Men and women via Nin and Morton

The last two books I finished, I read in tandem. I read Anais Nin's Ladders to Fire on the bus because her writing demands upright, alert attention. Nin is not a bedtime read. Brian Morton's Starting Out in the Evening is, however. I would snuggle up in bed ready to savor every word, making sure not to read too fast lest the experience be finished prematurely.

I've folded down the pages I want to keep with me. I have returned to my favorite passages, and I find that the two works aren't dealing with such different issues. How does one go about this thing called being a woman or a man? What is love like? Morton and Nin also delve into being a writer and psychological aspects of life, respectively.

I feel the works are in dialogue with each other. One calls out and the other answers. I won't tell you which author wrote which quote, so just take in the following debate...


Point:
"When man imposes his will on woman, she knows how to give him the pleasure of assuming his power is greater and his will becomes her pleasure; but when the woman accomplishes this, the man never gives her a feeling of pleasure, only of guilt for having spoken first and reversed the roles."

Counter-point:
"A man can't understand how a woman feels - how she can offer up her entire life to him. The man thinks she's bringing him a burden. He doesn't understand that she's trying to give him a gift."

Rebuttal:
"For a man it is natural to be the aggressor and he takes defeat well. For a woman it is a transgression, and she assumes the defeat is caused by the aggression. How long will woman be ashamed of her strength?"

ROUND TWO

Point
"...there is a human being...spreading not his charms but his defenses, plotting to disrobe, somewhere along the night - his body without the aperture of the heart or his heart with a door closed to his body."

Counter-point:
"...to go to bed with someone - to carry your conversation into the realm of the body, a realm of insecurity and fear as well as pleasure - was always fraught with the sad evidence of how difficult it is to understand another person and make yourself understood."

Rebuttal:
"...flirting was a pleasure, and flirting with intelligent people - male or female - was one of the supreme pleasures of life."

Reading these books was a pleasure, an honor and perhaps even a flirtation.

"If reading a book is a naked encounter between two people, I have known you nakedly for years."
Brian Morton