Babel Clash

When Jaye ended her last post by asking me, “What’s so funny about writing the every woman?” the answer to me was obvious: I get to write about real life!

Real life is ridiculous. Humanity is ridiculous. Sex is ridiculous. Eating is ridiculous. Society is ridiculous. I could go on and on. At the same time, all of the above is also fun, heartbreaking, pathetic, limitlessly engaging, heroic… Again, the list is endless. It’s real life people: It’s messy, it’s complicated, and it’s irresistible.

So, you might be wondering, why the hell do you write urban fantasy if you want to write about real life, Dr. Peeler? It’s because the only thing I like more than real life is satire. And what better way to call attention to just how absurd things are than by contrasting the absolutely normal with the entirely paranormal.

Jane’s “everywoman” as a heroine was, therefore, the natural choice for me. Like Gulliver, she could have crazy, supernatural adventures that titillate reader’s imaginations at the same time she plays with reader’s assumptions about values such as heroism, goodness, love, et cetera. Not that I think I’m Jonathan Swift, by any means. He was a man on a mission and me? I just wanted to tell a good story, with a few extra layers.

So what are those layers? And how does an “everywoman” heroine help skin them?

Let’s start with heroism. When we think of heroes, our culture usually points us in the direction of figures such as Conan. Musclebound, seemingly unstoppable, and gifted with preternatural abilities of size and strength, this is definitely a type of Epic hero. But what about a more quiet type of heroism? For example, I’ve always been fascinated by women like my mother and my sister-in-law. The former has taught special ed all of her life, the latter is a nurse. They’re not musclebound or gifted with preternatural abilities, and yet they’re still unstoppable. Women like my mom and my sister-in-law do what they do despite the dangers, not because of them. They do what they do knowing that they will get hurt, both emotionally and physically. They admit to being afraid, constantly, that they’re not doing enough, or that they could do more, or that they’re not really making a difference. And then they get up and go to work, despite those fears.

So yeah, I think heroism takes a lot of forms. And writing a character who isn’t kick ass is my way of asking people to reevaluate their definitions of strength.

Through subverting such assumptions about “values” commonly made in urban fantasy, I also wanted Jane to subvert the assumptions about female agency that some kick-ass heroines unwittingly recycle. Take, for example, the idea that Jane’s “everywoman” status makes her vulnerable. In some ways, yes, it does. She gets her ass kicked more than a few times, and she needs rescued, physically, even more.

But in reading Jaye’s post I realized something about Jane. She’s nobody’s foil. She’s not crashing around, reflexively whacking back at life as it whacks her first. Jane isn’t perfect: she makes a lot of mistakes and she can be a bit clueless. She’s also oftentimes influenced by the actions of others. But throughout the books, she’s still thinking, all the time, about her life and what she wants out of that life. She’s not just reacting.

Jane’s the one making the jokes. She’s the one who sees through what’s around her: she sees the sublime in the ridiculous, and the ridiculous in the sublime. Granted, she usually does so on the way to find a bathroom or a bite to eat. But don’t we all spend a large portion of our lives in either one of those two positions? And those are the moments no one ever writes about in UF. Nobody ever pees! Or needs a hot dog. But I’m sure even Conan needed both, at some point. The paradox, meanwhile, is that by acknowledging that bugbear, the human condition, this kind of character refuses to reject our lived experience as unworthy of the subject of fiction. Instead, characters such as Jane embrace real life, helping us to see how our own lives can, sometimes, be downright magical.

Especially when that hot dog is covered in chili. And cheese. And served with a Dr. Pepper. Ummm . . . Is anybody else hungry?