A
Conversation with. . .
ALIX KATES SHULMANCopyright
© 1995 In Word. All rights reserved.
Alix Kates Shulman is the author of several novels and stories, two biographies,
and memoirs. In this summer, 1995 interview, she spoke of the creative process,
the women's movement past and present, and the capacity for change at age fifty,
sixty and beyond. She was in Boston to promote her memoir, Drinking the Rain,
which chronicles one woman's solitary journey to a remote island in Maine to
discover more about herself.
How was the process of writing this memoir different for you than writing
novels or biography or short stories?
It wasn't so much memoir that was different, it was this book that was different,
because it was somewhat meditative rather than dramatic. But it turned out that
it was a high drama. It was an adventure story. And as I was writing it, I would
write these little sections about one aspect or another of life (on the island),
and they would be meditative. I would worry about how this was going to be boring
so then I would call on my novelist skills to fill it with the kind of interest
that would make people want to keep turning pages. At first, I thought it was
sort of selling out my vision of it by introducing elements that weren't totally
restricted to the island and reflective in tone.
But it worked wonderfully well!
Well, I stopped feeling that I had sold out. I initially expected to limit
it to just the island (but) if the story is to have the significance I wanted
it to carry — which is about transforming your life — then I would
have to show some of the rest of my life too, to show that transformation. So
I abandoned the idea of keeping it to one woman alone on an island.
That's a theme that seems to recur in many of your novels. In In Every Woman's
Life, Nora brings her friend Rosemary to her cottage in the country, and tries
to encourage her to spend time there alone, without her family, to have one month
of "solitary joyous work," but Rosemary responds, "I don't think I could stay
here all by myself. You must be very brave." Why do you think so many women are
afraid to live alone, or to be by themselves?
First of all, we have been trained from birth, practically, that our fulfillment
is in coupling, so we don't have experience of that as a goal, and if we do have
experience of being alone, for many of us, it's considered a failure, so there's
a negative emotion attached to it.
But even more than that, I think, is the fact that women have long been expected
to be dependent. Independence is a fairly recent goal for women. And because
of the disparity in economic powers between men and women, our economic vulnerability,
you could call it, which goes way back and hasn't been overcome, and our value
comes from serving other people, like children and family, being independent
is just not part of what we are raised to value. So, it's scary, because we don't
have the experience of it even in the imagination, or if we do have an image
of it, it's with a negative twist.
In at least two different points of Drinking the Rain, you talk about the
possibility for a major life transformation for both men and women at or around
age fifty. Do you have any advice for those approaching this birthday?
Certainly I think it's a time to look ahead, not to look back. Of course, you
can always look back — any amount of reflection is good. But I think that
the thing about fifty is — and sixty and forty — well, all the decade
markers seem to frighten women as if life is now going to be over. That's ridiculous.
We have been giving — through the changes of the last twenty years because
of the resurgence of feminism — we've been given opportunities to define
ourselves that women just hadn't had before — middle class women —
so that's one thing. But then the thing that's special about fifty as opposed
to some of the other decade markers, is that that's about the age many women
are suddenly no longer responsible for their families — their children are
grown, which was the case for me, and so that makes the opportunity for freedom
tremendous. I think that the thing to do is to see it as an opportunity —
and listen to your desire.
What have you learned at sixty that you didn't know at fifty?
Well, that I could finish this book. (Laughs) The older I get, the more I sense
— the more realistic I feel, I don't know, this is just a place on the continuum.
I find that it isn't so much the age, it's the experience of delving into myself
through the solitude I experienced on the island. I am much more relaxed that
I was when I was younger. When I was young, I always felt that I had no time,
that my life was going to be over before I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.
I also felt as if I could keep redefining my life in ways that made me a little
bit anxious when I was younger, that I ought to be doing something other than
what I was doing. That it was time for me to change what I was focused on. What
I have come to feel is that the life I have chosen is the proper life for me,
it's the appropriate life, it's a good life, and it's enough, and to sort of
be pleased with it, instead of discontented.
I'm not sure that what I'm saying is true, though. I've never been a discontented
sort of person. And part of what going to the island showed me is that it's never
too late to change your life completely if that's what you want. It feels to
me now that I could change many more times, and that's all fine, it's good. I've
learned that life is also full of sorrow, and that's just part of life; you just
have to accept that. I'm not as hard on myself as I used to be.
You mentioned the resurgence of feminism a moment ago. In Drinking the Rain,
you say that in the early 80s you felt the decline of the women's movement as
a personal loss, and a little later, you say you felt as though the women's movement
had fizzled. Do you still feel this is true, or do you seen any signs of hope
or resurgence of the women's movement?
I have to distinguish between feminism and the movement, because I certainly
don't feel as though feminism has fizzled. But the organized political movement
in which masses of women of all kinds and variety got together and worked consciously
and ardently for specific goals, and put in much political time and much political
energy — that is what I am calling the movement and that's the part that
has gone dormant.
In your novel Burning Questions, which chronicles the beginning of the women's
movement, one scene describes a parade of many different women's groups marching
down the street. What happened to all those people?
Well, those people are still there. Feminism as an ideal and as something that
we accept as our right — the equality of men and women you could say as
shorthand — has pervaded our society as a goal, as an ideal, as something
we have accepted. Not everybody, of course. We have a tremendous anti-feminist
right, which is a backlash against what we've accomplished, and you could say
that the degree of backlash is a measure of the degree of success. So, feminism
is very much alive in this country. It's just that the organized movement to
promote feminist goals is not very much alive. There are many people actively
working for one or another offshoot, but I don't feel the presence of a large,
organized movement.
Now shortly after the Anita Hill fiasco, there seemed to be a resurgence again
of organized feminism, and before the last election, I think, there was a lot
of activity. But that doesn't have the same force that it had when it was anew,
life-transforming idea for young people with a lot of energy in the late
60s, early 70s, when all those groups were formed. I don't know why.
In lieu of such an organized movement, are there ways that women can make
changes within themselves, within their communities? In particular, are there
ways that women can work together, to make the same kind of changes that we were
after in the beginning of the women's movement?
I don't think that it can happen on an individual basis. It has to be organized.
I don't think that there are individual ways of transforming the world. It's
true that when enough individuals have changed the way they think and have decided
that they want to see it in their lifetime, that's when you have a movement.
I always point to smoking as an example of how a transformation in consciousness
can, in fact, effect a great transformation in the way people behave. But that,
too, was accomplished with tremendous organized energy.
I think that changing the way you think has to come first or at least go hand-in-hand
with changing the way you behave. They're inextricably connected and an individual
can't do it along, can't change a society alone, not even a whole lot of individuals.
Because there are institutions in place which insure that inequalities persist.
And in order to overcome that kind of institutional injustice — sexism,
racism, homophobia — all of it, people have to get together and fight it,
and say, "No, we won't stand for it, we've got to change it." So, I really believe
strongly that it's a movement that will do it.
Kaye Gibbons || Ruth Rendell
|| Isabel Allende || Alix Kates Shulman
Terry
McMillan || Helen Caldicott || Doris
Lessing || Kate Clinton || Sara
Paretsky
|
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