1980s Part Two

1980s Part Two:


We had two stories to read for the latter half of the 1980s, "Janus," by Ann Beattie, and "The Way We Live Now," by Susan Sontag. They were both interesting, but very different.

"Janus" is the story of a woman and her bowl. Well, that's the the short version. The main character, Andrea, is a rather singular woman, a real estate agent, who has an obsessive relationship with this ceramic bowl that her lover had purchased for her at a flea market. And yet, if one looks closer, the bowl isn't just an object, nor is it the meaning of the story.

Ann Beattie wrote this story shortly after a divorce and remarriage. When she remarried, her stories changed, moving from the darker stories that anticipated her divorce to slightly more optimistic tales. "Janus" was written after her divorce, and is a story about a woman who lives an abnormal lifestyle, one that is not common to her time, yet she is satisfied.

This is compared to "The Way We Live Now," which also is about lifestyles, only this story is about lives that are affected by AIDS and HIV. Before I go any further, I must mention that Susan Sontag loved getting people riled up. Her stories focused on pressing social issues, and this story is no different. It doesn't just write about someone with HIV, it connects all the people involved. It writes, not from the point of view of the victim, but from a 3rd person omniscient point, showing the minds of everyone through dialogue, showing the backstabbing, the cattiness that goes on behind the scenes. It is a political statement, one designed to cause a commotion, and that is exactly what Sontag intended. A commotion.