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SLOW EMERGENCIES is not a large book. It is, however, a vast, un-romanticized exploration of a life in art.
In Slow Emergencies, linguistic and structural sophistication is a canvas for the unfolding of timeless conflicts - between divine gifts and mortals, and between favoured mortals and society. Lin, the heroine of this book, is a young mother who loves her two daughters and her husband, but this love does not quench her all-consuming passion for dance. She pines for the stage. After much struggle to remain "normal" and to conform to the diktats of society, Lin surrenders to her beckoning destiny. This is the theme of Slow Emergencies: we do not choose art - it chooses us. Fighting the honour of the gods is lethal. The only way to survive is to heed the calling. However there is no blissful surrender into a carefree romp with the muses. Giving birth to Art (hence, all the conception and birth metaphors) is an agonizing process. The chosen ones are haunted, tormented with burning pain which drives them to the point of insanity, insists on claiming the body, reorganizes its cells and opens them up to the seeds of divine inspiration. Yes, Lin does make a choice, but not between career and family, as some critics have noted. She chooses life over death.
This book analyzes the effects of such a choice without apologizing for it. The society at large does not understand artists. Thus, once Lin escapes her suffocating normalcy and runs off to Mexico to join a ballet company, the spotlight of the book shifts away from her. Hence we are focused on her all-too-human abandoned family in Small Town, USA. We glimpse the great artist in sporadic tortured-blissful flashes. Inspiration exists on the periphery of Humanity, which is awed, dazzled and frightened by the distant, unfamiliar landscapes of Art. Except this artist happens to be a woman. And when the artist is a woman, humanity also condemns: "in these postfeminist times, it's a daring choice to write with tenderness about a woman who abandons her babies for her art," was one of the first reviews of the book I read. Was the critic reproaching the writer or the protagonist?
Nancy Huston's prose is subtle, elegant and she has long been lauded as one of the most important writers in Europe. Finally her fame is reaching this continent. Born in Canada, Huston has lived in Paris since the 1970s and does what few can attempt - she writes her books in French and then rewrites them for her English audience in English. Only one writer comes to mind with such trans-linguistic fluency - Nabokov - and I’m certain that Vladimir Vladimirovich would have been delighted to find himself in Ms. Huston’s company.
-YANINA GOTSULSKY-
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