Can women make art?
July 31, 2024 1:24 AM Subscribe
We learn in Parade that the female condition is “unlasting yet eternal,” that behind its “volcanic cycles of change” there lies something “darkly continuous” yet “unknown.” The female artist, we are told, must reckon with “the mystery and tragedy of her own sex.” What Cusk really means is that women must make art about being mothers. If they refuse to do this, they are effectively neutering themselves, disavowing their “female biological destiny” in the doomed pursuit of “male freedom.” The latter appears to be identical with regular freedom in every way except that, when exposed in a woman, it is proof of a grotesque and self-defeating identification with men. One cannot, I think, have a high opinion of women if one is to believe this. It is like defining the air as male and bravely refusing to breathe. from Against ‘Women’s Writing’ by Andrea Long Chu [Vulture; ungated]
Andrea Long Chu, Previously
Andrea Long Chu, Previously
This is very well written but after Genuine women’s writing, Cusk argues, would abandon any claim to “equivalence in the male world” and concern itself “with what is eternal and unvarying, with domesticity and motherhood and family life.” I'm wondering why this person is worth thinking about at all? And I'm not sure if I'll read further.
posted by Zumbador at 3:10 AM on July 31 [12 favorites]
posted by Zumbador at 3:10 AM on July 31 [12 favorites]
I saw some reasonable criticisms of this that some of the damning quotes are less so in context.
posted by tofu_crouton at 3:13 AM on July 31 [4 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 3:13 AM on July 31 [4 favorites]
Essentialism is exhausting
and the world is exhausting enough as it is
posted by trig at 3:51 AM on July 31 [4 favorites]
and the world is exhausting enough as it is
posted by trig at 3:51 AM on July 31 [4 favorites]
Ah, yes, Andrea Long Chu, edgemistressing us since 2019 with statements like "distilling the femaleness to its barest essentials—an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes" and "getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is".
posted by dmh at 4:50 AM on July 31 [11 favorites]
posted by dmh at 4:50 AM on July 31 [11 favorites]
Look, I want art written by all people to improve with criticism and the artist's growth, but we need at least two centuries for novels written by women to be able to fart around aimlessly, win high praise with mediocre prose and ludicrous plots, and to sweep awards for years without end before this sort of shit-talking is necessary. Critics make their reputations with scalpels, and it's maybe a great sign the Cusk comes in for that sort of attention, but eh. As with every instance where some artist from any minoritized group turns out to be a shit or a monster in real life, I think we should give them at the very least some breathing room, if not the latitude that male artists and art monsters have had for centuries. Let women make art.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:10 AM on July 31 [13 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:10 AM on July 31 [13 favorites]
Chu is the intellectualized version of your gossipy friend in high school, the one you loved listening to when a devastating put-down of some enemy or teacher was on offer, but as that jaundiced eye began to point your way, you grew nervous, you questioned at what cost you had encouraged this behavior.
Here, unfortunately, whatever you might think of Chu, whatever you might think of Cusk, there's just something dumb at the heart of the argument: "Anyone genuinely invested in the fate of women artists must learn to separate, whenever possible, the material questions from the existential ones." Women artists have spent lifetimes telling us those questions are the same and are inextricable. The patriarchy creates its psychological effects by material means. And these effects are not necessarily visible to the armchair theorist.
In fact it's easy to mistake someone's contemplation of their first-hand experience--the experience of their bodies, the experience of their time, energy and creativity balanced on the knife's edge between what you must give to your children and what you must give to your book--as 'flatly essentialist.' It's easy to use that label because it brushes away any worry that what Cusk is saying is, well, self-evidently true, true enough that people have been saying it forever. If one's feminism is not acutely attuned to opportunity costs (to put it neutrally), to sacrifice, to the risk you run that either your children or your work will turn out flat and empty and dry, then is it really even feminism? Or is it simply that gossipy lunch-period chatter dressed in grown-up clothes?
posted by mittens at 5:28 AM on July 31 [20 favorites]
Here, unfortunately, whatever you might think of Chu, whatever you might think of Cusk, there's just something dumb at the heart of the argument: "Anyone genuinely invested in the fate of women artists must learn to separate, whenever possible, the material questions from the existential ones." Women artists have spent lifetimes telling us those questions are the same and are inextricable. The patriarchy creates its psychological effects by material means. And these effects are not necessarily visible to the armchair theorist.
In fact it's easy to mistake someone's contemplation of their first-hand experience--the experience of their bodies, the experience of their time, energy and creativity balanced on the knife's edge between what you must give to your children and what you must give to your book--as 'flatly essentialist.' It's easy to use that label because it brushes away any worry that what Cusk is saying is, well, self-evidently true, true enough that people have been saying it forever. If one's feminism is not acutely attuned to opportunity costs (to put it neutrally), to sacrifice, to the risk you run that either your children or your work will turn out flat and empty and dry, then is it really even feminism? Or is it simply that gossipy lunch-period chatter dressed in grown-up clothes?
posted by mittens at 5:28 AM on July 31 [20 favorites]
I read this novel last month and found value in it, but maybe didn't read it as deeply or, obviously, "critically" as would a critic. I felt I was reading one woman's grappling with what it meant to be an artist and how gender challenges acceptance. So much of the criticism within the world of the novel comes from characters discussing the artist's work that it rang true to me - people will question the role of gender in creation for a woman in ways they won't in art by men.
I read it entirely as a standalone piece with no knowledge of Cusk's former works or statements in interviews, so my perspective may be limited/limiting. I just think my perspective was enlarged by reading it.
posted by yamel at 5:29 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
I read it entirely as a standalone piece with no knowledge of Cusk's former works or statements in interviews, so my perspective may be limited/limiting. I just think my perspective was enlarged by reading it.
posted by yamel at 5:29 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
I just think my perspective was enlarged by reading it.
That sounds like artistic success to me.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:32 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
That sounds like artistic success to me.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:32 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
We reserve the right to viciously ignore vicious criticism.
posted by mathjus at 5:39 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
posted by mathjus at 5:39 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
Let women make art.
who is stopping rachel cusk or miranda july
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 5:46 AM on July 31 [3 favorites]
who is stopping rachel cusk or miranda july
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 5:46 AM on July 31 [3 favorites]
Ah, yes, Andrea Long Chu, edgemistressing us since 2019 with statements like "distilling the femaleness to its barest essentials—an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes" and "getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is".
just say what you think instead of coy contempt. it’s boring.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 5:47 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
just say what you think instead of coy contempt. it’s boring.
posted by knock my sock and i'll clean your clock at 5:47 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
who is stopping rachel cusk or miranda July
Good for you, if you've made it this far in life without experiencing the sometimes-deleterious effects of criticism. On the one hand, artists without end have been stopped in their tracks by vicious commentary, and on the other, critical judgment sometimes means publishers are less likely to keep publishing an author. Neither are truisms, but both have happened--from artists who stop making art to artists whose careers were destroyed by poison pens.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:56 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
Good for you, if you've made it this far in life without experiencing the sometimes-deleterious effects of criticism. On the one hand, artists without end have been stopped in their tracks by vicious commentary, and on the other, critical judgment sometimes means publishers are less likely to keep publishing an author. Neither are truisms, but both have happened--from artists who stop making art to artists whose careers were destroyed by poison pens.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:56 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
just say what you think instead of coy contempt. it’s boring.
your welcome
posted by dmh at 6:01 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]
your welcome
posted by dmh at 6:01 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]
I found the article confusing. Cusk is trans, but she wants to be a man? Or not? And then looking at the wikipedia article, she isn't? I dunno. I'm just very confused.
In any case, ignoring the article, as a cis white guy, who reads genre fiction, I've found that for me the most illuminating fiction about the female condition has been authors writing about a female's condition. The general is made up of a bunch of particulars.
posted by Spike Glee at 6:13 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
In any case, ignoring the article, as a cis white guy, who reads genre fiction, I've found that for me the most illuminating fiction about the female condition has been authors writing about a female's condition. The general is made up of a bunch of particulars.
posted by Spike Glee at 6:13 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
artists without end have been stopped in their tracks by vicious commentary
I've seen it happen, and it is sad, but at the same time if you as an artist can be dissuaded from continuing by some mean-spirited person who writes well, then you aren't cut out for art. Tenacity and unwillingness to quit even in the face of overwhelming evidence of your unsuitability for the task are critical personality traits for success. Well, that and very rich parents.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:17 AM on July 31 [5 favorites]
I've seen it happen, and it is sad, but at the same time if you as an artist can be dissuaded from continuing by some mean-spirited person who writes well, then you aren't cut out for art. Tenacity and unwillingness to quit even in the face of overwhelming evidence of your unsuitability for the task are critical personality traits for success. Well, that and very rich parents.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:17 AM on July 31 [5 favorites]
there's dumb, & then there's 21c dumb.
posted by graywyvern at 6:23 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
posted by graywyvern at 6:23 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
Am I the only one whose first reaction was confusion about when Parade switched from recipes and celebrity gossip to art and gender theory? Though I'd definitely read Jennifer Anniston reveals her 'volcanic cycles of change'!
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:41 AM on July 31 [15 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:41 AM on July 31 [15 favorites]
but at the same time if you as an artist can be dissuaded from continuing by some mean-spirited person who writes well, then you aren't cut out for art
I don't necessarily disagree, but "Toughen Up, Buttercup" is not a MetaFilter-approved sentiment. As you hint at with the last bit of your comment, many artists have cushions, buffers, and supports that enable them to withstand criticism. They have wealthy families, assistants, spouses, friends who protect them, etc. From another angle, to repeat something I saw on social the other day: "Diamonds are formed under pressure. And bread dough rises when you let it rest. We are all our own things. What may be motivating to you may be crippling to others." [attributed to Victor Linao]
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:44 AM on July 31 [13 favorites]
I don't necessarily disagree, but "Toughen Up, Buttercup" is not a MetaFilter-approved sentiment. As you hint at with the last bit of your comment, many artists have cushions, buffers, and supports that enable them to withstand criticism. They have wealthy families, assistants, spouses, friends who protect them, etc. From another angle, to repeat something I saw on social the other day: "Diamonds are formed under pressure. And bread dough rises when you let it rest. We are all our own things. What may be motivating to you may be crippling to others." [attributed to Victor Linao]
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:44 AM on July 31 [13 favorites]
Metafilter's other favorite critic interviews Cusk in The Yale Review: The novelist on the “feminine non-state of non-being”.
"One of the features of this featurelessness that I’m trying to give some kind of shape to is the feeling that one’s own female history is a footprint in the sand. There’s a feeling of moving forward in time with no landmark. But the details of one’s female history, the difficulty of commemorating it, or it even remaining tangible, is counterweighted by the continuing existence of things like one’s child. The novel is trying to compare that continuing existence to painting—to externalizing your intentions, externalizing something of yourself that can survive without you. You can walk away, and it’ll still be there, and it will do what it’s meant to do. Is painting in any way similar to reproduction, to having a child? I’ve written quite a lot about reproduction and the difference between copying and generating or creating. And I think having a child is probably reproduction—copying, not generating."
posted by mittens at 7:07 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
"One of the features of this featurelessness that I’m trying to give some kind of shape to is the feeling that one’s own female history is a footprint in the sand. There’s a feeling of moving forward in time with no landmark. But the details of one’s female history, the difficulty of commemorating it, or it even remaining tangible, is counterweighted by the continuing existence of things like one’s child. The novel is trying to compare that continuing existence to painting—to externalizing your intentions, externalizing something of yourself that can survive without you. You can walk away, and it’ll still be there, and it will do what it’s meant to do. Is painting in any way similar to reproduction, to having a child? I’ve written quite a lot about reproduction and the difference between copying and generating or creating. And I think having a child is probably reproduction—copying, not generating."
posted by mittens at 7:07 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
I found the article confusing. Cusk is trans, but she wants to be a man? Or not? And then looking at the wikipedia article, she isn't? I dunno. I'm just very confused.
Rachel Cusk is a cis woman.
posted by Zumbador at 7:24 AM on July 31 [3 favorites]
Rachel Cusk is a cis woman.
posted by Zumbador at 7:24 AM on July 31 [3 favorites]
Just make art. Keep genders out of it. History will judge if the art is worthy or not.
posted by Czjewel at 7:29 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 7:29 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
Czjewel: History will judge if the art is worthy or not.
What in the past few thousand years of patriarchy gave you that impression?
posted by signal at 7:38 AM on July 31 [28 favorites]
What in the past few thousand years of patriarchy gave you that impression?
posted by signal at 7:38 AM on July 31 [28 favorites]
I know that Chu is not to everyone’s taste, but I’m not sure I get the hate or confusion here — the argument is that Chu finds in Cusk’s work a gender essentialism that boils the experience of women down to reproduction (and heterosexual) relations and points out that might not resonate with many women. Being Chu, the article is pretty elliptical, but the themes are clear.
Obviously, anyone can disagree with Chu’s conclusions (I haven’t read Cusk, so I don’t have much of an opinion on her specific criticisms) or her style, but I’m seeing more disagreement with the existence of Chu or her thesis as presented in the FPP than with her actual arguments.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:48 AM on July 31 [13 favorites]
Obviously, anyone can disagree with Chu’s conclusions (I haven’t read Cusk, so I don’t have much of an opinion on her specific criticisms) or her style, but I’m seeing more disagreement with the existence of Chu or her thesis as presented in the FPP than with her actual arguments.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:48 AM on July 31 [13 favorites]
the argument is that Chu finds in Cusk’s work a gender essentialism that boils the experience of women down to reproduction (and heterosexual) relations and points out that might not resonate with many women
The problem is that's a terrible argument!
posted by mittens at 7:57 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
The problem is that's a terrible argument!
posted by mittens at 7:57 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
I'm not a Cusk scholar but I have read enough of her work to know she is essentially unique in her affirmation of motherhood and especially mothers as artists. She writes in a mileu in which motherhood is an embarrassing and private activity that women shamefully do behind closed doors, unpaid and exploitative women's work on which the whole bedrock of society rests and yet to speak of this work in artistic terms, to make honest art about it - art that does anything other than deify and sanctify motherhood a la the Madonna - is uncouth and uncool and simply not allowed.
Even in (perhaps especially in) feminist circles, the hostility and fear towards mothers and motherwork, to the idea of taking mother work seriously enough to consider mothers artists when they express creativity on the subject of motherhood, is SO FUCKING HIGH. If Cusk is didactic about how women's art must deal with motherhood, it is from the standpoint of what expectations of motherhood do to all women (be we mothers or not). Cusk wants us to reckon with mother focused misogyny that we all experience, just as we must all reckon with other forms of misogyny that we experience. (e.g. shouldn't skinny women reckon with and talk about how fat phobia affects them? Isn't that a valid exhortation to make of ALL women, that we reckon with fat phobia whether or not we are fat?)
I don't think the writer of this article understands any of that. It's a pity.
posted by MiraK at 8:03 AM on July 31 [17 favorites]
Even in (perhaps especially in) feminist circles, the hostility and fear towards mothers and motherwork, to the idea of taking mother work seriously enough to consider mothers artists when they express creativity on the subject of motherhood, is SO FUCKING HIGH. If Cusk is didactic about how women's art must deal with motherhood, it is from the standpoint of what expectations of motherhood do to all women (be we mothers or not). Cusk wants us to reckon with mother focused misogyny that we all experience, just as we must all reckon with other forms of misogyny that we experience. (e.g. shouldn't skinny women reckon with and talk about how fat phobia affects them? Isn't that a valid exhortation to make of ALL women, that we reckon with fat phobia whether or not we are fat?)
I don't think the writer of this article understands any of that. It's a pity.
posted by MiraK at 8:03 AM on July 31 [17 favorites]
Even in (perhaps especially in) feminist circles, the hostility and fear towards mothers and motherwork, to the idea of taking mother work seriously enough to consider mothers artists when they express creativity on the subject of motherhood, is SO FUCKING HIGH.
I don't think I agree with this, or I suppose you could say that I think this has changed a lot in the last 30+ years, a reaction to some of the (nonetheless understandable) excesses of second-wave feminism. Who was a bigger literary sensation of the previous decade than Elena Ferrante?
For me, this essay helped crystallize some of the uneasy intimations I had of ideas floating beyond the text when I was reading Outline. Men get humanity. Women get motherhood or they get some constricting and deforming void. This essay argues that these ideas are more prescriptive than descriptive in Cusk, and since I've only read Outline, I can't fairly evaluate that argument, but it does put its finger on something I felt reading it.
posted by praemunire at 8:22 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
I don't think I agree with this, or I suppose you could say that I think this has changed a lot in the last 30+ years, a reaction to some of the (nonetheless understandable) excesses of second-wave feminism. Who was a bigger literary sensation of the previous decade than Elena Ferrante?
For me, this essay helped crystallize some of the uneasy intimations I had of ideas floating beyond the text when I was reading Outline. Men get humanity. Women get motherhood or they get some constricting and deforming void. This essay argues that these ideas are more prescriptive than descriptive in Cusk, and since I've only read Outline, I can't fairly evaluate that argument, but it does put its finger on something I felt reading it.
posted by praemunire at 8:22 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]
I read all of the Outline trilogy a few years ago and found it on the one hand incredibly compelling, drawn in by the mysterious taciturnity of the protagonist, who moves from conversation to conversation but hardly reveals anything of herself. You're caught up by the desire to solve the mystery of the narrator, who remains a kind of cypher throughout. But I was continually left puzzled, because the narrator is not the only thing that I couldn't decipher. I just couldn't get exactly what all the conversations were circling around, except that it was about womanhood and motherhood and marriage in some sense. Her writing seemed stylistically brilliant but conceptually, i dunno, muddled perhaps. But maybe I just kept refusing to see that she's arguing over and over that being a woman means being a mother and being an artist is akin to giving birth. Now this is not really a tenuous position, not just because of trans women, or trans men who give birth, but also all the women who despite their anatomy cannot or do not wish to conceive.
But isn't there still space for writing that attempts to grapple with the motherhood as inextricably wrapped up with femininity, something it definitely is? The vulnerability of being-able-to-be-pregnant is still something worth exploring in art, and i don't exactly blame a woman from thinking it is key part of her womanhood....
posted by dis_integration at 8:38 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
But isn't there still space for writing that attempts to grapple with the motherhood as inextricably wrapped up with femininity, something it definitely is? The vulnerability of being-able-to-be-pregnant is still something worth exploring in art, and i don't exactly blame a woman from thinking it is key part of her womanhood....
posted by dis_integration at 8:38 AM on July 31 [6 favorites]
> I think this has changed a lot in the last 30+ years,
I would agree that it is changING still, and I'd also argue that Cusk and Andrea O'Reilly and Audre Lorde and other matrifocused feminists are a large part of the reason why it's changing.
I know Cusk and O'Reilly aren't really of the same generation as the major second wave feminists, but as women who came of age in the heyday of second wave, their sensibility is similar and deeply informed by second wave. In the 80s, for example, which is when Cusk was just getting out of college, anti mother stigma was a very real thing in feminist circles, and it was common to encounter attitudes such as "you are betraying the movement and deliberately choosing oppression by becoming a mother". (I agree with you that it was understandable, it is part of the process of trying to dismantle misogyny to end up somewhat participating in it.)
posted by MiraK at 9:18 AM on July 31 [5 favorites]
I would agree that it is changING still, and I'd also argue that Cusk and Andrea O'Reilly and Audre Lorde and other matrifocused feminists are a large part of the reason why it's changing.
I know Cusk and O'Reilly aren't really of the same generation as the major second wave feminists, but as women who came of age in the heyday of second wave, their sensibility is similar and deeply informed by second wave. In the 80s, for example, which is when Cusk was just getting out of college, anti mother stigma was a very real thing in feminist circles, and it was common to encounter attitudes such as "you are betraying the movement and deliberately choosing oppression by becoming a mother". (I agree with you that it was understandable, it is part of the process of trying to dismantle misogyny to end up somewhat participating in it.)
posted by MiraK at 9:18 AM on July 31 [5 favorites]
signal. Patriarchy is irrelevant in this instance. There are decades, nay, centuries that have produced top drawer women artists...Like cream, great art rises to the top, the mediocre stays mediocre often.
posted by Czjewel at 9:36 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
posted by Czjewel at 9:36 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]
I clicked through on the provocative Subject line to find TFA by somebody who seems to have made a career of being transgressive, and find the kind of thread you'd expect from that.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:51 AM on July 31 [3 favorites]
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:51 AM on July 31 [3 favorites]
somebody who seems to have made a career of being transgressive
Well, let's not take that too far. As you'll note from the previouslies, Chu has some takes that inspire...ah...counter-takes. But we mustn't understate her value as a critic. I'd point to this piece on Ottessa Moshfegh that really gets why Moshfegh's terrible terrible characters are so addictive and why we keep coming back to her books even when they make us feel a little sick; and this one on Hanya Yanagihara that, for me at least, explained why I could not stomach A Little Life even though it felt like there might be some sicko-voyeur-joy to be had there.
posted by mittens at 10:05 AM on July 31 [4 favorites]
Well, let's not take that too far. As you'll note from the previouslies, Chu has some takes that inspire...ah...counter-takes. But we mustn't understate her value as a critic. I'd point to this piece on Ottessa Moshfegh that really gets why Moshfegh's terrible terrible characters are so addictive and why we keep coming back to her books even when they make us feel a little sick; and this one on Hanya Yanagihara that, for me at least, explained why I could not stomach A Little Life even though it felt like there might be some sicko-voyeur-joy to be had there.
posted by mittens at 10:05 AM on July 31 [4 favorites]
Some would argue that there is no substitutive criticism of feminism or women's art to be had from misogynistic ghouls. Something that makes it difficult to appreciate the occasional string of plausibly clever or insightful words.
posted by seraphine at 12:12 PM on July 31 [5 favorites]
posted by seraphine at 12:12 PM on July 31 [5 favorites]
it was common to encounter attitudes such as "you are betraying the movement and deliberately choosing oppression by becoming a mother"
I ran across a passage like this last year when reading Sarah Schulman's Gentrification of the Mind, but I will say that my reaction was: wtf? where did that come from? rather than: oh yeah, another one of these. Not that that is dramatic proof of anything, but I think it shows how a Gen Xer who pays a reasonable amount of attention to gender discourse [which, ha, I initially typed as "discourage"] has gotten used to thinking of the state of feminist play.
I will say I am somewhat puzzled by some of the comments here (not yours) that take issue with pointed literary criticism of the style and underlying conceptions of an important part of human life of an ambitious and well-regarded literary work, and the other ones focusing on Chu's edgelording/cattiness/whatever. (The standard dude cliches, not so much, I guess they will never go away.) As I've mentioned, I'm not completely qualified to engage with Chu's argument here, but I'm left wondering how many people who are commenting here have read all the Outline trilogy + Parade, or at least the former, or even just Outline.
posted by praemunire at 12:44 PM on July 31 [5 favorites]
I ran across a passage like this last year when reading Sarah Schulman's Gentrification of the Mind, but I will say that my reaction was: wtf? where did that come from? rather than: oh yeah, another one of these. Not that that is dramatic proof of anything, but I think it shows how a Gen Xer who pays a reasonable amount of attention to gender discourse [which, ha, I initially typed as "discourage"] has gotten used to thinking of the state of feminist play.
I will say I am somewhat puzzled by some of the comments here (not yours) that take issue with pointed literary criticism of the style and underlying conceptions of an important part of human life of an ambitious and well-regarded literary work, and the other ones focusing on Chu's edgelording/cattiness/whatever. (The standard dude cliches, not so much, I guess they will never go away.) As I've mentioned, I'm not completely qualified to engage with Chu's argument here, but I'm left wondering how many people who are commenting here have read all the Outline trilogy + Parade, or at least the former, or even just Outline.
posted by praemunire at 12:44 PM on July 31 [5 favorites]
I quite liked the piece and think observing the tension between considering women's writing writing only a woman could make, and then reducing that to the biological, vs. what Chu defines as the Woolfian (structural) and Beauvoiran (existential) is fruitful. Honestly, it makes me want to give one of the Cusk's a shot, even though I expect I'll hate it, to see if it really matches up with the desciptions.
I too find many of these responses baffling.
posted by dame at 2:26 PM on July 31 [4 favorites]
I too find many of these responses baffling.
posted by dame at 2:26 PM on July 31 [4 favorites]
I don't mean to be flippant when I say you might find some of them less baffling if you'd read some of the Cusk novels under examination.
I think the issue many might take with this essay is not that it's exploring these tensions (pretty interesting in that regard! I personally think the novels are also exploring these tensions!), but more that the essay is making prescriptive statements about the "meaning" of Cusk's novels that don't match my impressions from reading them. Always worth reading the material being criticised before deciding whether the criticism is merited.
posted by distorte at 7:01 AM on August 1 [4 favorites]
I think the issue many might take with this essay is not that it's exploring these tensions (pretty interesting in that regard! I personally think the novels are also exploring these tensions!), but more that the essay is making prescriptive statements about the "meaning" of Cusk's novels that don't match my impressions from reading them. Always worth reading the material being criticised before deciding whether the criticism is merited.
posted by distorte at 7:01 AM on August 1 [4 favorites]
i don’t remember anything in Outline standing out as trans hostile. Gender is always something being discussed in the books but sort of indirectly, through characters in the books telling stories about their families and relationships and their artistic projects, but that doesn’t mean chu is wrong or anything it’s just that Cusk is a subtle and talented writer of fiction and her work is not easily reduced to one thing or another. i haven’t read the non fiction stuff or any of her opinion pieces, which honestly is not always a good idea with writers whose work you like. if rowling had never waded into politics she’d still be a universally beloved figure, and elena ferrantes anonymity means her work will be judged on it’s own merits and we don’t have to worry about whether it turns out she’s some kind of italian neofascist etc
posted by dis_integration at 7:41 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 7:41 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Always worth reading the material being criticised before deciding whether the criticism is merited.
So yeah, this is a weirdly hostile response. I mean, one can say the points a criticism raises are interesting and they make you want to dig deeper, and that seems good? Even the point of criticism?
Like I'm sorry this lady said mean things about your fave author that you think are mischaracterizations, but that is not a reason to be rude to people who said it was interesting? Critics don't have to agree with you to be valid. You can just think they are wrong! You could even respond by saying why you think it is a mischaracterization and continue the discussion further!
posted by dame at 8:16 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
So yeah, this is a weirdly hostile response. I mean, one can say the points a criticism raises are interesting and they make you want to dig deeper, and that seems good? Even the point of criticism?
Like I'm sorry this lady said mean things about your fave author that you think are mischaracterizations, but that is not a reason to be rude to people who said it was interesting? Critics don't have to agree with you to be valid. You can just think they are wrong! You could even respond by saying why you think it is a mischaracterization and continue the discussion further!
posted by dame at 8:16 AM on August 1 [2 favorites]
So yeah, this is a weirdly hostile response.
I apologise. I genuinely didn't mean it to sound hostile at all.
As I said in my original comment, I do actually find the discussion interesting, even if it's based on what I feel is a mischaracterisation of the work. I don't need to agree with the critic, but how could I tell whether I agree with the critic's interpretation of the work if I haven't read to work?
Your last sentence suggested you were searching for a reason why responses here were dismissive of the essay. I suggested a reason (people who've read the books in question feel its missing something). If it helps at all, I'm also baffled by comments dismissing the essay by people who haven't read any of the novels.
posted by distorte at 8:53 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
I apologise. I genuinely didn't mean it to sound hostile at all.
As I said in my original comment, I do actually find the discussion interesting, even if it's based on what I feel is a mischaracterisation of the work. I don't need to agree with the critic, but how could I tell whether I agree with the critic's interpretation of the work if I haven't read to work?
Your last sentence suggested you were searching for a reason why responses here were dismissive of the essay. I suggested a reason (people who've read the books in question feel its missing something). If it helps at all, I'm also baffled by comments dismissing the essay by people who haven't read any of the novels.
posted by distorte at 8:53 AM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Well, my comment immediately before stated that I had read Outline and that Chu's essay at least touched on something I'd felt but been unable to fully articulate when reading it, even if, not having read other of Cusk's works, I didn't think I could evaluate Chu's argument completely. So do I get to have an opinion?
Anyway, it's fine if you disagree with Chu's assessment, it's fine if anyone does. I think it's extraordinarily optimistic to conclude that most of the comments about Chu's supposed edgelording or the cruelty of sharp criticism of established literary works by professional authors are being driven by a deep knowledge of Cusk's oeuvre. I know Chu's something of a polarizing figure, but is this the best we can do?
posted by praemunire at 9:58 AM on August 1 [6 favorites]
Anyway, it's fine if you disagree with Chu's assessment, it's fine if anyone does. I think it's extraordinarily optimistic to conclude that most of the comments about Chu's supposed edgelording or the cruelty of sharp criticism of established literary works by professional authors are being driven by a deep knowledge of Cusk's oeuvre. I know Chu's something of a polarizing figure, but is this the best we can do?
posted by praemunire at 9:58 AM on August 1 [6 favorites]
Ah, yes, Andrea Long Chu, edgemistressing us since 2019 with statements like "distilling the femaleness to its barest essentials—an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes" and "getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is".
just say what you think instead of coy contempt. it’s boring.
Late to this, but I'll try to translate. Chu has been known to say very stupid, even wildly offensive, things in the pursuit of serious-sounding arguments and while dishing out faux profundities. The above quote is probably the most famous, and is nearly always referenced when Chu's criticism is discussed, because it prompts one to wonder just what the hell she is talking about, in general, when it comes to women's art, or really women's anything. Chu is a very talented writer, and her word choices are just grand, but I wouldn't take her opinion on Rachel Cusk, especially framed as a feminist takedown, very seriously.
signal. Patriarchy is irrelevant in this instance. There are decades, nay, centuries that have produced top drawer women artists...Like cream, great art rises to the top, the mediocre stays mediocre often.
Holy moley, you did not just say that! I scream with laughter! The idea the "cream rises to the top" because good art is always recognisable and the canon just makes itself! My gosh.
Most of those "top drawer" women artists are known because feminist scholars spent their careers excavating their works from where they had been tossed via various social mechanisms, clearly elucidated in How to Suppress Women's Writing, by Joanna Russ, which I invite you to read, or perhaps Germaine Greer's The Obstacle Race, in order to get an idea of how there are no unbiased authorities who delegate which work of art is great and which is not, and the process of sidelining, undermining, or stealing which has blurred the historical record of women's art.
Patriarchy is never irrelevant. I long for the day when one could say such a thing and find it to be true, but I'm not holding my breath.
posted by jokeefe at 12:14 AM on August 2 [9 favorites]
just say what you think instead of coy contempt. it’s boring.
Late to this, but I'll try to translate. Chu has been known to say very stupid, even wildly offensive, things in the pursuit of serious-sounding arguments and while dishing out faux profundities. The above quote is probably the most famous, and is nearly always referenced when Chu's criticism is discussed, because it prompts one to wonder just what the hell she is talking about, in general, when it comes to women's art, or really women's anything. Chu is a very talented writer, and her word choices are just grand, but I wouldn't take her opinion on Rachel Cusk, especially framed as a feminist takedown, very seriously.
signal. Patriarchy is irrelevant in this instance. There are decades, nay, centuries that have produced top drawer women artists...Like cream, great art rises to the top, the mediocre stays mediocre often.
Holy moley, you did not just say that! I scream with laughter! The idea the "cream rises to the top" because good art is always recognisable and the canon just makes itself! My gosh.
Most of those "top drawer" women artists are known because feminist scholars spent their careers excavating their works from where they had been tossed via various social mechanisms, clearly elucidated in How to Suppress Women's Writing, by Joanna Russ, which I invite you to read, or perhaps Germaine Greer's The Obstacle Race, in order to get an idea of how there are no unbiased authorities who delegate which work of art is great and which is not, and the process of sidelining, undermining, or stealing which has blurred the historical record of women's art.
Patriarchy is never irrelevant. I long for the day when one could say such a thing and find it to be true, but I'm not holding my breath.
posted by jokeefe at 12:14 AM on August 2 [9 favorites]
Chu attacks the person instead of the work and initially I found it thrilling like the wanky douche I and now I'm over it.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 7:47 PM on August 4 [2 favorites]
posted by pelvicsorcery at 7:47 PM on August 4 [2 favorites]
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“If Parade is women’s writing, let us hope it is the last of it. Another kind of novel is possible.”
Dang. Chu is not messing.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:05 AM on July 31 [7 favorites]