[Part Two concluded by pointing out: "If we are to seriously consider the question of childhood sexuality, how can we do that without knowing what the children think or feel? We have no way to gauge how freely they are engaging in these activities and how much is coercion or a feeling of inescapability." We are all truly indebted to Ariel for her three-part post, concluding here, and for taking up some of the issues from Letters that none of us will soon forget, even if we don't always know how best to analyze and understand them.  -IT]

Yara’s Freedom?

This brings us back to freedom. The question of freedom, much like the questions of morality and desire, is an oft-talked about one in anarchist circles, so I won’t linger here long, but for our purposes the essential question is: How can one be sure they are making “free” decisions? This is a question left unanswered in Letters. Not only is it unanswered; Perlman seems to think it’s not a question worth considering, given that he never even attempts to address this subject in any way except through Sophia, and that’s only to show us how repressed and reactionary Sophia is to judge Tina and Ted’s relationship.

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[Part One concluded by asking what is "typical of the love found in Perlman’s novel"?  Ariel suggests that "it seems to be a predominately sexual love, or another way of putting this is that the only time the word love is used is when it is referencing a sexual relationship. While non-sexual relationships exist, it is the rare one that seems to be totally unhampered by sexual tension."  -IT]

Non-Sexual Relationships in Letters?

One of the few non-sexual relationships is between Sophia and Sabina.  Sophia says:

“When I saw tears under those long black eyelashes I felt an emotion I can’t describe with words like friendship and love. Sabina hadn’t even been ‘Jose’s Girl,’ she hadn’t ever shared his bed, she hadn’t ever desire him physically, yet she loved him; I understood her love for him only because I thought it must be similar to what I felt toward Sabina when I saw her tears.”

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[The following is Part One of a three-part contribution by Ariel Amend-All. Parts Two and Three will be posted over the next few days. - IT]

* * * * * * * *

My post will be broken up into three parts because I am covering a few chapters in one go. Also, I’m trying to cram an entire book’s worth of feelings into this, which is difficult to say the least. I am focusing on some of the more emotion-inducing topics, namely the incest and childhood sexuality. Childhood sexuality is a very complicated topic, not well understood at all, and I don’t claim to be an expert. My opinions are merely based upon my own experiences as a childhood survivor of rape and incest, nothing more or less. My take on these chapters has ended up a little more theoretical/thesis-y then I had hoped, and I look forward to your comments and thoughts!

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I find the back and forth about who really loved who or who loved an apparition instead of the person tiresome. The flatness of Perlman’s character development is apparent here and I don’t love Letters of Insurgents because the characters are plausible. I love Letters of Insurgents because of the way that the ideas are validated by the characters and situations in the book. I don’t think a more skilled novelist would have made Letters of Insurgents a better book. They would have made a different book with different emphasis, different political bias (of course), and different themes. They would have made a better story but it would have had flattened the sophisticated political problems that I, and most of my peers, have experienced. This lack of character development isn’t the biggest problem I have with the book.

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Infinite Tasks and I are rewatching The Sopranos, which is our all-time favorite TV show.  We just passed (*spoiler alert!*) the part of Season 6 where Vito is outed to the mob family, and soon his whole community, as gay.  He runs away and stumbles upon a small, gay-friendly community in New Hampshire and begins to fall in love with Johnny Cakes.  As their heads tilt for a first kiss, Vito freaks out, calls Johnny a fag and starts a fight.  Luckily, Johnny is one tough dude and Vito doesn’t kill him.  Soon, Vito realizes that he has fucked up what may be the love of his life, or at least his first opportunity to actualize a relationship with a guy. He shows up at Johnny’s cafe and says,

“When you have lied about something for so long, you don’t know when to stop.  You don’t know when it is safe.”

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I was explaining the Insurgent Summer project to an acquaintance, explaining how slow-going the reading is because I’m taking copious notes. I said that it was the first time I had ever taken notes while reading. “Ever?” he said, his eyes widened. “Well,” I said without hesitation (and totally seriously), “I mean, in school yeah, but never in real life.” I’m not relating this anecdote to prove how I’m too cool for school, but I do want to reveal my anti-academic tendency. I suspect I felt this way before ever reading this book. My opinion on the subject has bloomed over the years. I now have a pretty harsh criticism of universities. They are not real life. At their best they are investments of time and money to procure a more desirable job for oneself in the future, and at their worst they are investments of time and money in order to avoid the responsibilities of real life. If you experience real life while in school, it is your own fortune (or dumb luck) and not the result of your tuition.

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