Can women write?

Ficheall

Just finished reading Kate Mosse's "bestseller" 'Labyrinth'.
And it got me to wondering... are there any decent female authors out there?

iseethelight

Labyrinth is a book I've often seen and nearly bought. Can I ask what are your issues with it?
I shall point you in the direction of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, winner of the 2009 booker prize. Its one I'm reading at the moment and find excellent.

Ficheall

iseethelight wrote: »

Labyrinth is a book I've often seen and nearly bought. Can I ask what are your issues with it?

It goes absolutely nowhere. Nothing happens, except that which is obviously going to happen from about a hundred or so pages in, and even then it just seems like it was only done to try give some sort of climax to the book, but it went out moreso with a whimper than a bang. I didn't feel anything for any of the characters after it had dragged on for seven hundred pages...

I didn't start the thread to complain about the book - it's just that that was the one that got me thinking about it, so I mentioned it.

iseethelight wrote: »

I shall point you in the direction of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, winner of the 2009 booker prize. Its one I'm reading at the moment and find excellent.

I'll keep an eye out.

ArtSmart

kudos on the 'eye-catching' thread title. :mad:

Eliot Rosewater

Harper Lee.

/thread.

Seriously though, I think one should never judge an author based on their gender. It works both ways: at the end of a review of the Granta Book of Irish Short Stories in Saturday's Irish Examiner, the reviewer said "with only 10 of the 31 stories here written by women, of whom four are dead, Enright’s selection for Granta isn’t so reassuring after all." The argument there is that authors should be included in a collection, not because of any artistic merit, but because of their gender. That, in my opinion, is as sexist as anyone dismissing women writers out of hand.

In his introduction to his book The Best Poems in the English Language Harold Bloom says "literary history is essentially irrelevant to [the book's] purpose, as are all considerations of political correctness and incorrectness. The best poems published by women before 1923 are here, chosen entirely on the basis of their aesthetic value." That, in my opinion, is the best attitude. Sexism either way is just that: sexism.

Ficheall

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Harper Lee.

/thread.

Ah yeah - but aside from kids' books?

sipstrassi

If you like fantasy and science fiction there are some great female writers past and present.

Monty Burnz

Ficheall wrote: »

Just finished reading Kate Mosse's "bestseller" 'Labyrinth'.
And it got me to wondering... are there any decent female authors out there?

Yes.

Scuid Mhór

I heard J.K. Rowling wrote some okay books...

I read a bad book by a man once, aren't there any decent male authors out there??

Monty Burnz

Scuid Mhór wrote: »

I heard J.K. Rowling wrote some okay books...

Um...she's not exactly threatening Joyce or Proust
She wrote some popular books - but then Fianna Failure were the most popular party in Ireland for the last 20 years :eek:

Sorry, don't mean to go O/T

Scuid Mhór

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Um...she's not exactly threatening Joyce or Proust
She wrote some popular books - but then Fianna Failure were the most popular party in Ireland for the last 20 years :eek:

Sorry, don't mean to go O/T

Alright well if you wanna go old school, I heard there were a couple of sisters who went by the surname of Brontë who penned a couple of novels in their time.

PandyAndy

Ayn Rand.

Started reading 'Atlas Shrugged' a while ago.

Don't see what an authors gender has got to do with anything either.

Kimia

Some people should just not be reading - if they come out with stupid statements like that something's obviously not working.

AnonoBoy

Cecilia Ahern.

Amazing depth to her novels.










Since the OP's question can't possibly be serious I'm answering in a similar fashion.

Ficheall

Some people seem to be taking unnecessary umbrage at this.
I don't judge authors based on their gender - I wouldn't avoid a book because it was written by a woman. I'm just saying that books I've read, written by women, often fail to impress. It could be that being male I'm not as 'in tune' with what they're trying to say, or given the greater supply of male authors, one is more likely to find a decent male author than a female one.

Granted, the title may give an opening to someone looking for an argument, but really I was just wondering if anyone could recommend some good female authors.

The Sparrow

What a ridiculous premise for a question, let alone a thread.

Ficheall

The Sparrow wrote: »

What a ridiculous premise for a question, let alone a thread.

Why?

Monty Burnz

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Cecilia Ahern.

Amazing depth to her novels.

Since the OP's question can't possibly be serious I'm answering in a similar fashion.

:):pac:

ztoical

Ficheall wrote: »

I don't judge authors based on their gender - I wouldn't avoid a book because it was written by a woman. I'm just saying that books I've read, written by women, often fail to impress. It could be that being male I'm not as 'in tune' with what they're trying to say, or given the greater supply of male authors, one is more likely to find a decent male author than a female one.

In your OP you gave the example of one book/author not books/authors.


Do all these books that didn't impress fall into the same genre? Maybe it's that you don't enjoy and not the gender of the writer.

metrovelvet

Pat Barker

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

parker kent

Ficheall wrote: »

Why?

Ahem....

The Brontes, Margaret Atwood, Isabel Allende, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Zadie Smith, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Anais Nin, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Pat Barker, Kate Chopin etc etc etc. I could literally type all night long listing great female authors.

If you are seriously looking for suggestions, this list would not be a bad place to start.

http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/booklists/feminista.html

But seriously, this question is about as valid as saying that you didn't like a film with a blue eyed actor, therefore you will not like any films with a blue eyed actor. I have to imagine you are asking a question to intentionally stir up trouble.

AnonoBoy

donegalfella wrote: »

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Much like George from the Famous Five I was convinced she was male for years.

parker kent

donegalfella wrote: »

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Publishers, profits and the "pile em high" approach towards popular culture are causing this problem. Less and less kids spend their childhoods reading and writing for pure entertainment. I read Margaret Atwood talking about her childhood in The Observer on Sunday and it shows how a different childhood can affect creative output. Raw talent certainly exists, but it is not getting a chance to come through in the ways that it used to in literature.The same thing is happening in football, music etc. Instant and predictable results are preferred instead of honing a true talent.

SVG

Two of my favourite writers are Margaret Atwood and Anne Tyler. Surfacing and The Blind Assassin are my favourite books by Margaret Atwood. By Anne Tyler, I would recommend A Patchwork Planet and The Accidental Tourist (better than the film).

I'd love to see other people's favourites (especially contemporary) too since I tend to read more male than female authors and would like to redress the balance:).

mikemac

Ficheall wrote: »

are there any decent female authors out there?

Enid Blython

Over 600 million books sold.....and lashings and lashings of ginger ale :pac:

parker kent

SVG wrote: »

Two of my favourite writers are Margaret Atwood and Anne Tyler. Surfacing and The Blind Assassin are my favourite books by Margaret Atwood. By Anne Tyler, I would recommend A Patchwork Planet and The Accidental Tourist (better than the film).

I'd love to see other people's favourites (especially contemporary) too since I tend to read more male than female authors and would like to redress the balance:).

Katie Price :pac:

Zadie Smith is one of my favourite female writers. If you have not checked out White Teeth or On Beauty, you should read them when you get a chance. Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore are very good as well.

mikemac

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marita_Conlon-McKenna

Marita Conlon McKenna

Under the Hawthorn Tree, that was read to our class when I was in primary school and I still haven't forgotton it.
A family during the Great Famine, quite a lot for a young child to take in

The Blue Horse was another, dealt with an itenerant girl and how she coped in school

squeakyduck

Enid Blyton
Harper Lee
JK Rowling
Charlotte Bronte
Sylvia Plath
Emily Dickinson
Jane Austen
Mary Shelley

Just off the top of my head....all either well loved childrens books, classics as well as best sellers. It's not a question of whether a certain gender can write, more can they write well.

Valmont

donegalfella wrote: »

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Incidentally, I was talking about this to a friend earlier and when they expressed a view similar to yours, I said I hoped that there was another Joyce or Nabokov walking around among us in the university. I looked around at the student protesters, the election posters ("vote me for chjair"), the woeful and hopelessly esoteric reading and seminar list (a resurgence of Adorno's ideas?) from the modern literature masters, the people cramming for their multiple choice exams, and I thought, well, probably not. You can probably tell I've become disillusioned with the higher education establishments.

Back on topic, surely there is another young Joyce (or Joycette) out there somewhere? Or just not as many brilliant writers as there used to be? Will there be a renaissance in our lifetimes? I bloody hope so.

Maybe this topic could do with another thread.

Rabble Rabble

No, but they can definitely type.

/ gets coat

Ficheall

SVG wrote: »

I'd love to see other people's favourites (especially contemporary) too since I tend to read more male than female authors and would like to redress the balance:).

This is probably more akin to how I should have phrased my question, I'll grant
Plath is great, and Blyton as mentioned.

I was going to make reference also to the smaller number of very talented women in a variety of fields - comediennes & musicians (not singers) were the first two that sprang to mind as are often discussed - there are many, many areas where there are less renowned females than males - but I was trying to avoid drawing fire from those who'd assume I was being sexist. I failed, obviously.

parker kent, donegalfella - as previously stated, I wasn't inferring from the one book that all female authors were bad - rather that the mentioned book got me to thinking about it. I've had a similar discussion irl before, and there weren't a whole pile of good female authors we could come up with.

Eliot Rosewater

Alice Walker - The Colour Purple! A fantastic portrayal of the tyranny that culture can sometimes place on the individual.

Valmont wrote: »

You can probably tell I've become disillusioned with the higher education establishments.

I have become a little disillusioned too, with the student population anyway. I heard today that UCC Students' Union is following its No Fees march last month with a No Cutbacks march this week. Do our future politicians and economists not see the glaring contradiction in their stance?!

For what it's worth though, I don't think the student marchers are fully representative of the "intellectual students" on campus. Though the status of the university as an academic institution seems to be taking a hitting, there still exists that academic ethos, if you look hard enough and, basically, make the "right" friends.

Queen-Mise

donegalfella wrote: »

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Absolutely categorically disagree with this - 'high culture' is an illusion. At what point was it high or low? When did high culture end or become low: when Yeats/Proust/Eliot or Joyce died. Of course we have the writers of the caliber of Joyce and Proust around - the only problem with them, is they won't be appreciated until cold in the grave !!!

And secondly writing 'well' is another illusion. Many of the great writers of the past were great because they wrote differently to writers before them. Joyce used grammar in a distinctive style unlike any previous author. John Milton writing Paradise Lost again wrote differently to past authors. William Blake was an incredibly innovative writer, writing in such a simple child-like style was complete unheard of at the time.

There is no ongoing death of high culture - culture has changed radically and ever more quickly, so what is regarded as high culture has changed rather than disappeared.

parker kent wrote: »

Raw talent certainly exists, but it is not getting a chance to come through in the ways that it used to in literature.The same thing is happening in football, music etc. Instant and predictable results are preferred instead of honing a true talent.

I think this view is ridiculous to be honest. At what point in the past two and half thousand years was it more possible for a talent to emerge in literature than it it today. Yes there is a mainstream books, music etc that may have less talent in it - but that is the same as any point in the past. Shakespeare was typical for his time as was Dickens in his.

Valmont wrote: »

Back on topic, surely there is another young Joyce (or Joycette) out there somewhere? Or just not as many brilliant writers as there used to be? Will there be a renaissance in our lifetimes? I bloody hope so.

The Renaissance was a rediscovery of ancient Greek texts (particularly Plato). So what would a 'new' renaissance be a rediscovery of.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I have become a little disillusioned too, with the student population anyway. I heard today that UCC Students' Union is following its No Fees march last month with a No Cutbacks march this week. Do our future politicians and economists not see the glaring contradiction in their stance?!

For what it's worth though, I don't think the student marchers are fully representative of the "intellectual students" on campus. Though the status of the university as an academic institution seems to be taking a hitting, there still exists that academic ethos, if you look hard enough and, basically, make the "right" friends.

University and academic don't really equal the same things. Academia really refers to the Humanities. Whereas the ITs & universities cover far more than that. So the average university student is not an academic student.

parker kent

Queen-Mise wrote: »

I think this view is ridiculous to be honest. At what point in the past two and half thousand years was it more possible for a talent to emerge in literature than it it today. Yes there is a mainstream books, music etc that may have less talent in it - but that is the same as any point in the past. Shakespeare was typical for his time as was Dickens in his.

It is not ridiculous. Modern publishing has changed writing. Publishers are struggling big-time for a lot of reasons (the end of the retail price agreement being a major reason). They often do not want to take a chance on a younger writer or hone writers over a number of books. The same way that bands no longer get 2 or 3 albums to get used to writing and performing music. It is not that unusual for somebody to get one book/album, it is not that successful and that is the last we see of them.

Publishers are also massive organisations now thanks to the mergers and acquisitions process over the last 30 years. There are far less instances of a small publisher working on a personal basis with a writer and building them up. I have had many conversations with the owner of a publishing firm in Ireland and it is a different entity altogether from when he set his business up.

Literary fiction has always been the unloved cousin of popular fiction (I did not need the history lesson on Shakespeare as my academic history has that covered!). But nowadays, it is being squeezed as publishers need to cover their bottom line and the money is not in literary fiction. Jonathan Franzen is rare beast in modern writing as he was let work on a major work for more than 5 years. Many of the best and most important books in history have been worked on for over 5 years, but publishers and writers cannot afford to do that any more. To compare it to music again, great bands in the 60s, 70s and 80s would often spend years and years writing albums. Now it is unusual for a new band or singer to go 2 years without releasing new material. The only people allowed to that in music or literature are the established talent who do not care about making a name for themselves.

A young literary fiction author is relying on an extreme good fortune to get any attention. You need to avoid the purgatory of the slush pile. You have to find a publisher or agent who believes your book is good enough. Then if you are one of the rare few who gets published by a decent publisher, you need a massive stroke of good luck to get any sort of sales or publicity. You need an Oprah or Richard and Judy moment, or else to get nominated for an award. So that is why I don't think what I said is ridiculous. Do you think The Sound and the Fury would get published these days? How many lost classics are in a slush pile somewhere or how many authors gave up after 20 or 20 rejections from publishers focused on the bottom line? Why should they spend 4 years working with a young literary fiction writer who will sell 10,000 copies when a Dan Brown or even Jordan will sell millions? So it is definitely not the same as at any point in the past.

Edit: You also missed my basic point that modern lives are different. The people who may once have written would no longer write as their life experiences which fostered their imagination no longer exist. Creative people will still exist, just their lives are different. Instead they get 600 points in the Leaving, write TV shows or just lead ordinary lives etc. I also was referring to differences in modern childhood which means that young people do not receive the same experiences of reading and writing as children/teenagers as they once did. Reading and writing go hand in hand. But many kids do not read as much as their predecessors. Hence my reference to Margaret Atwood speaking of her youth.

Valmont

Valmont wrote: »

Incidentally, I was talking about this to a friend earlier and when they expressed a view similar to yours, I said I hoped that there was another Joyce or Nabokov walking around among us in the university. I looked around at the student protesters, the election posters ("vote me for chjair"), the woeful and hopelessly esoteric reading and seminar list (a resurgence of Adorno's ideas?) from the modern literature masters, the people cramming for their multiple choice exams, and I thought, well, probably not. You can probably tell I've become disillusioned with the higher education establishments..

Don't forget 'oh you KNOW what I meant' and 'how many essays did you learn off for English, I learned 3 to cover everything'

parker kent

Ficheall wrote: »

I've had a similar discussion irl before, and there weren't a whole pile of good female authors we could come up with.

But there are hundreds of great (not just good) female writers out there. It is not like they all write in the same style or about the same topics.

You must not have read enough of them yet, what else have you read? What type of books do you like? Have you read any of the suggestions on this thread, or from the list I linked?

Kinski

I was just reading a review recently - which can be found here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n18/elif-batuman/get-a-real-degree - of a book about the history of creative writing programmes in the US. Apparently the author of this study argues that, thanks to such courses, there is more good literature around than ever before, to which the reviewer responds:

the torture of walking into a bookshop these days: it’s not that you think the books will all be terrible; it’s that you know they’ll all have a certain degree of competent workmanship, that most will have about three genuinely beautiful or interesting sentences and no really bad ones, that many will have at least one convincing, well-observed character, and that nearly all will be bound up in a story that you can’t bring yourself to care about. All that great writing, trapped in mediocre books!

Having read a few guides to creative writing recently myself, it's a perspective I can sympathize with (though I should concede here that the two most recently published novels I've read were Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice and Cormac McCarthy's The Road, both by septuagenarians - this is how up to speed I am on the bright young things of fiction). It really seemed to me that the advice been given by these books - advice presumably echoed by literary editors - stands in contradiction to so much of what has been done in great fiction in the past. Imagine telling Melville that he had to lose those quotations at the start of Moby-Dick, to cut all the damn digressions and just stick to the action, and to pare his prose, use less adjectives...this is just what these creative writing books recommend! It all sounded to me like they wanted authors to produce fiction modelled after movies.

I remember reading a piece from the 1970s by novelist and critic John Gardner in which he lamented that while his generation of authors had always desired to write fiction, younger aspirants were now drawn to television and cinema - producing novels was not, he thought, a priority for them. I'm not sure whether or not this assessment was entirely fair, but I do think we live in a very visual culture, and perhaps if there is a dearth of great writers out there then that might offer at least a partial explanation. During the summer I went to see the big film of the moment, Inception, and I was struck by just how highly charged its imagery was. The movie flitted from chase sequences to zero gravity fight scenes, cutting constantly between dark city streets, snowscapes, and dreamworlds full of strange architecture. The whole movie seemed intoxicated with the visual possibilites available to it. So when I look at cinema, television, video games, and the whole advertising industry, I think we're expending a huge amount of creative (as well as financial) capital there - so much of our creative energy is going into those things, and that has to be a drain, and maybe not just on the creative people, but on the audience too. People often ask who has the time to read literature anymore, but the question might really be who has the headspace?

Hmmm, not sure anymore what that has to do with the original topic...anyhow, both sexes are equally capable of writing rubbish.

Plowman

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parker kent

Kinski wrote: »

I remember reading a piece from the 1970s by novelist and critic John Gardner in which he lamented that while his generation of authors had always desired to write fiction, younger aspirants were now drawn to television and cinema - producing novels was not, he thought, a priority for them. I'm not sure whether or not this assessment was entirely fair, but I do think we live in a very visual culture, and perhaps if there is a dearth of great writers out there then that might offer at least a partial explanation. During the summer I went to see the big film of the moment, Inception, and I was struck by just how highly charged its imagery was. The movie flitted from chase sequences to zero gravity fight scenes, cutting constantly between dark city streets, snowscapes, and dreamworlds full of strange architecture. The whole movie seemed intoxicated with the visual possibilites available to it. So when I look at cinema, television, video games, and the whole advertising industry, I think we're expending a huge amount of creative (as well as financial) capital there - so much of our creative energy is going into those things, and that has to be a drain, and maybe not just on the creative people, but on the audience too. People often ask who has the time to read literature anymore, but the question might really be who has the headspace?

This is pretty similar to my point. Creative people are involved in different things nowadays. The written word is not the only way our most talented people can express themselves (not that I am saying that only literature existed, just that there are greater media exist now). It is like what happened to heavyweight boxing in America. Most of the great heavyweights were from a poor, Black background. Thankfully they now have more options available through education and other sports. So there are less people involved in boxing than in previous generations. The people who were great heavyweight boxers in the 1960s are now great American footballers, lawyers, teachers, soldiers etc. Any increase in options will mean a wider dispersal of brilliance.

Good point about the creative writing classes too. There is an element of "writing by numbers" to many books by contemporary writers. That does also link in with publishers and marketing people striving to create bestsellers, instead of great writing.

savina10

Was looking here for a pointer on a good read to counter balance the cabin fever in the freeze. Not sure how this happened but Alice Munro Too Much Happines fell off the book shelf.Cant remember reading it before, guess what was behind it...The Blind Assassin - Haven't seen that in a while.The perfect line up for the next two snow days. This thread has served well!

Queen-Mise

Plowman wrote: »

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I was referring to a point made by an earlier poster that there was a slow death of high culture. I was saying that this 'death' of high culture was an illusion. A crucial word to have missed from my argument.


It would not logically make sense that it is harder to publish a book now than at X point in the past. They are many more ways for an artists works to be shown to the public. It is not a modern problem alone that publishers and marketing people striving to create bestsellers, instead of great writing - this argument can be made at various points throughout history.


Of course women can be great writers also.


I was completely wrong on the meaning of the word academic - a mistake I won't make again.

Permabear

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Denerick

I agree and disagree with DF. I do believe that fantastic authors are at work but they fail to get the recognition they deserve. They either aren't getting published, or if they are, the editors have taken such an axe to their work that it isn't recognisable. Or they may only be selling a couple of thousand books to a few devoted fans. Golding only sold a couple of thousand copies of 'Lord of the Flies' initially, but it went on to be one of the great all time best sellers.

This nonsense that there hasn't been anything good written in the past 40 years is exactly that. The literary whirlpool is always in motion, its just sometimes difficult to detect it without the influence of perspective. Something we won't have until we're well into our 60s

parker kent

[QUOTE=Queen-Mise;69314141It would not logically make sense that it is harder to publish a book now than at X point in the past. They are many more ways for an artists works to be shown to the public. It is not a modern problem alone that publishers and marketing people striving to create bestsellers, instead of great writing - this argument can be made at various points throughout history. [/QUOTE]

It is more difficult. This is the first point in history where publishers are being affected by a recession or economic downturn. Publishers were always viewed as immune to economic difficulties as people historically turned to books as they were a cheap alternative to other entertainment forms. But people are not doing that any more. There are other ways to be entertained. Accordingly, publishers are competing with other forms of entertainment. Changes in the form and mode of publishing has caused changes in books throughout the history of books. Three volume novels in lending services caused a major change in how novels were written. The same thing is happening now.

Of course there has always been an argument that publishers want bestsellers and not great writing. But before they had a stable business model. Publishers don't have that any more. Commercial interests are making a much bigger impact than at any other point in history.

You mention other ways to get published, how many books published online will ever stand out amongst the millions of others published in the same way? Publishers are the gate keepers and function as a filtering agent between the crap and the great. Without that, we are over loaded and classics could conceivably exist but they would not get any attention.

It is also needs to be taken into consideration that the book industry as we know it is not that old. It is very difficult to make this argument in posts, it really needs a few thousand words, not a few hundred to convey to full range of reasons why it is difficult for any writer, male or female to create great literature.

Enkidu

Where exactly is the James Joyce of today? You'd have us believe that he is scribbling away in a garret somewhere, unrecognized and unappreciated. I think that's nothing but a myth.

I don't know much about literature (to the point that it was your posts that convinced me to buy Finnegan's Wake actually, I love it!), but wouldn't J.M. Coetzee be a great modern writer?

Permabear

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Grievous

PandyAndy wrote: »

Ayn Rand.

Started reading 'Atlas Shrugged' a while ago.

Don't see what an authors gender has got to do with anything either.

She is probably not the best example, as she wasn't a very good writer; her characters were dull and she had a habit of over-writing things.

Also, her characters where mere vessels for her REFUTED/DISMISSED Objectivist Philosophy. Objectivism/Randism promotes SELFISHNESS and comtemporary Philosophers had plenty of fun tearing her work asunder and exposing all it's inherent flaws.

To the OP:
Yes, there are plenty of amazing female writers out there. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein.
Ever heard of Flannery O Connor? Carson Mccullers? Jane Austen?

Cavehill Red

Scuid Mhór wrote: »

I heard J.K. Rowling wrote some okay books...

Really? Because I'm only aware of that turgid, derivative public school genre crap she's famous for.

Enkidu

Thanks for the detailed response.

donegalfella wrote: »

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It's an extremely interesting read (as you obviously know). At first I tried to read it by stopping everytime I didn't get something and trying to figure it out. This didn't seem to be working for me, so I then tried to just read it as if I was just listening to somebody talk. I don't get everything he says (and that's when I know I'm missing something), but in the sections where I know enough of the languages and phrases he is using to follow it, it's incredible.

Personally, I would regard Coetzee as a good writer, but not a great one.

This is the sentence I want to discuss in more detail.
What, in your mind, distinguishes a good writer from a great writer?

I'm also afraid I may be going off-topic, so I should say Barbara Kingsolver is quite a good writer.