“Medusa”
by Pat Barker
from the April 15, 2019 issue of The New Yorker
Pat Barker has deftly chronicled individual trauma of World War I, but it seems that with her most recent novel, The Silence of the Girls, she has started a new phase that goes back much further. The Silence of the Girls was an account of the Iliad from the perspective (mostly) of Briseis, the woman Achilles and Agamemnon fought over in a feud that led to the events Homer laid down over 2500 years ago (and this book was one of my favorites of last year — see my review here). And now we get a story entitled “Medusa.”
However, this story does not take us to the actual time or place of the Greek myth that gives the story its title. “Medusa” takes place in Florence and concerns an art student named Erin, who is there preparing for an exhibition. There is an attack and then Barker — I know only from her interview, not having read the story yet — explores the process trying to recover.
That trauma and its recovery are central to all of Barker’s books that I’ve read, so I’m anxious to see how she does it in a shorter space and in a more contemporary setting.
Please let us know your thoughts below!
I have not read anything by Barker before, but after reading this story I would like to read more. The subject matter is fairly conventional (woman is raped and has difficulty dealing with it after the fact) and I was worried that it might be a very forgettable story. But Barker is excellent at capturing the voice of her character and presenting her experiences in a way that appears to be effortless, as if she were just recording dictation, but which is all the more artful for that. I listened to the audio recording of Barker reading the story as I read it and found her voice really added to that experience. The section where she argues with herself about what to do in the immediate aftermath of the attack is particularly effective.
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In a lesser writer’s hands, the Medusa metaphor could have come off as clunky or as sounding like someone who is too impressed with how clever they are, but Barker weaves it into the story so well that it seems both a simple and profound observation at the same time.
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The good news for me is Barker has written a lot of books that have been very well received, so there is a trove there to explore. But the bad news is that an already too long TBR list has just gotten a little bit longer. Ah well. Some problems are good ones to have.
I’d like to know your thouhts on The Silence of the Girls, which opens when Achilles and his men are taking the women captive. Barker writes Briseis so well. I haven’t read “Medusa” yet, but I’ll try to do it as you did, with the recording.
I usually find stories with artistic protagonists as excuses for writers to overuse purple prose… but Barker makes sensory descriptions joyous and fulfilling to read. Reading Barker’s diction echoes Erin’s pleasure at just being able to experience the world around her, at being highly attuned to her own senses to a point that reality bleeds into something transcendent, where for just a few seconds the world belongs only to her. The sadness for me was reading how Erin’s sexual trauma transforms her artistic hyper-alertness into a self-destructive weapon and, by the story’s end, a numbing agent.
I was surprised by how seriocomic I found parts of the story, mostly the descriptors (“built like a brick shithouse”) and Erin’s internal voice. I guess watching too many episodes of Law and Order: SVU had me expecting melodrama and rage, but Barker complicates the emotional process of rape recovery by showing the ways in which Erin is both changed and unchanged as a person, still finding ways to be light and humorous as her mind and memories attack her perception of the world.
While I think the Medusa metaphor may have been too obvious, I found the mention of Athena’s punishment and Erin’s “bullying voice” to be a creative way of connecting the “second shadow” of her attacker and her own self-protecting voice. To me it suggests how society treats women to treat themselves: to be extra careful around men but still doled up in high heels, to know how to placate violence or submit to a rape kit at the cost of one’s emotional stability, to follow certain protocols of healing.
I wasn’t completely satisfied with the ending on my first read (again, maybe too obvious?) but now I think there’s hefty power to it. She can now choose to resist observation and interpretation to keep herself safe, emotionally and perhaps physically, but it’s a bittersweet decision. Both observation and interpretation allow us to see art as more than just pretty pictures; it’s what allows us to make art, and isn’t love also an act of wholly-focused attention, attempting to understand another? Erin chooses, at least in this moment, to shut off these capacities, allowing her power over her narrative yes, but also cutting her off from the transcendent sensations she once took so much pleasure in.
Trevor, as I thought about which of Barker’s books I might like to try (when I get around to finding the time) I was drawn to the trilogy she is probably best known for and which won her the Booker and The Silence of the Girls as the two best options. Her comments about the latter in the interview made me think of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, which I just saw last ween in a library display of her books, and also Timothy Findley’s Not Wanted on the Voyage (the story of Noah’s Ark told from the point of view of a cat), which I read many years ago. But then I got curious about her first book, Union Street. So I don’t know where I will go first (or when).
Dear God! My kingdom for an edit button!
I have an edit button . . . I’ll fix the formatting!
When I read the first book in the Regeneration Trilogy I wasn’t much of a fan. I think I would be now, and since I thought The Silence of the Girls was so good have been tempted to go back and try again.
Jor, welcome! And thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I only skimmed them because I still haven’t read the story, but I will dig in better soon!
I have had a New Yorker subscription for a few years now and decided it’s time I used it. What better way than joining in with Mookse readings?
I hadn’t thought of reading and listening at the same time – I saw it as either/or, so will try them together next time.
Welcome back!
Your wit is attack and deflection
Your shiny shield held up before you
shows a sullen unwilling Medusa
A moment ago just a woman
walking toward you in innocent sunlight.
(to Romer as Perseus, long ago)
A brilliant story. Thank you, too, Jor, for your thought-provoking insights.
Trevor —
I posted a comment yesterday. I never got your “Howdy” reply nor has it appeared here. Did you censor it?
No, I never saw your comment, William. I just went through all of the spam as well and don’t see it there. My guess is that your browser timed out or something before it posted. I’m sorry it didn’t come through, regardless of the cause, but I can assure you I did not censor it! Was there something I should have felt the need to censor?!
I disagreed with all the other posters about the quality of “Medusa”. I can’t reconstruct the post, it’s hard enough to write the first time, redoing it is beyond my energy. Doesn’t matter. Nothing brilliant. In fact, I don’t even remember most of it anymore. Onward to the next indictment of the evil patriarchy!
Reading this a day after reading “Lulu” (the previous week’s story) shows the difference between a good writer and a journalist who has tried fiction. Both deal with topic of social and political importance, but while Barker’s story is rich, deep, interior and nuanced, the other story is flat, reportorial and often kind of heavy-handed in contrasting the political online person with the gaming-obsessed online person (although one reader did show perhaps that the overall theme was addiction).
If you get a chance, pick up the “Spring Fling” issue of Tin House and read the essay “Lottery”, on p. 195.
this was the worst bit of writing i have ever read in the new yorker. ridiculous
Hey there, Maggie. I think I got something to say to you. It’s early July and I really should be at the pool. I know you were not amused, but I feel you’re a bit confused. Oh, Maggie, I couldn’t disagree any more
I think Barker is exceptional too. Maybe Maggie could explain what was so bothersome? If not, I’d love to know what other stories she loved, if this is the worst.