{"id":4792,"date":"2013-09-26T15:19:50","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T20:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/?p=4792"},"modified":"2013-09-26T15:19:50","modified_gmt":"2013-09-26T20:19:50","slug":"the-great-american-novel-women-need-not-apply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/2013\/09\/26\/the-great-american-novel-women-need-not-apply\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great American Novel: women need not apply"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/crookedtimber.org\/2013\/09\/23\/it-may-interest-you-to-know-but-if-not-there-is-a-scroll-feature\/\">This is such a great takedown of a certain kind  of self important American novel(ist)<\/a> that it had me giggling at work:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;Often the protagonist of an Important Novel of the Latter Half of The 20th Century is male, and is a thinly veiled version of the author. So thin of a veil. A veil so thin is it possible to discern whether the author was circumcised. Also, he often displays a particular stomach-turning combination. He regards women as, one the one hand a mere necessary evil, not things one would be inclined to befriend or discuss life with, and on the other hand, beings of terrible power that make one very angry indeed.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nWho knew Belle Waring could be so sarky? Timely too, what with the writer David Gilmour (no, not that one) attempting to take a break from a well earned obscurity by saying stupid stuff about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.randomhouse.ca\/hazlitt\/blog\/david-gilmour-building-strong-stomachs\">not wanting to teach about women writers<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nI\u2019m not interested in teaching books by women. Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories. But once again, when I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women. Except for Virginia Woolf. And when I tried to teach Virginia Woolf, she\u2019s too sophisticated, even for a third-year class. Usually at the beginning of the semester a hand shoots up and someone asks why there aren\u2019t any women writers in the course. I say I don\u2019t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\nThen saying he was misquoted and that &#8220;<a href =\"http:\/\/arts.nationalpost.com\/2013\/09\/25\/david-gilmour-there-isnt-a-racist-or-a-sexist-bone-in-my-body\/\">It was a careless choice of words. I\u2019m not a politician, I\u2019m a writer.<\/a>&#8221; Gee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is such a great takedown of a certain kind of self important American novel(ist) that it had me giggling at work: &#8220;Often the protagonist of an Important Novel of the Latter Half of The 20th Century is male, and is a thinly veiled version of the author. So thin of a veil. A veil [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-feminism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4793,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4792\/revisions\/4793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}