Mrs. Stevens Hears The Mermaids Singing
by May Sarton
Review byThe Plaid Adder
Comments:plaidder@mindspring.com
Our favorite part of the book was the opening, before the interview actually starts. Although Hilary does sort of drop in and out of the present and bits of memories of things past are woven into the narrative, it is mostly a very capitvating and often lyrical representation of the inner life of a fairly spry but slowing-down single older woman whose intellectual and sensual capacities are outlasting her body's resilience. Hilary has formed a kind of mentor/friendship with a young gay man named Mar who wants to be a poet, and there is a lot of interesting stuff about their relationship and its rewards and difficulties, and then eventually the interviewers show up. The interviewers start asking her questions, which then lead to extended flashbacks during which Hilary relives the time in her life during which she wrote each of the works that the interviewers are asking her about. And that's when it starts to kind of get insufferable.
What's frustrating about that section is not the creakiness of the device itself but the basic story that the flashbacks tell about the relationship between love and art. Specifically, it just infuriates me to see Sarton trotting out the old romantic construction of the Muse, the elusive love object who inspires the poet precisely because she remains utterly unattainable. Hilary falls in love with someone every time she writes a book, and more often than not it's a woman. However, so far Sarton has not allowed her to really consummate one of these relationships. So far, the message has always been that to love someone who actually, you know, reciprocates would be disastrous for your writing. Poetry is supposed to come from the longing, the frustration, the agony, and so on, and not from, like, sexual fulfilment, or happiness.
The flashback that made us decide to take a little break from this book for a while is the first one in which Hilary actually does-- sort of--get to consummate something. She falls for an older woman named Willa who identifies as straight, and has had her heart broken by a younger man. Hilary starts writing sonnets for Willa, which she reads to her, and Willa sort of comments on and critiques the sonnets, but for a long time nothing happens, and Willa eventually does just say flat-out that she can't love women like she loves men and Hilary will just have to accept this. Does she accept it? Why no. Coming home after midnight one evening she happens by Willa's house (conveniently, it has already been established that Willa never locks her door), and goes upstairs to find Willa asleep in bed. She throws herself down on the bed, whereupon Willa yields to Hilary's passion--although Sarton has Hilary saying that "sexuality" had nothing to do with this, the flame of Hilary's passion being so damn pure--and they have their one nuit d'extase and Hilary leaves the next morning. The next day Willa has a stroke and lands in the hospital. When she gets out 3 months later she's so changed that Hilary is no longer interested, but she's got that book of love sonnets published, and of course that's what matters.
I said early on when we were reading this book that the whole thing is a working out of the "Language Or The Kiss" dilemma--that's the title of an old Indigo Girls song in which Emily Saliers agonizes (gently and introspectively with many nice harmonies) about whether you can have a private life and be a writer/performer at the same time. It is a classic dilemma and certainly worthy of being the subject of a book. I guess what bothers me is the answer Sarton seems to be giving, which is that no, you can't have both, so you should take the language over the kiss whenever possible. But for Sarton, it seems to me like that decision is based on a kind of intense intellectualism-for-intellectualism's-sake that I just can't not read as pretentious and self-aggrandizing. Maybe it's because I've never been any good at writing poetry, and I just don't understand; but to me there are things in the world that are worth more than the well-turned line, and not only would I not sacrifice my personal happiness in order to be able to produce Great Literature, I wouldn't advise anyone else to do it either.
Nor do I believe that this sacrifice is really necessary. Going back to the flashback that made us stop reading, it seems to me that Hilary--or Sarton--has been reading too much Donne and Marvell and Shakespeare and whatnot and internalized their heterosexual and masculinist model of the poet/muse relationship--one which depends on a male writer who passionately pursues a remote and reluctant female muse, who--because women are presumed not to want sex until men somehow coax them into it--has to be manipulated or coerced into consummation. That scene with Hilary sneaking upstairs to surprise the beloved on the bed just struck me as so Troilus and Cressida, or Tarquin and Lucretia, or any one of a hundred stories about women who can't acknowledge their own sexual desires until they are overcome by their lovers at night when their defenses are down. Come on, Hilary. You can do better than this!
But then again, of course, as much as I write, I am never going to be a Great Writer, and maybe I really don't know what it's like for the happy few. Maybe there really is some kind of magical gift of inspiration handed out to a few select individuals by the gods at birth and they become a breed apart for whom all the rules just have to be different because they're geniuses. If that's true, I guess all I can say about it is that since I'm not cut out for geniushood, I'm glad that I can actually just be with the woman I love instead of having to keep her at arm's length while I finish my masterpiece.
It is true, as I told Liza on the way in, that when I write poems for her it's usually because she's away and I miss her. You know, when the person's actually there, it would be kind of silly to write poetry to them instead of just talking or touching. So I suppose that for people who are better poets, all this plays itself out on a much grander scale. But I still can't help being irritated by Hilary's unquestioning allegiance to the word over the flesh, and the unrepentant selfishness with which she pursues her Muse.
Nevertheless, as I said, Mrs. Stevens does provide a lot of pleasures--Hilary's mind, annoying as she can be, is a very complex and well-realized place, her relationship with Mar and her interactions with the reporters are interesting and well-done, and though the style is slightly dated it's often very beautiful, and it is certainly thought-provoking. I would certainly recommend it to people who are interested in writing and poetry but are less stubborn and unromantic (as in un-Romantic poets) than I am.
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