“She Said He Said”
by Hanif Kureshi
from the July 22, 2019 issue of The New Yorker
And once again — this is a clear (and, for me, positive) trend — The New Yorker is publishing the work of an author whose fame is largely in the past, and even who writes a significant amount of work for the stage and screen. Hanif Kureishi first published fiction in the magazine in 1994. His last piece was a decade later in 2004. There were only a few pieces in between, but I think that is because Kureishi is mostly known — at least to me — as a playwright and screenwriter, particularly of My Beautiful Laundrette. While he has published seven novels (some quite short) and a few collection of stories since 1990, I haven’t read any . . . if any of you have, please share your thoughts below.
As for “She Said He Said,” we have before us a very short story that moves along briskly. In the first few paragraphs Sushila is propositioned twice — once when drunk and once when sober — by Mateo, someone she and her husband Len considered a friend. Sushila tells Len what has happened, he demands they meet up, Mateo explains. Look at how Kureishi speed things along in this meeting between Len and Mateo:
Mateo apologized without reservation and asked Len to forgive him. But Len said that he didn’t think he was ready to. Forgiving, or forgetting, wasn’t the point. He didn’t understand why Mateo — whom Len thought he knew — had behaved in this way. Mateo said that he had no idea, either, but that it would be best if they put it behind them. Len asked Mateo why he had repeated the offer to Sushila when he was sober and smart enough to know better, and Mateo said that he hadn’t wanted Sushila to think that he wasn’t serious, that she wasn’t really desired.
The story continues to speed right along — Len decides maybe he should see what Mateo’s somewhat estranged wife (they still live next door to one another) thinks about all of this, which causes further trouble, including trouble between Len and Sushila: “He wasn’t her representative, she said.” Len’s retort is that this is a general insult and he “would hate himself if he didn’t speak out.”
In this quick back and forth, resembling the title’s structure, Kureishi manages to put together an interesting and surprisingly nuanced look at what Mateo did, what that means for women, what that means for men, and how to find some way for each to deal with the insulting sexual behavior. It’s not a masterpiece, by any means, but I found it surprisingly refreshing, in style and pace more than in content, in relation to the many long-winded, more self-consciously “profound” stories we’ve read recently that delve into similar territory. This one tries to present some complications. I think it’s successful in doing so, but . . .
I wouldn’t expect Kureishi to bring his voice to the #MeToo movement. He has his own past that calls into question his authority to speak about — or, at least, that challenges our willingness to listen to what he has to say about — anything she-said-he-said. Yet there are many voices out there. His last few paragraphs will, I think, cause concern to many who want a very clear condemnation of Mateo and his ilk. Instead, Mateo has the most poetic paragraph in the story, and Len is the one who walks away confused and uncertain.
I’m very interested in what you all think about this one.
Stories don’t need to have dialogue. Stories written by people most well known for writing dialogue for the stage and screen might come with the expectation that there will be dialogue, but it’s still ok if there isn’t much of it. With David Rabe’s recent story, the dialogue was the only part I really liked. This week with Hanif Kureishi the lack of substantial dialogue is a problem. It is a very short and brisk story, but that combined with it almost all being narration made me feel more like this was the plot summary for a story and not the actual story itself. It’s as if someone asked Kureishi, “What are you writing about?” and this was his 2000 word answer.
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With or without dialogue, this story needed to be longer and more thoughtful to amount to much. It’s a very odd situation presented and I was curious why Mateo would think his suggestion was ok. It did not really feel that this was fully explored. I did wonder whether there was a cultural differences problem lurking in all this, as the names of the characters suggest a variety of cultures among the characters. It was a nice touch to have Sushila be annoyed when Len tries to take things in his own hands without asking her. One more way that the men don’t consider the women adequately in what they do.
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I was reminded reading this story of something that Louis CK wrote in his letter of acknowledgment after the NY Times story about him a couple of years ago. To paraphrase for the context of this story, when Mateo asks Sushila to have sex with him it isn’t a question. It’s a predicament. When Len decides to deal with Marteo on his own, he only exacerbates the situation.
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One final comment is about the title. Firstly, he has reversed the typical order of the “he” and “she” in the phrase, and I’m not sure why. Without the comma in the middle, the grammar of the title reads more as saying “she said that he said”. Which seems odd, because there is no question of the accuracy of her report. But also, typically the term “he said, she said” is used when there is a dispute about the facts and the two parties are telling different stories. Not so in this case. So the title seems out of place. I wondered if maybe Kureishi is a Beatles fan and was thinking of their song title “She Said She Said”. But I don’t see how the song is connected to the story so maybe that’s a bit of a stretch.
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[PS – I just did a little google search after writing the above and find that in 1991 Kureishi wrote a long essay about the importance of the Beatles and how he liked them as a teenager in the late 60’s. And in an interview just last year he said, “because I was interested in The Beatles, I thought it was possible for a lower-middle-class boy, who hadn’t been to a posh school and who hadn’t been to university, to be an artist”. So maybe I’m not wrong about their influence on the title here.]
That was an excellent insight about the Beatlesque quality of this story that David noticed. Some Beatles songs have a fairy tale quaintness about them that doesn’t allow for much thought or reason for characters doing or saying simple things whether drunk or sober. It was like a grown up childrens’ story plainly set down with no moral. There is conflict. Bad behavior. Discretionarily convenient slight regret making defense of no regret whatsoever.
Kureishi is English and Pakistani, which explains or doesn’t explain everything. The English are generally thought of as being randy (horny) as Hell and spouses supposedly easily cheat on one another not to miss a one night only all night laison if at all possible.
Pakistani film comedies feature men, who overwhelmingly smitten with Pakistani women so that this over the top quality of not missing a possible golden sexual encounter pervades a little in this story. The women demanding to take charge of the situation seems very much a sterling quality of Pakistani women. When watching a Pakistani comedy, the characters have a “seize the day” attitude characteristic of a small country that has lost 4 wars during a 60 years long, running conflict with India.
Len is the conservative proper male and Mateo is the uninhibited hedonist not wanting to miss any of what author Philip Roth thought was absolutely the most pleasure that could be gotten out of life.
The premise that men and women become strangers if too many opportunties for sex are missed is itself opportunistic as though men and women who are good friends don’t share anything of much value compared to those who have or have had sex with one another.
As far as the me too movement this little narrative, although well crafted in a very simple manner like a shorter Beatles song, never enters the realm of the accomplished individual male or female working at achieving a successful career with higher individual goals or purposes than just being a usual wife or husband or lover. The story never gets beyond gender stereotypes just like most films and theater. One individualist character, female or male does not very often a good film or stage play make. So Kureishi stays well within cinema and theatrical conventions concerning men and women while cleverly suggesting he might go outside those conventions with this story’s title. There’s no me too here. You will have to look for that in some other short story.
I thought this was a pithy exercise, very much in the moment, of how easy it is to be misunderstood when norms about interpersonal interaction are changing so quickly. Think about, for example, how quickly Europe and America have gone from handshake and hug societies to “don’t touch me”… Kureishi may be saying, “Not only is it easy to be misunderstood, it is even becoming socially necessary to deliberately misunderstand.” That is, you’re obliged to “call out” without context ASAP otherwise you are “being silent” and are not an “ally”… (thinking about the YA fiction battles….). Maybe I am reading too much into the story…! It is only two pages after all. Another thought I had is that Kureishi may have “borrowed” everything everyone in the story is supposed to have said from actual utterances of politicians and other public figures… the absurdity of some of the tangled explanations they give as they rationalize, justify, condemn, score points, etc. As even two pages shows, it is so tiring!
Regarding politicians and public figures. Mateo seems very much of their ilk because he seeks to get from Len’s wife what he couldn’t get from his own wife. Maybe get from taxpayers what couldn’t be gotten from one’s own government. He is opportunistic and somewhat of a victim that he uses for his own advantage. Today, it seems many people get the most they can through internet dating websites or screening everyone and everything and then working out some justification or other to make their morally unlikely grand hookup happen even if other people misunderstand or won’t give approval or even disapprove. There seems a willful greed going on that public figures try to justify as socially acceptable. Everyone thinks they see how the select few are handsomely rewarded for sometimes very little (million dollar salaries for minimal accomplishment or for the work everyone else does for so very very much less remuneration. It is all getting way more cruel than anyone ever expected. And maybe that is what Kureishi is picking up on. Being strangers doesn’t look so bad if one is only going to be continually used by the other for only their own purposes. If one just uses others for their own elevation like a Madonna, than everyone wants to be a Madonna and not the ones she has used and then tossed aside. Quite stark actually.
Well…my good mood must be over because I didn’t see the point of publishing this. I agree exactly with David. The idea here is interesting but we barely even know the characters and so it seems merely that–an idea–and one that doesn’t have a good, compelling dramatic structure surrounding it.
Maybe there is very little conflict and therefore no dramatic structure, so nothing goes anywhere. New writers turning in stories like this without much plot or much character development usually don’t get this kind of a story published. Once an author gets published he or she seems to get a magical waiver to turn in anything not up to snuff especially if they have been read and will be read no matter what they write. It didn’t bring much to the table and readers like something to chew or think about which they didn’t get in this story. A bad short.
Ken,
Your diagnosis of the problem with “She Said He Said” seems totally correct:
“The idea here is interesting but we barely even know the characters and so it seems merely that–an idea–and one that doesn’t have a good, compelling dramatic structure surrounding it.”
What you’re saying is there is no context for the idea or no reason for the action of the story or reason to look at the thing. This seems very modern or usual in many films, novels and short stories.
But there can be stories that are very short yet very dramatic for being tightly focused. I just read a 2 paragraph, 34-line story called “How Firebrand Freddy Escaped Prison One Day And Safely Crossed The Border.” In an odd way, the dramatic structure encapsulated within the story title contains a situation that though generic could be applied more broadly. Such as the protagonist is escaping the prison of his own mind needing to reconnect to the society outside of the his mind guarded by someone who represents that society, who believes in its ideals and cannot understand the ideas in Firebrand Freddy’s mind.
This bitty story appears on page 105 and 106 of “The Storyteller Essays” by Walter Benjamin translated from German published in a short New York Review of Books paperback. The paperback appeared in a recent Mooks post of newly published translated books.
It amazes me how Trevor somehow finds the really good stuff sometimes by older writers that can put a supposedly good New Yorker short story to shame by being intensely dramatic and meaningful without there being much at all within it.