I hate Nicholas Nickleby. It's awful. But it's the only unread book I've had at hand so I've read 400 pages. Still hate it but what else to read?
Aside from that, for I have zillions of other read books at hand, I have been thinking, no, Kristin Labransdatter has stolen on my mind several times in the last few months. I have not picked up the book to re-read it. Ugh.
This past week The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber came to mind for some reason. I read the Wikipedia entry on it, I remembered the story very well, I had not remembered all of the psychoanalyzing by the critics that went on over it.Margo wanted to be dominated? Really? I hadn't remembered that. Sexual power, courage, cowardice, men emasculated, women emasculating them, apparently women wanting men to stop women from emasculating men and to dominate them, it is all such a goddamned tangle, men and women. This was one of the times Kristin Labransdatter stole on me, there was quite a tangle there as I remembered but didn't remember in detail so, last night, I took Kristin off my fucking bookshelf and put it on my desk to read in the morning. But when I got up I felt the need to re-read Macomber. Took Hemingway's collection of short stories down and re-read it. The synapses fired like machine guns.
Margot wants to have something on a man, first note I wrote. Oh that's what it was in Kristin! That's why I made the association of Kristin and Macomber in my mind. Margot gets something on Robert Wilson: Wilson and Francis were chasing water buffalo from a motor vehicle, not permitted, Wilson would lose his guide's license if the authorities found out. When Wilson explains this to Margot, "Well," said [Francis], and he smiled for the first time all day. "Now she has something on you." Kristin had to have something on Simon and on her father, Lavrans (not so on Erlend). Sigrid Undset took this tangle, unwrapped it, wrapped it again tight, partially unwrapped it, did everything you could do with a tangle.
I thought...Kristin doesn't want a man to have something on her: Simon-second note. Yes, that was Kristin's twist on the tangle. Different from Margot's. Sort of. One's Norwegian, one's American. Both are women though. Misogynistic writing? But Kristin was written by a woman and is MUCHHHH more tangled than simple, murderous, American Margot.
She wanted Simon to save and protect her and Erlend but knew that she now owed him and hated that. She knew this only deep down. She then repaid, got back at, Simon.-third note.
Both women make men their thrall, "put man in a bottle," but not with sex--is it ever really sex?, Isn't sex power by other means?-fourth note. "Por um homem na garrafa”, put man in a bottle is a phrase that some African women use to describe how sex gives them power over men. What is a man before sex? A fucking irresistible force, a fucking lion. What is a man after sex? Asleep.
I then noted this remembrance: Kristin resented and maltreated Erlend, drove him away, but she was in his thrall; she needed--had to have--sex with Erlend.
That is a big difference from Margot Macomber and the African tribal women. The woman has to have the sex. Kristin's mother was the same way with Lavrans! So where's the power of the pussy?, there is no pussy power in Kristin, there is dick power. The power play that's most going on in Kristin is the power of compromising men by accepting aid and giving aid. In Macomber the power is mostly female-on male sexual (But not entirely. Margot uses compromising information also). In Kristin, the sexual power is female.
I started reading the dog-eared pages of Kristin--I got up at 6:30 a.m. to do this.--came across the Big One, Simon coming to Oslo where Kristin was shacking up with Erlend in a brothel, to take Kristin back to Lavrans for Lavrans' honor, not hers, fuck her honor. Oh lord yes.
P. 165: Simon gets something on Erlend, the secret tryst, Simon humiliates Erlend before Kristin's eyes, standing right there. Simon showed himself the better, braver man--Simon says the word "coward"[double underlined]-- [the theme of Macomber]--Kristin sees it and Kristin hates Simon for it. Simon does this for Lavrans honor's sake and tells Kristin she must never tell Lavrans.-note. In Macomber, Francis asks Wilson not to tell anyone about his cowardice with the lion (self-protective). Wilson asks Margot not to mention that they were chasing buffalo in a vehicle (self-interest). In Kristin, Simon asks Kristin never to tell Lavrans about the tryst (other-protective).
I turned the page and was reading Simon saying to Kristin, "how little you understood, you his womenfolk, what a man Lavrans is. Knows not how to rule you...he was born to rule over men."(Undset's emphasis)
My eyes glanced to the facing page where I had written in the margins "others" "others" "others" "others" four times in little over the same number of paragraph. Ah. Another difference with Macomber. The characters in Kristin are always acting, on the surface, on behalf of "others," others interests, others honor. It's not straightforward self-interest like those blockhead Americans. Undset gives this others-centeredness a self-interested twist. The characters in Kristin process, e.g. "Simon is saving Erlend from the gallows" as a burden. "Now, I'm in his debt"! It's fucked up.
In a note this morning: Before the above scene Erlend says Kristin is "afraid" and he has never seen her afraid before. (164) Francis Macomber was afraid of the lion and ran. After Francis coolly killed two of the three water buffalo the next day as Margot watched she says, "I hated it. I hated it. I loathed it." The ride on the chase was "frightful. I've never been more frightened in my life..." The fright was seeing her husband act courageously and her relative power diminished.
If a person has power over others he or she can exercise his power and dominate others. Or she could withhold the direct exercise of power, hold it in reserve, but it’s still his. To be sexually desired is to have power. If a person wishes to augment her relative power she can acquire more. Or she could decrease the other's power. If a person has power that he or she does not wish to have, if he wishes to be dominated he could surrender his power.
Margo Macomber had sexual and psychological power over Francis and dominated him. She exercised her power too greatly. Margot's affair with Robert Wilson was a too great exercise of her power; it led to rage-induced courage in Francis and she hated him for it. She had lost relative power by increasing his. It freed Francis. "I've never felt any such feeling."..."You know I don't think I'd ever be afraid of anything again."..."Something happened in me after we first saw the buff..."...Like a dam bursting..." "You know something did happen to me. I feel absolutely different." Francis does not even fear death now. He was too far gone now, Margot had to kill him.
Sigrid Undset inverts the typical sexual power relationship. It is the men, Erlend Nikulausson and Lavrans, who held sexual power over Kristin and her mother. Lavrans had moral power over "men" and over his wife. But Kristin would not be "ruled" by Lavrans. She had no sexual power over her father but she boomeranged Lavrans' moral power back on him. Kristin felt guilty for not being sexually pure and for betraying Lavrans' honor in the Oslo brothel. Guilt gives another person power over you. In Kristin's case in the Oslo brothel Lavrans had power he didn't know he possessed. Kristin knew, her felt guilt is power that only she (and Simon) knew Lavrans had over her. So she revealed it, wounding Lavrans, thereby diminishing his power over her, relatively increasing her share of the power between them.
When Simon's infant son (and Kristin's nephew) is dying Kristin goes and stays with Simon to help and comfort him. She stays eight days. When she makes preparations to leave Simon makes vehement attempt to dissuade Kristin but does not physically stop her from going.
"But if you would not that I should make trial of this last shift of all--"
He stood...with bowed head, and made no answer. Thereupon she said again--and knew not that a strange, nigh scornful half-smile had come about her white lips:
"Would you that I should not go?"
He turned his head aside, and she went by him...
...This child she would save...(original
emphasis)
For you too, Simon Darre, when the dearest thing
you owned on earth was the stake, took at my hands more than a man may
take with honour unabated--(emphasis
added)
"Would you that I should not go--?", she
repeats to herself what she said to Simon.
And he had not been man enough to answer.
She "would" save this child--to make Simon her thrall. Simon "took" from her--in saving Erlend from execution!--more than an honorable man may take from a woman. That is so fucked up. I came to detest the character Kristin Labransdatter because of this.
"Rule;" "over men". Lavrans was impotent or had performance anxiety or something with Kristin's mother early in their marriage. The mother was a c.d.b. So, is Undset writing here that Lavrans was impotent to rule over women? Hemingway is interpreted by some to write that Margot needs to be dominated, ruled; that she both likes and loathes her power over Francis. On the surface, likes her power over him; just below the surface, is contemptuous of his allowing her to dominate him and secretly wants to be dominated. "Why don't you order her to stay?" behind, Robert Wilson, who hours before has fucked Margot, asks Francis before they go out to hunt water buffalo. But Margot’s need to be dominated doesn’t prevent her from blowing Francis’ brains out from the motor vehicle on the buffalo hunt so I don't know about that dominance interpretation.
Thoughts: I am so glad I am post-sexual, and If there is reincarnation I hope I come back as a fag.
How's your day been going so far?
