THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509080435
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY DIANE SCHARPER
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
A.D.
A Memoir
KATE MILLETT
W.W. Norton Co. 325 pp. $25.
Aunt Dorothy was more than Kate Millett's aunt. She was friend, generous patron, mentor, object of adoration and second mother. When Aunt Dorothy died, Millett needed to examine ``the complexities and nuances of their relationship.''
How she did so is the subject of her memoir, A.D. The initials in the title stand for Aunt Dorothy or anno Domini, a pun suggesting the power that this woman had over her family, her friends and, especially, her niece.
That power was extensive. As Millett, well-known author of several books, including Sexual Politics, defines it somewhat profusely: ``I hold my breath before this radiant assurance, the command of her voice, her cheek, her shoulder, her step upon a rug. Even mellowed with age how fierce and nearly alien are her eyes, that mysterious pitiless green flecked with gold: so suddenly cold, so judgmental, so full of examination and dismissal.''
At the time of A.D.'s death, niece and aunt were estranged. A.D. had ``bribed'' Millett to renounce her female lover by paying her tuition to Oxford. Millett went to Oxford but secretly kept her lover, lying when she was questioned. A.D. learned the truth and treated her niece coldly, spurning her attempts at reconciliation.
``I wilt remembering it,'' Millett writes of the last time she saw A.D., ``the coldness, the hard unforgiving of my long-ago sin. With me still. Always. All the sins. Artist. Lesbian. Writer of those books she hates.''
According to Millett, though, A.D. had often acted seductively toward her niece, encouraging the girl's youthful ``crush.'' A.D. also suggested that she herself had unresolved erotic feelings for her brother, the author's father. A.D. even told her niece that she too had had a homosexual love affair.
Millett tries in her memoir to resolve her feelings for her aunt and her aunt's feelings for her. She also tries to resolve her own feelings about herself. But she is not always successful.
This is partly because the feelings presented are complex and are difficult to resolve. In addition, Millett often overwrites and prefers a stream-of-consciousness style, which makes the book hard to read.
She uses few sentences and writes mostly in fragments, seldom saying anything directly. Instead, she lets half-thoughts build up to thoughts, as her mind goes from the general to a series of specifics, each one more precise than the preceding. Millett also switches pronouns and begins speaking to her aunt as if she were present, although she is not.
Yet certain paragraphs are beautiful and read like a prose poem. This one, reminiscent of Molly Bloom's soliloquy in James Joyce's Ulysses, shows A.D.'s effect on her niece: ``Like you feel color and light, like you know poetry, like you will hear Yeats all your life, including the instant you die . . . full, full, full to overflowing. As miraculous yellow turnips in January in the hands of a yellow-haired man who was never part of the story. All surprises, all miracles. Let go.''
Three hundred twenty-five pages of this kind of writing, however, can be difficult to absorb. The language needs some control. Some straight narrative with the stream-of-consciousness would help.
As the book ends, Millett wonders how well she described her relationship with her Aunt Dorothy. Did she explain the complexities and nuances of their relationship? Did she present her aunt as a lovable being full of power and energy?
``Not really,'' says Millett, writing perhaps more than she means and suggesting fitting commentary on her book. ``I am still trying to find her myself.''
- MEMO: Diane Scharper is a poet who teaches memoir writing at Towson State
University in Maryland. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JAMES L. MAIRS
Kate Millett tries to resolve her feelings for her Aunt Dorothy.
by CNB