JANE RULE – bi-national identity

Jane Rule eh, (1931-2007) US born, transplanted to Canada in 1956 with her partner Helen Sonthoff (1916-2000)- teacher and scholar of Canadian literature. I read Jane Rule's posthumously published essay collection Loving the Difficult (2008) over the holidays. Columns and articles previously published in a variety of forums from 1990 - 2006. She had published 7 novels, 4 short story collections, and a commissioned literary review, Lesbian Images.

I was especially intrigued by her essay Labels (2005) about how she negotiated her bi-national identity, whether her work was considered American or Canadian, by whom in what circumstances and how much that depended on where the book was set. In Canadian Customs (undated) she explores not only censorship of her work, and seizure by Canada Customs at the border of her novels once published in Canada and given Canadian literary awards, but now only available from the US or UK; but also about how her work has been treated in different countries, as a female, and lesbian writer. She writes:

'Though mainstream publishers have since become more accustomed to handling both feminist and gay subjects. Their marketing skills for such books are limited since they depend on reviews and quick sales. Feminist and gay presses are willing to keep their books in print long enough to sell by word of mouth, as they must because books from such presses are rarely reviewed. Only in Canada do I still publish with a mainstream press. In the States I publish with Naiad, a lesbian press. In England, Pandora has reissued all my novels. In both countries there is critical silence about my work, and I am reviewed only in the gay and feminist media.

Canada is not as homophobic as either England or the States. My books are generally reviewed here, and I am invited to participate in the literary life of this country, which includes serving on juries for the Canada Council, our arts granting organization, and being sent abroad to represent Canada.'

Jane Rule's groundbreaking lesbian relationship themed novel Desert of the Heart which she published in 1964, after 22 rejections from publishers, was made into the film Deserts Hearts (1985). The ONLY lesbian movie we had when I came out in small town New Zealand, we watched it just about every weekend at different community members houses.

Theme for Diverse Instruments (1975) eventually found it's way downunder, and I was entranced by it's series of stories with the twins (was it Ariadne and her twin brother ?)the realism of their close yet competitive relationship. She wrote so convincingly of the twin siblings I assumed she was one herself. It was only when I read Loving the Difficult, I discovered she wasn't, having an older bother who barely tolerated her, and a boy cousin she shared a twin-like existence with. Apparently her father was a twin and there were both fraternal and identical twins in her extended family. By 1993 Memory Board (1987) was one of my favourite books, as at the time like the characters in the book, I was estranged from my fundamentalist twin brother as an adult; we're all good now. I could not have forseen how in other memory board ways this novel would come to reflect my life in the future.

It has taken me these past 10 years to understand the nuances of New Zealand and Canadian English, humour, accents, slang, spelling. When I came to Canada fantastical worlds opened up to me in digital media. Writing and performing was harder to mediate. People were confounded by the way I used words, my accent, poetry readings were a nightmare, people were always 3 lines behind trying to decipher what I said, by the time they got the point, the joke, I was 5 lines ahead talking about something else.

In my country of origin my delivery was all about the speed, the onomatopoeia, the hard sounds at the beginning and ends of words bouncing off each other. In my adopted home country my delivery had to be about savouring the fat succulent juiciness of words, the nuanced pauses. I am probably fluent enough now to write exclusively in either New Ziln, or Canagen English, instead of this strange hybrid I favour. I am ready to write. A sojourn to work back in the country of origin, and a return, to perform in Canada, has taught me how to negotiate the universality of story, and the nuance of location.

When I first came here, the Canadians I met spoke English so slowly it seemed to me, that I was always accidently interrupting them, by mistaking the pauses between words for being them finished what they had to say. When I went on TV they asked if I would be offended if they gave me subtitles. I replied: 'I w-i-l-l s-p-e-a-k s-l-o-w-l-y f-o-r t-h-e C-a-n-a-d-i-a-n-s. Still people comprehended about 1/3 of what I said. My much longer transplanted compatriot tried to teach me how to speak in sentences, rather than my usual paragraphs. A self-conscious silence came over me. Day to day people teased, mocked, parroted my accent, every time I opened my mouth. I started to sift out incomprehensible sayings, 'better than a slap in the face with a wet fish', I tried never to speak in public for a whole year. (I know, I know, quit whining for crying out loud, I have the luxury of passing if I keep my mouth shut).

Ironically I came from a nation of teasers, where wry sarcasm, and exaggerated over-statements of the obvious are a sign of affection, where making yourself the butt of the joke is an art form. If Canadians are self-effacing, New Zealanders are self-deprecating, I spent so much time making out how stupid I was, people actually started to believe I was! I found myself hanging out with First Nations people, refugees, and folks from the prairies, or all of the above, we seemed to share a lexicon of humour. Thanx mates!