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 On Beauty (2005)

  Howard passed his satchel from his right hand to his left and opened the front door. He was that lawyer again, simplifying a complex case for a desperate, simple-minded client who would not take his advice. ‘It’s true that men – they respond to beauty . . . it doesn’t end for them, this . . . this concern with beauty as a physical actuality in the world – and that’s clearly imprisoning and it infantilizes . . . but it’s true and . . . I don’t know how else to explain what – ’ ‘Get away from me.’ ‘Fine.’  On Beauty ‘I’m not interested in your aesthetic theories. Save them for Claire. She loves them.’ Howard sighed. ‘I wasn’t giving you a theory.’ ‘You think there’s some great philosophical I-don’t-fucking-know-what because you can’t keep your dick in your pants? You’re not Rembrandt, Howard. And don’t kid yourself: honey, I look at boys all the time – all the time. I see pretty boys every day of the week, and I think about their cocks, and what they would look like butt naked – ’ ‘You’re being really vulgar now.’ ‘But I’m an adult , Howard. And I’ve chosen my life. I thought you had too. But you’re still running after pussy, apparently.’ ‘But she’s not . . .’ said Howard, lowering his voice to an exasperated whisper, ‘you know . . . she’s our age, older, I think – you talk as if it were a student like one of Erskine’s . . . or . . . But in fact I didn’t – ’ ‘You want a fucking prize ?’ Howard was intent on slamming the door behind him, and Kiki was equally determined to kick it shut. The force of it knocked the plaster picture to the floor.  On Tuesday night a water main burst at the corner of Kennedy and Rosebrook. A dark river filled the street, breaking only towards the high ground at its centre. It sloshed either side of Kennedy Square, massing in dirty puddles tinted orange by the streetlights. Zora had parked the family car a block away, intending to wait for her poetry class on the central traffic island, but this too was lapped on all sides by a slurry lake, more an island than ever. The cars sent up sheets of black spray as they went past. Instead she set herself back on the sidewalk, choosing to lean against a cement post in front of a drug store. Here, in this spot, Zora felt confident she would be aware of her class, when they came, at least a moment or two before  the anatomy lesson

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Most of them were carrying expensive cameras, and despite their longish hair, tentative beards, wire-rimmed glasses (and wives dressed with an acceptably middle-class whiff of bohemia: cowhide sandals, Mexican shawls, Village silversmith jewelry), they exuded respectability. The sullen essence of squareness. That was, when I thought about it, what I had against most analysts. They were such unquestioning acceptors of the social order. Their mildly leftist political views, their signing of peace petitions and decorating their offices with prints of Guernica were just camouflage. When it came to the crucial issues: the family, the position of women, the flow of cash from patient to doctor, they were reactionaries. As rigidly self-serving as the Social Darwinists of the Victorian Era. “But women are always the power behind the throne,” my last analyst had said when I tried to explain how dishonest I felt for always using seductiveness to get what I wanted from men. It was just a few weeks before the trip to Vienna that we had our final blow-up. I’d never quite trusted Kolner anyway, but I’d kept on going to see him on the assumption that that was my problem. “But don’t you see,” I shouted from the couch, “that’s just the trouble! Women using sex appeal to manipulate men and suppressing their rage and never being open and honest—” But Dr. Kolner could only see anything which vaguely smacked of Women’s Lib as a neurotic problem. Any protestation against conventional female behavior had to be “phallic” and “aggressive.” We had haggled over these issues for a long time, but it was his “power behind the throne” pitch which finally showed me how I’d been taken. “I don’t believe what you believe,” I yelled, “and I don’t respect your beliefs and I don’t respect you for holding them. If you can honestly make a statement like that about the power behind the throne, how can you possibly understand anything about me or the things I’m struggling with? I don’t want to live by the things you live by. I don’t want that kind of life and I don’t see why I should be judged by its standards. I also don’t think you understand a thing about women.” “Maybe you don’t understand what it means to be a woman,” he countered. “Oh God. Now you’re using the final ploy. Don’t you see that men have always defined femininity as a means of keeping women in line? Why should I listen to you about what it means to be a woman? Are you a woman? Why shouldn’t I listen to myself for once? And to other women? I talk to them. They tell me about themselves—and a damned lot of them feel exactly the way I do—even if it doesn’t get the Good Housekeeping Seal of the American Psychoanalytic.”

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Hah-vahd , for Harvard. Made cost sound like cast . He was one of those fat old Boston guys with stains on their shirts that work for the city and liked to call brothers man . Levi slotted his four quarters into the box. ‘I said how about a little more time there, young man, so I can stop safely?’ Levi slowly removed one ear of his cans. ‘You talking to me?’ ‘Yeah, I’m talking to you.’ ‘Hey, buddy, can we close that door and get this bus moving?’ called somebody from the back. ‘Ahlright, ahl – right !’ shouted the bus guy. Levi put his cans back on, scowled and walked to the back of the bus. ‘Jumped-up little . . .’ began the bus guy, but Levi didn’t hear the rest. He sat down and leaned the side of his head against the cold glass. He silently rooted for a girl who was tearing down the snowy hill to meet the bus at the next stop, her scarf fluttering behind her. When the bus reached Wellington Square it connected with its overhead cables and went underground, winding up outside the T-stop that takes you into Boston. Here, in the subway, Levi bought a doughnut and a hot chocolate. He got on his train and switched off his iPod. He opened a book on his lap and held its pages flat with his elbows, leaving both hands free to hold the drink for warmth. This was Levi’s reading time, this half-hour trip into town. He’d read more on the subway then he’d ever read in class. Today’s book was the same one he’d been reading since way before Christmas. Levi was not a fast reader. He read maybe three volumes  on beauty and being wrong a year, and only in exceptional circumstances. This was the book about Haiti. He had fifty-one pages left to go. If asked to write a book report, he’d have to say that the main impression he’d gleaned from it so far was that there’s this little country, a country real close

• From On Beauty (2005)

  upon one’s mind.’ A nervous giggle from the faculty. ‘But, if you don’t mind, I will stick to fact for a moment and answer Dr Belsey’s concerns as directly as I possibly can. In answer to his requests I fear I must decline all three, given the free country I stand in and the freedoms of speech I claim as my inalienable right. I will remind Dr Belsey that neither of us is in England any more.’ This raised an actual laugh, stronger than the one Howard had received. ‘If it will make him feel better – I know how much the liberal mind likes to feel better – I hold myself completely responsible for the contents of the lectures I give. But I am afraid I am quite unable to answer his frankly bizarre request for their ‘‘intention’’. In fact, I admit it surprises and delights me that a self-professed ‘‘textual anarchist’’ like Dr Belsey should be so passionate to know the intention of a piece of writing . . .’ A sprinkle of mirthless intellectual laughter, of the kind one hears at bookshop readings. ‘I had no idea,’ continued Monty gaily, ‘what a stickler he was for the absolute nature of the written word.’ ‘Howard, do you want to . . . ?’ said Jack French, but Howard was already speaking over him. ‘Look, my point here is this,’ declaimed Howard, turning to face Liddy as the nearest interlocutor, but Liddy was not interested. She was reserving her energies for Item  on the agenda, the History Department’s application for two new photocopiers. Howard turned back to the crowd. ‘How can he at one and the same time claim responsibility for his text and yet not be able to tell us what intention he has for the text?’ Monty put his hands on each side of his own belly. ‘Really, Dr Belsey, this is too stupid to answer. Surely a man can write a piece of prose without ‘‘intending’’ any particular reaction, or at least he can and will write without presuming every end or consequence of that piece of prose.’ ‘You tell me, mate – you’re the constitutional originalist!’ This got a wider, more sincere laugh. For the first time, Monty began to look a little ruffled. ‘I will be writing,’ pronounced Monty, ‘of my beliefs concerning  On Beauty the state of the university system in this country. I will be writing employing my knowledge as well as my moral sense – ’ ‘ With the clear intention of antagonizing and alienating various minority groups on this campus. Will he be responsible for that?’

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Zora wiped her nose and cut her eyes at Carl imperiously. ‘Carl, please don’t talk about our father. We know about our father. You go to Wellington for a few months, you hear a little gossip and you think you know what’s going on? You think you’re a Wellingtonian because they let you file a few records? You don’t know a thing about what it takes to belong here. And you haven’t got the first idea about our family or our life, OK? Remember that.’ ‘Zoor, please don’t – ’ cautioned Jerome, but Zora took a step  On Beauty forward and felt a pool of water seep into her toeless shoes. She bent down and removed her heels. ‘I ain’t even talking about that,’ whispered Carl. Everywhere around them in the darkness the trees dripped. In the main road, far off from this one, the splatter and screech of wheels speeding through puddles. ‘Well, what are you talking about?’ said Zora, using her shoes to gesticulate. ‘You’re pathetic. Leave me alone.’ ‘I’m just saying,’ said Carl darkly, ‘you think everybody you know is so pure, so perfect – man , you don’t know anything about these Wellington people. You don’t know how they do.’ ‘That’s enough ,’ insisted Jerome. ‘You can see the state she’s in, man. Have a little pity. She doesn’t need this. Please, Zoor, let’s go find the car.’ But Zora wasn’t finished yet. ‘I know that the men I know are grown-ups . They’re intellectuals – not children. They don’t act like hound-dog teenagers every time some cute piece of ass comes shimmying up to them.’ ‘Zora,’ said Jerome, his voice cracking, for the thought of his father and Victoria had begun to overwhelm him. There was a very real possibility that he was going to be sick here in the street. ‘Please! Let’s just get in the car! I can’t do this! I need to be home .’ ‘You know what? I’ve tried being patient with you,’ said Carl, lowering his voice. ‘You need to hear some truth. All of you people, you intellectuals . . . OK, how about Monty Kipps? Victoria’s pop? You know him? OK. He been screwing Chantelle Williams – she lives in my street, she told me about it. His kids don’t know a thing about it. That girl you just made cry? She don’t know a thing about it. And everybody thinks he a saint. And now he wants Chantelle out of the class, for why? Cover his ass. And it’s me that gotta know that – I don’t want to know any of this shit. I’m just trying to get a stage higher with my life.’ Carl laughed bitterly. ‘But that’s a joke around here, man. People like me are just toys to people like you . . . I’m just some experiment for you to play with.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Anything at all.’ A few minutes later, with the door closed behind her children, Kiki turned to her husband with a thesis for a face, of which only Howard could know every line and reference. Just for the hell of it Howard smiled. In return he received nothing at all. Howard stopped smiling. If there was going to be a fight, no fool would bet on him. Kiki – whom Howard had once, twenty-eight years ago, thrown over his shoulder like a light roll of carpet, to be laid down, and laid upon, in their first house for the first time – was nowadays a solid two hundred and fifty pounds, and looked twenty years his junior. Her skin had that famous ethnic advantage of not wrinkling  kipps and belsey much, but, in Kiki’s case the weight gain had stretched it even more impressively. At fifty-two, her face was still a girl’s face. A beautiful tough-girl’s face. Now she crossed the room and pushed by him with such force that he was muscled into an adjacent rocking chair. Back at the kitchen table, she began violently to pack a bag with things she did not need to take to work. She spoke without looking at him. ‘You know what’s weird? Is that you can get someone who is a professor of one thing and then is just so intensely stupid about everything else? Consult the ABC of parenting, Howie. You’ll find that if you go about it this way, then the exact, but the exact opposite, of what you want to happen will happen. The exact opposite .’ ‘But the exact opposite of what I want,’ considered Howard, rocking in his chair, ‘is what always fucking happens.’ Kiki stopped what she was doing. ‘Right. Because you never get what you want. Your life is just an orgy of deprivation.’ This nodded at the recent trouble. It was an offer to kick open a door in the mansion of their marriage leading on to an ante-chamber of misery. The offer was declined. Kiki instead began that familiar puzzle of getting her small knapsack to sit in the middle of her giant back. Howard stood up and rearranged himself decently in his bathrobe. ‘Do we have their address at least?’ he asked. ‘Home address?’ Kiki pressed her fingers to each temple like a carnival mind-reader. She spoke slowly, and, though the pose was sarcastic, her eyes were wet. ‘I want to understand what it is you think we’ve done to you. Your family.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  weary of their supper, I forthwith returned home." When the baker had told this tale, his impudent and rash wife began to curse and abhor the wife of the fuller, calling her whore and shameless, and a great shame to all the sex of women, in that she had lost all modesty, broken the bond of her hus- band's bed, turned his house into a bawdy-house, and had lost the dignity of a spouse to become an harlot; and said that such women were worthy to be burned alive. But knowing her own guilty con- science and proper whoredom, that she might the sooner save her lover from hurt lying in the bin, she willed her husband now early to go to bed, but he, having lost his supper and eaten nothing, said gently that he would sup before he went to rest : wherefore she was compelled, though very unwilling, to set such things on the table as she had prepared for her lover, But I was much troubled in heart, as con- sidering the past great mischief of this wicked quean and her present obstinacy and impudence, and de- vised with myself how I might help my master by revealing the matter, and by kicking away the cover of the bin (where like a snail the young man was couched) make her whoredom apparent and known. As I was tormented by the insult put upon my master, at length I was aided by the providence of God, for there was a lame old man to whom the custody of 441 LUCIUS APULEIUS claudus, cui nostra tutela permissa fuerat, universa nos iumenta, id hora iam postulante, ad lacum proxu- mum bibendi causa gregatim prominabat. Quae res optatissimam mihi vindictae subministravit occa- sionem : namque praetergrediens observatos extre- mus adulteri digitos, qui per angustias cavi tegminis prominebant, obliquata atque infesta ungula com- pressos usque ad summam minutiem contero, donec intolerabili dolore commotus, sublato flebili clamore, repulsoque et abiecto alveo, conspectui profano red- ditus scaenam propudiosae mulieris patefecit. Nee tamen pistor damno pudicitiae magnopere commotus exsangui pallore trepidantem puerum serena fronte et propitiata facie commulcens incipit: “ Nihil triste de me tibi, filij metuas. Non sum barbarus nec agresti morum squalore praeditus, nec ad exem- plum naccinae truculentiae sulphuris te letali fumo necabo, ac ne iuris quidem severitate lege de adul. teriis ad discrimen vocabo capitis tam venustum tam- que pulchellum puellum, sed plane cum uxore mea partiario tractabo ; nec herciscundae familiae sed com- muni dividundo formula dimicabo, ut sine ulla con- troversia vel dissensione tribus nobis in uno conveniat lectulo. Nam et ipse semper cum mea coniuge tam concorditer vixi, ut ex secta prudentium eadem nobis ambobus placerent. Sed nec aequitas ipsa patitur habere plus auctoritatis uxorem quam maritum." 28 Talis sermonis blanditie cavillatum deducebat ad 442 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK IX

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  My professor didn’t come that day. Of course he phoned the next with a reasonable excuse. Of course I should have anticipated just such a hitch and explanation, but my need, though usually held in check or released only on imaginary beings, could, if turned on someone real, devour him. I had worshipped my teacher, I’d even forgiven him for not loving me—but now I hated him. I dreamed of revenge. In the past I’d been protected from humiliating rejection because I so seldom asked anything of anyone. The gods were my company; the lilac in flower embraced me; books did all the talking but only when I permitted the monologue to begin. They were transparent companions whose intentions were never in doubt. Gods, flowers, words—why, I could see right through them! Nor did they waver into or out of focus or leave even an inch of the surround blank. Whereas people batted thoughts and feelings like badminton birdies at you, a whir that might take you by surprise, that you might not even see but that you were expected to return until the air began to go white, the gods made no such demands. They propped themselves up on gold elbows and lazily turned their wide, smiling faces down on you. When their glance locked with yours their eyebeams lit up. In an instant you were they, they you, gods mortal and mortals divine, the mutual regard a reflecting pool into which everything substantial would soon melt and flow. When I was twelve, the year after I began my German classes, the boys I knew started playing a violent game called “Squirrel” (“Grab his nuts and run”). Guys who’d scarcely acknowledged me until now were suddenly thrashing, twisting muscles in my arms, their breath panting peanut butter right up into my face, my hands sliding over their silky skin just above the rough denim … and now his gleaming crotch buttons were pressing down on me as his knees burned into my biceps and I put off shouting “Uncle” one more second in order to inhale once again the terrible smell of his sweat. Or the light was dying and piles of burning leaves streaked the air with the smoky breath of the very earth. My hands were raw with cold, my nose was running, I was late for supper, my shirt was torn, but still I called him back again and again by shouting, “I’m not sorry. I just said that. I’m not sorry, I’m—” “Look, you little creep”—his voice was much lower, he was a year older, he came at me, really mad this time, I didn’t want his anger, just his body on top of me and his arms around me.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Haitian guy and – ’ Levi took a breath and began to speak extremely quickly. ‘Trust me, you don’t even understand, it’s like – OK, so, this painting is stolen anyway . It don’t even belong to that guy Kipps, not really – it was like twenty years ago and he just went to Haiti and got all these paintings by lying to poor people and buying them for a few dollars and now they be worth all this money and it ain’t his money and we’re just trying to – ’ Kiki pushed Levi hard in the chest. ‘You stole this from Mr Kipps’s office because some guy told you a lot of bullshit ? Because some brother spun you a load of conspiracy bullshit? Are you an idiot ?’ ‘No! I’m not an idiot – and it’s not bullshit! You don’t know anything about it!’ ‘Of course it’s bullshit – I happen to know this painting, Levi. It belonged to Mrs Kipps. And she bought it herself, before she was even married.’ This silenced Levi. ‘Oh, Levi,’ said Jerome. ‘And that isn’t even the point, the point is you stole . You just believed anything these people say. You just gonna believe them all the way to jail. Just want to be cool, show you the big man around a load of no-good Negroes who don’t even – ’ ‘IT AIN’T LIKE THAT!’ ‘That’s exactly what it’s like. It’s those guys you been spending all your time with – you can’t lie to me. I am so angry at you right now. I am so MAD right now! Levi – I’m trying to understand what you think you’ve achieved by stealing somebody’s property. Why would you do this?’ ‘You don’t understand anything,’ said Levi very quietly. ‘What was that? Excuse me? WHAT WAS THAT?’ ‘People in Haiti, they got NOTHING, RIGHT? We living off these people, man! We – we – living off them! We sucking their blood – we’re like vampires! You OK, married to your white man in the land of plenty – you OK. You doing fine. You’re living off these people, man!’ Kiki stuck a shaky finger in his face. ‘You crossing a line right  on beauty and being wrong now, Levi. I don’t know what you’re talking about – I don’t think you do either. And I really don’t know what any of this has to do with you becoming a thief .’ ‘Then why don’t you listen to what I’m talking about. That painting don’t belong to him! Or his wife! These people I’m talking about, they remember how things went down , man – and now look how much it’s worth. But that money belongs to the Haitian people, not some . . . some Caucasian art dealer ,’ said Levi, confidently remembering Choo’s phrase. ‘That money needs to be redis – to be shared.’ Kiki was briefly too astounded to speak.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  This raised an actual laugh, stronger than the one Howard had received. ‘If it will make him feel better – I know how much the liberal mind likes to feel better – I hold myself completely responsible for the contents of the lectures I give. But I am afraid I am quite unable to answer his frankly bizarre request for their ‘‘intention’’. In fact, I admit it surprises and delights me that a self-professed ‘‘textual anarchist’’ like Dr Belsey should be so passionate to know the intention of a piece of writing . . .’ A sprinkle of mirthless intellectual laughter, of the kind one hears at bookshop readings. ‘I had no idea,’ continued Monty gaily, ‘what a stickler he was for the absolute nature of the written word.’ ‘Howard, do you want to . . . ?’ said Jack French, but Howard was already speaking over him. ‘Look, my point here is this,’ declaimed Howard, turning to face Liddy as the nearest interlocutor, but Liddy was not interested. She was reserving her energies for Item  on the agenda, the History Department’s application for two new photocopiers. Howard turned back to the crowd. ‘How can he at one and the same time claim responsibility for his text and yet not be able to tell us what intention he has for the text?’ Monty put his hands on each side of his own belly. ‘Really, Dr Belsey, this is too stupid to answer. Surely a man can write a piece of prose without ‘‘intending’’ any particular reaction, or at least he can and will write without presuming every end or consequence of that piece of prose.’ ‘You tell me, mate – you’re the constitutional originalist!’ This got a wider, more sincere laugh. For the first time, Monty began to look a little ruffled. ‘I will be writing,’ pronounced Monty, ‘of my beliefs concerning  On Beauty the state of the university system in this country. I will be writing employing my knowledge as well as my moral sense – ’ ‘ With the clear intention of antagonizing and alienating various minority groups on this campus. Will he be responsible for that?’ ‘Dr Belsey, if I may refer you to one of your own liberal lodestars, Jean-Paul Sartre: ‘‘We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.’’ Now is it not you , Dr, who speaks of the instability of textual meaning?

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  I never had the courage to ask my mother directly. I sensed, despite her bohemian talk, that she disapproved of sex, that it was basically unmentionable. So I turned to D. H. Lawrence, and to Love Without Fear, and to Coming of Age in Samoa. Margaret Mead wasn’t much help. What did I have in common with all those savages? (Plenty, of course, but at the time I didn’t realize it.) Eustace Chesser, M.D., was good on all the fascinating details (“How to Manage the Sex Act,” penetration, foreplay, afterglow), but he didn’t seem to have much to say about my moral dilemmas: how “far” to go? inside the bra or outside? inside the pants or outside? inside the mouth or outside? when to swallow, if ever. It was all so complicated. And it seemed so much more complicated for women. Basically, I think, I was furious with my mother for not teaching me how to be a woman, for not teaching me how to make peace between the raging hunger in my cunt and the hunger in my head. So I learned about women from men. I saw them through the eyes of male writers. Of course, I didn’t think of them as male writers. I thought of them as writers, as authorities, as gods who knew and were to be trusted completely. Naturally I trusted everything they said, even when it implied my own inferiority. I learned what an orgasm was from D. H. Lawrence, disguised as Lady Chatterley. I learned from him that all women worship “the Phallos"—as he so quaintly spelled it. I learned from Shaw that women never can be artists; I learned from Dostoyevsky that they have no religious feeling; I learned from Swift and Pope that they have too much religious feeling (and therefore can never be quite rational); I learned from Faulkner that they are earth mothers and at one with the moon and the tides and the crops; I learned from Freud that they have deficient superegos and are ever “incomplete” because they lack the one thing in this world worth having: a penis. But what did all this have to do with me—who went to school and got better marks than the boys and painted and wrote and spent Saturdays doing still lifes at the Art Students League and my weekday afternoons editing the high-school paper (Features Editor; the Editor-in-Chief had never been a girl—though it also never occurred to us then to question it)? What did the moon and tides and earth-mothering and the worship of the Lawrentian “phallos” have to do with me or with my life?

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  Later on, I was able to write about these things and partly exorcise the demons. Later on, I was able to make German friends and even find some things to love in the language and the poetry. But that first lonely year, I was unable to write and I had few friends. I lived like a solitary, reading, walking, imagining that my soul was slipping out of my body and that I was possessed by the soul of someone who had died in my place. I explored Heidelberg like a spy, finding all the landmarks of the Third Reich which were deliberately not mentioned in the guidebooks. I found the place where the synagogue had stood before it was burned down. After I learned to drive, I was able to go even farther afield and I found an abandoned railroad siding and an old freight car with reichsbahn lettered on its flank. (All the shiny new trains were labeled bundesbahn.) I felt like one of those fanatical Israelis who tracks down Nazis in Argentina. Only I was tracking down my own past, my own Jewishness in which I had never been able to believe before. What infuriated me most, I think, was the way the Germans had changed their protective coloration, the way they talked peace and humanitarianism, the way they all claimed to have fought on the Russian Front. It was their hypocrisy I abhorred. At least if they’d come out openly and said: We loved Hitler, one might have weighed their humanity with their honesty and perhaps forgiven them. In the three years I lived in Germany I only met one man who admitted that. He was a former Nazi and he became my friend. Horst Hummel ran a printing business out of a tiny office in the old town. His desk was piled high with books, papers, and all kinds of junk, and he was always on the telephone or always shouting directions to the three cowering Assistenten who worked for him. He was about five feet tall, very paunchy, and wore thick amber-tinted glasses which accentuated the rings under his eyes. After meeting him for the first time, Bennett always referred to him as the Gnome. For the most part, Herr Hummel (as I called him in the beginning) spoke English well, but he made occasional howlers which compromised all his previous fluency. One day when I told him that I had to go home and make dinner for Bennett, he said: “If your Mann is hungry, then you must go home and cook him.” Hummel printed everything from menus to advertising flyers to The Heidelberg Officers’ Wives’ Club Newsletter—a glossy four-page tabloid studded with typographical errors, doggerel about the plight of an army wife, and pictures of army matrons decked out in flowered hats, orchid corsages, and rhinestone-glinting harlequin glasses. They were always accepting awards from each other for various public services.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  When Professor Kipps was invited, by the Humanities Faculty, to Wellington, it was to take part in the communal life of this institution and to offer a series of instructive lectures in one of his many, many, many areas of expertise . . .’ Here Howard got the light laugh he’d been hoping for and the fillip his confidence needed. ‘What he was expressly not hired to do was to make political speeches that potentially alienate and deeply offend a variety of groups on this campus.’ Monty now stood, shaking his head in apparent amusement. He raised his hand. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘may I?’ Jack looked pained. How he hated such conflict in his faculty! ‘Well, now, Professor Kipps – I think if we can just, just, just . . . if we can let Howard finish his pitch, as it were . . .’ ‘Of course. I shall be patient and tolerant as my colleague defames me,’ said Monty with this same grin and sat back down. Howard pressed on: ‘I will remind the committee that last year members of this university lobbied successfully to ban a philosopher who had been invited to read here, but who, it was decided by these members, could not have a platform at this institution because he expressed, in his printed work, what were deemed to be ‘‘Anti-Israeli’’ views and arguments that were offensive to members of our community. This objection (although not an opinion with  On Beauty which I concurred) was democratically passed, and the gentleman was kept from Wellington on the grounds that his views were likely to be offensive to elements of this community. It is on exactly the

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Is it not you , Dr, who speaks of the indeterminacy of all sign systems? How, then, can I possibly predict before I give my lectures how the ‘‘multivalency’’,’ said Monty, enunciating the word with obvious disgust, ‘of my own text will be received in the ‘‘heterogeneous consciousnesses’’ of my audience?’ said Monty, sighing heavily. ‘Your entire line of attack is a perfect model of my argument. You photocopy my article but you do not take the time to read it properly yourself. In that article I ask: ‘‘why is there one rule for the liberal intellectual and another rule entirely for his conservative colleague?’’ And I ask you now: why should I offer the text of my lectures to a committee of liberal interrogators and thus have my own – much vaunted in this very institution – right to free speech curtailed and threatened?’ ‘Oh, for fucks sake – ’ flashed Howard. Jack leaped from his chair. ‘Umm, Howard, I’m going to have to ask you to mind your p’s and q’s there.’ ‘No need, no need – I am not so delicate, Dean French. I was under no illusion that my colleague was a gentleman . . .’ ‘Look,’ said Howard, his face budding rouge, ‘what I want to know – ’ ‘Howard, please,’ said Monty scoldingly, ‘I did do you the courtesy of listening until you had finished. Thank you. Now: two years ago, at Wellington, in this great freedom-loving institution, a group of Muslim students requested the right to have a room given over to their daily prayers – a request Dr Belsey was instrumental in rebuffing, with the result that this group of Muslims is presently pursuing Wellington College through the courts – FOR THE  on beauty and being wrong RIGHT ,’ intoned Monty over Howard’s remonstrations, ‘ for the right to practise their faith – ’ ‘And of course your own defence of the Muslim faith is legendary,’ taunted Howard.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  This nodded at the recent trouble. It was an offer to kick open a door in the mansion of their marriage leading on to an ante-chamber of misery. The offer was declined. Kiki instead began that familiar puzzle of getting her small knapsack to sit in the middle of her giant back. Howard stood up and rearranged himself decently in his bathrobe. ‘Do we have their address at least?’ he asked. ‘Home address?’ Kiki pressed her fingers to each temple like a carnival mind-reader. She spoke slowly, and, though the pose was sarcastic, her eyes were wet. ‘I want to understand what it is you think we’ve done to you. Your family. What is it we’ve done? Have we deprived you of something?’ Howard sighed and looked away. ‘I’m giving a paper in Cambridge on Tuesday anyway – I might as well fly to London a day earlier, if only to – ’ Kiki slapped the table. ‘Oh, God , this isn’t  – Jerome can marry who the hell he wants to marry – or are we going to start  On Beauty making up visiting cards and asking him to meet only the daughters of academics that you happen to – ’ ‘Might the address be in the green moleskin?’ Now she blinked away the possibility of tears. ‘I don’t know where the address might be ,’ she said, impersonating his accent. ‘Find it yourself. Maybe it’s hidden underneath the crap in that damn hovel of yours.’ ‘Thanks so much,’ said Howard and began his return journey up the stairs to his study.  A tall, garnet-coloured building in the New England style, the Belsey residence roams over four creaky floors. The date of its construction () is patterned in tile above the front door, and the windows retain their mottled green glass, spreading a dreamy pasture on the floorboards whenever strong light passes through them. They are not original, these windows, but replacements, the originals being too precious to be used as windows. Heavily insured, they are kept in a large safe in the basement. A significant portion of the value of the Belsey house resides in windows that nobody may look through or open. The sole original window is the skylight at the very top of the house, a harlequin pane that casts a disc of varicoloured light upon different spots on the upper landing as the sun passes over America, turning a white shirt pink as one passes through it, for example, or a yellow tie blue. Once the spot reaches the floor in mid morning it is a family superstition never to step through it. Ten years earlier you would have found children here, wrestling, trying to force each other into its orbit. Even now, as young adults, they continue to step round it on their way down the stairs.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  In Staples’ own words, Black women in 1979 only “threaten to overtake black men” [italics mine] by the “next century” in education, occupation, and income. In other words, the inequity is self-evident; but how is it justifiable? Black feminists speak as women because we are women and do not need others to speak for us. It is for Black men to speak up and tell us why and how their manhood is so threatened that Black women should be the prime targets of their justifiable rage. What correct analysis of this capitalist dragon within which we live can legitimize the rape of Black women by Black men? At least Black feminists and other Black women have begun this much-needed dialogue, however bitter our words. At least we are not mowing down our brothers in the street, or bludgeoning them to death with hammers. Yet. We recognize the fallacies of separatist solutions. Staples pleads his cause by saying capitalism has left the Black man only his penis for fulfillment, and a “curious rage.” Is this rage any more legitimate than the rage of Black women? And why are Black women supposed to absorb that male rage in silence? Why isn’t that male rage turned upon those forces which limit his fulfillment, namely capitalism? Staples sees in Ntozake Shange’s play For Colored Girls “a collective appetite for black male blood.” Yet it is my female children and my Black sisters who lie bleeding all around me, victims of the appetites of our brothers. Into what theoretical analysis would Staples fit Patricia Cowan? She answered an ad in Detroit for a Black actress to audition in a play called Hammer. As she acted out an argument scene, watched by the playwright’s brother and her four-year-old son, the Black male playwright picked up a sledgehammer and bludgeoned her to death. Will Staples’ “compassion for misguided black men” bring this young mother back, or make her senseless death more acceptable? Black men’s feelings of cancellation, their grievances, and their fear of vulnerability must be talked about, but not by Black women when it is at the expense of our own “curious rage.”

• From On Beauty (2005)

  ‘So it’s not funny,’ concluded Howard. It gave him no cheer, digging in like this. But he was still going to persist with this line of questioning, even though it was not the tack upon which he had hoped to start out, and he understood it was a straight journey to nowhere helpful. ‘Oh, Lord , Howard,’ said Kiki. She turned to face him. ‘We can do this in fifteen minutes, can’t we? When the kids are – ’ Kiki rose a little in her seat as she heard the lock of the front door clicking and then clicking again. ‘Zoor, honey, get that please, my knee’s bad today. She can’t get in, go on, help her – ’ Zora, eating a kind of toasted pocket filled with cheese, pointed to the television. ‘Zora – get it now , please, it’s the new woman, Monique – for some reason her keys aren’t working properly – I think I asked you to get a new key cut for her – I can’t be here all the time, waiting in for her – Zoor, will you get off your ass – ’ ‘Second arse of the morning,’ noted Howard. ‘That’s nice. Civilized.’ Zora slipped off her stool and down the hallway to the front door. Kiki looked at Howard once more with a questioning penetration, which he met with his most innocent face. She picked up her absent son’s e-mail, lifted her glasses from where they rested on a chain upon her impressive chest and replaced them on the end of her nose. ‘You’ve got to hand it to Jerome,’ she murmured as she read. ‘That boy’s no fool . . . when he needs your attention he sure knows how to get it ,’ she said, looking up at Howard suddenly and separating  On Beauty syllables like a bank teller counting bills. ‘Monty Kipps’s daughter. Wham, bam. Suddenly you’re interested.’ Howard frowned. ‘That’s your contribution.’ ‘Howard – there’s an egg on the stove, I don’t know who put it on, but the water’s evaporated already – smells nasty. Switch it off, please.’ ‘ That’s your contribution?’ Howard watched his wife calmly pour herself a third glass of clamato juice. She picked this up and brought it to her lips, but then paused where she was and spoke again. ‘Really, Howie. He’s twenty . He’s wanting his daddy’s attention – and he’s going the right way about it. Even doing this Kipps internship in the first place – there’s a million internships he could have gone on. Now he’s going to marry Kipps junior? Doesn’t take a Freudian. I’m saying, the worst thing we can do is to take this seriously.’

• From On Beauty (2005)

  ‘It’s about trying ,’ said Michael keenly – the topic seemed to animate him. ‘It’s like, if you put the effort in. And I spose my mum’s always been at home, which makes a lot of difference, I think. Having the mother figure and all that. Nurturing. It’s like a Caribbean ideal – a lot of people lose sight of it.’  On Beauty ‘Right,’ said Howard, and walked another two streets – past an ice-cream scoop of a Hindu temple and down an avenue of awful bungalows – imagining knocking this young man’s head against a tree. The lamps were lit on every street now. Howard began to be able to make out the Queen’s Park to which Michael had referred. It was nothing like the groomed royal parks in the centre of town. Just a small village green with a colourful spot-lit Victorian bandstand at its centre. ‘Michael – can I say something?’ Michael said nothing. ‘Look, I don’t mean in any way to offend anyone in your family, and I can see we agree basically anyway – I can’t see the point in arguing over it. Really we need to put our heads together and just think of . . . well, I suppose, some way , some means of convincing both of them, you know – that this is a bloody insane idea – I mean, that’s the key thing, no?’ ‘Look, man,’ said Michael tersely, quickening his step, ‘I’m not an intellectual, right? I’m not involved in whatever the argument is regarding my father. I’m a forgiving Christian, and as far as I’m concerned whatever is between you and him doesn’t change the way we feel about Jerome – he’s a good kid, man, and that’s the main thing – so there’s no argument.’ ‘Yes – of course, of course, of course , no one’s saying there’s an argument – I’m just saying, and I’m hoping your father will appreciate this, that Jerome’s really too young – and he’s younger than he actually is – emotionally he’s much younger, completely inexperienced – much more so than you probably realize – ’ ‘Sorry – am I being stupid – what are you trying to say?’ Howard took a deep, artificial breath. ‘I think they’re both much, much too young to get married, Michael, I really do. That’s it, in a nutshell. I’m not old-fashioned, but I do think, by any measure – ’ ‘Marriage?’ said Michael, stopping where he was, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose an inch. ‘Who’s getting married? What’re you chatting about?’  kipps and belsey ‘Jerome. And Victoria – sorry . . . I thought that surely – ’ Michael arranged his jaw in a new way. ‘Are we talking about my sister?’ ‘Yes – sorry – Jerome and Victoria – who are you talking about? Wait – what?’

• From On Beauty (2005)

  e-mails from Zora Belsey. Claire knew this because she had just got Liddy Cantalino to print them all out. Now she shuffled them into a neat pile on her desk and waited. At exactly two o’clock, there came a knock on her door. ‘Come in!’ Erskine’s long umbrella entered the room and rapped twice upon the floor. Erskine followed, in a blue shirt paired with a green jacket, the combination of which did strange things to Claire’s vision. ‘Hi, Ersk – thanks so much for coming. I know this is not your problem at all . But I really appreciate your input.’ ‘At your service,’ said Erskine, and bowed. Claire threaded her fingers together. ‘Basically, I just need back-up – I’m being lobbied by Zora Belsey to help this kid stay in class, and I’m willing to lend my voice, but ultimately I’m powerless here, really – but she simply won’t take my word for it.’  On Beauty ‘Are these they?’ asked Erskine, reaching for the printouts on the desk and then sitting down. ‘The collected letters of Zora Belsey.’ ‘She’s driving me crazy . She’s totally obsessed with this issue – and, I mean, I’m behind her. Imagine what it would be like to be against her.’ ‘Imagine,’ said Erskine. He took his reading glasses from his top pocket. ‘She’s got this enormous petition going that the students are signing – she wants me to overturn the rules of this university overnight – but I can’t create a place for this kid at Wellington! I really enjoy having him in my class, but if Kipps gets the board to rule against discretionaries, what can I do? My hands are tied. And I just feel like I never stop working at the moment – I’ve got unmarked papers coming out of my ears, I owe my publishers three different books now – I’m conducting my marriage through e-mail, I just – ’ ‘Shhhh, shhhh,’ said Erskine and laid his hand over Claire’s. His skin was very dry and puffy and warm. ‘Claire – leave it with me, will you please? I know Zora Belsey well – I have known her since she was a small girl. She loves to make a fuss, but she is rarely very attached to the fuss she makes. I will deal with this.’ ‘Would you? You’re a darling ! I’m just so exhausted .’ ‘I must say, I do rather like these subject titles she uses,’ said Erskine whimsically. ‘Very dramatic. Re: Forty Acres and a Mule . Re: Fighting for the Right to Participate . Re: Can Our Colleges Purchase Talent? Well: is the young man very talented?’ Claire scrunched up her little freckled nose. ‘Well, yes . I mean –

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Howard forgot about his appointment with Smith. He went straight home and awaited his wife. In his rage, he sat on the couch holding Murdoch tightly on his lap, scheming upon the many ways he might open the coming conversation. He lined up a pleasing selection of cool, emotionally detached possibilities – but when he heard the front door open, sarcasm vanished. It was all he could do not to leap from his seat and confront her in the most vulgar way. He listened to her footsteps. She passed the doorway of the living room (‘Hey. You OK?’) and kept walking. Howard internally combusted. ‘Been at work?’ Kiki retraced her steps and stopped in the doorway. She was – like all long-married people – immediately alerted to trouble by a tone of voice. ‘No . . . Afternoon off.’  On Beauty ‘Have a nice time?’ Kiki stepped into the room. ‘Howard, what’s the problem here?’ ‘I think,’ said Howard, releasing Murdoch, who had grown tired of being partially strangled, ‘I would have been marginally – marginally – less surprised to see you at a meeting of . . .’ They began to speak at the same time. ‘Howard, what is this? Oh, God – ’ ‘. . . of the Klu Klux fucking Klan – no, actually, that would have made a bit more – ’ ‘Kipps’s lecture . . . Oh, Jesus Christ, that place is like Chinese whispers . . . Look, I don’t need – ’ ‘I don’t know what other neo-con events you’ve got planned – no, darling, not Chinese whispers, actually; I saw you, taking notes – I had no idea you were so taken with the great man’s work, I wish I’d realized, I could have got you his collected speeches, or – ’ ‘Oh, fuck you – leave me alone.’ Kiki turned to leave. Howard flung himself to the other end of the couch, knelt up and caught her by the arm. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Away from here.’ ‘We’re talking – you wanted to talk – we’re talking.’ ‘This isn’t talking – this is you ranting. Stop it – let go of me. Jesus! ’ Howard had successfully twisted her arm, and therefore her body, moving her round the couch. Reluctantly she sat down. ‘Look, I don’t need to explain myself to you,’ said Kiki, but then immediately went on to do so. ‘You know what it is? Sometimes I feel it’s always the same viewpoint in this house. And I’m just trying to get all points of view. I don’t see how that’s a crime, just trying to expand your – ’ ‘In the interest of balance,’ said Howard in the nasal voice of an American TV commentator. ‘You know, Howard, all you ever do is rip into everybody else. You don’t have any beliefs – that’s why you’re scared of people with beliefs, people who have dedicated themselves to something, to an idea .’ 