aturday was a complete fail in terms of 48 Hour Book Challenge. Maybe I’m burnt out. Reading all those hours on Friday actually reminded me of college — having to read read read and not being able to fully enjoy what I was reading. Reading for the sake of reading… ehh I’m not big on that. Oh don’t get me wrong, I can totally see the fun in this challenge (and it is ohsonice to give yourself permission to read), but that is also one thing I don’t miss about college (actually there isn’t a whole lot I miss about college except the fact that it gave me something to do and I wasn’t just a seemingly shiftless member of society). I might try again next year — the Dewey 24 Hour Readathon though. That one seems more manageable! But hey, two reviews are coming at you this week, so it was not a loss by any means.

There is something else that kept me from getting much reading done on Saturday though. I started reading Rereading Women by Sandra M Gilbert (you know, of Madwoman in the Attic fame), and I kept thinking back on VS Naipaul’s remarks regarding women writers, how he doesn’t consider a single one his equal. I thought about Melanie McDonagh’s response to Naipaul which suggests that he is pretty much right. I then thought about Esquire and its list of 75 books all men should read that only had a single female writer on there, Flannery O’Connor, whom they probably thought was a man. I thought about the Modern Library’s list of 100 best novels of the 20th century, which featured only 6 women I think, and somehow completely missed Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which I still, a year or so after finding out about this list, find utterly shocking and downright reprehensible. I thought of Bret Easton Ellis’ recent tweet “Am I the only person who can’t get through the Stieg Larsson books even if the original Swedish/European titles are “Men Who Hate Women”?…” a comment where Larsson detractors rushed to say, yeah I thought they sucked too! without realizing that the latter part of his statement is deeply disturbing. I thought about one of my former co-workers constantly asking me if I listened to music where “women sung about their feelings” in this really sarcastic voice as if feelings in and of themselves were enough reason for disdain and condescension. My mind went to the stats VIDA Lit uncovered, that Jennifer Egan won the NBCC award for fiction yet Franzen’s pic was used in the announcement and his name was in the headline. I could go on, but why bother? We could be here all. fucking. day.

It’s easy to dismiss VS Naipaul as a cranky old coot. It really is. Too easy in fact. I understand the desire to just laugh this off as his former editor does* (via OhEmGillie). And Brendan Lynaugh of The Bark is “not going to get bent out of shape about the absurd sexism”. But I cannot. I cannot laugh at it.** I cannot roll my eyes at it. I cannot NOT get bent out of shape. Because that would require me to act as though Naipaul’s words aren’t symptomatic of this culture, that he didn’t just express what I bet a lot of other people actually BELIEVE. You know what? I’m done with that. Words have consequences. Yes, there are worse things happening in the world, things far more sexist and damaging, but that doesn’t make this okay. Just because I am choosing to talk about this doesn’t mean I’m unaware of all the other terrible things in the world. ART. MATTERS. WRITING. MATTERS. And this? THIS MATTERS. It is EXHAUSTING to have to constantly defend your worth as a human being. Women have value. Why does this need to be stated over and over again? And that value, shocking though it may seem, goes beyond being some kind of vessel for men to pour their seed into (I mean this not only in literal biological terms but also in terms of women as muse and women’s stories historically being told by men).

And here is something else that gets to me: why was he asked if he considered any woman writer his match? Do women get asked this same question? Who is your male literary equivalent? Who is your equal in stature, in prowess, etc etc? So often women are compared to other female writers, artists, etc. They are compared to other women because women are other. Therefore there is no reason to ask them this question. It’s just a GIVEN that there are men out there who are their equals. I mean, how could there not be? I mean, hey what women talk about, what women write about, that’s deemed less. It is not merely that are women considered different and other, but that everything that supposedly falls into the female sphere is considered somehow LESS. Women don’t tackle important subjects. Says who exactly? And who is determining what is and is not important? Mention that the personal is political and I think a lot of people would agree but try to actually put it into practice, and people balk. The personal, the day to day, the individual, the domestic — these things don’t matter as much as the BIG IDEAS. Well, OK, they matter if a guy like Jonathan Franzen or Gustave Flaubert is tackling them. Then it’s genius. But a woman’s writing? well that’s just “feminine tosh.” Can we just admit that the bias is already there?

Somehow it feels that when a woman’s writing sucks it is a reflection of her sex, when a man’s writing sucks, it’s just him. Many people crap all over Dan Brown’s style, but no one thinks of him as an example of how MALE WRITING SUCKS. He gets to just suck all on his own. As the privileged sex, he gets to be an individual, he isn’t lumped in with so many men before and after him, he’s just a dude whose writing style sucks. Roxana Robinson suggested that one problem is that although all novels have flaws (they’re so long, it’s inevitable), flaws from male writers seem to be more readily overlooked, whereas women’s are not (the piece is definitely worth a read though she also stated that women don’t rape which is just not true. They can and do albeit with less frequency).

So yes, if you’re wondering, the real reason I did not finish the 48 Hour Reading Challenge is that I was too pissed off. But that’s alright. All this tells me is that my desire to start a feminist/women’s site for literature and the arts has not gone away because it’s something I have to do, not only to critique (which I love doing don’t get me wrong) but also to celebrate female writers and artists. If you’re interested let me know! I’ve already got Gillian and Nidya on board

—-
*Naipaul insults his former editor directly, saying that once she started writing it was all this “feminine tosh” which she laughs off. It’s not my intention to criticize Diana Athill because she had to edit the guy for many years, and her relationship with him is obviously going to be quite different from the public’s. I don’t mean that she’s sympathetic toward him, just that she may be over it and his nonsense by this point because she’s already dealt with it in the past.

**ironically I hear the voice of Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet saying this in the BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, an author that Naipaul dismisses as purely sentimental

“I’m not a present for your friends to open” is from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, written by Bernie Taupin & Elton John.