February 2016: Janet Malcolm

For February, we'll be reading Janet Malcolm. What will you read?

I'm a big fan of Plath's so my plan is to read Malcolm's The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

I have two of her nonfiction titles on my TBR -- The Journalist and the Murderer and Iphigenia in Forest Hills. I'd like to get to both in February.

The Journalist and the Murderer would be the one I'd read if I could fit it in.

Hey, it's February! (Already!! Yikes, time flies...) What's everyone reading by Malcolm for this month?

I did indeed pick up The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes this month. So far it's less a biography (which is what I thought it would be) and more of a literary criticism of various biographies and memoirs about Plath. I found this passage interesting:

"The biographer at work, indeed, is like the professional burglar, breaking into a house, rifling through certain drawers that he has good reason to think contain the jewelry and money, and triumphantly bearing his loot away. The voyeurism and busybodyism that impel writers and readers of biography alike are obscured by the apparatus of scholarship designed to give the enterprise an appearance of banklike blandless and solidity. The biographer is portrayed almost as a kind of benefactor. He is seen as sacrificing years of his life to his task, tirelessly sitting in archives and libraries and patiently conducting interviews with witnesses. There is no length he will not go to, and the more his book reflects his industry the more the reader believes that he is having an elevating literary experience, rather than simply listening to backstairs gossip and reading other people's mail. The transgressive nature of biography is rarely acknowledged, but it is the only explanation for biography's status as a popular genre. The reader's amazing tolerance (which he would extend to no novel written half as badly as most biographies) makes sense only when seen as a kind of collusion between him and the biographer in an excitedly forbidden undertaking: tiptoeing down the corridor together, to stand in front of the bedroom door and try to peep through the keyhole."

I never thought about it in those terms before, but Malcolm makes a great point.

I'll be starting with The Journalist and the Murderer.

>5 sweetiegherkin: What a thought-provoking passage. Biography as voyeurism, coming from someone who is a journalist.

>6 sparemethecensor: It sounds like you will get similar musings with The Journalist and the Murderer. I did really find that passage insightful ... like I said, that's not my usual view of biography, but it's awfully accurate.

I finished The Journalist and the Murderer today. (Snowed in = reading time!) I really liked it. Like you mentioned, >7 sweetiegherkin:, there are a lot of philosophical musings that I found insightful and thought-provoking. I really appreciated her insights into the tricky question of journalists writing about real-life crimes and the relationships they must create with the crimes' perpetrators. We all know that readers love salacious stories of violent crimes; sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll are great bonuses, too. But what does writing about these topics mean for journalists? How far is too far?

This book strikes an engrossing balance between covering what happened between MacDonald and McGinnis and philosophy from Malcolm about the proper roles of all involved. I found it fascinating. Interestingly, I don't come out of the book with a strong position on who was right or wrong, and I think that might be Malcolm's goal. I didn't think MacDonald deserved something better than he got, but I also thought McGinnis crossed a line in his behavior toward MacDonald.

I would read more from Malcolm. I'm thinking next up will be Iphigenia in Forest Hills, which appears to be her own true crime expose. How does she balance these concerns? (It is also available at my library, so I can head over and get it once the snow stops!)

>8 sparemethecensor: That sounds super interesting and like some great insights on powerful conundrums there.

good luck with the snow!

Happy Valentine's Day!

>8 sparemethecensor: Were you able to check out Iphigenia in Forest Hills?

>11 sweetiegherkin: Yes, I'm reading it now. It's fantastic. Incredibly insightful about a tough case with many salacious facets that captivated NYC -- family dynamics, murder for hire, an insular community (the Bukharan Jews of Forest Hills), violent women, etc. It's less philosophical than The Journalist and the Murderer so far, but I'm only about one-third through.

>12 sparemethecensor: Cool, sounds like a good read.

I finished it, and I highly recommend it! Absolutely fantastic peek into a salacious trial that captivated New York City. Malcolm reports on the case and her own experience covering it, with a bit of philosophy around the family as a social unit and the law in society. It's also quite a short read in case anyone wants to read some Malcolm before the month is over.

Here's an article/interview I stumbled upon about Malcolm and nonfiction writing: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6073/janet-malcolm-the-art-of-nonficti...

>15 sweetiegherkin: Interesting read, thank you!