BookJack tells about the book by British writer Patricia Dunker "James Miranda Barry" - the story of a doctor who pretended to be a man all his life, although in reality he was a woman. The plot is based on the real biography of James Miranda Barry, but this is not so much a historical narrative as a discourse on the meaning of gender.
Patricia Duncker attended school in England and, after a period spent working in Germany, she read English at Newnham College, Cambridge. From 1993-2002, she taught Literature at the University of Aberystwyth, and from 2002-2006, has been Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, teaching the MA in Prose Fiction.
The name given to the title of the novel by Patricia Dunker (the writer is known to the Russian reader from the collection "Seven Tales of Sex and Death", published in our country at the end of the 2000s), belonged to a completely historical person. The real James Miranda Barry was the nephew of the famous Irish painter James Barry and the pupil of General Francisco de Miranda, a fighter for the independence of Venezuela. In 1812, James Miranda Barry graduated from medical school in Edinburgh with a diploma in military surgery, after which he successfully served as a doctor in the British colonies for many years - in South Africa, Mauritius, Jamaica and elsewhere. The shocking truth came to the surface only after the death of a worthy elderly gentleman: at the birth of James, Miranda Barry's name was Margaret-Anne, and in reality he was a woman who had spent her entire life in a man's dress.
And although Dunker generally adheres to the canvas of real events, her book is not a biography in the strict sense of the word. The author very freely handles the facts, using the true story of James Miranda Barry, fragmentary and not fully clarified, despite all the efforts of later researchers, as the basis for an independent artistic statement about the nature of gender.
In fact, "James Miranda Barry" is not quite a novel, but rather a collection of episodes from the life of one person. Here, seven-year-old Margaret-Anne finds herself in a rich estate owned by friends of her mother, and there she meets a little dishwasher Alice Jones. Here she is patiently cramming Latin and ancient Greek under the guidance of her named father, General Francisco de Miranda. On a summer night in the very heart of the garden labyrinth, three men and one woman - in fact, the mother of the heroine, make a decision that will change her life: from now on, the girl will become a boy, put on a man's suit, and then go to study medicine. Here is the heroine - or, rather, the hero, who has acquired a new name and a new destiny, makes an offer to the grown Alice Jones, who has become the love of his life, and is rejected. And here are the episodes of his service in the colonies - in Cyprus and Jamaica. A tiny red-haired doctor, impassive, fearless and ironic, fights epidemics and compassion for black slaves, rides on horseback, devoutly introduces hygiene standards, shoots himself in duels, makes friends, drinks without getting drunk, and turns heads to colonial beauties in years, and in old age England, where family secrets are still waiting for him - well, and, of course, the aged, but still gorgeous Alice Jones.
In principle, Patricia Dunker's book can be read as a variation on the Orlando theme, only if in Virginia Wolfe's intricate allegory novel the hero is born a man and becomes a woman in the middle of her infinitely long life, then Dunker's events unfold in the opposite order. However, while Wolfe's influence in James Miranda Barry can be traced quite clearly, it is still a different story. In a sense, Dunker's novel is a mental experiment that allows, if not to fix and clearly describe the phenomenon of gender, then at least to outline its contours.
In the case of the hero of James Miranda Barry, gender is the result of a choice, and this choice is made not by the heroine herself, but by her mother. Exhausted by male arbitrariness, tired of dependence and constant humiliation, she dreams of giving her daughter freedom, and the only way to this goal in the realities of 19th century England is through the rejection of female identity.
And at this point, the most interesting thing begins: contrary to expectations, such a choice turns out to be no worse and no better than any other. Yes, James Miranda Barry has to sacrifice something supposedly inherent in the female sex - he will not be able to wear beautiful dresses, mess around and flirt, he will not have a traditional family and children. However, there will be much of what traditionally women are deprived of - freedom of movement, favorite work, equal communication with the smartest people of their time. And, in general, as his experience shows, with all the reservations it is worth it.
In other words, binary gender as interpreted by Dunker turns out to be not something "natural" inherent in human nature, but a set of socially conditioned restrictions - it is no coincidence that a tight, uncomfortable, tight-fitting suit that hinders movement and is one of the key metaphors in "James Miranda Barry" , in which the hero puts on daily, as in armor. Step by step, step by step, Patricia Dunker exfoliates the superficial, using the example of James Miranda Barry, showing that neither behavioral practices, nor interests, nor skills, nor even sexuality go together with gender, but are derivatives of the personality as such in all its diverse completeness.
Like any mental experiment, "James Miranda Barry" is a coldish and predominantly intellectual reading. As for the conclusions that the writer comes to, then, perhaps, they are excessively radical and speculative. However, neither one nor the other can be considered such a significant flaw: an intelligent, tough, conceptual novel-manifesto, disguised as a slender, ideally rhythmic, pseudo-Victorian prose generous in detail - a combination so bewildering, exotic and delightful that it is valuable by the very fact of its existence ...
This article was sponsored by JOHN NYEMCSIK
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