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Suite for Barbara Loden
8/21 Suite for Barbara Loden
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Suite for Barbara Loden - whole book discussion with spoilers
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For me it was fiction, in a genre of criticism as fiction. I look at fiction and nonfiction as black and white examples at either extreme but they share many elements in the middle and I consider the books with thosed shared elements more fiction than nonfiction, especially if there is a narrative structure. Léger recounts the film in a way you would think is nonfictional but her version supports her vision of the character Wanda and her biography of Loden also supports her vision of Loden. She does not give us a false view, just a well-crafted view that supports her themes. I consider that one of the strengths of the novel since by using visitable evidence, Léger has allowed is to see specifically how she had done that.
The UK publisher - which was founded, by one of the translators, Cécile Manon, to translate and publish this book, Les Fugitives, specialise in books that blur that fiction / non-fiction boundary, which in any case Cécile points out is more common in French literature (Annie Ernaux an obvious example).I always like the description [(c) Javier Cercas] of a "novel without fiction."
Mod
I love that description. I see more documentary than fictional elements in Suite (don't know if any part was fictional) which Léger weaved together into a very original novel structure.
To answer my own second question :-) It was Wanda above all who really struck the emotional chord in me. Still not sure if it was because I also watched the film, very powerful in a quiet way... regardless, I also loved the way Léger presented her in the novel.
Mod
Vesna, I like your interpretation, but I'm not sure I would include Alma Malone. She wasn't enough of presence in the book, and seemed like more of a footnote as inspiration for Wanda. The fact that Loden was able to track down her story is impressive. Suite seems so effortless, it's one reminder how much research and effort Loden had to have put in to achieve that seeming effortlessness.
Mod
I think that's right, Whitney, personal essay comes closest to her writing style. It's probably the form of an unconventional novel, though very loose, that might have led the US publisher to categorize it as "fiction" but the style is definitely nonfictional, as you say, a personal essay.
Yes, Alma features tangentially. From a few fragments about her in the book, there is a sense that she fits the overarching theme about the other three women, but Léger doesn't explore her life as much as she does for Loden. It was only from the article that Paul linked to in a no spoiler thread that I learned a sad fact that it's unknown whether she is alive or, if not, where her grave might be.
For me, the translated title (Suite) captured the essence of the book, which has more in common with a musical composition than traditional literary forms. I loved the recurrent theme-and-variations aspect to the writing - as with images of the desolate mining landscape in the movie images preceding and then returned to after Léger's own travels. And this is a shout out to the translator in particular, because in French it does not have that musical resonance in the title, although the writing is incredibly lyrical.
"And this is a shout out to the translator in particular, because in French it does not have that musical resonance in the title, although the writing is incredibly lyrical." - Jenna, Thought provoking ideas!Just curious, did anyone read this book in French?
There must have been quite some debate about the first word of the title given the galleys (as seen by Valerie Luiselli) were titled “Untitled for Barbara Loden”
yes I bet that's true. in french a literal translation is supplement to the life of barbara loden, also identifying it as not really fiction. that title for me signals more the layering of the author's narrative on Loden's, which is layered on Wanda's. I thought alot about the statement that Loden and Leger are both looking for ways to tell a "simple" story, and the comparison between verbal and non-verbal ways of doing that.
Mod
Hugh wrote: "It is more like a symphonic movement with multiple themes, or maybe a sonata, than a suite which normally consists of a sequence of distinct short pieces (chapters being the obvious literary analogy)."I like it: "Sonata for Barabara Loden"
I found the reading experience to be very musical, because I found myself thinking about several passages at once, holding images from Wanda and Loden and even Léger's stories in my mind together, so that I felt a resonance when reading, like there were harmonics in my inner ear.
Hugh, er, I'm afraid you're knitpicking a bit. Besides, "Suite" is a bit of a pun: Leger does seem sweet on her. Two quotes of Loden's came to mind: "It's hard to tell a simple story. " Also, when asked if any other actors had been considered to play Maud, "I was the best person to play the part." (by my memory)
Mod
Hugh, no criticism implied; however, as Jenna observed, the English title is an improvement on the French, both for its invocation of the musical analogy as well as the English pun on suite/sweet. Léger is almost magically simpatico with Barbara/Wanda, and she is startlingly open in her sympathy. "Barbara never cries. Actually, she does once, much later on.... When I cry I overdo it, I am overwhelmed, incapable of holding back the tears... tears are the only articulation, however monstrous, of the part of me that is completely shameless." (p31)
I was also startled by Micky Mantle's literary ambition. Even though he came from a similar background, his self-concept was almost the opposite to Maud's felt powerlessness, where his justified self-confidence in baseball bled over to writing. "I had no idea that shaping a sentence was so difficult... How to describe the trajectory of a baseball?"(p112)
I just watched another movie that echoed Wanda's powerlessness, though the central character is FAR more competent in the world than Wanda: The Assistant. Like Wanda, Jane is isolated and defenseless.
Mark, I loved that scene with Micky Mantle! He articulated so beautifully one central question that Leger is wrestling with - can language do as well as images in giving us direct emotional access to the character in a story? The arc of a ball flying over the fence triggers complex emotions as well as a sense of beauty that is impossible to recreate by writing. Yet writing too can capture the essence of a scene, an emotion, the layered causes of an action. Every modality of story telling has strengths and weaknesses.
Mod
The memoir story is gold. The publisher obviously had in mind a typical ghostwritten sports biography with, as Mantle says, "the tours, the trophies, the club gossip". And, instead, he's inspired to start on a literary odyssey in order to try and express the ineffable beauty he experienced in the game.
I feel we are leaving this novel far too undisussed. The Mantle scene brings back one of the earlier questions of the topic. Do you view it as fact or fiction and to what degree either? I think after considering that we must question the reason for the inclusion of the digression. Is there an ironic elelement? And finally, how does it relate to the epigraph or the epigraph to the whole of the book?
Mod
Excellent spotting, Sam. This Mantle fictional scene is also talking place at the Houdini Museum with an additional, and it seems intentionally overt, connection to the epigraph, "truth ... between appearing and disappearing."
Vesna wrote: "Sam wrote: "The Mantle scene [...] I think after considering that we must question the reason for the inclusion of the digression. Is there an ironic elelement? And finally, how does it relate to t..."I do not know to what degree the Mantle scene is fictional. From the prose we can see at least some of it is. Whether it is wholly fictional is a job for someone with more research tools and savvy. I don't think knowing or not knowing the real is Léger's focus here. I think it is on interpretation--both of the narrator's of her topic, and of our interpretation of what she presents us.
Mod
"At this point Barbara decides to let Wanda take control of her life, desperate and senseless as it is. Marguerite Duras spoke of glory.”
I must say that I didn't experience it as taking the control of her life, even less as "the moment of glory". What I see in the last frame is Wanda gazing into the empty shell of her life (indeed, "desperate and senseless"), but, instead of taking the control, continuing to float among the strangers, not embracing the reality Rather, surrendering to it as always while in her interior life she continues to be locked in the imprisonment of an exterior life. How did you experience it?
Mod
Upon watching the film, I wouldn't say I interpreted any sort of "glory" in it, but I can kind of see what Léger is getting at in the writing, especially when she quotes Céline:
"when you've reached the very end of all things, and sorrow itself no longer offers an answer, then you must return to the company of others, no matter who they are."
In that sense, choosing to willfully engage with life and others instead of... I don't know, giving up, withdrawing entirely... ? could be read/interpreted as a sort of "will to survive."
But it seemed pretty bleak to me in the film. Wanda was there but not there. Afloat amidst strangers.
Having now reread the book after watching the film, one of the things that struck me about the Mantle section was the way the tourists disappear into "the Psychic Theater" --- felt like a bizarre sort of parallel to the grotto in the Holy Land where Wanda goes when Mr. Dennis visits his father. It's one of the aspects of Léger's writing I really enjoyed---this kind of layering of both scenery and time, so that the reader is returning to places/events slightly altered and further blurring the distinctions. (Admittedly, I read most of the Mantle section as non-fiction.)
Anyone else watch the Loden documentary I AM WANDA? I would say it sheds even more light on how much Loden identified with that character and how much of her mannerisms seemed so natural for the role.
A few other pieces my mind is threading together...
"To sum up. A woman is pretending to be another, in a role she wrote herself, based on another... playing something other than a straightforward role, playing not herself but a projection of herself onto another, played by her but based on another."
Loden says she made the film to "confirm her existence" because she had been silent for too long and Wanda becomes a kind of embodiment of what Léger terms "the grief of existence."
Mod
Ugh! Unfortunately it's not available on Kanopy, only the film from the Criterion Collection is available there.
Marc,thanks for finding that "pretending to be another " quote! What page? I remembered it, but I hadn't bookmarked it. I suspect that's the point of the whole novel, with several layers added: the authoress of the encyclopedia entry and Leger herself.
There's another quote I can't get back to that seemed especially cogent, something like "All women must play a part." Does anyone else remember such a quote?
Mod
PG66 for the "pretending to be another " quote. I found it funny that about 10 pages later, to avoid people questioning the extent of her research for such a short entry, Léger tells them she's doing it for a writer who dreams of writing the definitive biography (and that pretend writer is a male).
Could not find the other quote you mention, but I also vaguely remember it.
Vesna,
I went in for the 14-day free trial on Criterion, which also had I AM WANDA streaming. Ended up watching A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE shortly thereafter (didn't intend to link the two films in any way, but it's an interesting companion piece in a sense because it's a male director who identifies with the female lead).
Mod
Is this the one you're thinking of? It's about half-way through the book.
"On the set of India Song, Delphine Seyrig said, “The common denominator that I share with all women is that I’m an actress. I think that every woman has to be an actress. Actresses do what all women are expected to do. We just throw ourselves into it more.”
I really enjoyed this book. I read it in as soon as it one the poll. I have no idea how to classify it. It isn't really fiction but it is not exactly non-fiction. The book's style reminded me of HHhH, the first book I'd read where the author includes himself by telling about his research. Here the author includes her not only comments about her research concerning Barbara Loden and the movie Wanda, which Loden directed and starred in, but how she felt while conducting the research.I have not seen the movie but will try to do so before the discussion ends.
LindaJ^ wrote: "I really enjoyed this book. I read it in as soon as it one the poll. I have no idea how to classify it. It isn't really fiction but it is not exactly non-fiction. The book's style reminded me of HH..."Picking up on LindaJ's next to last sentence, the delving into the reasearch of the narrator ( for some reason, I felt the narrator was being created as a character, different enough from the author to warrant a separate distinction) is what I loved about this novel and felt the telling of the Loden story was secondary to the story behind act of researching and writing the novel. For me the novel was a demonstration of how a topic is shaped from the research, on what an author includes, cuts, changes, exaggerates, and invents to create a finished product that reflects the POV the author has chosen to emphasize. Loden and her film were already being mythified before Legèr's book. Legèr kind of shows us how the myth is being made while at the same time, letting us see it is myth.
For those who have seen the film, much of its success is due to the briliant portrayal of paranoid, unpredictable brutality by Michael Higgins, something Legèr does not stress. Or note how Legèr develops the Marilyn Monroe coincidental similarities, though the the comparison to Monroe is a one that favors Loden with the celebrity of Monroe.
Mod
The film was restored at UCLA and shown at MOMA in 2010, not yet reaching the wider or even "select" audience when Loden must have been writing this book as it was published in 2012. If there is a myth about it (not sure I agree), then the book was the part of myth-making rather than myth-reconstructing.
As for the narrator and its subject, I rather had the opposite impression, that the injustice done to the women was at the heart of it and that narrating about the research highlighted it, peeling off each layer in the abuse and neglect of Loden/Wanda as a woman and Loden as a talented film-maker rather than a blonde bimbo. The extensive amount of research was proportionate to the degree of neglect of the subject (Loden/Wanda), which I felt was one of the main pojnts.
Vesna wrote: "Sam wrote: "Loden and her film were already being mythified before Legèr's book. Legèr kind of shows us how the myth is being made while at the same time, letting us see it is myth..."The film wa..."
I think we may be looking at this from different perspectives. There is a recent burst of interest and criticism in the film that has occurred since the restoration and push that accompanied that release. I feel the feminist appreciation is also more emphasized in the last decade. But the film existed in my mind as one of those holy grails of film that you had to have been lucky enough to caught at its time of distribution or would only catch now in a big city revival. I would have compared it to Shirley Clarke's "Portrait of Jason," Leni Reifenstahl's "Olympia, or Robert Frank's "****sucker Blues." Loden was compared to John Cassavetes as a filmmaker which was a big recommendation. I am linking a good article about Loden and her film which demonstrates a critical acclaim the film was receiving at the end of the millennium.
https://web.archive.org/web/201112042...
I agree with you that "injustice to women" element is central to the book, but in writing of a real individual as focal point, one would expose themselves to the reader examining other sources, including the film itself, and I am giving Legér credit for anticipating that and creating another theme to account for some of the liberties she takes in her account of Loren and the film. So for example, Legér doesn't really bring the roles of Nicholas Proferes (cinematographer) or Michael Higgins (Mr. Dennis) into the book. Both of them speak of the freedom allowed them in the making of this film which seems to be more of an ensemble result than an auteur creation. Unfortunately, that would contradict the story Legér is telling, which IMO is why she leaves them out. I think this would then become a criticism for the book, but I feel Legér sidesteps this by giving us enough material that supports a theme that this a book about defining and shaping a topic to illustrate a point. At least I thought she did.
Mod
I agree with you about the evolving feminist reception. I read somewhere (can't momentarily remember where, it could have been an interview with Loden herself) that their reaction was at best mixed in the 70s, criticizing it for not showing a more assertive woman, which was important to the movement at the time... this brings us to Léger and I like the way she showed the subtleties of someone who is victimized (including the story of her mother).
As a genre-bending book, it was variably categorized. When it received the Scott Moncrieff Prize in the UK for its translation by Lehrer and Menon, the judges described it as “a novel and biography which never settles for the traditional parameters of either.” The US publisher Dorothy Project classified it as fiction, while most GR reviewers seem to label it as nonfiction. How would you describe it?
Like in her two other books that, altogether with Suite, now form the ‘triptych’, Léger weaves the story of her mother with the stories of women artists, and in her interview, she acknowledges that her starting point was the wrong done to her mother, but that she “had to leave the terrain of biography and mix the novelistic with her story, shifting the narrative tension, increasing it by giving it other objects, other bodies.” In Suite, however, I see the life stories of four women. There is, indeed, the eponymous film maker Barbara Loden, Léger’s mother, but then also the cinematic figure Wanda and the real-life Wanda Alma Malone. I was fascinated by her writing about each of them, but, despite the common arc of a sense of suffering and injustice done to each, one especially triggered the strongest emotional reaction for me. I wonder if your response was similar to mine (and which of the four women?) or rather if all four of them impacted you at an emotional level in equal measure?