Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  "To you, my Prince, completely!" she cried out. It was dreadful, and then, suddenly unable to control herself she said, "Please, please, my Prince, not in anger, no..." But instantly his left hand clamped over her mouth, and she felt another terrible torrent of hot spanks until her flesh was stinging and she couldn't control her crying. She could feel the Prince's fingers against her lips. But he would hardly be satisfied with this. He had her on her feet now and by her wrists he led her to a corner of the room between the blazing fire and the curtained window. There was a high stool there made of carved wood, and on this he sat while he stood her beside him. She was crying softly, but she dared not beg again, no matter what happened. He was angry, fiercely angry, and though she could endure any pain for his pleasure, this was unbearable for her. She must please him, must make him loving again, and then any pain at all would not be too much. He turned her and she stood facing him as he sat inspecting her. She dared not look him in the face, and then he drew back his cloak, and laying his hand on the golden buckle of his belt said, "Unfasten this." At once she went to obey, with her teeth without being told that was how she might do it. She hoped and prayed he would be pleased. She pulled on the leather, her breath soft and fast, and then pulled the strap back so that the belt came loose. "Now pull it off," said the Prince, "and give it to me." She obeyed at once, even though she knew what would follow. It was a thick, wide leather belt. Maybe it would be no worse than a paddle. Now he told her to raise her hands and her eyes, and she saw above a metal hook just over her head hanging from a chain on the ceiling. "You see here we are not without provisions for disobedient little slaves," he said in his usual gentle voice. "Now clasp that hook, though it will put you on tiptoe, and you will not dream of letting go of it, do you understand me?" "Yes, my Prince," she cried softly. She had hold of it, and it seemed to stretch her out, and the Prince moved back the stool on which he sat and appeared to make himself comfortable.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  ‘Like a lord at the table. Sir Montague Kipps . . .’ Choo spat on his own floor. Levi, for whom cleanliness had long superseded godliness, was repelled. He had to move position to where the phlegm was not in his sightline. ‘I know that guy,’ said Levi as he shuffled across the carpet. Choo laughed. ‘No, I do . . . I mean I don’t know him know him, but he’s this guy that . . . well, my pops hates his ass, he’s like, you even mention his name and he’s like – ’ Choo pointed his long forefinger right in Levi’s face. ‘If you know him, know this: that man is a liar and a thief. We know all about him, in our community, we follow his progress – writing his lies, claiming his glories. You rob the peasants of their art and it makes you a rich man! A rich man! Those artists died poor and hungry. They sold what they had for a few dollars out of desperation – they didn’t know! Poor and hungry ! I served him his wine – ’ Here Choo lifted his hand and pretended to pour out a glass, with a crude servile look on his face. ‘Don’t ever sell your soul, my brother. It isn’t worth twenty-two dollars. I was weeping inside. Don’t ever sell it for a few dollars. Everybody tries to buy the black man. Every body,’ he said, pounding the carpet with a fist, ‘tries to buy the black man. But he can’t be bought. His day is coming.’ ‘I hear you,’ confirmed Levi and, not wanting to be an ungrateful guest, took the joint that was, once again, offered to him. This same morning, in Wellington, Kiki also paid an unannounced call. ‘It’s Clotilde, isn’t it?’ The girl stood shivering, holding the door ajar. She gazed at Kiki  on beauty and being wrong vacantly. She was so slender Kiki could see her hip bones through her jeans. ‘I’m Kiki – Kiki Belsey? We met before.’ Now Clotilde opened the door a little wider and, upon recogniz-ing Kiki, became distressed. She gripped the door handle, twisting the plank of her upper body. She had no English words to convey her news. ‘ Oh . . . madame, oh, mon Dieu, Meeses Kipps – Vous ne le savez pas? Mme Kipps n’est plus ici . . . Vous comprenez? ’ ‘Sorry, I – ’ ‘ Meeses Kipps – elle a e´te´ très malade, et tout d’un coup elle est morte! Dead!’ ‘Oh, no, no, I know . . .’ said Kiki, fanning her hands up and down, putting out the fire of Clotilde’s anxiety. ‘Oh, God, I should have called ahead – yes, Clotilde, yes, I comprehend . . . I was at the funeral . . . no, it’s OK . . . honey, I just wondered whether Mister Kipps was here, Professor Kipps. Is he in?’

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  “What did you do with my thesis?” “This loud?” “Brian!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. It was no use. I went to my desk and sat there staring at the “display” he’d left. I wanted to kill him or myself. Instead I cried. Brian walked in. “Who do you think will go to heaven?” he asked. I didn’t answer. “Will Bach go? Will Milton go? Will Shakespeare go? Will Shakeswoof go? Will Saint Sebastian the Bastard go? Will Abelard the Gelding go? Will Sin-bad the Sailor go? Will Tinbad the Tailor go? Will Jinbad the Jailor go? Will Norman Mailer go? Will Whinbad the Whaler go? Will Finbad the Failer go? Will Rinbad the Railer go? Will Joyce go? Will James go? Will Dante go or has he been already? Will Homer go? Will Yeats go? Will Hardy go with a hard-on? Will Rabelais go with the Rabble? Will Villon go vilely? Will Raleigh go royally? Will Mozart go lightly? Will Mahler go heavily? Will El Greco go in a clap of lightning? Will the lightbulbs go?” I turned and looked at him. He was waving his arms wildly and jumping up and down. “The lightbulbs will go to heaven!” he shouted. “They will! They will!” “You’re driving me crazy!” I yelled in utter exasperation. “You’ll go to heaven!” he screamed, and then he grabbed my hand and started leading me toward the window. “Let’s go to heaven! Let’s go! Let’s go!” He threw open the window and leaned out. “Stop it!” I screamed hysterically. “I can’t stand this anymore!” and with that I began to shake him. He must have gotten really frightened because he put his hands around my throat and started choking me. “Shut up,” he yelled. “The police will come!” But I wasn’t screaming anymore. He tightened his grip. I started to black out. Why he let me go before he killed me, I’m not sure. Perhaps it was plain dumb luck on my part. I don’t know how to account for it. All I know is that when he finally let go, I was shaking all over and gasping for breath (and I remember later finding big blue bruises on my neck). I ran into the hall closet and sat there in the dark biting my knees and sobbing. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I gasped. And then somehow I collected myself and called my family doctor. He was in East Hampton. I called my mother’s psychiatrist. He was in Fire Island. I called my current psychiatrist. He was in Wellfleet. I called a friend of my sister Randy’s who was a psychiatric social worker. She told me to send for the police or a doctor—any doctor. Brian was psychotic, she said, and possibly dangerous. I was not to stay alone with him.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  But what should I say? What was the etiquette in a situation like this? “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” I said weakly. Pierre’s hands were under my nightgown, stroking my thighs. I wasn’t as unaroused as I wanted to pretend. “What isn’t a good idea?” he asked nonchalantly. “After all, it’s natural for a brother to love his little sister….” And he went on doing what comes naturally. “ What did you say?” I asked, sitting up. “Just that it’s perfectly natural for a brother to love his little sister….” He might have been Albert Ellis giving a lecture. “Pierre,” I said gently, “haven’t you ever read Lolita ?” “I can’t stand that phony prose style of his,” Pierre said, annoyed with me for distracting him. “But this is incest ,” I said emphatically. “Shhh—you’ll wake everyone…. Don’t worry, you won’t get pregnant. We’ll do it the Greek way, if you like….” “It wasn’t pregnancy I was worried about for God’s sake—it was incest!” My reasoning didn’t seem to make a dent in Pierre’s resolve. “Shhhh,” he said, pushing me down on the pillow. He was like some of the guys I’d met in Italy. If you resisted because you really weren’t interested, they thought it was fear of pregnancy and kept suggesting other alternatives—anal intercourse, sucking, mutual masturbation—anything except “NO.” Pierre inched up to the head of the bed and offered his erect penis to my mouth…. The showdown. A battle was raging within me. It would have been so damned easy to oblige. To suck him and be done with it. It was so simple really. What difference could one more blow job make to my life? “I can’t ,” I said. “Come on,” Pierre said, “I’ll teach you.” “I didn’t mean that. I meant I can’t; morally , I can’t…. ” “It’s easy,” he said. “I know it’s easy,” I said. “Here,” he said, “all you do is…” “Pierre!” I screamed. Pierre gathered his pajama bottoms around him and beat it out of the room. I sat there for a minute, the room reverberating with my scream, and waited to see what would happen. Nothing. The house was still. Then I reached for my bathrobe and slippers and went off in search of Lalah and Chloe. I was determined to get out of Lebanon as soon as possible. Leave the Middle East and never darken its door again. I picked my way down the little hill to the house where they were staying, nearly stumbling over rocks and roots of trees at every step. Gradually, my eyes became accustomed to the darkness and I could see the rooftops of Karkabi, dominated by the electricity tower. Civilization! In half the barns and pastures of Karkabi, boys were probably fucking sheep or their sisters at this very minute.

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Finally we rest on a bench near the Fontaine de l’Observatoire. We are happily stewed. We watch the great bronze horses rearing out of the fountain. I have that strange sense of invulnerability which alcohol gives and I feel that I am living in the midst of a romantic movie. I feel so relaxed and loose and giddy. New York is farther away than the moon. “Let’s find a hotel room and go to bed,” I say. Not a strong wave of lust, but just a friendly wish to consummate this romantic giddiness. We might try once more. Just one perfect fuck to remember him by. All our attempts have been somehow disappointing. It seems such a shame that we’ve been together all this time and have risked so much for so little. Or maybe that’s the whole point? “No,” says Adrian, “we haven’t time.” “What do you mean we haven’t time?” “I’ll have to set out tonight if I expect to get to Cherbourg tomorrow morning.” “ Why do you have to get to Cherbourg tomorrow morning?” Something horrible is beginning to dawn through the alcoholic euphoria. “To meet Esther and the children.” “Are you kidding?” “No, I’m not kidding.” He looks at his watch. “They’ll be leaving London about now, I expect. We’re supposed to have a little holiday in Brittany.” I stare at him, calmly consulting his watch. The enormity of his betrayal leaves me speechless. Here I am—drunk, unwashed, not even knowing what day it is—and he’s keeping track of an appointment he made over a month ago. “You mean you’ve known this all along?” He nods. “And you let me think we were just being existentialists while you knew all along you had to meet Esther on a certain day?” “Well—have it your way. It wasn’t as evilly planned as you seem to think.” “Then what was it? How could you let me think we were both just wandering where the whim took us—when all along you had an appointment with Esther?” “It was your reshuffle, ducks, not mine. I never said I was going to reshuffle my life to keep you company.” I felt like I’d been socked in the jaw. It was like being six and having your bicycle smashed by your supposed best friend. It was the worst betrayal I could think of. “You mean you sat there the whole time talking about freedom and unpredictability and you knew you had plans to meet Esther? I’ve never met such a hypocrite!” Adrian began laughing. “What’s so goddamned funny?” “Your fury.” “I’d like to kill you,” I screamed. “I’ll bet you would.” And with that I began swinging at him and pummeling him.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Claire laughed. ‘Jack, Zora Belsey couldn’t write a poem if Emily Dickinson herself rolled out of her grave, put a gun to the girl’s head and demanded one. She’s simply untalented in this area. She refuses to read poetry – and all I get from her are pages from her journal aligned down the left-hand margin. I’ve got a hundred and twenty talented students applying for eighteen places.’ ‘She is in the top three percentile of this college.’ ‘Oh, I really couldn’t give a crap. My class rewards talent . I’m not teaching molecular biology, Jack. I’m trying to refine and polish a . . . a sensibility . I’m telling you: she doesn’t have one. She has arguments. That’s not the same thing.’ ‘She believes,’ said Jack, using his deepest, most presidential, commencement day timbre, ‘that she is being kept from this class for . . . personal reasons that are outside the proper context of academic or creative assessment.’ ‘ What? What are you talking about, Jack? You’re talking to me like a management manual? This is insane.’ ‘I’m afraid she went as far to intimate that she believed this was a ‘‘vendetta’’. An inappropriate vendetta.’ Claire was quiet for a minute. She too had spent much time in universities. She understood the power of the inappropriate. ‘She said that? Are you serious? Oh, no, this is such a crock, Jack. Do I have a vendetta against the other hundred kids who didn’t get in the class this semester? Is this serious ?’ ‘She seems willing to take the matter on to the advisory board. As a case of personal prejudice, if I understand her correctly. She  the anatomy lesson would be referring, of course, to your relations . . .’ said Jack, and allowed his ellipsis to do the rest. ‘What a piece of work!’ ‘I think this is serious, Claire. I wouldn’t bring it to your attention if I thought otherwise.’ ‘But Jack . . . the class has already been posted. What’s it going to look like when Zora Belsey’s name is added at the last minute?’ ‘I think a minor embarrassment now is worth a far larger, possibly costly embarrassment further down the line before the advisory board – or even in court.’ Every now and then Jack French could be admirably succinct. Claire stood up. She was so tiny that even standing she was only just the equal to Jack’s reclining pose. But her small proportions bore no relation to the force of Claire Malcolm’s personality, as Jack well knew. He drew his head back a little in preparation for the assault. ‘What happened to supporting the faculty, Jack? What happened to privileging the decision of a respected faculty member over the demands of a student with a pretty glaring chip on their shoulder? Is that our policy now? Every time they cry wolf we run screaming?’

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  After Thanksgiving the press breaks a top secret: Bush boarded Air Force One carrying a big hand-painted plastic turkey, flew to Iraq in the middle of the war, posed for photos with our troops and the turkey, and flew back to Washington—all at taxpayers’ expense. Who was that student? How did he know? • While traveling in Georgia, I see lawn signs for the reelection campaign of Max Cleland, a much-admired U.S. senator and a war hero who lost both legs and one arm to a grenade in Vietnam. I’m in Atlanta again in 2002 and see TV ads that call him unpatriotic, and compare him to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The excuse is only his vote against two of many antiterrorism measures. This is a Joe McCarthy–type Big Lie. Veterans in both parties protest the ad, and eventually it is removed. Still, its very extremity has created doubt in a where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire way. Cleland is defeated. A year later, I see this successful tactic rolled out nationally against U.S. senator John Kerry, also a Vietnam War hero, who is running for president. Television ads feature veterans who deny his heroism as a Swift boat captain. Though the charges are later disproved, they contribute to Kerry’s defeat. Swiftboating enters the English language as a verb that means attacking strength instead of weakness. In feminist and other social justice contexts, this has long been called trashing, attacking leaders for daring to write, speak, or lead at all.3 Taking away the good is even more lethal than pointing out the bad. • In the presidential election of 2008, a banner year for Surrealism in Everyday Life, right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh opposes the Democratic candidacy of Hillary Clinton. He accuses her of wearing pantsuits to conceal “bad” legs. Instead, he supports Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential candidate because she wears skirts to reveal “good” legs. Actually, Republicans have nominated Palin at the last minute to pick up some votes from disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters. This makes no sense. Palin opposes reproductive freedom and most other majority needs of women, enjoys shooting animals from helicopters, and has always earned more support from white male voters than from diverse female voters. Her selection is the biggest political mistake since the first President Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, expecting to get more votes from African Americans. Surrealism is the triumph of form over content. • For serial surrealism, nothing beats right-wing and religious efforts to confer legal personhood on fertilized eggs. This would nationalize women’s bodies throughout their childbearing years. Not surprisingly, the Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has failed, but many state and local tactics are succeeding, from bombing clinics and murdering doctors in the name of “pro-life,” to denying birth control as a part of health insurance, and closing clinics with impossible building regulations imposed by antichoice state legislatures. Over time, I’ve also noticed that local pickets of clinics often personify this surrealism.

• From Querelle (1953)

  No doubt the Lieutenant cracked a joke now and again, but with a restraint that indicated the timidity or the haughtiness behind which Querelle guessed at the existence of a violent, unadmitted desire. Querelle knew himself to be the lighthearted and audacious half of the relationship. Even if the officer had not shown any timidity, the crewman would have openly despised him. First because he knew the officer's love placed him at his mercy, and secondly because the officer wanted that love to remain hidden. In Quereile's case, cynicism was possible. But Gil was defenseless, faced with the cynicism of Theo, who spoke the mason's jargon, liked heavy practical jokes, was unafraid of proclaiming his interest in buggery and did not have to fear being given the sack because of it. Though Thea had decided to pay for a drink now and again, Gil sensed very clearly that he would never sheii out a sou for his favors. What finally reinforced the mason's power over him was that friendship-however casual-which had developed during the first month. The more clearly he realized that the friendship was not leading anywhere, and that it would never lead to the goal he had envisaged, the more venomous Theo became. He refused to believe that he had been wasting his time and trouble and consoled himself by trying to believe that he had in fact created the association with the very intention of bringing about those tortures Gil was now undergoing. He hated Gil, hated him all the more because he could see no reason for hating him, only reasons for making him suffer. Gil hated Theo for having gained such a strong upper hand. One evening when, on coming out of the bistro, Thea had offhandedly patted his ass, Gil had restrained himself from punching him. "Well, he just bought me a drink,'' he thought. He was content to merely push Theo's hand away, but with a 106 I JEAN GENET smile, as if it had been a joke. Over the next few days, almost unconsciously, feeling the mason's desire thickening around him, he let himself go to the extent of some coquettish gestures. He simply exaggerated his natural allure. He was stroliing about the yards bared to the waist, he thrust out his chest, he pushed his cap a bit farther back on his head to let more of his hair show, and when he then saw Thea's eyes devouring each one of these pointed routines-he smiled. Not long after, Thea repeated his advances. Without appearing visibly annoyed Gil declared that he did not go for that sort of thing . .. I'd like us to be buddies, for sure. But I won't put up with any of that other shit."

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Petersburg Times headlined, “Gloria’s Beauty Belies Her Purpose.”9 It took me a few years to figure out this sudden change in response to the same person. I was being measured against the expectation that any feminist had to be unattractive in a conventional sense—and then described in contrast to that stereotype. The subtext was: If you could get a man, why would you need equal pay? This grew into an accusation that I was listened to only because of how I looked, and a corollary that the media had created me. Though I’d been a freelance writer all my professional life without being told that my appearance was the reason I got published, it now became the explanation for everything, no matter how hard I worked. Never mind that the opposite was sometimes the case, as when my literary agent had sent me to an editor at a major national magazine, who dismissed me by saying, “We don’t want a pretty girl—we want a writer.” The idea that whatever I had accomplished was all about looks would remain a biased and hurtful accusation even into my old age. Fortunately, traveling and speaking took me to audiences full of down-home common sense. When a reporter raised the question of my looks as more important than anything I could possibly have to say, for example, an older woman rose in the audience. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said to me comfortingly, “it’s important for someone who could play the game—and win—to say: ‘The game isn’t worth shit.’ ” I also learned from my speaking partners. When we were in the South especially, some man in the audience might assume that a black woman and a white woman traveling together must be lesbians. Florynce Kennedy modeled the perfect response: “Are you my alternative?” If someone called me a lesbian—in those days all single feminists were assumed to be lesbians—I learned just to say, “Thank you.” It disclosed nothing, confused the accuser, conveyed solidarity with women who were lesbians, and made the audience laugh. I also came to appreciate this two-way understanding that happens only when we’re all in the same space. It gradually made me less reluctant to go out on my own. Nervousness might still return, like malaria, but mostly I’d learned that audiences turn into partners if you just listen to them as much as you talk. After I joined with a group of writers and editors to start Ms. magazine, I was traveling not only for stories, but also to sell ads to reluctant makers of cars who were convinced that men made that buying decision; to explain to makers of women’s products why Ms. didn’t publish fashion, beauty, or cooking articles that praised and promoted the products of advertisers; and to persuade newsstand dealers to carry a new kind of women’s magazine whose cover looked nothing like the others.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  This former inmate at a Texas prison recognized one of the military guards, who had worked at the prison before joining the military. As a former inmate, he wanted George W. Bush, governor of Texas at the time, to be held accountable for privatizing twenty-six prisons in that state alone. It doesn’t take long to discover the main engine behind this profit-making motive: the American Legislative Exchange Council—a center of corporate political activism that also opposes tax increases and environmental protections—writes legislation and lobbies for the privatization of prisons. It has helped to elect about 30 percent of all our state legislators. If today’s graduating university students indentured by debt want to find a cause, they can look at most state legislatures, where tax dollars that should go into state universities are put into building and running government-owned prisons for profit. Prison privatization is our fault, too, as citizens and voters. Most Americans don’t know who their state legislators are. We may not know how much of our tax money is going into private profit. Even telephone companies routinely charge more for calls to and from prison, and prisoners and their families have to pay. In New York City, the amount spent on housing, feeding, and guarding one person in prison for a year could pay tuition at Harvard for more than three years.7 We can get to know and lobby our state legislators or anybody who holds the keys. Send books to prison libraries. Find a link to a person or activity there. Visit somebody who needs visitors. Advocate for the wrongly convicted. It’s a lot easier to break through the secrecy from the outside than it is from the inside. Though now we are finally hearing the phrase mass incarceration, it’s easy to miss the complicated realities behind it. I never would have known were it not for accidental chances to listen to past and present prisoners. For me, this secret prison world began to surface when Ms. magazine sent a few free subscriptions to women’s prisons in the late 1970s, and then gave birth to a full-blown prison and shelter program. Letters, stories, and poems came back. Women in prison wanted us to know they needed a movement, too. Then women who had been in prison began to turn up at feminist meetings and conferences, on campuses, at YWCAs, anywhere. A few said they had felt safer in prison than they did on the outside—a tragedy in itself. Most talked about the absence of their children, privacy, sunshine, trust, toilet paper, and their own clothes. Some had been denied a self-defense plea, or been preyed upon sexually by male guards, or been punished permanently by losing custody of children. A few had been shackled even while giving birth. Others had families who were too far away to visit—a gendered punishment in itself, since states may have only one women’s prison, and a federal prison might be even farther away.

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  You wear your resolve like armor and it doesn’t take long for you to get a chance to put your plan into action. You are leaving the store, a plastic bag of groceries dangling from each hand, when a man walking behind you says, “Hey hey hey! You are beautiful.” You stop walking and he passes you. It’s now or never. You say, “Can I talk to you for a second?” He stops to face you, about three feet away. “Why did you say that to me?” Instead of answering, he just tries his line again: “Hey beautiful girl!” “Can I tell you something?” He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t move away. He seems confused, like when you push a floor button on an elevator and the doors don’t close, so you just keep pressing it. Why aren’t you shutting up? This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. You say, “When you say that to me, I don’t feel flattered. I don’t even feel angry, honestly. I feel afraid. Did you know that?” “Why? Why are you afraid? Afraid of me?” “Yes,” you say. “When men like you yell stuff at me on the street, I am afraid that you will hurt me.” “Oh, I’m scary. Is that what you’re saying?” Now, he moves. He takes a big step toward you and, damn it, you flinch. You say, “Yes,” trying to plate the word in steel but it crumbles in your larynx like tinfoil. You start walking to your car. He follows you the whole way, shouting, “Now I’m scaring you, huh? Now you’re afraid of me!” He’s right. He is scaring you. You are afraid. But there’s something new, too. Before this, you really thought maybe these guys just didn’t know how their comments made people feel. You thought maybe they were trying to be nice. But now you know the truth—they know it makes you feel frightened. They like it. There’s still fear, yes, but now there’s anger, too. So much anger that it boxes out some of your fear. The next time you yell back to the man yelling at you, it’s easier. And the time after that is easier still. Now the responses roll off your tongue like perfect round stones. You’ve worried them in your mind and in your mouth until they are smooth as glass: “Why would you say that to me?” “That is an offensive thing to say.” “It’s hurtful to talk to women like that.” “You should never say that again.” Your prize for all this effort is a small thing, but you cherish it. It is the astonishment on your harasser’s face. Sometimes he even mutters a flimsy “Sorry” before he hurries away from you. He doesn’t want a conversation. He’s not shouting at you as a method of engagement; he’s just testing something out. He needs to fumble around for his power in the dark, like a totem he carries in his pocket. He wants to make sure it’s still there.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Oh, they’re merry-making. Really, you should join them. You would be interested.” “_Allons, c’est curieux_.” “You go, you go, you’ll find the way to the mill!” cried Levin, and looking round he perceived with satisfaction that Veslovsky, bent and stumbling with weariness, holding his gun out at arm’s length, was making his way out of the marsh towards the peasants. “You come too!” the peasants shouted to Levin. “Never fear! You taste our cake!” Levin felt a strong inclination to drink a little vodka and to eat some bread. He was exhausted, and felt it a great effort to drag his staggering legs out of the mire, and for a minute he hesitated. But Laska was setting. And immediately all his weariness vanished, and he walked lightly through the swamp towards the dog. A snipe flew up at his feet; he fired and killed it. Laska still pointed.—“Fetch it!” Another bird flew up close to the dog. Levin fired. But it was an unlucky day for him; he missed it, and when he went to look for the one he had shot, he could not find that either. He wandered all about the reeds, but Laska did not believe he had shot it, and when he sent her to find it, she pretended to hunt for it, but did not really. And in the absence of Vassenka, on whom Levin threw the blame of his failure, things went no better. There were plenty of snipe still, but Levin made one miss after another. The slanting rays of the sun were still hot; his clothes, soaked through with perspiration, stuck to his body; his left boot full of water weighed heavily on his leg and squeaked at every step; the sweat ran in drops down his powder-grimed face, his mouth was full of the bitter taste, his nose of the smell of powder and stagnant water, his ears were ringing with the incessant whir of the snipe; he could not touch the stock of his gun, it was so hot; his heart beat with short, rapid throbs; his hands shook with excitement, and his weary legs stumbled and staggered over the hillocks and in the swamp, but still he walked on and still he shot. At last, after a disgraceful miss, he flung his gun and his hat on the ground. “No, I must control myself,” he said to himself. Picking up his gun and his hat, he called Laska, and went out of the swamp. When he got on to dry ground he sat down, pulled off his boot and emptied it, then walked to the marsh, drank some stagnant-tasting water, moistened his burning hot gun, and washed his face and hands. Feeling refreshed, he went back to the spot where a snipe had settled, firmly resolved to keep cool.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “But in Christian societies and among us, as far as I’m aware, divorce is allowed,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Divorce is sanctioned even by our church. And we see....” “It is allowed, but not in the sense....” “Alexey Alexandrovitch, you are not like yourself,” said Oblonsky, after a brief pause. “Wasn’t it you (and didn’t we all appreciate it in you?) who forgave everything, and moved simply by Christian feeling was ready to make any sacrifice? You said yourself: if a man take thy coat, give him thy cloak also, and now....” “I beg,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch shrilly, getting suddenly onto his feet, his face white and his jaws twitching, “I beg you to drop this ... to drop ... this subject!” “Oh, no! Oh, forgive me, forgive me if I have wounded you,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, holding out his hand with a smile of embarrassment; “but like a messenger I have simply performed the commission given me.” Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, pondered a little, and said: “I must think it over and seek for guidance. The day after tomorrow I will give you a final answer,” he said, after considering a moment. Chapter 19 Stepan Arkadyevitch was about to go away when Korney came in to announce: “Sergey Alexyevitch!” “Who’s Sergey Alexyevitch?” Stepan Arkadyevitch was beginning, but he remembered immediately. “Ah, Seryozha!” he said aloud. “Sergey Alexyevitch! I thought it was the director of a department. Anna asked me to see him too,” he thought. And he recalled the timid, piteous expression with which Anna had said to him at parting: “Anyway, you will see him. Find out exactly where he is, who is looking after him. And Stiva ... if it were possible! Could it be possible?” Stepan Arkadyevitch knew what was meant by that “if it were possible,”—if it were possible to arrange the divorce so as to let her have her son.... Stepan Arkadyevitch saw now that it was no good to dream of that, but still he was glad to see his nephew. Alexey Alexandrovitch reminded his brother-in-law that they never spoke to the boy of his mother, and he begged him not to mention a single word about her. “He was very ill after that interview with his mother, which we had not foreseen,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Indeed, we feared for his life. But with rational treatment, and sea-bathing in the summer, he regained his strength, and now, by the doctor’s advice, I have let him go to school. And certainly the companionship of school has had a good effect on him, and he is perfectly well, and making good progress.”

• From Querelle (1953)

  the course of action he had initiated, he would lose his special standing as a cop. All Querelle saw in him was a cop trying to spy on him. With a shrewdness he wasn't quite conscious of, Querelle decided to counter any suspicions of smuggling, or even theft (the only ones this cop might have come up with while visiting La Feria, maybe one of the girls had been gossiping ) , by piling on the most tragic elements. He had to make the most out of this one simple opportunity, in order to hide the murder-the idea of which, however fleetingly, always is on a cop's mind. He had to provoke the detective in the lower regions, then to defend himself with bravura. Thus Querelle started out by appearing vulnerable in a certain way. He engaged Mario's attention by a thousand pyrotechnics: in the tone of his voice, the clenching of his jaws, his dark look, the furrows on his face. "Well . . . Would you explain that?" Mario could have restored peace by simply saying something along the lines of "I just wanted to know if you had any goodies for me," but the strength he sensed in Querelle communicated itself to him and gave him, if no greater degree of physical vigor, more courage and a greater sense of purpose. Querelle's attitude, frightening in its unexpectedness, his resolute "cool" bespoke a manliness Mario welcomed, and fervently, as it prevented him from just fading away on some noncommittal note of retreat. Querelle reinforced the cop in him. Looking Querelle straight in the eye, the sparks flying off his voice to mingle with those that had issued out of Querelle's mouth and �till hung in the air (as it were) , Mario gave an answer: . "I said what I said." There was no immediate reaction to that from Querelle. Tight-lipped he stood there, breathing heavily through his nose, making the nostrils quiver. Mario thought how wonderful it would be to stick one's prick into such an angry tiger. Querelle allowed himself a few seconds to scrutinize Mario, to hate him a little more, and to limber up his physical and moral muscles 195 I QUERELLE ,.. before the real fight. It was necessary, he knew, to concentrate all his energy on this incident, caused by a suspicion that he was a thief or a smuggler, so that any idea of his being a real crimi· nal would expire of its own accord, for lack of sustenance, the other one's energy having been used up on those other, boring ideas. He parted his lips and the wind rushed in with torrential strength, \Vith the plenitude and cylindrical exactitude of a nice large·caliber prick. "Is that so." C4Yeah." Querelle's stare poked Mario in the eyes like the spoke of an umbrella : "If that's all right with you, maybe you can step outside. I've got to talk to you." "Sure, let's go."

• From Querelle (1953)

  272 I JEAN GENET Now he was the center of attraction for a gathering of young men, all of them ready to smash his face in. Without moving his feet, Querelle made a slow tum. He understood the danger ous mood the boys were obviously in. For a moment he thought of calling some sailors to his aid, but there were none in sight. The men were insulting, menacing him. One of them pushed him: "You goddamn swine! To hit a girl like that! If you've got any balls ... " "Take care, you· guys, he's got a knife." Querelle looked at them. The alcohol in his blood dramat�ed his self-image, magnified the danger he was running. The crowd hesitated. There wasn't one woman in it who did not wish such a beautiful monster to be struck to the ground by the fist of one of the men, then torn and trampled to pieces, thus wreaking vengeance on her behalf, because she couldn't be his well beloved mistress, protected by his arms, his body; yet she knew that he had to be the winner, after all, being so simply pro tected by his beauty. Querelle knew that his stare was positively fiery. Small flecks of frothy spittle appeared at the comers of his mouth. Through the enormous and transparent face of Lieu tenant Seblon-who had returned, having parted from his companion-he saw dawn-light appearing on one spot on the globe, then saw it fade, rejoin other auroras, each one born in the spot where he had hidden part of the fruits of his murders and his thefts; yet he was still watch ing out for any threatening or fearful reactions from the crowd. "Don't be an idiot. Come along." The Lieutenant had pushed his way through the crowd and put his hand on Querelle's arm-gently, like a friend. Neverthe less he thought he would ·have to punish the sailor for getting so drunk. Not that he believed himself responsible for the good conduct of the Navy-in a situation like th is, he thought, right conduct consisted in facing up to a fight-but he wanted to make evident the spiritual power of his gold braid, this desire reinforced by a fear that order (and thus, truth itself) had been

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  But by the time of Bush II, none of those earlier candidates could have made it past Republican primaries inundated with busloads of voters from about thirty thousand fundamentalist churches plus other white ultraconservatives, many of whom had been Democrats before that party got “too inclusive” of black, brown, and female human beings. Nor could any remaining liberal or centrist Republicans run on a right-wing national platform shaped by the likes of Senator Jesse Helms, the famously racist and formerly Democratic senator from North Carolina, who long opposed sanctions against apartheid South Africa. He had been among the first to abandon the Democratic Party and become a Republican, out of anger at the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Certainly, President Eisenhower, who had warned against the military-industrial complex, would have had no place in the party anymore. Slowly, control of the Republican platform and most primaries was taken over by economic and religious interests that opposed efforts to increase equality by race, sex, class, or sexuality.3 They would become more entrenched in opposition to the Clinton era, and more still in the Obama one. A right-wing and supposedly populist group called the Tea Party—supported by such rich hyperconservatives as the Koch brothers—would make the Republican Party so extreme that much of its platform wouldn’t have been supported in public opinion polls by most Republicans. This in turn encouraged some Democrats to become more money-hungry and cautious in the name of winning. I would watch as Republican women especially—who once could say that their party was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and was as good or better on equality than the Democrats—swelled the ranks of independents, or quit politics, or were turned off by Democratic women who condemned them for ever having been Republicans. When I was campaigning on the road and meeting with Republican or independent women, what I tried to say was: You didn’t leave your party. Your party left you. Forget about party labels. Just vote on the issues and for candidates who support equality. II.If I was already hooked on politics and campaigning before Bella Abzug’s 1970 campaign for Congress, I was mainlining after it. Bella was the first woman I campaigned for. Smart, brave, and larger than life, a one-woman movement, she dared to run for Congress from Manhattan at a time when many feminists were still demonstrating against Congress. We had first met in the mid-1960s at an anti–Vietnam War demonstration outside the Pentagon, and I had been put off by her brashness. I’d never seen a female human so free of any need to be ladylike. Then, when we were both volunteering in the 1965 New York mayoralty campaign of John Lindsay, I saw her warmth, kindness, and political skill. Gradually, it dawned on me that my first response had been my problem, not hers.

• From Querelle (1953)

  7l I JEAN GENET his anger at finding himself defied, he came close enough to Querelle to touch him with the whole of his body, from brow to knee. Quere11e stood his ground. In a still deeper voice, Norbert went on, impassively: "And I think that's enough of that. Don't you? It wasn't me who asked you. Get ready." That was a command such as Querelle had never before received. It came from no recognized, conventional and de tached authority, but from an imperative that had issued from within himself. His own strength and vitalit y were ordering him to bend over. He felt like punching Norbert in the mouth. The muscles of his body, of his arms, thighs, calves were ready for action, contracted, flexed, taut, almost on tiptoes. Speaking right into Norbert's teeth, into his very breath, Querelle said: "Man, you're mistaken. It's your old lady I was after." "And what else is new." Norbert grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to swing him around. Querelle wanted to push him away, but his pants had star_ted gravitating toward hi� ankles. To retain them, he opened his legs a bit wider. They glared at each other. The sailor knew he was the stronger one, even in spite of Norbert's athletic build. Nevertheless he yanked up his pants and stepped back a pace . He relaxed his face muscles, raised his eyebrows, frowned a little, then shook his head lightly, to indicate resignation: "All right," he said. Both men, still facing each other, relaxed and simultaneously put their hands behind their backs. This perfectly synchronized double gesture surprised both of them. There was an element of understanding, there. Querelle grinned, looking pleased. "So you've been a sailor." Norbert snorted, then answered, testily, in a voice still some what shaken by anger: "Zephir." Querelle was struck by the exceptional quality of the man's voice. It was solid. It was, at one and· the same time, a marble

• From Querelle (1953)

  109 I QUERELLE was the most remote, the subtle st, yet the most powerful (as it could travel such distances), the most disturbing of all the vibrations emitted by that artful apparatus situated be tween the thighs. He imagined that he was pressing up close against her, hugging and kissing her. Quite promptly the image . of Thea intervened, and Gil suspended his reverie well on its way to fulfill ment in order to fill up on hatred of the mason. As a consequence, his erection \viltcd a little. He wanted to banish all notions of the mason, whom he now sensed standing right behind him, cares sing his buttocks with a huge rod, twice as fat as his own. "Me, I'm a man," he n1uttercd into the fog. "I shove it up other guys! I'll screw you too!" In vain he tried to compose an image of a Thea whom he was buggering� He got as far as i1nagining the mason's dusty, unbuttoned garments, his pants down, his shirt tucked up, but that was all. To make his happiness tot al, his pleasure certain, he would have had to visual ize in detail, and gloating over that detail, Thea's face and buttocks: but, finding it impossible to imagine them anything but (as indeed they were) bearded and hairy, the vision of the face and downy back of another male int ervened: it was Roger. \Vhen he realized this, Gil knew that he would enjoy a surfeit of pleasure. He he ld fast to the image of the boy, which had blotted out the mason's. With violence, thinking he would like to address Thea in such terms, and no doubt also enraged and desperate at finding that he was inevi tably going to bugger the young one, he cried: "Come on, stick it out! Let me stuff it right up your ass, you little heifer you! Hurry up, no messing around!" He was holding Roger from behind. And he heard himself sing, in that jumble of glasses and broken bottles : uHe was a happy bandit, Nothing did he fear . . ."

• From Querelle (1953)

  sailor, and that lighter, so it said in the newspapers, belonged to Gilbert Turko_. This discovery of a dangerous detail exalted him as if it had suddenly tuned him in to the entire universe. It was the point of contact permitting him to re-do his deed in reverse-thus, to undo it-but, from that detail on, to cut it into pieces, with noisy and radiant gestures, so that the entire unraveled act would C?nly concern God or some other witness and judge, any longer. In that deed he discerned the presence of the powers of Hell, and yet, already, mustered against them, there appeared a patch of dawn, as pure as the con:ter of heaven adorned with a blue and naive Virgin l\1ary that had appeared, as the fog parted for a moment, in between the votive ships of the church in La Rochelle. Querelle kne\v he would be saved. Slowly he re-entered himself. He then went on, very far, almost to the point of getting lost in those secret realms, in order to meet his brother there. Querelle knew that he would be there. It was true that he had just fought him in a fight that might have had a deadly outcome, but the hatred he felt for him on the surface did not prevent him from finding Robert there, in the most distant inner reaches of himself. What Madame Lysiane had suspected, came to pass : their beauty turned into a snarl, showing its teeth, hatred distorted their faces, their bodies became locked in the coils of a battle to the death. And no mistress of either one, had she attempted to intervene in this battle, would have gotten out of it alive. Even when they viere still little boys fighting, one could not help thinking that somewhere, back of their faces twisted with pain, in a more faraway region, their resemblances were celebrating their union. It was, thus, in the shadow of such appearances that Querelle was able to find his brother again. When they had arrived at the end of the street, Robert automatically turned left, toward the brothel, and Querelle 139 I QUERELLE right. He was gnashing his teeth . In the presence of Dede, his brother, drunk wi th fury and none too quietly either, had addressed him with : ··You dirty bastard. You let Nona bugger you. \Vhy the hell did that shitty boat of yours ever bring you here, you bloody fucking shit!" Querelle, pale, stared Robert in the eye : ··rve done worse, buddy. And I do damn well as I please. And you better start making tracks, or I'll show you what shit is and what it tastes like."

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  All this reductionist commentary might have been fair game, had it been directed at all the primary candidates: say, Senator Joe Biden’s obvious hair transplants; or Senator John Edwards’s resemblance to a Ken doll; or Governor Mitt Romney’s capped teeth and dyed hair; or Senator John McCain’s special shoes to make him taller; or Governor Bill Richardson’s resemblance to an unmade bed; or Senator Obama’s ears, about which he himself made jokes. But it wasn’t. No wonder such misogyny was almost never named by the media. It was the media. In making my list about the pluses and minuses of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I discovered I was angry. I was angry because it was okay for two generations of Bush sons to inherit power from a political patriarchy even if they spent no time in the White House, but not okay for one Clinton wife to claim experience and inherit power from a husband whose full political partner she had been for twenty years. I was angry because young men in politics were treated like rising stars, but young women were treated like—well, young women. I was angry about all the women candidates who put their political skills on hold to raise children—and all the male candidates who didn’t. I was angry about the human talent that was lost just because it was born into a female body, and the mediocrity that was rewarded because it was born into a male one. And I was angry because the media took racism seriously—or pretended to—but with sexism, they rarely bothered even to pretend. Resentment of women still seemed safe, whether it took the form of demonizing black single mothers or making routine jokes about powerful women being ball-busters. In other cases of unadmitted bias, I had used the time-honored movement tactic of reversing the race or sex or ethnicity or sexuality involved, then seeing if the response would be the same. Fueled by months of repressed anger, I asked: What might have happened if even an empathetic man like Obama had been exactly the same person—but born female? I called the result “A Short History of Change.” The New York Times op-ed page changed it to “Women Are Never Front-Runners.” Published on the morning of the New Hampshire primary, it asked why the sex barrier was not taken as seriously as the racial one.