Die Abenteurer Terry, Jeff und Van lösen sich von ihrer Reisegruppe, um im wilden Amazonas nach einer sagenumwobenen Stadt zu suchen, in der es den Legenden nach nur Frauen geben soll. Trotz der Warnungen der Einheimischen, dass kein Mann je von dieser Suche zurückgekehrt wäre, machen sich die drei Abenteuer auf den Weg.

‚When I see them knit,‘ Terry said, ‚I can almost call them feminine.‘

Tja, wo soll ich bei Herland bloß anfangen? Die anfängliche Idee, eine Welt zu beschreiben, die ganz ohne Männer existiert, fand ich zunächst einmal spannend und es gibt ein paar gute Ansätze, auch in Sachen Religion und Politik. Wie so oft bei Klassikern, basiert aber auch hier das Qualitätsversprechen auf völlig veralteten Zuständen der Gesellschaft zu jener Zeit und dem Umstand, dass es noch leichter war als heute, neue Ideen vorzubringen. Ich schicke mal vorweg, dass es sich um eine feministische Autorin handelt, die das Buch 1915 geschrieben hat. Komischerweise liest es sich trotzdem wie die Geschichte dreier Männer die Herland erleben, anstatt der Geschichte der Frauen, die Herland ausmachen. Von da aus geht es dann leider steil bergab.

Jeff, Van und Terry gehören wohl dieser Entdeckerphase an, da sich reiche weiße Schnösel auf den Weg machten um die Geheimnisse der Fremde zu erkunden, ein paar rassistische Ansichten zum Besten zu geben, hier und da eine Pyramide zu plündern und weiß der Kuckuck, was zu der Zeit sonst noch Inn war. In diesem Szenario tingeln die Herren jetzt durch den Amazonas und werden von der Gruselgeschichte angefixed, dass es einen Ort geben soll, an dem ausschließlich Frauen leben. Ein gefährlicher Ort, den schon viele gesucht haben. Niemand ist je wieder zurückgekehrt. Klingt erstmal mysteriös? Ja, dachte ich auch. Während der eine Abenteurer aber schon feuchte Hosen kriegt beim Gedanken an all die schönen, jungen Frauen, widerspricht sich die Autorin direkt mal. Die drei Helden finden das zweitausend Jahre alte Land nämlich völlig problemlos, es ist auch nicht allzu schwer versteckt, und es zeigt sich, dass die Frauen von Herland noch nie einen leibhaftigen Mann gesehen haben. Wo also sind die angeblich verschollenen Suchenden gelandet, wenn sie nicht dort waren? Wie ist dieses gruselige Kindermärchen entstanden, das Jeff, Van und Terry so neugierig gemacht hat, wenn kein Mensch Herland je gesehen hat? Vielleicht hat die vorangegangenen Suchenden der Orientierungssinn verlassen und sie sind in die falsche Richtung gelaufen? Ich dachte zwar das wäre ein Frauenproblem, aber vielleicht ist das ja eine der geheimen Botschaften von Herland. Wer weiß.

Beinahe hätte ich eingangs begonnen mit »Drei Sexisten machen sich auf den Weg, …«, konnte mich aber noch zusammenreißen, obwohl die Hauptfiguren dieses Romans alles Stereotype der einen oder anderen Form sind. Jeff ist ein Bilderbuch-Gentleman der Frauen idealisiert und nahezu unterwürfig anbetet, Terry ist das dominante Arschloch, das glaubt Frauen stehen drauf (gerne auch mit Gewalt) »erobert« zu werden und Van soll der gemäßigte Mittelweg sein, der Mann der erkennt, dass Frauen Männer zwar nicht brauchen, aber ihre Gesellschaft schätzen können. Vielleicht könnte man Van durchgehen lassen, aber insgesamt sind doch alle Herren zu schlicht, als dass sie auch nur ansatzweise interessant sein könnten. Außerdem haben alle drei ähnlich stereotype Vorstellungen von den Frauen. Jeff hält Herland für ein Hausfrauenparadies, Terry nimmt an er wäre der begehrte Hahn im Korb und Van … was Van denkt weiß ich eigentlich nicht. Der erzählt und beobachtet viel und lernt irgendwie im Laufe der ereignislosen Handlung, dass Frauen tatsächlich ein Gehirn haben und es auch nutzen können. – Holy shit! Ich war fast so beeindruckt wie Van.

Es sind sich aber im Vorfeld immerhin alle drei einig, dass Herland ein harmloser Ort sein muss, denn schließlich sind Frauen, per biologischer Programmierung, alle nett. Hier behalten sie damit auch leider Recht, denn Herland ist sowas von klischeehaft weibisch, da könnt’ ich rosa Einhörner kotzen.

Zunächst einmal wird uns diese Stadt als ein fortschrittlicher Ort vorgestellt, der sich weit besser entwickelt hat, als unsere bekannte Gesellschaft. Es ist ein männerloses Utopia wo sich die Frauen durch reine Wunschkraft fortpflanzen. Alles in und an der Gesellschaft von Herland ist schön, hübsch, sauber, strukturiert, gesund, ökonomisch und gepflegt … Ich will ja keine perfekt geformte Seifenblase zerplatzen lassen, aber auch Frauen beherrschen die Kunst einen Schweinestall aus den eigenen vier Wänden zu machen. Sehr gut sogar. Die Wenigsten kriegen einen mentalen Orgasmus, wenn sie Fenster putzen oder Töpfe spülen dürfen. In Herland könnte man aber fast zu dem Schluss gelangen, dass sich die Damen um Aufgaben der Ordnungshaltung prügeln würden, wenn sie denn irgendeine Form von Leidenschaft besäßen. Tun sie aber nicht. Die Frauen kennen keine Konkurrenz und sie tragen keine Wettkämpfe aus. Es gibt ganz grundsätzlich keine Konflikte, keine Kriminalität, keinen Neid. Nur das Streben nach gemeinsamem Glück und Fortschritt. Und wie drückt sich das am besten aus? Genau, durch Babies!

Die Frauen von Herland sind dermaßen fixiert auf die Mutterschaft, das hält frau im Kopf nicht aus. Die Idee, dass es Frauen geben könnte die gar keine Lust aufs Kinderkriegen haben, kommt der Autorin nicht einmal im Ansatz. Stattdessen wird das Muttersein zu einer Art fanatischen Religion und wer nicht 200% in der Spur läuft, bei der wird der biologisch einsetzende Mutterschaftswunsch durch produktive Ablenkung einfach unterdrückt und die Schwangerschaft verhindert.
Ich habe mich in zweiter Instanz übrigens die ganze Zeit gewundert, warum die Frauen eigentlich wieder Männer in ihre Gesellschaft integrieren wollen. Die Frauen haben keinerlei sexuelle Interessen (für lesbisches Gedankengut war die Autorin dann wohl doch noch nicht bereit). Sex ist für sie nur ein neues Mittel um Kinder zu kriegen. Das muss ja keinen Spaß machen. Ich sehe sie schon wie Bretter daliegen, im Geiste ihre Putztücher und Babylätzchen aufreihen, während der Mann seine eheliche Pflicht verrichtet. Sexy, huh?
Brauchen tun die Frauen die Herren auch nicht. Warum sie es also plötzlich so erstrebenswert finden aus ihrer xx-Gesellschaft wieder eine xy-Gesellschaft zu machen, erschließt sich während der Lektüre nicht wirklich. Das muss man dann einfach mal so hinnehmen.

Während Herland zur damaligen Zeit vielleicht für Aufsehen gesorgt hat, ist dieses Buch aus heutiger Sicht einfach nur schlecht. Es ist sprachlich simpel und inhaltlich bietet es nichts als Gefasel und Klischees. Es gibt keine Spannungsbögen und die Figuren sind allesamt einfältig. Blasse Pappfiguren. Auch Herland selbst strahlt nichts aus. Man lernt es leider nicht richtig kennen, da man es nur durch Vans analytische Augen sieht. Erstrebenswertes oder etwas, dass einen zum Nachdenken anregen würde, sucht man in diesem Roman ebenfalls vergeblich. Obwohl das Buch außerdem als feministische Literatur gilt, würde ich es als in jeder Hinsicht sexistisch beschreiben. Gegenüber den Männern sowieso, aber auch gegenüber den Frauen, mit all seinen altbackenen Vorstellungen vom Frausein. Solltet ihr in die Versuchung geraten Herland lesen zu wollen: lasst es! Es lohnt sich nur, wenn ihr eine Studie über den Feminismus von damals bis heute schreiben müsst. Andernfalls ist Herland einfach nur überbewerteter Bockmist.

Mein liebstes Schmankerl übrigens: Intelligenz maskiert die Weiblichkeit und macht eine Frau weniger attraktiv. Und das aus der Feder einer Feministin …

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

It has been quite a few years since I read this novel, but I thought it was absolutely terrific and I remember it vividly. The story opens when the main character Philip is a lonely young boy with a club foot being raised by his aunt and uncle. As soon as he is old enough to get away, he moves to Germany and then France where he decides to become a visual artist. That part was extremely interesting to me, as it seemed that, although art and education and customs of every kind have changed so much in the last hundred years, the inner work and the shame of “becoming an artist” have not changed in any way. It seemed very fresh and relevant. There is a “Least Likely To” type of girl who falls in love with Philip and dies by suicide.

Phillip decides that he doesn’t have what it takes to be an artist either, so he returns to London to study medicine. There he meets a server at a restaurant who is incredibly toxic. He falls in love with her and is completely under her sway, supporting her when she gets pregnant by another man. He seriously needs to get himself to a meeting of Codependents Anonymous! I won’t spoil the whole story but let me just give you a couple of key words: “sex work” and “syphilis.” But you will be happy to know that Philip eventually finds happiness and even love.

“The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot

This poem is perfect, and I don’t even know what I could possibly say about it. The back of the copy of The Wasteland and Other Poems that I have says “Few readers need any introduction to the work of the most influential poet of the twentieth century.” So there you go. I remember when I was a kid I liked the way the poem is so interior (as in, the interior of someone’s head), and how it was about someone who was getting old, and I just liked how it sounds. My mom used to recite and read this poem to us and I can still clearly hear in my mind just the way she would intone

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .                              
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

  In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

and then later:

  I grow old . . . I grow old . . .                                              
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

  Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

  I do not think they will sing to me.

She explained to me that when you’ve had certain kinds of dental work you don’t dare to eat a peach.

T.S. Eliot is an example of someone who was a horrible bigot but who managed to keep it out of his poetry (as far as I’m aware.) I wish Baroness Orczy and some others could be more like that. I’m psyched for more modernist poetry to come!

Grass on the Wayside by Natsume Soseki

I really enjoyed reading this. It was almost as great as Soseki’s 1914 book Kokoro. It’s about a middle-aged curmudgeon who doesn’t know how to get along with anyone, especially his wife and his family. This curmudgeon had been adopted into another family as a child, which was apparently a common Japanese custom of the period, but later the adoption was reversed and he returned to his original family. Now his onetime adoptive father has resurfaced, unsuccessful and unsavory and grasping for money, and our curmudgeon isn’t sure what the right thing to do is. According to the introduction, the story is autobiographical and the main character is supposed to be a very close match to Soseki. But I don’t understand how that can be—how could anyone who has social skills as poor as the main character have the insight to present the situation the way the author does? If the author were really as blinkered as the main character, there’s no way he could have written this book.

I’m looking forward Soseki’s next book in 1915. But oh no! It’s his last one!

A Bride of the Plains by Baroness Orczy

As you may know, I’m a big Baroness Orczy fan. This year I have to give her credit for something very special: although basically the entire world is embroiled in war, she is the ONLY author to address this. She was the ONLY one to write about war, and in Hungary in the Carpathian basin, more or less where all the trouble began. (Okay, I guess there’s also Mariano Azuela writing about the Mexican revolution. But still, props to the Baroness!) I know the production schedule for publishing a novel is pretty long, but a lot of these Edwardians wrote two books a year, and I do think some of them could have at least acknowledged in some way, even thematically, that there’s a world war going on, a pretty big deal! (PS. Are they still Edwardians? What am I supposed to call them now? Baroness Orczy ain’t no modernist!)

Anyway, no one seems to set their novels in the present day, and in fact Baroness Orczy is no exception; A Bride of the Plains is set in what seemed to me like a non-specific time in the past. But the book’s opening takes a pretty clear anti-war tone. It’s almost the day when young men in this little burg are conscripted into the army, a sad day for all:

On this hideous day all the finest lads in the village are taken away to be made into soldiers by the abominable Government? Three years! Why, the lad is a mere child when he goes—one-and-twenty on his last birthday, bless him! still wanting a mother’s care of his stomach, and a father’s heavy stick across his back from time to time to keep him from too much love-making.

 

Three years ! When he comes back he is a man and has notions of his own. Three years! What are the chances he comes back at all? Bosnia! Where in the world is that? My God, how they hate it! They must go through with it, though they hate it all-every moment.

By the way, I realize that there is probably a glut of war books coming down the pipe, and in a few years I’ll be very nostalgiac for the kind of books I read this year.

Anyway! This is the story of a girl, Elsa, who tries to be true to Andor, the boy she loves who’s been sent off to war. But when it seems that he’s been killed, she knuckles under to her mother’s pressure to marry the bad-tempered richest man in town. But on the eve of her wedding,

The downfall of this book is the same problem that Orczy always has: anti-Semitism. Usually it’s just a few throwaway descriptions, but here the villains are an Evil Jew and Evil Jewess. Kind of ruined the book. That’s the whole thing about bigoted people; they just can’t let it go. If you hate Jews so much, Emma Orczy, why don’t you just stop writing about them? But no, she can’t help herself! Maddening. I will say that there’s a lot of suspense and action in this book, if you can get past the bad taste in your mouth.

The Underdogs (Los de Abajo) by Mariano Azuela

This interesting novel about the Mexican Revolution is cynical toward everyone concerned. The main characters are peasants who become rebels. There are a lot of funny bits. The most depressing part is how the women are treated like garbage by everyone. You get the impression that the people of Mexico will get the shaft, no matter who wins. This is the first Mexican novel I have encountered in this project and I hope I will find more.

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I like Herland even more than 1911’s Moving The Mountain, and almost as much as “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which I think is one of the finest short stories. Although Gilman is famous for being a feminist, I don’t think she gets as much credit as she deserves for being a speculative fiction writer.

Three male explorers hear of a country that consists only of women, so they decide to check it out, and with great trouble make their way in. Jeff is a tender soul who glorifies motherhood and believes in being a perfect gentleman to women. Terry is a handsome man about town, kind of rapey and full of himself, and he thinks women should be pretty and serve him. The narrator, Vandyck Jennings, is sort of in-between these two and in general presents a “rational” point of view.

They are amazed to discover a beautiful utopia populated only by women, with wildly different customs from their own. In this country they don’t have poverty, they raise their children communally, they wear comfy clothes, etc. Long ago, a volcanic eruption and slave uprising led to a group of women who were cut off from the rest of the world. A few of them were miraculously able to reproduce as the result of sort of an exalted mental state, and this ability was passed down through the generations. There are so many novels about all-female societies where this happens—Ammonite by Nicola Griffith and Jane Fletcher’s Celaeno series spring to mind—but Herland must be the first.

The women the three explorers meet are all strong, intelligent, athletic, good teachers, and able to get things done. They confound the explorers’ expectations at every turn because they have no idea how to “behave like women.” Gilman takes the gender binary away and everyone becomes a person; however, she certainly has a rosy view of how nice an all-female society, or any society, could be.

The three explorers each fall in love and insist on marrying their sweethearts, which the women agree to in order to humor them, although marriage is a meaningless concept to them. All this time there has been no romantic love in the country because, well, when the men are gone, it’s just impossible! But they haven’t been missing it.

Terry and his wife Alima don’t get along. He attempts to rape her, but she kicks him in the balls and summons help from her friend in the room next door. Terry is put on trial, and the local Over Mother sentences him to be sent back to the outside world, with his word as a gentleman not to tell anyone about their country. At first Terry is obstinate.

“The first thing I’ll do is to get an expedition fixed up to force an entrance into Ma-Land!”

“Then,” they said quite calmly, “he must remain an absolute prisoner always.”

“Anesthesia would be kinder,” urged Moadine.

“And safer,” added Zava.

“He will promise, I think,” said Ellador [Jennings’ wife.]

And he did.

(This part reminded me of Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.)

So Terry leaves, with Jennings and Ellador to escort him. Next year is the sequel! From Gilman’s Wikipedia page I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about her, including the fact that she married her first cousin, and that when she was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer she “chose chloroform over cancer” (her words.)

The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum

I love all the Oz books! This is the one in which a little girl named Trot and her sailor pal Cap’n Bill come to Oz. They meet a lot of lovable characters like the Bumpy Man and Button Bright, and they help the Scarecrow solve a problem with the monarchy of Jinxland.

A neglected work by the author of 'The Yellow Wallpaper'. Opinions here are split on 'Herland', recognizing it as a seminal (uh) work of feminist thought at the start of the 20th century, and yet ultimately limited in its vision of female freedom. Too, as an adventurer's tale of Utopia, its awfully dry and didactic.

I agree with most of that, but when it wasn't lecturing you, 'Herland' was a riot. I wish it had seen a wider publication then in the pages of Gilman's magazine, because I would like to know how contemporary men viewed the work. The preconceived notions of gender - a hundred times more rigid then compared to now - are constantly challenged. Vandyk, our sociologist narrator, Edwardian 'bro' Terry, and sensitive guy Jeff (but not too sensitive, you understand) at the start of their expedition all scoff at the idea that any group of women could ever agree enough to accomplish anything before tearing each others eyes out over a man, or shoes, or something.

When they breach the borders of Herland and view the tamed landscape and superior infrastructure they know a man must be nearby. It perhaps takes months for even gentle Jeff to believe the Herlanders tales of asexual reproduction. The men, mostly led by the dissatisfaction of Terry at these cold matrons refusing to fall breathless at the sight of his sparkly baubles, are foiled at every turn in their efforts to escape, or even hide some of the truths about their male-dominated world. Vandyk is forced to admit that in every way the women of Herland are superior to the leaders of the outside world. Surprisingly, the area they're most deficient in are the arts which, without war or romantic motives, are reduced to insipid pageants celebrating children.

The women of Herland demonstrate strength, coordination, dramatic vision in civil planning, and advanced agriculture and breeding programs. That last thought leads to some troubling conclusions about eugenics enthusiastically embraced by two of the three adventurers. Vandyk assures the reader that these women are of distant Aryan origin despite their South American location. In another less-flattering monument to equality Gilman proves that women are as susceptible to the prejudices of their time as any men.

With these flaws, 'Herland' is still a marvelous achievement in raising questions against the assumptions of gender in a, yes, entertaining way. There is a sequel, 'With Her in Ourland' but I've heard it lacks charm.

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This book caught my eye in my library's electronic collection. As I started to read, I thought "this author really has mastered that old-fashioned style of writing." No wonder! The book was first published in 1915.

Herland is a utopia, where a nation of women-only is visited by three American men. It contains many of the unlikely anachronisms you'd expect: a large agricultural nation exists in secret in South America, on their journey there the men encounter "savages", and the women are Caucasian (!)

The book is heavy on descriptions and the history of the women's utopia, with occasional action instigated by the visiting men. As the author writes, "if the people who read it are not interested in these amazing women and their history, they will not be interested at all... there were no adventures because there was nothing to fight." It is fun to see some of the things the author feels are needed for a perfect society: cats that only catch mice and never birds, wonderful orchards, and practical clothes with lots of pockets, perhaps a reaction against the "Oriental opulence" fashion of her time. (I have a male friend who claims female authors always spend way too much time describing clothes.) The women are "not, in the girl sense, beautiful... [they are] calm, grave, wise, wholly unafraid, evidently assured and determined." You may be curious to see how the author manages to provide children for her utopia without men.

This might get tedious in a long book, but Herland is only 139 pages. As Wikipedia says, "science fiction developed and boomed in the 20th century." This may not be your favorite book of the year, but it is an interesting alternative to the pulp sensationalism I usually associate with early science fiction.