IMGpapers 1976–79

Newspapers of the International Marxist Group and its forerunners, 1976–79

Emotional Masochism

· Socialist Challenge No. 17, 13 October 1977 · p. 2 of the scan · 295 words

The scan: sc-n17-oct-13-review-of-books-supp-1977.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

Uncorrected machine reading. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from a scan of a newspaper page, and the page was cut into articles by machine, at the headlines found by their type size. Nothing has been corrected: expect misread words, text from a neighbouring article, and titles that are the machine reading of the headline, some of them only fragments. Quote from the scan, not from this page.
How this article was cut and titled: headline found by type size in the OCR geometry (split_tabloid.py); 5-6 of 7; machine-segmented newspaper page; uncorrected Vision OCR.

page 2 of the scan

lying, self-deception and empty heroics which was to set the tone for the cultura! Sita Virago E1.95 heart. If you're an emotional masochist, this is your kind of book. Kate Millett, author of the pioneering Sexuel Politics, charts the slow disintegration ol her affair with Sita, a woman ten years her senior. The end of this relationship, following hard upon a nervous breakdown and desertion by her husband, must have been a deeply painful process for Millett. But somchow it's hard to maintain sisterly sympathy author who is so conscious while she is living a moment that it will later be immortalised in print.

Millett kept a detailed diary throughout the period covered in Sira, and she hasn't weeded it out, treating us to an odd mixture of profound anguish and trivial detail. Much of the action takes place at meals (cue for description of restaurant): crises always seem to coincide with the cooking of chicken. Buried in those 300-odd pages are some insights about love between women, ageing, writing and other relevant themes, but they are rarely illuminated and never synthesised. Uncomfortably close to self-indulgence, like picking old scabs off the KAREN MARGOLIS ers of 000ks an appreciate wha Marie.

In her struge! learnt of the or own experience classes and nation way of life, firs member, then a IWW, and finall Indian nationalis she bravely endi prison during Haling what destiny, Marie g deny womanhoc with an alien, an object two marriages a men, she remai oppression. To h backstreet abor preferable to the But she could no the struggle agai Her work for th ment was merely political commi sion against be probably made it she could shan without becomin Marie's perso demand equalicy In all important different from t

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