Squirts on the Rocks

Last Saturday Ursula Le Guin lambasted Doris Lessing's new novel The Cleft in the Guardian Review as 'a parable of slobbering walrus-women', and went on to conclude:

'I can't accept it. It is incomplete; it is deeply arbitrary; and I see in it little but a reworking of a tiresome science-fiction cliché - a hive of mindless females is awakened and elevated (to the low degree of which the female is capable) by the wondrous shock of masculinity. A tale of Sleeping Beauties - only they aren't even beautiful. They're a lot of slobbering walruses, till the Prince comes along.'

I couldn't agree more.  The Cleft has been gently handled by the literary media thus far - no doubt Lessing's age and venerable back catalogue have had something to do with that - and quietly accepted as a pleasantly eccentric exercise in myth-making.  Interviews and marketing pieces have chosen to focus on her earlier work, or on the work to come. The Cleft's tiresome narrative and its ridiculous and even hurtful take on gender relations have been politely ignored.  A few pieces have gestured at the novel's 'controversial' approach to women and men but have made no real attempt to explicate the ways in which it is controversial.  So let me be blatant: its controversial because it's reactive and ultra-conservative; because it peddles stereotypes as archetypes and because it takes a position so violently (and fashionably) anti-feminist that it must make any woman (and any man) boil.

We begin with a boneless framing narrative - a nameless Roman scholar, apparently living in the age of Nero, sits himself down to translate and analyse a number of written fragments which purport to recount the beginnings of human civilisation.  He first opens, however, by observing a contemporary spat between lovers that 'seems to [him] to sum up a truth in the relations between men and women': his slave, Lalla berates her young lover for being careless with his oxon and, when he ignores her, launches into a tirade of hysterical nagging. They fight; he goes about his business; she cries helplessly; later they have sex.  This domestic tiff inspires our Roman to finally write the disturbing 'history' of the foundation of human life - the microcosm of Lalla and her lover becomes the mythical macrocosm of the beginning of time.  And the promised 'truth' about the relations between men and women? Women nag and nurture, men explore and discover; they have lots of procreational sex.

Human life began with the 'clefts', an exclusively female species of humanoid that crawled out the sea 'ages ago' (we are told that all this happened 'ages ago - no one knows when' at least twenty times in the course of the narrative) and propagated parthenogenically. That is: they spontaneously gave birth to girl-babies at intervals, exposing the deformed or sickly ones and raising the healthy ones to adulthood but in a disinterested, passive sort of way.  Indeed, these females didn't do much at all really.  They clung to the familiar shoreline, inhabiting a short stretch of rocky beach and a couple of caves; they ate fish and seaweed; they lolloped in and out of the sea; every now and then they sacrificed one of their number to 'The Cleft', the nearby rock formation that resembled their genitalia but without much explanation.  They had no names, formed no interpersonal relationships and expected nothing from life but to eat, swim and sleep.  Importantly, and as the Roman historian keeps reminding us with irritating frequency, they had no sense of urgency (because they had no sense of time) and they had no sense of adventure (because nothing changed or needed to be changed.)

Suddenly, however, this watery feminine 'idyll' (bah!) was shattered by the birth of a 'squirt' - a child with a penis.  The first male. Initially, the clefts think the boy is a deformed girl and simply put him out to be eaten by eagles.  But more 'squirts' arrive, and more, until they begin to feel a kind of despair, their first taste of panic.  Next they try keeping a couple as experimental samples, castrating them in order to make them females.  But this is soon abandoned - the male babies scream and demand in ways that female babies don't.  Exposure becomes the norm again.  Then?  A miracle.  The huge eagles that ate the first 'squirts' begin carrying the unwanted babies away, away from the shoreline and inland.  Who knows why? 

Somehow though one baby, two babies and then three survive into childhood (apparently by suckling from an unlikely doe) and, helped by their innate ingenuity, make it into early adulthood.  Before long (again our Roman reiterates that it was 'ages ago') there is a whole colony of rescued males in the valley near the sea - they begin building huts, making tools, hunting and creating language.  In other words they begin to 'develop'.  'Male', in Lessing's book, is synonymous with progress.  Eventually, clefts also find their way into the valley (again, by some sort of divine providence and impulse), where they mate with the males, give birth to the first human children and set up house.  They cook, clean and breast feed, while the men hunt and do manly things, like chase each other up and down the river, or make fire, or invent boats.   

Up until to this point there are no characters as such and no one has a name; individualism is something the males introduce to the clefts not vice-a-versa. Apparently, personality comes naturally to them, while the females only gain theirs by association.  Even when names - Maire, Astre, Maronna and Horsa - do begin to appear, however, one thing remains the same: men are catalysts, brave and adventurous, while women are passive and nurturing.  If it weren't for the 'squirts' we'd all still be languishing, in the sun, on our favourite rock.

Hrumph! I say.  What is all of this?  Like Le Guin, I can't quite believe what I'm reading. Is this Lessing's Genesis?  This parable in which anatomy is destiny and gender is binary? It is nothing more than a novelisation of the outdated concepts behind the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus series.  And message aside, where is the plot and the drama? Where is the narrative thrust or the character investment?  The answer is: nowhere.  The beginning of human life really was incremental and slow, I'm sure, but a myth-making novel about gradual behavioural change?  Without even a description of the landscape? I don't know if it could ever have worked, but certainly it doesn't work with such a sad 'message' at its heart. 

In the event that you are looking for a vigorous thematic approach to questions of gender in fiction, especially speculative fiction, I would start by looking here.  The Tiptree Award Anthology 3, which I reviewed this week for Strange Horizons, is where discussion of gender is really at. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One other thing that inspired my literary wrath today:

• The comments to this post on the Guardian book blog, which begin in a light-hearted spirit but quickly devolve into name calling and ill-conceived statements like:

'Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and magic realism in general, is for the most part completely rubbish.'

or...

'Read half of Great Expectations but found it incredibly irritating and boring so I've written off Dickens.'

or, my personal favourite...

VIRGINIA WOOLF
VIRGINIA WOOLF
VIRGINIA WOOLF

What a big load of self-indulgent nonsense. You're unhappy, I get it. Now shut up about it!

Which to me suggests that either a) the commenter hasn't actually read Woolf, or b) they haven't really thought about what they have read, or c) they have allowed the stereotype of Woolf as suicidal waif to cloud their reading. 

How is it that so many readers are willing to stand up and say, categorically, that a great, enduring writer is bad? Not just that they personally don't get along with the novel, play or poem in question, but that the novel, play or poem is a waste of time and effort.  Or that the author's entire output is piss poor? Surely this is just ill-thoughtout, spur of the moment bravado? I hope so.

~~Victoria~~

Comments

[Sandra]

Couldn't agree more - on both counts.

Lessing's strange anti-feminist (almost anti-female) attitude reminds me of Fay Weldon's recent worrying weird book on how women should strive to be happy by being good wives etc. Mystifying and disappointing in equal measure.

And as for the 'I hate [name of classic author]' - I wouldn't let myself read that blog entry as all rants of that sort are so reductively philistine and small minded. As you so rightly say, 'I hate' so often simply equates to 'I found this difficult to read and couldn't be bothered to think deeply enough to try and understand it.' Not big and not clever!

[Danielle]

Okay...I had to go and look at that link. I could never be a critic. While I might not love everything I read, I like most of what I read, or at least I can appreciate different aspects of most books anyway. I suppose it is easier to say you hate something than you don't understand it.

[Kate S.]

The Lessing sounds appalling. Oddly, I've read several references to "The Cleft" in various places and your post is the first that actually addresses what the book is about. I thought it a positive thing that there seemed to be an unusual focus on form in the bits and pieces about it that I read, but perhaps that's simply because the commentators didn't dare touch the content?

[bloglily]

Good for you Victoria -- and good for LeGuin. If there's a book that needs lambasting, it sure sounds like this one is it.

And I'm in complete agreement with Sandra. It amazes me that anyone would/could so easily trash acknowledged greats. There are lots of things that can be said about those writers, and certainly criticisms and questions, and preferences, but when someone says, "Virginia Woolf's a terrible writer" that's a good clue that what they really mean is "This was way too hard."

[bloglily]

Good for you Victoria -- and good for LeGuin. If there's a book that needs lambasting, it sure sounds like this one is it.

And I'm in complete agreement with Sandra. It amazes me that anyone would/could so easily trash acknowledged greats. There are lots of things that can be said about those writers, and certainly criticisms and questions, and preferences, but when someone says, "Virginia Woolf's a terrible writer" that's a good clue that what they really mean is "This was way too hard."

[Alex Wallace]

Thats a plot? A far more interesting book would have been myth making about the birth of humanity, as it really happened. think of the possibilities, epic African plains, forests canopies, the discovery of tools and fire.

[Litlove]

I'm afraid it's another vote for Sandra (and for you too, Victoria). I cannot abide the foolish 'this author's rubbish because I say so' school of journalism. That people earn money for such ill-considered nonsense just shows the pitiful state of culture in this country. I also think that someone should publicly reprimand the author of such tripe in exactly the same way: see how much they like it.

[Esther]

There can simply be no excuse for calling the men 'squirts'...

[impala]

>Good for you Victoria -- and good for
>LeGuin. If there's a book that needs
>lambasting, it sure sounds like this one is
>it.

>And I'm in complete agreement with Sandra.
>It amazes me that anyone would/could so
>easily trash acknowledged greats. There are
>lots of things that can be said about those
>writers, and certainly criticisms and
>questions, and preferences, but when
>someone says, "Virginia Woolf's a terrible
>writer" that's a good clue that what they
>really mean is "This was way too hard."

--bloglily

Oh! The irony!

[Nic]

Impala wrote: "Oh! The irony!"

I can see what you're getting at, but... surely the keyword in the comment you quote is "easily". I assume you can see the difference between the criticisms advanced here of Lessing's book, and the snarky dismissal on the Guardian blog referred to? :-)

[Victoria]

I too see your point Impala... but Nic is right to make the distinction between the thoughtless soundbites, made by the commentators on the Guardian's blog, and my(and Le Guin's) opinion of 'The Cleft' as expressed here.

I am certainly not dismissing Lessing as an author out of hand; I couldn't possibly do so since I've only read one of her novels. But in my opinion, and for reasons I elaborated on above, I thought 'The Cleft' was a poor piece of work. The important part of my saying I didn't like it, however, is the substantiation. The 'why?'. It does make the difference. If the Guardian commentator can show me the place in Woolf's fiction where she opines her eternal depression, I will except their criticism, or answer it. ;-)

I would be interested to know what you made of 'The Cleft' if you have read it?

[impala]

I’m only halfway through The Cleft and it certainly is a problematic book. That is how I stumbled on your blog, wanting, perhaps impatiently, to find out what others thought of it. It would be very easy and even tempting to dismiss the book, were it not for Lessing’s venerable back catalogue as you put it. I can see how The Cleft being the only book by Lessing you have read you have no patience for it. It is certainly the wrong book to start.

I have often found reading Lessing’s books difficult going and have found her to appear infuriatingly naïve or even stupid at times, but this usually happens when I have no idea what she is talking about. And often enough after learning whatever was necessary to understand a point she is making, she starts to make absolute sense. Often enough to not dismiss her writing outright, but to take a closer look. One thing I have learned about how to read Lessing is that one has to be very careful, even meticulous. She often hides the most astonishing things in subordinate clauses, sometimes enough for a complete book of its own.

I have to say, though, that I feel that Lessing is weakest when she is relying too much on her imagination in her writing, instead of her perception, which I think is unsurpassed in contemporary writing. This I think is the trouble with The Cleft, for me at least, and with for example The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, and parts of Love, Again. But that may be due to a difference in temperament, and others may certainly disagree.

I hesitate to criticize Ursula Le Guin’s reading of a book, but I think she is mistaken when she says "I call the tale a parable, but hesitantly, because I can't believe it says what I think it says. It appears to be as prescriptive as Desmond Morris and more essentialist than Freud himself. Anatomy is destiny. Gender is an absolute binary. Women are passive, incurious, timid and instinctively nurturant; without men, they scarcely rise above animal mindlessness. Men are intellectual, inventive, daring, rash, independent, and need women only to relieve libido and breed more men. Men achieve; women nag. Much of the presentation of this is familiar from the literature of misogyny. The "Old Shes" are described with utter loathing and disgust; the escapades of boys are made much of, while the doings of girl-children are ignored."

I too cannot believe it says what Le Guin thinks it is saying. The book arises from Lessing’s almost ninety years of observation of the sexes, something hard to dismiss. I hope we are not obliged to take the stand that there are no differences between the sexes, however troublesome that is politically. The book acknowledges the differences and attempts to explore their reasons and consequences, and I believe it succeeds in a way that would not be possible using a more conventional novel form. (At least she is not giving us an evolutionary psychological account of sexes.)

I fail to see how the book is biased against women or a hurtful take on gender, let alone violently anti-feminist. My reading is that both sexes receive equally of her observations. From the first page: "I had been wondering if men were not a younger type, a younger variation. They lack the solidarity of women, who seem to have been endowed with a natural harmony with the ways of the world. […] Men by comparison are unstable, and erratic."

[Victoria]

>Impala: 'It would be very easy and even tempting to dismiss the book, were it not for Lessing’s venerable back catalogue as you put it.'

I agree to an extant - an author's ouevre is something to consider when reading a new novel - but only to an extant. Each novel must, in the end, be taken on its own merits.

How and in what ways should we take Lessing's previous work into account in such a case? It may give me a better understanding of her motives and authorial psychology, but I doubt it would warm me to her meanings. Venerability is no apology (and many great contemporary novelists have produced lack lustre material: think of Rushdie's 'Shalimar', or Toni Morrison's 'Love' or even Zadie Smith's 'On Beauty'.)

>'I have often found reading Lessing’s books difficult going and have found her to appear infuriatingly naïve or even stupid at times, but this usually happens when I have no idea what she is talking about. And often enough after learning whatever was necessary to understand a point she is making, she starts to make absolute sense.'

Of course, I see your point. Sometimes we do fail to understand the thrust of a novel - all readers are fallible - and sometimes an alternate reading awakens new, unthought ideas. But I find a convincing rehabilitation of 'The Cleft' very unlikely - at the very best I could agree that the novel proselytises views that are wholly alien to my own but with which some readers may agree.

>'I have to say, though, that I feel that Lessing is weakest when she is relying too much on her imagination in her writing, instead of her perception, which I think is unsurpassed in contemporary writing.'

I'm not sure I understand your distinction here. Can imagination and perception be so seperated in a novel? Do you think they are mutually exclusive? Surely if a novel has one but not the other, it has faltered in essentials? Either way, in the case of 'The Cleft' I think Lessing shows neither - even if I were comfortable with her meanings, I would still think her narrative very flimsy. Not the stuff that fiction (nor even non-fiction) is made of. There was simply no point of interest for me: no plot and no characters, and no stylistic, psychological or philosophical counterpoint to replace them.

>'I hesitate to criticize Ursula Le Guin’s reading of a book, but I think she is mistaken... I too cannot believe it says what Le Guin thinks it is saying. The book arises from Lessing’s almost ninety years of observation of the sexes, something hard to dismiss.'

But in what way is Le Guin mistaken? Her description of gender difference and relations in the novel is entirely accurate. Before the arrival of males, the females are wholly passive and inactive: they don't hunt or explore; they hardly engage in dialogue with one another; they don't even take particular care of their children, who fall off the rocks into the sea regularly. They eat, sleep and lie about. They have an unquestioned social order.

The males, however, are entirely different -even from infancy they are building structures, hunting and exploring, of their own volition. This is not learnt behaviour: it is in their very natures. In other words, it is their biological destiny. Equally, when the women start to visit the men in the valley they do so out of reproductive instinct - they're in heat, and they respond to it. Nothing more. There is no element of choice in it, and once they are pregnant they protect their young like any other animal would.

Most importantly, though, the men and women do not *change* through the course of their inter-relations. The women's lives are complicated by the arrival of males but not essentially changed - they accept domestic servitude and remain reactive rather than becoming active by example; they begin to nag; they like to be safe and secure; warm and full. They stay close to the hearth caves. Meanwhile, the males pioneer and 'progress'; they build ships and have aspirations. Where are the womens' aspirations? Apart from raising one generation of children after another, they have none. None at all.

In what way can we say that Lessing denies or challenges binary and biological gender? I can't think of a single instance in the novel in which a woman partakes in masculine behaviour or vice-a-versa. They are, quite literally, different species. Is this an acceptable or honest parable?

>'I hope we are not obliged to take the stand that there are no differences between the sexes, however troublesome that is politically.'

This may be getting closer to the heart of why we disagree. I hold that their are some biological differences between the sexes; men are quite clearly bigger and stronger for example. And hormones play their part. But I do not think male/female difference is so essential as to effect intelligence, independence of mind or the will to action. I believe 'masculine' and 'feminine' behaviours are, by and large, learnt; that historical norms - e.g. men are pro-active, women passive; men, courageous, women, nurturing; men, reckless, women, stable - are also social, rather than biological, norms. Lessing clearly does not believe this. Her expressed truth is that men and women are different in biology *and* psychology; that they have an essential difference in temperament and inclination. I cannot accept this. For a start, the gender balance is far more complex.

>'(At least she is not giving us an evolutionary psychological account of sexes.)'

I wish she had; this would have been infinitely more sensible! ;-)

>'I fail to see how the book is biased against women or a hurtful take on gender, let alone violently anti-feminist. My reading is that both sexes receive equally of her observations. From the first page: "I had been wondering if men were not a younger type, a younger variation. They lack the solidarity of women, who seem to have been endowed with a natural harmony with the ways of the world. […] Men by comparison are unstable, and erratic."'

'The Cleft' is anti-feminist in that it reasserts and confirms a model of gender typing that rightly belongs in the 19th century. It does give equal showtime to men and women, but it determines them absolutely. It is not misogynist in the sense that it isn't female-hating; it is female-limiting, however. It draws two spheres, a male/masculine one and a female/feminine one and portions up the human race accordingly; where the spheres touch there is nothing but confusion and sex. Thus it equates biological sex and social gender. And, worse, it suggests that this is an eternal state of affairs: the relations of the Clefts and Squirts are still relevant to the tiff between Lalla, the slave girl, and her lover thousands of years later. I don't know whether you are male or female, but either way: does this adequately describe the complexity of your relationship with the opposite sex?

I can only think of one possible reading that redeems it as a novel: that Lessing is pointing up the sexist assumptions of her frame narrator, the Roman historian. Perhaps it is he who holds these outdated, disagreeable notions of how women and men are doomed to interact, and Lessing is only giving them voice. But, if so, she doesn't try to subvert them - she makes no attempt to get around the display. I'm befuddled.

[regina]

Lessing is an inspiration,she is more than the sum of her literary work,her courage skill and intellect leave modern authors far behind with a commitment which few have or will likely match.That Cleft does not satisfy some as a novel or from an ideological perspective does not mean it is a poor piece of work.It would seem more a comentary on the failings of modern feminism and modern 'intellects' in general and to that end it is a powerful and successful piece.So she is not to the taste of those poor saps who still idolise woolf or other intellectual charlatans who remain stubbornly in vogue.Big deal.That is more of a compliment than a criticism!long may lessing continue to put pen to paper!!

p.s. Please no more 'hrumphing' its embarrassing to read such an inarticulate expression of frustration by what one would presume is an educated critic. Why not imitate the four fingered yellow skinned comic icon of idiocy and write 'doh' as your catch phrase?

[descriptedlines]

"A book is a great offering of some kind to the human spirit, to the human mind. You should look at that first, get that first. If you want to criticize, you can always tear anything to pieces."
-Doris Lessing in Putting the Questions Differently

[Nic]

Another vote of no confidence (along similar lines to those expressed by Victoria) at the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081602653.html

[Trent]

I haven't read the book, yet, but I've greatly enjoyed Lessing's work over the years. Something to remember, though: Lessing is iconoclastic and defies labels. After her The Golden Notebook was hailed as a feminist classic, she rejected the notion, claiming the work was more about mental breakdown. When she ventured into SF with the Canopus series, she willfully claimed it was SF, and rejected the speculative fiction label. An communist in her earlier years, she has long rejected communism as stupid.

As far as feminism goes, by any reasonable definition she is squarely a feminist -- yet she distrusts the rhetoric used by some feminists as much as she came to distrust the rhetoric used by communists. To me, she subsumes feminism as a matter of course; what really interests here is how people relate and how they become who they are and how they can change. You won't find her insisting, in a practical way, on traditional roles for women, or anyone else. She's really too much of a free thinker to be bounded by any set of politically correct views.

What tie all of her books together, imo, is her acute perception about people and how their roles and environment (including mental) affect them. She is not afraid to run with ideas that she knows will be unpopular, such as the idea that genetics may play a stronger role in determining identity that is currently fashionable to claim (The Fifth Child, Ben in the World, for example). It is never very clear to me how much she believes these ideas or just uses them as a means to write perceptively about people.

One of the things that is impressive about Lessing's work is its sheer range of form. She may choose a cold, sterile documentary form, she may choose the fable, she may choose the lyrical. Some of her books are better than others, and some are great despite their flaws, but imo she is the real deal and one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century.

Having said that, maybe The Cleft isn't a good book, but considering that critics have been wrong about her work before, I'll make my own judgment. Le Guin, after all, ripped Shikasta, the first book of the Canopus cycle, and as a longtime reader of SF as well as mainstream fiction, I can say it's among the very best books of the genre.

[Nic]

Out of interest, would anyone care to actually engage with the points set forth in the post? This is a consideration of a book, not an author's entire oeuvre, people - I'm sure Doris Lessing doesn't need anyone to leap to her defence without having read the novel in question ... however gallantly. :-)

[Trent]

Nic,

I would be happy too after I've read the book. And you're absolutely right, Lessing doesn't need me ;) -- and I smiled at "gallantly." Does my being male reduce my comments to that? I ask with good humor.

I do, however, think context can be important, and the fact that Lessing often seeks to thwart expectations is relevant. The notion that a author's work should be judged by itself is a valid one, yet we can also gain by seeing its relation to the author's other works.

At any rate, I'm glad I stumbled across this site. Sometimes good literary discussion can be hard to come by.

[Nic]

Trent,

I may have been teasing with 'gallantly', it's true. ;-)

I fully agree that context is important when considering a work; my comment was not meant to be a denial of this, more an expression of frustration that this post seems to keep attracting comments that push the context while largely or completely disregarding the text. (FWIW, I found your comment much more constructive and helpful than some of the ones above; you were just the proverbial straw...)

I'd be genuinely interested to hear what someone who is very familiar with Lessing makes of _The Cleft_ - so do read it, and come back!

In the meantime, enjoy the site. :-)

[Trent]

Victoria (and Nic),

Well, I've read The Cleft with some trepidation because even an author as accomplished as Lessing can write a bad book. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that was not so. I won't address in particular matters of taste regarding the narrative choices that Lessing makes except to say it served Lessing's purpose to maintain distance. Her concern here is not with individual characters per se (though they certainly exist) but with the proto-humans as a whole. Whether she succeeded is up to the reader, but it worked for me. Some of my reaction may be influenced by reading other works of hers in which she takes a similar perspective. In other works, she focuses on character with extreme detail. One other point: we tend to objectify our reactions and treat them as inherent properties of whatever caused our reactions. Thus, Le Guin and Victoria believe The Cleft is a bad book because it produced certain reactions in them. There is also the notion that these are the only reactions that can be produced. Thus Victoria claims that this novel _must_ make everyone's blood boil. The book itself is flawed for causing these reactions. This type of objectification is extremely common and often useful -- we all do it; I will do it in this comment -- but it is a kind of shorthand, and the danger is that it causes us to forget that our reactions themselves often require examination. In this case, I think Le Guin and Victoria had an initial strong reaction that prevented them from seeing certain complexities -- a case of selectively gathering. evidence to confirm initial reactions. I hope this comment is taken without annoyance; I'm just describing something we all do at various times and to various degrees.

For example, Le Guin in derision refers to the Clefts as "slobbering walrus women" (actually, in the novel, the term "seal" is used). But what is not noticed is that this characterization comes from old Squirt tales (I'm going to use Lessing's terms because we are not talking about men and women; these "people" are not yet human). Le Guin assumes this characterization is the "official" one; the one that Lessing and the historian (also the narrator) approve. That is not so. The Squirt characterization comes from relatively early Squirt tales and was inspired by fear. The historian himself dismisses this characterization and speculates what the Clefts really looked like. To him, they are virtually identical to the Squirts; one can tell them apart only by the obvious differences in genitalia. Thoughout the entire book we have tension caused by the two sets of tales the historian has available. While they roughly agree in terms of events, they differ greatly in emphasis and perspective. In addition to attempting to discovering "the truth" from these different sets of tales, the historian engages in his own speculation. He also suppresses some elements that most disturb him, but he does not suppress other disturbing elements, such as the early gang rape that kills a Cleft. (Why? We are meant to wonder; while the historian/narrator has some insights we might find admirable, there are others he is not yet capable of having -- if you say this observation is not fair, I will concede that it may not be easy for one not familiar with Lessing's other works.) This is important, because this novel is as much about how the historian uses his material to attempt to understand events of his domestic life as it is about presenting a subversive, woman-centered origin myth. And that points out another tension -- to modern readers, these tales are clearly myth, but to our historian/narrator they represent suppressed history. When Le Guin says the novel is implausible, I wish she had been more specific. Certainly eagles carrying Squirts to the Squirt encampment is implausible; why should we think we are not supposed to realize that? At any rate, throughout the novel we see this tension between the two sets of histories. The historian/narrator sympathizes with elements from both stories. More on that later.

According to Le Guin, we are not given the signals necessary to conclude that the historian/narrator is characterized with irony. I don't see Lessing as an ironic writer in the sense that she always signals her intentions; some of this we are to get ourselves. Regardless, it is not true that historian/narrator is never undermined. I see him undermined constantly, though in a gentle way. Victoria mentioned Freud, so I'll use the one very clear nod toward Freud as an example. The historian recounts observing a very young boy and girl suddenly noticing the differences in their genetalia. At one point, he seems to notice envy on the part of the girl. There it is. Women are defined by lack a la Freud. But within a page or two when we return to the old tales, we have the Squirts defined by lack. They are needy (and what is lack but that?). They desire the Clefts because they Clefts are the source of life, because they are source of nourishment both of the body and the soul. They need the Clefts to teach them sophisticated language because all they can do is speak baby talk. They are driven by need, by lack. The Clefts are not defined in the tales in terms of lack. Lessing has turned Freud on his head, and to make it obvious, she does it immediately after the historian's Freud moment, but the historian never has that insight. This is a dialectical novel and new insight/knowledge is created through the tensions between the two sets of tales and between the historian's interpretation and our own. Lessing knew this novel would be controversial; what does that mean if not to create discussion and debate about it? "Controversial" implies dialectic.

There is much to discuss, but because this comment is becoming very long, I want to focus on what I take to be the chief criticism of Le Guin and Victoria -- that Lessing's view of gender is essentialist, that as Victoria puts it, "anatomy is destiny." According to the reading of these two, women are passive, men are aggressive, women are maternal, men are not, women are cautious, men are thrill seekers, etc. -- all the old stereotypes are confirmed, and there is no thought to the cultural basis of subject construction (I apologize for the terminology -- I've tried to avoid theory talk, but you all seem to be theory wonks and know what I mean). There is certainly some of this in the novel, but in no sense are these characterizations uniformly true. For example, it is Maire who overcomes her fear and seeks out the Squirts; the Squirts are too afraid to seek out the Clefts. It is Maire who saves the young Squirts from the plot of one of the Old Shes. It is Maire who comes to understand that circumstances have changed; that they old ways are passing. It is Maire who helps other Clefts broaden their view of the world. This causes a conflict between some of the younger Clefts and the Old Shes. This is much more about the conflict between new understanding and old thinking than about gender. The arrival of the Squirts is a new, important event, and it causes profound changes in the way some Clefts think. Note that this new thinking is not "learned" from the Squirts; it is caused by having new things to consider. Maire's new understanding is created by her ability to cope with new circumstnaces. This is important and ties in with what I see as Lessing's major theme in this novel. Change in behavior and in thinking is caused by changes in material circumstances. Shock leads to adaptation. Without new challenges, life becomes stagnant. The arrival of the Squirts changes everything, but not because they are superior (in many ways they are far less wise than the Clefts), but because they are different. When presented with new options, many of the Clefts engage in new behaviors. Thus we have Clefts who explore side by side with the Squirts the deadly interior of the island. Thus we have the historian's wife attracted to the bloodly thrills of the arena. Thus we see new circumstances creating new possibilities. Note that when given the power to do so, the historian's second wife avoids caring for her children; she has other interests (this relates to Lessing's biography, btw). And notice that the historian, like the early Squirts, takes an intense interest in his children by his second wife. He realizes that he lost something by neglecting, as was the cultural norm, his other children. Gender is not destiny in this novel.

Another theme that is closely related is the need to do what is, well, needful. For example, the Clefts care for the young Squirts not because they want to -- in fact, they often resent it -- but because they must. The Squirts cannot produce milk, and what is more, they are curiously neglectful of young children, and many die through accident or by wild beasts. They do the job because the Squirts either won't or are careless. This care for the young is not so much instinctual as it is caused by the knowledge of the Clefts that there are so few "people" and their very existence is threatened. When the Clefts realize that the young Squirts are not quite as helpless as they first thought, they react to that new knowledge by modifying their concern. This ties in with the "nagging" noticed by Victoria (I think). Again, we have to different sets of tales. The Squirts characterize the women's concerns as nagging; the women obviously characterize it as common sense. If young children fall into the river here and die, then why note prevent them from coming there or at least post a guard? Notice that the historian agrees. The Clefts are naggers only from the Squirt perspective; our historian is judicious enough to realize they are right to be concerned. To make the point clearer, the historian recounts his idle plans to build a new house. His wife, who because of her negotiation with the historian before their marriage, is a free agent (and there, again, we see how gender roles are circumvented when opportunity allows it), comes to warn him of the danger he is in from Nero, who loves to confiscate rich estates. She is wiser than her husband.

I've just scratched the surface, but I think readers if they want can find other details to support the notion that gender here is not destiny, and that changing conditions create new subjectivities.

One last point. It is a mistake, I think, to characterize feminist thinking as only non-essentialist. I know you all know that. Feminism thought encompasses much, including various takes on gender differences. One can think there are some genuine differences in, for example, thought patterns, and still acknowledge the massive role that culture and material conditions have in determining identity, gendered and otherwise.

Obviously I think this is a far richer novel than do the Le Guin and Victoria, and I do not think it is anti-feminist or anti-female. Given how the novel presented itself to me to be read, I have no serious objection to Lessing's prefatory remarks. I don't think Lessing is a woman-hater any more than I think she is a man-hater, which some commentors on this novel have said, perhaps unwittingly echoing Harold Bloom.

[Victoria]

Trent,

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Your's is the most spirited and thought-through defence of the novel I have yet read. Which is not to say that I agree with you in the slightest. ;-)

First, a caveat: It has been 7 months since I read 'The Cleft' and wrote about it and I don't have a copy to hand to refresh my memory. I fear my impressions and arguments will seem vague as a result. So be it...

>'Her concern here is not with individual characters per se (though they certainly exist) but with the proto-humans as a whole. Whether she succeeded is up to the reader, but it worked for me. Some of my reaction may be influenced by reading other works of hers in which she takes a similar perspective. In other works, she focuses on character with extreme detail.'

I have to admit to being slightly puzzled by what you say here. First, you seem to suggest that Lessing frequently de-individualises her subjects in her novels, and then that she focuses on character in 'extreme' detail. Either way, I think anyone would be hard-pressed to argue that 'The Cleft' possesses characters of real detail. The Roman is, at best, a puppet - his motives, contrived, his personal life, analogic - at worst, an historical stereotype. The novel's mythical actors are nameless, faceless and undefined; its later protagonists have names and a social heirarchy but few individual characteristics or personal foibles. They are not 'well-developed' in any sense of the word: they are not only proto-humans but also proto-characters. Lessing deals here only in what is vague and undefined. (Particularly strange, I think, for a story about mythical beginnings: myths tend to be incredibly specific and well-developed, while it is history that is fuzzy and inprecise.)

>'One other point: we tend to objectify our reactions and treat them as inherent properties of whatever caused our reactions.[snip] In this case, I think Le Guin and Victoria had an initial strong reaction that prevented them from seeing certain complexities -- a case of selectively gathering evidence to confirm initial reactions.'

I must admit to finding this observation more than a little patronising. I would hope that I am self-aware enough to see beyond my own prejudices (I do not deny that I have them) and to review a novel on its own merits, as a novel, rather than on its 'fit' to my personal ideology. I tried very hard to approach 'The Cleft' from different angles - including that which you explore below: the tensions of the various 'narratives' - and to consider the ways in which Lessing might be using her material to subvert my expectations. But, in the end, I was, and continue to be, brought back to the same conclusions. I would hate to think that you're suggesting that Le Guin and I have gotten over-emotional or over-wrought in our analysis. (A symptom of our femaleness, perhaps? ;-))

I should also reiterate that my argument against 'The Cleft' is not purely ideological. I am also painfully aware of how dull and uninspiring it was as a piece of literature - how its language was flat and hollow, how its descriptive passages were repetitive and lacklustre, how its characters were lifeless and how its structure was schematic rather than instructive. Admittedly, all of these things could be blamed on the Roman frame narrator but that strikes me as disingenuous. Style can be a function of the narrative voice, but not if it goes so far as to deaden the novel's appeal. I balk at this strange notion that a frame narrative absolves the author of all blame, as though they were not the first cause.

However, I do admit that it *was* arrogant hyperbole to say that the novel's thematics should make any person's blood boil...although, in one sense, I stick by it - I hope they do and will!

>'For example, Le Guin in derision refers to the Clefts as "slobbering walrus women" (actually, in the novel, the term "seal" is used). But what is not noticed is that this characterization comes from old Squirt tales (I'm going to use Lessing's terms because we are not talking about men and women; these "people" are not yet human).
Le Guin assumes this characterization is the "official" one; the one that Lessing and the historian (also the narrator) approve. That is not so.'

I doubt very much that Le Guin 'missed' this. I think it more likely that she thought the idea of variant 'squirt' tales and 'cleft' tales a very weak excuse for a plot device, as did I. You concur that the events and details of the Roman's 'histories' are mythical, not realistic, but consider that they still have their roots in two divergent literary cultures.

But how could they? Even if the clefts and squirts became literate early in their developments - and there is no evidence to suggest that they did - it is unlikely that they had maintained seperate oral traditions or identities. It is not particularly likely that the clefts and squirts remained socially and culturally distinct from one another for long enough, as different species, to develop a historical narrative from their own gendered 'perspectives'. It is improbable that what the Roman has in his possession are gendered narratives of the beginning of human kind. (This, I think, is partly what Le Guin meant when she calls the novel 'implausible'.)

Far more likely is that the cleft and squirt stories are mutually dependent myths which inform and reinforce each other. At no point do they differ significantly from one another in event (which they should, were they really seperate narratives); and the Roman creates a synergy from them that suggests they have no independent life. We are forced to conclude that they're unconcerned with 'truth' but that rather, like all myths, they are socially and ideologically relevant to the audience of their creator. In the first instance this audience is the Roman (but 'The Cleft' isn't really about Roman culture) in the second, Lessing and us (which is more like it). Thus they tell us very little about the past and everything about the present and their author.

>'Thoughout the entire book we have tension caused by the two sets of tales the historian has available. While they roughly agree in terms of events, they differ greatly in emphasis and perspective. In addition to attempting to discovering "the truth" from these different sets of tales, the historian engages in his own speculation.'

It seems to me that the narrative is not about tension at all, but about reconciliation. The historian is not attempting to discern a 'truth' for its own sake, but to create a creation story that matches his own experiences in life. (Lessing also makes this point in her prepatory remarks: that the idea at the root of 'The Cleft' made sense to her.) Hence he is first inspired to investigate the early histories after observing the gendered behaviour of his slaves. His motive is to *explain* these behaviours, not to interrogate or subvert them. Thus the clumsy mirroring of his own gender observations and the cleft/squirt dichotomy throughout.

>'This is important, because this novel is as much about how the historian uses his material to attempt to understand events of his domestic life as it is about presenting a subversive, woman-centered origin myth.'

I agree with you; the Roman uses his material as a gloss on contemporary gender relations and so, I think, does Lessing. However, I don't think the novel is in the least concerned with a woman-centred origin myth. Yes, females have the distinction of being the first proto-humans, but they can claim few other distinctions. The world happens to them, they do not happen to the world. No, 'The Cleft' is very much a man-centred origin myth, in which women do what they always do: tag along.

>'According to Le Guin, we are not given the signals necessary to conclude that the historian/narrator is characterized with irony. I don't see Lessing as an ironic writer in the sense that she always signals her intentions; some of this we are to get ourselves.'

I agree with Le Guin here. (Surprised ;-)) The Roman narrator is our only guide as to Lessing's ideological intent and at no point is he properly subverted. She does not reveal him to be weak, or wrong-headed, or bigoted. Rather, he is largely reasonable, observant and benign. And I don't think it is possible to move beyond him independently to what Lessing 'thinks'; we can't second guess her and every reader needs authorial cues. We must assume she thinks what he does, unless she shows us otherwise. Nor do I think it is reasonable for those cues to pre-exist in other novels (as Lessing fans seem so keen to insist). If a novel isn't thematically complete in and of itself (asuuming it isn't a serial), then we can say it has failed in essentials.

>'The Clefts are not defined in the tales in terms of lack.'

I absolutely disagree. The clefts are not *clearly* defined in terms of lack as the squirts are but this only goes to highlight Lessing's hurtful view of women. Because clearly they lack an awful lot: independence; a sense of adventure; creativity; invention and the urge to progress. The squirts, on the other hand, have all of these 'masculine' qualities in spades. What they don't have - the succour of the 'body and soul' as you call it - they demand the women give them. If this is not a stratification of gender roles I don't know what is.

>'There is certainly some of this in the novel, but in no sense are these characterizations uniformly true. For example, it is Maire who overcomes her fear and seeks out the Squirts; the Squirts are too afraid to seek out the Clefts. It is Maire who saves the young Squirts from the plot of one of the Old Shes. It is Maire who comes to understand that circumstances have changed; that they old ways are passing. It is Maire who helps other Clefts broaden their view of the world. This causes a conflict between some of the younger Clefts and the Old Shes. This is much more about the conflict between new understanding and old thinking than about gender.'

None of the above significantly challenges the novel's gender determinism. Maire *adapts* to new circumstances, she does not create them. I'm sure you'll agree that change-making/adaptation is another aspect of the male/female dichotomy. Further, she defends the young squirts because she is maternal and nurturing, because she is motherly. The squirts do not have these instincts themselves. They let children fall in rivers and in fires because it is not innate in them. She is notable in her willingness to change, but not in the nature of her changefulness. This is still decidedly 'female' in quality.

>'The arrival of the Squirts is a new, important event, and it causes profound changes in the way some Clefts think. Note that this new thinking is not "learned" from the Squirts; it is caused by having new things to consider.'

But *why* must the event that changes the clefts be the advent of the male? And why should it change them in the way it does: into mothers and home-makers? I almost prefered the selfish and cruel Shes to the pliant, domestic breed of clefts post-squirt. I agree with you: change in behavior is caused by change in material circumstances. But the clefts showed no signs of changing before the advent of the squirts and so it is difficult not to assume that it is the very maleness of the new beings that changes them.

>'The arrival of the Squirts changes everything, but not because they are superior (in many ways they are far less wise than the Clefts), but because they are different. When presented with new options, many of the Clefts engage in new behaviors. Thus we have Clefts who explore side by side with the Squirts the deadly interior of the island.'

Yes, but why didn't they explore it by themselves? Before the squirts came? It is because Lessing's proto-women follow; they don't lead. For generations after the advent of the squirt settlements many prefer to stay beside the shoreline, stagnating in their old ways. If the squirts had never come, Lessing suggests, they would never have changed. Why, why, why is it men that make them what they are? Not a change in climate, or a storm, or the advent of disease, but men.

>'Gender is not destiny in this novel.'

But of course it is. The clefts bear and mother children, generation after generation; they submit and defer to the squirts who are more active and who seek out new ways of doing things. The Roman observes his contemporaries engaging in behaviours analogous to these: his slaves, his children, his wives. If his second wife is more independent than your average cleft it is because of her unusually powerful position in society, not because of any gendered power.

>'Another theme that is closely related is the need to do what is, well, needful. For example, the Clefts care for the young Squirts not because they want to -- in fact, they often resent it -- but because they must. The Squirts cannot produce milk, and what is more, they are curiously neglectful of young children, and many die through accident or by wild beasts. They do the job because the Squirts either won't or are careless.'

Which is gender determinism if I ever saw it. Why should it be that the clefts are thoughtful and good at caring for children? Why should it be that the squirts are foolish and neglectful? Where are the good fathers, and the bad mothers?

>'The Squirts characterize the women's concerns as nagging; the women obviously characterize it as common sense. If young children fall into the river here and die, then why note prevent them from coming there or at least post a guard? Notice that the historian agrees. The Clefts are naggers only from the Squirt perspective; our historian is judicious enough to realize they are right to be concerned.'

Yet more evidence of a strictly gendered dichotomy...

>'One can think there are some genuine differences in, for example, thought patterns, and still acknowledge the massive role that culture and material conditions have in determining identity, gendered and otherwise. I don't think Lessing is a woman-hater any more than I think she is a man-hater, which some commentors on this novel have said, perhaps unwittingly echoing Harold Bloom.'

Nor do I think that Lessing is a woman hater. Rather, I think she is an advocate of gender roles based on sexual difference, and that she considers these roles largely innate. This is an increasingly popular discourse of so-called post-feminist thinking. I wish her well of it, but it isn't for me.

[Trent]

Victoria,

I'm going to reply as I read your reply.

1. Yes, I was unclear in my comments about detail. All I meant was that in some her novels she has an extremely tight focus on character and in some she takes a far more distant view.

2. I'm sorry you found my some of my comments patronizing. I was trying to understand how such a radically different view of the novel than my own came about. Perhaps we shouldn't speculate on such things; I also found your comments in the beginnning of your article about why reviewers were "gentle" with the Cleft to be a bit patronizing. Perhaps they simply liked the novel; why claim they must just be showing respect for her age and reputation? Honestly, I think I was annoyed by that comment, so replied out of annoyance, realized what I was doing, and tried to couch it with the acknowledgement that we all do similar things. Truce? ;)

3. Yes, the narrative choices Lessing makes are not as happy as they could have been. She is not in her best form, here. But I didn't dislike it to the extent you did.

4. Myths, separate tales -- You make some valid points, of course. I doubt Lessing has studied oral transmission, and I don't think she is really concerned with it --I guess I find more significant the different perspectives the male and female versions take. I see Lessing as giving the females a more judicious perspective (reflecting their longer existence? men here are little more than children). The historian is interested in reconciliation, of course, and do that he virtually invents alternate versions.

As far as identifying the narrator with Lessing goes -- well ... her fiction in which she uses an authorial voice to make observations is much different. The things she would have observed about the historian would have laid him bare. She didn't do that here. I admit you have a point. It's true that my reading is much influenced by her other works, and it's also true that a work has to stand alone. I don't want to say this is my final take on this issue; I'll have to think more. I do think the historian is undermined at various points, but if you didn't think the Freud incident did that, then it's unlikely that other "evidence" I have in mind would be compelling to you.

5. Changes in Clefts. Yes, the society was stagnant before the males. But why shouldn't it be? From an evolutionary perspective, they had found their niche and further adaption was not necessary. (Why did the Squirts appear, then? I don't have a good answer -- random mutation that wasn't weeded out successfully as others were?)

I do think it important here that the Clefts changed themselves. I know you disagree, but we do see Maire, in particular, thinking her way to new understandings. The catalyst was the arrival of the males, but the leap in perspective was Maire's own.

As far as why it has to be the males? My glib answer is that it's because Lessing wanted to write that kind of story. In her other stories, we see expanded consciousness arise through changes in circumstances that have nothing to do with "maleness" in particular.

Yes, the proto-females are passive, and I can see why that troubles you. But we see how differentation leads to new perspective. I hate to continually refer to other novels of Lessings, but change/differentation is often the catalyst to new thinking in her novels. Perhaps it bothers me less because I see it as a theme I broadly agree with? I don't think the idea would be particularly controversial if here it wasn't applied to male/female differentation.

6. Gender is destiny -- here I do disagree with you that this is what Lessing means, at least for us. Ok, I think Lessing is saying there are large predispositions for each gender to certain types of behavior, but she is also saying that on the level of the individual all bets are off. I honestly don't know how to weight the relative influence of biology and culture. In my academic days I read a lot of feminist criticism and readily accept the belief that culture/environment underlie subjectivity (I first went through Marxist writers on ideology so it was easy for me to accept a similar line for gender). But I also find it difficult to believe that there are not some differences between men and women, at least on the overall statistical level (which perserves the possibility for self determination for individuals). I think the evidence from the animal world can cut both ways. Obviously, historically women have been subjected, and even in the West, vestiges of so-called male thinking (I say so-called because not all thinking we think of thinking is "male" thinking -- no male who has struggled through Kristeva can believe that men are inherently more intellectual, for instance) dominate. Why were women subjected? Power I think, like most of us do. Men were stronger. (Btw, in Lessing's story, men do not dominate -- all the men still fear women. Even at the end, Horsa fears facing Moranna. The subjugation of women happened later, after the myths). Is Lessing presenting a myth that accounts for the subjection of women, which we know did happen? If so, it's not because the women are inferior, but because men feared women and their perspectives (which annoy them because they know, when they bother to think about them, are valid) -- this ties in with "junior variation" theme, which suggests that men are less developed in some ways. That's too simple for me, too, btw. Lessing also presents men in general as risk takers, and suggests that this risk taking is necessary to find new horizons. I know that bothers you, but I think there may be some truth to that. We know that young men, for example, are far more likely to engage in risky driving practices than young women (and because of that I had to pay higher insurance rates). We also have other studies that conclude, in general, that men are more likely to engage in other risky activities. How much of that is cultural and how much is biological? It's hard to tell. And when it comes to individuals, anyone can be a thrill seeker, so to speak. Can we acknowledge the possibility that some differences in behavior, statistically speaking, can have a biological basis, but on the level of the individual, any particular impulse may dominate? I think speculation in fiction on that question is fair game.

At any rate, we can see the long history of women being subjected as limiting their opportunities to step out of their prescribed gender roles. What is different in the West in the last 100 years? I suppose we can point to the fruition of some of the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I really think it's because material conditions changed, and that led to greater acceptance in the work place, to greater independence, to modes of thought and behavior being more accessible. I don't that is inconsistent with Lessing's view in this novel of changing circumstances leading to new possibilities. I don't think anything Lessing says in this novel refuses to acknowledge that or criticizes it in any way.

--

Victoria, thanks for your serious response. I hope The Cleft doesn't turn you off from reading her other works because I think you would find much to appreciate. This novel is not her best, and I suppose it's true that part of my defense is caused by the impulse to defend a writer I admire so much.

[Trent]

Congrats to you Brits for another Nobel Prize in Literature. That's three British writers in the last six years. Americans haven't won one since Toni Morrison's, more than a dozen years ago. In this case, however, I have no problem setting aside nationalistic pride. Well deserved.