The debate on censorship, explicit language and Alex Vella Gera rages on. And J’accuse still has much to add. At some point yesterday Alex Vella Gera’s status on Facebook read as follows:
“Kemm qed ituni f’ghajni dan-nies kollha li qed jikkundannaw il-ban ta’ Ir-Realta, imma fl-istess nifs qed jghidu kemm l-istorja tieghi hija bla sens u bla ebda merti, u anke hmieg papali. My artist’s ego is taking quite a beating :)”
(I can’t stand all the people who are condemning the ban of “Ir-Realtà” while at the same time they say that my story is senseless without merits and a very dirty. My artist’s ego is taking quite a beating.)
I am sure I detect more than a little hint of irony in Alex’s statement and I am sure that he is not all too miffed about the criticism his story is receiving. What I wanted to make clear was that my point in Sunday’s article was more concerned with the existence of censorship at University, and on a larger scale in an adult community, than with the qualities of Alex’s writing.
Of course this does not mean that there is not a huge opportunity for a debate within the debate – this time focusing on the value of literary provocation with the use of realistic images or wording that require the narrator to pepper the imagery with expletives and graphic detail best described as cringeworthy.
That cringe. That “put-me-down” feeling is a reaction many, including myself, might have felt when reading the piece. Is that not of itself of some satisfaction to the author? If it is provocation that he wanted then his piece worked. If it is a reflection on the crude reality of the way some men think (and I stress some – because it is all too easy for triumphant feminists to generalise at this moment of exposure) then again the reflective mode is triggered as of the first paragraph just before you put down the piece because you can take no more.
Alex’s gripe is understandable because some chose to rate the piece for its literary value. I stop at an evaluation of the provocation. It worked. The political animal in me is more intrigued with the futility of the ban than with the literary value of three pages of graphic detail.
Personally I could not help reflecting on what the reaction would be if a woman had written a similar piece. Would the whole “demeaning to women” argument have worked? It took me some time to remember that we are not re-inventing the wheel. I remembered a few friends mentioning Charlotte Roche’s “Wetlands”. The book, a huge success in Germany, is easily available on Amazon. Below I have included a link to an interview with the author (on Amazon) as well as link to a ten minute reading from the book. I guess that I should warn that the contents read out are not exactly mild and are only intended for a mature audience.
I know a few female friends who have read “Wetlands”. They all admit it is bizarrely graphic and often disgusting. They also all admit to have read it from cover to cover. Without putting it down. Does that answer the literary question of whether it is art or porn? Does it really?
Product description on Amazon:
With her jaunty dissection of the sex life and the private grooming habits of the novel’s 18-year-old narrator, Helen Memel, Charlotte Roche has turned the previously unspeakable into the national conversation in Germany. Since its debut in February, the novel (“Feuchtgebiete,” in German) has sold more than 680,000 copies, and is the biggest selling book on Amazon anywhere in the world. The book is a headlong dash through every crevice and byproduct, physical and psychological, of its narrator’s body and mind. It is difficult to overstate the raunchiness of the novel. Wetlands opens in a hospital room after an intimate shaving accident. It gives a detailed topography of Helen’s hemorrhoids, continues into the subject of anal intercourse and only gains momentum from there, eventually reaching avocado pits as objects of female sexual satisfaction and – here is where the debate kicks in – just possibly female empowerment. Clearly the novel has struck a nerve, catching a wave of popular interest in renewing the debate over women’s roles and image in society.
Interview with Charlotte Roche
Link to ten minute reading from book. (warning: explicit text)
22 replies on “Un-put-down-ability and Vaginas”
Hmmm, my intention was neither to provoke nor to make the reader cringe, and NEITHER to make him laugh. That’s just you people projecting your own reactions onto me, the writer, so as to find the intention behind the story, and in that way somehow justify your reactions vis a vis that assumed intention.
What I really intended when I sat down to write this ridiculously over hyped piece of fiction was to enter a character’s head, without censoring myself, without averting my eyes (and ears) (by the way, i’m not even remotely impressed by my own use of “crude” language), and without forcing myself to provide some sort of message, or rhyme and reason to the act of writing the story, in order to justify whatever language i decided to use (always in the service of realism, and truth). I allowed the story itself to decide if there was a message, and many people decided there was, and I’m happy with that, because the narrator of “Li tkisser sewwi”, is a person I would not like to be, not because he has sex with many women, but because he sees the world and his actions in it solely from the point of view of his “self”, like an animal in a way, self satisfaction being the only thing that motivates him, to the point that he hurts a woman he claims he loves.
Now, having said all that, my story is hardly the brilliant thing some people are making it out to be, but neither is it the “trash”, “filth”, “porn”, others are claiming. Largely because I take myself too seriously (one of my principle failings perhaps) to write trash, filth and porn. It would be a waste of time and energy.
Gakki, gejt tajjeb fir ritratt
…..u solidarjeta alex
this raises the question ‘what is art?’
any expression that exalts the ‘artist’s soul is art. It needs no endorsement nor acclaim. It just needs the author’s genuine pleasure or at least the author’s satisfaction.
@danny
Congratulations, you’ve come up with a textbook definition of the much-ridiculed “intentional fallacy.
Dear Fausto,
I feel that the substance in my comment has very little to do with Intentional Fallacy.
Intentional Fallacy presupposes that a work of art (esp a literary work) can be judged.
My opinion is that a work of art, as shared by an author, can never be judged but only emmm shared.
Poor response to van gogh’s work of art by his contemporaries did not make his work any poorer or richer.
That his style was discovered at a later date thanks to floods of Yen keen to secure non-religious European works of art, adds or detracts nothing from his works.
It is all about what he felt about his own works and the honest interaction of the works with the ‘inner eye’ of the person sharing.
Now should such an opinion be the cause of much ridicule, than you may want to tell me where to hide from the uncouth masses ;)
Interesting. It implies, amongst other things, that van Gogh’s works ceased to be works of art when he died — there’s no way he enjoyed “genuine pleasure” or “genuine satisfaction” did it?
And Roland Barthes is not exactly a member of the “uncouth masses”.
@Jacques
If it is provocation that he wanted then his piece worked.
Worked? I don’t get the impression Vella Gera is enjoying either the reaction of the police or his readers.
It implies nothing of the sort.
It may be nice to refer to a theory or to what an intellectual might or might not have said.
But unless this leads to an opinion, your opinion, my opinion, than what you say is relegated to the status of a spectator rather than a practitioner of life.
After my sprinkling of patronising twaddle, I will make another effort to explain what I think irrespective of whether what I think resembles what some other ‘moses’ ;) thinks…
a work of art is born when the person expressing such art think it is art because it produces, in the artist, “genuine pleasure” or “genuine satisfaction”
once it is born, that work of art lives on in itself and lives on until it lives and until it dies. It can easily live well beyond the life of the author.
the author decides to ‘share’ the work of art when the work of art is made ‘public’
a person wanting to share the work of art can not ‘judge’ the work, giving it points or rankings or the like. any judgment is only a reflection of how the work of art interacts with the inner eye of the person so sharing it.
@fausto
“Worked? I don’t get the impression Vella Gera is enjoying either the reaction of the police or his readers.”
Well the sentence I wrote reads: “If it is provocation that he wanted then his piece worked”
Whether VG enjoys it or not the point is that there was a reaction. IF (and that was my IF)he was looking to provoke, then it worked. If he does not enjoy the result of his provocation (which apparently he does not) is another issue.
See?
Fausto, you seem to have the knack of seeming to say very much but in reality saying nothing at all. Why? :D
What is your opinion on this case? You have posted three times but you haven’t expressed an opinion. Or are you waiting for Mr Gonzi to tell you what your opinion is?
If you read my comment at the very top, you’ll see that I said (and I meant it) that my aim was not to provoke. Doesn’t a person’s word count for anything?
Come on VG. You have just published a novel and then you start this enormous controversy which has generated you untold free media publicity? A coincidence? I don’t think so.
Please don’t play the innocent virgin. We can tell from your story that you are not so innocent. This was all planned from the very start. From day one.
I disagree with the banning because 1) censorship should only be allowed when it infringes on others freedom and 2) they have played right into your hands by starting this big controversy.
Well, you’re entitled to your opinion about my motives, i can’t change what you think. But I know more than anyone what goes on in my head, so I really don’t have anything to prove to you about whether I’m an innocent in this case or not. Yes I got publicity, but it’s pretty pointless publicity. It will be dead in a few days, weeks at most, like most things it’s a flash in the pan. And the vast amount of people who now know my name will not be buying any of my books, so in what way have I gained anything from this, except in that I have become notorious, which can be an albatross around my neck in the long run, especially if I address other (more important?) themes in my writing. My credibility may have been damaged.
Now give me some good reasons why I should be glad for what happened, except for the obvious free superficial publicity. I’m not a media whore. I’d rather a few people read my books and are touched or whatever by them, then a whole bunch of people who buy them simply because it may increase their cool quotient. Anyway, if they’re looking for more of the same, the books are going to disappoint them.
@avg of course I read your comment. It was written after I wrote my post which explains why my original sentence was hypothetical: IF he wanted to provoke THEN it worked. Your word counts but I am not a seer or prophet. I was replying to fausto with regard to the original statement.
@ brian cool it!
@brian
You want an opinion? Here goes: you ought to acquaint yourself with modal verbs. Otherwise you could be seen for the jackass you are.
I finally had the opportunity to read the celebrated piece. All I can say is brilliant! Most of its ingredients are superb. a fantastic and original ‘modern-day’ love-story oozing contrast, is technically pornographic, yet only mildly erotic, (only the sea-namrar scene came close to some semblance of eroticism), vivid imagery throughout, and above all, fantastically topical. The way it brings so effectively to the fore the crucial subject of sexual frustration within maltese partnerships…women’s natural instinct to use their sexuality as a bargaining tool at one extreme end of the issue, and how men’s instincts try unsuccessfully to crudely and vengfully to circumvent this lack of a critical mass of ‘mature’ women on the other even as love springs unsuspectingly on the man who is, in the circumstances, destined to lose out most of the time.
The a-sexual nature of maltese womanhood reverberates through dress code, movement, slouching, hair style etc etc …it’s all tease or cheese with nothing in between…
vivid imagery as i said, the only small weakness I find is that the various scenes do link up uncomfortably at times.
re censor issue – I can understand the rector’s uncomfortable quandary. he could perhaps have been bold enough to organise a discussion on say sexual relationships and love, discussed the issue of self-regulation and asked that copies should inform prospective readers that the edition included material of an explicit sexual nature.
Art? Most definitely. Police? tat-twerwir…
In the circumstances I suppose you mean abso-fucking-lutely brilliant.
Dear fausto,
how come you keep wanting to tell what others think or mean? i for one would love to know what you think and i promise to respect your opinion. the piece has much going for it. it deals with the way we live, with the effects of social change, the impact of feminism, what it feels like to live in malta, it makes powerful use of one type of use of the maltese lingo, it challenges the standard cloistered use of our language that dispatches most meaningful debate behind closed doors, it confronts a society that resists much-needed change, it has grit, a great story line, makes effective use of metaphors, has time for puns, images are both powerful and often occur spontaneously although as i had occasion to say, i find that images link uncomfortably at times, it keeps an innocent viewpoint sufficiently clear, it has layers of suggested meaning…most notably the situation that brings to mind a short poem by andrew sciberras, il-prostituta…b’ghaxar liri qaltli li nista naghmel kollox…minn barra inbusha…some/many prostitutes reserve kissing for their husbands or loved ones…the piece scores highly on four key types of prose…narrative, it is dramatic, very descriptive and humorous…hawaii is certainly not in the med, I take it to be a sweet touch of descriptive humor and not a lapsus on the part of the author… i can keep going on for ages yet it will be beyond the scope of this corner of debate. so perhaps you may want to give us your take on the piece. i for one will be all ears. regards.
Danny, I don’t know you, but thanks. Glad the story hit home with some people. I wish you’d offer your opinion to some of the University bigwigs quoted in this article:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091113/local/ksu-president-refuses-to-read-banned-story
hello alex. I would love to give you (plural) all the moral and or any other support I can. having said that, i have no illusions. We react to the aberrations we experience through this or that institution. It took me fifty years to realize that one common live wire runs through all these institutions. the wire was only temporarily short-circuited for a few years with dire consequences.
i suppose that what we basically want is to live in a ‘normal’ society. this wish appears deceptively easy to attain only to find that the roots run very deep and have no mercy unless you agree to surrender both your lips and your soul.
One can only live normally in malta by living within the confines of his soul. There they can never reach.
Danny
My opinion? I don’t rate it very highly especially seeing that I’m often “invited” to appreciate its “realism”. If that’s the case I can’t rate it higher than I would rate a rant on the same subject by an actual woman-hating brute.
Of course, the brute would mean every word he says and Vella-Gera doesn’t. But it’s the text we’re discussing not the author.
hello fausto,
i do find the realism aspect to be indeed fascinating. But to me it is but the backdrop to a robust and engaging multi-layered storyline that keeps unfolding even as i write these lines.
why does the main character make no reference to his mum? and who is the lad he addresses in the first line of the story? could easily write a thesis based on the first question…chapter one – truth or fiction?
thanks for your kind and candid opinion.