Yet Another Lit-Rant
Jun. 6th, 2011 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianSo work meeting happened. Really, it wasn't much of a muchness. I got praised to the skies. And ... remember how I talked about MsMoo? The one who's rude to the patients on the phone when she answers it at all, seems to do the bare minimum and is entirely dismissive of the concept of personal space? (Seriously; she hugged me once. I barely refrained from smacking her in the mouth and told her, in that 'do-not-fuck-with-me-you-have-just-crossed-a-LINE' voice that some of you know, to never ever do that again because I do not like being touched by people I do not know well. But ... seriously, who randomly hugs people who they've only known in person about a week and to whom they've barely spoken?) Well ... I had to ask a sort of double-barrelled question about MsMoo at this meeting: "What does her job description entail, and what does she actually do?" As it turns out, what she does is exhibit rudeness to patients and colleagues alike, misfile documents (this is medical documentation we're talking about, being filed in the wrong patient's notes - this could be fucking fatal), send letters out to the wrong addresses (again, medical documentation) and generally fuck around. Sooooooo ... yeah, she's getting sacked. Which entails a certain amount of reorganising of the duties between me and the Other Admin (who does his job now, so far as we can tell) but it also means I get a desk. It's a desk I hate, but ... my own desk!
Now, I'm pretty sure that this is another one where I was late to the party, but lit-rant continues with VS Naipaul putting his foot in it last week, saying that no woman author is his equal, writing-wise. He goes on to talk about the 'sentimental, narrow view of the world' and something about "and inevitably for a woman, she is not the complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too". I think he was referring to Jane Austen here, who he particularly lambasts.
This ... I kind of wish he'd picked some more modern writers. As it goes, I have never read anything by Jane Austen, and I haven't read any of his books either, but I think that his opinion is entirely subjective and based far too much on his own views about the worth of a woman (which, given the treatment of his wife and mistress, is pretty obviously unutterably low). I mean, I dunno about any of the female writers I know who make a living at it, but I know damn well that I am the complete master of my household, because there's no one else to be so. And anyway, most people these days consider it a partnership anyhow, not master/servant bollocks. Did this guy miss the Suffrage movement? I think he must have done.
I admit I haven't read many of the classics that comments on that article are pointing out. I have not read Doris Lessing. I have not read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. There's a lot I haven't read. There are, however, classics I have read. I wouldn't call 'Gone With the Wind' a particularly sentimental view of the Civil War even if it does give a softer face of slavery than one normally sees. The movie might lead one to believe it, but ... seriously, the book's about way more than "Oh, Ashley! Oh, Rhett!" Then let's look at the last seventy-five years or so. Sylvia Plath. Dorothy Parker. Alice Walker. Margaret Atwood. Donna Tartt. Elizabeth Wurtzel, keeping a wide view despite her nearly entirely autobiographical subject matter. This is the stuff off the top of my head, mind you. There's more, and I know it.
Most of all, for wide views, I can't think of anyone better to flag up than the new writers I've encountered over the last ten years or so. Seanan McGuire, for example - the Newsflesh series is one of the more impressive new takes on the zombie apocalypse trope that I've ever seen, and its look at how blogging stands to change the face of media, entertainment and news alike, is breathtaking on a number of levels. Mur Lafferty, who has taken the concepts of afterlife (the Heaven series) and superheroes (Playing for Keeps) and turned them into something new and fascinating. Then there's Suzanne Collins; while I'm not sure that I personally enjoyed The Hunger Games (and I've only read the first book, so go easy, hmm?), I can't deny that its look at society and culture is very broad and interesting. I haven't read Cat Valente yet, though it's on The List. Hell, the list is a mile long and growing. Fact remains that there's still as many women on it as men. And if it's all 'genre' or YA or whatever ... so? I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd say that 'genre fiction' is somehow less valid than 'literary fiction', but I honestly don't believe there's a difference. 'The Secret History' is considered 'literary' despite the hints that something supernatural happened in the course of the tale. 'The Lovely Bones'? Likewise, despite the fact that it's told from the point of view of a freakin' ghost. I invite genre divides to cram it, sideways, far as it'll go as readily as I do gender divides.
I do that because, at the end of the day, a story is a story. King put it best with the motto carved over the fireplace at the 'club' of storytellers at 449B East Thirty-Fifth: "It is the tale, not he who tells it". A tale can be told well, and a tale can be told poorly, and a man is as likely to tell his tale well - or poorly - as a woman is to tell hers. And even then, prose style counts and preferences therein counts for a lot. So ... y'know, VS Naipaul is talking a load of bollocks. This is apparently not unusual.
Put succinctly? I know what I like. I know what I will recommend to others. And to me? It is the tale, not he - or she - who tells it.
Now, I'm pretty sure that this is another one where I was late to the party, but lit-rant continues with VS Naipaul putting his foot in it last week, saying that no woman author is his equal, writing-wise. He goes on to talk about the 'sentimental, narrow view of the world' and something about "and inevitably for a woman, she is not the complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too". I think he was referring to Jane Austen here, who he particularly lambasts.
This ... I kind of wish he'd picked some more modern writers. As it goes, I have never read anything by Jane Austen, and I haven't read any of his books either, but I think that his opinion is entirely subjective and based far too much on his own views about the worth of a woman (which, given the treatment of his wife and mistress, is pretty obviously unutterably low). I mean, I dunno about any of the female writers I know who make a living at it, but I know damn well that I am the complete master of my household, because there's no one else to be so. And anyway, most people these days consider it a partnership anyhow, not master/servant bollocks. Did this guy miss the Suffrage movement? I think he must have done.
I admit I haven't read many of the classics that comments on that article are pointing out. I have not read Doris Lessing. I have not read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. There's a lot I haven't read. There are, however, classics I have read. I wouldn't call 'Gone With the Wind' a particularly sentimental view of the Civil War even if it does give a softer face of slavery than one normally sees. The movie might lead one to believe it, but ... seriously, the book's about way more than "Oh, Ashley! Oh, Rhett!" Then let's look at the last seventy-five years or so. Sylvia Plath. Dorothy Parker. Alice Walker. Margaret Atwood. Donna Tartt. Elizabeth Wurtzel, keeping a wide view despite her nearly entirely autobiographical subject matter. This is the stuff off the top of my head, mind you. There's more, and I know it.
Most of all, for wide views, I can't think of anyone better to flag up than the new writers I've encountered over the last ten years or so. Seanan McGuire, for example - the Newsflesh series is one of the more impressive new takes on the zombie apocalypse trope that I've ever seen, and its look at how blogging stands to change the face of media, entertainment and news alike, is breathtaking on a number of levels. Mur Lafferty, who has taken the concepts of afterlife (the Heaven series) and superheroes (Playing for Keeps) and turned them into something new and fascinating. Then there's Suzanne Collins; while I'm not sure that I personally enjoyed The Hunger Games (and I've only read the first book, so go easy, hmm?), I can't deny that its look at society and culture is very broad and interesting. I haven't read Cat Valente yet, though it's on The List. Hell, the list is a mile long and growing. Fact remains that there's still as many women on it as men. And if it's all 'genre' or YA or whatever ... so? I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd say that 'genre fiction' is somehow less valid than 'literary fiction', but I honestly don't believe there's a difference. 'The Secret History' is considered 'literary' despite the hints that something supernatural happened in the course of the tale. 'The Lovely Bones'? Likewise, despite the fact that it's told from the point of view of a freakin' ghost. I invite genre divides to cram it, sideways, far as it'll go as readily as I do gender divides.
I do that because, at the end of the day, a story is a story. King put it best with the motto carved over the fireplace at the 'club' of storytellers at 449B East Thirty-Fifth: "It is the tale, not he who tells it". A tale can be told well, and a tale can be told poorly, and a man is as likely to tell his tale well - or poorly - as a woman is to tell hers. And even then, prose style counts and preferences therein counts for a lot. So ... y'know, VS Naipaul is talking a load of bollocks. This is apparently not unusual.
Put succinctly? I know what I like. I know what I will recommend to others. And to me? It is the tale, not he - or she - who tells it.