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Apples & Oranges
After more than a decade of "marriage" to a woman with whom she was raising a daughter, Jan Clausen fell in love with a man, stunning herself and the lesbian community to which she had been intimately connected. The experience was, she writes, "like deliberately embarking on a sea cruise off the edge of a flat Earth." In her luminous and affecting memoir, Clausen charts the trajectory of her sexual life -- from her first kiss to her later loves -- and offers a stunning critique of society's insistence on yoking identity to desire. In the 1950s Pacific Northwest, Clausen grew up in a family in which extramarital sex, swearing, and spicy foods were verboten. In the sixties, she embraced the (hetero)sexual revolution, consorting with various adolescent Lotharios and failing miserably in her effort to become a topless dancer during her summer break from Reed College. After leaving school, she joined an experimental community, where she met her first woman lover. But it was amid New York's dynamic feminist milieu in the 1970s that she "crossed the pass of love" and fell for Leslie Kaplow, also a writer and activist. As a couple, they immersed themselves in the city's vibrant literary sisterhood and eventually launched their own literary magazine. In time, however, Clausen grew restless in her personal relationship and uneasy with what she calls People in Groups, those enforcers of ideological purity. Through her travels, she discovered sweet escape from her familiar world, especially through her activism in Nicaragua, whose war-ravaged streets would provide the backdrop for her unpardonable act: falling in love with a West Indian male lawyer. Deeply felt, gorgeously written, Apples andOranges is a testament to the powers and perils of desire. It is also the story of one woman's mourning for the community that cast her out and a dazzling examination of the ways in which we all search for identity. Rejecting all efforts at sexual sorting, including the label "bisexual," for her own journey, Clausen arrives at an understanding of sexual attraction in which both likeness and difference emerge as deeply erotic. Whatever our passions, this groundbreaking work will never again let us consider the received categories of sexuality in the same light.
253 pages, Hardcover
First published January 26, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 31, 2011
I can't help but posit that Jan Clausen's memoir was written for a very specific audience (well-educated lesbians who are contemporaries of hers) of which I am decidedly not a part.
The text is very dense and much more erudite and philosophical than I was prepared to expect in her memoir. Clausen ruminates on what it means to be a woman in many different contexts: as relates to her middle-class 1950's upbringing, at a "hippie" college in the Pacific Northwest, in the lesbian intelligentsia enclave where she spent more than a decade, as a "hasbian" who is now with an Oxford-educated West Indian man. Apparently she kept very detailed journals which she quotes frequently, as well as quoting somewhat esoteric scholarly texts. The language used is a very definite parlance that those outside the queer community might find difficult to penetrate and even understand at all at times.
I found the anecdotes of Clausen's life much, much more interesting than her endless exploration of what all of it Means, and how all of it relates to Gender and Identity. It's almost as if Clausen needs to hide behind the scholarly investigation and analysis of her life in order to relate it to a reader. It's not entirely necessary.
The text is very dense and much more erudite and philosophical than I was prepared to expect in her memoir. Clausen ruminates on what it means to be a woman in many different contexts: as relates to her middle-class 1950's upbringing, at a "hippie" college in the Pacific Northwest, in the lesbian intelligentsia enclave where she spent more than a decade, as a "hasbian" who is now with an Oxford-educated West Indian man. Apparently she kept very detailed journals which she quotes frequently, as well as quoting somewhat esoteric scholarly texts. The language used is a very definite parlance that those outside the queer community might find difficult to penetrate and even understand at all at times.
I found the anecdotes of Clausen's life much, much more interesting than her endless exploration of what all of it Means, and how all of it relates to Gender and Identity. It's almost as if Clausen needs to hide behind the scholarly investigation and analysis of her life in order to relate it to a reader. It's not entirely necessary.
November 18, 2022
Very personal, and clarifying of a trend that used to be common in the 70s, experimenting with sexual mores. Of course, with ageing, one does not know if this trend is continuing, certainly it is not written about or spoken of as much as it was. This reads like an explanation of a personal decision, to a public that used to be ¨home¨and no longer feels like that. It is almost an excuse for changing modes in order to retain the friendship and the public. So, I maybe read it too late in life to fully appreciate the context.
February 25, 2018
This book was such a great read. I'm lucky enough that Jan Clausen is my advisor this semester in my MFA program. I really appreciated the way she interwove journal entries to give the perspective of how she actually felt about something in the moment not only a memory of it. I also really appreciated the challenging themes presented - belonging, community, the ways that sometimes identity politics can gatekeep and fail us, the paradox of identity/belonging/desire/community.
January 15, 2015
I found this memoir fascinating and moving and very much the sort of thing that I have been craving when assembling a to-read pile of bisexual angst.
As to be expected, I found Clausen's sweeping, two-sentence dismissal of the bisexual movement to be quite aggravating: especially since after that two-sentence mention she proceeded onwards to write as if there are no bisexuals to be found anywere in lesbian, feminist or activist circles. It's one thing if bisexual is not how she'd describe herself: it's insulting to dismiss a large swathe of fellow bisexuals while complaining how isolated you feel as a neither-straight-nor-gay person.
But. As long as I put that annoyance aside, I found I agreed with much of what Clausen had to say: about sexuality, about the dynamics of People in Groups, about understanding oneself in relation to others and the world.
As to be expected, I found Clausen's sweeping, two-sentence dismissal of the bisexual movement to be quite aggravating: especially since after that two-sentence mention she proceeded onwards to write as if there are no bisexuals to be found anywere in lesbian, feminist or activist circles. It's one thing if bisexual is not how she'd describe herself: it's insulting to dismiss a large swathe of fellow bisexuals while complaining how isolated you feel as a neither-straight-nor-gay person.
But. As long as I put that annoyance aside, I found I agreed with much of what Clausen had to say: about sexuality, about the dynamics of People in Groups, about understanding oneself in relation to others and the world.
August 5, 2022
An account of sexual orientation identity politics in the 70s-early 90s, this memoir divulges the ways that the lesbian feminist movement, the social implications of either/or vs. both/and attraction, and the search for herself all impacted Jan Clausen's life. Through accounts of love and protest, family and niche fame, and interactions with historic queer leaders, Clausen authentically and honestly shares her experiences. She does not shy away from criticizing the extremely white-centric focus of early feminism. At times, I found myself not relating to and/or disliking her choices and perspectives, but intensely respect her account of her own story and its place in historic queer literature.
November 1, 2010
Great writing, unflinching awareness of the author's own faults and weaknesses as she analyzes the sexual relationships in her past. But that unflinchingness and honesty can make her hard to sympathize with at times, until you remember none of us is perfect.
May 17, 2012
I enjoyed this reading a lot. I thought I was crazy and a bit too analytical when it came to my thoughts on the complexities of the relations of sexuality, gender and class. This book articulated precisely what I've felt for a long time in a non-judgemental way. I can appreciate this very much.
December 24, 2009
A bit hyper-intellectual (I craved more narrative!) but her theoretical reflections and life story were overall very interesting, and they helped me think through some of my own life journey.
December 16, 2013
Gave up halfway through, too philosophical for my taste
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August 19, 2017Most thoughtful, intricate. Perhaps more to come once writing arm back in service.
August 25, 2017
Clausen's book is about her sexual journey as a lesbian identified woman who then slept with a man. Crossing and exploring sexual identities she writes about her own perception and how we're experiences were influenced by others.
"Cherrie Moraga and gloria Anzaldua, editors of the. Lassie anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Wonen of Color, call "their in the flesh," as well as by " queer theory"..," 7
"Rather than sharing the widespread notion of sexuality as an uncontrollable force that defines a person's nature, I view it as an instance of human self-making, a creative force never fully under conscious control yet one that commonly involves what I can only call choice." 7
"All of us, once past a certain age, have pieces of ourselves that have gotten detached, that float around in the world and can confront us unawares..." 27
"For me, sex and text were already closely linked through my habits of inferring the erotic world from books and of rehearsing and dissecting secret feelings in a journal
." 63
"Trashing turns real problems into allegories in which the trashed figures as The Problem personified." 195
"Cherrie Moraga and gloria Anzaldua, editors of the. Lassie anthology This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Wonen of Color, call "their in the flesh," as well as by " queer theory"..," 7
"Rather than sharing the widespread notion of sexuality as an uncontrollable force that defines a person's nature, I view it as an instance of human self-making, a creative force never fully under conscious control yet one that commonly involves what I can only call choice." 7
"All of us, once past a certain age, have pieces of ourselves that have gotten detached, that float around in the world and can confront us unawares..." 27
"For me, sex and text were already closely linked through my habits of inferring the erotic world from books and of rehearsing and dissecting secret feelings in a journal
." 63
"Trashing turns real problems into allegories in which the trashed figures as The Problem personified." 195
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews