This post was inspired partly by @khizuo@hexbear.net , thank u.
I had her famous-unfinished novel-manuscript Otros Valles on my to-read list since I knew it was a thing, (maybe five years ago) but only when I went to look for it did I realise the author had deliberately wiped her presence from everywhere, basically.
Back then I could only find a couple of her essays knocking around pirate sites, nothing more. Coincidentally they are here and here, with Mutual Aid Printing not being listed on her Goodreads page or anything like that.
I guess the question I have is whether or not making a post like this is a bad thing to do? If you read Mutual Aid Printing, the author's intent of wiping herself from the general record as a sort of form of protest is very clear. So I've never really known how cool or uncool it is to even talk about her work. Should I literally not read her stuff, or is the broad statement more the point, and whatever you find is whatever you find? I guess it's kind of semantics, but there's a twinge in my brain that says yapping loudly about Berrout's work may be a foot-in-mouth move.
The other thing, which Berrout also discusses in both linked essays, is that the writers' communities/interlinked social webs/who fucking knows, queer artist's collectives she ran in were often obnoxiously white. I think Ryka Aoki is the only published transfem poc I can think of? Binnie, Peters, Felker-Martin, so on... Please inform me if I've missed anything, I'm not a full historian, simply a dumbass.
So aside from the fact that Berrout represents a rare voice in the space, I like how Otros Valles contrasts and almost critiques Nevada. It has none of the dejected, self-deprecating artifice. I dunno if I'm fit to talk about it but it keeps biting at my mind, and I'm not really sure if I should yap. Thoughts? Opinions? Criticisms? Call me cringe? ✨
I think at a certain point, a work moves beyond the wishes of what the author personally wants people to take away from. For better or worse, an author loses control of how people understand their work as soon as they release it to the public. The work might have been created by the author, but it belongs to the people.
Is it weird that I feel this way 99% of the time but not now? I'm a big "death of the author" proponent but Idk if I've ever seen someone willingly take all their work away as a protest...
I suppose the two questions would be:
-
What is the social consequence of continuing to share her work despite her wishes?
-
What is the social consequence of not sharing her work which aligns with her wishes?
Whatever answer you have for these two questions would guide your actual decision. I don't know enough about her or her works to answer these questions.
That is a pretty good way to frame it. It is extremely unlikely she'd ever pop out of permanent-internet-sabatical to chew out bearsite users, I suppose. So maybe it's better to yap about these writings, honestly...
-
I think it is an important body of work, it's a voice that isn't typically heard and also a perspective that some people should and need to hear.
I think some work is meant to be found.
We've talked about it a bit before. I get torn between how important her work is to me, and her wishes for her work. My main cope is to mainly dismiss the thesis of MAP by downplaying it as depressive self-abnegation which doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. I think it's sort of immoral to share out copies of Otros Valles, but I still do sometimes...
That's exactly the same dilemna I face with it too. Idk what the right approach is. I guess since she's fuckin' gone from online, you could just say "eh fuck it" and not worry? But I dunno...
While you're here, do you know how MAP was published, by the way? Like did she just put it out and it got spread by random people? Its provenance seems supect to me, as in "how did this get into our hands"?
At the end of the day you can kill an idea, it just has to be one espoused and developed by someone from a very marginalized strata.
