Joanna Russ, 1937-2011

[rushthatspeaks]

I heard yesterday that she'd gone into hospice.

Without Joanna Russ, I would not be either married or sane. It's not that her work made me a lesbian, it's that it both caused me to notice and said it was okay, and was the first. I also would not be a critic, though that's much less important. She taught me you could write both fiction and nonfiction, and have your opinions in both.

From The Female Man:

Go, little book, trot through Texas and Vermont and Alaska and Maryland and Washington and Florida and Canada and England and France; bob a curtsey at the shrines of Friedan, Millet, Greer, Firestone, and all the rest; behave yourself in people's living rooms, neither looking ostentatious on the coffee table nor failing to persuade due to the dullness of your style; knock on the Christmas garland on my husband's door in New York City and tell him that I loved him truly and loved him still (despite what anybody may think); and take your place bravely on the book racks of bus terminals and drugstores. Do not scream when you are ignored, for that will alarm people, and do not fume when you are heisted by persons who will not pay, rather rejoice that you have become so popular. Live merrily, little daughter-book, even if I can't and we can't; recite yourself to all who will listen; stay hopeful and wise. Wash your face and take your place without a fuss in the Library of Congress, for all books end up there eventually, both little and big. Do not complain when at last you become quaint and old-fashioned, when you grow as outworn as the crinolines of a generation ago and are classed with Spicy Western Stories, Elsie Dinsmore, and The Son of the Sheik; do not mutter angrily to yourself when young persons read you to hrooch and hrch and guffaw, wondering what the dickens you were all about. Do not get glum when you are no longer understood, little book. Do not curse your fate. Do not reach up from readers' laps and punch the readers' noses.

Rejoice, little book!

For on that day, we will be free.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I am grieving so hard.

[ithiliana]

The only way I can deal with this news is to plan to re-read and talk about her work (as I can fit it in between all the OTHER STUFF!). It's just too much otherwise.

[sanguinity]

Rejoice, little book!

For on that day, we will be free.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

You will live and love, and write books that rejoice.

Nine

hrooch and hrch and guffaw

[hylomorphist.livejournal.com]

What a lovely quotation, from an inspiring woman.

[sovay]

Without Joanna Russ, I would not be either married or sane.

My mother thinks that here you underestimate your own strength, but she still sends you love.

Rejoice, little book!

For on that day, we will be free.

Amen.

[daharyn.livejournal.com]

Oh, damn. I didn't know.

I am so sad right now. She... just changed so much for me, with her words. I can't even talk about it. *sigh*

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I haven't read The Female Man in 25 years, but I recognized the three paragraphs you quote at the briefest glance, and grinned, and rereading them now all the pleasure of my first reading of those words came rushing back, and more. What extraordinary liberating joy! As a young heterosexual man, Russ's novel made me rejoice, and love women even more, though I finished it liking men less, which in some ways I suppose on both counts made me shyer than I already was. But it enriched me far more, in ways that endured, and made me in new ways more open and alert, at least intermittently, and that has only been a blessing. I feel dearly fortunate to have known her, and am reminded now that a few generous gestures she made towards me in 1982-3 altered the course of my life in significant ways. Her influence while she lived was great, and if there is any justice in the world, her influence now that she is gone will only grow.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

This month can go jump in a lake, all things considered.

Dammit.