So Esquire magazine recently posted a list of “The 75 Books Every Man Should Read” on their website. Esquire being Esquire – that is to say, a men’s magazine that had its glory days in the era of Mad Men and that seems to be aimed mostly at old farts (and aspiring old farts) — only one book of the 75 was written by a woman. (That’s 98.67% male, for those of you with lady brains who can’t do the math.)
The internet being the internet, some people noticed that the list was a wee bit heavy on the dudes, even for a men’s magazine, and pointed this out. The bloggers at the Joyland Publishing blog suggested that while the books on Esquire’s list were “mostly fantastic,” it might behoove men to pick up a book or two written by a woman once in a while. And so, with the help of some of their readers, the two assembled a list of “250 Books By Women All Men Should Read.” (Why 250 and not, say, 75? Because they got a lot of suggestions.)
Here’s a little one-question quiz for you all: What title did W. F. Price at The Spearhead give his post on the controversy?
A) “Some Great Suggestions for Books by Women You Guys Might Want to Read.”
B) “Did You Know There Are Female Authors Besides The Chick That Wrote Harry Potter?”
C) “Feminist Publishers: Force Men to Read Women’s Lit”
Yep, the correct answer is C, of course. Apparently a couple of bloggers suggesting some books by women that men “should” read is some kind of Gestapo-like imposition upon men by “Feminist Publishers.” Price grouses:
[I]it strikes me as rather mean-spirited of females in the publishing industry to denounce even ineffectual efforts to introduce men to literature. By all accounts, publishing has come to be dominated by women, and men are reading far fewer books than women these days. Given this state of affairs, you’d think that the women in the industry might be a bit gracious and let the boys pick and choose which titles interest them.
But of course that won’t do, because feminists must find fault with any and everything men are involved in. …
The implication [of the Joyland Publishing blog post] is that men should be forced by political pressure to read female writers (sometimes these feminists come off as whiny, annoying girlfriends complaining that “he just won’t listen to me!”).
Or, you know, it might just be that the writers of the blog post, and those who wrote in with suggestions, really enjoyed the books in question and thought that dudes might just enjoy them too. Sort of like when a friend tells you that you should totally watch the movie Dogtooth, because it is so fascinating and creepy and awesome. Or when I tell you right now that you should go watch Jane Austen’s Fight Club on Funny or Die.
Naturally, the comments from Spearheaders were even more ignorant and obtuse than Price’s post. The basic theme: Bitches can’t write for shit (as far as I know).
In case you think I am offering an unfair characterization of the, er, debate, here’s one Spearheader’s contribution to the discussion:
when a man says “no, I won’t read your literature”, you have to respect that, bitch.
And another’s:
I basically do not read anything a wimminz has written, not even in my favourite genre of science fiction, because every single time I have tried they have been unmitigated fucking crap full of feminazi girl power bullshit and emotional baggage and basically very little hard SF…
And still another’s:
I never read anything written by women unless it happens to be instructional and related to work. Pretty much all the fiction I’ve ever read is by and for males. If I read some non-fiction for fun it’s always got a male author. I realized a while back that my cd collection is about 98% male. When I was a kid I never thought about it, it just came naturally. Now that I’m older I intentionally avoid anything by women.
It’s always,er, instructive to see what some random guy who apparently reads mostly instructional manuals has to say about the literary controversies of the day.
There were, of course, more thoughtful analyses, like this earnest comment from the excitable, exclamation-point-happy David K. Meller:
Women write for an audience of their own level–to wit themselves! Most men are simply too intelligent to be interested in what passes for literature scribbled by women! …
Correct me if I am wrong, but is most woman’s “literature” one more kvetch klatsch of women–or girls–getting together to complain about, to defeat, or to evade the workings of us evil, letcherous, abusive, horrible M-E-N! There is no point in men reading such drivel …
There may be better days coming; when women are once again taught the arts of pleasing men, in their creating a comfortable environment for the chosen man in their lives, and when they again will use their ability to read to discover new and better ways to do this, and their ability to write to communicate these truths to others of their sex! Until that happens, literacy for women, much less dominance in authorship, editing, and publishing has been, and is, a BLOODY MESS for everyone, especially men!!
PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
David K. Meller
Yes, women should really only be allowed to read and write if they are reading or writing instructional manuals on how to cook and give better blow jobs, possibly at the same time.
PEACE AND FREEDOM!! to you too, good sir.
Speaking of which — the blowjob bit, not the PEACE AND FREEDOM!! — the commenter calling himself dragnet suggested that young men such as himself were simply too busy to read much of anything. They have other priorities:
The vast majority of my reading is for work, research, and classes. …
Frankly, I’d rather be getting laid than reading a novel after a grueling work week. The three or four hours I sometimes have free on the weekend when I’m not working or working out or sleeping or eating, I’d rather be out with my friends or getting serviced by whatever girl I’m with at the time.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a penis, must be in want of some girl to service it.
PEACE AND FREEDOM!!1!!
Anyway, ladies and manginas, any good lady books you want to suggest for the dudes of the world?
@Lyn omg xD I think I ttlly would enjoy talking to you about the WoT xD There’s SO MUCH there that is just… thinly veiled ideas about ender roles or feminism (like you said) :3
!NWO or Moby Dick? Skip the Cetology bits (they’re frickin’ hilarious in retrospect, but give nothing to the story) and it’s a pretty amazing book otherwise.
Also, a knowledge of classics is not a bad thing. Like the Odyssey or the Illiad. There’s a great series, “Illium” and “Odysseum” and, i believe, “Hyperium” (but don’t quote me on that) that’s a hard sci-fi epic built on the scaffold of those books. They become much more interesting with knowledge of the source. As well as Proust and Shakespeare, etc.
I, too, will reject the idea that the only great literature is old literature. But knowledge of the classics can help a ton in appreciating new works.
I love how I’m a moron for finding the vast majority of “classics” boring. Yet I doubt any of you have read The gane of thrones series. Too funny.
Actually, considering all the people talking about it (and not just the series) I think that isn’t quite right.
I’ve read Game of Thrones and it is brilliant. Poe is cool, too; never really got into Nietzsche.
However, there’s a lot of great classic literature too. I cannot recommend Frankenstein too highly– much better than the movie, IMO. Classic poetry is great, from John Donne to Catullus. I love anything with dick jokes. 🙂 Milton’s a brilliant writer and Paradise Lost really repays the reading of it. And of course, Ms. Classics Minor loves anything Greek or Latin, from Homer to the Satyricon to Marcus Aurelius to Plato (except not Aristotle, he writes like a lease agreement, I am sorry).
However, I do not understand how anyone can read Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness, uuuugh.
And dude, if I wanted to brag, I’d mention that I’ve read the Aeneid in the original Latin. 🙂
Nobby you don’t understand I’ve read most of them. I’m sorry for my poor taste is literature. I find them boring.
In this group NWOslave? Please try to not remove all doubt of your complete moronitude.
I also renew my suggestion we make a book group on Library Thing.
Avicenna I’ve read Wheel of Time a few times. The first few are good, then it gets really slow for a few books & I nearly gave up. He slowly started picking up again around book 9, but the books Brandon Sanderson has done since Jordan died are *really* good. They’re both ok at writing female characters, not great, but they didn’t want to make me hurl the books across the room, either.
The thing about classics is that, overall, they’re probably going to be better than contemporary fiction, overall simply because they’ve survived so long and so many readers have found them meaningful and entertaining. You know Aristophanes is funny, because the Ancient Greek equivalents of Epic Movie nobody bothered to preserve for ten thousand years. Of course, the problem with reading Aristophanes is that you’ll sometimes get an incomprehensible passage with the footnote “this is a hilarious pun in ancient Greek”, so it’s a bit of a tradeoff.
I’m sorry too, they’re pretty great. Your blanket dismissal of all classics as ‘boring’ leads one to think that you haven’t really tried.
Also, I second the “Star Wars Books are in the top 4 books ever”. Sorry, they may be a fun read, but the few I’ve taken up have not been in the top 4 books of all time.
Oops, I second the rejection of that. Not the statement >.<
I’ll admit I really haven’t read any poetry. Even stuff like Beowulf.
Second to @Ozymandias’s point. Classics are classics for a reason. Sturgeon’s law applies to everything, but classics are the 10% that survived the culling of the ages.
I love how I’m actually prolly the least geekiest person in this entire blog xD (which is neither me wanting to be or being sad I’m not, geeks are awesome! 😀 I’m just amused XDDD also now I’m left out… awwww *sits in the corner like a good beta geek*)
@Ami just find a good game of D&D 3.5 and go from there. You’ll catch up in no time :-p
I’ve read Donne, no Catullus, Milton meh, Homer again Meh. Too funny I like Aristotle. I’m pretty sure Steven Kings the gunslinger series was based on a poem Child Roland, I think (dont know the author). To each his own. Like I said I have yet to find anything equalt to Game of thrones. It was so well written, the perfect balance of meat and taters, the storyline and characters I thought were outstanding. Like I said to each his own. Jules Verne, if thats considered a classic he gets my vote. I guess for reading entertainment I prefer Sci-fi or mid-evil.
I dunno nebody IRL who plays D&D xD My real life is amazingly NOT geeky vs my online life xD I’m always shocked by how many ppl I meet who actually DON’T get Star Wars references or other simple geeky stuff xD Just “blink… I don’t watch.. nething” xD
I dunno if I want to play D&D (I’d prolly be annoying xD ), I think I would enjoy watching 😀 Tho eventually I’d prolly want to play xD
Verne is certainly a classic, and yes, It’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, by Robert Browning.
I love how this is like a truce 🙂 <3 It's luffly and makes me happy :3
I like the Odyssey. It’s been one of my favourites since childhood. I was just wondering if you’ve read it, since you like adventure stuff and “manly action” and whatnot. Jesus. Not everything is an attack.
I’m feeling a bit left out of this thread, to be honest. I don’t really read much modern literature, other than the occasional Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, and Douglas Adams.
This past year I’ve been reading 19th-early 20th century vampire stories (for my drawing series), which tend to vary in quality*. I’ve also been alternating them with Sherlock Holmes stories.
*I highly recommend Carmilla and La Morte Amoureuse. La Morte Amoureuse is quite sexist, with its “women are foul temptresses who lead men into sin” moral, but I absolutely loved the vividness of the descriptions. I’ve never read a book that exited the visuals in my brain quite as much as that one did. I read an English translation titled “Clarimonde”. I highly unrecommend Varney the Vampire, or: The Feast of Blood. Ugh.
@Ami – yeah I’m re-reading the series now and seeing all these Christian elements and Tolkenien elements that I somehow missed all those times I read the series as a teenager. I think the first book is particularly Tolkenien – start in a small agricultural village with a party, escape the dark riders by crossing a river in a ferry after dark, Two Rivers is known for its tabac, Dark One has no motivation beyond wanting to destroy stuff etc.
@Ami Well, if you find a good group I’m sure they could manage some extra energy. I mean, just look at these people:
Spearhafoc – those vampires are made of win (love Carmilla) and I am also a big fan of Neil Gaiman. Have you read his poetry? It’s gold. ‘Instructions’ is my favorite…I kindof want part of it tattooed on me!
Also, I’m apparently totally merging topics from two posts. Whatevs. I needed an excuse to post that.
Ohhhhh. Where to start with this post.
Let’s begin with the positive: Jane Austen’s Fight Club is one of the funniest things ever!!! I actually cried.
OK, George Elliot, George Sand, the Bronte sisters–all women who had to publish under men’s names. “Wuthering Heights” was considered by one reviewer to be obviously written by a man because of the virility of the prose.
MRAL: Read Woolf’s “Three Guineas.” It is a short and easy read and will explain how an intelligent woman you enjoy reading could consider feminism important. Also, I hate to break it to you, but the women you don’t like are not feminists and the women you do generally are. Finally, have you seen the movie “Where the Wild Things Are”? That is the reaction that people have to unmanaged anger.
The situation with what some male academics call the “feminist cheerleaders” (women promoting women-authored fiction)–this is an incredibly complex and contentious issue regarding “canon formation”: who gets to be considered “worthwhile” literature? It’s an important problem because the professors who teach the types of lit that are not considered worthwhile (it’s usually an unfortunate binary opposition of “dead white males” and various marginalized groups–obviously we need all these camps, but in the real world choices have to be made) are going to be out of work. Academics is a business like any other (would that it were not!). Also, ideologically, what we want to read says a lot about who we are. If only male authors are considered valuable then we are saying something about what we think women are capable of contributing to society generally.
Personally, I enjoy and teach a lot of male authors (and my male colleagues enjoy and teach many female authors). But I’m also aware that most of the authors I can select are male because I teach a specific period of lit (pre-20th century) when women authors were still very much marginalized. So, I’m 100% behind the feminist recovery efforts that dedicate themselves to discovering female-authored fiction that has been ignored historically. Is some of this stuff crap? Sure. But some of it’s not and the process of uncovering literature that we’ve ignored, recognizing that we have lost some valuable stuff, is necessary. You dredge up some crap when you recover treasure. OK, I could go on and on, so I’ll just make two more quick points:
(1) I’m not into sci-fi so I’ve found this discussion very illuminating. Thank you to all!
(2) MRAL–my Dad read Austen’s “Persuasion” when he was a teenager and he has always said it was the first time he realized a woman could write something worth reading. You might enjoy it, too. Also, Western feminism is not the only kind there is–Nawal El-Saadawi is an Egyptian feminist/activist and her fiction and non-fiction are powerful testaments to the continued suffering of women in our world today (not just when Woolf was writing).
P.S. Angela Carter!!!