N o w I’ve come into m y ow n as a wom an o f letters. I am a
committed feminist, o f course. I admit to a cool, elegant
intellect with a clear superiority over the ape-like men who
write. I don’t wear silk, o f course. I am icy and formal even
alone by myself, a discipline o f identity and identification. I do
not wear m yself out with mistaken resistance, denunciation,
foolhardy anguish. I feel, o f course. I feel the pain, the sorrow ,
the lack o f freedom. I feel with a certain hard elegance. I am
admired for it— the control, the reserve, the ability to make
the fine point, the subtle point. I avoid the obvious. I have a
certain intellectual elegance, a certain refinement o f the mind.
There is nothing w rong with civilized thought. It is necessary.
I believe in it and I do have the courage o f m y convictions. One
need not raise one’s voice. I am formal and careful, yes, but
with a real power in m y style i f I do say so myself. I am not, as
a writer or a human being, insipid or bland, and I have not sold
out, even though I have manners and limits, and I am not
poor, o f course, w h y should I be? I don’t have the stink on me
that some o f the others have, I am able to say it, I am not effete.
I am their sister and their friend. I do not disavow them. I am
committed. I write checks and sign petitions. I lend m y name.
I write books with a strong narrative line in clear, detailed,
descriptive prose, in the nineteenth-century tradition o f
storytelling, intellectually coherent, nearly realistic, not
sentimental but yes with sex and romance and wom en w ho do
something, achieve something, strong women. I am
committed, I do care, and I am the one to contend with, if the
truth be told, because m y mind is clear and cool and m y prose
is exceedingly skillful if sometimes a trifle too baroque. Every
style has its dangers. I am not reckless or accusatory. I consider
freedom. I look at it from many angles. I value it. I think about
it. I’ve found this absolutely stunning passage from Sartre that
I want to use and I copy it out slow ly to savor it, because it is
cogent and meaningful, with an intellectual richness, a moral
subtlety. Y ou don’t have to shout to tell the truth. Y ou can
think. Y ou have a responsibility to think. M y wild sisters revel
in being wretched and they do not think. Sartre is writing
about the French under the German Occupation, well, French
intellectuals really, and he says— “ We were never as free as
under the German Occupation. We had lost all our rights, and,
first o f all, the right to speak; we were insulted every day, and
had to keep silent.. . . and everywhere, on the walls, the
papers, the movie screen, we were made to confront the ugly
mug that our oppressor presented to us as our own: but this is
precisely why we were free. As the German poison seeped into
our minds, every just thought we had was a real conquest; as
an omnipotent police kept forcing silence upon us, every word
we uttered had the value o f a declaration o f rights; as we were
