Читать книгу Side-Stepping Normativity in Selected Short Stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner - Rebecca K. Hahn - Страница 10

In his introduction to The Element of Lavishness: Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell (1938–1978) (2001), Michael Steinman draws attention to the fact that Warner makes no distinction between same-sex partnerships and heterosexual partnerships. “Trusting that the Maxwells would read her words and understand her experience with great sensitivity”, Steinman writes, “she [Warner] wrote of her marriage as equivalent to theirs […]” (xix). Maxwell and Warner became close friends and exchanged numerous letters on various subjects, including their respective relationships. In her letters to Maxwell, Warner makes a casual remark about her life with Valentine Ackland:

When Valentine & I had our grand house in Norfolk, with a servant, we used to count the hours till her half-days & evenings out when we would rush into the kitchen and read her novels and magazines: not quite up to the level of Mrs Henry Wood (she was too young for that) but such a grateful change from Dostoevski. (EoL 146)

Warner never felt the need to address the fact that she was living with a woman. This attitude is apparent in the passing remarks she makes about her lesbian relationship in her private letters, and can be seen in the way she features male homoeroticism in her stories. Her unbiased acceptance of sexual desire was one of the main reasons why she was asked to write the biography of T.H. White: “In addition to the affinity for fantasy she shared with White, Warner had been chosen as his biographer in part because White’s closest friends trusted her, as a sexual dissident, to tell his tale generously, openly, and without judgement” (Micir 124). Writing White’s biography presented Warner with a challenge. She realised that she could not disclose too much information about his sexuality without causing a scandal and decided to omit several details.

By contrast, Warner’s stories have never been subject to any moral censorship. In “The Shirt in Mexico” (1941), “The Green Torso” (1970), and “Bruno” (1971), Warner writes freely about homoeroticism and cross-generational longings. Despite the considerable time span between the writing of these stories, all three take a similar stance on homoerotic desires: rather than positioning themselves in opposition to normative or nonnormative desires, they explore the particularities of desire as such. They reflect on the porosity of boundaries, describe materials that stimulate desire, and investigate the role played by inanimate objects in deriving pleasure. The chapter begins with an analysis of “The Shirt in Mexico” (1940), followed by “Bruno” (1971), and “The Green Torso” (1971).