Accused of sexual harassment by a mentally-ill student after his rejection of her Henri Matisse dissertation, Professor Perry Diss announces to Dr. Gerda Himmelblau, the Dean of Women Students, that he will not resign his position because “that woman isn’t an artist, and doesn’t work, and can’t see…and because of Matisse.”Diss’ love of Matisse, his belief in what Matisse’s work represents, not only drives the tension in A.S. Byatt’s “The Chinese Lobster,” the final story in her The Matisse Stories collection, but serves as an explanation as to why Byatt has centered her shades-of-gray stories, tales of irresolution for the tormented characters, on this most color-obsessed of French painters. Matisse’s work represents the affirmation of life in a violent world that oftentimes seems hopeless.
The two women in the “The Chinese Lobster” both struggle against the siren’s call of death. Haunted by her best friend’s suicide, Himmelblau struggles with her belief that “suicide can’t be handed on,” and is forced to deal with the complaint against Diss. Peggi Nollett, the anorexic and suicidal student who filed the complaint, believes Matisse’s works are sexist and takes out her anger and self-loathing by smearing them with shit. It is only Perry Diss, himself bearing the “well-made efficient scars on his wrists” from failed suicide, who has found a reason for being in his old age. “Pleasure is life,” he tells Himmelblau, and it is Matisse’s works that have taught him how to affirm beauty as a way of affirming life.
Diss tells Himmelblau that Matisse dreamed of “an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter - a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair.” This calmness of Matisse’s work reflects Diss’ behavior. He is able to experience pleasure in his life, such as the deliciousness of a grain of rice. To Diss, Matisse’s work not only does not reflect inner suffering, it is the utter renunciation of suffering. The fact that Peggi Nollett is tormented by Matisse’s works proves that she has missed their point completely. The passionate defense of Matisse’s works by Diss is not about a disagreement of artistic taste; it is his defense of what has given his life meaning. Diss has rejected Christianity, and embraced Matisse, because he cannot worship a religion that has a tortured body hanging over it. He chooses not to suffer. “I would rather have The Dance,” he says. Himmelblau and Nollett, lost in their suffering, have lost the color in their lives; the color that is the power, that is the key to understanding Matisse’s works.
Suicide, to Himmelblau, is the denial of life’s color. Her dream of suicide centers on imagining a white room, “clear and simple,” where the only stain that must be cleansed is her mind. Diss has chosen to embrace the color both because it is powerful and painful. It must be looked at with full focus. This is impossible for these two women who no longer want to see the beauty in the world around them. Leaving the restaurant, Diss looks at the glass box containing the dying lobsters and scallops, creatures losing their gloss and color, and states his final judgment on Nollett and Himmelblau. “I find that absolutely appalling,” he says, “and at the same time, exactly at the same time, I don’t give a damn."
Diss, unlike Himmelblau and Nollett, refuses to lose his color. He will not suffer with them. He understands that the key to continue living is to affirm life, its beauties and joys, through an act of imagination. This much Himmelbau herself acknowledges when she “kisses Perry Diss’s soft cheek” and thanks him “for everything” at the story’s close. Unlikely allies, the Dean of Women’s Studies and the scandalous and outmoded guest lecturer can only wonder if Peggi Nollett, given time, will also “see the light."
-- James Hagan, UWF Student
