It is November 2024, and I am DISTRACTED by the US Election.
XX vs. XY weighs heavily on my mind.
In life, and art, and elections, there is a “default” setting. Sure, things are changing, things are NOT THE SAME, there is certainly an EFFORT being made to expand past the default.
Nonetheless, it is true that—by default—our bookshelves, our music libraries, our playlists, the art on our museum walls, the protagonists in our movies, our candidates, and our opinion-makers…favor men, white men, generally speaking.
Just imagine if XX hunched over the lectern, glowering as XY did. Imagine.
This is not news, so I’m not going to dwell on it. But as a little project of mine to actively seek out women’s art, music, and literature has collided head-on with the news cycle, I’m making this little report on my project, as a way of sending an SOS your way.
Mind you, I have nothing against men’s creativity—I have many favourites: in art: Matisse, Chagall, Rembrandt; in music Bach, Stravinsky, Brahms; in literature J. M. Coetzee, Julian Barnes, Robertson Davies.
But—not too surprisingly— whole other worlds open up when women are counted in. Perhaps in literature, being less abstract than art and music, the difference is most notable. Women’s experiences and ways of expressing those experiences are revealed when their own stories are told by them, and rich insight about human nature and relationships are perhaps a reader’s reward.
Just imagine if XX ever dared not to smile, as XY does. Imagine.
Many of my favourite authors explore a second sense of “outsider-ness” as well, such as being an immigrant, queer, or a minority—or several of these. As an American living abroad, this has resonance for me, even though our situations are not exactly parallel. To be a musician, and what’s more a classical musician, is also a form of being “outside” the norm, non-default.
Some of my favorite writers are Jhumpa Lahiri, Hilary Mantel, and Elena Ferrante. But at the moment I’ve been reading some newer-to-me writers, who I want to recommend:
I recently discovered Bernardine Evaristo, who won the Booker Prize in 2019. So far, I’ve read her autobiography “Manifesto on Never Giving Up” and “Mr. Loverman”, a novel. Evaristo is British of Nigerian heritage. The musical flow of her sentences and her characters' dialog is a delight—Mr. Loverman” is Caribbean, and I can hear his lilting voice so well. Evaristo’s life informs the novel, which runs the gamut from humorous, to heartbreaking, to wrenching, to redeeming. I’ll be reading all her other novels ASAP!
Just imagine if XX ever painted her face as crudely as XY does. Imagine.
Utterly different in tone are the semi-autobiographical novels of Annie Ernaux. Reading her frighteningly honest and microscopically observed “reportage” from the front lines of being a woman (or a girl), I realised the full extent to which “male” is the default. In a hundred ways per chapter, she lays bare her experiences, as if to the cold glare of an operating theatre: clinical, brutal, detached. So much for ladies “pink romance” novels… I have not read her masterpiece “Les Années” (“The Years”), but I am working up to it—hey, I’m reading in French, which requires a pencil, a dictionary, a glass of wine, and a helluva lot of patience!
Just imagine if XX spoke one single time as XY speaks daily. Imagine.
I also have two non-fiction recommendations: firstly, a quirky book called “Traces” by Patricia Wiltshire. Morbid curiosity made me pick it up: it is about using biological traces—pollen, spores, fungi and such—to solve murders. More “pink romance”… NOT! What is amazing is how Wiltshire, now in her ’80’s, basically invented the methodology, using her botany background, allied to her instincts, endless curiosity, and intellectual discipline.
The juxtaposition of Wiltshire’s descriptions of the glorious English countryside, its oaks, elms, foxgloves, rushes, and a thousand other species, and the hideous crimes committed amidst that beauty leaves a lasting impression. She is clearly a remarkable person, an excellent writer, and someone able to stomach the truly un-stomach-able. I’d love to meet her, perhaps we could play sonatas together—she is an amateur pianist—in any case, better to converge around my profession than hers!
Just imagine if XX shattered every norm of decent behavior, as XY has. Imagine.
And finally, a music book and a listening recommendation: “Becoming a Composer” by Errollyn Waller, a Belize-born British composer who has certainly “never given up”. Along the way to being named “Master of the King's Music” earlier this year, she has sung jazz and pop, worked on TV, composed all sorts of chamber music and…twenty-one operas! Her excellent book reflects on her life, artistic collaborations, and her working methods, which include absconding to a windmill-house on the northern shore of Scotland in order to find the necessary peace and quiet for composing.
Just imagine if XX were a convicted felon, as XY is? Imagine.
Wallen as a young girl tells her Uncle Arthur (with whom she grew up) that she “heard sounds in my head” and he replied “perhaps you are a composer”. Wow. How many adults are so observant? She writes: “I am… a composer of classical music. I am not quite sure how that happened to a girl born in Belize and brought up in Tottenham.” Well, someone in her life suggesting she COULD become “non-default” and she followed through…that’s how that happened.
Any artist or performer will enjoy her book and also—of course—listening to her music, for example, the song “Daedalus” performed by Errollyn herself.
Just imagine if XX hunched over the lectern, glowering as XY did. Imagine.
Is the default really in our stars? Is change out of our reach? Can we imagine it?
We’re about to find out.
