CONTACT CAROLINE
facebook
rss
tumblr
twitter
goodreads
youtube

  • Home
  • Write Away Blog
  • Books
    • Books
    • Trompe l’Oeil
    • Heart Land
    • Gothic Spring
    • Ballet Noir
    • Book Excerpts
  • Video Vault
  • Audio
  • Press
    • News
    • Print Interviews
    • Plays
    • Ballet Noir in the Press
    • Trompe l’Oeil In The Press
    • Gothic Spring In The Press
    • Heart Land Reviews
  • Contact
  • About
  • Resources
    • Writer Resources
    • Favorite Blogs
    • Favorite Artists



Boys Will Be Boys

Sep 30, 2019
by Caroline Miller
Adam Begley, Agreeable Angstrom, Jonathan Dee, Updike
6 Comments

Courtesy of Rutherford Classics.com

I’ve never read a book by John Updike, mainly because he was never required in college and I identified him with “the boys,” who included Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and touching upon Ernest Hemmingway and Norman Mailer, writers whom I have read but whose world view I don’t much care for.  They dominated the American landscape with their narrow opinions of what good writing was, intimidated women authors who did their best to sound like the men but weren’t accepted anyway.   Like Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf suicide seemed to be the solution to their exile.  Flannery O’Connor was a wonderful exception having a unique style, probably because lupus which killed her forced her to live in isolation.  

 I don’t have to prove the merits of what I’ve written.  This isn’t a scholarly treatise and I’m entitled to my opinion.  But there was a period in American literature when, thanks to “the boys,” women weren’t welcome and certainly not taken seriously.  That Updike was one of them I gleaned from a critique of Adam Begley’s biography of the man.  According to him, Updike’s mother, Linda, was an accomplished writer having “published two books with major publishing houses and ten short stories in her son’s bastion, The New Yorker.”  (“Agreeable Angstrom,” by Jonathan Dee reviewing Updike by Adam Begley, Harpers, June 2014, pg. 87.)  Still, rather than give credit to the talent he inherited from his mother and his general fondness for her, Updike took “every opportunity to downplay her talents and consistently characterize[d] her in writing and in interviews as a ‘would-be’ or ‘long-aspiring’ writer.” (Ibid, pg. 87.)

 What “the boys,” had in common was a bullying tone when it came to women.  As men, they were chained to them by their sexual desires, but I never got the feeling they liked women and perhaps resented them because they were the instruments of a pleasure that rendered the men needy.  To avenge themselves, the men used their art.  How else can one account for Hemingway’s unflattering view of women that runs the fictional gamut of extremes– from the insipid Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms to the dominatrix, Lady Brett Ashley, in The Sun Also Rises? 

 By way of contrast, the female writers I admire don’t use the pen as a bully pulpit. As with Edith Wharton, they are keen observers — critical if needs be — yet sympathetic too.   O’Connor is one who can cast an unflinching eye upon her fellow human beings but with humor and sometimes compassion.  Literature needs more feminine voices, not women who write like “the boys,” but women who can open our eyes to a new way of seeing.   

(First published 7/10/14)  

 

 

Social Share
6 Comments
  1. Bill Whitlatch July 10, 2014 at 9:50 am Reply
    I agree,but J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Joesph Heller saved my life. I went to college on the G.I. Bill in 1967 as an English major and began a life long adventure in reading. Willa Cather, Charlotte Perkins and yes your favorite Joyce Carol Oates were all very good friends. I tried to Run Rabbit Run to no avail,. As Viet Nam veteran I found Hemmingway too blood thirsty as I didn't like war, I don't hunt or fish. Thanks for the post nice to know others agree.
    • Caroline Miller July 10, 2014 at 10:18 am Reply
      Charlotte Perkins? You got me there, Bill. I don't know her. Will have to check this out. Also have to admit have never read Kurt Vonnegut. Heller, yes. Like very much and of course Salinger. We're on the same wave length.
  2. Bill Whitlatch July 10, 2014 at 10:54 am Reply
    Charlotte Perkins Gilman "The Yellow Wallpaper.I left off her last name.
    • Caroline Miller July 10, 2014 at 11:30 am Reply
      Oh yes. I have read "The Yellow Wallpaper." One of my favorites. Thank you for providing the information, Bill. If someone tripping across this blog hasn't read it, I, too recommend it.
  3. Pamela July 10, 2014 at 1:15 pm Reply
    The boys club unfortunately remains alive and well in the literary realm, as evidenced by VIDA's polls indicating who is getting published where. I still feel I have strong writing women in my sphere who aspire to be like male writers, but more and more I see women (including me) refusing to apologize for our points of view, and furthermore refusing to catagorize work from a female perspective as "chick lit." I have always marveled how Hemingway, O'Brien, Pahlaniuk and others can write fully male-oriented stories and that's straight lit, but when women focus on our gender issues, that's "chick lit," or fluff. Burns me up. Try this sometime, Caroline: Ask men to list their favorite writers, very few (love you Bill W.) will mention women, and if they do, it is disproportionate to the number of male writers they'll list. Ask women the same question, most have more men than women writers listed. We still don't value the female voice as much as the male's in our culture. Very sad, IMO.
    • Caroline Miller July 10, 2014 at 4:01 pm Reply
      So well said, Pamela. I should have asked you to write the blog on this topic. I don't have to try your experiment. I know what you say is true. We women value what we are taught in school -- judgments formed and perpetuated by a largely male academia. No conspiracy is at work, however, merely the effect of a culture where men hold so much power. When we think about it, male writers are held and confined by the same standards. Freeing the women's voice will be freeing for them,too.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published five novels

  • Getting Lost To Find Home
  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

Subscribe to Caroline’s Blog


 

Archives

Categories

YouTube-logo-inline2 To access and subscribe to my videos on YouTube, Click Here and click the Subscribe button.

Banner art “The Receptive” by Charlie White of Charlie White Studio

Web Admin: ThinPATH Systems, Inc
support@tp-sys.com

Subscribe to Caroline's Blog


 

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Sitemap | Privacy Notice

AUDIO & VIDEO VAULT

View archives of Caroline’s audio and videos interviews.


Copyright © Books by Caroline Miller