Rubyfruit jungle

Curiosity got the better of me when I chose to read Rubyfruit Jungle. I knew the story was about a lesbian and also knew that it had been written in the 1970’s. Since reading fiction about homosexuality is pretty mainstream now, I was interested in what was written about it over 35 years ago.

As a story, I wasn’t all that interested in it. It followed the life of Molly Bolt, a lesbian who grew up with her adoptive parents in Pennsylvania, then later moved with them to Florida. Molly was a very tomboyish and outspoken woman. She was never afraid of recognizing her own identity as a lesbian and often teased other women about their own sexual identity. From a young age, Molly knew she’d never marry. Her greatest difficulties show more developed after her father died and her mother, learning of Molly’s lesbianism, threw her out of the house.

What amazed me most about this quick read was the frankness of the author’s writing. I think perhaps that is why this book was so widely read at the time it was first published. Today, there are probably more interesting novels with homosexual characters. That Molly’s homosexuality was the focus of the book led me to tire of the story after a while. What I did like, though, was Molly’s determination to succeed and her own knowledge that she was a worthwhile person who could make something of herself even if others doubted her.

The ending of the book was quite perfect for its time. If this book would have been written today, however, its ending would have been quite different. show less

I give this book and Rita Mae Brown credit for pioneering explicit homosexuality forty years ago. It must have been shocking and offensive to polite people back then to read this story of a poor white girl with incredible sexual self-knowledge, chutzpah, brains, and dramatic abilities who acts on her sexual curiosities.

I found this to be a period piece about the 60's, presented by an outlier character, who has the courage to come out, to be out, and to thrive in a gay community while the majority of her gay contemporaries resigned themselves to lives, half hidden and half lived, in small towns, in unhappy heterosexual marriages, in spinster/bachelor professions.

With more emphasis on sex than on love, this book probably shocked its show more readers when it was first published in 1973. Today it seems dated, and a little shallow in not quite touching on the the true tragedy of denying even the hope of intimacy and honesty to same-sex oriented people in their given lives. But pioneers have to start somewhere and I'm betting this book got things rocking and rolling. show less

My initial reaction was simply, "Wow." It's a lesbian coming of age story set in the '50s through '70s. The main character is a bit too perfect, but I can't bring myself to care, because she's also Everywoman and it's actually a part of the story's charm (neither upper or lower class, neither rural or urban, neither butch nor femme, nothing -- she brings all ends of the spectrum together and is immensely relate-able).

The ending is not at all upbeat (Molly's got still more challenges, but adult ones, and ones that deal more with being female than with being dirt poor or being gay). I thought it was the perfect ending note: resigned recognition that the work to come will be just as hard as the work that's gone before, and a sense that the show more constant struggle is getting really, really old (that is, maturity). It perfectly fit the central theme I took away (inherent in the text: "Leroy bet me I couldn't find a pot of gold at the end, and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough" -- beautiful.).

This book gets a big fat "YES" from me. I really suspect, however, that it wouldn't do it for everyone. show less

I loved the main character for her ambition. Far too many books portray romance as the goal of womankind. This book was different, not because the main character loved women, but because she kind of didn't give a fuck about anything except furthering her career. She was observant about classism, sexism, racism, etc. I liked that she was written as a redneck who still had the sensitivity to care. She was an outcast in her film class. Everyone else was doing ridiculous gonzo pieces with no heart, but she chose to do a documentary on her mother. I thought that was really cool, and a fitting tribute to feminism, which is what this book was.

Originally published at http://lesbrary.com/2012/08/14/mfred-reviews-rubyfruit-jungle-by-rita-mae-brown/

Well, I finally read Rubyfruit Jungle. I’m not entirely sure what to think of it.

Is it well written, tightly plotted, compelling, and interesting? Not really. One meandering story runs into the next, sometimes without pause. It is very picaresque in that sense; so perhaps Brown purposefully sacrificed plot in order to maintain that genre’s style. I can’t say that it really works. As a loose collection of adventurous anecdotes, I would have prefered the book to be better framed into chapters and sections, rather than literally going paragraph to paragraph, one story to the next.

On the other hand, is the book funny and show more entertaining, with a refreshingly frank protagonist and consistent narrative voice? Absolutely. As both a child and an adult, Molly Bolt is always herself. She knows what she wants and she knows how to outsmart everyone around her to get it. Brown’s book is fairly revolutionary simply because Molly never really struggles with being queer– whatever unhappiness comes her way has more to do with society (personified as her parents, co-workers, classmates, etc.) and its inability to accept her as a normal.

In the last part of the book, Brown indulges in some fairly stilted dialogue between Molly and various characters, especially on the topics of heterosexual privilege, homophobia, and feminism. It’s not only obvious and heavy-handed, it slows down an already poorly plotted book. Most disappointing, though, is the dated, myopic judgement Molly expresses for other queer people. The condemnation she has for butch/femme dynamics, while totally suited to a book written in early 1970s, is painful and disappointing. show less

For as long as I can remember (in the ten years that I’ve been an out lesbian), Rubyfruit Jungle has appeared and been mentioned in countless places. Websites, books, magazines, and word-of-mouth all tout this unorthodox coming-of-age novel as The One Lesbian Novel You Must Read. I suspect that, in the ’70s when it was published, this was probably true. Reading it today, I found it to be, in a word, heavy-handed.

Rather than a carefully crafted story, Rubyfruit Jungle reads a bit like a piece of propaganda. It is as though the author is using this story to cover an essay of thinly veiled criticism of patriarchy and heteronormativity. Molly, the main character, is kicked out of college for being a lesbian and faces discrimination at show more work and school for being a woman. However, she never really seems to be emotionally or psychologically affected by this prejudice; she simply maintains a critical attitude. (In other words, Molly sounds like the author commenting on the misfortune that befalls her rather undeveloped character).

One thing I found interesting was Molly’s dislike of the butch/femme dynamic, and the butch way of presenting. In asserting her belief that lesbians should not emulate heterosexual relationship roles, Molly comes off as butch-phobic. I can understand where she’s coming from, but I also think that her opinion discounts the entirely acceptable masculine-of-center way of being. Again, though, my perspective is shaped by the 2010s, whereas Molly’s (and Brown’s) is a product of the 1970s. It’s interesting how LGBT culture has so drastically changed over the years.

There was one final aspect of this story that bothered me to no end: all of Molly’s lovers were “straight” until she met them! This is something that so rarely happens in real life that it just seemed ridiculous and unbelievable coincidental in the book. Every woman in whom Molly took an interest turned out to be down with girl-on-girl action. Ah, if only real life were like that.

I’m glad I read Rubyfruit Jungle for herstory’s sake, and for my own edification, and to better understand lesbian life in the ’70s. But it’s time we update our category of must-read lesbian novel. Let Rubyfruit remain part of the lesbian canon, but not as a story that is applicable to lesbian culture these days. Society has changed too much for that. show less

Never shies away from tough topics, poverty, systemic homophobia and sexism but is lifted from a potentially depressing story by the wit and humour of the sometimes frustrating but nearly always hilarious protagonist Molly.

“Oh great, you too. So now I wear this label ‘Queer’ emblazoned across my chest. Or I could always carve a scarlet ‘L’ on my forehead. Why does everyone have to put you in a box and nail the lid on it? I don’t know what I am – polymorphous and perverse. Shit. I don’t even know if I’m white. I’m me. That’s all I am and all I want to be. Do I have to be something?”

Thoughts
There is probably much to criticise in this novel – it’s certainly not high literature in terms of style or language, show more there’s more than a couple of scatological references that I could have done without and there is not a huge amount of character growth from anyone.

Viewed with a modern eye it has in many ways not aged well, some of the language is dated and there are, I understand many criticisms that Brown is negative about motherhood as well Butch culture at the time.

However, and it is a huge however, Molly is a an absolute pleasure to read. From an early age Molly recognises that she is different from her family in ways that are outside of her emerging sexuality. She is smart, ambitious, incredibly driven and self-aware which leads to more than a couple of laugh out loud scenes in the first half of the book. The children’s nativity scene in particular is one I would love to see on film. Life continues to throw all sorts of difficult situations on her but her self-belief and self - reliance continues to shine through in a way that I found cheerful and positive even despite the slightly ambiguous ending. show less