Literature has more dogs than babies

August 5, 2016 7:01 AM

When I became pregnant four years ago, I was writing a book about 19th-century British poetry and war while teaching classes about the history of war literature. I began to think about the discrepancy between how we narrate these experiences. We have a rich, challenging, and complex canon of war literature...The same cannot be said about a literature of pregnancy or childbirth or parenting, though these are also extreme experiences that stretch our understanding and push us beyond comfort or even comprehension.

Lily Gurton-Wachter in the LARB:

So part of the problem is logistical, structural: how can you write about an experience that, by definition, prevents you from writing? How can you think about an experience that seems to prevent or frustrate thought? ...Galchen acknowledges the nascent genre of new motherhood, mentioning Manguso and Elena Ferrante, before concluding: “But among the mother writers of today probably two of the most celebrated are men: Karl Ove Knausgaard and, in his way, Louis C.K."

the new writers mentioned
Elisa Albert - After Birth
Eula Biss - On Immunity
Rivka Galchen - Little Labors
Sarah Manguso - Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
Maggie Nelson - The Argonauts
Rachel Cusk - A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother

posted by jebs (20 comments total)

Related:
- Well Fed: Breastfeeding in Literature [The Millions]
- Birth Stories: On Books About Having a Baby [The Millions]
posted by Fizz at 7:10 AM on August 5, 2016

I'll go ahead and say the obvious: through most of history, war has been man stuff, childbirth has been woman stuff, and literature has been written by and for men.
posted by splitpeasoup at 7:13 AM on August 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

There's also the extent to which literature-as-entertainment often involves things that are out of the ordinary, and up until recently, childbirth and parenting were just kind of expected.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:33 AM on August 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

in addition to the obvious, i think many war books (at the more literary end of the spectrum) are motivated by revulsion and horror. one would hope that children don't evoke the same response.
posted by andrewcooke at 7:47 AM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

The enemies of promise: the pram in the hall.
posted by Segundus at 7:50 AM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

We have a rich, challenging, and complex canon of war literature...The same cannot be said about a literature of pregnancy or childbirth or parenting, though these are also extreme experiences that stretch our understanding and push us beyond comfort or even comprehension

Another obvious point: we have (I should say, "the patriarchy has produced") a universe of "Literature" more focused on killing people than on making people. Similarly motion pictures; one could probably guesstimate with appropriate work the number of human beings killed in all (say) American films versus the number of people born (or otherwise created) in them, and I'm sure the relevant ratio would be unsurprising and simultaneously depressing (or not, depending on your preference with regard to the above activities). This is itself a direct consequence of the patriarchy ignoring/silencing women's voices/selves.

This is also one more reason why I despise all forms of "writing," and think that to commit a sentence is to commit a crime against all humanity. DOWN WITH "BOOKS"-!

No that last paragraph is stupid, because I am stupid, but it's true that we have more words in the so-called "canon of literature" about destroying life than making it. Just because I am a stupid person, doesn't mean I'm wrong about that. Sometimes even stupid people get things right. And that's why we should destroy all books.

No wait ... that was a stupid bit coming out again.

OK - what if I meet you halfway, and we destroy HALF of all books? Fair compromise, right! OK then, vote #1 quidnunc kid!
posted by the quidnunc kid at 8:11 AM on August 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Rachel Cusk's book, Shirley Radl's ("Mother's Day is Over"), and Maritt Ingman's ("Inconsolable") were so important to us in that wave of confusion over how children are supposed to be. It's not that there is not a literature of early childhood, it's that we've ceded all that territory to doctors and experts, so that everything is advice. When you're screaming "What do I do? What do I do?" inside your head, it sounds like a question, but it's not; it is a plea for sympathy, for understanding that you have been put in an impossible situation. Finding books that told that story, that impossibility, makes you feel so much more human.
posted by mittens at 8:11 AM on August 5, 2016 [23 favorites]

Gurton-Wachter writes a lot about erasure/obliteration/disintegration of the self. I wonder (as a father) if this is something mothers experience more than fathers? The condition of pregnancy itself would explain this feeling, I guess. Inasmuch as one's experiences and societal roles define one's sense of self, the same thing happens to a father: one's job, hobbies, and friends no longer become the primary identifiers. I became a father one spring day in 1992, and that changed everything.

Not all fathers feel this way: I understand that a certain 70-year old in the news a lot these days has never changed a diaper.

Bringing men up in this thread is not meant to derail or dismiss the primary subject of motherhood and pregnancy, it is to add a tangential and personal feeling; after all, I read the article because I am a father (and reader/writer). In the article, two men are mentioned in a quote Gurton-Wachter uses. Knausgaard and Louis C.K. are called--a little dismissively--"mother writers."
posted by kozad at 8:16 AM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I believe her because she's done all the research and scholarship, but I'm experiencing such a cognitive dissonance here because as a childless woman that always seemed to me that literature about pregnancy and motherhood was just freaking everywhere. I guess certain things just tend to stand out to individuals from certain perspectives. Like, if you're allergic to something you're probably more likely to be on the lookout for it wherever you look.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:55 AM on August 5, 2016 [10 favorites]

There are a lot of how-to books out there, but I don't see a lot of literature about the horrors of pregnancy and motherhood. I remember going to an "Alien" marathon when I was pregnant the first time, enjoying it, and getting a lot of criticism from elders in my family.
And I get it - I wouldn't at all badmouth a young mother watching Alien movies, but I can see how it is hard to talk about the bad sides of pregnancy and motherhood. My kids just feel really really hurt when they hear I wasn't 100% overjoyed when I was pregnant. And I love my kids.
For me, pregnancy was a regime of terror, which had the positive result that the actual babies were wonderful. I know so many other women for whom it was a nightmare to deal with babies and obviously that is the last taboo. Because of my own issues with pregnancy I get their thoughts 100%, but there is nowhere they can go.
I often think I should write about pregnancy and motherhood in a more critical format, but I just know how it would hurt my kids and I refrain. I imagine a lot of women feel the same.
posted by mumimor at 9:38 AM on August 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

A Life's Work was such an important read for me. Not because I agreed with every page but because it made me feel seen in a way I hadn't felt since I'd given birth. As my friends become moms I am planning to send it to each of them.
posted by town of cats at 9:41 AM on August 5, 2016

I believe her because she's done all the research and scholarship, but I'm experiencing such a cognitive dissonance here because as a childless woman that always seemed to me that literature about pregnancy and motherhood was just freaking everywhere.

It is everywhere in contemporary fiction, but it seems the inspiration for this article came while the author was teaching a class in war literature and writing about 19th century poetry, topics without a lot of babies.

One problem is that motherhood and babies are relegated to "women's fiction" and don't receive much critical attention. Going by book reviews and lit blogs, you'd think there are more unhappy young men in Brooklyn than there are babies in the world. I think some women writers might avoid the topic because they don't want to be known as writers of book club books.

Childless women of a certain age tend to disappear from literature, occasionally reappearing to threaten a marriage or poison someone.
posted by betweenthebars at 9:55 AM on August 5, 2016 [9 favorites]

betweenthebars you touch on a point I couldn't help but think about all through this wonderful piece:

It's comforting that motherhood is emerging in its often gory and depressing reality, as the trope of "never touch pen nor brush" Good Motherhood has been contributing to the oppression of women since the dawn of Western civilization. Once it becomes acceptable and, more importantly, understandable to all why some women may elect not to choose the self-erasure of motherhood, I think we will find that, as a society, we are thinking of women as people and not as Overpopulation Machines.

And always great to see the women of my alma mater challenging those pesky base assumptions.
posted by Mooseli at 10:08 AM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think everyone can agree that the lack of children in Western literature is a direct consequence of Billy Occam's razor-sharp advice to writers, non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate. I dimly recall that one of the heresiarchs of Uqbar had a similar maxim, but about sex-mirrors? I dunno. Anyway, that's why no-one reads Tolstoy anymore - save for that "languagehat" fellow and his disreputable ilk! - too many people, far too many names to remember. No, let's all vote #1 quidnunc kid and we'll get rid of ALL those damn books. Or all men. Or both!
posted by the quidnunc kid at 10:12 AM on August 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Not 19th century, but it's my understanding that the mostly-forgotten modernist writer Evelyn Scott wrote about pregancy, childbirth, and being a new mother (among other things) in her 1923 autobiographical novel Escapade.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 10:59 AM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I wrote my master's thesis on the utter dearth of pregnancy-related rituals in western monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). There are a small handful of blessings (that are often hella weak, not even up to the poetic standard of airplane blessings) and a small literature of folk rituals, but despite a wealth of Biblical resources (the Magnificat, just for starters!), pregnancy is almost totally absent from the celebrations of the total-life religions of the West for 3500 years, which is very discouraging. Women are brides, then disappear until they're at a naming ceremony/baptism/churching/etc. with a healthy baby. The part between briding and healthy babying is wholly elided, which is mind-boggling! It's one of the most profound, difficult, scary, life-changing things you can go through AND YOU KINDA NEED EMOTIONAL AND SPIRITUAL SUPPORT, and it just isn't there.

Alison Gopnik surveyed the literature on birth and children in philosophy, and found, for example, something like three lines of citations in the big encyclopedia of philosophy (Stanford's?) for birth and childrearing, and like 10 pages for angels on the head of a pin, and if we're trying to understand ourselves as humans, THE CHILDREARING PART WOULD SEEM IMPORTANT. But it's simply not something that's interested traditional philosophy, at all. It's viewed as frivolous. I mean, think about that -- the making and rearing of new humans is viewed as too silly to seriously contemplate in the discipline devoted to nothing but thinking about how humans human.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:14 PM on August 5, 2016 [30 favorites]

one would hope that children don't evoke the same response.

One could hope.
posted by hat_eater at 12:36 PM on August 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just bought After Birth. It's really good, fun, thought-provoking so far. Thanks for this post, I'll probably check out a few more of these.
posted by town of cats at 1:54 PM on August 5, 2016

Thanks for those other links, Fizz. I loved the Birth Stories one.
posted by apricot at 6:11 PM on August 5, 2016

in addition to the obvious, i think many war books (at the more literary end of the spectrum) are motivated by revulsion and horror. one would hope that children don't evoke the same response.

Maybe, but pregnancy and childbirth sure do.
posted by ostro at 9:17 PM on August 5, 2016 [3 favorites]