Sex and the City / Stone

There's a critic, Nancy Schoenberger, who writes about "functional masculinity." She says this idea was the classic territory of John Wayne. She says masculinity has taken a hit because of excessively macho figures; she says it's wrong to throw out the baby with the bathwater. In other words, there's a great deal that is good in John Wayne. I actually see John Wayne-ish attributes in several female figures: the Taylor Swift persona, Mirren in "The Queen," the women of "Sex and the City."

(1) Humility, courtesy, keeping your word. Is there anyone more courteous than Carrie Bradshaw? The effervescent smile, the heartfelt apologies, the way she warmly offers her bed to the chaste model in "The Modelizer." (SJP may be a mean girl, as Kim Cattrall suggests, but I really like the heroic--false?--image SJP has cultivated.)

(2) Enduring quietly while protecting the weak--coupled with an awe toward women. Think of Carrie helping Miranda through the death of The Mom. And the extra-marital affair. Think of Samantha calmly steering her own way through cancer.

(3) An ability to speak truth to power. Recall Carrie's response to the "break-up-via-post-it-note." Recall also Carrie's turning the tables on the dude who used her for sex: "Oh, sorry? I'm finished. I can't stay in bed right now to help you out!"

(4) Loyalty to comrades. Consider Stanford. Carrie's cheerful reassuring: "Stanford, I did *not* sleep with your model." Carrie's steadfast marching through Stanford's various ill-advised crushes. And then: Miranda. Carrie's supplying Miranda with a new boyfriend, following Miranda through the Joanna Gleason couples therapy sessions, reminding Miranda she's a "beautiful woman"--!

(4) Admitting you're wrong; showing an ability to change your mind. Think of Carrie's great scenes when she confesses to Aidan she has cheated.

(5) Fidelity to yourself. Carrie and e-mail! Carrie reading an anthology of history's great love letters late into the night!

(6) Mentoring the young. Carrie and J-Hud--in the first movie!

(7) An ability to laugh at oneself. Carrie and that silly puddle--in the opening credits!

(8) An ability to acknowledge and accept "the end." Samantha's implausibly graceful way of extricating herself from the late-series fling with that model. ("I love you, but I love me more.")

Do others out there look to "Sex and the City" for behavioral guidelines? Of course they do. I'm not ashamed. May Carrie always guide and inspire us all! And: Carrie? This cosmo's for you.

***

The start of Robert Stone's story, "Helping"--

One gray November day, Elliot went to Boston for the afternoon. The wet streets seemed cold and lonely. He sensed a broken promise in the city’s elegance and verve. Old hopes tormented him like phantom limbs, but he did not drink. He had joined Alcoholics Anonymous fifteen months before.

Christmas came, childless, a festival of regret. His wife went to Mass and cooked a turkey. Sober, Elliot walked in the woods.

In January, blizzards swept down from the Arctic until the weather became too cold for snow. The Shawmut Valley grew quiet and crystalline. In the white silences, Elliot could hear the boards of his house contract and feel a shrinking in his bones. Each dusk, starveling deer came out of the wooded swamp behind the house to graze his orchard for whatever raccoons had uncovered and left behind. At night he lay beside his sleeping wife listening to the baying of dog packs running them down in the deep moon-shadowed snow.

Day in, day out, he was sober. At times it was almost stimulating. But he could not shake off the sensations he had felt in Boston. In his mind’s eye he could see dead leaves rattling along brick gutters and savor that day’s desperation. The brief outing had undermined him.

A stranger comes to town. In this case, it's Elliot's "old hopes," half-revived by a trip to Boston. He is a Divided Self, tormented by lives he can't have. At another time, he would have "cured" himself by drinking. But he can't do that now. Two bits of figurative language pop up. The old hopes have a kind of physical impact on Elliot, like "phantom limbs." And Elliot's childless state makes Christmas "a festival of regret." References to the sobriety recur and recur. The repetition shows us what it is like to be inside Elliot's agitated mind.

Pathetic fallacy: The behavior of Nature seems to match "the shrinking in Elliot's bones." Boards contract; the deer are starving. You can alter your behavior to feed yourself, but that means that dogs will run you down "in the deep moon-shadowed snow." (There's a suggestion that Elliot and his wife are--also--"just animals." We don't get enough sustenance; we're in pain; we harm each other. It's thrilling how dispassionate Robert Stone remains as he sets up this particular horror story.)

The problem of sobriety: It is "dead leaves rattling along" the brick gutter that is your mind. Life is weird: Desperation is something you can "savor." Sobriety, which torments you, can also be "almost stimulating." You read this stuff and know that Robert Stone was a tortured man, enduring sleepless nights with his Chekhov stories. The narrator is merciless. There is nothing comforting or sentimental. The style reminds me of Stone's own description of the Shawmut Valley: "white silence." "Quiet and crystalline." Weirdly and brilliantly menacing.

P.S. Anne Tyler takes off holidays. Who am I to deviate from Tyler's template? I will be away on Monday. See you back here Tuesday morning!