What are you reading now?

[Petrushka]

I would hazard a guess that women writers make up a sizeable portion of those who were, and perhaps still are, prominent in detective and crime fiction. Think especially of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh in the early days. I devoured their books in the late 60s. Helen McInnes wrote some decent thrillers at around the same time, The Salzburg Connection perhaps being the best known. Wilbur Smith, Alistair MacLean and Desmond Bagley were my other big favourites in those days.

Authorship has definitely become more male/female polarised in recent years but I don't think that the readership has so much. There are women I know who read and enjoy the SAS violence of the Andy McNab books and the complex spy novels of John le Carre so it's not a black and white situation.

[french frank]

This is an interesting debate but I feel too generalised.

I agree with the sentiment. The problem is that generalisations are imprecise but they are very easy to make. According to one website, the nine most violent novels of 'literary fiction' are all by men. Do they appeal only to men? I don't know. Do women write novels of violence? No idea. I suspect that most 'best seller' novelists are doing it for the money, writing for the hordes of snappers-up of unconsidered trifles.

[Ian Thumwood]

This is an interesting debate but I feel too generalised. It intrigues me who books are written for or indeed how long it is intended to remain in the market. As a teenager I loved Wilbur Smiths books and my Mum would often read them afterwards. I am sure he would have been a writer with more appeal to men than women and this would be more the case now.

I do not think that generalising about who the books are written for matters. Smiths books are of their time and I am not sure if anyone reads him now. They were good stories yet I think the strong female characters are there for male titillation and I was always surprised just how many women I knew liked his books. They are sexist and the violence, sex scenes and general tone of the novels would tend to suggest they were written for a male audience. Given that some of the books feature stuff that would appeal.to younger adults, you would have thought that no woman would want to read Smith but I think women made up alot of his audience. I am not convinced that you can always split the market for books quite so easily. I therefore feel that the market is more ambiguous.

I have never read any chic lit. The closest I have come is 'The girl in the train ' which was enjoyable but a bit shallow. With marketing more prominent nowadays, I feel that books have been more polarised in who they are aimed at but there are still plenty of books that I feel are ambiguous. Are the likes of William Boyd, ian McEwan , Hilary Mantel or Kate Atkinson not writing for men and women.

As a bloke, I think it is fascinating to read female writers. I would recommend Claudia Pineiro s .' Betty boo' as a brilliant example of how a book by a foriegn woman can write something that appeals to men. The dialogue is demonstrably from a female perspective and the dialogue seems very accurate. It is just a well written story. In my opinion, this is a book i would recommend to blokes even though it is t
written largely from the point of view of a woman.

[french frank]

How many you read is up to you but I did list some novelists in my message above (3685) which would be a start. There are, I regret to say, many more. Clearly this type of book sells.

You must publish your thesis on the subject, since clearly you have undertaken to read all this unsuitable literature for some academic reason. Why else would a man want to read so many novels clearly not targeted on him? I would rather listen to teenage pop music so that I could declare it musically without value and a pernicious social influence on the young.

[smittims]

How many you read is up to you but I did list some novelists in my message above (3685) which would be a start. There are, I regret to say, many more. Clearly this type of book sells.

[french frank]

So I think we've come to the end of the road in terms of discussion on this topic. My bad (as they say). It's just my natural temperament to query any opinion which I find questionable. I thought that was at the very heart of any discussion forum.

If you disagree with what I say I'd be interested to see your reasons for believing that those writers are truly impartial , e.g what proportion of strong male characters and deceitful weak female characters they prortray, if any. I didn't find any.

How many novels and which ones do I have to read? I wouldn't know where to start. Again, you expressed an opinion which I queried. Of course, you are not bound to respond or answer the query at all but this seems to me to be the natural sequence: assertion - query/challenge - explanation/evidence/proof - thank you, satisfaction, ah, I see your point, yes I agree with you. But we can let this topic rest now.

[smittims]

Your post does indeed confirm my suspicion that we are at cross-purposes. My original post was simply my opinion, my view, posted on a message board . You seem to be taking it as some sort of decision-making parliament or court of law where I must satisfy your questions , prove my point or walk the walk of shame. I wasn't asking you to respond to a case. I'm not expecting you to do anything. I'm simply saying that I have found that there is such a genre of fiction and I disapprove of it for the reasons I gave. I mentioned several writers you are free to read if you wish. I also stressed that they don't typify female novelists in that there are others who write more fairly. Deborah Moggach for instance is unquestionably a feminist but not a biased or untruthful one.

To produce the evidence you demand would involve quite a bit of work, I'd have to find the books (and I don't know where they are now) and re-read them making notes as I went, not a task I relish.

If you disagree with what I say I'd be interested to see your reasons for believing that those writers are truly impartial , e.g what proportion of strong male characters and deceitful weak female characters they prortray, if any. I didn't find any.

[french frank]

'I think this is going too far. I can't do your homework for you. I don't have the books to hand and I can't recall the exact words. But I do have a very clear memory of reading many, many anti-male sexist remarks, sentences and paragraphs thown out as if they were undisputed facts, remarks which if said by a man about women would quite righly be decried as sexist; I've also looked through many other books of this genre and seen enought to indicate that it is a general trend.

With respect, I don't think I should have to do my 'homework' to discover what evidence you have for making the assertions you do. What I wanted to establish was whether there was indeed an entire genre of novels devoted to portrayals of marvellous women and evil men &c. One writer perhaps? One novel? They would be a small start but without concrete evidence I don't feel there is a case to respond to. I could say that if your clear memory is entirely accurate, I’m inclined to agree with you, but I remain unconvinced.

[smittims]

'The pendulum analogy doesn't refer to justice per se'.

Good. That's what I was trying to say. I take it we've dealt with that point now!


'I'm still waiting for some concrete examples '.

I think this is going too far. I can't do your homework for you. I don't have the books to hand and I can't recall the exact words. But I do have a very clear memory of reading many, many anti-male sexist remarks, sentences and paragraphs thown out as if they were undisputed facts, remarks which if said by a man about women would quite righly be decried as sexist; I've also looked through many other books of this genre and seen enought to indicate that it is a general trend. . If these authors want to see an end to sexism, a move I would heartily welcome having suffred from it in the past,then they really must stop practising it themselves. Two wrongs don't make a right. That's all I'm saying.

[french frank]

Clearly we are at cross-purposes about the pendulum. Yes , I agree that a pendulum has to swing both ways, but justice doesn't. In other words, I was saying that I don't think your metaphor applies to the original point I raised.

I'm not sure that we're at cross purposes but we see the situation from a different perspective. The pendulum analogy doesn't refer to justice per se. Justice, if you like, is the goal.The question is how to achieve it, how the status quo may be changed.

I was not attempting to right the wrongs of world society, but simply saying I dislike this trend in women's fiction, because I think it is misleading the large number of women who read these books and then go and vote, or preach this doctrine to their children.

So, cutting to the chase: I'm still waiting for some concrete examples from this literature which you feel so strongly about and which you feel will have such a pernicious influence on its readers. I ask from a position of ignorance since I don't come across books of this kind so it would help to know what you're talking about.

[french frank]

Clearly we are at cross-purposes about the pendulum.

Chapter 19 will follow

[smittims]

Clearly we are at cross-purposes about the pendulum. Yes , I agree that a pendulum has to swing both ways, but justice doesn't. In other words, I was saying that I don't think your metaphor applies to the original point I raised.

I was not attempting to right the wrongs of world society, but simply saying I dislike this trend in women's fiction, because I think it is misleading the large number of women who read these books and then go and vote, or preach this doctrine to their children. You seem again to want to widen the debate into a general discussion about the problems of feminism and maybe even that of disposessed people worldwide. . As I said, if I were to respond to that, I should have to do so at some length and mention a lot of things which go beyond the scope of this thread ; and I think that's not a good idea .

I'm sure we both know that, although novels are fiction, they can contain truths. It is therefore important that novelists don't abuse their responsibilty not to mislead the reader into thinking that the novel embodies truth when in fact it is propaganda. If they do this I have right to criticise it; that is all I was doing. They are indeed bad novels. But bad novels can influence people for the worse.

Sadly, we live in an age of extremism. Extremists tend to be more vocal, and hence more potentially-influencial. I know there are many moderate, reasonable feminists, but they don't get the attention secured by the men-hating extremists who are taking over the movement and giving it a bad name by provoking extremist male reaction. No-one will come out of that well. It's time to moderate the atmosphere, and exposing the hypocrisy of misleading literature is, I think, one way of helping this.

[french frank]

I think your analogy of a pendulum is a little misleading in that a pendulum has to swing over to the other side as part of the process of reaching equilibrium. This doesn't have to happen in the matter of rectifying injustice or inequality. Education is the best solution. Admittedly it's a long-term option.

My argument was that it does have to happen that way as a matter of natural science. The pendulum must be yanked back the other way to establish the momentum which will eventually end up at the equilibrium point. Your education solution is not a complete one and telling the aggrieved, discriminated against and oppressed (that isn't of course confined to women!) that education is the long-term solution if they can only wait doesn't really cut the mustard.

And why did I bother to read them? Well, as Thomas Hardy (now there's a man who did I think write about strong women, but fairly ) said 'If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst'. I wouldn't criticise a book I hadn't read.

But on motivation: why do people read novels? They are fictions. If I read the blurb to a book in which it was clear that all the women were marvellous and all the men evil, I wouldn't read it - as fiction: I might read it for sociological reasons if it was a research area or author (Hitler, say, or Ostrovsky) who interested me for other reasons. In your comments I get the whiff of straw men. Just as a suggestion that Breakfast on R3 should have full-length works as well as snippets is portrayed as people wanting Bruckner symphonies every morning, so there are these feminist novels depicting marvellous women and evil men. But these may just be bad novels.

I believe these books contribute to the widening gap I mentioned at the start of this post, and maybe even partially provoke the anti-feminist backlash

That might happen when one or both sides take up extremist attitudes: men are evil, feminists are screeching harridans. At its root I would see feminism itself as rational and justified: how it's pursued depends on its pursuers!

which is only going to get worse unless the whole topic is discussed openly and honestly with both sides admitting their faults.

I don't think that it's either 'men' or 'women', as such, who have 'faults'. A society marked by discrimination and inequality is at fault, not men and women. In that sense I don't think that fiction - or call it art - will change it.

[smittims]

Hi, ff, I think you raise a number of points in your longer post above which I think go beyond the discussion about 'women's books'. In my experience the problem of relations between men and women is getting worse and has many aspects; If we're to give it the space it needs we'd need a new thread, and I'd have to say some things which are regarded as 'politically-incorrect' (i.e things men aren't allowed to say). So I've tried to stick only to my original point here. However, I will try to answer your questions.

I think your analogy of a pendulum is a little misleading in that a pendulum has to swing over to the other side as part of the process of reaching equilibrium. This doesn't have to happen in the matter of rectifying injustice or inequality. Education is the best solution. Admittedly it's a long-term option. As with vandalism and selfishness, we need to be educating the children who will be the grandparents of the people we hope will benefit. In the short termof course we may have to resort to legislation, but it must be fair, or it will be resented and lead to a backlash. .

I don't think Snow was a misogynist. He did write convincingly about women, but they happen mostly to be not very good women; maybe that was his experience! And to balance that, I'd praise Deborah Moggach as a female writer who definitely isn't anti-male. Both her male and female characters have faults and this makes her books more credible than those of the other writers I mentioned.

And why did I bother to read them? Well, as Thomas Hardy (now there's a man who did I think write about strong women, but fairly ) said 'If way to the better there be, it exacts a full look at the worst'. I wouldn't criticise a book I hadn't read. I believe these books contribute to the widening gap I mentioned at the start of this post, and maybe even partially provoke the anti-feminist backlash which is only going to get worse unless the whole topic is discussed openly and honestly with both sides admitting their faults. I fear this will not happen in my lifetime.

[smittims]

Hi, gradus, just to step aside from the other debate to answer your post, I recommend Chords and Discords by Malcolm Tillis who was a viola player in the Halle orchestra in the 1950s (lucky man, he spent years sitting next to the delightful Rachel Godlee!) . Although it's not 'recent' it is at least 20 years further forward than Bernard Shore's book,which I think dates from the 1930s in the BBC Symphony Orhcestra. There's also a book by Richard Temple Savage who for many years played bass clarinet in the LPO and later, I think , the Philharmonia, called A voice from the pit.