guy writers vs lady writers poll

i voted lady writers, just seemed like the write thing to do

I've been taking 'lady writer' fairly locally - meaning something like one strain of British mid-twentieth-century literary fiction - domestic, familial, thwarted passions, manners and embarrassment, affairs, late-blooming love, village/small town life - persephone prints a lot of it. I definitely think this idea of the lady novelist was a thing in British literary culture for a long time, & dismissed by dominant 'serious' male culture (but with exceptions - like Larkin and Amis stanning for Elizabeth taylor or Barbara Pym). Who else… Bowen, Joanna Trollope?

obvs I don't think this is some 'natural' state of affairs where women write books like this. men write books like that - it's p clearly the product of social gender roles, expectations, industry structure etc; and that the dichotomy collapses v quickly (which, as a provocative poll head I think it's designed to do?) - so idk Taylor's Angel isn't a 'lady novel' (and is quite meta, destructive of some of these traditions), and again (shit, I need to stop and do some work before 5.30) they're also existing in a british fiction world that includes Ann Quin, Anna Kavan, Christine Brooke-Rose, etc etc etc so I'm not sure what I'm saying.

Yeah, see, those last three are the sort of female writers I do actually bother to read. I don't really know what else goes on...

(Actually, by that I mean they're the sort of *writers* I bother to read. Though I have more of a history of reading guy literature in my teens, so I'm more confident with critiquing the mainstream of that culture.)

This thread shows the most action ILB has seen in many weeks. Kind of sad, really.

gay writers vs. guy writers

sky writers

that spark's work shares a tendency with a lot of the ppl we're (i'm?) calling 'guy writers'

See, Spark seems very female to me, in the sense of the way women are actually more likely to be coldly realistic than men when it comes to the big decisions, whereas men tend to jump in with a 'It'll be fine!' attitude (big generalisation here, I know); which is why, for example, men start waaaaay more businesses than women, but those businesses women start are waaaay more likely to succeed.

I am drunk, this may not make sense

Also, Jennifer Egan seems to have crossed into the blokey Franzen HER BOOK IS A BIG DEAL AND CAUSE FOR OP-ED PIECES territory

I am still drunk

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

too close.

well i guess that conclusively proves that guy writers are better

ill have to look into this fuck you