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The Story

This is a tale of Victorian lesbianism. Nan, a girl from a

seaside town, falls for Kitty, a male impersonator from a

Variety show visiting the town. After a whirlwind romance she

follows Kitty to London, where she discovers a new exciting

world.

The Review

Overall I enjoyed it. Not especially inspired but

readable. I was impressed with the first section. Good use of

the iconography of lesbianism (throwing the flower to her;

very reminiscent of Marlena in Morocco), and the sense

of excitement and wonder mixed with innocence as the

narrator's sexual identity unfolds was well evoked. I also

liked the detail painted in to the world of the stage -

another rich setting in queer terms.

But I was disappointed. It didn't live up to its early

promise. The narrator is irritatingly passive and the pacing

is all over the place. I was particularly irritated by the

'evil rich lesbian' section. Not irritated that there was an

evil lesbian; I'm fine with that although I think she could

have done it a bit more cleverly. There is a long history of

'evil lesbian' figures to draw on, both in literature and

film but particularly in pulp fiction of the

fifties¹ and it would have been nice to have seen

some of that in there. No, what irritated me was the clumsy

referencing. I found the name-dropping painfully obvious.

Slap me if I start to do that.

Interesting for the essay that is going to be on the

codifying of lesbianism in early 20^th century

fiction. There were moments when it was done well. The evil

lesbian gives violets to the narrator and one of the flowers

falls off and gets stepped on. If you don't know the rich

symbolism that surrounds violets for a lesbian reader the

significance of that would probably pass you by. The nice

thing about that was that it didn't call attention to itself.

Nice if you get it but if you don't you wouldn't even notice,

so it doesn't skew the narrative.

Then there's the sex. And again I approve of lesbian sex

being depicted; it's all too often glossed over and that

makes it easier for the image of lesbians as non-sexual to

proliferate. But did she have to do it so badly? Since sex

was such a big element, I was expecting more of an arc. But

there was almost no development in either awareness or

technique. The descriptions were repetitive and the huge

range of discussions of lesbian sexual politics (particularly

the lesbian sex wars) was almost completely lacking. Not that

I'd want it to be overtly present, but that is exactly the

sort of thing that could have usefully inflected the

narrative.

The book has done something good though. It's been a

success. A mainstream success at that. And that is a big

problem. How do we write novels that speak to and of lesbian

lives but that don't alienate a wider non-lesbian audience.

The alternative has been faux lesbianism, dressed down with

all the authenticity taken out so as not to scare the hets

away. I know that to an intelligent reader of any sexual

persuasion it wouldn't matter. It doesn't have to be a

barrier to reading, enjoying and understanding a

novel². But it's

surely not just for those that we write. It almost seems as

though if we write from a position of difference, any

difference, we must effectively write two books at once. That

is why I'm looking so hard at codification because I'm sure

that's the way to do it and I want to do it well. So the rich

layer of subtext, allusion and reference is there and

accessible if you have the tools for it. The important part

is to make it invisible to those who don't have access to

that range of experience and education that would let them

recognise it. If it's not invisible it disrupts the text and

the uninformed reader will feel left out, frustrated by the

shadows half glimpsed at the corners of the page. I think

Tipping the Velvet made that mistake and it didn't

solve the problem; it's too obvious in its references and I

think there's too much of it that panders to the het reader

and not enough of the subtlety that will speak to the queer

reader. But at least it tried and it was a success, at least

commercially. That's important if for no other reason than

that it chips away at the idea that fiction about queers is

only for queers.

The Bookworm Club

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Review written by nadia

assembled by Z

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