Queerview: Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was a poet, playwright, and novelist and a key figure in both Modernism and GLBT literature. Her first poems were published in 1915, accompanied by her own illustrations. She moved with her mother to New York City after her family endured financial ruin and there she attended the Pratt Institute and became a member of the Provincetown Players– which was instrumental in the careers of Susan Glaspell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Theodore Dreiser and Eugene O’Neill. In 1921 she was sent to Paris on assignment for McCall’s magazine where she immersed herself in the intellectual and literary life of the West Bank of Paris, associating with such notorious and famous figures as Gertrude Stein, Dolly Wilde and Natalie Barney. She lampooned this legendary salon of women in her first novel The Ladies Almanack, but it is her second novel, Nightwood for which Barnes herself became legend.
Jeanette Winterson, in her Preface to Nightwood, wrote that,
“…the work is an important milestone on any map of gay literature– even though, like all the best books, its power makes nonsense of any categorization of gender or sexuality…Nightwood has neither stereotypes nor caricatures; there is a truth to these damaged hearts that moves us beyond the negative. Humans suffer and, gay or straight, they break thenselves into pieces, blur themselves with drink and drugs…crucify themselves on their own longings, and let’s not forget, are crucified by a world that fears the stranger…And yet, there is a dignity in Nora’s love for Robin…We are left in no doubt that this love is worthy of greatness.”
On the surface, the plot is simple and nearly irrelevant given the sumptuous language and experimental structure of the novel. It is the story of Robin Vote and the people who love her even as she leaves each of them, disheveled and all but destroyed in her wake. The whole is illuminated by the Tiersian seer, Dr. Matthew O’conor, one of the strangest and most brilliant characters in all of literature. Robin marries the Baron Felix Volkbein and they have a son, but Robin cannot endure the confines of marriage and leaves her husband and child for America where she meets her lover, Nora Flood.
“To keep her (in Robin there was this tragic longing to be kept, knowing herself astray) Nora knew now that there was no way but death.”
Subsequently, Robin leaves Nora for another woman, the American, Jenny Petherbridge and the pair return to Paris.
“When she fell in love it was with a perfect fury of accumulated dishonesty; she became instantly a dealer in second-hand and therefore incalculable emotions…She was a ’squatter’ by instinct.”
Jenny and Robin depart for America and Nora, like Felix before her, turns to the good doctor–dressed in drag– for consolation.
“What will happen now, to me and to her?”
“Nothing…as always. We all go down in battle, but we all come home.”
“None of us suffers as much as we should, or loves as much as we say. Love is the first lie; wisdom the last.”
“…what did she have? Only your faith in her– then you took that faith away! You should have kept it always, seeing that it was a myth…the trouble with you is you are not just a myth-maker, you are also a destroyer.”
“The uninhabited angel! That is what you have always been hunting!”
Nightwood is thought to be based on Barnes tempestuous relationship with the artist Thelma Wood whom she met and lived with in Paris in 1922. Published in 1936, the novel was met with acclaim but little financial success. Barnes wrote little journalism at the time, became increasingly ill and more dependant on alcohol and the financial support of Peggy Guggenheim. She eventually moved back to New York and remained reclusive for the rest of her life.
While Nightwood is a centerpiece of gay/lesbian literature, Barnes, who was openly bisexual, was ambivalent about her sexuality. “I am not a lesbian,” she declared late in life, “I only loved Thelma.” But like all great literature Nightwood defies categorization and transcends the boundaries of class and time. As Winterson wrote,
“Nightwood is itself…reading it is like drinking wine with a pearl dissolving in the glass. You have taken in more than you know…From now on, a part of you is pearl-lined.”
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