I’m going to focus this post on a small portion of Shelley Jackson’s “Stitch Bitch” mostly because it was a helllish chapter to slog through, but also because her sections “Body Not Whole” and “Write Mutt” in particular caused me (I noticed) to steadily grimace and squint with ever increasing degrees of confusion, wry amusement, and frankly, disdain.
First, her explanation of why we are not who we say we are was brilliant, creative, complex, and basically wrong. Jackson claims when we say who we are (and I’ll stick to a specific example for simplicity’s sake), when I say that I am Cassie, I’m not really saying that what I am consists of body parts, neurons firing, organs functioning, etc. all working perfectly without my conscious awareness, or indeed, my consent. In fact, if I were to demand that my heart stop working, it would ignore me. I would have to use my hand to do something that would effectively force my heart to stop working, which, regrettably, would end poorly for me. But the point is, I can’t simply decide mentally to stop my heart, and that’s where Jackson believes I am defining me in a sense that is neither accurate nor successful. Disregarding the fact that I tend not to define myself, were I to define myself, I would probably give some sense of my physical characteristics (blonde, female, 25) along with a few general personality traits (cheerful, reasonably intelligent, curious) combined with hobbies and interests (sports, politics, gaming) and likely some opinions (Christian, conservative, “Stitch Bitch” was a horrible hour of my life). I get where Jackson is coming from, but I consider that irrevocable fact that if I – Cassie – suddenly ceased to exist, so would I – functioning body with organs and synapses. They are inseparable, and to subscribe to the notion that the discursive, or unfocused thought that dominates that subconsciousness is akin to a tumor – useless, alien, and frequently harmful – is absurd at best, and delusional at worst. But what do I know? I’m only reasonably intelligent, and I haven’t managed to dissolve my tumor-kernel to reveal the light, shut out reality, and substitute an effigy for my self. Did I use the word “delusional?” Because I meant deranged.
Second, Jackson expresses “My favorite writing is impure, improper, and disorienting.” She seems to favor writing that follows no sense of pattern, convention, form, or linearity. I think she would rave over a book that read as follows:
Castle. Feud. Battle. Sex. Betrayal. Plasma-ray-gun-wielding aliens. Unity. Battle. Kidnap. Anguish. Panic. Space travel to the thousandth degree. Battle. Infiltration. Rescue. Sex. Travel back to Earth. Alien baby. Exile.
Each sentence leaves the reader to fill in everything they might want to imagine. They are under no obligations to visualize what the author had. Jackson might even like it better if the sentences were jumbled up into no particular order, making the linear flow of the plot unrecognizable, and thus freeing the imagination of the reader to think outside the constraints of time. Or better still, if there were no words at all, merely a blank book that implicates no limitations on plot or topic or imagination whatsoever, whose empty pages symbolize every adventure ever experienced and all the ones that haven’t been thought up yet. Perhaps there doesn’t even need to be a book! A complete and utter lack of any boundaries, even one of space, because the mind cannot be contained inside an expanse of pages! But then, of course, there wouldn’t be anything there, only unexpressed thoughts. I had thought that writing’s purpose was to convey thought. If I were to submit a blog post devoid of any meaning or context, form or linearity, not only would I fail the assignment, but I would look like an ass doing it. But hey, maybe I will have impressed Shelley Jackson, whoever she thinks she says she thinks she is.