"She might scruple to make use of the words"

A passage that has always fascinated me in Mansfield Park:

Of her two sisters, Mrs. Price very much more resembled Lady Bertram than Mrs. Norris. She was a manager by necessity, without any of Mrs. Norris’s inclination for it, or any of her activity. Her disposition was naturally easy and indolent, like Lady Bertram’s; and a situation of similar affluence and do-nothing-ness would have been much more suited to her capacity, than the exertions and self-denials of the one, which her imprudent marriage had placed her in. She might have made just as good a woman of consequence as Lady Bertram, but Mrs. Norris would have been a more respectable mother of nine children, on a small income.

Much of all this, Fanny could not but be sensible of. She might scruple to make use of the words, but she must and did feel that her mother was a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taught nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement and discomfort from the beginning to end, and who had no talent, no conversation, no affection towards herself; no curiosity to know her better, no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for her company that could lessen her sense of such feelings.

Signal boost

Tanya Selvaratnam has been a dear friend of mine since our first year of college. We acted in a ton of plays together in those days; as well as being a talented and successful actor, she has been an immensely generous friend in intervening years (in particular I recall a wonderful party she hosted for me when my first book came out, not to mention countless delicious meals cooked for me and copious treats provided over several decades!).

Tanya's first book has just been published; it's called The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism, and the Reality of the Biological Clock, and she kindly agreed to answer a few questions for me here.

This is your first published book, but you have a rich background as a performer, producer and activist. What past experiences in any of those areas did you find most useful as you worked on the book and as you take it out into the world?

It was more the ways in which my past experiences were different that helped me write. As a performer, I have to be extroverted and relatively social, and also submissive to a director’s vision. As a producer, my head is full 24/7 of other people’s stuff. Writing was the opposite experience and hence thoroughly enjoyable for me. The activism was more useful: finding ways to turn adversity into positive action.

You and I have talked about the importance of hiring a publicist, especially if you are an author of nonfiction books. What are the pros and cons for an author to consider? How did you choose your publicist, and what kinds of thing have you been able to do as a result? Can you share some links to online pieces that have come about in part as a consequence of that relationship?

The support of my publicists, Wunderkind PR: Elena Stokes and Tanya Farrell, has been a necessity. Initially, I solicited publicist recommendations from my agent, publisher, and writer friends, but I ended up finding Wunderkind online while researching another publicist. I was impressed by the expertise and passion displayed on Wunderkind’s website as well as its roster of clients. Both Elena and Tanya had many years of experience at major houses before breaking out with their own shingle. Also, as women around my age and mothers themselves, they connected strongly with my subject matter. The expense is cumbersome, but it’s an investment worth making. I handle PR for many of my projects so I have a strong database of media contacts, and my list converged nicely with Wunderkind’s. There were many media gets that would not have happened without my publicist, such as an exclusive excerpt in Vogue, a guest blogger post on HuffPo Women, and an appearance on the Leonard Lopate Show. And there is much more press to come, which will hopefully translate not only into visibility but also into sales.

The New York Times Motherlode blog has been running a series of columns by a woman trying to become pregnant by IVF, and I have been absolutely horrified by the vitriol in some of the comments readers leave there for her. Why do you think feelings run so high around these questions?

One, we live in a judgmental culture and also a very sensitive one. There is a pervasive polarity of “I hate you. Please love me.” Two, people have loaded, subjective, emotional points of view around these questions. We’re talking about our bodies, sexualities, ambitions, futures, and what we leave behind in this world. That said, it’s important for those who have the mic, like the woman on the Motherlode blog, to understand that people will attack them for simply having the mic. Stay true to your voice and your experience, and be open to multiple perspectives. There is no one answer. I learn something even from those who oppose me.

With my book specifically, I hope to encourage people to embrace the multiplicity of ways in which people build families and also to embrace the different ways in which people live their lives, with kids or without. As Sheryl Sandberg wrote in Lean In, “When arguments turn into ‘she said/she said’ we all lose.”

Buy Tanya's book at Amazon, Powell's, Barnes and Noble, McNally Robinson.

Elegant accomplishments

Middlemarch, book 3, chapter 27:

But Rosamond was not one of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares, and whose behaviour is awkwardly driven by their impulses, instead of being steered by wary grace and propriety.  Do you imagine that her rapid forecast and rumination concerning house-furniture and society were ever discernible in her conversation, even with her mamma?  On the contrary, she would have expressed the prettiest surprise and disapprobation if she had heard that another young lady had been detected in that immodest prematureness - indeed, would probably have disbelieved in its possibility.  For Rosamond never showed any unbecoming knowledge, and was always that combination of correct sentiments, music, dancing, drawing, elegant note-writing, private album for extracted verse, and perfect blond loveliness, which made the irresistible woman for the doomed man of that date.  Think no unfair evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide.  She was not in the habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clue to fact, why, they were not intended in that light - they were among her elegant accomplishments, intended to please.

Two bits

I'm supervising two independent studies this semester, and in both cases our first substantive meetings are today. (Usually I think I'm going to try and cram them into Tuesday, when I'm in my office to do office hours anyway, but this week it simply wasn't plausible, and in fact it may be a generally unrealistic notion as I also use Tuesdays for a committee meeting I attend regularly, for department faculty meetings and for meetings with grad students doing oral exams or needing substantive meetings on drafts.)

Today's readings provide a particularly incongruous juxtaposition!

From Alain Robbe-Grillet's Project for a Revolution in New York:

"What do you see from the window of this apartment?"

"Central Park."

(That's what it had looked like to me.)

"Is this part of it lit?"

"Yes, dimly . . . There's a streetlamp."

"And what can be seen near the streetlamp?"

"Three people."

"Of which sex?"

"Two men, a woman. . . She's wearing pants and a cap, but you can see her breasts under her sweater."

"What is this lady's name?"

"Her name--or at least what they call her--is Joan Robeson, or sometimes Robertson too."

"What does she do?"

"She's one of the fake nurses who works for Doctor Morgan, the psychoanalyst whose office is in the Forty-second Street subway station. The other nurses are blond, and . . ."

"But what is she doing here, now, in the bushes bordering the park, with those two men? And who are those two men?"

"That's easy: one is Ben-Said, the other is the narrator. The three of them are loading cartons of marijuana cigarettes disguised as ordinary Philip Morrises into a white Buick."

From Hume's Essays, more particularly the essay "Of Simplicity and Refinement in Writing":

There is no subject in critical learning more copious, than this of the just mixture of simplicity and refinement in writing; and therefore, not to wander in too large a field, I shall confine myself to a few general observations on that head.

First, I observe, That though excesses of both kinds are to be avoided, and though a proper medium ought to be studied in all productions; yet this medium lies not in a point, but admits of a considerable latitude. Consider the wide distance, in this respect, between Mr. POPE and LUCRETIUS. These seem to lie in the two greatest extremes of refinement and simplicity, in which a poet can indulge himself, without being guilty of any blameable excess. All this interval may be filled with poets, who may differ from each other, but may be equally admirable, each in his peculiar stile and manner. CORNEILLE and CONGREVE, who carry their wit and refinement somewhat farther than Mr. POPE (if poets of so different a kind can be compared together), and SOPHOCLES and TERENCE, who are more simple than LUCRETIUS, seem to have gone out of that medium, in which the most perfect productions are found, and to be guilty of some excess in these opposite characters. Of all the great poets, VIRGIL and RACINE, in my opinion, lie nearest the center, and are the farthest removed from both the extremities.