James R. Nelson Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and Substance Abuse Counselor (802)651-7764 Burlington (802), 524-7545 92 Fairfield St, St Albans 0 20 Charming Rooms Peace & Priyacy We ‘H1 lands ‘Inn P.O. Box 118 Bethlehem, NH 03574 603-869-3978 1-877-LES-B-INN (537-2466) A LESBIAN PARADISE 100 Acres - Pool Hot Tub - Trails www.highlandsinn-nh.com vacation@highlandsinn-nh.corn «<:<>-was-=<:<>~<:<>~®~<;%>-<:>«<.*<>«s> CIifford,D. Troll, Jr., Ph.D. Licensed Clinlcol Psychologist — Doctorote I68 Bottery'Street Burlington, Vermont 0540i 802.862.0836 cIrott@together.net °<3>°®l°<&°<§<>°<%><=<§>°<©°<§°<-(E9 Joseph Kress, M.A. Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor ) Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor Individual and Couples Counseling Adults and Adolescents 802-895-4993 55 Seymour Lane, Newport, VT The Stone Hearth Inn 8: Tavern -Vermont "A Great Es cape frown Beach Trafl'_ic 8: Crowds" 1 Grca181EI Inn with 10 Guest Rocms, ;= I “T 5 ‘I " NI with Private Bath, Some with AC ~ ‘V In Chester Mid/slay Between Brd:I:I,eboro ' & Rutland an:I Close In Sunmer Playhouses in Weston 8: Sa>d:ons River 7 Full Bar &Casud Menu in Our Tavern or on the Outdoor Patio ,. . 7 Your Hosts Chris Clay 8:. Brent Anderson Civil Unions, Weddings 8: Events from 2 to 2(1) Rats from $9 to $139 with Full Brealfasl ‘ The Bone Hearth Inn VI Route 11 West, Chester VT 05143 802-875 2525 $8-617-3656 in in w . lhestonehearthi nn. com Susan McKenzie MS. Jungian Psychoanalyst Licensed Psychologist — Master Specializing in issues of Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgendered individuals and couples Quechee - White River Junction (802) 295-5533 Insurance Accepted Bv ERNIE MCLEOD juna Barnes (1892-1982) has been called the unknown legend of American literature. Unknown because her literary output was slim and anything but mainstream-friend- ly. Legend because she was a lead- ing figure of the 1920s and 30s Parisian artistic community and because her most famous work, Nightwood, published in 1936, is considered a modernist classic. Nightw0oa"s status as a lesbian/feminist classic is perhaps more open to question. Dorothy Allison makes a strong case for it, however, in her excellent introduc- tion to the 2000 Modern Library edition of the novel, which, inciden- tally, is especially worth seeking out to contrast her introduction with an earlier one by T.S. Eliot. Eliot’s, while professing great admiration for the work, all but overlooks the female characters, to say nothing of the passion between them. Superficially, it’s easier to describe Nightwood more for what it lacks than for what it contains. Readers seeking plot, action, fiilly rendered settings, and realistic char- acters with clear motivations are guaranteed to be disappointed. Queer readers hoping for historical insights into lesbian expatriate life, or expecting an ahead-of-its-era plea for tolerance and understanding towards queer folk will also come away empty-handed. Dorothy Allison admits that what she initially wanted from Nightwood was “a polemic, a mani- festo, and a celebration of the les- bian in the demimonde.” What she got, she explains, was closer to the experience of eagerly soaking up wine before you’ve learned how to appreciate it. The book “befuddled” her in its refusal to conform to or confinn political dogma. While it contains passionate, unapologetic love between women, the women — and men — it portrays are neither representative nor admirable, cer- tainly not mouthpieces for any cause. Nighrwood’s characters are, in fact, quite desperately miser- able, though — for once! — it’s impossible to claim that their queer- ness»(or society’s reaction to it) is responsible for their misery. For me, this was one of the most refreshing revelations of Nightwood: Bames’s bold avoidance of anything that smacks of victimhood. Sexuality is not justified or explained; it simply is. For this reason Nighrwood seems timeless in a way that many other early explicitly queer-themed books do not. If Nightwood is not a con- ventional novel, what is it? T.S. Eliot, in his introduction to the 1937 edition, claimed that it is “so good a . novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it.” Nightwoodlv language is indeed highly metaphorical, closer to poetry than to standard prose, but — as one whose sensibility was hardly trained on poetry — I think appreciating Nightwood is more a matter of sur- rendering to the unexpected. At times, it seemed to me a series of unsolvable riddles, yet ones I — like Dorothy Allison —— felt compelled to write down and savor, however uncertainly. Nightwoozfs characters, like its language, are simultaneously vivid and opaque. There’s Baron (of sorts) Felix Volkbein, a man improperly garbed for all functions in the world. He marries Robin Vote — the woman who wanders the night and has “the face of an incurable yet to be stricken with its malady” — and they have a child, Guido, who “was not like other children.” fiaasaaie Eventually, Robin aban- dons her husband and child and meets Nora Flood, a woman with “the strangest ‘salon’ in America.” Robin settles in with Nora for a while, torn between the need to stay fl and the need to escape: “Two spirits were working in her, love and anonymity. Yet they were so ‘haunt- ed’ of each other that separation was impossible.” Later on, Robin becomes involved with an older, quite horrid woman named Jenny Petherbridge — described by Barnes in exquisitely vile detail — and they sail off togeth- er, leaving Nora feeling as if every hour is her last. In the midst it all, absorbing and ranting outrageously at the plights of the other characters, is the unlicensed Dr. Matthew g O’Connor, a self-described “bearded lady” with a penchant for women’s flannel nightgowns. A curious lot, to be sure, but — much to Bames’s credit — you never sense she’s mak- “Then I kissed her, holding her hands and t feet, and I said: ‘Die now, so you-will be quiet, so you will not be touched again by dirty hands, so you will not take my heart and your body and let them be nosed by dogs — die now, then I you will be mine for- ever.’ (What right has anyone to that?)” ing her characters outlandish just for the sake of it. You sense she believes in them and, more impor- tantly, in the naked feelings hidden within and behind their alternately wise and absurd philosophical mus- ings. ’ Nightwood is a seriously dark novel but its darkness is liber- ally spiked with humor, albeit humor that tends to be black and surreal and — when you‘re least pre- pared for it — raunchy. The doctor is particularly prone to shouting hilari- ously inappropriate non-sequiturs. For instance, when Nora is confess- ing her deepest sorrow at the loss of Robin, he suddenly bursts in with: “I know there you were sitting up high and fine, with a rose-bush up your arse.” On the subject of life accomplishment, he says:“to be rec- ognized, a gem should lie in a wide open field; but I’m all aglitter in the continued on following page