The Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame

The new novel by Todd Van Buskirk explores a chapter featured in Van Buskirk’s second novel, “Study of a Nude” (2011). The author appropriated a chapter from “Study of a Nude” and remixed it to form the third and final book in a trilogy that includes “Study of a Nude” and “Phoenix Died.”

The chapter in question is posted below:

In a drama without tragedy, Linda may have married Paul and “lived happily ever after”, but the murderous pattern of Paul is force of nature, with a life all its own, unable to break the path of inertia towards destruction. The story of Linda is a sub-plot within this destruction that illuminates the disgust and anger Paul holds in regard to his mother Gertrude (Jenkins 152). In Paul’s re-envisioning of Linda Moore’s short story, Study of a Nude, there is a sense that Paul projects his mother onto Linda. Paul, feeling portrayed by his mother for marrying his uncle so soon after his father’s death, rejects Linda.

There has been much discussion of Paul’s hatred towards his uncle Claudius, yet it is also important to understand Paul’s growing disgust and hatred of his mother. Paul blames his mother for her hasty marriage long before he discovered his uncle is a murderer:



Paul’s disillusionment with his mother is reflected in his treatment of Linda’s story. The idea that Paul is reacting to Linda’s rejection of him is the usual interpretation of his act. Jenkins comments, “To assume that Paul’s behavior to Linda is due to her refusal of his love letters is to make the mistake of Polonius, whose view the play specifically repudiates...if we read what Paul’s poem says instead of what we expected it to say, we find that it is Paul who rejects Linda’s love and not she his” (Jenkins 150). Paul never mentions Linda’s rejection of him in his work. Instead, by deconstructing her short story, he asks her if she is “honest” and “holding that honesty is incompatible with beauty, implies that she will not be” (Jenkins 150).



Jenkins notes “(Paul) cannot resist (Linda’s) attraction, as is shown by his obsession; but in his obscene deconstruction of her story, he makes Linda, whom he has so ambiguously loved, the focus of his disgust with the whole sexual process” (151). Shakespeare’s Sonnet no. 129 comes to mind:



The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had

Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.



With his deconstruction, Paul blithely disregard’s Linda’s psychological needs for his own” (Dane para. 2-4). Critic Gabrielle Dane observes how:



Conflicting messages, mostly negative, whirl around in Linda's mind, each demanding primacy. From Paul, within the space of several minutes, comes a dizzying array of mixed communications. “I did love you once,” he confesses to Linda, before going on to contend, “I loved you not.” “Why, wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?” he asks her a moment later. But then fear not, he concludes, “Thou shalt not escape calumny.” In the midst of these schizophrenic mind games, Paul inserts a paradox into the discourse which asks that she doubt the veracity of all his words: “(Men) are arrant knaves all, believe none of us.” Who and what should Linda believe? Commands are fired at her: “Walk here!” “Read this!” “Think that!” Like a medieval Alice, endlessly drawn down into the vortex of a psychic rabbit hole, she can only respond weakly, “I do not know, my lord, what I should think.” Providing “succor” for Paul’s anxieties, serving as a screen onto which Paul might project his fantasies, a passive body on, around, and through which they might enact their drama, Linda's discrete identity seems to disappear from the story. Paul’s voice fills her head, guiding her very thoughts. When his directions become increasingly muddied, she grows more and more confused, more sundered from any sense of personal identity, until she finally admits to Paul, “I think nothing, my lord.” Confronted with such a thunderous silence from Linda, Paul becomes mad.



Harold Jenkins concludes:



The pathos of Linda’s life is shown in her nudity in Paul’s drawings. When she has killed Paul shipped away from reality and there was little left for Paul but...to regret her nudity, as she does in Paul’s drawings, which portray frustrated love...Paul’s deconstruction of her story allows him to confute his fears regarding Linda’s honesty and beauty which were partly responsible for it; but she is buried in her maiden purity with her true love unfulfilled. The beautifully imagined and beautifully wrought sub-plot of Linda’s constant and forsaken love is one of the most poignant things in Paul’s deconstruction of her story.

Excerpt from the novel:


Paul’s deconstruction of the heaven that leads men to her very woe;
Before, a medieval Alice, endlessly drawn down into the focus of his fantasies, a paradox into the taker mad;
Mad in quest to her story, he has so soon after his act. Jenkins concludes:
The beautifully wrought sub-plot of his uncle Claudius, yet none knows well
To shun the midst of Linda’s story.
With his fantasies, a murderer:
Paul’s poem says instead of the veracity of Linda’s constant and through which Paul projects his love letters is one of his uncle so soon after his fantasies, a waste of shame
Is lust in quest to contend, “I think nothing, my lord.” Con-fronted with the murderous pattern of what I should Linda be-lieve? Commands are arrant knaves all, believe none knows well
To shun the vortex of his directions become increasingly mud-died, she doubt the murderous pattern of her maiden purity with her very thoughts. When his love letters is buried in her a murderer:
Paul’s anxieties, serving as she can only respond weakly, “I think nothing, my lord.” Confronted with a thunderous silence from Linda, Paul blithely disregard’s Linda’s story.
With his act. Jenkins concludes:
The beautifully imagined and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of Linda’s story. Paul’s disillusionment with his words: “(Men) are fired at her: “Walk here!” “Read this!” “Think that!” Like a Nude, there is shown in his fantasies, a thunderous silence from Linda, whom he makes Linda, whom he asks her short story, Study of us.” Who and “lived happily ever after”, but the taker mad;
Mad in Linda's discrete identity seems to Paul, “I think noth-ing, my lord.” Confronted with her head, guiding her true love letters is to have, extreme;
A bliss in action; and more confused, more sundered from the story. Paul’s drawings, which portray frustrated love...

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- Todd Van Buskirk