After Swann by
Marthe Reed
Published by above/ground press, 2013.
There’s a
surprising amount of perspective unifying Marthe Reed’s new chapbook. A collaged
piece intertwining Reed’s words with those of Marcel Proust (by way of his
Swann’s Way), it’s also an animated video produced in association with the
Plastic Theater of Lafayette. And when you consider this above/ground press
release appears excerpted from a larger body of work, which (one imagines) will
deepen already weighty themes of gender and consciousness, well, there is much
to chew on here.
Given all of
that context, After Swann surprises because it’s fully transporting on its own.
I jumped in as I usually do, obliviously – having read no “product
descriptions” in advance – and immediately felt the invisible parameters that directed acceptable female behaviour in an aristocratic setting; constraints that still loom
today.
“these
dreams
stop
like a clock
a
malady
too
irresistible
this
black cavity
precisely
the same
she
might have a red
principle
a
certain type of femininity
her
subjection
fixed
in
space
oh,
marvelous
the
tombs
of
sunlight straying
impossible
for me
the
vagrancy
of
her
detachment
that
face
deliberately
unfinished
present
except
in a
flood of blue light
that
current
we
imagine
almost
ours
that
sort of tenderness
the
instant of pain
the
special pleasure
and
seize
the
mysterious object
still
alive
buried
in a couch of grass”
From “21”,
Reed’s first chapter, we’re acclimatized to a code of conduct pillowed between
Freudian urges and bigoted expectation. Marthe Reed has tackled femininity in a
male-oriented society before and here it’s quietly rendered amidst the formality
of a Jane Austen-esque estate. There’s always the matter of evening
entertainment, of dresses and figurative masks to attend to, while the meadows hang like a
dreamscape just over property lines. From “27”:
“her
spirited
laughing
a
cataract”
drunken
with
scandal
and asseveration
like
a cage-bird”
Alongside our
nameless protagonist, we readers learn to cope within the strictly defined
rules that govern a gender and home we had no hand in. After Swann’s gaze
tenders no logical reasoning for our plight but no clear remedies either. These
stanzas steady themselves on perseverance, never acting on defiance or
self-pity. Womanhood, as sculpted by men, becomes a sentence to outlast and yet
Reed’s collage engrosses us with its daily tribulations.
Her lines,
which rarely exceed four words, huddle in clusters of threes over a
dispassionate timeline often fragmented by obligation and excess. Scarcely
placed details of these events welcome a share of guesswork while Reed’s lack
of punctuation rolls a mental fog over what happened, when, and whether it
matters.
After Swann's desensitized outlook cannot be empathized with through a veil of historical follies when femininity
remains smothered, to one degree or another, throughout the world. Like any
form of ignorance, sexism lowers the human condition and the few cases that make
headlines have typically been rooted, unseen and cancerous, for years. In the
Somali capital, it might justify treating women like possessions. In the posh office of Canada’s largest university, it may validate depriving students of the opportunity to read women’s voices. Somber truths like these underline the importance of After Swann’s character, which speaks for the
speechless through a collagist voice of both sexes. Unless you scour Proust’s
text in an attempt to dissect Reed’s patchwork, the voice surviving inequality,
one day at a time, is united regardless of gender. That's a comforting thought.
To close,
here’s an excerpt from “28”, probably my favourite section, in which Reed and
Proust’s psyche savors a moment’s peace away from the charade:
“deep
blue tumult of
memory
the
fragrance of
the
moist air
such
moments
escape
submersion
vanished
sensations
suddenly
returned
slow
and rhythmical
a
state
melancholy,
incessant, sweet
vanished
without
speaking
a
woman
a
moment”
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