Read Fay Weldon's Wicked Fictions Online

Authors: Regina Barreca

Tags: #Women and Literature, #England, #History, #20th Century, #Literary Criticism, #General, #European, #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Women Authors, #Social Science, #Women's Studies, #test

Fay Weldon's Wicked Fictions (11 page)

"I can," said Ruth. [Pp. 8485]
She does.
In two ordinary, matter-of-fact words, "I can," Ruth makes a feminist-punk gesture of great wit. This is the humor of the possible. It is generated from the jar between what Bobbo says is absolutely impossible ("you can't") and what Ruth sees as paramountly possible ("I can"). The two don't go together and the laugh is at their incongruous expense. This optimistic "can" releases Ruth from the condition of motherhood and into a series of other 'cans": she can now reinvent herself, she can now have revenge, power, money, and "be loved and not love in return" (p. 49). As the state of "mother" is transcended, Ruth brings hope of salvation to othersas "Jesus did in his day for men" (p. 192), so she will do for women.
On behalf of women, Ruth and Weldon do, in fact, challenge the kind of valorization of motherhood propagated by the French feminists. So
 
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much now for Cixous's insistence that women harness their milky maternity and write (Ruth has "dry dugs"); so much also for Kristeva's vision of motherhood as the bedrock of a unified being (Jones, p. 86) as a means to break down the opposition between "self and other"Ruth isn't interested in others. So much for the stability of any feminist position.
So much too for systematic ideology. "I can" offers no plans, no strategies, but is a moment of enormous catalytic power. Its beauty lies in its capriciousness. For many readers, it may be nothing more than a "horrible abuse" and may not be remotely funny. But, for this reader, at least, it provides real entertainment. This is, for a second, the feminist-punk can-can.
V
No Future?
This essay complete, I am, whether I like it or not, left with Fay Weldon's question, "how could it matter, possibly?" How could it matter that I have managed to "upgrade" Weldon from "feminist" to "feminist-punk,'' that I have disgraced her with a new title?
For me, at least, coupling Weldon with punk presents me with a way to describe what it is like to read her and read about her. It describes just how Weldon calls me into being: I hear the call to slam dance, to pogo. Off we go, pogoing from place to place, gesturing mildly, landing in different spots, always in motion, always unstable. No wonder this is exhausting.
"Feminist-punk," however, doesn't just articulate what the experience of reading Weldon is like. It also, I think, poses a challenge to the feminist academic. Is there a way, I wonder, that we might be a little more inventive in our identities, a little more inept, a little more "ideologically unsound" and, perhaps, a little more disrespectful toward our audience? Might we be a little less "nice," and a little more capricious, a little more revolting? Is there a way, in short, that we might produce a feminist literary criticism to slam dance by? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe such a plan has no future, no chance of success. And even if it did, well, I ask you, "how could it matter ... possibly?"
Works Cited
Bambara, Toni Cade. "In Search of the Mother Tongue: An Interview with Toni Cade Bambara."
First World Journal
(Fall 1980).
Barreca, Regina. "Fay Weldon Speaks with Regina Barreca."
Belles Lettres
(September/October 1987).
 
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. Paris: Union General d'Éditions 10/18, 1977.
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