Joanna Siwiec Response: H. Malinowitz: E-Love

[Anonymous]

#548

At first, I found the voice in E-Love to be one that was annoyingly eager to be heard. A naive sort of voice, that was speaking only to be unheard and misunderstood. Harriet’s voice at first seemed eerie- with this desire of constructing an identity around those she sought to be. However, this voice is very self aware of the obsessive nature it speaks in. Her voice is basically the platform of what she idealized her identity to be: “It is against the backdrop of this lifelong quest to be seen and talked back to as a writer, by the writers I most obsessively saw and needed to know, that I now introduce the adventure that took me all the way through the looking glass” (pg 67). After this part I noticed a shift in voice, almost as her use of voice in the first four pages was meant to make me somewhat uncomfortable. Her obsessive nature of wanting to exist among the writer’s circle did come through a peculiar, needy voice; however, after seeing how Harriet sets up the second piece of the text, I do think that that needy and naive voice was necessary to show us how voice is manipulated to get to where one wants to.

When Harriet begins writing of her reaction to All That False Instruction, we can see how the voice of that book drew Harriet to it. “The Novel was smart, funny, heartbreaking, and disarmingly literate; I fell completely in love with it” (pg 67). Even before we find out she falls in love with Kerryn, Harriet tells us that she has already fallen in love with the author’s text, which only furthers her obsession with voice and her belief how much more real voice is to a person’s identity than their physical, solid existence. Harriet’s emails with Kerryn grew into a relationship of minds, one that was to be unaltered by anything that physically existed about the other. The power of written word, especially in this digital age, is one to be reckoned with. Thinking back on it, all my serious relationships, my closest friends, have been formed through written word. The fights that began over the ‘tone’ she read in my voice, or the emotional attachments that grew from its eloquence. It does not surprise me that Harriet fell in love with Kerryn over email. When she questions whether falling in love on email “is more real–because you’ve genuinely peered into someone’s mind and soul, regardless of what they look like and talk like?” or whether it is “less real–because words on paper or a screen are incapable of capturing the fullness of human individuality” I cannot help but to tackle this question in my mind. Harriet’s voice is pushing me to believe that voice is what establishes that mental connection between two. And even though my experiences have shown me that connection often begins with writing, I cannot help but push Harriet’s voice away. There is an adulterous tone that her voice finds once she begins corresponding with Kerryn, and while she admits that she eventually lets her girlfriend know of the situation, it is only so after the fact. It became her voice of desperation to yet again make herself existent to an author who not many knew about–as if it were some sort of pleasurable sport. Only to find herself falling in love over email,experiencing a dissociation between writing voice and Kerryn’s physical voice, and then forcing herself to give into the physical voice and believe its reality.

Lastly and subjectively, if I picked out a ‘beautiful sentence’ from this piece it would be the last: “And I realize how much it means to me that just out of narrative, I got Kerryn, out of Kerryn, I got narrative. Kerryn and narrative: I love them both dearly.”

[Marguerite Van_Cook]

#557

Hi Joanna,
Interesting take on an adulterous tone!
I thought this comment of yours raised a great many ideas, “however, after seeing how Harriet sets up the second piece of the text, I do think that that needy and naive voice was necessary to show us how voice is manipulated to get to where one wants to.”
I agree that she certainly demonstrates manipulation and I wonder whether she doesn’t push us too far away for its use to be effective as a writing strategy? I never feel as though she takes responsibility for her actions, her tone is all a bit cute.
I hadn’t really thought too much about where confessing to lying and manipulating might lead. It raises a lot of questions about how one might write the narrative of one’s flaws. What kinds of flaws make for interesting reading and what flaws, announced or otherwise, push us away. After all, we love some literary villains, what does that tell us?

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