Tough Enough
Arbus, Arendt, Didion, McCarthy, Sontag, Weil
Deborah Nelson
- This
- book
- focuses
- on
- six
- brilliant
- women
- who
- are
- often
- seen
- as
- particularly
- tough-minded:
- Simone
- Weil,
- Hannah
- Arendt,
- Mary
- McCarthy,
- Susan
- Sontag,
- Diane
- Arbus,
- and
- Joan
- Didion.
- Aligned
- with
- no
- single
- tradition,
- they
- escape
- straightforward
- categories.
- Yet
- their
- work
- evinces
- an
- affinity
- of
- style
- and
- philosophical
- viewpoint
- that
- derives
- from
- a
- shared
- attitude
- toward
- suffering.
- What
- Mary
- McCarthy
- called
- a
- “cold
- eye”
- was
- not
- merely
- a
- personal
- aversion
- to
- displays
- of
- emotion:
- it
- was
- an
- unsentimental
- mode
- of
- attention
- that
- dictated
- both
- ethical
- positions
- and
- aesthetic
- approaches.Tough
- Enough
- traces
- the
- careers
- of
- these
- women
- and
- their
- challenges
- to
- the
- pre-eminence
- of
- empathy
- as
- the
- ethical
- posture
- from
- which
- to
- examine
- pain.
- Their
- writing
- and
- art
- reveal
- an
- adamant
- belief
- that
- the
- hurts
- of
- the
- world
- must
- be
- treated
- concretely,
- directly,
- and
- realistically,
- without
- recourse
- to
- either
- melodrama
- or
- callousness.
- As
- Deborah
- Nelson
- shows,
- this
- stance
- offers
- an
- important
- counter-tradition
- to
- the
- familiar
- postwar
- poles
- of
- emotional
- expressivity
- on
- the
- one
- hand
- and
- cool
- irony
- on
- the
- other.
- Ultimately,
- in
- its
- insistence
- on
- facing
- reality
- without
- consolation
- or
- compensation,
- this
- austere
- “school
- of
- the
- unsentimental”
- offers
- new
- ways
- to
- approach
- suffering
- in
- both
- its
- spectacular
- forms
- and
- all
- of
- its ordinariness.
pro-mbooks3 : libris
