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...

coffee_cake

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

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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: »

This post has been deleted.

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.