Jacqueline Rose’s book, Women in Dark Times, claims to be about women who “negotiate the perils of their lives” to say “something urgent about feminism today”. Even without Trump’s presidency (the preface is dated “November 2024″), one seemingly doesn’t have to look far for regressive or ultra-conservative policies being exacted on women’s rights (or lack of).
The book, originally published in 2014, comes with a new preface, in which Rose writes, “[s]urely, all dark times are dark for women? Today, woefully, I have to acknowledge the truth of that statement.” She might be forgiven for her pessimism.
However, acknowledging truths, and difficult ones at that, we already know is in this psychoanalytically inspired writer’s wheelhouse. From Rosa Luxembourg, to Marilyn Monroe, to a number of women killed by their fathers in modern day “honour killings”, to the artists Charlotte Salomon, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Yael Bartana and Thérèse Oulton, Rose’s eclectic selection of women show us how to acknowledge other difficult truths about the patriarchy.
Rose fills her book with evidence of both the public and private thoughts of the women she writes about. We’re enlivened by Marilyn Monroe’s deeply analytical mind, and troubled by the painter Charlotte Salomon’s tragic, internal psychological conflict (both her mother and grandmother took their own lives before Salomon killed her own grandfather. She was then murdered, five months pregnant, in Auschwitz).
Either in their life or work, they all seem to be women who were on the borders of death or sanity. For Rose, proximity to these boundaries often compel, what she calls, “the subterranean aspects of history and the human mind”.
It’s a slightly unwieldy book due to the varied roles and lives her subjects had. Rose’s central thesis also might seem a little obscure to those not schooled in psychoanalysis or feminist theory. I wouldn’t let this put you off, though, because Rose is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking writers working today.
Women in Dark Times represents a more accessible way into the work of someone writing about challenging topics in a way that challenges you to think differently. Either way, it will make you want to read more about the women she writes about (and Rose I hope), which surely is the point anyway?
