Essays on art and the human condition. Mary Gaitskill is a highly regarded American novelist and short story writer. Oppositions is a collection of her essays spanning the last twenty five years. They come under three subject headings, “Living”, “Watching and Listening" and finally, “Reading.” As can be gleaned from this, there are autobiographical pieces, but mostly the collection focuses on the arts – music, film and literature. The “Oppositions” of the title refers to the final essay, which analyses Nabokov’s Lolita. Gaitskill writes of the terrible incongruity of life, “...the natural coexistence of beauty and destruction, goodness and predatory devouring, cruelty and tenderness...” A theme that runs through these essays is how so many aspects of our emotional lives defy interpretation. Often we don’t know who we are or what we really think or want. Gaitskill’s writing on sexual politics is nuanced and refrains from making hard judgements. In pieces on date rape and porn star and anti-porn activist, Linda Lovelace, she argues that our contradictory impulses cannot be explained. The truth is we might be what we exalt and also abhor. Deeply considered writings that examine sex, art, politics and human frailty. Oppositions: Selected Essays, by Mary Gaitskill. Published by Serpent's Tail. $34.99 Review by Chris Saliba Comments are closed.
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