PROMISE HER

ANYTHING BUT . . .

...

As the holiday season approaches we need to remember that many of our sisters who work as artists need our support. Books are inexpensive and inspiring gifts. Each time we buy a book we make it more likely that more women will write and publish books for us and provide us with fuel for thought and action.

THINKING ABOUT WOMEN by Mary Ellmann, a Harvest Book paperback ($2.65) If you like witty word play,

I am afflicted by miscomprehension, the failures often seem to me successes. For example, we know exactly how many American women interrupted their husbands' anecdotes at dinner parties in 1966. Quite a few, as a matter of fact-204,648 wives. But of course just to count them is to say they have failed at the table. This complicated thing, interruption, is made quite simply bad. And yet all dialogue, like you and me, might be defined as the prevention of monologue. And think of the other guests-how can we hope that they wanted to hear the husbands out? Perhaps these wives are socialists who place the liveliness of the party before their own favor with their husbands.

reading the most stupid remarks of well-known men,

Am I to think of my delicate, sweet girl as a competitor? After all, the encounter could only end by my telling her, as I did seventeen months ago, that I love her, and that I will make every effort to get her out of the competitive role into the quiet undisturbed activity of my home. (Letters of Sigmund Freud, P. 76) (Freud replying to his fiancee who would like to continue her education.)

or wonderful sarcastic putdowns of every male sexist opinion imaginable,

Women cannot comprehend male books, men cannot tolerate femele books. The working rule is simple, basic: there must always be two literatures like two public toilets, one for Men and one for Women. Mary Ellman has done a shorter, more humorous version of Sexual Politics, but not an easier one. This is no skimming book have a dictionary handy.

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GIVE HER BOOKS

PLAYS BY AND ABOUT WOMEN Edited by Victoria Sullivan and James Hatch Vintage Books, Random House $2.45

This book is a fascinating overview of women in the many aspects of our being. The fact that some of these portrayals are less than flattering is partially due to the nature of the theatre. focusing on an idea and developing it to the fullestand also the historical fact that women's self-concept has been shaped by men. The plays presented here have all been realistic pictures of women. Some redefinition of our roles can be noted in these works as well as grinding repetetive reminders of our plight. The task remains for each of us to climb into the niche from the choices offered us or to make new places for ourselves with room to grow.

GROWING UP FEMALE a Personal Photojournal by Abigail Heyman Holt, Rinehart and Winston paperback ($6.95)

Calling this a "personal photojournal" could not be more appropriate the text and illustrations combine to give the reader a sensitive, moving view of womanhood, as seen by one of us. It shows us things familiar to us all: the high school prom queen candidates, apprehensively awaiting "the decision", blank faces of people waiting for a bus, womentogether talking, with children, giving birth, and alone in thoughtful moods. Lacing together these photos are the memorable comments from Ms. Heyman, who clearly identifies her own growth, life exper. iences and self-examination with that of the subjects. A warm, sensitive book, perfect gift for a sister.

WALLFLOWER at the ORGY by Nora Ephron, Ace Books paperback ($1.25)

A collection of articles about the subjects which fascinate jouralist Nora Ephron: glamour makeovers, fashion designers, cookbook prima donnas; a funny, satirical look at the middle class subculture.

ROCK and ROLL WOMEN by Katherine Orloff, Nash paperback ($5.50)

Articles and interviews with every female rock artist from Carole King to Gracie Slick to Esther Phillips. Bonnie Raitt says a lot of important questions are answered in this book. B & W photographs.

RISING TIDES; 20th Century American Women Poets edited by Laura Chester and Sharon Barba Edited by Anais Nin, Washington Square Press Books, Pocket Books N..Y. ($1.95)

This collection of women's works captures the feeling of change in focus that women are continuing to experience. Some of the women are established and others are lesser known-a welcome combination, since it allows for the emergence of poets who might not otherwise be recognized in the literary world. The variety of styles of seventy different women speaks to us of the possibilities of creativity that remain open now that women's foothold in the arts is firmly established.

FEAR of FLYING by Erica Jong, Holt, Reinhart & Winston hardover ($6.95)

A writer travels with her husband to a convention of psychoanalysts in Vienna and finds that only she knows the right questions to ask herself.

THE EDIBLE WOMAN by Margaret Atwood, Atlantic Monthly Press 1969

Canadian's hilarious novel about a young woman's gradual realization that she must not marry Mr. Right.

A WOMAN NAMED SOLITUDE by Andre Schwartz-Bart, Bantam paperback ($1.75)

The harrowing, poetically told story of a slave woman's struggle for sanity and survival during the chaotic French colonial period on Haiti.

LITTLE MYSTERIES poems by Judith C. Root. Photographs by Barbara Drake

and

NARCISSA NOTEBOOK by Barbara Drake. Stone Press, P.O. Box 277, Okemos, Michigan, 48864. ($1 each)

A JOURNAL of SOLITUDE by May Sarton, Norton hardcover ($6.95)

A year's journal of a 60 year old poet and novelist living alone in New England; full of insights about what writing, friendship, sexual love and independence mean to an older woman

THE TREASURE by Selma Lagerlof, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909. Daughters, Inc., Plainfield, Vermont ($3.00) From the foreword:

The Treasure is an opposite fairy tale, presenting Prince Charming as he really is: an orphan girl is cleaning fish and foreseeing her life of poverty; a man well-dressed in seductive splendor woos her and offers her... forever-after. There is only one catch: She must betray her sister.

Although Selma Lagerlof won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909, her name is known in this country if at ali as the author of a children's book

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only. All her other works, including novels and feminist essays, have been unavailable in English for almost fifty years.

A simple, well written mystery story, the kind you can't put down or forget until you've discovered the "treasure” (I'll let you figure it out for yourself).

A feminist classic you'll want to read to your daughters.

page 5/What She Wants/December, 1974