And yet, when I read his essay on "How to live to be 200", it just kills me!

Also, Robertson Davies is one of my favorite all-time authors. However, his treatment of female characters always leaves me a bit...I don't know. Cold, I guess. His female characters are always treated rather condescendingly. Hard to explain. He was very essentialist about women and I guess that turns me off.

However, I still love his writing. It's amazing - he makes me laugh out loud and cry too. It's just the woman thing that is a bit of a turn-off for me.

Terrible, really. Thank goodness I'm finally finished it!! (Now I can finally get to the books that have been piling up while I slogged through to the end!)

Edited to keep it in the vein of the first post by adding:

I'm glad I read it nonetheless. It was interesting, and any book that makes me think about something I hadn't already thought about gets at least a few points. He says a lot of stuff that I wish more people would say more often--mixed in there with all the sexist garbage....

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

I've never refused to read a male writer strictly because he struck me as sexist, although I can think of a few unarguably great writers whose sexism is so offensive to me that I just can't enjoy what are supposed to be their masterpieces -- John Milton's Eve in Paradise Lost comes to mind at once.

I'd never read that article of Leacock's -- the old fart. But I still think he's a great comic writer -- "My Financial Career" still breaks me up, and the Sunshine Sketches are an ornament of our culture (if you think we have one, or believe in that sort of thing).

A highly uneven writer to begin with. I read The Executioner's Song as a teen, and think it was a formative experience in my reading and writing life.

The second story, "A Leaven of Malice", is excellent. But the problem is the way he portrays the women. Also, the men who have condescending attitudes towards women in his books are often narrated in a sympathetic way, as if it were a good thing. And to Davies, I believe he probably thought it WAS a good thing.

Of course, he was a product of his generation, right? And probably a lot more forward-thinking than most - he poked wicked fun at the idea that all women should be virgins until marriage, and at the women and men who demanded it.

But goodness, look at the difference between the way the female and male characters are treated in "A Leaven of Malice". I'm not talking the bit characters - in Davies' books, most of the bit characters are hilarious satirical sketches, and he does those in both genders. I'm talking the serious, or main characters.

The newspaper editor, Mr. Ridley, one of the main characters, is drawn out very fully, very humanly, and very intelligently. He has foibles, strengths, and eccentricities that overstep gender boundaries, such as the way he likes to cook gourmet meals despite people snickering over it, his common sense mixed with sharp intelligence.

Pearl Vambrace, the main female character, on the other hand, is characterized more by her gender than anything. I think she's quite two-dimensional compared to the male main characters. She is shy, retiring, etc. The whole story hangs on people assuming she is her father's chattel, and while this notion is ridiculed gently, by the end of the book she acquiesces to it and uses it to her advantage. Whenever the male characters talk about her to each other, it is always in a condescending way, even when those characters are supposed to be the ones with sense. For instance, her uncle always calls her "Pearlie" and is against her father's libel action on her behalf out of concern that it will make her notorious and blow her matrimonial chances.

When Ridley and one of his staff are discussing a mistake made by the "girls" in the classified section, it's full of condescension. "Tears! The more these damned girls are in the wrong, the more they cry." Talking about them as if they have no sense. And narrated completely sympathetically, as if this was just some generally acknowledged truth.

Dean Knapp is parodied for his desire to be "urbane", whereas Puss Pottinger is a parody of an elderly lady who lunches and who "liked to be ordered about by clergymen" and was overly concerned with being ladylike. Mr. Cobbler, the organist is parodied as a eccentric musical genius, whereas Mrs. Bridgetower is parodied as a fussy old dowager who is conniving underneath her histrionics, and is jealous of all women who might want to marry her son. Mr. Snelgrove is parodied as a stuffy, uptight lawyer who has learned the letter of the law but not the spirit, and who hasn't got much common sense but has managed to have some position in the world anyhow.

Oh, and here's a nice little sample of femininity. Edith Little and her sister who was nicknamed "Kitten" are such stereotypes it isn't even funny. Edith has a young child from having been knocked up and then left by a boyfriend that she trusted - now she is a totally sexually repressed unhumourous, unattractive single mother. Her sister, "Kitten" is completely defined by her easy sexuality with her husband, who, btw, is portrayed as basically white trash who only wants one thing, which his wife seems to live to provide.

Asimov admitted in his autobiography that he really didn't understand women and so avoided them as much as possible in his writing as he felt he couldn't do credit to them, yet the couple of times I corresponded with him, he was very strong on women writers being as fully accessible as male writers. Once, very long ago, he sent me a list of who he considered great female writers. He admitted that for him his mother and his wife were females who supported him and most other women were like a separate species from them.

These are similar to the complaints I would lodge against Heinlein. It's full of relatively good ideas about global government, knocking down antiquated infrastructure and negative societal systems etc...But the free love that he sets up is mostly about the women being freely loving and naked all the time, while the men are busy doing the cultural work and movin & shakin.

My boyfriend recommended it to me, and I'll tell you, it definitely inspired some really interesting discussions. I think he was a bit disappointed that I didn't love it as much as he had the first time he read it. Perhaps just as disappointed that my reading and our discussions about it have forced him to change his perceptions of the novel somewhat.

It's just undeniable sexism, in the end.

edited to add:

I think you're right, though Trisha. I think Heinlein thought he was setting up some new and better parameters for women and for relations between the sexes. And he was stuck in a cultural milieu that hadn't really conceived of women very differently in a long time--it's quite likely that he just couldn't even imagine women as anything but housewives and secretaries and beautiful bodies. He started out well, though, in his early descriptions of the crew on the first voyage to Mars--some of those women were world-class physicists and stuff like that. Still in charge of the laundry on the ship, but great, genius scientists as well....

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

Have any of you ladies read any Haruki Murakami?

I've only read the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but they tell me that his others are similar in style and substance.

What about Anais Nin. I know she's championed as a treasure of erotica, but the first novel I ever picked up had a male protagonist so I put it right back down. I haven't tried any of her others or that one again since then, but I have peeked into her diaries a little.

What's the deal, though?? That's what I thought. I had expected this great feminist novelist to have at least written erotica with FEMALE protagonists! Don't we have enough of the other stuff by fellas like Mailer and Heinlein et al?

I finished reading my dude's book and the only criticism I had of it was that I hated the female character because at the end, she's a back stabber. She has a huge role, very smart and capable, but I loathe her. Mind you, I loathe some of the male characters too.

Male characters get drawn out in such a three dimensional way that you feel you know them, whereas female characters are - well, not shadows, they're better than that, but basically black and white with a tiny touch of colour added.

I also make excuses for those who have a decent position on women in their writing, but behave abominably in private (J.J. Rouseau). I call this the "Thomas Jefferson Rule" as applied to literature. The brain decides, but the flesh may not follow.

Lima Bean asks: "What's the deal...with Anais Nin?"

Anais Nin supported Spanish fascism politically, even though her sexual life was of a sort that would have landed the average Spanish women in jail. Her sexual freedom always had an aristocratic element in that she didn't necessarily think that what she did was ok for the plebeans.

She did write eroticism with women protagonists, though I think it was only in the 1960's, when the zeitgeist had changed.

Memo to the planet:

GAY PEOPLE CAN BE MORONIC ASSHOLES TOO.

Just because someone is gay does not make them more sensitive, arty, better dressers, progressive, etc!!!!

It just means that they are attracted to the same sex for plain old romps in the sack or mutually stimulating loving relationships. Period.

quote:

---

William S Burroughs' overwhelming hostility towards women blew me away the first time I encountered it in print.

---

William Burroughs actually shot his wife in the head. He was a drunk and a dope addict, so maybe it wasn't conscious sexism, but...

Of course he was a counter-cultural leader, as you say. But the counter-culture had many strands,
including a certain amount of Jungian mumbo-jumbo and willy-nilly adoption of eastern religious theory, some sensible, and some not.

There is a serious controversy in France now about a writer named Michel Houllebencq (sp?) who has written several popular novels involving sex tourism and vicious stereotyping of Muslims.

I agree that gay people, despite the discrimination they face, can certainly be sexist. However there does tend to be a higher percentage of gay men, at least, in the "creative professions". Don't know if there is a relationship between gayness and creativity, or just because other fields have remained more homophobic.

I realize that both of these things are a part of life, especially in the time the story is set, but there's a certain tone that an author can write in where it's obviously meant to titilate... all it does is repulse me.

I'll read good literature and stories and appreciate them for what they are. I try not to be revisionist in judging the author and their politics as I think it destroys the enjoyment and richness of the contribution.

Modern authors can feel my wrath though... well, actually my husband does as I throw the book.

quote:

---

Just because someone is gay does not make them more sensitive, arty, better dressers, progressive, etc!!!!

---

Pim Fortuyn and a couple of Tom Long's former advisors proved that point pretty convincingly.

The Rebel Angels has what I think of as "benevolent stereotypes" in it about Gypsies. The mother of the main female character was such a cool eccentric who had lots of money but squirreled it away and faked poor, making her Rosedale home into a boarding house, reading cards and leaves and cups and hands, shoplifting from supermarkets, not bathing regularly, not wearing underwear, etc.

And then the main character, Maria, who is caught between her modern world, and between her ethnic roots as a gypsy. All of her (male) professors are charmed by her mother and treat her like a relic to be studied, unlike the other sanitized Rosedale housewives who are boring. She has the wisdom of the ages, and even though Maria tries to escape the stereotype by being a modern woman, the moral of the story is apparently that somewhere in her biology, not only is there the womanly behavioural traits gene, but also the Gypsy behavioural traits gene.

But that said, it's a fascinating story, and a great read. I suppose it would be worse if the Gypsy stereotypes were portrayed negatively.

Well, in fact, all the negative Gypsy stereotypes were there - dirty, dishonest, uneducated, sly, rich, miserly, and occultish - but Davies turned them around and put a positive spin on them, as if to say, "Sure, Gypsies are like that, and it's in their blood, but it's a GOOD thing!"

quote:

---

Overall, I think the beats, in their quest for the authentic, indulged themselves in a lot of sexist writing and behaviour.

---

quote:

---

And as for gay people (once again, the stereotype here applies a bit more to men) if some are better dressers than straight men,it is because many have gravitated to an urban, urbane lifestyle that often doesn't involve small children and suburban pursuits.

---

Yah, I've noticed that spending time with kids and gardening really fuck up my ability to colour-coordinate...

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

But then I started thinking - that's probably because even in the books where she writes in the third person, she always - hmm, as far as I can remember offhand - writes from the perspective of the main female character, and since none of us really get inside the heads of other people the way we expect a God's Eye View Narrator to be able to in a book, so Atwood also just concerns herself with very deep character development of the main character and not so much the others.

There is still an emphasis on the good woman-- cute , sweet, giving, self deprecating--- verus the bad woman-- independ, often monied, working.

And no character was made real to me. Even in the more serious books it was a little too harlequin romance , ditsy woman dealing with life altering experience finally saved by guy who knows her better than she knows herself.

OR woman thinks she knows what's best poor henpecked guy goes along, things fall apart dammn he was right all along.