Mermaid Tales

When I wrote The Old Mermaid’s Tale, I named it for one of the characters, Tessie, the proprietor of the inn that is the central feature of the book (and of the obsession of the book’s main character, Clair). I chose the name because the tavern that had captured my fascination in my dream-filled girlhood had been The Mermaid Tavern. The entire story grew out of that name. It wasn’t that I had any particular fascination with mermaids and their lore, it was just a name that worked.

Since then I have read countless stories and legends and articles about mermaid symbology and they have become ubiquitous features in my life. On a shelf of the desk at which I write this there is a collection of ceramic mermaids given to me by various friends. So, when Sue Monk Kidd’s book The Mermaid Chair was published a lot of people asked me what I thought of it–-I hadn’t read it. I read The Secret Life of Bees a few years back and had a mixed reaction to it. Kidd is a fine writer with a gift for lovely prose and I very much appreciate her underlying themes of spirituality. It is a thing I much admire in writers, especially these days.

However, I read the book at a time when I was fed up with the “poor, abused and neglected little girl” genre that I’ve ranted about before. And I was somewhat put-off by the Southern Chick Lit label that was a part of nearly everything I read about it. As much as I admired Kidd’s writing, I wasn’t up for another book about abandoned but spunky little girls and a pantheon of kooky but wise older women. Still, enough time seems to have passed and, when I was at the library on Saturday, I picked up The Mermaid’s Chair and started reading it. It is beautiful.

One of the friends who had given me her opinion of the book mentioned the “disturbing subject of a woman’s marital infidelity” and said that was why she hadn’t finished the book. She added, “But if you aren’t opposed to infidelity it might not bother you.” Hmmm. Not opposed to infidelity? I’m certainly not in favor of it. What did she mean? And since when did the objectionable theme of the book disqualify the book from serious consideration?

Among my married women friends marital infidelity is a highly taboo subject. It is something we hear too much about in the media and, in a culture where women over 40 may well be lauded for professional and academic accomplishments but sexually are considered passé, thinking about wandering husbands is too intimidating. Kidd’s book is not about a wandering husband but rather a wandering wife.

Since I recently finished work on a short story, “The Haven” which is also about an unfaithful wife, I felt an immediate kinship with Jessie in Kidd’s book. “The Haven” also has a hint of mermaid lore in it and I was immediately captivated by Kidd’s passages about Saint Senara, the Celtic mermaid saint, after whom the abbey in her story is named. I immediately went online and was pleased to find information about St. Senara. There is in Cornwall a sacred well named for her and, in the town of Zennor, a church in which a mermaid chair (left) much like the one described in Kidd’s book. Legend says that St. Senara was based on the story of the Princess Asenora of Brittany who was wrongly accused of infidelity and nailed into a barrel that was tossed into the sea. The angels intervened and brought her food and tended her until the barrel washed up on the shores of Ireland. Interesting legend.

I think there is in most women, married or not, a deep sea of emotions, desires, yearnings, and other passions that often go unarticulated in a world that judges women harshly. The mermaid is thus an excellent symbol of the deeper, unrevealed parts of a woman’s life. The mermaid is the beautiful, mysterious but also frightening self that lies beneath the surface. Those passions are very much a part of a woman’s mystique and, when not acknowledged and explored, can drive her to behaviors that she never thought herself capable of.

I’m glad I am reading The Mermaid Chair, it is a beautiful book filled with wisdom. In “The Haven”, Stash tells Christine that when the mermaids sing to a man he has no choice but to listen to their song. Those are wise words for women to heed as well.

Thanks for reading.