“What she thinks and feels is this: This is a world of men. They come into your country, they invade your home, they kill your family. They turn your body into the battlefield — the territory of all violence — all power — all life and death. And we take it. We do. We keep taking it. We have lost track of the reasons we do not slaughter the world of men, but we do not. Yes, there are good men. She sees the face of her father. She sees how the filmmaker loves the writer. She sees the yet-unwritten life of the writer’s son. She sees her. . brother. Beautiful smear. But it is the world of men that creates pure destruction. And this is a truth we cannot bear: Since we bear them into the world, we cannot kill them. Cannot be done with them. Cannot exile them into oblivion.” MenViolenceDestruction Book:The Small Backs of Children Source: The Small Backs of Children
“Every once in a while a messy character who manifests a REAL body emerges, for instance, Lisbeth Salander - and certainly commercial genre fiction is full of examples of real bodied sexual encounters or violence encounters - but for the most part, and particularly if you are a woman or minority author, your characters' bodies have to fit a kind of norm inside a narrow set of narrative pre-ordained and sanctioned scripts.” IfsKindRealCharacterBodyFictionViolenceExampleFitScriptsInstanceNarrativeGenreEncountersMinoritiesNormMessyLisbeth Salander Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“I love the walking contradiction of the body. I want to make corporeal characters, corporeal writing, I want to bring the intensities and contradictions and beauty and violence and stench and desire and astonishing physicality of the body back into literature.” WantWritingCharacterBodyDesireLiteratureViolenceWalkingContradictionIntensityAstonishingPhysicality Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“Because rage and violence are human emotions and drives and capacities that inhabit us all. SEE CARL JUNG. Or that hipster Joseph Campbell. Because we all take archetypal journeys in a million ways - literal, symbolic, you name it - that figure, disfigure, and refigure violence.” WayHumansNamesEmotionMillionsViolenceJourneyFiguresCapacityRageSymbolicLiteralHipsterHuman EmotionsJung Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“Only the violent acts of men "count" toward something besides evil in a patriarchy. It is the male story of violence that is sanctioned both socially and aesthetically. The male hero and acts of heroism require violence. Everyone is okey dokey with that. We are only beginning to see that constricting set of truths open up a little.” MenLittlesStoriesEvilViolenceHeroMalesViolentHeroismPatriarchyViolent ActsActs Of Heroism Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“Birth is of course violent. Menstruation is violent. Trust me, if men's penises opened up once a month and shot blood, we'd be hearing about the violence of it.” IfsMenCoursesViolenceBloodMonthsBirthShotsHearingViolentTrust MeMenstruation Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“The maternal impulse in animals to protect their young - that kind of instinct and subsequent violence is quite beautiful. Mythic even.” KindBeautifulYoungAnimalViolenceProtectInstinctImpulse Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“When a female character sets herself on fire in an effort to interrupt her culture's violent abuse of disenfranchised people, or physically tortures and punishes her guardian rapist, or picks up a gun and fights back in ways that make her not pretty, or aggressively rejects her role as the object of desire, or even when she waddles off into the woods to squat and have a baby without the safety and expertise of hospitals and doctors, these are the kinds of violences and stories we can learn from.” PeopleWayKindCharacterStoriesDesireCultureFightingEffortRolesFireViolenceObjectsBabyPicksGunFemaleDoctorsAbuseSafetyWoodsViolentTortureRejectsHospitalsGuardianExpertiseFemale CharactersSquatNot PrettyDisenfranchisedObjects Of Desire Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
“We can't handle violence in women characters but we CAN handle what's done to women in our present tense every second of the day worldwide? Or next door? Or in political or medical discourse? Please. That idea just makes me want to crap on a table at a very fancy restaurant.” WantIdeasDoneCharacterPoliticalNextViolenceDoorsPleaseTablesMedicalHandleFancyRestaurantsCrapDiscourseTenseEvery SecondPresent Tense Author:Lidia Yuknavitch
