Someone mentioned Atonement in the "positive representations" thread.

I really loved the book (and am glad I read it before "Saturday," which was a big bloody bore). I thought McEwan did a creditable job getting into a female head.

Any other successes by men about women?

I'm thinking of Lying Awake by Mark Salzman, who interviewed many cloistered nuns before writing about Sister John of the Cross.

Conversely, what are some books where celebrated male authors do a terrible job sketching out women, likeable or not?

Blake Nelson's Girl (Sorry, it doesn't show up on the touchstone's list.) is a good example of one that doesn't work. Andrea is completely shallow, even by nineties, teen-girl standards. I get the feeling he channeled a little Angela Chase from My So-Called Life, and fell pitifully short.

Larry McMurtry's women are always very good, I think - certainly as good and believeable as his men.

I think She's Come Undone had an authentic feel to it. I remember forgetting it was written by a man and kept being surprised by that fact.

I had a co-worker that read that book, and even though she gave me a lot of spoilers!--I might like to read that.

I think that comix may be where some of the most interesting stuff is going on, weirdly enough, given that world's reputation for the big-breasted exaggeration. Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise series is little short of revelatory, and David Mack takes the exploration of human consciousness to another level in his Kabuki series, which completely reworks the superhero genre.

Contemporary fiction is a bit of a wasteland, though. Sebastian Faulks isn't bad, but I get bored of the procession of sympathetic, homely women in books like Cold Mountain.

Oh, Alan Warner is great -- the filthy-mouthed girls of The Sopranos and amoral Morvern Callar are my kinda women.

The situation in comics is interesting in that there are a number of male authors who are praised to the high heavens for portraying women (like Terry Moore) but comics written by women about women are basically ignored and at this point almost non-existent. At the same time an incredibly talented writer-artist like Carla Speed McNeil doesn't get the same kind of credit for writing vivid male characters like her Jaeger the way Los Bros Hernandez do for characters like Maggie and Luba.

I do love Locas, and Alias, and Promethea and Kabuki. Jaime Hernandez in particular does an amazing job with his female characters. But it does seem like in comics where the standard is still strongly to male protagonists there is excessive praise for the male writers who write women just because they're bucking the trend, and not necessarily for the quality of their characters. I kind of miss underground artists like Roberta Gregory and characters like Hothead Paisan that don't seem to have equivalents today. It's interesting that women in comics seem to have shifted to memoir in the last 5-10 years and many/most female characters that are left are always written by men.

Yeesh. Sorry for going off-subject.

Continuing off subject, lizvelrene, Roberta Gregory is still going: she is publishing a cool little zine about her cat Chicken. There is a shift to memoir, and Fun Home has been getting mentions and praise on lots of boards. But there is amazing variety out there: Scheherazade, edited by Megan Kelso has a whole bunch of emerging artists working in all different genres, and Girls Who Bite Back has some cool superhero comix by chix. Rosario Dawson has a DC comic series called Occult Crime Force, or something similar, which is pretty good if clearly designed to become a movie. Amber Benson is also making some interesting forays into the horror/genre comic market. And just to continue wandering off topic, I highly recommend Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate, a Toronto-based comic of extreme coolness. You can get it online from Kiss Machine, The Beguiling and the Toronto Women's Bookstore.

I wonder how honest the representation of women of other cultures by male authors are... While Memoirs of a Geisha is a great story, is it an honest representation? The same goes for The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki, which I very much enjoyed. It certainly seemed credible..fine characterization...but am I a good judge of what is an honest characterization of a Japanese woman or any other woman from a culture other than my own...beyond what we might share as basic human females?

I enjoyed "Memoirs," but felt sort of guilty about it, knowing it was written by a white man.

Same sort of guilt I get when I read Pearl Buck, though nobody's going to get me to give up my copy of The Pavilion of Women, one of the greatest girly books for middle-aged women of all time.

I wonder if this is misplaced "liberal guilt," the notion that writing about other genders and cultures is "insensitive" and might lead us to blunder into racist or sexist misinterpretations of the "real" people.

Lookit Uncle Tom's Cabin, for instance. It was the first literary encounter white Northerners had with slaves, and it galvanized the emancipation movement.

A hundred years later, the book had dated, and some African-Americans reviled the book as perpetuating stereotypes. But those were more political critics than literary ones.

Interesting side note on this, I hear Henry Louis Gates has issued a new edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and, by placing it in the context of its day, has rehabilitated it somewhat.

When I first read this header, the very first thing that came to mind is Girl by Blake Nelson, which I see has been mentioned by kperfetto.

I read this book as a teenager and fell in love with it. I couldn't believe that Andrea was created by a man. I think he nailed it! I've read others by Nelson and enjoyed them, but none compare to Girl. Excellent YA book!

Message edited by its author, Nov 17, 2006, 4:20pm.

What about books written from within cultures? Daniel Heath Justice's Kynship and Wyrwood are fantasy fiction working from Cherokee history, and have five powerful female characters at the centre (as well as male characters). SFF is notorious for its lack of credible female characters, particularly in books written by men.

Why was my message flagged for abuse? I started a thread in the FAQ board about how many messages are inappropriately flagged for abuse. It's making being on the boards very frustrating.

tunarubber wrote: "Why was my message flagged for abuse?"

Don't worry about it, tunarubber. Apparently, there's a mad flagger making the rounds of all the groups, seemingly flagging things at random. Obviously someone with a juvenile sense of humour and entirely too much time on their hands.

A message requires four flags by four different members before it's pulled as being an abuse, so this person's just wasting their time. Don't give them the satisfaction of wasting yours by fretting about it any more than you have.

I remember what impressed me most about Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd was how well he pulled off the (female) protagonist's voice. I didn't love the book, but that bit was particularly well executed.

Message edited by its author, Feb 9, 2007, 11:55pm.

I think I've described this book on every thread possible so forgive me. The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle. An excellent book and an utterly credible female character.

Zoli by Colum McCann is about a Romani (gypsy) woman poet and singer who is cast out by her people for betraying them. McCann did extensive research and it is a well-crafted novel, a credible portrait (imho) and intriguing woman's story, a roller coaster ride all over central Europe.

Alexander McCall Smith does an excellent job both with Isabel Dalhousie, the protagonist of The Sunday philosophy club, and with Precious Ramotswe of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency fame. I love the fact that they're portrayed as ordinary women, with ordinary preoccupations (and lots of gossiping).

Douglas Kennedy does a pretty amazing job in Pursuit of Happiness as well - Sara is a stunning character.

I liked Precious Ramotswe, too. In fact, I have put going to Botswana on my list of things to do before I die since reading those books.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden is a decent enough book, but not a patch on the autobiography of the women the lead character's life was actually based on. I recommend Geisha of Gion by Mineko Iwasaki over Memoirs any day - get the story straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. Iwasaki's life story is intriguing and wonderfully well-written.

Message edited by its author, Sep 8, 2007, 9:27am.

Two books I've always thought had interesting voices are Mating by Norman Rush and Smila's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg. Both narrators are unusual women who view their lives from a distant, intellectual perspective but who are also distinctly female. I appreciate that these male writers approached female characters with a lack of condescension.

Charles De Lint, The Blue Girl. Actually, the two heroines are teenage girls, but they're old enough in their teens that they should qualify as women.

nineteenth century books by Grant Allen. He wrote feminist novels under a woman's name. One is called the Typewriter Girl.

#23> almigwin, I have The typewriter girl, but have not read it yet. Methinks it will now go to the top of one of the TBR piles.

It's always seemed to me that E.M. Forster got women "right" a lot of the time. A Room With A View captures the intelligence and passion that women have for art and music.

smallwonder56

I love A Room With A View! I never doubted that men could capture and display the view from a woman or vice versa. Some people are so surprised when they read something like this, but men and women can be more sensitive to the actions, thoughts, and feelings of the opposite sex. I just like the writing, I don't weigh too much into which sex wrote it.

I think it is interesting how many writers use it to lure readers. Publishers must tell them that the author should choose a name to reflect the voice of the story, it will sell better.

I think that would lead into a discussion of how many NY Times bestsellers are ghostwritten.

I have just finished Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah and while I would not say that women make up any of his main characters, I think his portrayal of women generally is very sympathetic (with perhaps the exception of one of the character's mothers). I liked the book very much because of this (although some might find the structure of the book unnerving).

Message edited by its author, Oct 25, 2007, 7:52am.

Tolstoy inAnna Karenina, Balzac in Eugenie Grandet, Cousin Bette, and the rest of the Comedie Humaine; Flaubert in Madame Bovary, Hawthorne in the Scarlet Letter, Thackeray in Vanity Fair, Henry James in Washington Square, The Golden Bowl, Daisy Miller and all the rest of his books; D.H. Lawrence for Women in Love and most of his other novels.

I am just about to start Anna Karenina.. Never read it. I hope I have a good translation.

#30> yareader2, the best is supposed to be the Pevear-Volokhonsky. My son, who is currently reading it, loves it.

message 31

that is the edition I own! that is so cool. thanks for the info. I cannot wait to get into it.

#32> Happy reading!!

4 - Cinnamon-Girl

I really have to disagree about She's Come Undone. Maybe it's just me, but I came away with the impression that Wally Lamb had never even had a conversation with a woman! Oooh, that book made me angry!

#34 never read Wally Lamb, but I have heard what you are saying before.

This may not qualify, but Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides shook up my world. I know some people who say he doesn't know women because of how he wrote her, but the character wasn't really female, was she.

I am drawn to the universal portrait of a woman over the cultural sketch.

yareader, I disagree partly with your statement about Middlesex. She really was, for all intents and purposes, a girl until she hit puberty. I think it took a very good author to be able to communicate both genders and the ambiguity that his character lived with.

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Please don't misunderstand me. We are in agreement. I thought others at this website would not want to include this under books about women by men. I love his writing. He is one of my favorite authors. I have been told by OTHER people that he doesn't understand, but I think they are not reading into the complexity of starting off life thinking you are one gender and then learning you are another.

I think the character in this book was the most open and fair person I have met in a story in a very long time and he really sticks with me.

I also love many of Eugenides short stories, if you ever read Early Music. He goes to a depth of knowledge that really pulls me right in.

Hope that clears things up.

I second Larry McMurtry. Ruth Popper from The Last Picture Show. Wow.

yareader2, I'm sorry, perhaps I did misunderstand you:-) I haven't read his short fiction but I'll keep it in mind as I'm trolling the bookstores, thanks.

I just read Cees Nooteboom's Lost Paradise, in which he writes half through a woman's head and half through a man's head (intertwining only briefly), in what I thought was a stunningly thoughtful and original way. He also steps in periodically as the writer in his own voice, and since he began this way in the preface, I was quite thrown to suddenly find myself in a woman's head undergoing a rather unnerving trauma (I won't say too much lest I spoil the experience).

A fascinating movie along the lines of this thread is Fassbinder's "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", noted for having an all female cast and an intensely claustraphobic camera.

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Lost Paradise sounds intriguiing, is it in english and can it be found?

The English translation just came out this year - I found it at Barnes & Noble (hardcover).

thanks

George Gissing's The Odd Women, which I have read and am rereading for class at the moment, is fairly interesting if you are interested in competing 19th Century perspectives on Feminism. There more than a few -really- intriguing discussions between women debating with each other what Feminism -is-, which is refreshing.

Now George Gissing's is a name I have not heard for decades. I stumbled on him as an undergraduate and absolutely adored him, and now I can recall absolutely nothing about those books.

A re-read is in order.

Thanks for the memory nudge.

I've always loved Tom Robbins there was much in Even Cowgirls get the Blues that seemed right even though it could have been thoroughly ridiculous if taken at face value (see the movie if you'd like an example).

Here are a few by men with what seemed to me believable women that I've read in the last year or two:

Calvin Trillin, About Alice
Giorgio Bassani, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
Michael Cunningham, The Hours
W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

About Alice may be cheating a bit. I remember being especially impressed by what a clear impression I got of their relationship and their marriage, but Trillin did it without revealing anything embarrassingly personal.

Going back to the Ian McEwan theme from post 1, I thought his portrayal of Florence's inner life in On Chesil Beach was fantastic, although I felt that occasionally he did succumb to explaining more than he needed to.

I'm enjoying Tolstoy's women in War and Peace as well (and am looking forward to reading Anna Karenina one day too!)

I have to say, The Hours by Michael Cunningham just blew me away. I couldn't believe how well Cunningham captured the subtle complexities of a woman's emotional conflicts. So insightful and beautifully written!

On the negative side (and I will undoubtedly find many who disagree), I thought Memoirs of a Geisha was pretty bad--a western white man's fantasy of geisha-rescue.

#50: I agree with you about Memoirs of a Geisha. A wealthy man meets a pre-pubescent girl and successfully plots to make her his concubine. And when we find this out, it is the surprise "happy" ending and we're supposed to feel good about it? I sure didn't.

I second the earlier post about Roddy Doyle. He has strong female characters in his books.

I third the post about Michael Cunningham's book The Hours. I was amazed at how he managed to pay tribute so well to Virginia Woolf's writing, for one, and then get into the heads of his female characters, particularly Laura Brown, the 50s housewife. I enjoyed his other novels as well, but this one is a masterpiece IMO.

>35 etc.

I'm curious about Middlesex (have been for a while); must get my hands on a copy. Has anyone read The Virgin Suicides? I saw the movie (didn't like it), but haven't read the book. Was the book better than the movie? (Guess I'm straying from the topic slightly, sorry!)

Roxanna Slade by Reynolds Price. I tried to get into it, but didn't get too far. It wasn't his presentstion of a woman that I had problems, it was just slow-moving,

D.H. Lawrence, His presentation of women is way off the mark, his own POV comes thru loud & clear. Henry James, does a good job, particularly Washington Square.
We read Madame Bovary in school & our teacher, a woman , thought Flaubert was a real genius at portraying a woman. Tolstoy is really good at all his women characters, from children to old age. I thought Wally Lamb did a good job in She's come undone
Also Larry McMurtry's Calamity Jane & other characters.

The Hours was great.

#53 Yes, you should run out and buy Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. It was a Pulitzer Prize winner long before it was an Oprah pick! HA

I have found this book loved by so many people from different backgrounds and reading styles. The Virgin Suicides was wonderful too and if you are careful you will see parts of it written into Middlesex like Suicides was a way of him developing his thoughts for Middlesex. If that makes any sense. I think my fav authors repeat themes in multiple books. It is like they are perfecting their craft.

Thanks yareader2; I will add Middlesex to my wish list!

Reading this post, the first one that sprung to mind was The Hours - it is an incredible book and his depiction of Laura Brown particularly was astounding.

57> I agree with you about The Hours.

I recently finished Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. He does a pretty decent job with his protagonist, Eilis Lacey. The novel's focus is more on Irishness and emigration than what I'd call "women's issues" (although she does have her issues with men, her mother, her priest, and her landlady).

I've just read The Other Hand and Incendiary, both by Chris Cleave and both startlingly good books with deeply sympathetic, human, flawed women as their central characters. Absolutely fantastic! Also, the female characters in Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White are women I know well and love dearly.

59> Oh, yes, defintely Little Bee (as The Other Hand is known in the US).

I need to put The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga into the mix. It's been about ten years since I read it, but it's one of my favorite books, and at the time, I simply could not believe it had been written by a man.

I was really impressed by Luthiel's Song: Dreams of the Ringed Vale and Luthiel's Song: The War of Mists by Robert Fanney. Can't believe these were written by a man. Lots of emotional depth and understanding of some deeply feminine issues.

A woman worth ten coppers byMorgan Howell

Before looking up the author, I actually thought that it was a women, but I was wrong.

This book also happens to be my favorite book read so far over the summer.

I read one of the Blake Nelson books called Prom Anonymous.

There's a part where the two best friends were trying to find there other best friend a date; and one of the guys said, "What size bra does she wear?"
I mean what kind of question is that?! PIGS!!!!!!!

>63
Now that summer is actually over, I can definitely say that A woman worth ten coppers was my favorite book of the summer.

A Woman Worth Ten Coppers? Is that really good? I'm gonna check it out.

>66
I really did love the book. It was also the first book that I read by this author. A Woman Worth Ten Coppers is also the first book of a trilogy. The second book is actually coming out this month (Oct. 27)

book description:
Seer, healer, goddess, slave–she is all these things and more.

Yim is a young woman suddenly cast into slavery, a gifted seer with a shocking secret–and a great destiny. Honus is a Sarf, a warrior dedicated to the service of the compassionate goddess Karm. A Sarf’s sole purpose is to serve a holy person called a Bearer. But Honus’s Bearer has been killed by the minions of an evil god known only as the Devourer. Masterless and needing someone to bear his pack, Honus purchases Yim for the price of ten coppers–and their fates are forever entwined.

I read The Easter Parade by Richard Yates recently and it was an ordeal. Holy Moley. The two main characters (both women) are drawn so well, but he is so soul-crushingly pessimistic (in regards to the world in general and how pitiful, unseeing and bumbling we are with our lives) that he absolutely scared the daylights out of me. It might be one of the saddest and scariest things I've ever read.

Oooh, frogbelly. I've been wanting to read Easter Parade. I read Yate's Revolutionary Road last year and it hit me exactly the same way.