to metaphor and how this
shapes and influences his writing -- yes, I agree (I haven't read the book you mention but am
familiar with him). And this can be applied to Anis Nin and Henry Miller, et al -- yes, now I see
what you mean -- and I agree --
I'm not sure as a reader I personally want to tackle the text in this fashion all the time-- but it
is intriguing, and yes, I think, extremely valid and useful, and I think we do this on an
unconscious level when we read -- which is why we do want to know something about the author
-- it does help to contextualize and make the text richer for us and at times paves the way for an
entry inside the text. And I admit, I do, at times, read this way -- especially Nin and Miller -- and
others as well.
So, again, thank you for the clarification -- it is truly helpful and allows me to understand how
you are entering the text and another way that I might enter it as well - and to be honest, it does
alleviate my initial "bristle" with the notion of characters as metaphors for the author -- using your
definition, I can see exactly what you mean, and I concur. I like how you point out that James
thinks in metaphor -- this, now, this, I understand -- :) Happy trip -- Valerie
PS -- as an aside -- has this group read any of Nin? Just curious -- she is an intriguing
author as I'm sure everyone is aware -- and her "diaries", of course, legendary -- they raise the
question of "audience" -- it is obvious that she was quite aware that the "diaries/journals" would
have an audience outside of her -- the journals also raise questions of character as metaphor --
can we make the claim that Nin was creating her own persona in these journals? And June
Miller, Otto Rank -- real people did become metaphors for her?
I suspect that everyone on line here has probably read her -- she's pretty much cannocial --
but on the off chance -- a "wish list" type thing if she hasn't been read.
Valerie
To WWTTA
February 12, 2005
Re: Jhabvala, New York, Tale 7: "Temptress"
I hope someone else does a close reading of this week's first story
because I am genuinely puzzled about what is the author's
stance. Close readings, which are partly what I've been
attempting here (not wholly as postings are also an informal
genre more like letters than essays), depend on the reader
deciding or feeling sure what is the author's stance towards
her material. I decided not to attempt "Out Of India" with
my students not only because I feel her stories will offend
many of them or evoke in them highly moralistic responses
(which they may or may not attribute to her), but because
I myself was at sea about a number.
I've been mentioning how I didn't know how I was meant
to take the stories focusing on a heroine who is promiscuous,
wanders about in abysmal poverty and is alternatively despised
or clamored over (sucked up to) by all: "The Temptress" at the
center of this story is such a type grown old: here she is greedy,
lazy, smelly, a sycophant, first adulated and then fled from; her
acolytes are dupes who themselves lives aimless useless lives.
Jhabvala seems to be showing us how the popular image
of New York culture (as say projected in the ads of the
New Yorker) as meaningful, glamorous, or seriously
emotionally fraught is nonsense: the world of the city
is filled with people desperately eeking out a living taking
in one another's washing. She shows that here and it is true
of many in the city. The tiny park area Ma and Ross meet
in is one I'm familiar with: I think Jhabvala really is pointing
to at tiny square at 72nd Street: it exists in a sea of
filth, noise, large criss-crossing boulevards, and she uses
it as a symbol of the hollowness and fakery of these lives.
However, satire (as I understand it) is simply ill-nature unless
the satirist first includes him or herself in the vision and
second compassionates the characters. I've tried to suggest
where Jhabvala fits in in her first 6 stories and hope I've
suggested where she takes real pity -- and where she
fails (I regard this as a failure), but where is the pity here?
What have we gained when we finish this story? Unless
it is the kind of insight a Swift would provide or Austen in
some of her harsher moments as when she mocks a fat
sighing old woman who deludes herself she is in mourning
for a useless son (rather like Arun) and suggests that
the best thing that could have happened was his
death as it rid her and the family of someone thick,
unmanageable, useless, a creature utterly of his or
her appetites -- which is just about what all the characters
are here.
Except I'm not sure she doesn't feel for them. If she
does, she has not offered any reasons for compassion.
If she means to blame social forces, her concentration
has been too narrow -- as opposed to the wider
net she casts in "Expiation" and "Development and
Progress." I know there are those on this list who
may feel she has in her first 8 stories seen Indians
through Westernized eyes; in these 2 stories she
has not begun to present the environment and
dehumanizing patterns of life in New York City,
there's no sense of the immigrant past it's rooted in, and
the deep abrasiveness of the people as a way
of barricading themselves against the huge numbers
of people drenched in anomie. Even here though
I'm not sure as after all this pattern of Ma is one
she shows in many other stories, except
the derelict desperate heroine who belongs nowhere
and in seeking escape finds her very body under
attack is a type she consistently presents in
many places she visualizes.
Ellen
Re: Jhabvala, New York, Tale 7: "Temptress" or Ma
I just thought about the heroine's name. Here's another
which in English is savage with irony: Ma. Here
we have the ultimate bad mother. She stinks.
And in New York City the moniker so prevalent
across the US is not used -- or wasn't when
I was growing up. Mothers were called Ma
not Mom (thus sparing women from being referred
to as Moms as if the term defined them). I still
call my mother Ma. When I first left NYC I
found Mom as a term cloying and am still not
comfortable with it. In England mothers are
to their children Mummy or Mum which to
my ears has different set of connotations from
Mom. Much is in a vowel sound.
Maybe this is a very bitter story and I'm unable to
face up to this?
I've written this separate posting just on the name
and its allegorical resonances in English to point
to a story we read on Trollope-l about 4 years
ago now: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's "The Lost
Ghost." I just put the conversational thread
we had about this online and discovered we discussed
thoroughly -- and I think illuminatingly the repeated
use of transgressive mothers in fiction, one
of whom is at the center of Wilkins's chilling ghost tale.
Most of the time they are blamed for having a sex
life outside the home; "The Lost Ghost" falls in
line with this:
http://www.jimandellen.org/gothic/Ghost.FreemanLostGhost.html
Jhabvala's Ma is rather the mother-woman who has
no income, no place, no meaning, nothing but her
much vaunted power to soothe. She ends up
disgusting all.
Maybe she should've got a job? Then she could
have contributed to the rent. Gone to graduate
school and written learned papers, gone to
conferences? It's never too late and NYC has them
cheap (joke alert joke alert joke ...) Certainly
put on some deodorant. Shave. What can the woman
be thinking of ....
You see I think Jhabvala means to send up the
people in the story who use and then drop Ma and I don't see
where she has succeeded in making her invective
against them clear. Tammy has some human guilt
but not enough. But then who wouldn't tire of
"Ma"?
Ellen
Re : Jhabvala, New York, Tale 8: "Summer by the Sea:" Mother Bea
Here I felt more that I understood the story and (even better
from the point of view of pleasure) I sympathized with
the central "reflector" -- to use Henry James's phrase.
The story is another one where we focus on a mother
called Mother (archetypally) through most of the story
as seen by her daughter, Susie. In this case the two women
are in temperament unalike; the mother is one of these
exhibitionist materialistic types who seem to enjoy
life through fulfilling their appetites and showing off
whatever they have that they feel the world is willing
to admire or tolerate. Mother, though, continually
embarrasses and makes her Susie uncomfortable (as
such a Mother would me); she verbally harasses and
insults Susie fundamentally: for Susie's withdrawn
retreating character, Susie's lack of any desire to
assert herself or have a worldly position or career,
and for Susie's life choice which was to marry a nervous
sensitive gay man, Boy (archetypally named too), who
is financially dependent on Suzie's inheritance (which
Susie's father made). Mother will go so far in her
needling as to tell her daughter Boy doesn't love
her and has married Susie for her money. This
is cruel. Mother needles Susie because Boy
won't get Susie pregnant (maybe rarely has
sex with her) and attracts to him idle male
drones, Hamid obviously and the young English
scholar who may admire Boy's art scholarship.
Nonetheless, Susie asserts and through nuances shows
she loves and can sympathize with this Mother. I suggest
that as a writer Jhabvala has set herself the challenge of
presenting a traditional moral or ethical heroine of
traditional romance (good natured, grave, serious,
compassionating others -- like Boy's mother and wretched
sisters) and presenting the traditional ethical view.
So Susie is reliable: she does really see truly and we
are to accept she sees clearly and see that her
views are decent and humane. The trick or interest
is that Jhabvala also wants us to see how useless and
counterproductive and destructive are these traditional
values, how they wreak such havoc on Susie's inner
life that the only way she can get peace when Boy
(her husband in traditional romance upon whom she
is dependent) is take sleeping pills at night.
An ultimate subversion of the traditional romance
genre is the aim. In A Backward Glance we
were to take Judy's morality as not only good and
true and just but the one to follow even if it's not
working because the world she's surrounded by
is perniciously ordered. Here our Fanny Price/
Anne Elliot type is destroyed by her acceptance
and humanity. So the reliable narrator turns out
to be unreliable. When people spit in her face,
Susie ought really not to say it's raining. She'd
do better to spit back. The best she does here
is hold up an umbrella (sleeping pills) or
busy herself making jam no one wants to
eat and which she burns the pot with so she
has to spend time scrubbing it. But Jhabvala
genuinely compassionates and identifies
and ends her story with Susie's question:
"why can't I care for him the way he is?"
Jhabvala has subverted traditional romance
by putting before us the traditional heroine
and making us feel for her in her desperate
submissiveness all the while we are appalled
at it. She pities and sees the tragedy
at the heart of traditional feminine romance,
the waste, the self-destructiveness and
yet says why not? Is there another choice?
This reminds me of her Judy who gives
her life-savings to her husband and obediently
gets on the train with him and begins to
laugh at some fleeting exhilaration. Who
are we to judge?
Nonethless, this is another story which might anger
feminists, especially those who argue for seeking
power, for careers, against "losers." And in
particular, the depiction of the sexy mother is
grating, and meant to be grating. She is making
a fool out of herself and doesn't care; we are
to see she just loves what physical pleasure
Hamid offers: she will even make love in
front of her daughter with him. She takes,
takes, takes; yes she will in an offmoment
show pity and offer (say) to take Linda and
her brood in, and if Linda was such a fool
as to take the offer, the homelife that would
ensue is one Austen's Mrs Elton would rightly
predict wouldn't last more than one rent cycle.
(That's Mrs Elton's comment on Emma
and Mr Knightley's decision to live with
Emma's father in his house at the close
of Emma; it's the penultimate sentence in the
novel.) Valerie wonders what her scar is
from: I suggest it could be anything, but
I imagined a Caesarian section of the old
style. That would make just such a scar
as people object to but which one could
wear a bikini with. I have such a scar
and have been spoken aside to when I wore
a two-piece bathing suit after I was scarred.
I didn't want to wear that suit; my husband
liked to see me in a two-piece and I owned
one and was cheap, but after that unkind
comment I switched back to one piece
bathing suits ever after. Mother is stronger
than me; so too Susie for if Mother spoke
to me the way she does to Susie, she'd
find herself in her car headed for the train
station within the time it would take
me to pack for her. We are not to like Mother
but she is real and Jhabvala pushes her
in our faces. Get used to it, face it. We
have here another Sumitra and the voice
about her is suffering from her presence
yet kind to her.
So I feel that feminists who get angry would be
wrong. The story generally shows women to be vulnerable
economically and emotionally. It was Susie's
father who made the money. The wretchedness
and misery of Paula, Evie and Linda come from
a lifestyle where men can easily leave women.
Boy is a actually a catch. A catch. An art
historian who gets sabbaticals and has
graduate students follow him about. That says it all.
How do these women spend their lives? Busying
themselves. The tasks they chose (linen closet
-- wow, how many women all my life have told
me they actually regularly clean out linen closets
-- I always wonder what it is there is to clean?)
are in the famous formulation of Beauvoir: immanent.
I thought this story as it played out in the nuances,
imagery, little scenes as brilliant as "Development and
Progress." I think I could make the argument in
a full essay (and be persuasive) that these two are
the most brilliant in the collection thus far (I've
not read ahead), deepest, finest, most humane and
thickly artful.
There is much play made about gay men and homosexuality
which is a speciality of Jhabvala. So to speak. She
often has gay men at the center of her tales. Their
powerlessness parallels her heterosexual heroines'
powerlessness. Their flaws and faults prey on the
heroines; in this case the moral horror of the piece is
Hamid. His behavior is appalling and outrageous
and yet the world doesn't say anything because
well because he's there and makes a little fun,
plays games. We are to assume he's good at sex
I suppose. He is also very clever, witty, and
doesn't go too far.
I was particularly taken by her use of stories within
stories. I really remembered Freeman's "Lost Ghost"
because there's another story where we have several
mothers, all of whom provide mirroring stories at the
heart of which is the transgressive mother and
another poignant loving mother who adopts the child
ghost and whom the child ghost takes away to death.
The heart or climactic moment of the story seemed
to me where Hamid tells our heroine the story of
a movie. Obviously he tells it so as to hint to the
heroine he'd like to go to bed with her now that
Boy is gone. It's the story of a man who sleeps
with both a mother and daughter but loves this
cowboy male. Hamid sleeps with Mother and
loves Boy but he's not yet beded Susie. Susie
though has wisely taken a sleeping pill so no sex
there is to be had. He turns to her mother and
then begins to tell the story of his life which it
appears is another mother tale: this time of a
man who was taken in and taken good care of
by this older woman, but after a while the police
are called in and the daughter takes the mother
to the hospital. The parallel is obvious --
does he want an invitation? If so, he doesn't
get one. Bea is much more selfish and wary
than that. The inner story also mirrors the story
of Linda and Evie.
In this case I enjoyed the ease and grace
of the style against the queasiness and discomfort
of the satiric exposure and sternly alert compassion.
Ellen
Re: Jhabvala, New York, Tale 8: "Summer by the Sea:" Names & Smells
A separate posting for the names: Bea. Jhabvala is
a genuinely learned well-read writer. It's not too much
to think she has a ironic allusion to Dante's Beatrice.
Look at what she's become. Living into middle age:
"Golden Oldie." The allusion is to the idiotic radio
stations which call their "hits" golden oldies. There's
lots of these kinds of details in the story. She's
also beatific. She's joyous, is she not?
Susie is another name like Kitty. We are descending
from traditional heroines (Katharine, Susan) to their
diminished descendants: nicknames.
Terry is a sort of neuter name and also English.
I have come across gay people who rename themselves
this way: Tori, Toni, Terri. Terry apparently has
a posh accent he's not adverse to using to
assert himself.
I did forget to mention how Bea is, like Ma, accused
of smelling. She too stinks of female smells. In this
story I began to see that the source of this is a
satire on American phobias about hygiene. Americans
are neurotic when it comes to their bodies: not only
diet, diet, diet, go to gyms and work out, but shave
shave shave (use hot wax lest a hair show when you
wear your bathing suit if you are a woman). How dare
a woman have a smell? And this kind of oppressive
norm is used to scapegoat people very effectively,
particularly in grade and middle schools.
And this is a satire on that class of people Fitzgerald's
Gatsby so admired and wanted to be part of.
How they've come down in fiction. The last I read
about them was in Cheevers's short fiction: he was
an alcoholic like Boy's father who drowned because
he was too drunk to stay up in the waves.
Cheers to all, Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 Good morning all -- hope that this day finds you in good health & spirits --
First, let me say that I agree with Ellen with respect to "Temptress" -- maybe we're not on the
exact same page -- but the story presented its levels of difficulties (as does "A Summer by the
Sea") -- and I found myself struggling to understand exactly what I was to take away from both
stories actually, although "Temptress" more than "A Summer by the Sea". As a writer, I'm even
more perplexed, because the narrative structure of "Temptress" seems to go against everything I
understand about story (even the post-modern form of story -- yes, I know that post-modern is a
term that many disagree with -- but it's useful for me in contextualizing a specific type of writing -
- a writing that is more "experimental" with respect to narrative structure; a writing that plays with
narration, with the position of the reader vis a vis the text, writing that is often obsessed with
destruction -- and from destruction (no novel idea here) construction) -- but at any rate, let me
attempt, for whatever
my two cents are worth, my understanding of "A Summer by the Sea".
First, both stories are quite textual -- they invite a plethora of readings, perhaps each reading
so separate from each other that it takes each reading in order to form a larger reading (if I'm
making sense here) -- sort of like the pi phenomenon in psychology where the whole is greater
than the sum of its parts. That said, I'm only going to attempt one sliver of a reading.
Tennessee William's _A Street Car Name Desire_ seemed to resonate within this story. The
mother, Bea, had echoes of Blanche Debois -- albeit older.
Mom strutting around in a bikini -- good for her that she can -- but there's a suggestion that
she really shouldn't be: a) the mention of her scar above her chest (open heart surgery? breast
surgery? We're not sure -- I think it must be open heart surgery -- the scar from a mastectomy
would be concealed with the bikini top -- and one would think, given the criticism of mom -- that
there would be some repulsion to her wearing a bikini sans breast.) At any rate, if it is open
heart, then of course, a neatly arranged metaphor for the fact that Mom where's her heart on her
sleeve. The fact that mom struts about in a bikini suggests that mom wants to be younger than
she is and this is met with contempt. "You don't know anything about these things. You never
did." I am her only daughter, and it's one of the regrets of her life that I haven't turned out to be
fun-loving and sexy, like her. "He's my type," she told me about Hamid. "We have the same
chemistry" (165). There, is of
course, a sense of irony here from the narrator. 2) The other Dubois-esq quality -- Mom doesn't
want to see -- the light "hurts my eyes" (178). Well, what is it that these people don't want to
see? It seems clear that they all know what's going on.
So, we have mom, strutting about in her bikini a la Dubois; daughter tolerating it, Terry,
another house guest worried about Bea and Hamid, and Boy, the husband. There is a meniage-
a-trois underfoot (sorry for the spelling). "We could hear them arguing inside -- or rather, Boy
arguing. He tried to keep his voice low, so that we couldn't hear what he said, but that just made
it more intense and passionate. Hamid made only an occasional remark, in a soft voice, as if he
wanted to cool him down, But Boy was not cooled down.
It's obvious here that Hamid and "Boy" are having an affair and Mother wants in on the
action -- not with Boy -- but with Hamid who, it is suggested and excuse the vulgar term, swings
both ways. Okay. So what? How are we to read this? I can only go back to mom - who is,
despite the fact that this is a first person narrative told through Susie's lens, the center of the
story. And like the other matriarchs or central females in the previous stories, she too wears
jewels -- ornamentation of her outside appearance is important. We don't know enough about
her character to know for certain if inside she is empty with respect to "character" and therefore
the outward dress is necessary in order to cover up for any lack of real person. As an aside, I did
laugh at mom's naivete, if you will, her quickness to stereotype when she said, "Everyone knows
they're ambidextrous over there. It's all right over there. It's expected'" (168) -- we can almost
see mom salivating at the opportunity
for a creative romp in the hay -- and, of course, her ignorance about another culture rings loudly
-- but this ignorance is not what the story is about. I'm not sure what the story is about, to be
frank.
"Boy" -- uh huh -- he is obviously gay, and Susie endures this, ignores it -- whatever -- we're
not quite given the exact reason why she's content in this arranged marriage. Yes, she enjoys
his company -- so perhaps it's a matter of companionship -- or perhaps it's because it ruffled
mom's feathers initially -- but that has now backfired as mom likes or at least tolerates Boy. I
was struck by the line "He doesn't want me to know these things about him, so I have to pretend
I don't" (169). Key line there -- although it's not directly connected to announcing that Boy is gay.
So, here I am left to wonder about Susie -- mom's out flirting with Hamid, Boy's lover, and
Hamid doesn't seem to mind. Susie doesn't care as long as she's not a witness to it and what
she doesn't know won't hurt her. But who is she? She is an extremely passive character (a post-
modern technique, or at least how I understand it.) -- And I'm not sure what to make by her
passivity -- the story goes on around her -- she casually mentions it to us the reader, and there
seems to be no real point. The only sign of her anger is when she burns the peach jelly -- albeit
a passive aggressive move -- and she made the jelly/jam -- whatever, because Boy had gone
into the city and she couldn't sleep without him -- for whatever reason, she is dependent on him.
Why, we're not really sure. Susie allows her husband to have his flings while she tidies up the
house. "Actually, Terry himself was one of the people who taught me that it's not good to care
too much. I was like him once -- for
instance, when he and Boy were very much involved with each other -- and I used to torment
myself by spying, speculating, finding out. But now I don't do that any more" (172). Okay --
why? How are we to read Susie? Why is she so passive; what is really at stake here for her? I
return to the last line "Maybe I like things the way they are. No one ever tells me that it's wrong
for me to love Mother for the way she is and not for how she is supposed to be. Then why not
Boy -- why can't I care for him the way he is?" The last line can be read two ways -- 1)
addressing the reader -- if i can love mom this way then of course i can love my husband this
way or 2) addressing the self -- why can't i love Boy even though he's gay and not want more
from him. It's an interesting moment in a story that is relatively chaotic -- a story that wants to
distract the reader (as Susie wants to distract herself) from what is really at issue. Meanwhile,
Mom lives and let lives as long as she can
salsa her way past her own pain; Susie takes sleeping pills and desperately tries to ignore what's
going on; and Boy screws his little entourage -- a la Michael Jackson -- it just seemed that the
story wanted to invite us to consider that this idyllic summer cottage on an expensive piece of
property on the Eastern Coast was as strange as Jackson's Wonderland.
But, even after offering these musings, I'm still not quite sure what to take away from the
story -- or what it is that I'm being asked to understand/imagine. I know I'm abnormally obtuse --
so perhaps that's it. But I was puzzled. There doesn't have to be any meaning beneath the
surface -- and the surface is what I offered above -- but I guess I want there to be. We talk about
characters and stories that are "satisfying" to readers -- I guess, for me, the question becomes is
this story 'satisfying" although that question is subjective.
I will make one tiny comment on technicality -- 1) there are a few verb tense shifts in the
story -- they startled me although they were justifiable -- one moment we're talking about the past
-- the next we're in the present -- but the the tenses were not consistent -- and I couldn't
completely comprehend why the tense shift -- I know that writers aren't supposed to do things
haphazardly -- and certainly a skilled writer such as Jhabvala wouldn't -- nevertheless it's there;
2) When Boy goes to take care of his sister -- other than to invite us to consider what is "crazy"
and where is the psych ward -- Belleview or in the cottage -- the moment was a tad bit too easy -
- a way for Boy to exit the scene so that Hamid and Bea could enter and have their tryst.
So, my thoughts. I'm really interested and looking forward to reading what others think -- this
story has me a bit perplexed --
Valerie
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 Hi All --
My two cents on "Temptress" a story that stumped me quite frankly. -- Ellen's comment on
"ma" and the reference to the name is well taken and certainly a useful way to enter the text --
thank you, Ellen, as usual, great insights.
To play devil's advocate, let me just make a few musings about the text.
1) While we could read "ma" as stinky -- she's certainly portrayed that way, we are also
invited to consider her "magical" powers albeit "silly" magical powers, and in this way, I
wondered if the text wanted to invite us to consider spirituality versus lack of faith -- or worldly
versus unworldly: "At that, Tammy could not repress a cry: for it was exactly what she herself
was always wishing for, to get out of this world into a completely other one" (138). Indeed, the
central conflict of this story, at least how I read it, is this tension between the worldly and the
unworldly -- of which Ma represents -- or wants to represent -- she's really a moderate here --
able to use the desire of those who seek something beyond themselves to her advantage. She's
a soothsayer, a conduit, a novelty that those in New York can readily suspend their belief
because Ma represents an exotic country with exotic beliefs, at least to these New Yorkers --
mostly blue collar types (the waitress, the sales clerks, etc etc.) Of course, Ross sees through
her -- but even he is seeking another world -- to be with Grace, to connect with Tammy as a
father/grandfather/lover -- all three -- perhaps in that order.
2) The story is extremely surrealistic and unbelievable -- we're not in any world we can
believe and yet the story is grounded in a "real" enough world -- a city with a park, an apartment
with furniture -- and yet the events that take place among these "real" things are anything but
real. We've talked about "unreliable" versus "reliable" and if we can apply those terms to story
(I'm not sure that we can) -- could we argue that this story is completely unreliable/unbelievable?
It's difficult to suspend our belief -- or at least it was for me. Tammy, another passive female,
"inherits" Ross and Ma -- and la -de-da --so what? All these people roam in and out of the
house? Ma splashes herself with oils and proceeds to take over the house, Ross, the kitchen
and so what? Life goes on? Tammy goes to school to take classes and leaves the apartment to
its own devices? I found this a bit incredulous. And then the ante is upped with Doktor -- a quasi
guru of sorts who marries whomever
follows him -- another charlatan. And nobody's raising an eyebrow except Ross? And Ross is
"in the middle of the ... traffic without being a part of it" (143). Except it ain't Ross who's telling
the story -- it's a third person omniscient narrator -- and the story would have more credibility --
readers might be able to latch onto something substantial if it were Ross who were telling the
story since he seems to be the only "sane" one in the bunch -- and even he isn't believable -- or
his circumstances aren't -- i mean, who really picks up someone off a park bench in New York,
let alone, and brings them home? Further, there seems to be some discrepancy with respect to
time and age in the story -- perhaps a signal that this story is intended to be surrealistic --
Tammy met Ross when she was 13 -- that was ten years ago -- putting her at 23 (145)-- and we
know that Minnie and Tammy were college room-mates -- and Minnie married then divorced
then traveled -- how she found Ma -- I
suppose this time frame could allow for all of this activity -- but it seems, again, a bit
incredulous. I think the central question this story invites is: Are we to believe it? And if so, what
is it that we are to believe? The story itself with its "Gothic facade" certainly invites us not to
believe it (155) -- it's utterly surreal, a type of slapstick, with Grace's ghost lurking at every
corner. And maybe that's just the point -- what we believe, whom we beleive we have a
responsibility to challenge with thought.
In the end, Ross goes back to Tammy. Okay -- yeah? I'm thinking about what I know about
story -- and if I accept the premise that story is about a character with a desire this desire creates
conflict, the character changes -- however small -- this story is certainly novel in its desire to
resist that structure -- and for that it is interesting. But it is a "Gothic facade" -- and perhaps that
is how we are to read it -- help? Someone else to illuminate this problematic tale? Perhaps the
next reading will allow me to say, ahh, yes, -- how did I miss that -- Valerie
Ellen Moody Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 My feeling about 'The Temptress' is that it isn't mainly/only a
realistic story, but partly a sort of allegory about the seductive
appeal of religious cults. Ma seems to be someone whom Tammy and
Minnie have picked out to be their guru because they don't want the
responsibility of thinking and deciding for themselves - I think
this is one reason for the archetypal mother name which Ellen wrote
about. Ma is a mother figure taken to extremes - someone who will
listen and support you endlessly, and smooth all those worrying
thoughts out of your brain.
Most of the smells associated with Ma are to do with seductive
qualities - oils, perfume, rich food. The line which jumped out at
me about her was this one: "...she looked like a hundred-year-old
witch but like a temptress too, gleaming and glittering with oil and
silk and gold."
The other smell mentioned is of the homeless people who go to seek
comfort from her - the uncomfortable side of being a guru which
Tammy and Minnie don't want to think about.
The way Ma starts to wear older clothes and sometimes not wear her
teeth suggests how at ease she is with herself, and I think that is
part of her appeal to Tammy and the many others who join her mini-
cult - the feeling that she will always accept and support them,
give them mothering. Ross tells Ma that Tammy has had enough of
mothers, but has she?
On a more realistic level, as well as being a type, Ma comes across
vividly as an individual with the ability to enjoy life, from ice
cream to movies, and also to build up a business (shades of Farida
here). I have the feeling Jhabvala enjoys her as a character.
By contrast, the rival guru, the cold, threatening figure 'The
Doktor' (a name which immediately conjures up vague images of Freud)
does not accept in a motherly way, but piles on guilt and blames
Tammy for everything, while still wanting to take possession of her
apartment. He is more of an angry father figure.
Tammy herself is presented as someone who can't live in the present
and is really looking for someone else to take on the responsibility
of her own life... "she seemed always to be straining upward, in the
direction of something beyond her reach." She is prey for any cult
or psychological fashion.
I'm interested to see where this story is placed, at the start of
the 'Upper East' section - showing how the West reaches for a
particular image of India, which is quite different from the
pictures painted in the previous stories.
The edition I'm reading has two full-page pictures at the start of
the two sections, first of a temple in Delhi and then of Beaver
Street off Wall Street, New York City - I'm not sure what to make of
these two pictures. In a way they seem quite similar because both
feature tall buildings, but I suppose the US picture is a temple of
commerce.
The very last line of the story seems double-edged to me.
"Anyway, he did not feel safe till he was in the opposite part of
the city, the part he knew so well, and outside Tammy's apartment
building and then inside that marble vault, where the doormen were
all new, for the old ones had followed Ma and had lost interest in
holding down their jobs."
This suggests the danger of falling into any cult and the need to
cling on to the business of everyday life - but that phrase "marble
vault" suggests death, and is in stark contrast to the warm image of
Ma's new apartment.
All the best, Re: Jhabvala: 'The Temptress'
Dear Judy and all,
Speaking generally I read the story in the way Judy
has. This reading fits what Jhabvala herself says
about her attitude towards Indian mysticism:
Both gurus are self-deluded fakes; the way the others
are attracted to her and for a while find comfort
in her is a measure of the meaninglessness of
their lives. I didn't see that the male could
be a metaphor for a father as Ma is for a mother.
But yes. And "doktor" widens the irony
and apprehension both about about men
as fathers and men as doctors.
I did think that the depiction of New York City in
this tale connects it directly to Jhabvala's depictions
of India: both places are filled with people equally
on the edge economically, equally without ties
they are loyal to in any deep or committed
sense; both places are filled literally with
garbage. That central square on 72nd Street
is awful, and if she did not have that one
in mind, there are several others quite similar
I could cite going up Broadway.
However -- and I don't know why -- I'm just not
satisfied with this reading. There is something
else going on here more interesting, and to my
mind it relates not to Farida (who is hard-nosed
pragmatic careerist, networking for all she's
worth, her blood is for sale), but the women
in the stories who eschew materialism and
worldly success and act in ways that allow
the world to (excuse the expression but it
contains my idea) shit on them.
My question is one I've been asking myself today
with respect to James's fictions -- I've just finished
listening to The Portrait of a Lady. I really did
come close to tears at the moment of Ralph's
death, and found the ending (once again) singularly
wrenching. The last third of the novel is among
the great psychological/ethical narratives in English.
Where does Jhabvala stand in her fictions?
Where is she? In great novelistic art characters
function as metaphors for the author's decisions
in life and they work out a dialectic going
on inside the author's perception of existence.
Is someone like Ma an act of self-flagellation
on Jhabvala's part for Jhabvala's own recoil?
Who is Ma tempting? In what way? I'm
suggesting she tempts Jhabvala daily
and daily Jhabvala falls. The temptation
is the writing of fiction whose vision which
might turn most people away from Jhabvala.
So Jhabvala is Ma as she is the wandering
heroines.
Now I'm moving away from reading the narratives
as shaming and scapegoating ironic/satires.
I thought "A Summer by the Sea" was much
less a satire than all the previous stories,
more like traditional romance (except the
archetypes are made into modern variants).
I found very moving that last sentence in
"A Summer by the Sea:" "why can't I care
for him the way he is?" In the end of both
stories the characters are seeking a safety
that cannot be had. This is one side
of the dialectic going on in the fictions;
the other is the urge to break out, one which
is always punished.
It's these sorts of answers I seek to
feel I'm in communication with Jhabvala
through her fiction and with the conversation
she sets up with the readers and other
texts about her and people's lives,
particularly women's and gay men's.
Ellen
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 Ellen Moody Hi All --
We've had a variant of this conversation previously -- and I find it interesting to enter a text
vis a vis the author's position inside of it -- or to question the author's position in the text.
I find Ellen's quote and way of entering the text fascinating -- and I'm in no way arguing
against it -- rather I'm trying to grapple with understanding this way of reading.
I certainly do not want to position myself as a "writer" commenting on the text -- but I do find
it fascinating that there does seem to be, at least from my point of view, different ways of
imagining the text between the writerly perspective and the readerly one -- and I don't think this
is anything new -- good grief -- get a few writers and lit people in a room (at least this has been
my experience) -- and let the games begin -- actually it's quite fun -- I'm being serious. (And to
make a frank confession, I often find myself seriously intimidated during these conversations --
someone trained in lit seems to be at a great advantage with respect to complete understanding
of the text over someone who writes what is read.)
Perhaps I should take the position that Ellen's theory about characters as metaphors for the
author is one hundred percent on. To be honest, characters come from weird places and are
products of writers; however, this is not the way that I've come to understand characters, so
when I'm invited to consider the argument of characters as metaphor it does destabilize me --
but it also allows me to re-examine what I've been taught.
My understanding of the "I" and why writers might take that position in any writing -- fiction,
poetry, creative non-fiction, etc -- is to establish not only a position of authority but more
intriguingly to create; to write in "I" is to construct a character. It cannot always be assumed that
the pronoun antecedent for the "I", at least how I want to understand it, is the "author". The very
act of writing creates -- so, of course, the implied or explicit "I" becomes complicated when I am
asked to consider an author's position inside a text -- frankly, I do not know what to do with that
way of reading -- it's as strange to me as a computer blue-print for programming.
That said, what is interesting to me about Jhabvala is the conversation that seems to be
emerging, for me at least, with her short stories and in particular the female characters and
contemporary female works -- the embedded concerns that some contemporary books by female
authors and their female characters invite us to consider. Perhaps this is because I lack a serious
understanding and knowledge of "romance" and 18th/19th century lit and my specialty is so
narrow (although I am on this board to push myself outside of my comfort zone and to learn).
"Great Expectations" began to gel for me what I had begun to suspect -- there is an
interesting dialog between Jhabvala's work and some contemporary female writer's work. This
intertextuality might be a stretch but nevertheless intriguing --- and I hope to have my thoughts
clear enough to be able to talk about that tomorrow -- Valerie
Re: Jhabvala and Henry James
Dear Ellen --
Thank you for your reply -- and I have to say your last paragraph clears things up for me -- I
agree with you 100% there -- the line is blurred and becoming increasingly blurred -- and the
whole idea of truth in fiction, etc, etc --
And further when you note how Henry James "thinks" with respect to metaphor and how this
shapes and influences his writing -- yes, I agree (I haven't read the book you mention but am
familiar with him). And this can be applied to Anis Nin and Henry Miller, et al -- yes, now I see
what you mean -- and I agree --
I'm not sure as a reader I personally want to tackle the text in this fashion all the time-- but it
is intriguing, and yes, I think, extremely valid and useful, and I think we do this on an
unconscious level when we read -- which is why we do want to know something about the author
-- it does help to contextualize and make the text richer for us and at times paves the way for an
entry inside the text. And I admit, I do, at times, read this way -- especially Nin and Miller -- and
others as well.
So, again, thank you for the clarification -- it is truly helpful and allows me to understand how
you are entering the text and another way that I might enter it as well - and to be honest, it does
alleviate my initial "bristle" with the notion of characters as metaphors for the author -- using your
definition, I can see exactly what you mean, and I concur. I like how you point out that James
thinks in metaphor -- this, now, this, I understand -- :) Happy trip -- Valerie
PS -- as an aside -- has this group read any of Nin? Just curious -- she is an intriguing
author as I'm sure everyone is aware -- and her "diaries", of course, legendary -- they raise the
question of "audience" -- it is obvious that she was quite aware that the "diaries/journals" would
have an audience outside of her -- the journals also raise questions of character as metaphor --
can we make the claim that Nin was creating her own persona in these journals? And June
Miller, Otto Rank -- real people did become metaphors for her?
I suspect that everyone on line here has probably read her -- she's pretty much cannocial --
but on the off chance -- a "wish list" type thing if she hasn't been read.
Valerie
I just thought about the heroine's name. Here's another
which in English is savage with irony: Ma. Here
we have the ultimate bad mother. She stinks.
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala: 'The Temptress': Allegory about the seductive appeal of
religious cults
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Judy
Once somebody said to me, 'Just see, how
sweet is the Indian soul that can see God
in a cow!' ... however much I may try to
fool myself, whatever veils for the sake of
peace of mind, to draw over my eyes, it
is soon clear enough to me that the cow
is a cow, and a very scrawny, underfed,
diseased one at that.
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala: 'The Temptress': Jhabvala vis a vis her characters
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Where does Jhabvala stand in her fictions?
Where is she? In great novelistic art characters
function as metaphors for the author's decisions
in life and they work out a dialectic going
on inside the author's perception of existence.
Is someone like Ma an act of self-flagellation
on Jhabvala's part for Jhabvala's own recoil?
Women's fiction and l'écriture-femme
East into Upper East: Plain Tales from New York
by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Ellen
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala, New York, Tale 8: "A Summer By The Sea"
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
"Well, I can't stand it,' Mother said at last. She went down the porch steps, onto the
beach, into the dark. I could see her pacing up and down there, like a firefly in her spangly dress
and jewels'" (167).
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala, New York, Tale 7: "Temptress" or Ma
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
I just thought about the heroine's name. Here's another
which in English is savage with irony: Ma. Here
we have the ultimate bad mother. She stinks.
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala: 'The Temptress': Allegory about the seductive appeal of
religious cults
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Judy
Once somebody said to me, 'Just see, how
sweet is the Indian soul that can see God
in a cow!' ... however much I may try to
fool myself, whatever veils for the sake of
peace of mind, to draw over my eyes, it
is soon clear enough to me that the cow
is a cow, and a very scrawny, underfed,
diseased one at that.
Subject: [Womenwriters] Jhabvala: 'The Temptress': Jhabvala vis a vis her characters
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Where does Jhabvala stand in her fictions?
Where is she? In great novelistic art characters
function as metaphors for the author's decisions
in life and they work out a dialectic going
on inside the author's perception of existence.
Is someone like Ma an act of self-flagellation
on Jhabvala's part for Jhabvala's own recoil?
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