522
PARTISAN REVIEW
out her tongue a t Ka te and a t herself in the glass and goes from the
room. Of thi s encounter Mrs. Less ing writes: " Ka te felt assaulted . .. .
She felt it as an aggression , and thi s was because, quite simpl y, of the
\
marvelous assurance of the girl' s youth . Of her courage in do ing what
she felt like doing. Yes, tha t was ·it, tha t was what she, Ka te, h ad los t. "
The second is no t so much a sing le scene as the substantial last
secti on of Francine Gray's
Lovers and T yrants
in whi ch Stephani e, the
author's spokeswoman , drives across the country with a homosexual
fri end whom she deepl y loves as he does her. Thi s homosexual, whose
name is Elijah , is pi ctured not as a grown man whose sexual preference
happens to be for o ther men but as a petul ant spo il ed child, wholl y
without pride, who divides hi s time between lying with his head in
Steph anie's lap whil e she tell s him stories and rippin g o ff every bar or
coffee shop a t whi ch they sto p . Every night o f their journ ey Stephanie
and Elij ah sleep in [he same bed , spoon-like; eventua ll y there a re the
nights when Elij ah triumphantl y ove rcomes the ba rri er of hi s homo–
sexual di spositi on . For some reason un expl a in ed by the author, these
con summa ti on s, one shared, the other un sh ared , have the effect of
victori o usly compl eting Stephani e's ques t for freedom : by givin g
herself to tall y
to
Elij ah 's infantil e needs, she has no t onl y experi enced
an extreme of sexual ecs tasy; she has now become a "self. "
T he last scene is from
Kinfli cks
by Li sa Alther. Ginn y, Miss
Alther's hero ine, has left her husband and ba by, and she has come
home on a vi sit to h er sick mother. The mo ther is in the hos pital; she is
slowly dying. Most of the time she is too weak
to
ta lk , often too weak
even
to
keep her eyes o pen . Of the mo ther's sil ence and closed eyes as
she sinks toward dea th , Mi ss Alther has her spo keswoman refl ect that
"she had had to di smi ss Ginny for the sake o f her own develo pment. "
Manifestl y these a re scenes conce ived in despera tion by writers
who wo uld appear
to
be incapabl e o f di stingui shin g between that
whi ch is life-givin g and tha t whi ch is no t, or even , as in Mi ss Alther's
case, between actual life and dea th. Our literary culture has o f course
sufficientl y school ed us in the understanding of how o ur auth ors have
reached thi s sta te of despera ti on . Wha t it has fa il ed to tell us is where
Lhey stop refl ecting a deepl y troubl ed soc iety and where th ey begin
their own job o f adding
to
the di smays of th e world we li ve in . T his is a
bo thersome ques ti on , however, and perhap s it is bes t avo ided by
press ing upon ourselves th e reminder th a t a rt is, and always has been , a
mysteri ous process whose support o f life is fin a ll y no t easy to perceive
or foretell.
