{"id":1850,"date":"2021-06-08T12:28:39","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T10:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=1850"},"modified":"2021-06-08T12:28:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T10:28:39","slug":"the-feminisation-of-literary-fiction-is-it-happening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2021\/06\/08\/the-feminisation-of-literary-fiction-is-it-happening\/","title":{"rendered":"THE FEMINISATION OF LITERARY FICTION: IS IT HAPPENING?<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\tI am reacting here to an article by Johanna Thomas-Corr, published on 16 May in The Guardian<\/em>: \u201cHow Women Conquered the World of Fiction\u201d<\/a>. The arguments, as you will see, are not 100% new, but they are worth considering (again). The subtitle, by the way, reads \u201cFrom Sally Rooney to Raven Leilani, female novelists have captured the literary zeitgeist, with more buzz, prizes and bestsellers than men. But is this cultural shift something to celebrate or rectify?\u201d The keywords \u2018buzz, prizes and bestsellers\u2019 reveal that Thomas-Corr is not quite interested in quality but in the public visibility of new authors and novels. The concept \u2018literary zeitgeist\u2019, it must be noted, does not refer to genre fiction but exclusively to literary fiction, which is the focus of the article. Incidentally, Thomas-Corr does mention at the end of the piece a longish list of exciting, new male writers. Call me dirty-minded but I very much suspect that her ultimate aim is promoting them (or echoing their promotion by their respective publishing houses).<\/p>\n

\tThe main question that Thomas-Corr examines is whether \u201cMen\u2013and especially young men\u2013are being shut out of an industry that is blind to its own prejudices\u201d, meaning that said publishing industry is not treating male writers with the same care it is investing in female writers. The secondary question she examines is whether, in fact, fewer young male writers are currently writing literary fiction. Flippantly, the journalist writes that \u201cWhenever I speak to men in their 20s, 30s and 40s, most tell me they couldn\u2019t give a toss about fiction, especially literary fiction. They have video games, YouTube, nonfiction, podcasts, magazines, Netflix\u201d. I myself am a big fan of non-fiction and fail to see why this genre\u2014in my view far superior in interest to today\u2019s literary fiction\u2014is dismissed like that; besides, my impression is that nonfiction is a very egalitarian genre, with a paritary representation of men and women authors (and readers). I do not dispute that young men read less literary fiction than in the past, and less of everything else than in the past, but I do dispute that what they read is not worth considering as quality writing\u2014particularly in view of how genres that interest women, such as romance, are treated.<\/p>\n

\tBut, back to the journalist\u2019s argumentation: young men read less literary fiction, which also means they write fewer books in that genre, and, anyway, when they do write them, their novels are not received with the same eagerness as the novels by young women. The reasons for this, the article claims, are that there is an increasing number of women in key positions in the publishing world, as editors and agents, and that women readers seemingly prefer women authors, which is creating a snowball effect. The more you connect women with literary fiction at all levels, the less men are present in it at all levels. This, of course, is disputed by the many male readers commenting on Thomas-Corr\u2019s article and I am certainly convinced that the number of male readers who avoid women\u2019s writing for misogynistic reasons, or basic lack of interest, has been diminishing constantly. In fact, the issue that Thomas-Corr raises is not problematic in genres such as detective fiction, which is written (and devoured) by absolutely everybody. I do have myself some misgivings that, as Thomas-Carr suggests, men are also giving up in fantasy and science fiction, but I don\u2019t mean that they are writing less\u2014I mean that they are giving up on getting the buzz, the media coverage, the awards, seeing that now all that attention is going to women, partly for the novelty of what they are doing, and also because women\u2019s writing is today, in all fronts, far more self-confident than men\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\tThe reasons for that lack of self-confidence are not a great mystery. The \u2018big beasts\u2019, as Thomas-Corr calls them of the 80s and 90s\u2014\u201cMartin Amis, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro et al in the UK and Philip Roth, John Updike and Saul Bellow in the US\u201d\u2014are writers whose candid explorations of the less wholesome aspects of the male soul and body are far less welcome today. I was a young woman who read many books by Roth with great admiration, and an older woman who until recently believed he had been robbed of the Nobel Prize, but I have changed my mind. I am not dismissing at all these writers\u2019 collective effort to rescue the Anglophone novel from the depressive 1970s, but theirs are stories I am no longer interested in. Besides, I have many new women novelists to choose from, and I think this is a process that many women my age have gone through. Having said that, I remain an enthusiastic reader of men\u2019s fiction, but of the kind that energizes me (what I find in science fiction), not of the kind that depresses me. I have just abandoned recent Booker prize winner by Scottish author Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain<\/em>, requiring no reminder of how dreary the life of an alcoholic woman and her loving son can be. As for Sally Rooney, whom Thomas-Corr mentions again and again as a female writer gloriously capable of generating an enormous buzz, I have already expressed here my extremely negative opinion of her awfully depressing, mediocre Normal People<\/em>. She simply is not the best woman writer around.<\/p>\n

\tThomas-Corr reports the words of a male agent, claiming that a major problem in the publishing industry allegedly dominated by women is \u201cthe lack of interest in male novelists and the widespread idea that the male voice is problematic\u201d, which diminishes the impulse to invest on them. In view of the many difficulties to publish in comparison to their female peers, Thomas-Carr notes, \u201cyoung male writers have given up on literary fiction\u201d finding \u201cnarrative nonfiction (particularly travelogues and nature writing in the vein of Robert Macfarlane) or genre fiction (especially crime and sci-fi)\u201d more accessible avenues toward professionalization. I will not comment again on the disparagement of these genres in comparison to overpraised literary fiction, but I remain baffled by the journalist\u2019s comment that these other genres are \u201cless mediated by the culture and the conversations on Twitter\u201d because it subtly hints that women dominate social media and are using them to police and cancel men\u2019s fiction they dislike. Is this the awful truth??<\/p>\n

\t A (male) reader signing as denisou comments that \u201cPeople do not need to turn to the newest literary fiction to understand the experience of being a straight man in the world today\u201d, and, anyway, this kind of novel has been offered for decades now. It appears, Thomas-Corr notes, that the only male writer with something new to contribute is the black, gay man, but, obviously, it is absurd to leave outside any kind of promotion and celebration the work of all straight men. \u201cMale writers of colour\u201d, Thomas-Corr writes, \u201cfeel they are under-represented\u201d in the lists of thrilling novelties, by which she means straight BAME and Black men. There is, besides, a suspicion that white, straight, working-class men are wrongly put in the same category as their middle-class predecessors. Northern Irish working-class writer Darran Anderson declares, Thomas-Corr reports, that \u201cI have neither the desire nor the means to pick up Martin Amis\u2019s or John Updike\u2019s bill\u201d. Nor should he or any other men writing today.<\/p>\n

\tThe issue that may be making all the difference is, in fact, half-hidden in the article. Literary fiction by men became increasingly sexualized from the 1960s onwards, leaving aside the pioneering efforts of D.H. Lawrence in the 1920s. The way many male writers of distinction have been portraying sex is, simply, no longer palatable to women readers. Writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, who is not known for including much sex in his novels (I can\u2019t recall a single scene by him), are thus better candidates to lasting fame than Amis, the above mentioned Roth, or others. Generally speaking, misogyny is no longer welcome\u2014though this does not men that women\u2019s writing is wholly free from this taint\u2014and it is particularly unwelcome in sex scenes. What is happening now is that whereas women writers have found a way to write about sex that satisfies (!) women readers, male writers have not. This is why, Thomas-Corr observes, \u201cMale writers definitely seem to be feeling more reticent about sex\u201d and no wonder about it. Excuse my boutade, but what is a literary novel by a man with no sex scenes except a failure of nerve (leaving Ishiguro aside)? The recipe, then, for men to make it back to the literary spotlight is to learn from women new lessons about how to do sex scenes. I don\u2019t mean they have to copy women, but refresh their own style and offer so much sexiness that women readers will go crazy for them. For, as we know, literary fiction has always been about desire.<\/p>\n

\tI don\u2019t think, to sum up, that men are excluded from literary fiction or excluding themselves for lack of interest or of opportunities. I just think that they need to rethink their own representation, and makes it more engaging. I am very much aware that capturing at the same time the attention of the non-reading gamer and of the female serial reader of quality fiction is an almost impossible task, but some nonfiction and genre fiction male authors have managed to do that. As for the portrayal of intimacy that literary fiction relies on, I do see that women handle it now much better and with greater confidence because they see themselves addressing like-minded female readers, and caring far less for the opinion of male readers. Aspiring male literary writers need to ask themselves, therefore, how to meet the challenge of reattracting a larger male and female audience, not by following a woke scenario (please!!!!) but by reinventing the representation of masculinity for our times, including a non-misogynistic sexuality.<\/p>\n

\tAnd if any woman reading this is the type who proudly declares \u2018I don\u2019t read men\u2019, then, I\u2019m sorry for you because too many men were (or are) of the \u2018I don\u2019t read women\u2019 persuasion. Let\u2019s not fall into the sexist trap as readers, writers, editors, agents or teachers and let\u2019s keep the conversation open.<\/p>\n

\tI publish a post once a week (follow @SaraMartinUAB). Comments are very welcome! Download the yearly volumes from http:\/\/ddd.uab.cat\/record\/116328. Visit my website http:\/\/gent.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am reacting here to an article by Johanna Thomas-Corr, published on 16 May in The Guardian: \u201cHow Women Conquered the World of Fiction\u201d. The arguments, as you will see, are not 100% new, but they are worth considering (again). The subtitle, by the way, reads \u201cFrom Sally Rooney to Raven Leilani, female novelists have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,23],"tags":[199,212,296,312,320],"class_list":["post-1850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-masculinities-studies","tag-feminism","tag-gender-studies","tag-literary-studies","tag-male-writers","tag-masculinity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}