What a final paragraph! But I think your secret mic-drop insight comes right before it, when you talk about what *men* get out of tradwife fantasies, which is the same freedom from choice in terms of dating and career choices. (Super duper secret mic-drop insight: a "marriage vs. career" scenario is a love triangle.)
Funny how so many of the narratives of post-war America were about breaking free of soulless jobs, hostile marriages, and conformist facades and trying to pursue some kind of transcendence. The current wave of commentary sees all that as pernicious now (from both reactionary and leftist angles) but to be honest it's still where my sympathies lie.
I'm waiting for the modern narratives to shift in men's writing. Not that "men's writing" is really a thing. Young men aren't doing so well in the US. The appeal of the fantasy, the choice of a good job and women willing to engage in a "traditional marriage", takes on some power when women can instead compete for the spoils directly. I read recently that in the US, single women outnumber single men as homeowners. Fancy that. The landscape changes when the other half of the smart/competitive people in the country have a chance to participate on more even terms.
I might live long enough to see if reducing the number of soulless couplings might prove to be a benefit for everyone.
“Of all the conditions that determine the birth of love, the one that is most essential and which can enable love to forgo all the others is that we should believe that a fellow creature partakes of an unknown mode of existence which we too could share if only that person were in love with us.”
Do you think it's a sign of the decay of humanity that every year there is a new word for 'fake power'. I remember the year it was 'empowerment or empowered'. Agentic is a different branch of the tree since this time we're talking about absolutely not intelligence. Whereas empowered was more like 'we like to pretend we can bestow power on people". but in both cases, it is a rhetorical device designed to designate something as being 'like the capacity to make decisions and have accountability, but not"
I read and enjoyed this years ago but the idea that she can't transform into anything else makes so much sense--not a wife, not a mother, not a girlfriend, so murderess it is.
I've only read Ginzburg's essays but might need to read "The Dry Heart" now! Online, I sometimes feel like I'm bouncing between writers trying to dream up a future utopia and those who imagine the past as holding a realized Eden, and that often informs their interpretations of literature. Of course, we all involve our imagination when we read but I can't think of many people writing today who would explore literature as a trap in the way Ginzburg seems to and Proust.
Glad you enjoyed! People having the "wrong" fantasies is an endless literary problem. I think aside from remembered Eden/imagined Utopia often the quest is about trying to see things as they really are.
Yes, remembered Eden/imaginary utopia is more of an issue of contemporary discourse, I think. In literature, there's always been more interesting trouble with ideas and delusions.
What a final paragraph! But I think your secret mic-drop insight comes right before it, when you talk about what *men* get out of tradwife fantasies, which is the same freedom from choice in terms of dating and career choices. (Super duper secret mic-drop insight: a "marriage vs. career" scenario is a love triangle.)
Funny how so many of the narratives of post-war America were about breaking free of soulless jobs, hostile marriages, and conformist facades and trying to pursue some kind of transcendence. The current wave of commentary sees all that as pernicious now (from both reactionary and leftist angles) but to be honest it's still where my sympathies lie.
I'm waiting for the modern narratives to shift in men's writing. Not that "men's writing" is really a thing. Young men aren't doing so well in the US. The appeal of the fantasy, the choice of a good job and women willing to engage in a "traditional marriage", takes on some power when women can instead compete for the spoils directly. I read recently that in the US, single women outnumber single men as homeowners. Fancy that. The landscape changes when the other half of the smart/competitive people in the country have a chance to participate on more even terms.
I might live long enough to see if reducing the number of soulless couplings might prove to be a benefit for everyone.
That line about transformation got me. Damn.
It also reminded me of this bit from Swann’s Way:
“Of all the conditions that determine the birth of love, the one that is most essential and which can enable love to forgo all the others is that we should believe that a fellow creature partakes of an unknown mode of existence which we too could share if only that person were in love with us.”
Love that passage.
Agentic is the *vegan leather* of ontological fakery.
I hate it so much
Do you think it's a sign of the decay of humanity that every year there is a new word for 'fake power'. I remember the year it was 'empowerment or empowered'. Agentic is a different branch of the tree since this time we're talking about absolutely not intelligence. Whereas empowered was more like 'we like to pretend we can bestow power on people". but in both cases, it is a rhetorical device designed to designate something as being 'like the capacity to make decisions and have accountability, but not"
I read and enjoyed this years ago but the idea that she can't transform into anything else makes so much sense--not a wife, not a mother, not a girlfriend, so murderess it is.
Yes, the way to break out of the loop she's caught in.
I've only read Ginzburg's essays but might need to read "The Dry Heart" now! Online, I sometimes feel like I'm bouncing between writers trying to dream up a future utopia and those who imagine the past as holding a realized Eden, and that often informs their interpretations of literature. Of course, we all involve our imagination when we read but I can't think of many people writing today who would explore literature as a trap in the way Ginzburg seems to and Proust.
Thank you for another amazing essay!
Glad you enjoyed! People having the "wrong" fantasies is an endless literary problem. I think aside from remembered Eden/imagined Utopia often the quest is about trying to see things as they really are.
Yes, remembered Eden/imaginary utopia is more of an issue of contemporary discourse, I think. In literature, there's always been more interesting trouble with ideas and delusions.
Interesting, I will have to check this one out. I enjoyed Ginzburg's novella Valentino.
I'm a fan of Valentino too.