One of my colleagues believes that "only men can write great love stories." He told me this when I was in his car and had nowhere else to go, which is probably just as well.
I felt instinctively that what he was saying was wrong, but I've heard this so often by now that I just smile and nod. What else can you say to someone whose opinion on something seems so malformed it would take several years to correct?
The impetus for his statement was Haruki Murakami's "Norweigian Wood," which, while a great love story, really only serves to convince me that only Haruki Murakami can write love stories, or perhaps more specifically yet, only Haruki Murakami can write Haruki Murakami, which is also probably just as well.
In the interests of disclosure let me say that I've often noticed how men have laid claim to the entire realm of "serious literature" (and, by extension, serious human experience.) A man's musings on the miseries of suburban domesticity and the challenges of parenthood can rise to the heights of "Revolutionary Road" or "Rabbit, Run" but a woman's writing on the same subject can hope for no more than a mention on the local paper's list of "10 Best Mommy Blogs." There's a point in here about men writing for glory and women writing merely to share, and maybe that's grossly true - men are, certainly, gloryhounds (not that women don't have the potential, but we're only recently beginning to discover it. After all, literacy was shut off to us for the majority of human history)
But in order to marshal an argument, I'll need some kind of case studies, which is where I'm actually running into some trouble.
"Gone with the Wind," was by a woman, so was "Jane Eyre" (perhaps one of the first - definitely the most famous - romance novels of all time). A woman wrote "Pride and Prejudice." Of course, these are merely "romance novels" - genre fiction! I hate people who look down on genre fiction in general, but I loathe those who relegate all women's writing to the realm of genre in particular. I realize I'm consigning "love stories by women" to a relatively specific and perhaps prissy past period in history, which is also when I realize that I really haven't read very many literary love stories by women from anytime in the last twenty years.
I read "What I Loved," by Siri Hustvedt, which while really excellent wasn't a love story in any sense of the word. "Water for Elephants" wasn't quite literary, and anyway it didn't end happily (not a requirement, but worth mentioning).
Looking through the New York Times bestseller lists can be somewhat depressing, so instead I'll glance at the fiction Pulitzers for the past twenty years. The women and books who won:
"A Visit from the Good Squad," by Jennifer Egan.
"Olive Kitteridge," by Elizabeth Strout.
"March," by Geraldine Brooks.
"Gilead," by Marilynne Robinson.
"Interpreter of Maladies," by Jhumpa Lahiri.
"The Stone Diaries," by Carol Shields.
"The Shipping News," by Annie Proulx.
"A Thousand Acres," by Jane Smiley.
It's interesting how few of these are love stories, from which I can conclude that either 1) the Putlizer Committee does not take love stories by women to be great literature or 2) women with literary aspirations, afraid of the looming "genre fiction" spectre, steer clear of writing about love. It's certainly true that writing a straight love story might strike the average "modern woman" as pre-historic. After the burst of passionate female writing that came out around the time of the second wave of feminism, it might be hard to go back to literature about love. It's certainly true that today's girls are hesitant to get mixed up in affairs of the heart, as hesitant as any man.
Of course, I haven't read all these books, which is a serious oversight. So although buying the books I haven't read will be fearfully expensive, let's call this a worthy cause. I will read these books and report back. Going by human nature and the publishing market, at least one of these will be a love story. Going by my general history with the Pulitzers, I will find at least one of them good. (You might be wondering why I chose the Putlizers: in my general experience, there's at least a good chance that I'll finish one of these books in two weeks. If I try the Nobels, on the other hand, I can't really make any such guarantee.)
In the meantime, though, I'll leave doubters with the following slam poem by Sarah Kay, a love poem that should ring true to anyone, hesitant or not, man or woman:
I felt instinctively that what he was saying was wrong, but I've heard this so often by now that I just smile and nod. What else can you say to someone whose opinion on something seems so malformed it would take several years to correct?
The impetus for his statement was Haruki Murakami's "Norweigian Wood," which, while a great love story, really only serves to convince me that only Haruki Murakami can write love stories, or perhaps more specifically yet, only Haruki Murakami can write Haruki Murakami, which is also probably just as well.
In the interests of disclosure let me say that I've often noticed how men have laid claim to the entire realm of "serious literature" (and, by extension, serious human experience.) A man's musings on the miseries of suburban domesticity and the challenges of parenthood can rise to the heights of "Revolutionary Road" or "Rabbit, Run" but a woman's writing on the same subject can hope for no more than a mention on the local paper's list of "10 Best Mommy Blogs." There's a point in here about men writing for glory and women writing merely to share, and maybe that's grossly true - men are, certainly, gloryhounds (not that women don't have the potential, but we're only recently beginning to discover it. After all, literacy was shut off to us for the majority of human history)
But in order to marshal an argument, I'll need some kind of case studies, which is where I'm actually running into some trouble.
"Gone with the Wind," was by a woman, so was "Jane Eyre" (perhaps one of the first - definitely the most famous - romance novels of all time). A woman wrote "Pride and Prejudice." Of course, these are merely "romance novels" - genre fiction! I hate people who look down on genre fiction in general, but I loathe those who relegate all women's writing to the realm of genre in particular. I realize I'm consigning "love stories by women" to a relatively specific and perhaps prissy past period in history, which is also when I realize that I really haven't read very many literary love stories by women from anytime in the last twenty years.
I read "What I Loved," by Siri Hustvedt, which while really excellent wasn't a love story in any sense of the word. "Water for Elephants" wasn't quite literary, and anyway it didn't end happily (not a requirement, but worth mentioning).
Looking through the New York Times bestseller lists can be somewhat depressing, so instead I'll glance at the fiction Pulitzers for the past twenty years. The women and books who won:
"A Visit from the Good Squad," by Jennifer Egan.
"Olive Kitteridge," by Elizabeth Strout.
"March," by Geraldine Brooks.
"Gilead," by Marilynne Robinson.
"Interpreter of Maladies," by Jhumpa Lahiri.
"The Stone Diaries," by Carol Shields.
"The Shipping News," by Annie Proulx.
"A Thousand Acres," by Jane Smiley.
It's interesting how few of these are love stories, from which I can conclude that either 1) the Putlizer Committee does not take love stories by women to be great literature or 2) women with literary aspirations, afraid of the looming "genre fiction" spectre, steer clear of writing about love. It's certainly true that writing a straight love story might strike the average "modern woman" as pre-historic. After the burst of passionate female writing that came out around the time of the second wave of feminism, it might be hard to go back to literature about love. It's certainly true that today's girls are hesitant to get mixed up in affairs of the heart, as hesitant as any man.
Of course, I haven't read all these books, which is a serious oversight. So although buying the books I haven't read will be fearfully expensive, let's call this a worthy cause. I will read these books and report back. Going by human nature and the publishing market, at least one of these will be a love story. Going by my general history with the Pulitzers, I will find at least one of them good. (You might be wondering why I chose the Putlizers: in my general experience, there's at least a good chance that I'll finish one of these books in two weeks. If I try the Nobels, on the other hand, I can't really make any such guarantee.)
In the meantime, though, I'll leave doubters with the following slam poem by Sarah Kay, a love poem that should ring true to anyone, hesitant or not, man or woman:
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