This Perversion Called Love by Long Margherita;

Author:Long, Margherita;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2011-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

What would it be like if our subjectivity were founded not on rupture but on a more subtle kind of differentiation that allowed us to maintain our relation to our mothers? The example of the placenta is interesting because it suggests that such a possibility exists, as Rouche points out, already. In the United States, “biologism” has long since become the ultimate insult among feminists, its fate sealed in no small part by Judith Butler’s argument in Gender Trouble that “the language of biology participates in other kinds of languages and reproduces that cultural sedimentation in objects it purports to discover and neutrally describe” (109). Butler’s critique of false neutrality is certainly valid. At the same time, the example of the placenta reminds us how much we stand to lose if we reject the language of biology out of hand. It is not that that language is inherently any more or less faithful to its maternal referent. However, its perceived status as such does have the advantage of suggesting that a different relation to the mother belongs not to a distant utopian future but to an undeniable, anatomical now.

Tanizaki invokes the same sense of immediacy in chapter 3 with his description of a Yoshino delicacy called jukushi that is so sensual as to provide the most memorable passage in the novel:

The empty ashtray seemed not for cigarettes but for holding under one’s mouth while eating the runny, overripe persimmons. With trepidation I tried placing a piece of this about-to-burst fruit on my palm, just as I was told. It was large and cone-shaped with a pointy tip, and had ripened to a bright, half—translucent red. Like a bag made of rubber, it was swollen and jiggly, but with the sun passing through it became a beautiful orb of coral jade. Persimmons sold in the city never turn such a splendid color, and cave in on themselves long before achieving this kind of softness. According to our host, you can make jukushi only from Minō persimmons with thick skins. They are picked while still hard, and stored in a box or basket away from the elements. Left untouched for ten days, the insides melt naturally to a jelly sweet as nectar. The insides of other persimmons run like water and never achieve the marvelous gooiness of the Mino. To eat them you can pull off the top and scoop out the insides with a spoon, as with a soft-soft boiled egg, but they are more delicious eaten by hand from a bowl, the skin peeled back with dripping fingers. (21—22)

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