The Women's Studies Review

The Ohio State University Volume 6 No. 5

Center For Women's Studies September /October 1984

In this issue:

Reviews

Review of Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. Page 2 Edited by Barbara Smith. by Elaine Upton Pugh

Review of Gender Gap: Bella Abzug's Guide to Political Page 4 Power for American Women. By Bella Abzug with Mim Kelber. by Willa Young

Review of John A. Phillips' Eve: The History of An Idea. Page 5 by B .A. St. Andrews

Review of Richard J. Schrader's God's Handiwork: Images of Page 7 Women in Early Germanic Literature. by Deborah S. Ellis

Review of A Very Private Eye. Edited by Hazel Holt and Page 8 Hilary Pym. by Janet Overmyer

Review of Diane Kurys' film, Entre Nous. Page 9 by Vivian Schaefer. Editor's Note This issue of The Women's Studies_ ~eview_ We may have started another introduces new content-to-be-reviewed: film kind of tradition as well: that of and other visual media. I hope Vivian instituting a change with each issue of the Schaefer's review of "Entre Nous" begins a Review. Actually, I kind of like the idea, tradition of thoughtful, provocative, and although I'm sure I'd receive negative feminist critique of film in our criticism on this from any reputable publication. Film has for too long been management agency. Anyway, in our next considered a somewhat inferior scholarly issue, we'd like to open up a line of pursuit--an avocation, if you will, But no communication between us and our readors, in feminist involved in the interdisciplinary the form of letters-to-the-editor. We're study of women in culture can avoid the hoping that this communication will enliven consequence, the importance, of the the Review by providing a forum for the representation of women in visual media. issues as well as formal critique of material. While critiquing the content of film I encourage you to respond to reviews, narrative is an important aspect of reviewers, and to the issues being talked reviewing, an equally important about. Send letters to me, Terry Hartley, consideration for us is the recognition of at the Center for Women's Studies. women involved in the creation, production, Thanks, and distribution of film, Terry Hartley

Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. Edited by Barbara Smith. New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983.

Elaine Upton Pugh, Dartmouth, New Hampshire

Home Girls is a large book. No, not In the Introduction to Horne Girls editor like Volume S of Encyclopedia Brittanies or Barbara Smith writes: The World Bibliography of Bibliographies or the illustrated Riverside edition of the Home Girls has been a long time complete works of Shakespeare or even the coming. I am thinking not so much of Norton Anthology of Poetry, Nevertheless, the two years from its conception in it is a large book, large enough that the mid-1981 to its publication in 1983, reviewer can hardly hope to do justice to it but of the far longer span it has and also large in its achievement of taken to prepare a space for its bringing together over 30 voices of black existence, the years devoted to women--feminists, often lesbian-feminists, building consciousness and a movement who are political activists, poets, fiction so that a book like this one becomes writers, literary and art critics, a inevitable. feminist therapist, a musician. In a country where the media insure that there is a paucity of constructive images of black In retrospect an anthology like Home G_irls women, among black people often possessed of may seem inevitable, but only because of an homophobic and anti-feminist sentiments, and indomitable urge for expression, visibility, among white feminists where many, though and consciousness-raising arose within the surely not all, do not wish to genuinely hearts and minds of women like Smith, Gloria confront difference, Home Girls is a large Hull, and Lorraine Bethel, the three editors achievement. Seeing this anthology on a of Conditions Five: The Black Women's Issue bookshelf is like gazing at a place once (1979) of which Home Girls is a nearly demolished and long forgotten. To continuation, By now one has come to open the doors of that once nearly destroyed appreciate the quality work presented by and now reconstructed dwelling evidenced in Barbara Smith, who also co-edited But Some the pages of Home Girls is to find oneself of Us Are Brav~ (1982) with Hull and amazed at the psychic variety and sometimes Patricia Bell Scott. In the context of sheer richness of the voices within. these former collections Home Girls seems inevitable. Yet it is nonetheless another attempt to dress in what I take to be an achievement against the odds. acceptable white middle-class fashion mark these photographs (the one exception is Bernice Johnson Reagan's, a photograph of The volume is graced by Afrikan drawings her as an adult and a more contemporary and contains five sections. The first picture). The black feminist and lesbian section--The Blood, Yes, the consciousness in the written work of the Blood--inscribes a space of origins, calls adult contributors suggests a long forth essential and multifaceted qualities progression from the consciousness in the of home. The poem by Toi Derricote opening photographs, thi~tion is a call for a god-child and blood sister to "stand in the same dream" of commitment "to each other's souls," to self in a sphere not defined by men, marriage, A Hell of a Place to Ferment a children. The poem evokes the dark beauty Revolution, the last section, looks forward and the self-identified way of the emerging with a poem by June Jordan, a story by black woman. Other home and Cheryl Clarke, pieces on black feminist woman-identified family relationships are organizing (interviews and group presented in works such as the lyric-prose discussions), an essay on black feminist piece by Michelle Cliff, the West Indian therapy, a speech on the difficulty and born woman who can pass for white, a liquid necessity of coalition politics, and a and richly rhythmic poem by the highly movement into spirituality for personal and underrated New York poet, Alexis DeVeaux, collective strength, for the achievement of and other poetry and testimonials by black justice, and for saving the planet. In this women struggling with the problems of origin section Alice Walker, a writer who struggled and identity created by European colonialism and recently rose to prominence, looks back as transplanted onto the soils of the to Zora Neale Hurston, a neglected black Americas. woman writer who came before Walker, By recognizing Hurston, Walter's essay ironically reminds one of a past of neglect, invisibility, absence of identity, psychic A second section is devoted to essays instability, denial of cultural roots and of about black women artists, mainly writers, spiritual as well as physical nourishment, and a third section contains poems, essays, denial of a home, This has been the fate of and stories about and by black lesbians, all peoples of color in the United States, although other sections of the anthology and doubly the fate of black women made also present black lesbians. For example, inferior and absented because of both their in an essay on black lesbians in literature race and sex. by women, Jewelle Gomez notes the scarcity of black lesbians in literature and says that when they do appear it is often in "titillation literature." Some may ask, But readers of Home Girls might begin to "Why write about black lesbians?" Gomez feel that the pen can be mighty, can be a reminds us that nature abhors a vacuum and way to turn inward to one's place of origin she suggests that history is incomplete as and outward to inscribe and real-ize a long as a group of people remain in the destiny, It would be well, I believe, that shadows. a future volume of Home Girls or of another anthology contain more and richer visionary writing, This does not mean that the attention to the complex results of multiple After section three the reader may take oppression should be ignored, They should a brief turn through the Home Girls photo certainly continue to be explored in depth, album. This section, whatever the intent of but always, I would hope, with a sense not the editor, suggests to me still further the only of what has been wrong but also of what largeness of the achievement of this can be right--that is, liberating, anthology. Contributors to the anthology are harmonious, whole. Thus, it seems that shown in photographs of themselves as black women writers, therapists, musicians, children, often with their family members. lawyers, and activists of various kinds must The photographs suggest something of the give increasing attention to their potential estrangement process of black girls on the as eradicators of poverty, crime, and the way to womanhood. Straightened hair and an destructions of capitalist competition and nuclear power, "Home girls" must become voices (such as Toni Cade Bambara's edition, increasingly aware of their potential as The Black Woman, 1970) show that the days of creators of spaces of renewal, mental invisibility and silence are numbered. health, harmony with nature, and revival of Gloria Hull's poem, "for Audre," in which what is joyful and holistic in ancient Hull quotes the poet Audre Lorde, is a Mrikan traditions, poignant expression of the essence of Home One thing seems sure: Home Girls as Girls: "Our labor is/more important well as other collections of black women's than/our silence." -

Gender Gap: Bella Abzug's Guide to PoliUcal Power for American Women. By Bella Abzug with Mim Kelber. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984.

Willa Young, OSU, Center for Women's Studies/Dept. of Sociology

As a member of the U.S. House of question and challenge government policies. Representatives, Bella Abzug became known For the moment, the female vote pattern has for her liberal views, her advocacy of been favoring Democrats and presenting a women's issues, her hard-hitting, real problem to Republican challengers and "unladylike" style, and her hats. Her incumbents. breaches of House protocol and seemingly outrageous behavior, by House standards, Gender Gap inspects the records of earned Abzug the reputation of being one who recent administrations' efforts to improve used public office to gain exposure for her or frustrate women's endeavor to share issues and for self-promotion. Those same political power. Abzug urges women to use accusations will no doubt be leveled again the vote to turn Republicans out of office, by Abzug's critics with regard to Gender replacing them with women and men more Gap. The book is a vehicle which spotlights sympathetic to women's concerns. She both Abzug and "the Bella Abzug agenda" (p. reveals the Reagan administration's 235), but as Abzug has pointed out many ineptitude in handling women's issues, times, though she usually wears a hat, she citing some specific attempts to defuse the removed her gloves a long time ago. issues of the gender gap. However, Abzug also takes the Democrats to task. She Nineteen eighty-four can be the year criticizes Carter's record, his lack of that individual women form a political bloc solid support for the ERA, and scorns the to make the women's vote a potent political underhanded manner in which she was fired as force according to Abzug, who exhorts women co-chair of the National Advisory Committee to exercise their voting rights in their own for women. interests. Analysis of how the gender gap Abzug provides a useful, insightful can decide the 1984 election is central to analysis of the roots, development, and the book as is the detailing of the gender potential of the gender gap, although most gap itself. of the book concerns itself with outlining a history of women's struggle to realize The gender gap, a significant difference political power. To place the gap in in the way women vote as compared to men, perspective, Abzug notes the effects of represents the public expression of values suffrage and what happened when women failed long held by women. The gap emerged to to form the expected political bloc. She popular recognition with the elections of examines the changing profile of women from 1980 and 1982 and reflects how women's views their post-suffrage civic-minded, differ from men's on peace, equal rights, non-partisan political activity to their unemployment, the economy, and the mass political activism which began in the environment-the major gender gap issues. mid-1960's. What emerges is a general tendency among women to take more compassionate, nurturing, Abzug includes a deluge of statistics to less violent positions than men, and to support her conclusions. Many may find the I

plethora of facts and figures tedious Politicians respect political power reading, On the other hand, academic above all. Once we prove that the readers will be disappointed with the lack women's vote can be decisive as to of accurate citation of sources. One can who will win or lose elections on a only assume that much of Abzug's information regular basis, we will win should be credited to the National Women's recognition for our views. (pp. Political Caucus, an organization founded by 213-14) Abzug and other notable feminists. Some information is attributed to polls or to an Abzug's ideas are well-supported by the individual scholar by name only. Still evidence she presents, and her use of humor other material is charged to political and satire make the treatment of serious scientists or sociologists in general. issues quite readable. The book should serve to clarify much of the popular The lack of adequate citation of sources confusion over the meaning of the so-called is particularly problematic in the historic gender gap and the importance of electoral sect.ions of the book as most of the recent power. It explains why fundamental and political activity is recounted as though lasting gains for women will not occur until Abzug's own participation was absolutely there are more women in power to vote for crucial to the progress women have made. women's issues, and it indicates the For example, when discussing the 1972 importance of individual women's votes for Democratic Convention floor-fight over the our collective benefit. Abzug explains as 50 percent representation of women issue, follows: she credits herself: "Within the previous hour, I had personally worked the floor to In 1984, from the presidential win us an additional two hundred votes" (p. election and congressional races down 34), Abzug takes pains to chronicle her to state and local contests, the every involvement to such an extent that gender gap will be expressed in critics will have a field day in accusing votee--votes based on issues that her of self-promotion, Indeed, the major have been shown to be of vital flaw of the book is Abzug's reliance on importance to a majority of American first-person presentation which tends to women • • . If on Election Day they embellish her own importance. (women) turn out in higher percentages than men and vote the As the book's title indicates, Abzug gender-gap issues, they will defeat sees the power of women's votes in using Reagan, Reagonomice, and Reagan them as a bloc, in using the gender gap as a Republicanism. (p.131) tool to create a political upheaval consistent with feminist ideals, Since As always, Bella Abzug is outspoken, women are the majority of eligible voters, unyielding, highly partisan, and a bit Abzug contends action to organize and outrageous in Gender Gap, Certainly anyone mobilize that constituency will be the most interested in women and politics, feminist effective means of making change. As Abzug issues, or Abzug'e proceedings will find the states: book compelling.

Eve: The History of An Idea. By John A. Phillips. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.

B. A. St.Andrews, State Oniversity of New York, Syracuse

Mythology. The word alone can make a mythology--from Carl Jung to Jane E, scientist shudder, a feminist fume, an Harrison to Mircea Eliade--agree with Joseph atheist mutter about progress and Campbell's assertion that "Myth is enlightenment and tales told by an idiot to psychology misread as cosmology, history, other idiots. For most of us, mythologies and biography." Certainly this idea governs construct cosmologies and demonologies which John A, Phillips' analysis of myth in Eve: seem part Stephen King, part Homer, part The History of an Idea. Walt Disney. But learned students of l

"The story of Eve is, in a sense, at the "those words in the languages of the Western heart of the concept of Women in Western world that describe the closest intimacy Civilization," Phillips insists, and this between man and woman reflect that contempt definition of the female also defines the and violence: hitting, driving into, male, Today, thousands of years after myths poking, thrusting, and beating" (p. 95). of origin, males and females remain divided, If, as Campbell contends, myth is unequal, suspicious of each other. Phillips psychology, then psychology is assuredly begins by tracing the separation of the misogynist. female from the male divinity as the Hawwah/Yawheh nexus broke down, leaving only "The psychoanalytic theory posits a the male figure, Yawheh. This division led struggle between son and father," Phillips to further diminishment of the female, with notes, "but does not explain how this Eve as a secondary creation, born of Adam to aggression becomes deflected toward the serve him rather than abide equally with him. mother-wife ..." (p. 93). In Freud's hands, for example, Eve's story becomes Phillips unites the ideas of sexual Adam's story, because only the male is of absolute and everlasting value and shame and the distrust between the sexes; interest. The woman must be bested, the Eve myth established woman as temptress dominated, resisted, because, as the vehicle or, as the Fathers of the Church so of sin, sickness, and corruption, she breaks graciously phrased it, "the Devil's the unity between son and father. This gateway." The dominance of the male is analysis leads, according to Phillips, not considered, because of this myth of the to "a theory of incest" but to "a theory of Fall, ordained. Whether any of us reads the rape" (p, 93), Eve, as well as all the Old Testament or St. Paul or Milton's bleak women she represents, is caught in "that invectives against "the author of our woes" perpetual struggle for supremacy between matters little, according to Phillips. male generations in which she is the These insidious attitudes are woven into the perpetual victim," Male protector becomes fabric of consciousness, determining how the male violator; the benevolent despot, sexes view themselves and one another. Phillips unhappily concedes, has ample approval in myth and psychology and history Phillips' book on Eve is highly to be as despotic as he pleases. derivative; he gathers evidence from many sources including Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Under four major headings--Creation, The Woman's Bible (1895-1898), one of the Fall, Expiation, Redemption--Phillips traces most radical re-interpreters of the myth of the phases and consequences of the Eve Eve. He uses analyses from Millett, Mary myth, He even analyzes the "second Eve" of Daly, Jane E, Harrison, Pagels, and Marina mythology: the Virgin Mary of Bethlehem. Warner, fusing these into a meticulous This supposed reconstruction of the fallen design, His evidence is compiled and woman forges, according to Phillips, one compiled well. more mythic link in the chain of subservient, penitential women. "As But Phillips does manage one masterful Christian wife and mother, a woman is analytical stroke in his most difficult and defined in terms of subjection to her engaging chapter, "Mother Incest So Familiar husband." But, adds Phillips, if this union To Us." In this chapter, he takes on not is filled with innumerable slights, only some illustrious members of the male inconstancies, humiliations, the wife must Enlightenment--Herder, Schiller, Kant--but only "call to mind the obedience, humility, also the male psychoanalysts. Through gentleness, and forbearance of the Virgin Freud, Rank, and Roheim, Phillips shows how Mother" (p. 147), myth's treacherous indictment against the female is translated into psychological The redemption and restoration of woman, theory. according to this "second Eve" theory, hardly issues in an era of equality, possibility, and self-rule for women. These Phillips expressly sees in the story of myths may, indeed, make life within Adam and Eve a certification of male orthodoxy impossible for women with what violence toward the female which is nowhere Rich calls "the will to change." In a more unpleasantly obvious than in sexual remarkable moment, Phillips declares language. As Phillips candidly puts it, feminism "the truly revolutionary movement of the twentieth century because it cannot compilation recommend this text: the first be reconciled with Western religion" (p. is an extensive bibliography, and the t 175). The mythic definition of the relative second, are the fine illustrations. From ...• positions of men and women in society William Blake to Paul Gauguin and from provides the foundation of our economic and triptychs to bronzes, the illustrations social structure. underscore the subtle and sinister fusion of contrary attitudes toward the female. She Phillips, in turn, warns feminists who is scorned and adored, despised and desired, might recast God in their own image, by lauded and loathed. This art--because it reminding us all that such was the mistake spans several hundred years--also attests to of the patriarchy. Far-reaching and dire the lasting influence of this myth upon the consequences follow the restrictive imagination. For art historians, for sexualization of the Godhead. To create a religious anthropologists, for sexual balanced social order, a balanced psyche, an politicans, this book should prove honorable union between the sexes, demands, serviceable and provocative. Phillips uses according to Phillips, an unstinting look at sources well, and he offers several the deleterious myth of Adam and Eve. insightful and fresh approaches which might prompt the twenty-first century to outgrow Two points other than scholarship and its fabled limitations.

God's Handiwork: Images of Women in Early Germanic Literature. By Richard J. Schrader. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1983.

Deborah S. Ellis, Department of English, Case Western Reserve University

Male scholars in the Middle Ages, Old English view of Eve, for instance, as a confronted by the humanity of medieval recognition of a human vulnerability to the women, coped by reducing female complexities "appeal of the senses" (p. 11), and as "an to a set of two stereotypes: the Evil Woman emblem of all who must transcend their and the C'JOOd Wife and Mother (or Virgin). imperfections" (p. 13). Especially in his This polarity is sometimes referred to as chapter on Old English literature, the the "Eva/Ave" palindrome, whereby the strongest in the book, Schrader minimizes absolute evil of the woman who damned attention to polarity and confrontation, humanity is neatly inverted into the showing women's integration into the absolute goodness of the woman who brought Anglo-Saxon mentality. "Gender identity, forth humanity's savior. Medieval debate spiritually understood," he tells us, "is literature in its various forms lined up the based (in this literature] on everyone's misogynist tradition--including such spiritual relation to Christ" (p. 15). With worthies as St. Jerome and the same perspective, he tones down the view Theophrastus--against the good woman of a traditional opposition in literature tradition, which often depended even more betwen Adam and Eve, pointing to the Old heavily on scriptural quotation; Chaucer's English sense of "a hierarchy rather than an Wife of Bath is perhaps the most well-known opposition" (p. 9). literary spokeswoman for both sides.

Because this polarity has been carried The book is divided into three on into so much modern criticism of medieval sections: England (pp. 3-60), Germany (pp. thought, Schrader's book is a welcome relief 61-86), and Scandinavia (pp. 87-118). The from the pressures of. stereotypes. His aim English section is by far the most developed is to use a "poetic mythology" of women (in and far-ranging, though with some curious Lee's phrase) "not [to] explain women so omissions; the section on the Old English much as it uses them to explain ideas" (p, audience, for instance, is devoted only to 3). He emphasizes the poems and their nuns, although women in the nobility and images of women not only in relation to each royalty could also read. Each section is other but also in a medieval ideological further divided into subject headings which context as a whole. Thus he discusses the invite the reader to make comparisons even I

when the author does not. For instance, we often tend to be), provoke considerable readily see that in Old English Eve is interest. He shows us, for example, that called "idesa scenost" (most beautiful of despite the figures of strong women in early women) and Mary is "cwena selost" (best of Germanic literature as a whole, "all the queens), while in Germany it is Mary who is antifeminism absent from early English and "idiso sconiost." Although Schrader does German literature seems to have found its not explore the implications of this way into Old Norse" (p. 97), He fails to reversal, his organization and information link such antifeminism to the expressions of make it much easier for us to do so. passion and romantic love confined in early Germanic literature mainly to Old Norse, but Schrader's book is clear and again he has provided sufficient information well-written on the whole. The Anglo-Saxon for us to draw our own conclusions. is usually well-translated, and the occasional untranslated line or phrase is Schrader supplies enough typological almost always clear through context. He explanations so that the reader unacquainted discusses both major and minor figures, and with medieval doctrine can understand its is refreshingly drawn to poets such as the literary orientation. He provides close author of Genesis A, who forgo "the easy readings of some of his texts, giving leap to traditional antifeminism" (p. 25). translations as well as sometimes He provides a particularly interesting substantial quotations from the originals. account of Scandinavian literature, in which On the whole he has adopted a middle tone we see the Valkyries as "both sleeping that should make his book attractive to beauties and teachers of secrets and trade specialists as well as generalists, both in lore" (p, 91), and he traces the adventures literature and in women's studies, It of Unn the Deep-Minded as an ideal woman in should be especially valuable as an 13th-century Old Norse saga (p. 89). His introduction to anyone interested in images conclusions, even when incomplete (as they of women in the Middle Ages.

A Very Private Eye. By Barbara Pym. Edited by Hazel Holt and Hilary Pym. New York: Dutton, 1984.

Janet Overmyer, OSU, Department of English

I should have guessed that Barbara Pym making church a large part of their lives would be an ailurophile, if only from the and undoubtedly accounting for the presence delightful Faustina in An Unsuitable of many vicars and church affairs in the Attachment. And she would be just the sort novels, Barbara attended Huyton boarding of person to have had a cat, Minerva, whose school and read English at Oxford, from preferred diet was custard and fried tomato which she graduated with a second. She skins, the offbeat within the regular, a Pym served as a Wren in World War II, enlisting trademark. Her sister also likes cats and in part to recover from a love affair, and even her literary executor, Hazel Holt, is later became an editor at an anthropological pictured holding a beautiful Siamese. institute. (Many of her characters are anthropologists.) After Hilary divorced her A Very Private Eye is a collection of husband, she and Barbara lived together, an diaries, letters, and novel notes which arrangement that Barbara had foretold in offer a view of Pym as a realistic, witty, Some Tame Gazelle, begun when she was 22. observant, honest writer and human being. Barbara had a mastectomy in 1971; a few They were, asserts Holt, "written to be years later the cancer recurred and killed read. " Pym destroyed many entries dealing her. with one unfortunate love affair. About half are reproduced here; the rest are in Pym had several love affairs, although the Bodelian Library, Oxford, she never married. And men do not seem to fare too well in her novels, either. When Hilary Pym briefly outlines her sister's she had, finally, been recognized as the life. Barbara (1913-1980) and Hilary were superior writer she was, she was asked in an the daughters of a solicitor; Barbara had a interview about her low opinion of men: "My "happy, unclouded childhood," Their mother instinctive reply sprang to my lips, 'Oh, was an assistant church organist, thus but I love men,' but luckily I realized how ridiculous it would sound, so said something "At no time, in spite of suggestions made to feeble." Even in the midst of her first her by well-meaning friends, would she ever Oxford love affair, she had a sense of humor compromise and write in a style or form that about the beloved: "He talks seriously but was not her own." As is now well known, it very waffily--is very affected. Something was when the Times Literary Supplement gave wrong with his mouth I think--he can't help her two votes as the most underrated writer, snurging," Her feelings for this man, the most votes anyone received, that Henry, were a mixture of youthful publishers became interested again, and her fatuousness and clear-headed insight. She last four novels were published, She was was also honest about herself, A 1936 entry shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize reads: "I didn't get on very well with in 1977, and while delighting in her them [acquaintances). It was largely my own new-found popularity, called herself "the fault as I was inclined to be rather most overestimated novelist of 1977," aggressive in my C lowness,' talking about wondering how many other good writers "in dance music etc. I think I did this because the wilderness" deserved but did not receive I felt intellectually inferior to them all." such treatment.

Pym stayed on good terms with several Pym's novels are about strong, likable lovers after the affairs ended, and even women who succeed--sometimes at small wrote to Elsie, Henry's wife, for a number things, the accretion of which has a way of of years, At 25 she was calling herself growing into a big thing. She used "this old brown horse spinster," although prototypes of real people in her novels so the entries make it clear that she did not that "I couldn't ask W. if his mother was remain single through some conviction or better because I couldn't remember if we'd principle. A 1952, somewhat ambivalent, invented her." Her characters take interest entry reads, "It is the only occasion when in food and drink, reflecting their author's one really wants a husband--in a pub with own interest, and realize the comfort in the uncongenial company and the feeling of not well-prepared meal, the strong cup of tea, belonging." the correct word at the correct time--in short, the importance of the everyday. As The 17 years when Pym's work remained Hazel Holt sums up, Pym was able "to draw unpublished, after six published novels, comfort from small pleasures and ironies, were trying for her. She kept writing, and this is, perhaps, the greatest gift she however, sending work out and receiving has bequeathed to all who read her." flattering rejection letters. Holt says, I wish I could have known her.

Entre /Yous A film by Diane Kurys, 1983.

Vivian Schaefer, OSU, Center for Women's Studies/Dept. of Photography and Cinema

"Entre Nous" (Between Us), the third and Too often in film, characters come latest film by French filmmaker Diane Kurys, together without any sense of individual was originally released under the title "Coup history that might make their chance meeting de Foudre," which figuratively translates as significant and their later actions "Love at First Sight." As the titles explicable. Kurys, intent on informing the suggest, it is a love story--of sorts---but viewer of the personal histories of her what neither title prepares the viewer for is central characters, begins "Entre Nous" more the depth and honesty captured by Kurys in than a decade before the 1952 meeting of Lena this semi-biographical depiction of genuine and Madeleine. The film opens with the affection between two women, Lena (Isabelle arrival of young Lena, a Russian Jew, at a Huppert), a character modeled after the Fr('nc:h internment/refugee camp on the eve of filmmaker's mother, and Madeleine World War II. It is there that Michel (Guy (Miou--Miou), and how this relationship Marchand), a French Jew Lena has never met, provides the spark--the catalyst· -for their proposes marriage to her by placing a note in individual growth. a piece of bread. He is to be released from the camp and can take a wife with him to supplies the motivation for Lena to believe freedom. Lena accepts his proposal--an in her ability to tackle new experiences as acceptance grounded on survival, not romantic an autonomous adult. love.

At approximately the s&111e tiae, Madeleine's fated first •arriage was Madeleine, a youthful, bourgeois art student, grounded in romantic attachment and a mutual in the French city of Lyon, marries a love of art. Through dialogue between the classmate. Their wedding celebration is two heroines, it is revealed that Madeleine's marred, however, by the Gel'll8D crossing of second marriage, however, to the bumbling the de:11&rcation line which illllediately fortune-seeker Costa (Jean-Pierre Bacri), is preceded the fall of France. Madeleine's the result of an uneXPected pregnancy. husband dies in her arms soon afterward Costa, while inherently solipsistic, is during a battle between resistance fighters likable, but their marriage, like one of his and the police. get-rich-quick schemes, has little substance and crushes Madeleine's creative impulse. The film, through its use of history and With these two histories in mind, Kurys revelations of the intimacies of the propels the viewer to Lyon in the year 1952 marriages, cOllbined with superb character where Lena, still married to Michel and the development, clearly indicates that all 110ther of two daughters, and Madeleine, involved are essentially blaaeless, that the remarried and the 110ther of a son, aeet at a circU11Stances have created an intolerable perforll8Dce given at their childrens' school. There is illllediate (for lack of a reality for Lena and Madeleine. better word) attraction between the two W011eD, and a friendship begins that will lead to the disintegration and the eventual end of Under Kurys direction Isabelle Huppert and Miou-Miou are re118rkable in relaying the their marriages. subtleties of a fe11inine communication system that often relies upon gesture and look It is Kurys' handling of the evolution rather than the spoken word. In keeping with of the relationship of Lena and Madeleine this and with the visual medium of film, very within the context of their marriages that is the 110St refreshing aspect of "Entre Nous." little dialogue is spoken to convey the Kurys refuses to portray any of the involved intense feeling and regard experienced by these two woaen. Through electrifying characters as victillizers, but conversely, they cannot be seen as victills. After having exchanges of eye contact and a positioning of established the above aentioned sense of their bodies that suggests a •illimeter of history CClllbined with the later scenes of the movement would result in embrace, their families in the privacy of their hOlleS and on wondrous relationship is developed in a outings with the each other's f&11ily, the heart-wrenching and thoroughly believable idiosyncracies and shortC011ings of the style. W

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The Women's Studies Review welcomes unsolicited reviews. The review should be of a recently (preferably not earlier than 1983) published The Women's Studies Review Staff work by and/or about women. It should be three to four typewritten, double-spaced pages, ex- pressing a feminist analysis/response to the Terry Hartley, editor work. We are not interested in presenting any Suzanne Hyers, typist single feminist ideology; any feminist approach Susan Moseley-Haught, typist to a work is welcome. We reserve the right to Mary Sullivan, subscriptions edit for clarity, correctness, and space con- siderations. Anyone wishing to see the final copy before publication, or who wants their original review returned to them, should include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

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The Women's Studies Review is a bimonthly publication of the Center for Women's Studies at The Ohio State University. Subscriptions are $3.00 per year for students, $6.00 for others, payable to the Center for Women's Studies, 207 Dulles Hall, 230 West 17th Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210.

Enclosed is my check for:

$3.00

$6.00 The Ohio State University CenterForWomen'sStudies 207 Dulles Hall 230 West 17th Columbus, Ohio 43210

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Lei 1a Rupp ~ Hi story fl) 106 Dulles 230 w. 17th \j.~ -2 Vl ~fl) aj § 204206- 361 ~ ~