myn owene woman, wel at ese
vanity correctly understood
A favorite “problematic book” of mine is Nicholson Baker’s The Fermata. An adolescent male, Arno, discovers he has the power to freeze time, and he uses this power the way an adolescent male might: to undress women without their knowledge and then put their clothes back on before he starts time again. He continues to use this power for this purpose into his mid-thirties. It’s harmless, since it’s not like he’s actually doing anything, since he puts everything back as he found it… right? Arno asks another guy what he’d do with a similar ability. Without even hesitating, he says “rape,” which troubles Arno.1 Rape is a million miles from what he does… right?
Well, not quite, no. In fact, he crosses the line between “lovable pervert ghost” (if there is such a thing) and “hateful sex criminal ghost” more than once.2 Arno knows he should not be doing what he does, which is why he’s constantly arguing, mostly with himself, that what he does is really fine. At the same time, because we as reade…
