Initialed Authors
Jan. 31st, 2009 01:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
circelilyI'm always intrigued by authors who choose to be published using only their initials, and in the last month selected 2, one fantasy and one crime, partly to see if they could guess their gender and partly to speculate wildly on why they made their choice.
GM Ford conveniently had the first 2 books of a series available and I quickly ran into trouble. The women characters were harridans out to prevent the happiness of men, with the exception of the central femme. Who turned out to be just a kitten really, and solely motivated by the luv of her man. Ugh. I moved on to skim-reading after the first 2 chapters and the first chapter of the second book and had to stop. I was actually praying for the author to be male because the thought of being in the psyche of a woman that self-loathing was just so horrid. Phew - he was. Avoid.
The other was the fantasy - KJ Bishop. I quickly got the sense of Jeff Vandermeer intrigueyness (I've written it, therefore it's a word) , with that sense of steadily increasing warpedness, but more engaging and with less victimy leads. It felt female. When I got to the line "It seemed no man could conceive of her as prey," no shadow of a doubt remained.
Now confirmed on the interwebs, so I'm feeling both the smugness which comes of being right and the sadness that I still struggle with finding male authors readable. Terry Pratchett is wonderful, I haven't given up on Jasper Fforde and Philip Pullman. Elmore Leonard was fab. Erm. That's all I can bring to mind for novelists. I used to like John Irving and Piers Anthony and Jack Vance but was turned off all of them by their inability to portray a woman as a character rather than an adjunct and/or object . I do find likeable male writers scattered around in other forms - television particularly, theatre too. Mike Leigh and William Goldman in films.
But some recommendations for male novelists (any genre) that prove me wrong and get rid of this sour taste in my mouth would be wonderful.
P.S. The Bishop book is The Etched City. It is scrumptious and moreish - and a first novel! Fab.
PPS I got rather distracted from the speculation as to why. But interested in others' thoughts.
GM Ford conveniently had the first 2 books of a series available and I quickly ran into trouble. The women characters were harridans out to prevent the happiness of men, with the exception of the central femme. Who turned out to be just a kitten really, and solely motivated by the luv of her man. Ugh. I moved on to skim-reading after the first 2 chapters and the first chapter of the second book and had to stop. I was actually praying for the author to be male because the thought of being in the psyche of a woman that self-loathing was just so horrid. Phew - he was. Avoid.
The other was the fantasy - KJ Bishop. I quickly got the sense of Jeff Vandermeer intrigueyness (I've written it, therefore it's a word) , with that sense of steadily increasing warpedness, but more engaging and with less victimy leads. It felt female. When I got to the line "It seemed no man could conceive of her as prey," no shadow of a doubt remained.
Now confirmed on the interwebs, so I'm feeling both the smugness which comes of being right and the sadness that I still struggle with finding male authors readable. Terry Pratchett is wonderful, I haven't given up on Jasper Fforde and Philip Pullman. Elmore Leonard was fab. Erm. That's all I can bring to mind for novelists. I used to like John Irving and Piers Anthony and Jack Vance but was turned off all of them by their inability to portray a woman as a character rather than an adjunct and/or object . I do find likeable male writers scattered around in other forms - television particularly, theatre too. Mike Leigh and William Goldman in films.
But some recommendations for male novelists (any genre) that prove me wrong and get rid of this sour taste in my mouth would be wonderful.
P.S. The Bishop book is The Etched City. It is scrumptious and moreish - and a first novel! Fab.
PPS I got rather distracted from the speculation as to why. But interested in others' thoughts.
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Date: 2009-01-31 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 08:32 am (UTC)Just checked and woe. Murder One hit the dust THIS WEEK (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/4125973/Murder-One-crime-bookshop-to-close-within-weeks.html) :sob:
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Date: 2009-02-01 02:02 pm (UTC)And oh, how tragic!!! =(
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Date: 2009-02-01 04:53 pm (UTC)Re April - as with so much at the moment - I can't make proper plans until certain things happen or don't. So hold that thought :D
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Date: 2009-01-31 03:24 pm (UTC)I too love Mike Leigh.
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Date: 2009-01-31 05:19 pm (UTC)And Polly in Happy-Go-Lucky is genius - so incredibly irritating and such a hero at the same time. I think what I like most about Mike Leigh is that he puts two fingers up to the concept of Singlular Auteur (in both a writing and directing sense) and gives the actors both the opportunity and credit for co-creating characters.
And also remembered a few more good men novelists - Jonathan Stroud and Roger Zelazny (prompted by blurb on the Brust- good sign). George Orwell, mostly. Graham Greene. So many yays really.
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Date: 2009-02-01 07:18 pm (UTC)I think you're spot-on about the birlliance of ML's working methods. It would go tits-up for someone less capable, but he does it really well, and I think people must love working with him, cos they keep coming back (eg Timothy Spall, the sadly deceased Katrin Cartlidge, who I adored).
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Date: 2009-02-02 06:50 am (UTC)You could try Patrick White's "The Aunt's Story". The main character in that book seems as interesting and interested a portrayal of a woman by a male author as I've ever seen in fiction. At the very least she's her own person, and not any kind of projection of male fantasies or neuroses.
Cheers,
K(irsten)
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Date: 2009-02-02 08:08 pm (UTC)And I certainly will seek out Patrick White. Thanks for the tip.
And you totally get what I've been clumsily trying to articulate. The simple characteristic of female characters having agency instead of just being relative to Our Hero or any other male. Of being instead of symbolic ...aaaand as I am in danger of disappearing into Pseud's corner, I'll stop there. And thank you for writing such a splendid book - I shall be sure to keep a lookout for your later and future work.
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Date: 2009-02-03 01:45 am (UTC)Henry James was another man who wrote women as people. In the fantasy field, China Mieville comes to mind - in fact, I thought he was a woman until I saw his photograph; don't know which way my guess would have gone if the name had been C. Mieville.
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Date: 2009-02-11 07:29 pm (UTC)You will find this amusing. I'm still giggling. *gryn*
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Date: 2009-02-12 06:50 pm (UTC)