I consider every moment of my life spent unaware of the existence of novelist Tama Janowitz a complete and utter waste of consciousness. Were the whole realm of nature mine; that were a present far too small. Did you know about her? Why didn’t I know about her before this interview in Tablet? Were you keeping her from me for some reason? Were you saving telling me about her for my birthday? What possible reason could you have for keeping the two of us apart? Look at her. Look at her:
A Certain Age is a modern retelling of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. In Janowitz’s version, which begins at the Hamptons and ends on the wrong side of Houston Street, a woman’s life begins to devolve after a disastrous society weekend. Peyton Amberg is about a woman who achieves everything a modern, New York woman is supposed to want (a husband) but is left … wanting, in a modern rendering of Madame Bovary.
“All right; that’s moderately interesting,” I hear you say. “I’ll add that to my library list.” To you I say Read on:
Janowitz gives short shrift to egos (especially male egos) and takes economic reality seriously. Her books are Kryptonite to a certain kind of poseur, and at times scathing, which may explain their lack of appeal to the literary fiction set.
You have my attention. Reel me in:
Of the penis, Peyton of Peyton Ambergthinks sympathetically, “It must be awful to have that struggling hot chunk of meat between your legs, out of control, like having to lug a bratty child around all the time who at any minute might start thrashing for treats.”
I would build a city of pearl and onyx for Tama Janowitz with my own raw and useless hands, if she asked me to. Of course it must be awful. The placement of male genitalia is an obvious error in design! Why would anyone put their genitals on the outside of the body? Men, I trust you realize I mean no disrespect; you did not ask for this, but you must admit that “on the outside” is an absurd place for genitals to be.
Surely it is too much to ask, but — could this somehow be improved upon?
The next day, I followed Janowitz on her daily visit to her mother in the nursing home. Dressed for riding in beige jodhpurs, worn leather ankle boots, and a pink T-shirt, Janowitz looked rakish, a cross between a runaway orphan and a pirate.
I cannot ask for more. To ask would be an act of presumption and entitlement so great I could not bear to look myself in the eye. But Tama gives us more, gives freely and generously and with both hands.
“Saul Bellow was a good stylist, but his books for the most part didn’t hold interest in terms of characters or plot. But these men, they were so popular, who’s sitting around reading all of John Updike? Or Norman Mailer? Norman Mailer was not a great writer. These men are all like, swaggering around and getting front-page reviews.”
Please. Please, I whisper, half-choked in shock and in love, please insult more male novelists.
“Look at the lives of women writers. Look at Jean Rhys. She was critically accepted, except she had no readership. Barbara Pym, she turned 56 and they didn’t want to publish her books anymore. Olivia Manning wrote those brilliant books, she was always broke. I mean—women writers, unless it’s Danielle Steele, I don’t see any happiness for them.”
“But why?” I pressed.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. I mean, reading is not a huge thing for most people. But above and beyond that, you have male writers—from Hemingway to Styron, to Jonathan Franzen—there’s some sex drive thing. You can go to a reading of any of them and it’s all women—it’s a sex thing. The women are the readers and the admirers. Look in The New Yorker. All the articles are by men. And the reviewers who are women who review other women are vicious. Like, for no reason. The women who review men like the men, and the men like the men.”
“Women can be competitive,” I agreed and suggested this might be an effect of a patriarchal society. “They think there’s only room for one at the top.”
“Which is ridiculous,” she said, “because the top of Olympus is flat.”
Here lies Mallory E. Ortberg, onetime bloggist and erstwhile misanderer; slain gratefully by the only woman she ever loved.
[Image via Random House]
