'I am changing, fearfully changing'

[flemmings]

Have had a niggling feeling all year that something was odd. Off. Borderline wrong. Finally realized what it was. My English reading for 2007 to date- China Mieville, Patrick O'Brian, Garth Nix, Wilkie Collins, John Crowley, Peter Ackroyd, Wilfred Blunt, Robert Holdstock, Booth Tarkington and currently Neil Gaiman.

They're men.

Why am I suddenly reading white male writers? (There's Natsume Soseki and Charles Saunders as well, but them I'm having trouble with.) Am I reclaiming my cultural roots from the usual domination of female Japanese writers? There's a couple of Yanks in there but these guys- pardon me, blokes- are mostly Brit, you observe. (Which argues I should be reading some male French writers too, and uh err- pass.)

Do I just have proportionately more testosterone in my system these days?

To be read: more Imaro, Outlaws of the Marsh, Michael Shea, Brust. I have Possession, I have The Tale of Murasaki, I have Quarreling They Met the Dragon; and I don't want to read any of them. Men. XY writers. RAWWWRR give me MEAT!!

(To be fair, I don't think any of the writers named indulge in the generic male sins that have put me off male writing in the past- "the story is about Me, wonderful misunderstood Me, and everyone else is purely incidental"- though Mieville comes close and Saunders needs to work on it and that's *why* I don't want to read French writers, OK? But still. 'MEAT!!! or Ima Ichiko' does not a balanced diet make.)

Comments

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

Gaiman is no DWJ, but he's okay.

I never read this thing called comics either, and Sandman is not comics by moi! =P

(OTOH, I don't read enough women! Used to ogle at this Le Guin person, been recently fingering C.J. Cherryh [q's favorite SF] a few times at libraries but got scared and choose easy-for-digestion Wodehouse instead.)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

It's Gaiman-and-Pratchett in this case. I don't think I can take Gaiman alone.

Leguin is Dry. Cherryh is Dry. Am not a fan of Dryness from either sex. Not a fan of Wetness either. Is a problem.

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

I feel that Gaiman is (much) less XY than Pratchett. About Good Omens (their sole collaboration), I don't get much Gaiman vibes but Pratchett's fingerprints seems to be everywhere. I read somewhere that Pratchett 'wrote' two-thirds of Good Omens.

('wrote' -> typed? dictated? saaaa)

Still awaiting your thoughts on Good Omens =P

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

When I've finished GO I shall give them to you. So far it's very Lennon-McCartney balanced, in that Gaiman seems to have reined in the worst of Pratchett's verbal clever-clogs and Pratchett seems to have excluded the smooth auteur smugness vibe I get from Gaiman's Sandman.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

I've read Sandman and I have only the first Discworld novel which was a gift(which I read and have no idea of now) Feels like Gaiman in Sandman form is not bad at all, but I don't think I can read Pratchett too much.

I Loved Perdido and now am toying with the idea of picking up another (when the year calms down and draws to a close, barring any other disasters!)which I balanced out by reading 'Murasaki'.

And although he didn't write them I read Murakami Haruki's 'Birthday Stories', and I may pick up one of his books to read too!

It is beginning to feel the only women authors I like and read are Jane Austen, George Eliot. I read a lot of women authors when I was a child and a teen, SE Hinton, Eleanor Farjeon (spelling?), Enid Blyton.... etc.

Perhaps age does have something to do with it after all..or hormones, whichever comes first...and likewise...

I am curious to know what you think of Good Omens. ^__^ but just keep going as you like as I love your reviews/synopses whenever and however. ^__^

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Can never keep the Murakami's straight but my feeling is that I don't like either of them. Mind you, both would read better in Japanese than English, is my feel. Perdido looks worse and worse the farther I get away from it; serious bad taste in the mouth from everything in the last quarter of it. I find Mieville has the bloke's problem with women, in that he always feels like he's seeing them from the outside even when writing their presumed pov.

Don't think I could reread Eliot if I tried. But then again, she might read completely differently now than she did 30 years back. I mean, everyone else does, sigh. What shakes me a little is that, just dipping into Outlaws of the Marsh... OotM looks fascinating in a way that nothing Chinese has since Red Chambers. Monkey, Three Kingdoms, The Scholars are a yawn a minute. Maybe this translation is just more interesting?