When Donald Trump is allowed to run for President despite a federal lawsuit alleging that
he raped a thirteen year old girl in 1994 having been filed, it is difficult to believe
that anyone really cares about victims. The sense of sinking, sickening disappointment I
felt when I read about the case — another day, another reminder that the world I live in is
not built to protect me — might have been ignited by a lifetime of seeing those who we might call acclaimed rapists* fail to get what they deserve but it is constantly fanned by
another source. Thinking about it, I experienced the exact same recoil from the ‘Circe’ episode of Ulysses, and the
depiction of Nicola Six in London Fields (‘oh’, said the then-boyfriend who had lent it to me, ‘you
don’t read it for the misogyny, you read it for the atmosphere’).
It is still considered somehow uncouth to point out that many lauded, canonised books simply aren’t very pleasant (to put it mildly) about women, and for the first two years of my degree it seemed that objecting to the syllabus on the minor matter of plot would simply be revealing my ignorance. So I didn’t. And the sick feeling not only settled in the pit of my stomach, it grew normal: along with the unconscious recoil away from Kerouac and Updike and Fowles came a developing appreciation of and excitement in the intelligence and inventiveness of their prose. I was falling in love with novels that made me despise myself.
The facts — the plots — speak for themselves. Lolita is a novel about rape, abduction and paedophilia; American Psycho glories in pain, abuse and objectification; In Search of Lost Time, that pinnacle of Western achievement, dedicates an entire volume (La Prisonnière) to documenting the narrator’s imprisonment of Albertine, a young girl he is obsessed with. This is, coincidentally, the volume that Roger Shattuck deemed skippable to the reader short of time; it is also the volume that made me turn away from reading Proust for a long time, horrified and betrayed. The fact that Shattuck considered the revelation of the narrator’s obsessive and abusive behaviour minor would say more about him than Proust, however, were it not symptomatic of the whole issue. Regardless of genre, period or author, any objection on these grounds to something widely considered Great Art meets with the same reaction, an awkward and evasive turning away. In short, the theory seems to go something like this:
“This work of art is more beautiful / clever / important / influential / so much bigger than the (petty) issues you care about.”
How many times has someone explained to me that Lolita holds its place in the canon because of its skill, the way Nabokov makes you empathise with a rapist, the subtlety of his affective stylistics? There’s no denying it’s true. And my replies always start the same: Yes, but -
No one wants to re-evaluate these works with a critical eye that prioritises the representation of women’s pain. It’s uncomfortable and sad, and everyone seems to think that you’re missing the point.
I am once again enamoured with Proust’s writing; his languid sentences have changed the shape of my thoughts; my copies of the books are underlined and dogeared and I sleep with them by my pillow as if afraid they will somehow escape me. But I am also a woman who has been abused, and raped. I recognise the thought process of the narrator with a sick shudder. I recognise Albertine’s fear - which the narrator does not seem to give any weight to - as he comments that
It is still considered somehow uncouth to point out that many lauded, canonised books simply aren’t very pleasant (to put it mildly) about women, and for the first two years of my degree it seemed that objecting to the syllabus on the minor matter of plot would simply be revealing my ignorance. So I didn’t. And the sick feeling not only settled in the pit of my stomach, it grew normal: along with the unconscious recoil away from Kerouac and Updike and Fowles came a developing appreciation of and excitement in the intelligence and inventiveness of their prose. I was falling in love with novels that made me despise myself.
The facts — the plots — speak for themselves. Lolita is a novel about rape, abduction and paedophilia; American Psycho glories in pain, abuse and objectification; In Search of Lost Time, that pinnacle of Western achievement, dedicates an entire volume (La Prisonnière) to documenting the narrator’s imprisonment of Albertine, a young girl he is obsessed with. This is, coincidentally, the volume that Roger Shattuck deemed skippable to the reader short of time; it is also the volume that made me turn away from reading Proust for a long time, horrified and betrayed. The fact that Shattuck considered the revelation of the narrator’s obsessive and abusive behaviour minor would say more about him than Proust, however, were it not symptomatic of the whole issue. Regardless of genre, period or author, any objection on these grounds to something widely considered Great Art meets with the same reaction, an awkward and evasive turning away. In short, the theory seems to go something like this:
“This work of art is more beautiful / clever / important / influential / so much bigger than the (petty) issues you care about.”
How many times has someone explained to me that Lolita holds its place in the canon because of its skill, the way Nabokov makes you empathise with a rapist, the subtlety of his affective stylistics? There’s no denying it’s true. And my replies always start the same: Yes, but -
No one wants to re-evaluate these works with a critical eye that prioritises the representation of women’s pain. It’s uncomfortable and sad, and everyone seems to think that you’re missing the point.
I am once again enamoured with Proust’s writing; his languid sentences have changed the shape of my thoughts; my copies of the books are underlined and dogeared and I sleep with them by my pillow as if afraid they will somehow escape me. But I am also a woman who has been abused, and raped. I recognise the thought process of the narrator with a sick shudder. I recognise Albertine’s fear - which the narrator does not seem to give any weight to - as he comments that
‘I immediately remembered Albertine saying once how frightening she found me when I
was angry...’
and to me it seems obvious, painfully obvious, that this is an abuser talking. I now find him, where once he appeared irritatingly naïve, irredeemably sinister and calculating. I see Humbert Humbert; I see Spike in Buffy, acting as if his horror merits forgiveness; I see my own rapist, who wrote me a letter of apology and thought that would make everything alright. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? The media is telling him it will be - and so is the canon.
Brock Turner was recently, outrageously sentenced with only 6 months imprisonment. He does not understand what he did. His father, who protested the injustice of such a result for only ‘twenty minutes of action’, does not understand what he did. I cannot say whether or not Donald Trump understands what he did, but I feel safe in suggesting that the media certainly does not. If they did — if this accusation, and every similar one, was received with the gravity it should be, he would not be a viable candidate for the next US President. He would not be a joke, and this would not be a discussion point. Rape is not a discussion point. To put something up for discussion suggests that it is not clear-cut; it suggests there's ambiguity, room for manoeuvre. I don't want to read another liberal think-piece about locker room banter: I want outspread horror. That's the only reaction sexual assault deserves.
If we keep defending works of Literature and TV, whether it’s Proust or Game Of Thrones, by suggesting that rape does not carry the same weight as either Art or Remorse, we condone the idea that Turner’s progress at swimming merits a shorter sentence. We condone the idea that apologies are enough, that the anger of victims is selfish or unjustified, that it is harder to be a rapist than be raped. We condone the idea that human suffering is less important than human 'greatness'. Proust’s work is brilliant, but it makes me uncomfortable. If you deny that, I think, you are denying my existence as a survivor. I am not ‘misreading’. I am a very good reader, trust me. I understand talent. I understand why Lolita is clever, and why Proust is revered.
But there are things more important than technical brilliance, and we need to reconsider the way in which we approach our canon in order to make sure it no longer alienates and victimises those for whom sexual violence cannot be dismissed in favour of technique. Until then, Literature as a discipline remains complicit in this world of Trump.
*Brock Turner, who heaven forbid you forget is a really good swimmer, and Johnny Depp, who's simply too 'attractive' for the accusations to matter fail to get the punishment they deserve. To name two of the more recent examples.
and to me it seems obvious, painfully obvious, that this is an abuser talking. I now find him, where once he appeared irritatingly naïve, irredeemably sinister and calculating. I see Humbert Humbert; I see Spike in Buffy, acting as if his horror merits forgiveness; I see my own rapist, who wrote me a letter of apology and thought that would make everything alright. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? The media is telling him it will be - and so is the canon.
Brock Turner was recently, outrageously sentenced with only 6 months imprisonment. He does not understand what he did. His father, who protested the injustice of such a result for only ‘twenty minutes of action’, does not understand what he did. I cannot say whether or not Donald Trump understands what he did, but I feel safe in suggesting that the media certainly does not. If they did — if this accusation, and every similar one, was received with the gravity it should be, he would not be a viable candidate for the next US President. He would not be a joke, and this would not be a discussion point. Rape is not a discussion point. To put something up for discussion suggests that it is not clear-cut; it suggests there's ambiguity, room for manoeuvre. I don't want to read another liberal think-piece about locker room banter: I want outspread horror. That's the only reaction sexual assault deserves.
If we keep defending works of Literature and TV, whether it’s Proust or Game Of Thrones, by suggesting that rape does not carry the same weight as either Art or Remorse, we condone the idea that Turner’s progress at swimming merits a shorter sentence. We condone the idea that apologies are enough, that the anger of victims is selfish or unjustified, that it is harder to be a rapist than be raped. We condone the idea that human suffering is less important than human 'greatness'. Proust’s work is brilliant, but it makes me uncomfortable. If you deny that, I think, you are denying my existence as a survivor. I am not ‘misreading’. I am a very good reader, trust me. I understand talent. I understand why Lolita is clever, and why Proust is revered.
But there are things more important than technical brilliance, and we need to reconsider the way in which we approach our canon in order to make sure it no longer alienates and victimises those for whom sexual violence cannot be dismissed in favour of technique. Until then, Literature as a discipline remains complicit in this world of Trump.
*Brock Turner, who heaven forbid you forget is a really good swimmer, and Johnny Depp, who's simply too 'attractive' for the accusations to matter fail to get the punishment they deserve. To name two of the more recent examples.
