Actually, I disagree pretty strongly with that and disagree with @Castalia. I've been reading Pure Colour very slowly - it's on my bedside table - and haven't gotten to the dreaded leaf bit yet. But to me the passages about being suffused with the spirit of her father and, yes, including the ejaculate bit, speak to what grief is really l…
Actually, I disagree pretty strongly with that and disagree with @Castalia. I've been reading Pure Colour very slowly - it's on my bedside table - and haven't gotten to the dreaded leaf bit yet. But to me the passages about being suffused with the spirit of her father and, yes, including the ejaculate bit, speak to what grief is really like and I think to a very particularly feminine manifestation of grief. It is brave to write in the way that Heti does. These aren't pleasant or comprehensible emotions - and they wouldn't make much sense to people who haven't had exactly this sort of experience. But this is what writers are for IMHO - to say the unspeakable and to not be too concerned about whether that makes them come across as less-than-admirable themselves or whatever. Thanks for letting me spout! - Isabel
Hi Isabel, I appreciate that. I definitely see what you're saying. What I've seen of grief is that it's basically completely different from everything else and has an emotional vocabulary of its own - so that there's a case to be made that you can't evaluate a text about grief in the way that you would anything else. That maybe means that Pure Colour is ok - that what would be infantile in any other work is, here, actually truthful to its subject. But let me know if you still feel the same way after you pass the leaf bit!
Actually, I disagree pretty strongly with that and disagree with @Castalia. I've been reading Pure Colour very slowly - it's on my bedside table - and haven't gotten to the dreaded leaf bit yet. But to me the passages about being suffused with the spirit of her father and, yes, including the ejaculate bit, speak to what grief is really like and I think to a very particularly feminine manifestation of grief. It is brave to write in the way that Heti does. These aren't pleasant or comprehensible emotions - and they wouldn't make much sense to people who haven't had exactly this sort of experience. But this is what writers are for IMHO - to say the unspeakable and to not be too concerned about whether that makes them come across as less-than-admirable themselves or whatever. Thanks for letting me spout! - Isabel
Hi Isabel, I appreciate that. I definitely see what you're saying. What I've seen of grief is that it's basically completely different from everything else and has an emotional vocabulary of its own - so that there's a case to be made that you can't evaluate a text about grief in the way that you would anything else. That maybe means that Pure Colour is ok - that what would be infantile in any other work is, here, actually truthful to its subject. But let me know if you still feel the same way after you pass the leaf bit!