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Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
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KillMeNow no longer has a future in journalism
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
Gertrude Stein wasn't really an exception. I don't think her inclusion by the macho men of her day was unrelated to the fact that she took on a dominant (read: male) role in her relationship and presented herself in ways that were easy to read as masculine.
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GlinCastleGirl
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
I hope we have moved beyond the sexist prejudices in writing so that women can be writers, and not "women writers." I do get frustrated at men who won't read books written by women, and the over-pinkifying of book covers.

However, it also makes me question my own reading. Am I buying into the same types of prejudices if I generally avoid reading books by men? There are a handful of male authors I read. But, if I'm roaming a bookstore looking for something new, I pretty much only look at a book if the author is female. I don't really read romance novels or what's defined as chick-lit, so I'm talking about mostly what's shelved in the literature/mystery/science fiction(to a lesser extent) sections. I read a lot and have found that I just enjoy the voices of women writers more.

So, is my buying hurting the cause of gender equity even though my money goes to support female authors?
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@GlinCastleGirl: Read what you like and what speaks to you. You don't need to give it any further thought.
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ladylie
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
I also find it interesting that classics, including some written by men-writers, have been repackaged with similar "women friendly" covers. Often, they seem to showcase a romantic image that may or may not be a plot focus in the actual book. It would make sense that marketers are trying to lure the largest market, and yes, I sometimes like romantic arcs. But I hate the implication that I am ONLY going to pick up a book if I think it is about love. Or shopping.
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Khrushchev
02/20/09

@ladylie: I hate the covers for any edition of Moll Flanders. It's not a fucking bodice-ripper.
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hollygirl
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
her son is that cute guy from the baxter and hot, wet american summer. makes me love him MORE.
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exelizabeth
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
I still know people (often men) who, when they think about it, realize they "don't read many women writers." These are well read people who still need to make an effort to include women authors. Fortunately when I have pointed this out, they usually feel kind of embarrassed, but still, in this day and age? My reading has gender parity without me even thinking much about it.
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Khrushchev
02/20/09

@exelizabeth: Every time there's a book thread on Jezebel, I am struck by the fact that out of all of us, we seem to be capable of naming the same handful of female writers over and over again. I think just knowing about female authors is part of the issue.
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exelizabeth
02/20/09

@Khrushchev: That's true, but I think the most well-read ones float to the top, men or women. I know probably as many female authors as male, and there are female authors whose whole bibliography I will read, though I find this is less true of male authors.

The other thing is I read a lot of classics, so the gender parity isn't quite there. There's just a longer history of when male authors dominated. I don't know ANY 19th century American women writers (well, Allcot), but I generally don't like that period in literature.
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emilyanne
02/20/09

@Khrushchev: maybe. I always feel on the book threads, not this time, but a lot of the time that I am naming authors no one else has read. It's not because I'm that well-read, it's simply that I've read more British authors than American ones.
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Khrushchev
02/20/09

@emilyanne: That's how I feel, although I tend to be naming American authors that I've come to know through creative writing classes. Maybe it's an obvious case of people not reading authors who aren't well-known, I don't know.
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@exelizabeth: Are you talking about *Literature* or about popular fiction? B/c yeah, if I had to talk about Literature with a capital L, I've read more male authors, but in terms of books I buy at Barnes & Noble and read in my spare time, it's way more female-centric.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
I'd be glad to drop the labels. I just want to read something interesting. Anonymous can write it for all I care.
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mbprice
02/20/09

@linnyt is a product: Interesting? House of Leaves.
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
02/20/09

@linnyt is a product: That would actually be really cool - I'd love to go for a year just reading books without knowing whether the writer was male or female.
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Khrushchev
02/20/09

@Mkp-braaaains-NYC: Have you read Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson? It's obviously different, but the gender of the character is never made clear. I thought it was a really interesting read and it ties into this idea--what our expectations are from a woman telling a story, as opposed to a man.
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PhDork
02/20/09

@linnyt is a product: Of course, Anonymous was a woman.
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Whiskey and Popcorn
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
"energetic and masculine" does not necessarily a good book make.I have been trying to read Ulysses for about 5 years, and I find it boring/unreadable, and I think this was written at that time.
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missteenwordpower
02/20/09

@JanicefromSA:bacon and butternut: Hemingway makes me want to punch myself in the face.
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@JanicefromSA:bacon and butternut: Truer words never spoken. Which is why I can't stand Ernest Hemingway, for example.
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interpretedworld
02/20/09

@JanicefromSA:bacon and butternut: Ulysses is modernist (published 1922), but certainly not American. I would call it "masculine" in some ways, but others have disagreed--French feminist critic Helene Cixous, for example, used the "Penelope" chapter as her primary example of "feminine writing."
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Majrhoulihan
02/20/09

@JanicefromSA:bacon and butternut: You need a support group for Ulysses. I think it's worthwhile, but you definitely don't read it during free moments on the subway.
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emilyanne
02/20/09

@JanicefromSA:bacon and butternut: but I would argue that the boring/unreadable comes from the fact that it's a modernist novel rather than because it's particularly 'energetic or masculine'. I never think of Joyce as being particularly 'male' in style.

Jack Kerouac on the other hand...

Now there's a supposedly muscular, energetic, masculine writer whom I loathe.
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Ailatan
02/20/09

@missteenwordpower is your sexy Ms. Magoo.: I think that some writers should be read as examples not to follow.
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emilyanne
02/20/09

@interpretedworld: thank you that said it far better than I could. I tend to agree with Cixous, I don't find it a very masculine novel. Irritating at times certainly but not particularly masculien.
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Cunning_Linguist
02/20/09

@JanicefromSA:bacon and butternut: Oh thank Jebus that someone else can't read Joyce to save their life! I've tried Portrait of the Artist at least 4 Times, so I tried Dubliners because I figured I could read Joyce in small doses, but alas. Nothing.

@missteenwordpower is your sexy Ms. Magoo.: Hemingway makes me want to punch HIM in the face. I've already suffered too much.
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Ailatan
02/20/09

@interpretedworld: écriture feminine I love to say it in French, yeah, I'm a snob.
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agameofchess
02/20/09

@missteenwordpower is your sexy Ms. Magoo.: @BeckySharper: Hemingway: Masculine? absolutely. Energetic? not so much. Unless you consider pages-long descriptions of meals exciting.

@emilyanne: ME TOO! He's terrible!

Also, @everyone, it's interesting that the general consensus is that modernism is boring. I find that postmodernist lit is much more boring in that in following no rules it sometimes gets lost in itself. I'd take the fragmentation of modernism over the self-centeredness of postmodernism anyday.
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Kivrin
02/20/09

@Cunning_Linguist: I can't read James Joyce, either. I once took some stupid quiz online -- "what classic book are you?" -- and the result was Ulysses. I was so pissed. :-P
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interpretedworld
02/20/09

@agameofchess: I love modernism--I think what's happening in this thread is a sort of bonding over not liking something people feel like they're supposed to like, because of the commanding place modernist novels occupy in our literary canon.
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emilyanne
02/20/09

@agameofchess: ha it's interesting, I have issues with post-modernism and modernism, but probably more with post-modernist authors who I think are in frequent danger of disappearing up their own fundaments.
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exelizabeth
02/20/09

@agameofchess: YES I'm really not that into postmoderniam. I'm not really into "experimental" writing in general, though, modern or postmodern.
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Mama Penguino
02/20/09

@interpretedworld: I love it, too. I think of things like William Carlos Williams' Paterson, or Pound's Cantos. My favorite short story in the entire world is and will always be "Big Two-Hearted River" by Hemingway.
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Mama Penguino
02/20/09

@Ailatan: Thank you! I actually quoted Cixious in the epigraph to my master's thesis: "Let the priests tremble, we're going to show them our sexts."
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@agameofchess: What about all those short stories about fishing?--Oh, God, not the fucking fishing again, Nick Adams!--Or game hunting? Or the bull-fighting in Sun Also Rises? There's a lot of "action" but it's all so fucking boring.
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agameofchess
02/20/09

@Mama Penguino: Even after everything I know about Hemingway as a man, that story still makes my heart hurt.
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Khrushchev
02/20/09

@BeckySharper: The bullfighting in The Sun Also Rises is miserable. But the dialogue! I like his dialogue.
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@Khrushchev: Yeah, I'll give you that. I prefer his short, sharp dialogue to, say, F. Scott Fitzgerald's wordy emo-boy ruminations. But still...so much testosterone, and still so boooooorrrring.
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Mama Penguino
02/20/09

@agameofchess: I try not to think about Hemingway as a man!
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agameofchess
02/20/09

@BeckySharper: Oh, God, not the fucking fishing again, Nick Adams!

I'm laughing right now. I suppose that I'm mincing words - "action" and "energy" are two very different things, as you've pointed out. Even fleeing war with your pregnant girlfriend in a rowboat during a storm in A Farewell to Arms is kinda tedious.

For the record, though, I love Hemingway.

@Mama Penguino: Where did you obtain that tape?! That's almost as cool as Borroughs' "Thanksgiving Prayer", which is possibly my favorite reading ever.
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Mama Penguino
02/20/09

@agameofchess: It was a long time ago, but I think I copied it from a cassette I got at the library.
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emilyanne
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
I think it's a little unfair to Gertrude myself, she's no more boring or unreadable than most modernist writers (I am not a big fan of modernism but I find it unfair to single her out, there were many male writers who were at least as unreadable). I prefer Janet Malcolm's more nuanced take on her writing, which while admitting that she is difficult at times doesn't simply dismiss her. I would recommend Malcolm's Two Lives, for an interesting take on Stein.

That apart I think Showalter's book looks interesting.
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bluebears
02/20/09

@emilyanne: total agreement re modernism.
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Mama Penguino
02/20/09

@interpretedworld: Agreed. Joyce is often thought of as more feminine. What do they call it? L'criture Feminine? Dubliners is an awesome piece of work. Ulysses, not so much.
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Mama Penguino
02/20/09

@Mama Penguino: What are YOU doing here? Sorry, ladies, that was meant to be hooked to the discussion, below.
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
Given that about 80% of bookbuyers are female it makes perfect sense that we've arrived at a time when "women writers" is as obsolete a term as "women readers."
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interpretedworld
02/20/09

@BeckySharper: That's really interesting! Can you refer me to a source on this statistic?
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@interpretedworld: Here's a good nugget from NPR: [www.npr.org]

It has a wonderful quote from my crush, Ian McEwan, saying: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead."

Every piece of market research done by publishers, booksellers and outside organizations like PEN and NEA comes up with roughly that number (having worked in publishing for nearly 15 years, I'm very familiar with those studies).
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exelizabeth
02/20/09

@BeckySharper: Good God I love Ian McEwan.
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@exelizabeth: ZOMG, he is so amazing. Every sentence is like a perfectly faceted diamond. And his women characters are awesome.

@interpretedworld: Hurrah! We need all the good women we can get!
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hortense
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
"In Showalter's view, the female writer of today has moved beyond sexist prejudice."

One look at the book cover design for a number of talented female writers says otherwise.
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@hortense: Bearing in mind that writers don't design their own covers...
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mbprice
02/20/09

@hortense: What, you mean not all books have whimsical cartoony drawings and bright pastel backgrounds?
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hortense
02/20/09

@BeckySharper: Oh totally. I'm just saying from a marketing sense, unfortunately, there still seems to be a need to yell out "A GIRL WROTE THIS! A GIRLLLLLLL!"

That being said, at least in my experience, professors in writing programs aren't just pushing males as the guiding lights anymore, which is encouraging.
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BeckySharper
02/20/09

@hortense: True. Of course, part of the reason publishers do that is that they're trying to attract girl readers...and it's generally effective.

I so wish I had gone to a college where professors weren't pushing men as the guiding lights. I think part of the reason I work primarily with women writers now is that I was so estrogen-deprived when I got my degree.
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mbprice
02/20/09

@hortense: My writing program professor was a woman. A freaking tough-as-nails woman who I'm a little afraid of, she commanded so much respect. So that's a positive, I think.

On the other hand, her advice for budding writers was "Marry someone rich," so...
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Khrushchev
02/20/09

@hortense: I have an evil memory of reading Aimee Bender's Girl in the Flammable Skirt and being accosted by a terrible young man who saw the cover and said, "I LOOOOOVE chick lit."
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hortense
02/20/09

@mbprice: My programs were split; I had really excellent professors of both genders.

@Khrushchev: Oh, dear. That is sad.
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
02/20/09

@hortense: I edited a collection of essays by women lawyers and had to repeat and repeat and repeat that I didn't want pink, high heels or anything "fluffy" about it because the designers and marketing people had one idea about what a woman's book was. So frustrating.
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NellMood
02/20/09

@Khrushchev: That's obnoxious. As an aside, I think I gave that book to everyone I knew for Christmas the year I read it.

I've noticed that the covers on the paperback versions of Alice Munro's most recent books have been pretty pink. I don't know why it bothers me, but it does.
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bowleserised
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
Nice to see a female critic having strong negative opinions about a writer without feeling like she had to draw in her critical horns for the sisterhood/delicacy's sake.
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emilyanne
02/20/09

@bowleserised: yeah except that all she's done is take the accepted view on Stein. I would be more interested if she'd say attacked Virginia Woolf. Not that I think she particularly should but the Stein criticism is pretty much just toeing the line, she's easy game.
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Bryn
02/20/09

@bowleserised: @emilyanne:

I didn't know that was the critical consensus re: Stein.

Good call, critical consensus!
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emilyanne
02/20/09

@BrightonShiny: to be fair she might well get a less critical reception in the US, I'm basing my call on the way she is seen by critics in the UK largely.
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Pizza!Pizza!Pizza!
02/20/09

In reply to Gertrude Stein: “Unreadable, Self-Indulgent And Excruciatingly Boring.”
But can I still use the term 'lady doctor'?
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