caitri | Entries tagged with literature

H/T the lovely

browngirl who posted this in her lj. Needless to say, this poem isn't in any of my women's writing anthologies and now I am SO BITTER.

http://rejectedprincesses.tumblr.com/post/120029362767/gwerful-mechains-ode-to-pubic-hair

"15th century Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain is one of the country’s most celebrated female poets, primarily for her poem Cywydd y Cedor (”Ode to Pubic Hair”). In it, she criticizes men for praising the other parts of a woman’s body, but not the genitalia. She declares herself “of great noble stock,” urges poets to “let songs about the quim circulate,” and ends by saying “lovely bush, God save it.” "

Every foolish drunken poet,
boorish vanity without ceasing,
(never may I warrant it,
I of great noble stock,)
has always declaimed fruitless praise
in song of the girls of the lands
all day long, certain gift,
most incompletely, by God the Father:
praising the hair, gown of fine love,
and every such living girl,
and lower down praising merrily
the brows above the eyes;
praising also, lovely shape,
the smoothness of the soft breasts,
and the beauty’s arms, bright drape,
she deserved honour, and the girl’s hands.
Then with his finest wizardry
before night he did sing,
he pays homage to God’s greatness,
fruitless eulogy with his tongue:
leaving the middle without praise
and the place where children are conceived,
and the warm quim, clear excellence,
tender and fat, bright fervent broken circle,
where I loved, in perfect health,
the quim below the smock.
You are a body of boundless strength,
a faultless court of fat’s plumage.
I declare, the quim is fair,
circle of broad-edged lips,
it is a valley longer than a spoon or a hand,
a ditch to hold a penis two hands long;
cunt there by the swelling arse,
song’s table with its double in red.
And the bright saints, men of the church,
when they get the chance, perfect gift,
don’t fail, highest blessing,
by Beuno, to give it a good feel.
For this reason, thorough rebuke,
all you proud poets,
let songs to the quim circulate
without fail to gain reward.
Sultan of an ode, it is silk,
little seam, curtain on a fine bright cunt,
flaps in a place of greeting,
the sour grove, it is full of love,
very proud forest, faultless gift,
tender frieze, fur of a fine pair of testicles,
a girl’s thick grove, circle of precious greeting,
lovely bush, God save it.

Okay, so the other night I got into a spat on FB about "taking genre writing seriously." Because, you know, lolz, and whatever, amirite? *snort* But it got me thinking on the topic of writing and reading (shocking, I know), and what they mean in the everyday sense.

The Value of Literature

So lo many moons ago I remember my Mom asking me in college, "Are you sure you want to be an English major? You're never going to get a job!" Which is a not unusual statement from many parents. Which is untrue because 1) strangely enough the ability to write in a concise and comprehensible way is actually NOT easy, so people actually do want these skills in a variety of jobs, and 2) the ability to write when balanced with an ability to think critically and under time constraints is also fucking useful. And these are the things that most often come up when people want to defend the humanities, but this overlooks the specific value of literature. Literature is valuable in that it is kind of the doctor of our culture, taking our pulse and telling us what's going on. The recurrent trends in publishing are more than what's popular, it's what we are thinking about, anxious about, preoccupied with.

Plus, my more cynical response: We can't all be fucking neuroscientists. There are a thousand and one ways to contribute to society, and literature is one. I think it's really telling that we tend to value only the really high-end jobs: actors, sports players, government officials, etc. But you know who is invisible and who, once they are gone, you really miss? The janitors. And a lot of writers are kind of like janitors, there's tons of "invisible writing" out there that we don't think about but we need in our lives.

The Value of Popular Literature

Popular literature is like Culture Concentrate: everything that worries us in big neon letters. The common wisdom used to be that popular literature and genre writing were the distillation of the status quo, but a century of literary criticism has proven that's not always true, and often, far from it. Whatever you might think about the Twilight books, they opened up a metric fuckton of conversations about young women in our culture--and a lot of these were conversations we REALLY needed to have!

The other thing about genre writing that I liked to point out when I taught was--literature that is not highly regarded thus has a LOT of wiggle room to do interesting things. For instance, comic books: as painfully bad as a lot of writing is especially in older books, they got away with a LOT. I remember being really struck by a Captain America comic ca. 1964 where Cap declares that the greatest thinkers of the new generation were Martin Luther King Jr., Marshall McLuhan, and JRR Tolkien: a civil rights leader, a media theorist, and a fantasy author. And holy fuck is that one trifecta to hold up as intellectual standard--and to a bunch of kids no less!! The entire genre of science fiction has always been the playing ground for a variety of exploratory political ideas, back to the 16th c. with Thomas More's Utopia.

Art is always political.

Whether it's high or low art, it's still true. Nothing is created in a vacuum, and everything is a product of its own time: it's an action, a reaction, and a lot of works are famous for starting chain reactions right back: Whether it's Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Jungle, or apparently right now, The Hunger Games (check out what's going on in Thailand if you don't believe me).

Why I take genre writing seriously.

You know, a theme of the 16th and 17th centuries was the ability to read correctly--it was part of that whole Reformation thing that then seeped into everyday life. I've been reading Thomas Hobbes and William Tyndale back to back, and man, the preoccupation with reading--specifically the Bible, but everything to a lesser extent--is just so acute. Which, of course, it would be, back when reading the wrong thing could get you hanged for treason or excommunicated or worse. But this determination to read everything as meaningful--the events of our lives as well as the words on (any kind of) page--is still something we see in our society, and hell, it's probably hard-wired into us now if it wasn't five hundred years ago. I think the ability to read seriously is what gives insight not only into specific works but also into our culture. I feel that's important for me to do not only as an individual but as a citizen of the world. If by reading certain things I see that some are oppressed, then I want to do that which will free them; if by reading I see something that hurts, then I want to find the thing to contribute that heals--etc. ad nauseam. And we all do this too, whether it's by choosing to--or not--shop at certain stores or using certain products or companies or (strangely enough), books.

Current Mood: thoughtful

Oh look, another case of "transformative work becomes literature when a white man does it."

Mammy Revealed, and Not Just Her Red Petticoat; ‘Gone With the Wind’ Prequel Coming in October

Mitchell was criticized for the one-dimensional nature of many African-American characters in the book, particularly Mammy, who cared for the fiery Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara. An unauthorized parody of the classic novel, “The Wind Done Gone,” published in 2001 over the objections of the Mitchell estate, was told from the perspective of a slave whose mother was Mammy.

Mr. Borland said the new book addresses those criticisms head on.

“What’s really remarkable about what Donald has done is that it’s a book that respects and honors its source material, but it also provides a necessary correction to what is one of the more troubling aspects of the book, which is how the black characters are portrayed,” Mr. Borland said.

In an email, Mr. McCaig, 73, who lives on a farm in Virginia, said that he was drawn to write about Ruth because there are “three major characters in ‘Gone With the Wind,’ but we only think about two of them.”

“Scarlett and Rhett are familiars, but when it comes to the third, we don’t know where she was born, if she was ever married, if she ever had children,” he said. “Indeed, we don’t even know her name,” he said. “Ruth’s Journey” also fleshes out the story of one of the more compelling figures in “Gone With the Wind,” Ellen Robillard O’Hara, the matriarch of the clan, who dies at the Tara plantation during the Civil War. Among the other new plot twists Mr. McCaig dreamed up: Ruth, has an early marriage that was not broached in “Gone With the Wind”; and she has a connection to Rhett Butler’s family that explains her hostile behavior toward Rhett later in the classic novel.

You know, I'm really fascinated by this, but my hackles are up that they hired an OLD WHITE MAN to tell a BLACK WOMAN'S STORY. Now in fairness, from the article it sounds like they hired McCaig to do a prequel, and he said that he wanted to do it about Mammie, which is a little different, but still. I really, really want a serious treatment of this issue (the parody The Wind Done Gone was a story told from the POV of Scarlett's mulatto half-sister, which sounds GREAT, but the excerpts I read online were TERRIBLE, without--as near as I can tell--any historical understanding or reflection on historical race issues etc etc) but I don't think this is it.

Let's consider Django Unchained as the other recent black slave's story told by a white man narrative (note: I enjoyed parts of the film and what it tried to do, but damn it went wrong in so. many. places.). Here's Jesse Williams's (yes, the actor, who used to be a history teacher and who is also just a fucking brilliant author and analyst) essay on Django, In Chains

In the film's opening sequence, shackled blacks literally hold the key to their shackles and don't use them, choosing instead to trudge forward, hindered by biting chains, to kill a white man. In the third act, after seeing Django kill the Australians, the blacks sitting in an open cage neither communicate with each other or consider stepping outside of the cage.

In fact, in this entire, nearly three-hour film, there are no scenes with black people interacting, or even looking at each other, in a respectful or productive way.

If only one black person (Django) displays the vaguest interest in gaining freedom, while the rest consistently demonstrate that they wouldn't do anything with that freedom, were they to obtain it, then we're not able to become invested in them or their pursuits: We can't relate to shiftless characters. Being illiterate, and/or brown, does not remove the ability to think, or observe or yearn or plan or develop meaningful relationships.

...

"Django" is just a random guy, who, to no credit of his own, was plucked from slavery by an impressive white man and led on a journey to save his wife.

Co-opting narratives is always problematic, but even more so when it's white authors co-opting racial narratives in a country that is still dealing with these issues. (As Aasif Mandvi recently pointed out on The Daily Show mock-seriously, we're "still reeling from a civil war.") You only need to consider the problems of stories like The Help (in which the Civil Rights movement is personified through the voice of a white woman) or, Gods help us, A Song of Ice and Fire (you know, Daenerys having to explain to all the brown people that slavery is wrong. *headdesk*). Or, even better, the yet more recent case of 12 Years a Slave posters focusing on the white stars:

I especially love Brad Pitt's halo.

Sigh.

Now, all of this isn't to say I don't think white writers can tell the stories of non-whites effectively, or with care. I think it can be done, but I think A LOT has to go into considerations of cultural appropriation, historicity, and think-checking one's own privilege, and all too often, neither of things happen. Hence we end up with Racefail and, you know, The Last Airbender *shudder*

IN CONCLUSION:

This book is problematic.

Current Mood: thoughtful

(I still say I want the TED talk Tony Stark would give. Todd maintains this is disrespectful to real brilliant people to want to hear about a pretend brilliant person, but I maintain it's not my fault that I tend to prefer pretend people to real people, period.)

Current Mood: awake

WARNING: This post contains lots of profanity.

Much handwringing at year's end from the Times Online which I have yet to learn to *not* read in order to protect my blood pressure.

It was a year in which a certain type of person died — Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Norman Mailer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jean Baudrillard. These were intellectually pungent, culturally potent individuals, angrily dismissed as often as they were called “great”, “seminal” or “genius”. And with Luciano Pavarotti dead, another type of greatness vanished from the planet.

No Kurt Vonnegut mention? Tsk.

Technology, hype and the sheer profligacy of the arts when confronted with a large, hungry and wealthy audience have created a climate of excess — just too many artists, too much money, too many works and too much noise. Who knows who, now, is great? Even if greatness existed, how would we find it? Do we want greatness, or would we simply prefer choice?

I'm sorry you're bitter about the rise of the blog. Do go on.

As a mass-market product, the novel is dominated by women. Women, overwhelmingly, buy novels; and, as a result, women write them. Chick lit and Aga sagas are now distinct and, seemingly, enduring fictional forms. The “great” novel, however, is dominated by men. Ask any collection of reasonably well-read people who are the great novelists of our time and the chances are they will reel off John Updike, Roth and, probably, DeLillo as if they were one gigantic genius of fiction. “They,” says Ian McEwan, “are the gods.”

Well fuck McEwan up the ass with a stick! He wouldn't know decent prose if it bit him! What the fuck about Neil Gaiman and Diana Gabaldon, who I wager both can say a hell of a lot more about humanity, beauty, and general fucking existence on one fucking page that all of those buggers combined!

D'you want to know why the "great novel" is dominated by men? Because fucking publishers are unable to publish a book by a woman that doesn't have a fucking shoe on the cover! Joanna Kavenna's Inglorious was one of the best new books I read this year, an exploration of depression, mortality, and emotional breakdown, and they have to sell it with a pair of FUCKING SANDALS on the cover!!!!!

The writer tries to back off here with a brief paragraph on two women writers who I've never heard of, and get this:

...in fact, everything she writes is suffused with extraordinary beauty and almost unbearable insight. She is the greatest of all writers on love.

The fuck? Women writers are limited to the fluffy bunny aspects of the emotional spectrum. The hell? Again, read Diana Gabaldon. She had two new books out this year, including Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade. I daresay if it had been written by a writer with a penis it would be popping up all over the literary year-end lists because of its explorations of homosexuality in the eighteenth century and its descriptions of life as a British officer, but guess what? No penis: no recognition.

Okay, there's quite a lot more of the article that I'm not breaking down because I'm just too fucking mad. My advice to you, dear readers, is if you choose to read the offending article, don't do so sober.

Current Mood: angry

I got to put together a description of the book selections for the book discussion group at work this week. After doing that (scouring Amazon.com, Publisher’s Weekly, and other sources in order to adequately describe books I haven’t read, and after doing this, don’t really want to, either) and too much time killed in bookstores and libraries (heh), I think I’ve come up with a new theory of literary fiction, which is to say, what the publishers, awards folks, and various peculiar people push on us.

The following elements are involved, with their translation:

--“psychological intricacy” = the main character will do nothing but have lengthy wining monologues and the occasional conversation; after 400 pages or so, very little if anything will happen.

--“epic panache” = need to justify 800 page hardcovers.

--“harrowing meditation” = numerous characters will die, and probably kittens and puppies as well.

--“complex figure” = the protagonist is a douchebag, except the publisher doesn’t want to market it that way.

--“timeless themes” = you’ve probably heard this one before, possibly even in your exceptionally lame high school English class where you still had vocabulary quizzes.

Likewise I’ve noticed a kind of running theme in cover art lately that bugs me. I was in a Books-A-Million with Scott the other day and was trying to demonstrate this to him, but he didn’t buy it. Well he says he didn’t—he probably just wanted us to get out of the bookstore before I found something I had to have—but anyway.

If the book has the following on the cover it means:

Shoes = chick lit, whether it actually is chick lit or not. I really liked how Jessica Crispin over at Bookslut pointed out that the cover for the American version of Inglorious depicts a woman’s lower body and how her sandals have a broken strap, as clearly a novel about a woman having a nervous breakdown can be shorthanded to “broken shoe!”

A painting (assuming the book is not a biography and the painting’s subject is the same as the book’s) = pseudo-historical thriller, most likely trying to cash in on Dan Brown.

A country house, row house, other towny constructions = serial and/or “Christian fiction or romance” (smoochies as far as it goes, and at the end at that!)

A random object = weird thriller by someone you’ve never heard of and never will again.

Okay, I meant to have some deep thoughts somewhere in here but then found out the book discussion group just picked Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach and I’m trying to think of reasons not to tear out my own eyeballs. Grr. Argh.

Current Mood: bored

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"Let songs about the quim circulate"
Some Thoughts on "Taking Genre Writing Seriously"
Hrmm, Appropriation Issues Much?
Hey Look, A Post About Writing That Isn't Whining!
Where All De Great White Men At?, or, A Profanity-Laden Rant
Random Thoughts on Literary Fiction and Publishing

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Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

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Entries tagged with literature

"Let songs about the quim circulate"

Some Thoughts on "Taking Genre Writing Seriously"

Hrmm, Appropriation Issues Much?

Hey Look, A Post About Writing That Isn't Whining!

Where All De Great White Men At?, or, A Profanity-Laden Rant

Random Thoughts on Literary Fiction and Publishing