bellascribe

I heard Mary Gaitskill (Wikipedia entry) talk about her work and writing, and read from Nabakov’s Pale Fire, twice this week at her two appearances here, first at the University of Cincinnati and the following night at the Mercantile Library. Her work has always mattered to me a great deal so I was really pleased to be able to do this. I thought I’d share here after I had an opportunity to listen again to the sessions (recorded them), but this may be some time off. A few off-the-cuff comments about what’s resonating with me since. She spoke of how now the world has become so horribly utilitarian. Which seems related to physicality — walking, as well as sex (which is what she was asked to speak about, how she writes about sex); she does not drive, nor does her Veronica protagonist who is in a lot of physical pain as she walks and as she works (at cleaning) — and isn’t it so that the physicality of walking over the years become endangered, seen as less utilitarian or practical as a way of getting around? (Will Self notwithstanding, who walks? Can you really get from, say, the airport to your home on foot; from your home to the grocery store? Having just searched for a house to buy/live where I could walk to every and anything needed and wanted, I’m acutely aware of how this is just not possible.) As we become less in our bodies, what happens to the rest of us? When I listened to the questions from the students the first night at the university, I felt I was seeing — hearing — some of the answer to that. Clearly, the questioners did not get Gaitskill’s work (perhaps they hadn’t really read it, is my optimistic hope). In fact, at one point, Gaitskill responded, [paraphrasing] “Young man, I’m fifty-two years old, bear that in mind.” Meaning, I think, she was presuming his obtuseness, superficiality was a result of his young age and lack of experience. Being kind, in other words. The guy asked if it was a “personal choice” that she had made all the male characters in the Because They Wanted To stories “stupid slobs.” Is that a question reflecting lack of wisdom or ignorant youth? Gaitskill: “You’re doing an extremely crude and simplistic reading…Don’t put your crude interpretation on me and tell me that’s what I’m doing.”