Skip to main content
Thoughts about Tampa, by Alissa Nutting

This novel's anti-protagonist narrator, Celeste, is so focused on her own sexual needs, which can be filled only by having sex with unformed adolescent boys, that other elements of what we might consider essential to life, love, friendship, civic duty, and intellectual stimulation, are absent from her consciousness.

But what's brilliant about Alissa Nutting's work is that Celeste's story of putting all her effort into seduction and domination is really an indictment of our culture's similar effort to sexualize and dehumanize itself. Tampa the city has little or nothing to do with the story; it could have happened in any sterile suburb in any part of the country. By setting it in a generic city, Celeste's perverse and cruel acts point right back at us and our larger culture. Like so much covered in the media, Celeste is so glib, so oblivious, so immune to guilt that even though she admits she has "broken" her victim, Jack, there is no remorse for it, not even a crumb. And there are no people in her life that matter to her unless they can be used to further her mission. 

To Celeste, all people are judged by their sexual worthiness. In her mind, no one is worthy of her but young boys. Therefore, she mocks and ridicules her colleagues, the parents of students, students who do not meet her criteria, and her hapless husband. This mockery is all internal, but it is written in such a way that reminds us that culture does this to anyone who isn't beautiful and camera-ready, through television, internet comments, and anywhere else where the id can run wild. While this book was written as satire and some people say they found some of Celeste's narration 'darkly funny,' there is nothing amusing about it when you consider her power to destroy lives because she gets away with so much based on her (very superficial) qualities of attractiveness.

Celeste's narrative becomes at some level pornography; all the actors in the story are reduced to bags of meat that will or will not satisfy Celeste's tastes. And in our culture, we are subject to that same tendency. Stories about beautiful, i.e., worthy of sexual congress, women are elevated into myth on cable television, and hot teachers fulfill the fantasies of their maturing students. Tampa shatters the myth that hot teachers are doing their male students a big favor. Celeste's primary victim, Jack, is ruined by the end. She rejects his love, puts him in constant danger of being caught, and will allow nothing to get in the way of her desires. 

But even if Celeste cannot feel sorry for Jack and his family, we certainly can.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mini-rant: Why keep telling the "same" stories?

I recently had occasion to discuss a newish novel about the African slave trade in the 1700s and how that terrible practice affected generations of both African people and the slaves that were brought to America. I liked the book, but not everyone in the group felt the same. In the discussion, it was remarked that we already knew the stories of slavery and what was the purpose of reading about it yet again? I didn't know what to say to that in the moment because who wants to be the know it all in a friendly gathering? But what I thought to say later and will say here is that writing a novel and then finding a company willing to publish and support a novel (or any book, really) is political, and to keep publishing new stories about old topics, especially topics that reverberate in insidious ways and just won't be easily or peacefully resolved is an especially brave act of resistance. We all know that publishers want to make a profit; they choose what to produce with the bottom...
Post a Comment
Read more

2016 Reading Notes

My reading came to a screeching halt after the election and I've been having trouble resuming it since. But I did have a good reading year before that day. White Noise by Don DeLillo. First read in 1998, re-read in 2016. I remembered that White Noise is about supermarkets and Hitler studies. I remember loving it in 1998, but little else. What I rediscovered is that this novel is full of anxiety, dread, distrust of systems and data, environmental waste, precocious children, familial and romantic loves, and the repression of our fundamental fear of death. It's satirical but also mildly terrifying. I am happy to say that it's still a five-star read. I also read DeLillo's Zero K, which was fine but unexceptional and probably very close to the future as elites hoard all the money and try to preserve themselves past death, waiting out the demise of most of mankind. I was happy to discover three Louise Erdrich novels: Love Medicine; The Round House; and LaRose . Loved the...
2 comments
Read more
The Late Novels of Gene Hackman A Short Story by Rivka Calchen December 9, 2013 The New Yorker J, a young writer with some minor success, is invited to a writer's conference in Key West. She isn't perceptive and she is judgmental; older people, in her eyes, have lost their power and ability to be interesting. She has invited her stepmother to join her (Q) and spends a lot of time worrying and wondering about this Burmese woman. The best parts of the story are the weird conversations, the small details about the other attendees, the confrontation. Also, there is a moment at the end where J feels hopeful.
Post a Comment
Read more