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Original poster

I have come to the conclusion that I don't like quite a lot of female writers

109 replies

OrmIrian · 24/01/2009 21:45

Nicole Krauss - History of love. Yaaaaaawnn!
Someobody Niffeneagger? 'Time Travellers Wife' made me so cross I wanted to burn the f*ing book!
Even struggled with Zadie Smith.

OK I've had too much soave and I can't think of any more examples but I have come to the conclusion that I don't want endless analysis of emotions, angsting over love affairs. I want interest, something actually happening, description, intellectual analysis. Not who fed who and who didn't and what is the emotional mess that results. If someone behaves badly and irrationally, I want to kow why*, not just put it down to past traumas and say 'of that's OK then'.

Does that make me a bad sister? Or just a man manque?

I love Terry Prathcett. I suspect that indicates serious emotional embolism. But wtf.

OP posts:
TwoIfBySea · 24/01/2009 22:07

Have just read One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson and it was very good.

I think there are good and bad writers regardless of the sex. My writing tutor said I reminded him of Angela Carter in the style of writing and I just about danced on clouds!

And yes, The Time Traveller's Wife is guff. Don't get me started on that pile of crap that is "Kevin".

superfrenchie1 · 24/01/2009 22:06

iris murdoch?

fishiedewar · 24/01/2009 22:03

you are dead right orm. i try not to read books written by men but now i seem to have to avoid half the women too.

i hated that niffenenenengger what a load of shit. we want to talk about kevin. i didn't.

dora damage is really good. sarah waters can cry into her organic veg.

and i always recommend kate atkinson and denise mina.

Penthesileia · 24/01/2009 22:02

Yes, Lessing is wonderful.

What about Atwood?

Angela Carter?

Nantucket · 24/01/2009 22:02

Oh yes Suite Francais was wondreful.

Penthesileia · 24/01/2009 22:01

Nemirovsky is a French writer who has recently been 'rediscovered'. She was successful prior to WWII, but was imprisoned and died in a concentration camp (she was Jewish). Her daughters, who escaped, found a completed manuscript in a suitcase decades later, and it was published as Suite Francaise.

I find her writing really sharp and acid. Not sentimental at all. Very well observed. The Ball is one of the cruellest short stories/novellas I've ever read.

Nantucket · 24/01/2009 21:59

REad Doris Lessing, I have just discovered her.

Her writing is fabulous.

Also Rose Tremain is wonderful.

You are reading pap. Men and women write pap.

Original poster
OrmIrian · 24/01/2009 21:57

Maybe I am. I don't buy bestsellers. Dh buys them for me.

Ooh another I hated was Labryrinth by Kate Mosse. Maybe you're right.

I like women writers from pre-1990ish. Who is this Irene Nemirovsky? I must investigate Maybe I need to read non-English-speaking writers. So much of it so f*ing self-indulgent. I don't need their emotional angst, I have plenty of my own!

OP posts:
Penthesileia · 24/01/2009 21:52

Not heard of the first, read the second - twas ok-ish, I suppose, for a 'bestseller'. Only read White Teeth which was an overwritten first novel - suspect she will get better and better with time.

There are loads of women writers who don't write in that fashion...

I've recently been enjoying Irene Nemirovsky's work (in translation; could read it in French, I guess, but am too lazy ): Suite Francaise; The Ball; The Courilof Affair; All Our Worldly Goods.

I think you're stuck in a bestseller rut! Branch out!

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