Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Reviews
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1966
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1967
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971
- The Village Voice, September 9, 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1971
- College English, 33:3, December 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1972
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1973
- Village Voice, June 16, 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1974
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1976
- Frontiers, III:3, fall, 1978
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, April 1, 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 9, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
- The Feminist Review, #5 [in The New Women's Times, 5:14, July 16–19, 1979]
- Frontiers, IV:1, 1979
- Frontiers, IV: 2, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, January 24, 1980
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1980
- Sinister Wisdom, 12, winter 1980
- Frontiers, V:3, 1981
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 10, 1981
- Essays
- Letters
- Index of Books and Authors Reviewed
“Book World,” The Washington Post, May 9, 1979
from Reviews
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Reviews
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1966
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1967
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1968
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 1969
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1970
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971
- The Village Voice, September 9, 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1971
- College English, 33:3, December 1971
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1972
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1973
- Village Voice, June 16, 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1973
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1974
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1975
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1976
- Frontiers, III:3, fall, 1978
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, April 1, 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 9, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1979
- The Feminist Review, #5 [in The New Women's Times, 5:14, July 16–19, 1979]
- Frontiers, IV:1, 1979
- Frontiers, IV: 2, 1979
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1979
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, January 24, 1980
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1980
- Sinister Wisdom, 12, winter 1980
- Frontiers, V:3, 1981
- “Book World,” The Washington Post, May 10, 1981
- Essays
- Letters
- Index of Books and Authors Reviewed
Summary
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose, 1966–1978. Adrienne Rich (Norton, 310pp., $13.95)
Adrienne Rich notes dryly that “the first verbal attack, slung at the woman who demonstrates a primary loyalty to herself and other women is manhater.” After the bad reviews of her previous prose work, Of Woman Born, Rich might well have extended “the invitation to men” (in Mary Daly's phrase), whether sincerely or not, out of simple self-preservation. Instead On Lies, Secrets, and Silence continues to offer its primary loyalties to women. The author also refuses to allow her very real compassion for men (which an astute reader will not miss) to defuse her conclusions, nor does she parade evidence of her “humanism” (a word Rich has elsewhere said she finds false and will no longer use).
On Lies, Secrets, and Silence can be seen as one woman's journey past obligatory “humanism” (early in the book Rich quotes Virginia Woolf's constant sense that male critics are her audience; “I hear them even as I write,” Woolf says), to the position of a woman who does not give a damn about such voices because she is talking to women. (Robin Morgan's feminist essays in the recent Going Too Far chronicle the same change and comment explicitly on it.) The shift occurs halfway through the book, in 1974. The earlier Rich is capable of assuming (in “The Antifeminist Woman”) that equal pay is “serious” and housework trivial; the later Rich, freed from attending to the voices that so tormented Woolf, can state, “it is the realities civilization has told (women) are unimportant, regressive, or unspeakable which prove our most essential resources.”
Not a popular stand. But its uncompromising honesty frees her for some fine things, from the bitter accuracy of “Toward a Woman-centered University” to the splendid “Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson” (a title taken from one of Dickinson's poems). At her best Rich is inimitable: driving through the sentimental legend of Dickinson (Rich points to examples like Ransom and MacLeish's comments on her, and the recent play, The Belle of Amherst) to the truth: Dickinson's three words to her niece (locking the door of her bedroom with an imaginary key), “Matty: here's freedom.”
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- The Country You Have Never SeenEssays and Reviews, pp. 143 - 144Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2007