A review by brontherun
The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson
4.0
I think I've heard that most women are raped by someone they know. And there is some vague thought in my mind that most murders happen between people with some pre-existing relationship - familial, marital, coworkers, classmates. And yet for many women, the public world is still a zone that requires increased alertness towards dangers - dangers that in the narrow statistical margin when they do arise, do so from unknown males.
I believe that many of us are haunted by the narratives that have touched our lives - the young neighborhood girl who went missing and was found murdered, the college roommate who came home crying late one night from a rape for which she wouldn't call the cops because she never saw his face clearly, the co-ed who lived on your dorm and who was was raped, murdered, and then had her remains burned. For Nelson, the neural alerts for public safety in her life seem rooted in the brutal murder of her aunt, Jane. Though the tragedy happened before she was born, it's impact reverberated through her mother's life and into the rearing of her daughters. The boogeyman always was out there. What happened to Jane was her family's all-to-real proof.
"I learned to appreciate then how being drunk or high siphons off fear, how it facilitates the perilous but deeply relieving feeling of having abandoned, for once and for all, the ongoing project of your safety." Nelson captures it beautifully - "the ongoing project of your safety." It's relentless and exhausting. It is present regardless if you are walking down the block to pick up dinner after dark or traipsing across a dark countryside half-way around the globe.
This book is about the experience Nelson has bearing witness to the trial of a man accused of murdering Jane, some 36 years after the event. She wrestles with her own concerns about the prison system and her protestations of the death penalty. "I tried to explain to her that you don't go to a vigil expecting to halt an action. You go to bear witness to what the state would prefer to do in complete darkness." So she explains to another upon why she is attending a frigid winter night vigil for a scheduled execution.
The ideas of justice and retribution are complicated. The non-reality of many U.S. criminal courts contributes to the complicated emotions of all involved - victims, defendants, jurors. The sensationalist journalism around such proceedings amplifies the distortions. And what is a murder victim's family gaining from the procedure if the outcome is guilty?
Nelson asks, "How does one measure the loss of anyone? Is measurement a necessary part of grief?" I don't have an answer, but as humans we do want to measure, we want to quantify our pain, our suffering, our time in distress. But perhaps we should take an answer from the words of Jonathan Larson, "In daylights, in sunsets; in midnights, in cups of coffee; in inches, in miles, in laughter, and strife" and of course, in "Seasons of love." Maybe Nelson and her family weren't bearing witness so much to the activity of the state prosecuting an aging man. Maybe they were bearing witness to the love of a daughter, a sister, an aunt. That seems like it might be worth spending a month sitting on a hard bench in a courtroom in Michigan for.
I believe that many of us are haunted by the narratives that have touched our lives - the young neighborhood girl who went missing and was found murdered, the college roommate who came home crying late one night from a rape for which she wouldn't call the cops because she never saw his face clearly, the co-ed who lived on your dorm and who was was raped, murdered, and then had her remains burned. For Nelson, the neural alerts for public safety in her life seem rooted in the brutal murder of her aunt, Jane. Though the tragedy happened before she was born, it's impact reverberated through her mother's life and into the rearing of her daughters. The boogeyman always was out there. What happened to Jane was her family's all-to-real proof.
"I learned to appreciate then how being drunk or high siphons off fear, how it facilitates the perilous but deeply relieving feeling of having abandoned, for once and for all, the ongoing project of your safety." Nelson captures it beautifully - "the ongoing project of your safety." It's relentless and exhausting. It is present regardless if you are walking down the block to pick up dinner after dark or traipsing across a dark countryside half-way around the globe.
This book is about the experience Nelson has bearing witness to the trial of a man accused of murdering Jane, some 36 years after the event. She wrestles with her own concerns about the prison system and her protestations of the death penalty. "I tried to explain to her that you don't go to a vigil expecting to halt an action. You go to bear witness to what the state would prefer to do in complete darkness." So she explains to another upon why she is attending a frigid winter night vigil for a scheduled execution.
The ideas of justice and retribution are complicated. The non-reality of many U.S. criminal courts contributes to the complicated emotions of all involved - victims, defendants, jurors. The sensationalist journalism around such proceedings amplifies the distortions. And what is a murder victim's family gaining from the procedure if the outcome is guilty?
Nelson asks, "How does one measure the loss of anyone? Is measurement a necessary part of grief?" I don't have an answer, but as humans we do want to measure, we want to quantify our pain, our suffering, our time in distress. But perhaps we should take an answer from the words of Jonathan Larson, "In daylights, in sunsets; in midnights, in cups of coffee; in inches, in miles, in laughter, and strife" and of course, in "Seasons of love." Maybe Nelson and her family weren't bearing witness so much to the activity of the state prosecuting an aging man. Maybe they were bearing witness to the love of a daughter, a sister, an aunt. That seems like it might be worth spending a month sitting on a hard bench in a courtroom in Michigan for.