A ha! I spot notes of Cixous-esque feminism.
Cixous references the circular form of feminist writing as opposed to masculine linear writing; plot structures, for female writers, follow revolving circular structures, while male writing follows the traditional exposition-rising action-climax-denouement-resolution sequence. Indicative, she argues, of the male vs. female sexual experiences and anatomies.
Other critics aren't far behind her. Kolodny references a distinction between male and female writing in her essay "Dancing Through the Minefield," and Woolf argues that male writers could use more 'female' influence in their writing.
So when I read this in an article about Arundhati Roy's (pictured left) post-colonial Indian novel The God of Small Things, I rejoiced over the connection: "Arundhati Roy made the point that her work had been conceived as a single defining image, and subsequently written out of sequence: ‘‘I didn’t start with the first chapter or end with the last . . . . I actually started writing with a single image in my head: the sky blue Plymouth [car] with two twins inside it, a Marxist procession surrounding it. . . . [The story] just developed from there." True to Roy’s non-linear method, this ‘‘single image’’ is divided across the second chapter of the novel, forming the centre-piece of a
larger episode which recounts a family outing to Cochin in the southern Indian state of Kerala. . ."
So Roy ascribes to what feminist critics consider a feminist plot structure. At least in this novel. Very cool. Post-colonialism feminism at its finest.
Another interesting thing about Roy: she doesn't revise. That's right, check it out here. She doesn't self-edit. To her, writing is like breathing, and, as I've read her quoted, "[she] would never edit out a breath." And that makes me wonder, why so much emphasis on editing in our modern curriculum? It's so contrary to stream-of-consciousness method. As an idealist (and as a first glance reaction), I appreciate Roy's everything-that-makes-the-page-is-legitimate ideology. Yet, in our current writing curriculum, we're teaching our budding writers to discard potentially-legitimate thoughts. Are we teaching them to refine or teaching them to devalue?
And so, what is a writer? One who shapes a multitude of thoughts or one who offers the multitude to readers for their own sorting?
1 comment:
Anne-Marie -
What an interesting post! I especially appreciated the connection you made between post-colonialism and feminism in the writing of Arundhati Roy.
On another note, I'm utterly astonished that Roy claims to never edit. I've read The God of Small Things, and to think that every word was the first word she wrote just amazes me. In response to your question as to whether editing devalues words, I'd have to say that as someone who edits very extensively, I'd argue that I value my words enough to be sure that only the finest of what I've written remains on the page.
For me, it's just another way of valuing the words and my work.
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