American modernist writer D. Brans openly discussed and raised issues of same-sex love, a topic that shocked the public of the early 20th century. Juna attracted attention not only with her bold statements, but also with her appearance - a man's felt hat, a blouse in black peas, a black blazer - she was remembered by her contemporaries and became a key figure in French bohemia of the 1920s.
Writer's Family
Juna Barnes was born on June 12, 1892, near Cornwall, New York. Her paternal grandmother, Zadel Barnes, was a journalist, writer. A feminist and fan of spiritualism, she will become the prototype of the heroine of one of Juna’s novels. The father, a loser-composer and artist, did not pay due attention to the family, so the grandmother, who firmly believed in her son’s talent, had to take all the cares of the large family upon herself.
A proponent of polygamy, Wald Barnes married Juna's mother in 1889. But since 1887, his mistress F. Clark had already lived in the house. Juna was in the family of the second of eight children and spent most of her childhood caring for younger sisters and brothers. Received primary education at home, my grandmother taught writing, music and art. According to some reports, after ten years, June was enrolled in a public school, but the writer herself claimed that she had not received education there.
Mental trauma
In the biography of Juna Barnes there is a fact that left an imprint on her entire subsequent life. At 16, she was sexually abused by a neighbor. True, some sources claim that the father was the rapist. However, father and June wrote warm letters to each other until his death in 1934. The writer referred to sexual abuse in the novel Ryder and the play Antiphon. Shortly before the 18th birthday, June Barnes, under pressure from relatives, married 52-year-old Percy Faulkner (brother of Fanny, father's mistress). Two months later, the marriage broke up.
Moving New York
In 1912, Juna's mother divorced her husband and left with her children in New York. This move gave Barnes the opportunity to study art at the Pratt Institute, but due to a lack of funds, she left her studies after six months. From 1915 to 1916 she attended the League of Student Artists. In order to support her family, Juna got a job as a reporter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, wrote unpretentious publications such as “How a Woman Should Dress,” theater reviews, news stories and interviews, and illustrated them herself. For several years, her work appeared in almost every New York newspaper.
Personal life
In 1915, Juna Barnes moved to Greenwich Village, where famous artists and writers lived. During this period, she met E. Hanfsteynglom, a Harvard graduate and friend of T. Roosevelt. Thanks to her connections, Juna published several compilations that were well received by readers and critics.
In 1916, she met the journalist K. Lemon, with whom they were in close relations. Later, M. Payne became the chosen one of Juna, but in 1919 she died and Juna mourned her friend bitterly. In one of her interviews, the writer said that she never had remorse about partners, men or women.
Paris correspondent
In 1921, Barnes went to Paris, where she worked at McCall Megazine. Juna's original reports with famous cultural figures drew attention to the journalist. One of her most famous reports is “A Night Among the Horses”. Juna settled quickly in the new city, the celebrity's trademark was a caustic smile and black cloak.
In 1928, she published The Ladies' Almanac about the life of Parisian sex minorities. In Paris, she met the love of her life - a sculptor from Kansas Z. Wood. Shortly before her death, the writer will say: "I am not a lesbian, I just loved Zelma." But the relationship of friends was marred by the frequent drinking of Z. Wood.
Return to America
Since 1932, Juna has been visiting the Guggenheim estate in Devonshire, where many famous writers have gathered. Here Barnes wrote the book Night Forest, the most famous of her works. In the second half of the 30s, Juna became depressed, began to abuse alcohol, drinking a bottle of whiskey a day. After a suicide attempt, the landlady sent Barnes to the United States.
Juna did not find a common language with her mother and in 1940 moved to a small apartment in Greenwich Village. After 10 years, Juna realized what alcohol had turned her into, stopped drinking and set to work on the autobiographical play Antiphon. Despite her health problems, Juna Barnes worked for 8 hours and returned to poetry. The writer led a reclusive lifestyle and died on July 18, 1982.
"Night Forest"
In those days it was something. With prestige, Juna Barnes had no problems in the years of life and work. Her vivid experimental modernist method of writing has attracted the attention of many. The style was compared with W. Woolf and even with Lawrence, with the exception of the content of the novel “Night Forest” shocking at that time. After many failures, T. Eliot undertook to revise and edit the manuscript. To censorship skip Barnes' work, Eliot softened upright scenes and words about sexuality. Given the volume of the book, he did a great job.
In 1995, the book was published by the Dalkey Archive Press in its original form. In 1999, she not only entered the top hundred gay books, but also the top ten most difficult to read works of the 20th century. The novel was first published in England in 1936, a year later he went to the United States. The gaps in the content of the book are fully covered by the amazing style of the author. Eliot said that Barnes’s living prose would be understandable only to admirers of poetry, only they could fully perceive and appreciate it. However, despite the efforts of T. Eliot and rave reviews from critics, the book “Night Forest” did not bring commercial benefits.
The action of the novel revolves around five characters, it can be said that without sexual characteristics, but prototypes of heroes are easily guessed - the reader recognizes Z. Wood at Robin Vout. The book reflects the mood of the author. At first, the story is rather slow and long, but with the advent of Dr. O'Connor, albeit a little strange, the plot acquires vitality, style, musicality and perfection, phrases, beauty and wit. When considering the entire composition as a whole, the doctor ceases to be a figure that attracts attention. Against the backdrop of his brilliant monologues, other characters are revealed. At Barnes they are alive, real. As Eliot said, “Night Forest” is a gallery of portraits and characters.
Other books
In 1915, the poetry collection The Book of Repulsive Women was published, the theme of which was women: cabaret singers, women seen from the window, suicide corpses. The frankness in the description of female bodies and the abundance of sexual terms shocked and pushed many readers. But some critics considered the collection a satirical exposure of women. Juna herself subsequently burned copies of the collection and called it "disgusting." But the copyright to the book was not registered, and it was reprinted repeatedly.
The novel Ryder, published in 1928, is largely autobiographical. The author tells about the 50-year history of the Ryder family: the owner of the salon Sophie (like Zadel, the grandmother of Juna), who was in poverty, the idler son Wendell, his wife Amelia and daughter Julie. The narration is conducted on behalf of several characters, the family chronicle is alternated by children's stories, letters, songs, parables, poems and dreams.
“Ladies' Almanac” was released in the same year. It tells mainly about women who preferred same-sex love. The action in the almanac focuses on the salon of N. Barney in Paris. The work is written in the Rabelaisian style and supplemented by illustrations by the author. The ambiguous jokes and gloomy language of the Ladies' Almanac caused controversy among critics, but Barnes herself loved this book and reread it throughout her life.
After the play Antiphon (1958), which premiered in Stockholm in 1961, Barnes published a collection of poems Creatures in an Alphabet (1982). Separate editions after the death of the writer were her articles and interviews. Many plays, stories, poems of the writer are forgotten in the same way as paintings and drawings. She became the last bright representative of the first generation of modernists. Juna Barnes is studying creativity, several books have been written about her life.