london@oddjob.UUCP (David London) (08/23/85)
<> >> that the anger in it was almost as overpowering as "The Woman's Room". >> Don't remember who wrote "The Woman's Room" but it was very popular (and >> sort of trashisized by the media) a few years ago. >> -- >> liz sommers > *The Women's Room* was written by Marilyn French. I wouldn't recommend it > for the bathroom, though; you could tie up the john for hours reading just > because it's impossible to put down. I'm **so** glad I finally got around > to reading it. > Helen Anne I am amazed at the number of women who liked this book. I found it almost offensive. The characters were total stereotypes, with nothing interesting (new) to say. I remember when I read it, I read about a third if it, and then told the friend who recommended it to me what the rest of the book would be like. And I was exactly right. Frankly, the book is reprehensible in its treatment of men (its women aren't so great, either). I don't think there is anything to recommend it. David London ..!ihnp4!oddjob!london
friedman@h-sc1.UUCP (dawn friedman) (08/30/85)
> I am amazed at the number of women who liked this book. I found it almost > offensive. The characters were total stereotypes, with nothing interesting > (new) to say. I remember when I read it, I read about a third if it, and then > told the friend who recommended it to me what the rest of the book would be > like. And I was exactly right. Frankly, the book is reprehensible in its > treatment of men (its women aren't so great, either). I don't think there is > anything to recommend it. > > David London > ..!ihnp4!oddjob!london I also did not like the book, but mostly because of the rather common (for me) problem of adrenaline poisoning: I find it unpleasant to race through a book, heart pounding and lips drawn back in a fixed snarl, waiting for the villain(s) to get what they deserve. They almost never do in a certain genre of books; instead, I am left with an unresolved vendetta against a fictional character, not to mention the sickening sensation of having identified with a heroine (it is almost always a heroine) who is abused but never avenges herself, or even transcends the injury. I am curious to discover others who have had this problem, and what techniques they use to avoid buying and reading these books. It used to be easy to tell a Masoch Special by glancing at the first few pages: if the heroine saw a MAN and began to melt away making little queeping noises like Korob and Sylvia in "Catspaw", you put the book down and resisted your perverse desire to read the thing. But in the last ten years, many books have appeared which seem to promise interesting, assertive, tough female characters, and even keep up appearances for the thirty or so pages you can read in a bookstore, only to present you with this same character hanging on a slave-dealer's rack (actually or metaphorically) in midstream, and she never does stick a knife in this guy's back, or even get the last word in a conversation. This is a little like rereading _Bambi_ only to find Godzilla taking over on page 37. Have any of you run into this phenomenon of "mid-revolutionary bores"? For example, have you opened up any books by Janet Morris, Sharon Green (whom I hope is a man writing under a pen name), or even, to a certain extent, Suzette Haden Elgin? I greatly admire the last, but WHY does she want to write about societies where women do all the work behind the scenes but never let out a peep in public? Is this some strange psychological phenomenon in female authors? Are these women publishing their bondage fantasies for profit? That's ok, I guess, but then why don't they put some inkling of this on the cover (which invariably shows the heroine in a most dominant pose, often carrying a sword, and never doing what she'll be doing for most of the novel, namely crawling around after some man?) or add a foreword ("I like to identify with women being raped, don't you, dear reader?") Well, enough flaming till I see some response -- I quail to think what it's likely to be. But I refuse to refute until futed. dsf (Shacharah, of course)
jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) (08/30/85)
I read TWR a few years back, and kinda, sorta, enjoyed it, without taking
it all that seriously. It's a real man-hating book, with some highly
artificial twists (1. Mira meets a man who loves her and might settle
down with her--but then he gets a job in Africa(!!) and angrily demands
that she go there with him. I felt that this was out of character for
him, that French was literally performing a "character assassination".
2. The only really sympathetic male character was a black youth, the
boyfriend of a young woman. The woman is raped by a black man, and I
think the boyfriend is put in so French won't seem (heaven forbid) racist.)
But the book does have a story to tell, the characters have some interest
and go through some changes that one wants to know about, and even if
the blaming of men is grossly exaggerated, I thought it was worth
hearing what French had to say. Think of it this way: If Marilyn French
hates men, then I want to hear why she thinks so, and whether she can
offer anything that might help the situation.
Now, has anyone read "Small Changes", by Marge Piercy, which is another
book about women and men, in which much of the action takes place at the
MIT AI Lab?
John Purbrick jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA
{...decvax!genrad! ...allegra!mit-vax!} mit-eddie!mit-hermes!jpexgsophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) (09/04/85)
In article <559@h-sc1.UUCP> friedman@h-sc1.UUCP (dawn friedman) writes: >I also did not like the book, but mostly because of the rather common >(for me) problem of adrenaline poisoning: I find it unpleasant to >race through a book, heart pounding and lips drawn back in a fixed >snarl, waiting for the villain(s) to get what they deserve. They >almost never do in a certain genre of books; instead, I am left with >an unresolved vendetta against a fictional character, not to mention >the sickening sensation of having identified with a heroine (it is >almost always a heroine) who is abused but never avenges herself, or >even transcends the injury. I am curious to discover others >who have had this problem, and what techniques they use to avoid buying >and reading these books. I know exactly what you mean. I felt this way during the entire movie Tess, and this is why I never did read the book afterwards. I found that story very depressing and I ended up hating Tess more than that horrible guy who abused her. I am sure that a few well-places blows earlier on would have helped her case a lot. And that husband of hers, what a jerk! Ah well, it is hard to judge 100 year old stories (or whatever they are) by our standards of conduct. There is no excuse for writing stories like that nowadays though. I really don't understand authors who insist on writing such desperate stories about supposedly helpless people when there are people in the world who are really helpless. -- Sophie Quigley {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|linus|watmath}!utzoo!mnetor!sophie