From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Books I Got For Xmas
Date: 3 Jan 93 19:41:24 GMT
Organization: Clark University

Santa (as played by my husband, Victor) really came through this
year.  In response to my recent curiosity, he presented me with
everything he could find that was written by John Sayles.  I knew
the work of Sayles the filmmaker, but Sayles the writer of fiction
has been lurking around for years without my paying much attention
to him, and now has hurtled out of nowhere and blindsided me like
a Fifth Avenue bicycle messenger.  When I've managed to crawl to my
feet and collect myself, I'll try to articulate what it is about
Sayles' writing that I find so impressive.

My cookbook collection had several items added to it.  Of
particular interest was _The South American Cook Book_, by Cora,
Rose, and Bob Brown (originally published in 1939, and reprinted by
Dover).  It contains a recipe for Stuffed Parrot.  My fat and sassy
parrot, Pete, likes to wake us up in the mornings laughing
maniacally and shouting "Birds can't talk!"  On Christmas morning,
Victor read aloud to him: "If young, birds of the parrot family are
seasoned, grilled before medium heat and basted from time to time
with tablespoons of cream..."  The bird eyed him and kept mum.

Also part of my haul was a book of essays by Joyce Carol Oates
entitled (Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities.  This
collection is mostly devoted to the discussion of literature, but
other subjects include food, painting, Gorbachev, Detroit, the
Ferrari Testarossa, and the transformation of one of her short
stories into the film _Smooth Talk_; there are also three pieces
about Mike Tyson which are fine samples of Oates' excellent writing
on boxing.

In the essay "(Woman) Writer: Theory and Practice", Oates discusses
the predicament of woman writers:

     A woman who writes is a writer by her own definition; but she
     is a *woman* writer by others' definitions.  (Among these
     others are, of course, women.)  The books she writes are
     assemblages of words but her sexual identity is not thereby
     dissolved or transcended, unless she writes under a male
     pseudonym and keeps her identity secret.  Books are neuter
     objects, *its*; writers are *he* or *she*...

     The irony, of course, is that while there are "women writers"
     there are not, and have never been, "men writers".  This is an
     empty category, a class without specimens; for the noun
     "writer" -- the very verb "writing" -- always implies
     masculinity. (Hence the double-edged praise that befalls the
     woman writer when she is told, by men, that she writes "like
     a man."  Which man?  I always ask.)
     ...

     The old prejudice dies hard, that a woman is a muse or nothing
     -- that is, an inspiration to the (male) artist; never an
     artist in her own terms... Gerard Manley Hopkins states
     dogmatically that "the male quality *is* the creative gift." 
     Anthony Burgess once dismissed Jane Austen's writing because
     it "lacks a strong male thrust," and William Gass once said
     that literary women "lack that blood congested genital drive
     which energizes every great style."  Is this sexual contempt
     or sexual anxiety? one wonders.  Some years ago Norman Mailer
     acknowledged that, though there were probably some excellent
     women writers in America, he would not read their work:
     *could* not, in fact.  Even excellence isn't enough to
     compensate for being female.
     ...

     So the (woman) writer has faith in the high worth of the craft
     to which she has dedicated herself, but she should not be
     deceived in gauging her relative position within it... How can
     the paradox be accommodated? one asks, and some answers might
     be: with resilience, with a sense of humor, with stubbornness,
     with anger, and with hope.

To connect this with a recent r.a.b. thread: would Anne Rice's
skill (or lack thereof) at writing from a male point of view excite
any comment at all if she had published under a male pseudonym?

Off to read Sayles' short story "At the Anarchists' Convention" for
the twentieth time...

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books