Liv. Contradictions

LYNNE TILTMAN
b. 1947
Lynne Tillman was born in Brooklyr, New
york,
and lives in New
york
city. Her
novels include Haunted Houses (1g87),
Motion Sickness (L9g2),
Cast inboubt
(1993),
and No Lease on Lift (1997),
and her story collections are Absence Makes
tlre Heart (1990)
and The Madame Realisrn comltlex (rgg2).
She has collaborated
with the artists
Jane
Dickson and Kih Smith, respectively, on Liuingwith Cortra-
dictions (L982) andMadamz Realism (1984). She is also the author of two books of
nonfiction: Th.e Veloet Years, Andy Warhol and the Factory 1965-1967 (1995) ancl
the essay collection Tlre Broad Picture (1997). Her cultur al criticisur appears ir A'rt
in Amprica, Bonrb, Frieze, and the Yoice Literanl Supplentent.
In her essay
"Criticd Fiction/Critical Selfl" in Critical Fictions (1991), fillnan
writes;
"I
am wary or shy of proposing rny fiction as written in opposition to, or to
pronounce that I write differently, as if I--or it-could transcend conditions o{ birth
and development-its and mine-and was sornehou. able to escape thent. . . . I work
within the Arnerican English language as a white, rniddle-class, iecond-genelation
Arnerican woman, at a particular moment in history with rny own particular biog-
raphy." She adds,
"I
must wrest this language and its forms away frorn or out ol'the
majority' (of which I arn a pailt, in sorne ways ald at sorre times, to others), to
runran i t . t o un-Arrreri can i t , evel r t o urr-whi t e i t . t o i rrconverrj errce t l re rrra. i ol i $ l rrrr-
guage, to uncouventionalize it, even to shalre it, in an odd sort ofu,a),, to qtrestiorr
privilege, my own, too, of course."
"Livingwith
Contradictions" first appeared as the title story ofher 1982 collectiol.
Living with Contradictions
He didn't want to light in any war and she didn't want to have a clfld. They
had been living together for three years and still didn't have er way to refer
to each other that &dn't sound stupid, false, or antiquaied. Language 1b1-
lows change and there wasn't ary language to use.
Piifiners in a pairbonded situation; that sounded neutral. Of course living
with someone isn't a neutral situation.
Julie
and
Joe
aren't crrvedwellers.
They don't live together as lovers or as husband and wife.
How long would this century be called modern or, even, post-modern?
Perhaps relationships between people in the l4th century were rnore eq-
uitable, Iess fantastic. Not that
Julie
would've wanted to have been the
ruriller's wife, or
|oe
the miller.
hr other centuries, different relationships. Less presurnption, less intinracy?
Before capitalism, early capitalism, no capitalism, feudalisrn. Feudtrl rela-
tionships. I want one of those,
]ulie
thought, sometlling feudal. What u,ould
it be like not to have a contemporary miud? Intirnacy is sornething people
rused to talk about before comrnercials. Now there's nothing t<l say.
People are intimate with their analysts, if they're luclcy. What could be
ruore intimate than an adveftisement lbr Ivory soap? It's irlpossible not to
be affected.
The manufacture of desire and the evidence of real desire. But
'real'
desire
is for what-for what is real or rnanufactured?
Other people's passions always leave you coid. There is nothing like really
being held. They &dn t expect to be everything to each other.
122 r - yNNE Tr LL^, l AN
The lirst year they lived together rvas a battle to be together and to be sep-
arate. A siient battle, because you can't {iglit the fight together, it dei'eats
the purpose of the battle.
You cit''t talk about relationships, rit least they didnt; they talked about
things that lurppeled aucl things that didn't. Daily lil'e is very daily.
Tlt: great adventure, tire pioneering thing, is to live together ald not be a
couple. The expectation is indefatigable and exhausting.
fuliebought
an Ital-
itrn p.stc.rd, circa 1953, showing an ardent man and woman, locked in e'r-
brace.. And lookilg at,each other. Except that one of her eyes was roving
out, the other in, and his eyes, looking at her, u'ere crossed.'
Like starcrossed lovers' e.yes should be, she thought. She drew a triangle
arorrid their eyes, r.l4rich nade therri still more distorted.
people
woulcl ask
'Where's
Joe?'as
if thele wtrs sonrething supposed to be aitached to her-.
The Littachrnerrt, rny dear, isl't tangible, she w:rnted to say, but it is also php-
Neu'cars, new lor.ers. Sometintes slie felt like Ma Kettle in a situation cour-
edy, looked on lron.r the outside. You're either on the inside loohng out or the
outside loohng in. (Then
there's the inside loohng in, the outside looking out.)
]oe:
\4/e're old love.
]ulie:
We're f'arniliar with each other.
Julie
didn't mind except that she didn't have anyone new to talk about, the
way her friends did. Consurnerisrn il love. One friend told her tliat talk-
ing about the person you Iived with was like airing your cletrn laundry in
public.
Familiarity was, for her, better thrur rornance. She'd been in love enough.
Being in love is a fiction that lasts an hour irnd a half. f'eature-leugth, and
then you're hungry again. Ulronrantic old love comfbrted her, like a roorn
to read in.
Joe:
You hooked up rvith rne art the end ofyour hard-guy period.
Julie:
How do you know?
Joe:
I know
So,
Julie
and
Joe
were just part of the great heterosexual capitalist farnily
thrall, possessing each other. Contr:rdictions nake life {iner. Ambivalence
is just another word for love, becoming rornantic about the unconscious.
Where does one find com{brt, even constancy. To find it in an idea or in the
flesh. We do incolporate ideas, after all.
You can accept the irrational over and again, you can renounce your f'eel-
ings every day, but you're still a baby. An infant outside of reasol, spealcing
reasonably about the unreasonable,
Calling love desire doesn't change the need.
Julie
couldn't trbandon her de-
sire ibr love. It was a pleasurable contradiction and it was against irll reason.
1990

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LYNNE TILTMAN

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