Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Norman Mailer's View of Women Writers


Here is a quote from the famous writer Norman Mailer:

“I have a terrible confession to make-- I have nothing to say about any of the talented women who write today. Out of what is no doubt a fault in me, I do not seem able to read them. Indeed I doubt if there will be a really exciting woman writer until the first whore becomes a call girl and tells her tale. At the risk of making a dozen devoted enemies for life, I can only say that the sniffs I get from the ink of the women are always fey, old-hat, Quaintsy Goysy, tiny, too dykily psychotic, crippled, creepish, fashionable, frigid, outer-Baroque, maquille in mannequin’s whimsy, or else bright and stillborn. Since I’ve never been able to read Virginia Woolf, and am sometimes willing to believe that it can conceivably be my fault, this verdict may be taken fairly as the twisted tongue of a souted tasted, at least by those readers who do not share with me the ground of departure-- that a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.”

Look up the words you don't know. What is his view? What are his prejudices and stereotypes? Do you agree with any of his ideas? What ideas do you disagree with?

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