Do men Read Books written by Women?
BJBarron
1) a conversation I recently had with a man who is a self-described "avid"
reader, and 2) a cursory reading of several lists of "favorite" or
"recently read" books which frequently appear in this and other
book-related newsgroups.
First, while conversing with my book-guzzling friend, I realized that he
had read virtually no contemporary female writers. I'm not talking
harlequin authors here. He'd read no Tyler, Godwin, Proulx, Colwin,
Smiley, Erdrich, Tan, or Tartt. Not even a Pulitzer Prize, National Book
Award or other accolade has moved him to check out any of these writers.
This has been a totally unconscious decision on his part. He didn't set
out to *avoid* female writers and considers himself open-minded and
well-read. Yet he has read almost no books written by females save for
the paltry few included on his English Lit survey course syllabus several
years back. I, on the other hand, have a much shorter list of Books Read
In My Lifetime. Yet, while I tend to read mostly books written by women,
I have also read at least *one* book from many of the male writers on his
contemporary favorites list: Doig, Stegner, Mailer, Pynchon, Hoagland,
Cheever, Updike, Uris, Pirsig, Barth, Mowat.
Second observation: lists of "recommended reads" or "recently read" books
posted on newsgroups tend to reflect this same pattern: men seem to read
male writers while women read both.
Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
posting comments on the Proulx thread of a few weeks back, so I know
you're out there. Before you get out the blow torches, consider this
question to be asked sincerely and out of curiosity. I'm not finger
wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
few do, why not?
Vance Maverick
> Here's a question for all you r.a.b.men [....]
Oogh! <drums on chest>
> He'd read no Tyler, Godwin, Proulx, Colwin,
> Smiley, Erdrich, Tan, or Tartt. [...]
> I have [...] read at least *one* book from many of the male writers on his
> contemporary favorites list: Doig, Stegner, Mailer, Pynchon, Hoagland,
> Cheever, Updike, Uris, Pirsig, Barth, Mowat.
>
> Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
> contemporary books written by female writers?
I think my read/unread ratio is about as low for your men as for your
women. These are all real mainstream types, and my coverage in that
domain is poor. But not zero; so I'll admit to reading Amy Tan,
A.S. Byatt, and Iris Murdoch as well as Kathy Acker, Joanna Russ, and
(on my desk as I type) Fanny Howe. Oops, Acker is mainstream now, uh,
Lyn Hejinian.
Vance
Josh Randall
Terry Tempest Williams, Joan Didion, Gretel Ehrlich, Starhawk, Emma
Goldman and Zenna Henderson as some my favorite and most-influenced-by
writers, especially Dillard, LeGuin, and Didion. IMHO, Kingsolver is the
best (relatively) new fiction writer I've come across in years.
I read books by men, too.
...regards, Josh Randall
Ted Samsel
: Just wanted to list Annie Dillard, Ursula K. LeGuin, Barbara Kingsolver,
: Terry Tempest Williams, Joan Didion, Gretel Ehrlich, Starhawk, Emma
: Goldman and Zenna Henderson as some my favorite and most-influenced-by
: writers, especially Dillard, LeGuin, and Didion. IMHO, Kingsolver is the
: best (relatively) new fiction writer I've come across in years.
Don't forget Leslie Marmon Silko, Eudora Welty, Carolyn Chute.....
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net.com/bh...@freenet-in-a.cwru.edu...
"driving a Hudson Hornet on the information superhighway"
Kjetil Svarstad
> Here's a question for all you r.a.b.men which was inspired by two
> things:
> [Observations and concerns regarding avid male readers neglect of
> reading and recommending books by contemporary female authors...]
> Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
> contemporary books written by female writers?
Funny you should ask. I imagined myself a reader of contemporary
literature regardless of author gender. And, yes, I have read some
Tyler, Didion, Acker, McInerney, Lessing, Weldon, Angela Carter and
more. However, a few days ago I did a quick inventory of my book
collection, which presumably reflects my reading habits, with the
author gender question in mind. To my surprise more than 80% of the
books were by male authors! Not very good, eh?
On the other hand, my favourite book in '93 was Katherine Dunn's outré
novel "Geek Love", and Güneli Gün's wonderful novel "On the Road to
Baghdad" was probably my most satisfying read last year. Perhaps my
reading habits are more "balanced" now? It is hard to say since I'm
not fully aware of the criteria on which I pick up and buy a book. I'm
quite convinced, though, that I never, not even subconciously, assess
a book's quality or my interest in it based on the author's sex. I
hope I'm right...
-- Kjetil
David E. Latane
No, actually we don't read books by women, we just review them.
I do hope the Norwegian above answers the query in another
thread--what language did Ibsen write "A Doll's House" in? German
was suggested, but I heard it was a west Swedish dialect.
(Joke--for my Norwegian brother-in-law Svein now living in Stockholm)
But back to topic A. In my observational field, stretching somewhat
less than from China to Peru, women tend to read women writers
because they are women. I've heard professoral types say--"women
writers are the best thing going now--why read anyone else." Men
tend to read writers that interest them, though they're more
frequently men, and never say--"I'll read this book--it was written
by a man."
Personally, you can take your Ann Tylers, Bobbie Ann Masons, etc. &
toss 'em into the same dumpster w/ Updike, etc.There are half-a-dozen
contemporary british women novelists who I read regularly, tho. Long
live Dame Murdoch!
And poets--Vance's list does for me too--though I like in the UK
Adcock & Shuttle more in the mainstream.
D. Latane'
T.Andreassen
>contemporary books written by female writers?
I'am a man and I read books written by female writers.
I don't know any of the writers you have listed, mostly because
the literature that gets translated into norwegian is very
commersial and the writers has to be very well known. But
I read contemporary books by norwegian female writers.
I never read these typical "woman" books who tends
to decribe either misery or love. I like books that tries
to tell me something and they must contain some humour.
When I pick up a book to read it I never reflects over the sex
of the writer, but I may do it later when I consider the
thoughts and opinions of the persons in the book.
Best regards...
-------------------------------------------------------
Tommy Andreassen
E-mail : to...@arr.nsc.no
std disclaimer - the above represents my opinions only,
and do not reflect those of my employer.
-------------------------------------------------------
ExWinger
about strong women in what otherwise might be considered "men's" books?
I'm thinking in particular of the works of Lee Gruenfeld. In both
IRREPARABLE HARM and ALL FALL DOWN, he has strong female characters about
whom he writes with almost eerie insight (this is especially true of Irr.
Harm). Yet All Fall Down is generally thought of as a man's book, even
though all the women I know who've read it (including me) were bowled over
by the extraordinary writing and the terrific women characters.
David F. Hallett
I can only speak for myself. I certainly read woman-authored texts. In
Canada, where the number of very talented, very powerful woman writers is,
perhaps, larger than average, no man (in my opinion) can truly claim to
know his country's fiction without reading much written by women. I'll
list a few of my favourites (many to whom I was introduced by those
college courses--don't underestimate their value!) and I would love to see
some discussion of virtually any\all of them here in r.a.b. (By the way, I
was one of the "Proulx-flamers" of recent weeks, but that had nothing to
do with her gender!). Just glancing at my shelves, I come up with
Margaret Atwood
Marie-Claire Blais
Christine Brooke-Rose
all the Brontes
Mavis Gallant
Margaret Laurence
Doris Lessing
Iris Murdoch
Dawn Powell
Jean Rhys
Muriel Spark
Audrey Thomas
Jeanette Winterson
Virginia Woolf
I've left the poets out of this list, and many of the writers of short
fiction that I've read primarily in anthologies (like Gloria Sawai, for
example). It's also rather short on Americans. I've read bits of Katherine
Anne Porter, Edith Wharton, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, et al,
but have yet to pursue any of their works in any detail.
In surveying my own shelves at high speed, I would guess-timate that the
total percetage division still favours males. While the 20th century has
brought more women writers to more readers more often, earlier years were
decidedly imbalanced. I do have Frances Brooke, Susanna Moodie, Catherine
Parr Traill, Sara Jeanette Duncan, and several other "pioneer" Canadians,
but I must confess that, with the exception of Duncan, those writers I
have read more because they were on course lists than from any real sense
of interest in what these women had to say about their own conditions, etc.
In any case, I hope that bringing up the names stirs some discussion. With
luck, the more writers are discussed, the more they will also be read!
Cheers
--
David F. Hallett "Three cheers for mute ingloriousness!"
bc...@FREENET.CARLETON.CA --Tony Harrison "On Not Being Milton"
OTTAWA, ON, CA
Robert Teeter
Maxine Hong Kingston.
I answer this question because it was sincerely asked, but I'm
uncomfortable with the idea of trying to find out what men like (or women
for that matter). We're talking about half the human race here. I don't
think you can really generalize about a group tht big.
then, consider the sample. the people who read this group generally
like fiction ranging from mainstream to literary (i.e., not total trash).
So when you ask male readers what women authors they read, you'll get
that type of answer. If you asked Minnesota readers what Wisconsin writers
they liked, you'd probably get the same kind of answer.
--
Robert Teeter
rte...@netcom.com
Doug Quarnstrom
: Second observation: lists of "recommended reads" or "recently read" books
: posted on newsgroups tend to reflect this same pattern: men seem to read
: male writers while women read both.
I read both, but I am not terribly interested in reading contemporary
writers most of the time...
: Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
: contemporary books written by female writers?
Not a lot. But some day I am sure I will read more.
I really and truly do not base my reading on the sex of the author.
Barbara Tuchmann is my favorite historian, and I like Paglia a
great deal. I read Rianne Eisler and was somewhat less than impressed.
But I don't read many contemporary women writers mostly because I
read older literature mostly right now...
doug
rustin w allred
: Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
: contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
: posting comments on the Proulx thread of a few weeks back, so I know
: you're out there. Before you get out the blow torches, consider this
: question to be asked sincerely and out of curiosity. I'm not finger
: wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
: few do, why not?
I don't read much contemporary stuff (I'm just behind the times and not very
likely to ever catch up). I think one of the reasons many of us don't read
as many women authors is because there are not as many. This might be
changing now.
I appreciate the tone of your question and would like to ask you a question
in the same tone: Suppose that 20% of all published works were written by
women. Now suppose that 15% of what Mr. M reads was written by a woman and
that 40% of what Ms. W reads was written by a woman. Which of these two
fictional people is more sexist?
This is just my 2 bits and, as usual, it makes very little sense.
-rusty
--
| Rusty Allred, PhD | |
| Texas Instruments | I speak for nobody, including myself. |
| all...@lobby.ti.com | |
Jeff Frane
>Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
>contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
Yes. Absolutely. I don't read the same authors *you* do since I read
mostly mysteries, but a significant percentage are by women. Back when
I read sf/fantasy, *most* of what I read was by women. At the time,
that was somewhat deliberate, as I had discovered that most of the
really good stuff was being written by women -- or that only really good
stuff written by women got published. As a matter of fact, I recall
someone (Vonda McIntyre?) commenting that "we'll know when sexism has
ending in publishing when we start seeing lots of mediocre sf by women."
The day has definitely arrived.
I read novels because: (a) I know the author and seek him/her out; (b)
the author has been recommended by someone I trust; or (c) I pick up the
book, read a few pages and get caught up. Rarely in the latter case do
I even notice the author's gender until I look to see who wrote it.
Not because I'm a "feminist" but because there isn't any point.
--Jeff
--
======================================================================
gumm...@teleport.com Public Access UNIX at (503) 220-1016 (2400-14400)
Iain G Liddell
BJBarron <bjba...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
>contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
>posting comments on the Proulx thread of a few weeks back, so I know
>you're out there. Before you get out the blow torches, consider this
>question to be asked sincerely and out of curiosity. I'm not finger
>wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
>few do, why not?
NB - no blow-torches here when I respond ...
I really don't know. I read books to whose titles, abstracts and/or reviews
I am drawn. I am not aware of any differentiation in my approach once I have
arrived at a book, newspaper article or whatever. Twenty years ago, I
devoured a book by E C Pielou ("Introduction to Mathematical Ecology", if
you must know). Half-way through, I spotted the word "she" on the
dust-jacket. With barely a murmur, I continued reading. My view did not
change - it was a good read. From there into other spheres of reading, I
find the author just that - "the author".
Now one could go down the "conditional probability" road, and try to
analyse the whole areas of bookshops which I ignore - you know, there
is a proportion p1 of women writers in this genre, and a proportion p2
in that genre, but that's just twaddle. I may be a statistician, but I
don't go into Dillon's armed on each occasion with Feller or Lindley,
ready to delve into probabilities.
For me (and I'm not trying on the holier-than-thou, I have attempted
to look this one in the eye), I think the question is on a par with
"Do you hillwalk over hills whose names begin with the letters A-M
or N-Z?". For others, no doubt with good reason, there will be real
meat in the question.
Oh, and by the way, how would Jenni Calder's completion of RLS's "St Ives"
be categorised?
Iain, who is off home to read any of the following:
G K Chesterton (Gwen?)
A S Byatt (Alf?)
Hilary Mantel (Hilary or Hilary?)
Happy New Year!!
bismarck bound
promote one of my favorite writers of all time (who happens to be a woman).
her name is ingeborg bachmann. she was austrian, and it seems that
*very* few people have heard of her in the states. there is a short
story she wrote that i HIGHLY reccommend, called "the thirtieth year,"
which is found in her anthology of the same title.
enjoy, i hope :)
--barbara
David Emery
writers to absorb. However, I'm as eclectic and discriminating as i would
be with male writers, so I can empathize with the following comment:
From dla...@hibbs.vcu.edu (David E. Latane)
>Personally, you can take your Ann Tylers, Bobbie Ann Masons, etc. &
>toss 'em into the same dumpster w/ Updike, etc.There are half-a-dozen
>contemporary british women novelists who I read regularly, tho. Long
>live Dame Murdoch!
Since I haven't read Tyler or Mason, I don't mean to single them out myself.
But the thought of Updike in the dumpster has its value. Also, with regard to
another suggestion:
From bjba...@aol.com (BJBarron)
>Second observation: lists of "recommended reads" or "recently read" books
>posted on newsgroups tend to reflect this same pattern: men seem to read
>male writers while women read both.
There may be some truth to this in a statistical way. However, my girlfreind,
with her all-female book group, reads almost exclusively women writers, so the
above remark should be considered very carefully. And when her group reads a
male writer, its almost invariably a non-American, usually in translation.
At this time though they are warming up for a Faulkner selection, and the
feedback should be interesting.
So who do I like, I'll ask for you? Erdrich, Silko, Rhys, Adrienne Rich,
Elizabeth Bishop, Atwood come to mind as currently in favor. Not a long list,
I know, but if I listed my favorite male writers it wouldn't get much longer.
Back in my young SF days LeGuin and Joanna Russ were two of my favorites.
Barbara Kingsolver can go in the same dumpster with John Irving.
Jane Skinner
>In article <3ei6ig$k...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
>BJBarron <bjba...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
>...Twenty years ago, I
>devoured a book by E C Pielou ("Introduction to Mathematical Ecology", if
>you must know). Half-way through, I spotted the word "she" on the
>dust-jacket. With barely a murmur, I continued reading. My view did not
>change - it was a good read. From there into other spheres of reading, I
>find the author just that - "the author".
I remember at school being stunned to learn that Bostock and Chandler,
authors of those fascinating volumes "Pure Mathematics" and "Further
Pure Mathematics" (*the* textbooks for A-level double maths at the
time) were women. I'd always visualised them as two slightly grumpy
old men. It just shows that preconceptions aren't limited to men.
>Now one could go down the "conditional probability" road, and try to
>analyse the whole areas of bookshops which I ignore - you know, there
>is a proportion p1 of women writers in this genre, and a proportion p2
in that genre, but that's just twaddle. I may be a statistician, but I
>don't go into Dillon's armed on each occasion with Feller or Lindley,
>ready to delve into probabilities.
I may be a statistician too, but I'm not too sure... I don't know, the
conditional probability stuff sounds quite fun - you could draw some
of those line and circle graphical models which are so trendy for that
sort of thing.
>...Oh, and by the way, how would Jenni Calder's completion of RLS's "St Ives"
>be categorised?
Or Jan Morris' books.
Jane.
--
"Because it is cur-tailed."
S. Maturin
Arnold Jonk
>>>>>> bjba...@aol.com (BJBarron) asks:
>> Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
>> contemporary books written by female writers?
>Funny you should ask. I imagined myself a reader of contemporary
>literature regardless of author gender. And, yes, I have read some
>Tyler, Didion, Acker, McInerney, Lessing, Weldon, Angela Carter and
^^^^^^^^^ oh oh
>more. However, a few days ago I did a quick inventory of my book
>collection, which presumably reflects my reading habits, with the
>author gender question in mind. To my surprise more than 80% of the
>books were by male authors! Not very good, eh?
>-- Kjetil
Well,
I think that's pretty decent. I would guess that 80% could be a
fairly accurate guess of the percentage of male authors in general.
So that would make you non-discriminating :). It's also pretty close
to the percentage on our own bookshelves.
My favorite women-authors are Tan and Beattie.
Cheers, Arnold
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
\ 'Als het volk geen brood heeft, kan het altijd nog cake gaan eten' \
/ Marie Antoinette /
+-------------Arnold Jonk, University of Amsterdam--------------------+
Bruce McGuffin
(deleted)
Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
posting comments on the Proulx thread of a few weeks back, so I know
you're out there. Before you get out the blow torches, consider this
question to be asked sincerely and out of curiosity. I'm not finger
wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
few do, why not?
I don't read a lot of contemporary fiction period. I've read three of the men
on your list:
1) Pynchon, (will read more someday when I have more time)
2) Uris (I promise I won't do it again), and
3)Mowat (He's good, how did he get on this list?)
and two of the woman:
1) Proulx (pretty good, I might read more)
2) Erdrich (not a mistake I will repeat)
I suspect I am slightly more likely to read books by a man than a
woman, because woman seem to be more strongly represented in subject
areas that don't interest me (i.e., relationships). The only reason I
read Louise Erdrich was that my wife left it laying around the house,
I wouldn't have gone to the library to get it. And now that I think
about it, I'm not sure if the book was by her or her husband, it's called
"The Beet Queen".
I don't avoid woman authors, but I do usually avoid "Woman's Books"
(e.g. Tylor, Smiley, Ephron, Tan, Morrison). "Woman's Books" can, of
course, be written by men as well as woman (IMHO Robertson Davies, and
(some (how deeply can I nest these parentheses?(four times?(five?))))
John Gardner). I will read Smiley's "Greenlander's" someday, because
I'm interested in the historical setting, and I read and enjoyed "The
Mind Body Problem" (author forgotten) because of my own experiences at
Princeton (which were not nearly as profound). Right now I am reading
Rebecca West "Black Lamb and Gray Falcon", and enjoying it immensley
(for the mis-shelved books thread, I found it in the native american
section). Another woman author I have read and enjoyed is Margarite
Yourcenar (sp?) "Oriental Tales", (I suppose this comes to mind
because I am thinking about the Balkans).
For the last few years I've been reading a lot of history, and woman
don't seem to be as well represented in that field as in contemporary
literature (excluding social history, which I generally do). I plan to
read Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror", but haven't yet. I did read a very
interesting book a while back about pre-columbian archeology by a
woman, but I can't remember her name or the title (and I don't
subscribe to her theory that South American ceramics show an East
Asian influence).
Bruce McGuffin
Unrelated request for quote identification: Who said "Marxism is the
opiate of the intellectual class.", and where?
Alan Craig
>Iain G Liddell writes:
>>In article <3ei6ig$k...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
>>BJBarron <bjba...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
>>>contemporary books written by female writers?...
>I remember at school being stunned to learn that Bostock and Chandler,
>authors of those fascinating volumes "Pure Mathematics" and "Further
>Pure Mathematics" (*the* textbooks for A-level double maths at the
>time) were women.
>
Nonetheless grumpy, no doubt. I read an article somewhere about this
where they (B+C) said that they chose not to put their full names
on the books for the obvious reasons. There was also a funny
story in the article about a Sue Chandler's daughter being in her
school maths class and the teacher telling them that women couldn't
write maths' texts as they'd be "..full of knitting patterns."
The teacher then proceeded to hold up Bostock and Chandler as
a prime example of a book that couldn't be written by women.
Alan
--
Mathematicians have announced the existence of a new whole number which lies between 27 and 28. "We don't know why it's there or what it does," says Cambridge
mathematician, Dr. Hilliard Haliard, "we only know that it doesn't behave properly when put into equations, and that it is divisible by six, though only once."
- On_The_Hour
Ken Rivard
B>First, while conversing with my book-guzzling friend, I realized that
B>he had read virtually no contemporary female writers. I'm not talking
B>harlequin authors here. He'd read no Tyler, Godwin, Proulx, Colwin,
B>Smiley, Erdrich, Tan, or Tartt.
I'm male and I've read all of these writers (er, almost all... I'm in
the middle of Laurie Colwin's A BIG STORM KNOCKED IT OVER). I'm also
reading John Ralston Saul's VOLTAIRE'S BASTARDS, so the current
female/male author ratio is 1/1, but a quick scan at the things of
recently read gives Ruth Rendell (2), Michael Ondaatje, Robert Goddard,
Matthew Kneale, Peter Hoeg, and P.D. James and Margaret Atwood; books
lined up for immanent consumption are by Gita Mehta, Graham Swift,
Elizabeth Goudge, and Peter Hoeg. When Patrick O'Brian's COMMODORE
appears it will immediately jump to the head of the line. Slightly
slanted toward men, but not heavily.
I tend not to categorize writers as male or female as much as simply
worthwhile or not. Do they give me esthetic pleasure to read them?
A.S. Byatt, P.D. James and Ruth Rendell and Doris Lessing rank high on
my list of all time greats. The writers of both sexes which I most
enjoy share a common characteristic in that their characters "do", as
well as "think". I'm a sucker for well-constructed stories, for drama,
rather than prolonged meditations.
+===============================================================+
+Ken Rivard || ken.r...@channel1.com
+===============================================================+
*CMPQwk 1.42-18 #1668
Originality is the art of concealing your source.
C Burke
>> Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
>> contemporary books written by female writers?
Pretty much American women on your list, it seemed, and
even I haven't read much among them, and I read many more
women than men.
I have talked about reading men and reading women with quite
a few men (including the one I -- very briefly -- lived with
who said there was never anything to read in my apartment --
too many women authors, you see.) And so while I sometimes
have the same feeling you express, just by the sheer number
of men I have discussed this with, I have ended up hearing
some very enthusiastic and knowledgeable men talk about books
women. In fact, the most excited one in recent memory is
someone whose general style is so coarse and aggressive that
his dreamy recommendation of a quiet pastoral nove was truly
a sight to behold.
I might also add that some of my most depressing conversations
about books by women have been with other women who have, books
unread, seemed to suppose that books by women are not as great
as books by men or who have claimed that they are hard to find.
Caitlin
Samuel S. Paik
your intended audience, but I disregard the sex of authors. This week's
reading: Phyllis Ann Karr, Kristin Rusch (dang, I _know_ mispelled that),
R.A.H.
BJBarron <bjba...@aol.com> wrote:
>Smiley, Erdrich, Tan, or Tartt. Not even a Pulitzer Prize, National Book
>Award or other accolade has moved him to check out any of these writers.
Frankly, a Pulitzer Prize is a turnoff for me.
Sam
--
Samuel Paik / Digital Equipment Corporation / 3D Device Support
pa...@avalon.eng.pko.dec.com / 508-493-4048 / I speak only for myself
The yin and yang of programming languages (due to Andrew Koenig)
Pure object-oriented programming:
everything is an object, even your program
Pure functional programming:
everything is a program, even your data.
Freb Hunt
that bad. I read and buy mostly books by women, I thought, but I find
that my own bookshelfs are only half female. One reason for that seems to
be the large number of books we have written by the same person (Graham
Greene wrote more than Jane Austen, for example).
Are there any feminists out there who have more than a 50% showing?
Freb Hunt
C. Douglas Baker
Naylor, Terry McMillan, Toni Morrison, Octavia E. Butler, A. S. Byatt,
Ursula K. LeGuin, C. J. Cherry, Nicola Griffith, Bebe Moore Campbell, Anne
Rice, P.N. Elrod,
...and thats just off the top of my head. There are probably many others
I've missed. I consider Alice Walker to be one of my favorite authors.
Yeah, I read lots of women authors. Oh, and BTW, I don't consider all the
authors mentioned above to be good, some I don't like...but I do read
women authors.
Doug Baker
cba...@wam.umd.edu
Paul T Ferguson
: First, while conversing with my book-guzzling friend, I realized that he
: had read virtually no contemporary female writers. I'm not talking
: harlequin authors here. He'd read no Tyler, Godwin, Proulx, Colwin,
: Smiley, Erdrich, Tan, or Tartt.
Of this list, I have read Erdrich, and have no desire to read any
of the others.
: I have also read at least *one* book from many of the male writers on his
: contemporary favorites list: Doig, Stegner, Mailer, Pynchon, Hoagland,
: Cheever, Updike, Uris, Pirsig, Barth, Mowat.
Of this list I have read Pynchon and Cheever. Some of the others
are on my shelves but are not at the top of my reading list.
My reading preferences tend toward the popular I fear, and are
more male-centered. However, I did a survey of my fiction shelves and
found a better ratio than I expected. Among the 200 male authors were
the following:
Alcott, Austen, M. Ball, M. Bradley, the Brontes, A. Christie,
D. Dunnett, A. Frank, S. Grafton, M. Lackey, A. McCaffrey,
C. McCullers, C. McCullough, P. McKillip, N. Marsh, A. Montgomery,
O'Connor, S. Penman, E. Peters, K. Porter, M. Pulver, Rand,
A. Rice, J. Riley, M. Rofheart, Saadawi, E. Scarborough,
M. Shelley, M. Stewart, Stowe, B. Tuchman, + S. Undset.
How do I fare?
Paul-Thomas Ferguson
Department of History
Western Illinois University
Asra
I'll just add that my SO, Pablo, reads literature by women as often or
more often than literature by men. Some of his favorite contemporary
Spanish authors: Carmen Martin Gaite, Merce Rodoreda, Montserrat
Roig, Rosa Montero, Rosa Regas (actually, Rodoreda and Roig write
in Catalan...). Another good contemporary non-English-language female
writer that springs to mind is the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector.
She's worth 100 Isabelle Allendes or Laura Esquivels.
...sjb
--
"An evening's thought is like a day of clear weather." -Wallace Stevens
================================95...@williams.edu
Douglas Clark
I read Atwood. I thought `Robber Bride' her best yet and all the
characters were women. The men were cardboard. I have read the lot.
--
Douglas Clark Voice : +44 1225 427104
69 Hillcrest Drive, Email : D.G.D...@bath.ac.uk
Bath, Avon, BA2 1HD, UK Books : http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc
SubGenius
: Second observation: lists of "recommended reads" or "recently read" books
: posted on newsgroups tend to reflect this same pattern: men seem to read
: male writers while women read both.
: Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
: contemporary books written by female writers?
+-----------------------------------------SubG-----------------------------+
Yes, I read books written by female writers. Whether or not a novel
by a female writer will appear on a SubG-compiled canon or whatever would
depend on the size of the list.
To the best of my recollection, none of my favourite novels were written
by women.
If a woman gets around to writing a novel as great as, say, _Gravity's
Rainbow_ or _Ulysses_ (and I find it and read it), then this will probably
change.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
John Camp
male author of popular books who uses a female pseudonym because
(I think) books in his genre sell better when written by women...sell better to
both men and women.
JC
Sandra Vigil
>Frankly, a Pulitzer Prize is a turnoff for me.
And don't even mention the Academy Awards for film. Oh. Wait. Is this
rainwater I feel flooding my nostrils?
--
"...when one is rushing around with a blazing woman |
in one's arms one can't stop to think out exactly | Sandra Vigil
where to put her." | vi...@esca.com
- Saki (from _Fate_) |
D. Carlson
: But back to topic A. In my observational field, stretching somewhat
: less than from China to Peru, women tend to read women writers
: because they are women. I've heard professoral types say--"women
: writers are the best thing going now--why read anyone else." Men
: tend to read writers that interest them, though they're more
: frequently men, and never say--"I'll read this book--it was written
: by a man."
Whoa....broad generalization there!
Most women *I* know don't tend to read women authors for the sake of
their sex...Mainly they read a broad range of works that interest them.
Some of those happen to be by women. And since there seems to be a
boomlet of good women writers getting shelf space these days, there are
more good women authors available perhaps than there were in the past.
diane
Brian Thorn
BB> Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
BB> contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
BB> wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
BB> few do, why not?
I'm currently reading Nest Of Vipers by Linda Davies (should be
published in February) and like it so far. Others on the shelf
(but not yet read) include Kingsolver, Hoag, and Cornwell, but
you are correct in your assumption; probably 95% of the books
on my walls are by male writers. Find me a female Clancy or
Grisham and I'll give them a try.
Apex BBS (713) 362-7450 PO Box 7593 | b...@apexcomm.com
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Jim Chiesa
: Here's a question for all you r.a.b.men which was inspired by two things:
: 1) a conversation I recently had with a man who is a self-described "avid"
: reader, and 2) a cursory reading of several lists of "favorite" or
: "recently read" books which frequently appear in this and other
: book-related newsgroups.
[snip]
: Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
: contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
: posting comments on the Proulx thread of a few weeks back, so I know
: you're out there. Before you get out the blow torches, consider this
: question to be asked sincerely and out of curiosity. I'm not finger
: wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
: few do, why not?
My very short list of books read includes the following:
Eudora Welty, _Losing Battles_
_The Collected Stories_
Anne Tyler, _Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant_
Maxine Hong Kingston, _China Men_
Lucy S. Davidowicz, _The War Against the Jews_
Susan Brownmiller, _Against Our Will_
The Tyler book is in my top ten and the Welty stories are
close.
As to what female writers appeal to me, it's the same
criterion as to what male writers appeal to me--good ones.
I am nonplussed by the male response that Tyler, for
example, is not interesting because she writes about
women's stuff. Presumably, then, O'Brien is not
interesting to anyone who was not in Vietnam and Tolstoy
is not interesting because he writes about Russian stuff.
To such readers, presumably no one is interesting who
is writing about people different from themselves, in
which case why are they reading?
-- Jim C.
Brian Jones
First of all, Rusty had a good point. What fraction of the fiction
published in the last 5 years was written by women? How about the last 25
years? 50?
However, I don't think that, in most cases, a deviation in your
bookshelves from these percentages is "sexist." Usually, it's just what
you like.
Interesting to note that it took until message #20 (at my site) before
Toni Morrison was mentioned.
For what it's worth, I had 9 of 41 randomly selected authors turn out to
be women.
--Brian
lev...@cnsvax.uwec.edu
> Here's a question for all you r.a.b.men which was inspired by two things:
> 1) a conversation I recently had with a man who is a self-described "avid"
> reader, and 2) a cursory reading of several lists of "favorite" or
> "recently read" books which frequently appear in this and other
> book-related newsgroups.
>
> had read virtually no contemporary female writers. I'm not talking
> harlequin authors here. He'd read no Tyler, Godwin, Proulx, Colwin,
> Award or other accolade has moved him to check out any of these writers.
> out to *avoid* female writers and considers himself open-minded and
> well-read. Yet he has read almost no books written by females save for
> the paltry few included on his English Lit survey course syllabus several
> years back. I, on the other hand, have a much shorter list of Books Read
> In My Lifetime. Yet, while I tend to read mostly books written by women,
> I have also read at least *one* book from many of the male writers on his
> contemporary favorites list: Doig, Stegner, Mailer, Pynchon, Hoagland,
> Cheever, Updike, Uris, Pirsig, Barth, Mowat.
>
> posted on newsgroups tend to reflect this same pattern: men seem to read
> male writers while women read both.
>
> contemporary books written by female writers? I remember some of you
> posting comments on the Proulx thread of a few weeks back, so I know
> you're out there. Before you get out the blow torches, consider this
> question to be asked sincerely and out of curiosity. I'm not finger
> wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
> few do, why not?
After checking my reading journal, I find that I read 25-35 books by women a
year, though from your list above I've read only Tyler (one of my favorites)
and Erdich. I mostly read science fiction. Female SF writers I'd recommend
and who I've read in the last year include Eleanor Arnason, Octavia Butler,
Karen Joy Fowler, M.J. Engh, Judith Moffett, Joan Slonczewski, Lisa Mason,
Nancy Kress, LeGuin of course, Suzy McKee Charnas, Suzette Haden Elgin, Pat
Cadigan, Lisa Goldstein, Sheri S. Tepper, Connie Willis, Elizabeth Hand, C.J.
Cherryh Rachel Pollack--those will do for a start.I also recommend Margaret
Atwood and Marge Piercy, both their SF and their non-SF.
Mike Levy
Ted Samsel
period. This year I found (while trying to read SAINT **) that her
mildly disfunctionals were not that interesting. I had just read
BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA which was a much more*gripping*read.
John McDonald
: Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
: contemporary books written by female writers?
Yes, it does seem like a trend that men stick with male writers,
but i don't think it is a hard and fast rule.
Last i checked, i was male ;-) and try to make a point of reading
from a broad spectrum...
One of my favorite authors is female, Iris Murdoch. Others i have
read are Proulx, Barbara Kingsolver (wonderful!), Marguerite Duras,
Toni Morrison (who i don't like that much), Simone de Bouvoir, Djuna
Barnes, Virginia Woolf, and some others...
But then here are some of my favorite male authors: William Faulkner,
Claude Simon, Garcia-Marquez, Turgenev....
Hmmm.
John
--
=======================================================================
| `A society of "astronomers" would be, || John McDonald |
| at least on paper, better capable of || SDSU Dept of Astronomy |
| gauging the proportions of our || jm...@mintaka.sdsu.edu |
| existential dilemmas.' ==Paolo Soleri || |
========================http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/students/jmcd/JMCD.html
David E. Latane
>David E. Latane (dla...@hibbs.vcu.edu) wrote:
>: But back to topic A. In my observational field, stretching somewhat
>: less than from China to Peru, women tend to read women writers
>: because they are women.
I should have said "some" women read. . . .
I've heard professoral types say--"women
>: writers are the best thing going now--why read anyone else." Men
>: tend to read writers that interest them, though they're more
>: frequently men, and never say--"I'll read this book--it was written
>: by a man."
>Whoa....broad generalization there!
These sorts of puns are excruciating. . . .
>Most women *I* know don't tend to read women authors for the sake of
>their sex...Mainly they read a broad range of works that interest them.
>Some of those happen to be by women. And since there seems to be a
>boomlet of good women writers getting shelf space these days, there are
>more good women authors available perhaps than there were in the past.
All true . . . though the fact that some women prefer to pick their
reading from sections in bookstores devoted to women with entirely
women authors, whereas no such section exists for men, indicates
that many do choose books based on the gender of the writer. Don't
you think?
D. Latane'
jred...@vax.oxford.ac.uk
It's IMPOSSIBLE!
Nicholas H. Renton and John E. Carlson
my books (about 300-400) were by men with very few exceptions:
Mary Renault: very masculine stuff--Greeks and all that.
Margaret Auel: Yeah, I know, but I'm interested in the Ice Age, and she
does use great research, even if the characters are incredible morons.
But she's taught me a lot.
E. Nesbit: early British 20th Century children's lit--good stuff, but not
the sort of thing I think the rest of you mean.
When I have time, I might try Dorothy Sayers.
The rest is non-fiction:
Peggy Noonan:I think she gave a good emotional feel and insight to the
Reagan White House. I've also read Rosalyn Carter and Nancy Reagan.
Ooohh, the knives. . .
Margaret Thatcher: couldn't get through it; too many arcane UK power
struggles and gov't. abbreviations. Yet it did provide some great
browses.
Why don't I read more? I had a girlfriend who gave me Atwood, J.C.
Oates and Amy Tan, but after a short story or chapter or two, it was all
kinda, well, WHINY. . . Articulate whining, sure, but whinginess is
something that leaves me cold. I feel the same way about whiny writing by
men, especially when they're out pounding some political drum via
fiction. I prefer the straight non-fiction for that; otherwise, it's
cheating. This is why I've avoided Ayn Rand.
My guess is that a lot of women writers write out of liberation, and
are busy coming to terms with the facts of being a woman today--they try
too hard to impress and be "meaningful." The feminist and political
issues also get in the way for me; preaching to the choir, you know. If
more women write about wars and (non-feminist) politics and history, I
guess I'd read them. Maybe Tuchman is good, but again, that's
non-fiction. I guess it's just the sermonizing and the whining that chap
my manly hide.
I noticed someone mentioned James/Jan Morris! You realize this is a
Welsh chap who had a sex change (I guess) and now uses a new name? She
(now) is very good, and I had read her under James; then I noticed a small
note at the end of the book that said "Jan" and used "she"--I wondered
whether it would affect my "reception" of her, but not really--but then
it's not really a fair case, is it?
--Nicholas
Francis Muir
NO!! Absolutely NOT!!! In short, NEVER!!! It's IMPOSSIBLE!
Hear, bloody hear. I'm not even sure real men read books.
Anetta Meriranta Pirinen
experience, but mine is, that among the males I know of, the ones who
read a lot, also read female authors a lot, but the ones who don't read
much, tend to read only male authors.
As for the amount a feminist reads -- I just counted back the last 100
books I've read. It came as a surprise, but 33 1/2 were written by males.
Somehow I had thought it amount would be closer to fifty-fifty. Not so
my partner, who predicted that I had read only 8 books by men...
Anetta
--
"Life? Of course I have a life! It's a life filled with books."
A. Meriranta Pirinen
"Things get around to taking place. If they're gonna happen at all."
-- R.E.M.
Robert Golder
> Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
> contemporary books written by female writers?.... I'm not finger
> wagging here, just interested in what female writers appeal to men and, if
> few do, why not?
For what it's worth, I greatly enjoy Annie Dillard's essays, but my wife
does not like Dillard's writings very much. I like Dillard's use of
language, but Linda finds it to be very stilted and overworked. Linda
would probably prefer John McPhee's books, which I also enjoy.
I am looking forward to reading Proulx's _The Shipping News_ because I am
interested in the time, place and people which the book describes. The sex
of the author doesn't seem to matter to me.
Bob Golder (lgo...@hoh.mbl.edu)
Woods Hole, MA USA
Bruce McGuffin
I am nonplussed by the male response that Tyler, for
example, is not interesting because she writes about
women's stuff. Presumably, then, O'Brien is not
interesting to anyone who was not in Vietnam and Tolstoy
is not interesting because he writes about Russian stuff.
To such readers, presumably no one is interesting who
is writing about people different from themselves, in
which case why are they reading?
I assume that you are talking about me. The name "Women's Books" is
not one I coined. It has been around for longer than I have been
reading book reviews, and it refers to a fictional genre that deals
mostly with familial (or otherwise) relationships. It happens that
this topic does not interest me much. It has nothing to do with
whether I myself have experienced familial relationships (I have the
usual assortment of relatives and friends, and no one has disowned me
yet, unless that explains why my sister in law hasn't written or
phoned in two years. O.K., so I was trying to make her laugh until her
drink came out her nose. It wasn't THAT embarassing, and the rest of
us really enjoyed it).
As to whether my lack of interest is because I'm a man (either
genetically or as a learned behavior) or simply a personal
characteristic of mine, I can't say. I suppose this survey is being
conducted to learn that. (There is a problem, however with the self
selecting nature of the response group, as the men who don't read
books by woman seem to be staying away -- I know you're out there
guys). I'm also not interested in Vietnam, but read O'brien because I
am interested in sailing ships, the Napoleonic wars, and good
writing. I read a lot of books on subjects I've never experienced, but
only on the subjects that interest me.
Bruce McGuffin
LUKAS WAGNER
> (There is a problem, however with the self
> selecting nature of the response group, as the men who don't read
> books by woman seem to be staying away -- I know you're out there
> guys).
The original question focussed on contemporary women writers, I think.
I've read Laurie Colwin and Anne Tyler out of the original list
of 10 or so. I suspect that if someone took the trouble to
put together an equivalent list of fashionable male fiction writers,
that I would be familiar with 20% or so of them also.
That said, I think that
both Colwin and Tyler conform to the prejudiced caricature of women's writing
you mentioned which I have also-- I suppose from book reviews, magazine
articles, movie trailers and the like;
they're slightly lefty-political
[I usually agree with the intents, but
dislike what I find to be preachy delivery]
and are somehow very differently interested than I am
in who feels how about whom
[though I'm not a lout only interested in well-lighted places;
I like Henry James, e.g.].
For whatever else it's worth, I'm quite fond of Jane Austen,
George Eliot, and Flannery O'Connor.
Would anyone care to recommend a living female fiction writer
based on what I've said?
-Luke
wag...@mps.ohio-state.edu
David E Romm
Latane) wrote:
> [snip] ...though the fact that some women prefer to pick their
> reading from sections in bookstores devoted to women with entirely
> women authors, whereas no such section exists for men, indicates
> that many do choose books based on the gender of the writer. Don't
> you think?
I'm a feminist. I only read books by men. (-)(0)
--
Shockwave: Science Fiction/Science Fact. The only tactile radio show in
the galaxy. Riding the wave since the Year of Our Moonlanding 10. Tapes
available.
"Normal is what everyone else is, and you are not."
-- Star Trek: Generations
Lisa Chabot
.
--
The good ended happily and the bad unhappily:
that is what "fiction" means.
A. Light
>Someone just asked me about Whitman and Ginsberg. And I realised, with
>embarrassment, that the poets I read are almost exclusively British. In fact
>nearly all the writers I read are British.
>
>I've asked myself why and realise that even after twenty five years in North
>America, my ear is still attuned to the music of the English language as
>written by Brits rather than as written by North Americans.
Interesting. Even after 24 years in North America (which as it happens,
is my entire life, excluding visits overseas -- but very little in Britain),
I also find that I read almost entirely British (and British Empire)
poets and authors (except in the genre of Science Fiction).
Especially stuff from the mid to late 1800's. Of course,
maybe it is just the period that appeals to me, and there were not
at that time many American authors. I certainly appreciate Mark Twain,
and his writing is as classic American as you can get.
>For me it still
>requires a conscious effort to adapt to the rhythms of N American prose.
>There is still something alien in it.
I feel this way about most _modern_ writing, rather than British
or American or what have you. I think it has to do with the whole
Continental way of doing things. I don't mind the Haitians,
but those Europeans coming to America have sure set us back a ways. ;-)
>By contrast,
>men do not have experience that allows them to read female authors
>as a 'natural' experience: it requires a stretch, an effort of imagination,
>an alien world.
I think this is largely true, in some areas of literature.
On the other hand, as another poster mentioned, in many fields
(histories, scientific texts, etc.) I can't tell the difference.
(Unless it's really blatant -- I've seen a number of histories,
written to favour a number of groups, that are humourous in their inaccuracy.)
Alan
--
A. Light | Long Live the Great Teutonic Squirrel Uprising!
ali...@cybernetics.net
Ralf W. Stephan
of Anais Nin's diaries, and I have half a dozen others from her.
There is an important reason why I also like to read books by f.:
I'm still mystified by the way women think and I hope to gather
more understanding through the books. I'm never disappointed,
there always a little heureka even on the 2nd 3rd 4th time of
reading.
Others from my library: B. Tuchman, andwhowasthatwhowrote 'Mists Of
Avalon'?
ralf
--
You just began to read the sig and you have finished it now.
Tony Bass
"Real men do not read fiction. They read biographies." Thus spake
the journalist Henry Porter in one of those eternally recurring
pieces which adapt for new audiences Nancy Mitford's distinction
between "U" and "non-U" behaviour.
There are significant differences between male and female reading
habits, but Porter's "real man" has little to do with reality.
According to a recent Mori survey for the BBC programme _Bookworm_,
nearly as many men read literary fiction as women (13 per cent and 15
per cent respectively), while rather more women (22 per cent) than
men (16 per cent) read biographies and autobiographies. Sharper
contrasts are visible in romantic fiction (a female preserve),
thrillers and science fiction (predominantly male) and "classic"
novels (read by twice as many women as men).
[...]
So there really is a market for serious modern fiction, and that
market includes plenty of men. It is quite artificial to postulate
any incompatibility between reading serious fiction and serious
non-fiction: most intelligent members of both sexes read both. Just
as real women take no notice of Henry Porter, _real_ men do not worry
about what other people will think of their reading habits.
Many highly literate people, though, are not at all confident that
they know as much as they need about the best new books and writers.
and goes on to talk about the time being ripe to revive the neglected
genre of the serious literary magazine.
Tony Bass
--
# Tony Bass Tel: +44 473 645305
# MLB 3/19, BT Laboratories e-mail: a...@saltfarm.bt.co.uk
# Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP5 7RE DO NOT e-mail to From: line
# Opinions are my own
Bruce McGuffin
Juliana Pickerell wrote:
Bruce McGuffin (mcgu...@ll.mit.edu) wrote:
[yakety-yakety-yak...]
All this stuff about feelings and authors who "happen" to be women!
Puts me right to sleep. It's like reading one of those women's books.
You know, where the heroine has a pet dragon, and they're in telepathic
contact, and she's beautiful, in an elfin, dreamy way, and... and you're
waiting for the space barbarians to pound her face in and roast the
dragon around the campfire, and
Uh, sorry. Guess I'll get back to alt.pro.wrestling
Books with elves and dragons in them is another genre I avoid, but I
hadn't noticed that a disproportionate share were written by woman.
Bruce McGuffin
p.s. Do men watch woman pro-wrestle?
MC^2
the original list of authors, but haven't seen reference to some obvious
choices in the follow-ups. From consideration of this question came the
impression that women, and particularly black women authors (if black is
offensive now I apologise), have taken the magical-realism genre and run
withit. Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison are my favorite examples. _Mama Day_
is gorgeous.
I read plenty sci-fi as well, and the interesting thing about that genre is
how little attention male writers pay to female charecters. It's
embarrassing. I think Tim Powers is a genius, but my female book friends
snicker and say, another guy book...
What examples do we find for believable portrayal of folk of opposite sex
to the author ? I vote for whew, tough ain't it ? Most of y favorite author
don't get the opposite sex at all. Been on a Southern thing. Faulkner,
Cormac McCarthy, Walker Percy - where are the women ? I guess Flannery O
did okay, but they're so damn weird sex is irrelevant...
John Berg
fictional. Autobiographies may smear this distinction but remain in
the topical area of "imaginative."
John
>DATE: 11 Jan 1995 12:49:20 -0000
>FROM: Tony Bass <a...@lamb.saltfarm.bt.co.uk>
>
>Recently in _The Times_ newspaper (UK) Daniel Johnson writes
>
> "Real men do not read fiction. They read biographies." Thus spake
> the journalist Henry Porter in one of those eternally recurring
> pieces which adapt for new audiences Nancy Mitford's distinction
> between "U" and "non-U" behaviour.
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SharonC724
there reading all the books they're reading.
However, I understand that they don't do it earlier in life. I've been
told by book
publishing people that while young girls will read books with male
protagonists, boys will not read about female protagonists. I know from my
nieces that this is true--that is they can be just as excited by a tale
with a male at the center as one with a female, but I don't know any boys
intimately enough to comment on their reading habits. Would they read
Little Women--or see the film? Yes, maybe Little Women is a bad test case
for today's kids. But I'm interested to hear what you all have observed
about this pattern. Especially you lovely men who read such interesting
books now (both male and female-authored). What did you read as a kid?
zooey
sharo...@aol.com writes:
>However, I understand that they don't do it earlier in life. I've been
>told by book
>publishing people that while young girls will read books with male
>protagonists, boys will not read about female protagonists. I know from
my
>nieces that this is true--that is they can be just as excited by a tale
>with a male at the center as one with a female, but I don't know any boys
>intimately enough to comment on their reading habits. Would they read
>Little Women--or see the film? Yes, maybe Little Women is a bad test case
>for today's kids. But I'm interested to hear what you all have observed
>about this pattern. Especially you lovely men who read such interesting
>books now (both male and female-authored). What did you read as a kid?
How about Madeleine L'Engle? _A Wrinkle in Time_ and the two companion
volumes (_Wind in the Door_? _Swiftly Titilating Planet_? Just kindly
keep the caps on your red pens; I haven't read these things in a long
time. Some 13 years or so). If I recall correctly, the central figure
here was a girl -- Meg, I think.
-zooey
A. Light
> How about Madeleine L'Engle? _A Wrinkle in Time_ and the two companion
>volumes (_Wind in the Door_? _Swiftly Titilating Planet_? Just kindly
>keep the caps on your red pens; I haven't read these things in a long
>time. Some 13 years or so). If I recall correctly, the central figure
>here was a girl -- Meg, I think.
Hey, good point. I read that series. Didn't mind the female lead.
Of course, she was pretty cool. And in `Narnia', 2 of the 4
central characters are female -- still liked it. And, let's see. . .
I'm sure there were others too. There was a Mrs. Piggles-Wiggles
or something like that, series, which I thought was fun reading.
Altogether, I impress myself. Perhaps that thing about boys
not wanting to read about girls (I have also heard this as
conventional wisdom) was more a product of books about girls doing things
that boys couldn't relate to (or didn't want to relate to)
more than a comment on the boys themselves. Give us cool heroines
(like the girl in `A Wrinkle in Time' or the lady in the `Alien' movies)
and guys will read it. Give us women who are crying a lot
and talking about relationships and you can forget it.
(Oh, and of course I liked the heroines in Tolkien --
especially the elven women and the princess of that horse country.
My. I can't remember ANY names today. Can you tell that it's been
5 years since I last read `Lord of the Rings'? I guess it's about time
for my third reading of it. . . .) Come to think of it,
I liked the girl in Asimov's `Second Foundation' -- and I think
there was one in `Foundation and Empire' too. . . .
Boy, now that I got on the right thread, there's an awful lot of them,
most of them feminine, but not in the `cleaning house and cooking' way.
stephanides adam l
>zooey <at...@mail.utexas.edu> writes:
>> How about Madeleine L'Engle? _A Wrinkle in Time_ and the two companion
>>volumes (_Wind in the Door_? _Swiftly Titilating Planet_? Just kindly
[snip]
>Hey, good point. I read that series. Didn't mind the female lead.
Yes, I read the first one and liked it.
>Of course, she was pretty cool. And in `Narnia', 2 of the 4
>central characters are female -- still liked it. And, let's see. . .
And there were more female main characters in the later books.
>I'm sure there were others too. There was a Mrs. Piggles-Wiggles
>or something like that, series, which I thought was fun reading.
Me too; although looking back on it, the whole idea of the series is
sick: ingenious ways to torment bad boys and girls so that they'll
be good.
>I liked the girl in Asimov's `Second Foundation'
Again, me too.
>And I think
>there was one in `Foundation and Empire' too. . . .
Actually a woman. If we're counting women, what about the Susan
Calvin stories in "I, Robot"?
And don't forget "Alice in Wonderland."
--Adam Stephanides
Jeff Hall
Rice (of course), Amy Tan, and Amy Bloom....oh and Edith Hamilton.
Jonathan Carroll wrote a book, "Bones of the Moon", from a female POV.
-Grotesque and Arabesque
-Sir.Real
bzys...@maple.circa.ufl.edu
a much older age, I read Edith Wharton novels, "Pride and Prejudice,"
"Wuthering Heights" and Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" on my own.
Paulo Gamelas
: Anyway, back to the question: Do any of you men out there read
: contemporary books written by female writers?
Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute, Isabel Allende, Sylvia Plath,
Marguerite Yourcenar, Maria Gabriela Llansol, Luiza Neto Jorge, Eduarda
Dionisio, Clara Pinto Correia...
Paulo Gamelas
------------------------------------------------------------------------
cvp...@zeus.ci.ua.pt Indonesian government is killing
innocent people in East Timor
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Janet M. Lafler
it, but it seems to me to be an extremely odd question.
Some people, probably more men than women, don't read books by women on
principle, considering them inferior. I had thought that this attitude
ended with the 19th century, but apparently not.
Some people, probably more men than women, don't read the genres of fiction
in which women writers predominate. But can it really be true that men in
general avoid reading women authors? If so, how silly. Is there still
some sort of stigma attached to men and boys who read "girls' books," a
disgust for "girl stuff" akin to the age-old cootie problem?
Egad!
/Janet
--
send mail to: ja...@netcom.com
"I know an Archaeopteryx when I see one, and I can tell an Ichthyosaur
from a Plesiosaur, or a Trilobite from a Graptolite, but I don't know
anything about senators." -- Oliver Butterworth, _The Enormous Egg_
John Politis
Margaret Drabble. In fact I would like to know of other readers who can
recommend authors in the same vein.
In my younger days, some female authors I read avidly were Lois Lenski,
Daphne DuMaurier and Edith Wharton. I don't think I have a preference for
one sex over another because I also like especially Anthony Powell,
Dostoevsky, Evelyn Waugh among others
Vance Maverick
> But can it really be true that men in
> general avoid reading women authors? If so, how silly. Is there still
> some sort of stigma attached to men and boys who read "girls' books," a
> disgust for "girl stuff" akin to the age-old cootie problem?
I trust this is simply an expression of perplexity, Janet, rather than
a request for us to analyze our obscurest repressions, let alone those
of the rest of cootieless humanity!
Glad to have you back,
Vance
Jason Robertson
Janet M. Lafler <ja...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Some people, probably more men than women, don't read the genres of fiction
>in which women writers predominate. But can it really be true that men in
>general avoid reading women authors? If so, how silly. Is there still
>some sort of stigma attached to men and boys who read "girls' books," a
>disgust for "girl stuff" akin to the age-old cootie problem?
>
>Egad!
Uh, oh. I guess it makes me sound unsophisticated to say "YES". I have a
disgust for "girl stuff". You won't catch me reading Little Women, Ann Rice
books, or cheesy romance novels that women read like soup labels.
I'm not afraid to admit that I dislike (strongly) the typical woman's novel,
as I see it. Not that all women write such tripe, but a lot do.
Sarah Canfield
jrob...@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Jason Robertson) writes:
>Uh, oh. I guess it makes me sound unsophisticated to say "YES". I have a
>disgust for "girl stuff". You won't catch me reading Little Women, Ann Rice
>books, or cheesy romance novels that women read like soup labels.
>
>I'm not afraid to admit that I dislike (strongly) the typical woman's novel,
>as I see it. Not that all women write such tripe, but a lot do.
the world? How are you defining the "typical woman's novel"? If you restrict
this species to cheesy romance and Anne Rice, I can agree with your strong
dislike while objecting to the inference that women often produce such
drivel, and do so in greater proportion than men. Many men write romance
novels pseudonymously, and Stephen King has probably written more dreck
than Anne Rice (though she may surpass him).
I've left the defense of Little Women to others, as I never did get around
to reading it. I will point out, however, that it is a 19th c. novel intended,
I believe, for children, and falls into a different category than cheesy
romance and Anne Rice.
Sarah
Daniel Bach
>Subject: Re: Do men Read Books written by Women?
>Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 06:30:10 GMT
>I came in in the middle of this thread, so I don't know what precipitated
>it, but it seems to me to be an extremely odd question.
>Some people, probably more men than women, don't read books by women on
>principle, considering them inferior. I had thought that this attitude
>ended with the 19th century, but apparently not.
This,in my opinion, seems to be as biased as the view you are
pitted against. I have just started to read "The Robber bride" by Margret
Atwood, and love it!
>Some people, probably more men than women, don't read the genres of fiction
>in which women writers predominate. But can it really be true that men in
>general avoid reading women authors? If so, how silly. Is there still
>some sort of stigma attached to men and boys who read "girls' books," a
>disgust for "girl stuff" akin to the age-old cootie problem?
>Egad!
>/Janet
>--
>send mail to: ja...@netcom.com
>"I know an Archaeopteryx when I see one, and I can tell an Ichthyosaur
>from a Plesiosaur, or a Trilobite from a Graptolite, but I don't know
>anything about senators." -- Oliver Butterworth, _The Enormous Egg_
Res gustibous non disputandem est [sp? my latin is rusty] (Matters of taste
are not to be disputed). This ancient Latin proverb should be followed to a
"T". If other men don't want to read books by female authors, that is their
discision.
tpai...@holli.com
Rice books.
Pam Painter
Frankfort, IN (Home of the Hot Dogs)
Jim Hartley
>it, but it seems to me to be an extremely odd question.
I agree that it is an odd question. Everytime I see the header I get
this urge to start a new thread: "Do Men Read Posts Written By Women?"
I always decide that such a post would not endear me to half the world,
so I refrain.
>Some people, probably more men than women, don't read the genres of fiction
>in which women writers predominate.
I would imagine the opposite or converse or something like that is also
true--Some people, probably more women that men, don't read some of the
genres of fiction in which men writers predominate.
I am also certain that some women don't read male authors on principle.
>But can it really be true that men in
>general avoid reading women authors? If so, how silly. Is there still
>some sort of stigma attached to men and boys who read "girls' books," a
>disgust for "girl stuff" akin to the age-old cootie problem?
Hey! Don't go making fun of that Cootie problem. As a member of the
female species, you probably don't realize how fatal those Cooties can
be.
Anyway, I think if I see one more post by some guy proudly announcing
that he once read a book by a woman and liked it, I am going to cry.
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Janet M. Lafler
>>Some people, probably more men than women, don't read the genres of fiction
>>in which women writers predominate. But can it really be true that men in
>>general avoid reading women authors? If so, how silly. Is there still
>>some sort of stigma attached to men and boys who read "girls' books," a
>>disgust for "girl stuff" akin to the age-old cootie problem?
Jason Robertson <jrob...@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Uh, oh. I guess it makes me sound unsophisticated to say "YES". I have a
>disgust for "girl stuff". You won't catch me reading Little Women, Ann Rice
>books, or cheesy romance novels that women read like soup labels.
>
>I'm not afraid to admit that I dislike (strongly) the typical woman's novel,
>as I see it. Not that all women write such tripe, but a lot do.
I'm struck by the locution: "You won't catch me reading Little Women, etc."
Does this mean that you read these books only in secret, where you won't
get caught?
My point was not that there is no room for differences in taste. I don't
care for many books which might be called "men's novels," e.g. spy novels,
westerns, techno-thrillers, power fantasy novels, cheesy porn, etc., but
I'm not afraid of being "caught" reading them. I also don't assume that
they define what "men's novels" are all about, or that most novels written
by men can somehow be defined as belonging to a category called "men's
literature."
What I was trying to get at is that there's a difference between following
your taste and avoiding reading something because to do so might make you
look, or feel, "unmanly."
Or, to put it another way, do you feel disgust for "girl stuff" *because*
it is "girl stuff," or because it is not to your taste? If the former,
then why are you talking to me? If the latter, then you might want to
retract your statement that you have a disgust for "girl stuff," since it's
likely to make people think you have a disgust for girls.
/Janet
P.S. I don't read romance novels, or Anne Rice, though I have nothing
against them, but _Little Women_ is a favorite of mine and I'm wondering
why you find it so icky (especially since you won't admit publically to
having read it).
Janet M. Lafler
>> I can understand how unpleasant it is to feel left out; nevertheless, I
>> have come to the conclusion over the years that feeling left out can be a
>> valuable experience.
Vance Maverick <mave...@cs.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>Yes. I'm trying to remember when a book has ever made me feel left
>out, without much success. More common is the opposite experience --
>that a book can give the feeling of being involved in a situation from
>which, in the real world, I would be excluded. This is of course the
>appeal of romance, in its widest sense, including spy thrillers etc.,
>but also applies to other "you are there" books, e.g. _Travels with
>Lizbeth_. Even authors who probably wish they were making me feel
>left out usually fail, my habit of reading being just too strong.
This is one of the reasons that I've never really understood some of
the more extreme advocates of the idea that literature inherently
excludes people who aren't like the author in some identifiable way.
Whether you're excluded or taken in depends in large part on you
the reader; frankly, I'm not sure whether it's a good thing to be so
easily sucked in to someone else's vision, but since I'm a suckee, I
tend to think of it as a virtue. It's that apparent freedom of entry
into the experience that makes those moments when an offhand comment
slams the wall down so shocking.
>And there's nothing so stimulating as a forceful gesture of exclusion
>coming from a book that has captured your imagination. I'm still
>dealing with the reverberations, for example, of Leroi Jones' offhand
>comment, in _Blues People_, about the "rhythmic vapidity" of European
>music. Identifying the senses in which he was right and wrong has
>been a great help to my thinking.
I remember reading _This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical
Women of Color_ with a mixture of exhileration and anger. Dealing
with some of the things that the contributors had to say about white
feminists was extremely hard work, but ultimately very useful. It
would have been far easier either to toss the book away on the grounds
that it "excluded" me, or to suspend my own capacity for judgement and
become a yes-woman. Instead, my resentment, coupled with a determination
neither to reject the book nor to accept it uncritically, led me to do
some hard thinking that I might otherwise never have done.
/Janet
the_lemming
I just can't get terribly interested in reading about what a poor
>>and suppressed position it is to be a woman, and be told (either
directly
>>or in a roundabout way) how evil or stupid I am as a male (and
white at
>>that!) I certainly feel that women authors have as much to say as
men and
>>can say it just as well, but I probably won't hear it until they
stop
>>forming their own "Girl's Club" to counteract the "Old Boy's Club"
they so
>>often complain about.
>>
My experience has been that even in the category of non-fiction you
speak of, books by women are on no account self-pitying at the level
you seem to describe. Many of the books I have read in fact deal
less with sexism per se and the problem of male dominance than with
other social problems which form an interconnected structure or
hierarchy, which feminists attempt to understand and undermine--all
forms of inequity are examined.
If you feel they have important things to say but refuse to read them
because they make you feel left out and uncomfortable, if you feel
that the sufferings and triumphs of your fellow human beings, your
own place in society (whatever that place may be) and how that
relates to others do not engage you as a matter of interest, what
does that say to you about your character?
--
The Lemming <ste...@alleg.EDU>
"But Westley--what about the R.O.U.S.'s?"
"Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist." <scream>
(The Princess Bride)
Jim Hartley
>>I am also certain that some women don't read male authors on principle.
>
>in high school and college lit. classes are likely to be written by men, and
>that books by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal, so it's
>somewhat harder to avoid reading any books by male authors if you do much
>reading.
Now just wait a minute. *Nobody* and I mean *nobody* thinks that "books
by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal"--Nobody
thinks Tom Clancy, Stephen King, or Rush Limbaugh have general or
universal appeal. That's why this whole discussion about what "men" or
"women" write is silly--it leads to lots of silly statements.
Some people do think that Great Literature (tm) or The Canon (tm) have
universal appeal, but I have never heard anyone suggest that there appeal
derives from the testosterone level of the author. Jane Austen ends up
on Great Books lists with regularity. If tomorrow, we all discovered
that Hamlet was penned by Shakespeare's wife or the Duchess of York,
nobody would drop it from the canon.
This is not some attempt to restart the old thread on whether there are
enough women in the Canon. It is a simple plea for sanity.
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Terrence J. Lago
> If you feel they have important things to say but refuse to read them
> because they make you feel left out and uncomfortable, if you feel
> that the sufferings and triumphs of your fellow human beings, your
> own place in society (whatever that place may be) and how that
> relates to others do not engage you as a matter of interest, what
> does that say to you about your character?
Yup your right, I guess I'm just an evil white male.
--
Terrence J. Lago Esq. Martial Scientist and Metaphysician
(B.A. in progress)
-"With faith, heart and steel. In the end there can be only one."
-Ramirez
Janet M. Lafler
>>>I am also certain that some women don't read male authors on principle.
I wrote:
>>This is probably true, but it's still the case that most of the works taught
>>in high school and college lit. classes are likely to be written by men, and
>>that books by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal, so it's
>>somewhat harder to avoid reading any books by male authors if you do much
>>reading.
Jim replied:
>Now just wait a minute. *Nobody* and I mean *nobody* thinks that "books
>by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal"--Nobody
>thinks Tom Clancy, Stephen King, or Rush Limbaugh have general or
>universal appeal. That's why this whole discussion about what "men" or
>"women" write is silly--it leads to lots of silly statements.
>
>Some people do think that Great Literature (tm) or The Canon (tm) have
>universal appeal, but I have never heard anyone suggest that there appeal
>derives from the testosterone level of the author. Jane Austen ends up
>on Great Books lists with regularity. If tomorrow, we all discovered
>that Hamlet was penned by Shakespeare's wife or the Duchess of York,
>nobody would drop it from the canon.
Good old Jane. She's wonderful, but there's only one of her. And she
only started turning up on "Great Books" lists recently.
>This is not some attempt to restart the old thread on whether there are
>enough women in the Canon. It is a simple plea for sanity.
By all means, let's not restart the Canon debate.
Let's talk sanity.
When I was in high school in the late 1970's to early 1980's (I graduated
in 1981), I took a class on Modern American Literature in which we read
one book by a woman (_I Heard the Owl Call my Name_, by Margaret Craven),
and a class on Western World Literature in which we read no books by women.
The only other novel by a woman that I can remember reading in any junior
high or high school English class was _To Kill a Mockingbird_. (Lest you
think that the problem is my faulty memory, I can remember, offhand, reading
_The Red Pony_, _A Separate Peace_, _The Chosen_, _Cyrano de Bergerac_,
_Beowulf_, _Hamlet_, _As You Like It_, several Greek tragedies, _The Scarlet
Letter_, _The Portrait of Dorian Gray_, and poetry by Robert Frost, William
Cullen Bryant and -- oh, hey! -- Sappho, for various junior high and high
school English classes.) On a couple of occasions I got the distinct im-
pression from teachers that they thought it wouldn't be fair to ask the boys
in the class to read a "girl book." (Even _I Heard the Owl Call My Name_
has a male protagonist.)
While I was in college in the early 1980's, I took a year-long freshman
humanities course, a class on British Modernism, a class on 19th century
French literature, a class on 20th century poetry, and a comp. lit. class
on dramatic literature. In none of these classes did we read any women
authors. That's right. In a class on British Modernism, we didn't read
Virginia Woolf. We read Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Yeats, Henry James, D.H.
Lawrence, Ford Maddox Ford, Wyndham Lewis, even, for some bizarre reason,
D.M. Thomas, as well as a few more minor writers whose names I can't re-
member, but we didn't read Woolf. I'm not sure if this qualifies as insane,
but it's certainly stupid.
I hasten to add that the above is not a plea for more women writers to
be included in high school and college English classes, though if I were
taking that British Modernism class today I'd want to know why we weren't
reading anything by Woolf. I include it merely to back up my claim that
it would have been entirely possible for me to get through high school and
college without reading any books by women; but there's no way I could have
gotten through without reading any books by men.
So, though there are undoubtedly women who avoid reading books by men
on principle, our school system makes it much less easy for them to do
so than it does for men who don't want to read women writers. Now, why
is that? Could it be that cooties only travel in one direction, so it's
more important to protect boys from "girl books" than it is to protect
girls from "boy books?"
JB
> Now just wait a minute. *Nobody* and I mean *nobody* thinks that "books
> by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal"--Nobody
> thinks Tom Clancy, Stephen King, or Rush Limbaugh have general or
> universal appeal. That's why this whole discussion about what "men" or
> "women" write is silly--it leads to lots of silly statements.
>
> Some people do think that Great Literature (tm) or The Canon (tm) have
> universal appeal, but I have never heard anyone suggest that there appeal
> derives from the testosterone level of the author. Jane Austen ends up
> on Great Books lists with regularity. If tomorrow, we all discovered
> that Hamlet was penned by Shakespeare's wife or the Duchess of York,
> nobody would drop it from the canon.
>
Well, some of this is silly, but I don't think this particular point is, and I
think you're dead wrong about no one thinking that "books by men are assumed to
have general, even universal appeal." I've worked in the academy for a lot of
years, and there are plenty of folks teaching who assume (but express it
overtly less and less) exactly that. The thinking seems to go "women write
toward women. The implications in their work are female because whether they
know it or not they are writing about the repression of the feminine. Ergo, no
real relevance other than curiousity to male readers." Accompanying that line
of thought is "Male writers arn't usually writing about male issues; they are,
rather writing about *human* issues, and are thus more universal." Anyone who
has really thought this through re books like, for instance, Chopin's _The
Awakening_ (long regarded--incorrectly IMHO--as a feminist tract for women) or
Faulkner's entire oeuvre, knows differently. Faulkner quite often writes only
for men (in IMHO in most of _Go Down, Moses_, for instance). Chopin's novel
is, I think, more about the universal longing for self-determination than a
woman's struggle against oppression.
JB
Janet M. Lafler
>: >>>I am also certain that some women don't read male authors on principle.
I wrote:
>>This is probably true, but it's still the case that most of the works taught
>>in high school and college lit. classes are likely to be written by men, and
>>that books by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal, so it's
>>somewhat harder to avoid reading any books by male authors if you do much
>>reading.
Grady Ward <gr...@netcom.com> wrote:
>It would be easier to believe women revisionists had a higher purpose
>if they reformulated the membership requirements of the "canon" in
>universal terms of aesthetics or morality instead of simply by sex.
I hope you're not attributing this motive to me. For one thing, I
never said a thing about the "canon." In this thread, I've kept strictly
to discussions of what *is* taught in schools and how that might affect
individuals who wish to avoid authors of one or the other sex, not what
I think *ought* to be taught, or why. I have made it clear that I think
that choosing what to read based on the sex of the author is a ridiculous
practice.
stephanides adam l
>Good old Jane. She's wonderful, but there's only one of her. And she
>only started turning up on "Great Books" lists recently.
Austen has been "canonical" for longer than this implies. In 1888 the
Commission of Colleges in New England on Admission Requirements adopted
a list of twenty-five works by fifteen authors, which was widely
adopted by high schools. This list included _Pride_and_Prejudice_,
as well as _Scenes_from_Clerical_Life_ and _Silas_Marner_ by George
Eliot. (_The_Development_of_Secondary_Education_, ed. Frederick
M. Raubinger et. al., p. 76). And _Silas_Marner_ was a staple of
high school English classes for a long time; you probably missed
it by about a decade.
--Adam
Rachel Kadel
Terrence J. Lago <ar...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>In a previous posting, (The Lemming) writes:
>> If you feel they have important things to say but refuse to read them
>> because they make you feel left out and uncomfortable, if you feel
>> that the sufferings and triumphs of your fellow human beings, your
>> own place in society (whatever that place may be) and how that
>> relates to others do not engage you as a matter of interest, what
>> does that say to you about your character?
>
>Yup your right, I guess I'm just an evil white male.
>
Hang on a moment: look at what you're responding to again. That seems
to be a call for people to *listen* to each other, not a condemnation of
a specific group. The above-quoted paragraph could apply to *anybody*
sticking their fingers in their ears and humming; for example, people who
call for elementary schools in predominantly black areas to teach only
about the Black American experience, or those who condemn reading things
by dead white males, or (as in this discussion) those who won't read
things by female authors.
Listen and learn. (And, lest I sound too much like my expository writing
teacher, talk and teach as well.) To whom? To anyone who has something
worthwhile to say -- and, carefully and occasionally, to those who, in
your opinion, don't.
Rachel
--
Why are you quantizing my cookies?
Rachel Meredith Kadel or, for the adventurously inclined, Bean-na-Sidhe
rka...@fas.harvard.edu
Evan William Fox
Interesting thread. Thought I'd make a comment.
I think women are in many ways much better writers than men, with their
use of language, writing with the "body", creativity, poetic imagery.
But if you asked me to name women writers I like I could only think of
Keri Hulme. The rest of the names escape me.
Also I like to read "male" writers like Pynchon, Vonnegut, and Kerouac,
as well as Cyberpunk novels by Gibson and Stephenson.
Yet Pat Cadigan does great Cyberpunk. To make a generalisation, I feel
men concentrate more on the plot and story structure, whereas women seem
more concerned with relationships and feelings (look at Virgina Woolf).
My ideal writer would combine a strong plot, with the fluent, natural,
"direct consciousness" (my term) style of modern women's writing.
Oh, and some of the male-bashing does make me wince a little, but it's
rare, and a good dose of reality helps once in a while.
Evan Fox
Vance Maverick
> I think women are in many ways much better writers than men, with their
> use of language, writing with the "body", creativity, poetic imagery.
> men concentrate more on the plot and story structure, whereas women seem
I think your sample must be too small. Woolf is not especially
representative of anything, let alone "women's writing"; and we have
only to look at Proust and Lawrence for contemporary examples of "men"
who wrote intensely about relationships. There is certainly structure
and plot, on an unusual scale, in _A la Recherche..._, but I don't
think it's so relevant to the immediate experience of reading the
book as one's immersion in the imaginative and emotional world of the
protagonist; and _The Rainbow_ is more or less incoherent at the plot
level, but awash in riptides of relationship.
You might enjoy Nicholson Baker's _U and I_ -- it's a charmingly
camped-up anxiety-trip by a novelist worried (among other things) that
all the great novelists have been either female or homosexual.
Vance
SubGenius
[deletia]
: That's right. In a class on British Modernism, we didn't read
: Virginia Woolf. We read Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Yeats, Henry James, D.H.
: Lawrence, Ford Maddox Ford, Wyndham Lewis, even, for some bizarre reason,
: D.M. Thomas, as well as a few more minor writers whose names I can't re-
: member, but we didn't read Woolf. I'm not sure if this qualifies as insane,
: but it's certainly stupid.
[deletia continuo]
: So, though there are undoubtedly women who avoid reading books by men
: on principle, our school system makes it much less easy for them to do
: so than it does for men who don't want to read women writers. Now, why
: is that? Could it be that cooties only travel in one direction, so it's
: more important to protect boys from "girl books" than it is to protect
: girls from "boy books?"
+-----------------------------------------SubG-----------------------------+
While I certainly wouldn't wish to divorce anyone from a fond attachment
to such hard-won codswallop, candour insists that I speculate that any
ornate literary conspiracy theories are likely to be forced to surrender
arms to the decidedly unegalitarian sovereignty of history, to whit:
simply stated, men have written far more than women have so, even if
we accept the wildy conjectural notion that there are equal parts good
and bad for either gender, which, incidentally, I do not, then we are
therefore forced to admit that there must be, conservatively, an order
of magnetude more teachworthy fiction (or whatever) with a male monicker
in the byline than for the fairer, or other anyway, sex. Simply picking
at random---which is not of course what I'm suggesting is or should be
done---would apt yield cannonae san belle dame.
So much for the theory of it. Specifically, I would say that, of
the names you list above, I have not trouble whatsoever accepting them
as more worthy of perusal and study than Woolf. Rather than relying
on some presumed self-evidence for the reader's leap to the conclusion
that this is A Bad Thing Worthy of Being Righted (much less being
Clearly Insane), would you care to explain slow learners like myself
why, say, Joyce should yield his seat to Ms Woolf?
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
SubGenius
: I think women are in many ways much better writers than men, with their
: use of language, writing with the "body", creativity, poetic imagery.
+-------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+
Perhaps it's just my notioriously poor reading comprehension acting up
once again, but this sounds suspiciously like a bunch of vague hand-waving
to me.
+-------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+
: Also I like to read "male" writers like Pynchon, Vonnegut, and Kerouac,
: as well as Cyberpunk novels by Gibson and Stephenson.
+-------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+
Just out of curiousity, why is that there genderword in rabbit ears,
as if you couldn't bear to say it with a straight face?
+-------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+
: Yet Pat Cadigan does great Cyberpunk. To make a generalisation, I feel
: men concentrate more on the plot and story structure, whereas women seem
: more concerned with relationships and feelings (look at Virgina Woolf).
: My ideal writer would combine a strong plot, with the fluent, natural,
: "direct consciousness" (my term) style of modern women's writing.
: Oh, and some of the male-bashing does make me wince a little, but it's
: rare, and a good dose of reality helps once in a while.
+-------------------------------------SubG--------------------------------+
To make a generalisation, this sounds like a load of hooey.
Your generalisations are either based on an exceptionally limited data
set---I'm not sure what exactly your quote fluent, natural, `direct
consciousness' style of modern women's writing unquote entails, but this
could as far as I understand it apply to Henry Green, Guillermo Cabrera
Infante, Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, James Joyce, Richard Powers,
Alasdair Gray and any number of others too countless to enumerate here---
or is so vast a generalisation as to make no attempt to prioritise and
so be rendered as hopelessly vague as, say, `Male writers tend to use
words containing the letter `e' a great deal'.
And I have no idea what your latter clause, following `and a good
dose...' has to do with the former half of the sentence.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
Janet M. Lafler
>Janet M. Lafler (ja...@netcom.com) wrote:
>: That's right. In a class on British Modernism, we didn't read
>: Virginia Woolf. We read Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Yeats, Henry James, D.H.
>: Lawrence, Ford Maddox Ford, Wyndham Lewis, even, for some bizarre reason,
>: D.M. Thomas, as well as a few more minor writers whose names I can't re-
>: member, but we didn't read Woolf. I'm not sure if this qualifies as
>: insane, but it's certainly stupid.
SubGenius <su...@atheist.tamu.edu> wrote:
>While I certainly wouldn't wish to divorce anyone from a fond attachment
>to such hard-won codswallop, candour insists that I speculate that any
>ornate literary conspiracy theories are likely to be forced to surrender
>arms to the decidedly unegalitarian sovereignty of history, to whit:
>simply stated, men have written far more than women have so, even if
>we accept the wildy conjectural notion that there are equal parts good
>and bad for either gender, which, incidentally, I do not, then we are
>therefore forced to admit that there must be, conservatively, an order
>of magnetude more teachworthy fiction (or whatever) with a male monicker
>in the byline than for the fairer, or other anyway, sex. Simply picking
>at random---which is not of course what I'm suggesting is or should be
>done---would apt yield cannonae san belle dame.
>
>So much for the theory of it. Specifically, I would say that, of
>the names you list above, I have not trouble whatsoever accepting them
>as more worthy of perusal and study than Woolf. Rather than relying
>on some presumed self-evidence for the reader's leap to the conclusion
>that this is A Bad Thing Worthy of Being Righted (much less being
>Clearly Insane), would you care to explain slow learners like myself
>why, say, Joyce should yield his seat to Ms Woolf?
Although I don't usually bother arguing with people who won't bother
to read my posts carefully, I thought I'd have one last sally at
making my point clear to those who keep trying to obscure it.
First of all, in the passage that you quoted above, I did not say that
the exculsion of Woolf was clearly insane, I merely said that it was
extremely stupid.
Secondly, you carefully snipped the passage in which I said that I
wasn't talking about what ought to be taught, merely what was taught,
and what the effects might be for people who wish to avoid reading
books written by one gender or the other. I specifically said that
I did not wish to discuss the canon. I find it extremely interesting
that many posters leap to the conclusion that, in recounting the fact
that during my college career I was never required to read a work of
fiction or poetry by a female author, I am making some sort of plea for
"equity" in the classroom.
Finally, I didn't say anything about kicking any of the writers on that
list (and certainly not Joyce) off it in order to include Woolf. However,
by the most bone-headed of criteria, D.M. Thomas is not a Modernist, and
I still don't understand why he was included in the class. As for why
we should include Woolf, well, why choose anyone? Woolf was an influential
Modernist writer. Most of the knowledgeable people I've told about this
class were shocked that we didn't read any of her work in a class on the
subject of British Modernism. You, of course, are free to differ with
their opinion.
Francis Muir
As for why we should include Woolf, well, why choose anyone?
Woolf was an influential Modernist writer. Most of the
knowledgeable people I've told about this class were shocked
that we didn't read any of her work in a class on the subject
of British Modernism. You, of course, are free to differ with
their opinion.
I'm never quite sure what Modernism is supposed to embrace, but I never
thought the Bloomies particularly "modern" (rabbit-ears to shock SubG).
That mantle rests most squarely on Edith Sitwell's shoulders. Her FACADE
and William Walton's acoompnying music still defines English Modernism
(it was never British) for many of us.
Philomath
Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley
: would you care to explain slow learners like myself
: why, say, Joyce should yield his seat to Ms Woolf?
I think Janet may have wanted one of the minor writers whose
names she could not recollect, or, perhaps, the inappropriate
choice of D.M. Thomas to be replaced by Ms. Woolf.
Certainly, the tone of her message made that the easiest inference.
The inference that "Joyce should yield his seat to Ms Woolf" required
a significant reach, nay, a risky leap. One might even
describe that as an overly exposed lunge.
--
Rebecca Crowley standard disclaimers apply rcro...@zso.dec.com
Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for.
Scott Engleman
|Grady Ward (gr...@netcom.com) wrote:
|: After visiting some large bookstores on the West coast recently,
|: the in thing this year in fiction from women in the Caribbean.
|: While undoubtedly a neglected or submerged type of literature
|: does it really deserve the shelf space (at the expense of other
|: literature) that it is getting?
|Have you actually read any? Does it _not_ deserve shelf space? Is it
|taking space away from John Grisham perhaps?. I think not.
Yeah, and what about fiction by short people in Zimbabwe?
Does it _not_ deserve shelf space? Or fiction written by
Afro-Americans living in Norway? Does it _not_ deserve shelf space?
Or...
The point is that I don't think that fiction should be categorized
or shelved based on the ethnicity or gender of the author, but
rather by subject. So Grady is correct; it does NOT deserve
any special designation or shelf space; it should be mixed in with
all other fiction, to stand or fall on its own merit. To do any
different is to be both racist and sexist, implying that
certain authors need help to earn acclaim. The fact that
Grady knew that there was a special body of literature by
women in the Caribbean indicates a special treatment that should
not have been given.
Scott Engleman
Scott Engleman
|The point is that I don't think that fiction should be categorized
|or shelved based on the ethnicity or gender of the author, but
|rather by subject.
To head off inevitable flames, I guess I will attempt to
contribute something positive to this thread, even though
I feel the original subject was just a flame-troll. Some
people have treated this thread seriously, and so will I.
Women authors have made significant contributions in
much genre fiction, and I read just as many women authors
as I do men. I enjoy reading Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone
mysteries and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski every bit
as much as Robert Parker's Spenser. I enjoy reading
sci-fi/fantasy by Vonda McIntyre, Anne McCaffrey and Ursula
LeGuin as much as male authors of the genre. And Anne
Rice is now picking up fans from the previously male-dominated
horror field. The only exclusively-male genre I can
think of is the techno-thriller.
The important thing to remember is that if a book is good,
the sex of either the author or the protagonist doesn't
matter to me. It's hard to imagine that it would to anybody.
Scott Engleman
Janet M. Lafler
>|: After visiting some large bookstores on the West coast recently,
>|: the in thing this year in fiction from women in the Caribbean.
>|: While undoubtedly a neglected or submerged type of literature
>|: does it really deserve the shelf space (at the expense of other
>|: literature) that it is getting?
Scott Engleman <d...@iti-oh.com> wrote:
>The point is that I don't think that fiction should be categorized
>or shelved based on the ethnicity or gender of the author, but
>rather by subject. So Grady is correct; it does NOT deserve
>any special designation or shelf space; it should be mixed in with
>all other fiction, to stand or fall on its own merit. To do any
>different is to be both racist and sexist, implying that
>certain authors need help to earn acclaim.
Oh, come on, bookstores often have special displays featuring
particular groups of writers. I've seen displays of New England
writers, cyberpunk writers, gay and lesbian writers, writers from a
particular literary movement (e.g. the Beats), "local" writers
(whoever that happens to be), Russian writers, Canadian writers,
Latin American writers, writers whose 100th birthday falls this
month, etc. Why not women writers from the Caribbean?
It's just a sales technique. When your local grocery store has a special
display of rice noodles, do you worry that the fettucine is being deprived
of its fair share of the shelf space, or that the rice noodles are somehow
being degraded because they aren't being allowed to stand or fall on their
own merits?
Don't worry. In a few weeks, when the bookstore changes its window display,
the Caribbean women writers will back on the shelves with everyone else.
Ted Moens
> So Grady is correct; it does NOT deserve
> any special designation or shelf space; it should be mixed in with
> all other fiction, to stand or fall on its own merit. To do any
> different is to be both racist and sexist, implying that
> certain authors need help to earn acclaim. The fact that
> Grady knew that there was a special body of literature by
> women in the Caribbean indicates a special treatment that should
> not have been given.
>
> Scott Engleman
Not racist. Not Sexist. Capitalist, implying simply that there is money
to be made by such categorizations. Surely this is the prime (and I do not
say the only) reason for allocating shelf space.
--
Ted Moens
Michael Kagalenko
]In article <3geq9l$p...@mudraker.mtholyoke.edu>, jhar...@mtholyoke.edu (Jim Hartley) writes:
]
]> Now just wait a minute. *Nobody* and I mean *nobody* thinks that "books
]> by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal"--Nobody
]> thinks Tom Clancy, Stephen King, or Rush Limbaugh have general or
]> universal appeal. That's why this whole discussion about what "men" or
]> "women" write is silly--it leads to lots of silly statements.
]>
]> Some people do think that Great Literature (tm) or The Canon (tm) have
]> universal appeal, but I have never heard anyone suggest that there appeal
]> derives from the testosterone level of the author. Jane Austen ends up
]> on Great Books lists with regularity. If tomorrow, we all discovered
]> that Hamlet was penned by Shakespeare's wife or the Duchess of York,
]> nobody would drop it from the canon.
]>
]
]Well, some of this is silly, but I don't think this particular point is, and I
]think you're dead wrong about no one thinking that "books by men are assumed to
]have general, even universal appeal." I've worked in the academy for a lot of
]years, and there are plenty of folks teaching who assume (but express it
]overtly less and less) exactly that.
They have good basis to think so. Men have more universal, flexible
psyche then women. Witness the fact that homosexuality is more prevalent
among men then women. Consider also that creativity is associated with
androgyny. So yes, one may very well feel disinclined to read books
written by women.
--
"Being a bachelor, he was a kind of amateur in life, and did not
really care "
D. Carlson
: different is to be both racist and sexist, implying that
: certain authors need help to earn acclaim. The fact that
: Grady knew that there was a special body of literature by
: women in the Caribbean indicates a special treatment that should
: not have been given.
No it doesn't...it's just a thematic grouping.
Personally, I think a bookstore has the right to arrange their stock
however they like, including chronolgically, by ISBN number, by national
origin, or randomly...It's not special treatment, it's a choice by the
bookstore owner.
diane
Terrence J. Lago
> Hang on a moment: look at what you're responding to again. That seems
> to be a call for people to *listen* to each other, not a condemnation of
> a specific group. The above-quoted paragraph could apply to *anybody*
> sticking their fingers in their ears and humming; for example, people who
> call for elementary schools in predominantly black areas to teach only
> about the Black American experience, or those who condemn reading things
> by dead white males, or (as in this discussion) those who won't read
> things by female authors.
>
> Listen and learn. (And, lest I sound too much like my expository writing
> teacher, talk and teach as well.) To whom? To anyone who has something
> worthwhile to say -- and, carefully and occasionally, to those who, in
> your opinion, don't.
>
> Rachel
Ok, point taken. I'm going to go out on a limb here and apologize. I have
to admit that my flame was childish, and I should perhaps make a greater
effort to examine books written by women. It just seems to me, however
wrong it may be, that men are often left on the outside when female
authors feel it their duty to explore "women's issues" to the exclusion of
all else.
Terry
John Camp
that a lot more women read books by men than vice versa, even
accounting for the probablility that men publish more books, and the
reason for that is that men and women come from somewhat different cultures,
and it's easier for a woman to cross-read than it is for a man...
I think "men's" stories tend to be simpler in form, (though perhaps not in
meaning), and to be driven by action and movement (plot) , while "women's"
stories tend to be driven by relationships...and men are not as interested
in those relationship-driven stories as woman are in plot-driven stories.
Also, it is more difficult to write "great theme" novels based on relationships,
than it is to write one based on action and movement, and woman are as
interested in great themes as men are...
To bring it down to the realm of SF-Fantasy, for example, you could make a
good argument that the best "hard" SF is almost all male, almost all focused
on variations of the "great man" theme; and the best fantasy is written
by women, and usually involves complicated relationships between people
trying to work their way toward an objective...You could say the same thing
about other paired categories, like romance/western...
Also, most really smart women I know were most influenced by books by
women writers, and hold onto those books throughout their lives. Men
seem less likely to do that, for some reason...
Or maybe these are just figments of an imagination too boiled by the
Bell Curve to think rationally...
JC
Sam Penrose
The Wild Iris, by Louise Gluck. breathtaking short, clear poems conflating
god, believer, nature, people, you, i. won the pulitzer in 93 i think.
Exposure, by Kathryn Harrison. novel about cruel father-daughter
relationship, photography, eating disorders.
Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen. memoir by a woman who was committed
to an institution when she was 17 on the basis of a 15-minute interview
with a shrink she had never seen before. took her two years to get out.
as to the more general question, i would reformulate it: are men in
general less able to identify with women than vice-versa? absolutely. they
have less practice. boys in this country will not watch shows for girls
while girls will watch shows for boys, which is why boy-oriented
programming dominates, reinforcing their reluctance. of course individual
men are capable of great feats of imaginative empathy. most aren't as good
at it as most women.
David Emery
> But can it really be true that men in
> general avoid reading women authors? If so, how silly. Is there still
> some sort of stigma attached to men and boys who read "girls' books," a
> disgust for "girl stuff" akin to the age-old cootie problem?
Don't expect those stubborn gender ruts to simply default to the relatively
limited forces of late 20th century enlightenment - there's a big difference
between being a child in a small American community and an educated adult who
can make open-minded cultural choices, and the path from one to the other can
be a struggle. Myself, I began to have my own forbidden ideas about literature
when I realized that Nancy Drew was way more hip than the Hardy Boys.
Rachel Kadel
Michael Kagalenko <mkag...@lynx.dac.neu.edu> wrote:
>In article <1995Jan2...@nyssa.swt.edu>, JB <jb...@nyssa.swt.edu> wrote:
>]In article <3geq9l$p...@mudraker.mtholyoke.edu>, jhar...@mtholyoke.edu (Jim Hartley) writes:
>]
>]> Now just wait a minute. *Nobody* and I mean *nobody* thinks that "books
>]> by men are assumed to have general, even universal appeal"--Nobody
>]
I
>]think you're dead wrong about no one thinking that "books by men are assumed
to
>]have general, even universal appeal." I've worked in the academy for a lot
of
>]years, and there are plenty of folks teaching who assume (but express it
>]overtly less and less) exactly that.
>
> They have good basis to think so. Men have more universal, flexible
> psyche then women. Witness the fact that homosexuality is more prevalent
> among men then women. Consider also that creativity is associated with
> androgyny. So yes, one may very well feel disinclined to read books
> written by women.
ACK! Really? Really, you think that? And you exist? Whoah.
I'm a bit puzzled, though, by what exactly you mean by "more universal,
flexible psyche." It seems that you mean that men are more open to a
range of ideas -- but if so, what of the men who say they don't read
women writers because they feel "excluded"? (I haven't heard the
reciprocal female point of view seriously stated.) What of the greater
homophobia among men? And how does the whole androgyny bit fit in? One
could use your arguments to justify reading nothing by anyone but gay
males -- or children, since they arguably have the most flexible
psyches.
Hmm.
Scott Engleman
|Personally, I think a bookstore has the right to arrange their stock
|however they like, including chronolgically, by ISBN number, by national
|origin, or randomly...It's not special treatment, it's a choice by the
|bookstore owner.
??????????
I don't understand your analogy. Arranging books by subject,
ISBN number, alphabetically, etc. is not discrimination. But
arranging books by the race/sex of the author IS discrimination.
Just like hiring a person based on their years of experience,
or their qualifications, or their college grades is NOT
discrimination, but hiring a person just because he is white IS
discrimination.
I'm sure that you would agree that if a book store took all books
written by women and put them in a poorly lit vault in the basement,
that would be an unfair practice. So why is the opposite,
giving them a special place of honor, suddenly fair?
The arrangement criteria you mentioned are not covered under
civil rights law (ISBN number, subject, date of publication,
author name, subject). The arrangement criteria I mentioned
(race of the author, sex of the author, religion of the author)
are covered by civil rights law, and should be treated equally
without either preferential or substandard treatment.
Scott Engleman