hairdo
A Woman Looking at A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women
These women are not metaphors, but Hustvedt casts them as little more than phantoms in her reverie. Likewise, there is a lot of performative contemplation here, during which the occasion for and specifics of the chin stroking seem to matter less than the fact that the author is stroking her chin. Take the essay "Much Ado About Hairdos." "All mammals have hair," Hustvedt begins in a characteristic rehearsal of the obvious, making a show of seeing the familiar anew. "Hair is not a body part so much as a lifeless extension of a body. Although the bulb of the follicle is alive, the hair shaft is dead and insensible."