I've been reading a lot of fiction, both short stories and novel length material, by women authors the second half of the year. Perhaps it's the sample of material I've read, but I've noticed some peculiarities about women authors.
Excluding the 'classics' and period works, the contemporary ones I've read come across as very forward. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It struck me as strange that very rarely do women want to make love, rather they hurry up to the four-letter word variations. They tolerate the men in their world, but truly have no use for them. To my surprise, the vast majority of the substantial men in the sample of books I read seem to have very strong homosexual tendencies if they aren't outright gay. And there is nothing wrong with that, but it has been cliched unto my sample of reading to see a story with a strong, independent female lead and an average Joe, best friend male who happens to gay.
I've never claimed to understand the female mind, but apparently I have even less of a clue than I originally supposed.
Oh, yeah, and the antagonist is always male. Always. Because men are bad. I'm looking forward to broadening my reading by female authors to see how long these queer quarks hold true. Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. LeGuin, A.S. Byatt, and Cathrynne Valente are in the immediate future.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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