Writers Grace Paley and Tillie Olsen read some of their short stories to a standing-room only audience in 105 Dartmouth last night. Their readings were the culminating event of the College's 25th anniversary of coeducation celebration.
Paley read two pieces of about 15 minutes in length, and Olsen read one story for almost an hour.
"Upstaging Time," Paley's first story, was a comedic, first-person reflection on the process of aging.
She read about a woman who was growing old and noticed "that year, all the boys on my block were 72."
Paley discussed the "gloomy" aspects of aging, asking whether "old people should be put away" and wondering "why doesn't the heart endure." She contrasted those feelings with the joys of family, shelter and a general feeling of wellness as her "arteries [were] sticking with the bakeries of the Upper West Side."
Paley read that elderly people have the opportunity to replace lost memories with new ones, explaining that there is "still an infinity of synaptic activity in the brain."
The audience laughed when Paley related an anecdote of a student who asked an older woman in Chile to elaborate on her enduring interest in sex during an interview. "Not to you," the woman said.
Paley's other first-person story, titled "Six Days," described a 45-year-old Jewish mother's six-day stay in a women's prison in Greenwich Village, N.Y.
The character, imprisoned after sitting down in front of a military parade during the Vietnam War, found herself out of place in the prison, where she was one of only two white women.
Her cellmate, a black prostitute who was incarcerated for three years, could not understand why anybody would be sent to prison for such a petty crime. She screamed at the guards to "get this house-wife out of here."
The character did not have trouble sleeping in the prison and enjoyed seeing her children and neighbors at the bakery outside the window -- but she found it difficult to cope with the fact that she "still had no pen and paper, despite the history of prison literature."
Olsen, who came to Hanover in 1973 as one of the first women to speak at the College, read a story about a baptism at an African-American church during the McCarthy era.
She contrasted the children's restlessness during the baptism with the power and emotion evident during the service.
One of the children in the story, Carol, fainted during the proceedings when an old woman continually shrieked about the power and suffering of Jesus.
While the other children jumped on their pogo-sticks and moved on with their lives after the service, Carol's experience stayed with her.
She struggled to comprehend why she had been so affected by the emotion of the service and tried to understand the reason she and the others had separated themselves from an African-American friend who was at the service.
Her mother said it was "no news -- betrayal and shame," and it was better for Carol to have "immersion than to live untouched."
Olsen received a standing ovation when she finished reading the story.
