Tillie Olsen: Uncovering Lost Lives

By Diane Kendig

Before Tillie Olsen came to Cleveland, I wrote in a review, "she employs autobiographic authenticity and naked emotion to hold her readers". Since her visit I have come to believe that those may be the most understated words I have ever written, and further, that her work and her life are informed by a difficult and generous vision.

The first thing she asked before arriving had been, "I am seventy years old. This is the first time I have been in Cleveland and it may be the last, so I want my readers to know-have you contacted local libraries?"

A concern for others, libraries, and time-these. issues surfaced often during her visit.

Very awed at meeting her at the airport, I experienced her concern for me immediately as her arm went around me,, as she joked and asked about my job and enumerated the special problems that women in my field face. I saw her express that same concern for everyone, especially those who had "lionessed" her but could not distance her as she leaped im-

mediately to some of their most personal worries and interests; by questioning and answering us, she was teaching us.

On Monday as we combed the Erie Cemetery, I recognized the inseparable connections of her life and of her work. She noted, for example, how many women and men had died before the age of 40, sometimes having birthed four children, none of whom lived past the age of "two years, nine months, and four days," as the tombstones report it. "You see, then, every day was important," she pointed out.

Then, confronted by the many tombstones worn nameless, dateless, characterless, she paused to declare what a loss-all those lives' stories lost. I thought of her Whitman quote in Yonnondio: "Then blank and bone and utterly lost". I thought of the time she has devoted to locating, publishing, and lecturing on "lost lives," (especially her work for Life in the Iron Mills). I thought of how much there is still to do.

At the Cleveland Public Library, we were waylaid by a display on the Great Depression. Olsen took

Commentary: Not So "Fantasticks'

By Beverly Anne

On Saturday, April 18, my friend Sandy and I went to see the 1960 musical The Fantasticks presented by the Cleveland Opera Company. We had heard from some wimmin in WAVAW [Women Against Violence Against Women] about a scene that treated rape in a light-hearted manner. What an understatement! While the players explained that their use of the word "rape" meant simply an "abduction," this did not make the "Rape Song" any prettier to our ears. Even if the word "rape" was used in the archaic sense, does this exonerate the men who "abduct" wimmin? Here then are some excerpts from the song, entitled "It Depends on What You Pay":

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Rape!...Rape!...A pretty rape!

Such a pretty rape!

We've the obvious open schoolboy rape, With little mandolins and perhaps a cape. The rape by coach; it's little in request. The rape by day, but the rape by night is best.

Just try to see it,....

And you will soon agree, señors,

Why invite regret, when you can get the sort of rape you'll never ever forget!

You can get the rape emphatic.

You can get the rape polite.

You can get the rape with Indians;

a truly charming sight.

You can get the rape on horseback;

they all say it's new and gay.

So you see the sort of rape depends on

what you pay (the kids will love it!)

It depends on what you pay.

So why be stingy? It depends on what you pay!

The comic rape! Perhaps it's just a trifle too unique (Ha! Ha!)

Romantic rape: done while canoeing on a moonlit creek.

The gothic rape! I play Valkyrie on a bass bassoon!

The drunken rape! It's done completely in a cheap saloon.

The rape Venetian needs a blue lagoon. The rape with moonlight, or without a moon.

Moonlight is expensive, but it's in demand. The military rape, it's done with drummers and a band.

You understand? It's very grand!

It's done with drums and a great big brass band!

It was all we could do to sit through the rest of the performance after this all-male rape glorification song. While the abduction (rape) was set up and therefore supposedly not real, the lyrics make everything all too blatant and real for fantasy.

When we came back from intermission we did find that we had cleared out almost three full rows of spectators because of our more than adequate vocal distaste for the lyrics. We were only two wimmin far up in the balcony-the last row-and we caused this much of a disturbance; just think what five or six more wimmin placed around the theater could have done!

One final question: Where was the demonstration? A demonstration by a few wimmin outside the theater on Friday night and again on Saturday afternoon would have helped tremendously also by raising the consciousness of the theatergoers. I understand there was a meeting with some of the Cleveland Opera directors a few days before the opening. What happened? Did WAVAW acquiesce? Did they think that it was too late to organize a demo? Also, what happened to the insert on rape which was possibly going to be introduced into the program? Without the insert there definitely should have been a protest. Both of us, and a lot of our friends, are ready to protest productions of this type with only a few days' or hours' notice. The wimmin of WAVAW are working very hard on many projects. As usual there are too few wimmin and lots of work; however, there are wimmin such as we who cannot make meetings but are more than willing to demonstrate. I suggest a phone tree-a call to one womon generates 3-5 more calls to other wimmin.

By not demonstrating, we are passively accepting the rapist and violent fare of some Cleveland plays and movies. The only way we can show our objection to womon-hate productions is to speak up-either by writing angry letters and articles or demonstrating in person at the offending theater, bookstore or any other entertainment medium. In my case, and many others, the demo is the most feasible.

time to explain to the librarians that the display depicted no show, of conflict, only passive bread lines. "And there was conflict," she said. (And knows; she was jailed for union activities during those years.) Then, cutting through the Arcade, she noted, "Look, a 'Stop the Arms Race' stand. Years ago they wouldn't have been allowed here".

Late that afternoon, Olsen met with a small group of people who had questions to ask: about her life and work, about theirs. She talked about the demands of earning a living and/or motherhood and offered, "Don't blame yourself. Do as much as you can, and then don't let yourself be ruined by guilt". She stated her objections to the film Tell Me A Riddle-not an author's complaint that it wasn't her book, but that it wasn't her vision. She felt that a feminist theme was aborted to present a pale romantic "love story that became a marriage that became a love story". She believes a lack of vision comes from a lack of historical perspective, and she believes we can save ourselves from that by reading. (She distinguishes between a "feminist" and a "feminist who has done her research".) This stand too comes out of her own experience, for most of her vast education came from public libraries. She talked for two hours, always with an eye on the clock, wishing for more time, always answering or questioning.

At the reading that evening she read snitches and snatches from all three works (Tell Me A Riddle, Yonnondio: from the Thirties, and Silences), interspersing the reading with comments on why and how the works came into being. Then by request she read, "I Stand Here Ironing," the seven-page story that took her two years to write after twenty years of "silence". As she finished the story, the audience moved to tears, she said, "That is the one piece of autobiography I have written". She ended her presentation with a strong argument for our participation against nuclear war, and finally fielded questions. For the first time all day, someone asked, "What made you decide to begin again after twenty years of not writing?"

She answered, "Having got the four children off to school...I came down the stairs, a baby on my hip,

Tillie Olsen

and read a front page story about the light that was radiating off the dead bodies in Hiroshima. And I thought to myself, 'I have to do something””.

What she did was to write perfectly realized works of art that I have not even begun to summarize, analyze, or praise here because I trust you have read them for yourself and will read them again. For all their recognition of lives that have been thwarted and fragmented, they remind us that all lives matter, that it is up to us to matter too, to "do something". We forget that sometimes. Olsen's visit reminded us that we must not.

May, 1982/What She Wants/Page 5