The Pornographer, by John McGahern

I’m tearing through The Pornographer, a novel by John McGahern. I posted about it yesterday. I am mortified by the book. Not the frank sex scenes, which I love – he writes them quite well (not to mention the interesting subtle differences between the “real life” sex scenes and the erotic stories written by our narrator … You know, the difference between sex as performed by gymnasts and sex as performed by regular people with issues and problems and inhibitions, etc.) – but the character of Josephine – the woman Michael becomes involved with (pretty much against his will) is pushing ALL MY BUTTONS. Josephine! My God! The thing is is that I know she is pushing my buttons because I see myself in her, a dark mirror … and I do not like what I see. I would never ever behave like Josephine behaves, I have far too much coldness and steel in me – and I would rather walk away from a situation than debase myself by asking for what I need (you can see the dysfunction – this is why pride is a sin, people) … but the desire to behave like Josephine behaves, my experience of rejection (and not even rejection – but potential rejection) – is all out in the open with this woman, and it is excruciating to read. Excruciating!! I find myself siding with Michael repeatedly. I am as cold as he is. Cut this lady loose, Michael. Cut her loose. You were honest with her, and she chose not to listen. So she’s an idiot. Get rid of her. Do it quick, like ripping off a Bandaid. Because Michael, lemme tell you, the woman is a nightmare. RUN FOR THE HILLS.

But it is not that simple, of course it isn’t. And my response to Josephine, and Michael’s response to her … perhaps might be indicative of our own personal truths, our own sense of boundaries, etc … but I imagine that McGahern is going for a deeper point here. About intimacy and the inability to connect. Sex feels like connection, and it actually is connection. But when two people are having two separate experiences -during the act of making love – then that’s a problem. Actually to call it “making love” is a misnomer. If one person is “making love” and the other person is “having sex” you’re gonna have some issues. Josephine is 38 years old, and a virgin. She is highly competent at her job, and she loves it. Michael writes porn stories for a magazine, and hides that fact from everyone. When she discovers the truth, at first she is intrigued. But as they get deeper involved, and he starts pushing her away, she becomes convinced that it is the writing of the porn that has ruined his soul for love. He needs to give it up. And looking at Michael’s coldness, his ability to detach – regardless of the consequences – I don’t know, maybe Josephine has a point. Michael doesn’t sit back and write his porn stories with detachment, they work him up … as they are meant to work the reader up. But what is he ultimately left with? McGahern does not take a judgmental stance towards porn, or those who love it. He is quite egalitarian, which I like. He’s a male writer who can write about women (not all of them can, many of the great male writers suck at trying to write women) … Women are not monolithic to McGahern, they are not “other” (that’s my main beef with a lot of male writers and how they write about women – I’m looking at YOU, Don DeLillo) … they may be mysterious to the gentlemen involved with them, but they are not so completely beyond the pale in terms of their life experience. Josephine is a nightmare to read – the story, after all, is totally from Michael’s point of view. We only feel his increasing sense of entrapment (and this chick sets her sights on him instantly … I guess that’s what happens when you take a 38 year old virgin’s virginity …)

She’s pushy. She’s demanding. She is immediately in love with him. Michael senses the danger, he senses that Josephine’s power ‘comes from outside’ – meaning: there is a hollowness there, and when he rejects her, as he WILL do, she will be destroyed, because she has built him up as her only reason for being. Michael can sense, from afar, how Josephine is creating a relationship with him out of wholecloth – even though he only wants to take her to pubs, and go back to his place. Doing “date” things, like going to the movies, or doing things during the day … he’s not into that. She keeps pushing him. I ache for her. I ache with embarrassment for her. I want to tell her to back off. She mentions her two friends, two American girls, and Michael can sense the HOURS of girl-talk that has been devoted to him. Michael’s no dummy. He knows how women operate. He knows how they make shit up because they want it to be true.

But he got more than he bargained for with Josephine, who will not disappear so easily. This isn’t a Fatal Attraction story. She doesn’t go off the rails (at least not yet) … but it’s hypnotic, in the fact that I can’t wait for her to disappear, I can’t wait for Michael to go back to his real life, which consists of doing nothing but writing porn, wandering the streets aimlessly on his days off, picking up girls, having sex, moving on … Like: why do I want him to go back to that? And yet – I certainly couldn’t “approve” of him accepting Josephine – it couldn’t work! His coldness amazes even me, and I actually think it’s something to be proud of. He does not lead her on. He says straight off, “I am attracted to you, and I want to have sex with you. That’s not love.” She doesn’t understand that at ALL. He reiterates the point. He knows he has to break it off. She gets all excited when she’s with him, she can’t stand it when he needs “a day off” – like, she wants to be with him all the time. Meanwhile, Michael is in the middle of a family crisis – with his beloved aunt dying, and all of that stuff going on … he needs SPACE. “I’ll see you this weekend,” he says to Josephine, after their date on Tuesday. She is dismayed. “All that time without seeing you?”

Frankly, I want to slap her upside the head.

But let me be clear: I want to slap her upside the head because I’m embarrassed, yes, and I want her to protect herself more, play it cool, not be so openly needy … but then I look at my life, where I have played it cool to such an extent that I am alone, I have hidden my neediness from men so well that they think I don’t need them or even really like them, frankly. So who is better? Should Josephine go MY way? Why, cause it’s been such a ringing success for me?? Honestly.

What button is being pushed by reading about a woman actually saying, “I love you. I want to be with you. I want to be IN your life … i don’t want to just be the girl you get a drink with and then go home and screw … I want to be part of your life …” ?

I don’t know, but SOME button is being pushed.

At the same time, I think Michael has been perfectly clear with her – and if any guy ever says to me, “I think we need to take a break” I will know what that means, and I will walk away, and never look back. But that’s not Josephine. She will not give up so easy. She fights for it. She is annoying, yes, and we see her through Michael’s eyes – which is a distortion … but I admire the fight.

Be careful what you wish for? Yes, but also the maxim could be: Be careful who you sleep with … you might awaken a monster. I said that to the doppelganger, lo, those many years ago, in the horrible 2002 aftermath: “Guess you just flirted with the wrong girl, huh. Lesson learned.” He gave me the weirdest look, almost like I had slapped him, and nodded and said, “Yeah. I guess so.”

And yet I never lose sight of Michael’s journey, too – in the book. I yearn for his freedom, I yearn for her to just … go away. Life (and love) is never that simple.

Bravo, Mr. McGahern.

Here’s a killer excerpt. The last paragraph knocked me on my ass. I still haven’t gotten up.

“We only know each other a few weeks, and things are happening far too fast for me. I’m fond of you,” I could hear the lie slithering on the surface of thin ice. “But I’m not in love with you. I want us to call a halt, for a time anyhow, to these regular meetings.”

“I see you have it all worked out, just like one of your plots.”

“I haven’t it all worked out, but I want to give it a rest. We’ll drop it for a month or so and see how we feel then. And for that time both of us are free.”

“But I love you ….”

“If you love me, then surely you can do that much for a month.”

“You’re letting nothing through and you can really swing them.”

“Swing what?”

“Reasons. Figures. You have it all figured out, haven’t you? There’s hardly need to even talk.”

“I want to rest it for a month,” I said doggedly.

“It’ll be no different in a month.”

“We’ll see.”

“I feel I have enough love for the both of us to begin with. It’s that horrible stuff you’re writing that has you all twisted and unnatural. I’d care so much for you. There’s so many other decent natural things you could do.”

“I suppose I could run a health food shop or a launch on the Shannon River,” I said angrily.

“You don’t understand. I love you. I only want the best for you.”

‘Well then, the best for me is that we agree not to see one another for a month.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any use suggesting that we go back to your place and talk about it.”

“No. There’s no use. You know what that’ll lead to, and we’ll be only deeper and deeper in.”

“There was a time when you were anxious enough for that,” it was her turn to be angry.

“We both were. I’ll get a taxi for you or I’ll walk you home. Whichever you prefer.”

“Walk me home,” she said.

“I’m grateful, even flattered by your love. But you can’t do the loving for the both of us,” I said to her at the gate.

“O boy,” she said bitterly. “I waited long enough to sure pick a winner,” and I shook her hand and left before she began to cry.

I too had stood mutilated by another gate, believing that I could not live without my love; but we endure, as the first creature leaving water endured, having first tried to turn back from the empty land. Having drunk from the infernal glass we call love and knowing we have lived our death, we turn to love another way, in the ordered calm of each thing counted and loved for its impending loss. We learn to smile.