I admit to not approaching many of the books I read with a focused eye toward how women are portrayed, but this article and our recent reading of 2666 have caused that to rise to the surface. I think it's very possible that many characterizations and famous novels are casually and accidentally and societally sexist.
Have any of you read Rothfuss' fantasy novel Name of the Wind? I really enjoyed the main female character in that novel; she fulfills few if any of the usual fantasy-female stereotypes, and her story is told in as interesting a way as the male narrator's.
Just some thoughts.
This was an interesting read and I was just about to post it myself. I think we do ourselves a disservice when we feel guilty for being attracted to certain aspects and feel the need to apologize. I certainly have a "type" of woman that I'm more attracted to than others. That said, I could never entertain being in a relationship with someone that I found to be uninteresting, unintelligent or passive. I think many novelist get it right when they make a woman's physical beauty just one component of their character. My wife is gorgeous (imo) but she's so much more than that. But then, Heathcliff is a whole lot more complex than Catherine ever was. -Male authors just write women as hot deceitful vixens.... oh wait, that was Emily Bronte.
Ha! Maybe it's a self-defeating cycle? I grew up reading everything, but 'everything' was to a great extent novels and stories about men (don't blame me, I read Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, dammit). Now if I write, which I don't often, I think that writing a good female character is almost certainly beyond me. I think it would impudent at best and disrespectful at worst to try. Maybe most male authors feel this way? As for Bronte ... never been a big fan, but I guess I have no answer for that. Dickens wrote some incredible female characters, but he was the master.
I can understand that. I think that one thing people tend to forget about creative writing is that it's meant to address the human experience (because it's written by humans, for humans) and to do that, one needs experience. Experience takes time and though there are authors who wrote their major works around the age of 24, that was a different world. I won't say that people are more complex now than in the past, but there is certainly a more nuanced view of how to represent people believably, if only because people have found existing representations to be problematic, or not representative of their own experience. I remember writing a screenplay for my screenwriting class in college. I had a male protagonist, a buddy, a love interest and a villain (we were learning the basics by doing) and I had the worst time writing the love interest. The major reason was, I was 20 and didn't know shit about what women were like, because all the women I knew were not people I regularly socialized with, or talked to about what it's like to be human. My experience was with girls, who at the time were figuring out what it is to be a person. Most damning of all, I wasn't really that interested, since I was wrapped up in figuring that stuff out for myself. Now that I have a better idea of what it's like to be alive, I feel I can create better characters.I think that writing a good female character is almost certainly beyond me. I think it would impudent at best and disrespectful at worst to try.
Exactly. Exactly. I was reading something Orwell wrote a couple of days ago -- he said he basically stopped writing at about 17 and didn't pick it back up successfully until he was around 25. This relieved me. And what Orwell was doing during that time, of course, was experiencing some of the foremost events of the age, firsthand.
Have you ever read Forrest Gump? It's an entertaining novel. I like the movie, but the book is way funnier. First off, the titular character is even less intelligent than the Hanks version. Also, he is gigantic and monstrously strong. Anyway, Gump lives through even more significant events in the 20th century than he does in the movie and of course, he is completely oblivious to the fact that he has rubbed elbows with greatness on numerous occasions and even had a hand in inadvertently shaping history. What I'm getting at is, I think that book works so well because we're all Forrest Gump, a little bit. I don't just mean that we're a little dumb, but that's true too. I mean that we may very well be rubbing elbows with people that might change the world, or hell, even inadvertently shaping history by innocently going about our lives. Only history will tell.
Wow, I ... didn't know that was a book. Maybe I knew it at some point, but not right now. I'll be fucked. For that matter I've only seen the movie once and it was years ago. But yes. Write what you know. I've never been sure if that was good advice or narrow-minded advice; I can't decide. There was a post on hubski a few days ago that I can't find about a guy from South Korea (?) who wrote a very well-researched book on the American South -- and he was promptly criticized on the grounds that he couldn't possibly understand what he was writing about ... true? (I may be misremembering that; I wish I could find the article.) HEY humanodon I EDITED THIS LOOK AT IT AGAIN
Some day, when there's time. Winston Bloom is the author, I believe. Edit reply to flagamuffin: Roger that. Was it this one? I think you're right to question that old chestnut. I think that advice stems from the issue of believeability. No question that it's easier to write what one has experience with, but it would be silly to say that the ultimate truth of writing is that one can and may only write what one knows. I'm sure there are writers who are skilled enough that making believable characters and scenarios is entirely doable, but I would say that that's probably not true for most people. Even so, those writers do their homework and find out as much as they need to in order to pull it off, likely relying on the reader's lack of personal knowledge to sustain the fiction. A while back I took some potshots at Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, because his portrayal of Vietnam and the Philippines in the late 1960's-1970's seemed wack to me. Of course, I am not representative of the general readership. I still think I have valid gripes and the fact that I found the portrayals distracting to the point where I was unable to suspend my personal disbelief does not at all mean that Johnson is no good a creating well-crafted stories. In fact, I really enjoy and admire Denis Johnson's literary expertise, as he's primarily a poet and quite an accomplished and skillful one at that. Like a lot of advice, it is sound in general but there are likely enough exceptions that questioning it and considering its worth, are good things to do.But yes. Write what you know. I've never been sure if that was good advice or narrow-minded advice; I can't decide. There was a post on hubski a few days ago that I can't find about a guy from South Korea (?) who wrote a very well-researched book on the American South -- and he was promptly criticized on the grounds that he couldn't possibly understand what he was writing about ... true? (I may be misremembering that; I wish I could find the article.)
Yeah, that was it. Why did I just see this? This reminds me of my experience reading The Things They Carried, which I found ridiculous, although I can't remember specifically why. It's unfortunately impossible to criticize any literature about war if it's written by someone who was in war, though. Yet I don't know if anyone else is truly qualified to write on that subject. Remarque was a soldier, Stephen Ambrose decidedly not. They wrote two of the great war books I've read. What's the takeaway?A while back I took some potshots at Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, because his portrayal of Vietnam and the Philippines in the late 1960's-1970's seemed wack to me. Of course, I am not representative of the general readership. I still think I have valid gripes and the fact that I found the portrayals distracting to the point where I was unable to suspend my personal disbelief does not at all mean that Johnson is no good a creating well-crafted stories. In fact, I really enjoy and admire Denis Johnson's literary expertise, as he's primarily a poet and quite an accomplished and skillful one at that.
I don't know, shoutouts have been a bit wonky for me lately, but not in a way consistent enough to form a complaint around. If I had something in mind for this question, I'm afraid I've lost it. Anyway, research and finesse along with individual talent are for me, the pillars of writing. Talent and research are refined by finesse, research and finesse are brought together by talent and talent and finesse are supported by good research. I think successful suspension of disbelief relies on balancing these three things, but if one has direct experience with which to add weight to a work, then of course that will tend to work in favor of the piece in question, though only if the other three are present too.They wrote two of the great war books I've read. What's the takeaway?