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Original poster

Books by men with female main characters...

60 replies

TrilllianAstra · 22/06/2011 19:22

... what do you think?

OP posts:
BellaBearisWideAwake · 23/06/2011 07:40

I was going to say Thursday Next. But I suspect that's because it doesn't really matter that she's a woman in these books.

Chandon · 23/06/2011 07:36

I find I cannot read books written by a man, when the lead character is female.

Memoirs of a Geisha, The Other Hand etc, makes me cringe.

I bet good money I could actually tell from ANY book with a female lead if it is written by a man.

Somehow it shows, sadly, that men and women do not "get" eachother 100%

DoubleNegativePanda · 23/06/2011 07:26

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb made me so fucking angry that I literally threw the book in the trash. The arrogance of a man imagining that he knows the intimate thoughts of a woman that way. I know fuck all about what men think and wouldn't presume of pretending otherwise.

And he made his character utterly unlikable. Almost a caricature of a mentally and emotionally troubled woman.

Grrrrr. That book pissed me off so much. Yes, I am aware that the book is fiction. But he got it so wrong.

steviesmith · 23/06/2011 07:16

I think the main thing male writers get wrong is when they hate women either explicitly; Philip K Dick is a prime example of this or a bit more cunningly through misogynistic characters; Martin Amis is a good example of this. Or just treat them as adjuncts to men; Brian Aldiss is the most recent example of this I've read.

You get in to very difficult questions about what's a man and what's a women if you start thinking about it in much more depth than this. But then not hating women seems a pretty low bar to jump.

OrangeHat · 22/06/2011 21:34

PG Wodehouse had female characters who were actual people rather than just adjuncts

Agree re Pratchett

Iain M Banks has a female protagonist in Against a Dark Background

LunaticFringe · 22/06/2011 21:22

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
TrilllianAstra · 22/06/2011 21:20

Actually I was wondering what people thought of male writers writing women in general and how it was done well or done badly and what they tended to get right and what mistakes were commonly made. I was expecting a discussion not a list of books.

But everyone seemed to think it was "name books in which men have done well at writing women".

That's a good thread too. :)

OP posts:
suzikettles · 22/06/2011 21:18

She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb.

Wicked - Gregory Maguire.

RafaNadalIsMyLoveSlave · 22/06/2011 21:18

But Hardy didn't hate Tess, however.

RafaNadalIsMyLoveSlave · 22/06/2011 21:16

Sorry, I thought you were just asking for suggestions of books by men with female protagonists - I didn't know we were supposed to be suggesting only those books where we approved of the depiction of the protagonist!

PrinceHumperdink · 22/06/2011 20:51

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PredictableDullard · 22/06/2011 20:51

Under the Skin - thought she is an alien

BeerTricksPotter · 22/06/2011 20:51

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Guildenstern · 22/06/2011 20:49

I apologise for bringing down the cultural tone, but I've always thought that Pratchett writes women well.

nailak · 22/06/2011 20:48

alice in wonderland

narnia

wheel of time?

branstonsandcheese · 22/06/2011 20:47

I hate the judgy tone of Tess of the Ds. I think Hardy hated her and hated women.

The millennium trilogy (girl with dragon tattoo etc), are books by a man with female main character. I am not sure about those either tbh.

Itsjustafleshwound · 22/06/2011 20:47

Douglas Kennedy: Leaving the World; A Special Relationship

HumphreyCobbler · 22/06/2011 20:45

Whit by Iain Banks.

MagdaMagyarMadam · 22/06/2011 20:43

Ms Smilla's Feeling for Snow(?) - Peter Hoeg.

Original poster
TrilllianAstra · 22/06/2011 20:41

Glad you like the Jasper Fforde books, I'm going to be reading them soon (some again, soem for the first time)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles, really? I always thought that the narrator hated Tess. At every turn he keeps saying "if at this moment she had xxxx, everything woul dhave been ok, but she didn't and so her life is even more fucked than it was before". (not the narrator but the author, but it was present in the voice of the narrator IYSWIM)

OP posts:
RafaNadalIsMyLoveSlave · 22/06/2011 20:09

A number of Stephen King's actually: Carrie, Cujo, Lisey's Story. A couple of times, I have read passages in his novels and thought that he has got the female voice exactly right.

Never Let Me Go.

Northern Lights.

Madame Bovary.

Anna Karenina.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

MrsPlesWearsAFez · 22/06/2011 20:04

The Eyre Affair (and all the following Thursday Next books) - Jasper Fforde

The Kathryn Dance books (can't think of titles) - Jeffrey Deaver

notcitrus · 22/06/2011 19:58

Vanity Fair - Thackeray
Little Dorrit - Dickens
Far from the Madding Crowd, and others - Hardy

Whit, Canal Dreams, The Business - Iain Banks Whit is great but The Business is one of his worst. Canal Dreams not bad but it's a non-quirky novel not like his usual work.

colditz · 22/06/2011 19:58

Dr Northerner .... ohhhh my God you are in for harrowing tears Sad

steviesmith · 22/06/2011 19:47

I think some Victorian male writers wrote surprisingly well about women; they're all very different but Henry James, Wilkie Collins and George Gissing all had strong women as central characters.

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