On Monday night on Channel Four, four upper middle-class men sat on a sofa and talked to one another about “the novel”. I resisted the urge to throw hard objects at the faces of Jonathaon Coe, Kazuo Ishiguro and Julian Barnes and the interviewer (can’t even be bothered to remember his name) because, quite honestly, the programme, and its participants were insufferable. Here’s why I think that:
1. Women read and write novels too. Not that you would know it, from this programme. The only two women writers that were mentioned (not discussed, or reviewed, or even really represented with any seriousness) were Zadie Smith and Angela Carter. Zadie Smith has written like, 2 books. Neither were genre-breaking but she’s at the beginning of a career and has far to go I think. Angela Carter has written many masterpieces. She broke genres apart (fairy tales for example) and created new ones. Read ‘The Passion of New Eve’ if you don’t believe me. The authorial voice is strong and true and she could whip the sorry asses of several contemporary male writers to Hay-on-Wye and back given a chance.
2. Not only were women authors woefully under-discussed, why on earth did they not ask a woman to be on the panel? Ok, so Angela Carter died unfortunately, but Zadie Smith’s very much alive and ubiquitous. I’m sure she would have fitted it into her busy schedule. Failing that, Jeanette Winterson, or Ali Smith, or Sarah Waters, or even JK Rowling wouldn’t need their arms twisting to appear on this kind of panel! Representation is crucial on this kind of panel because not only would it result in a more considered, wide-ranging discussion but it would also have more than a snowflake’s chance in hell of reflecting the interests of a wider audience. Part of the discussion was about the increasingly competitive environment of the book world as more books are available to more readers with more money to spend on books and who expect flashier covers and so on. If this is the case, then that raises the bar for writers to engage with that more diverse audience – and so they damn well should. I don’t want to read about middle class white men who write books for a living ALL, or even SOME OF the time. If this lot are anything to go by, they’re not that interesting. I want to hear from writers that reflect my life, and the lives of others doing their best with this thing called life in all its gritty, grubby, random and excellent variety.
3. And finally, they had a big old whinge about having to market themselves and their work. Oh cry me an ocean. These men have made a lot of money by doing this work. I don’t feel sorry for them. I think writers should get out there. They should defend their work, talk about it, talk to their readers and hear what their readers have to say to them. The rest of us have to sell our work for a living – that’s the deal. These guys would just like to pretend that they don’t. Ivory towers are for fairy tales. And rich white men. The rest of us must live in the real world which they might find to be a brilliant, exciting, stimulating place if they cared to join it.
My advice? Read the Wikipedia entry on the novel instead. Or have a browse round the Channel Four site on the novel which goes some way to redeem Channel Four for the programme, or the BBC book site which is doing ok too.
Ok: rant over.
1. Women read and write novels too. Not that you would know it, from this programme. The only two women writers that were mentioned (not discussed, or reviewed, or even really represented with any seriousness) were Zadie Smith and Angela Carter. Zadie Smith has written like, 2 books. Neither were genre-breaking but she’s at the beginning of a career and has far to go I think. Angela Carter has written many masterpieces. She broke genres apart (fairy tales for example) and created new ones. Read ‘The Passion of New Eve’ if you don’t believe me. The authorial voice is strong and true and she could whip the sorry asses of several contemporary male writers to Hay-on-Wye and back given a chance.
2. Not only were women authors woefully under-discussed, why on earth did they not ask a woman to be on the panel? Ok, so Angela Carter died unfortunately, but Zadie Smith’s very much alive and ubiquitous. I’m sure she would have fitted it into her busy schedule. Failing that, Jeanette Winterson, or Ali Smith, or Sarah Waters, or even JK Rowling wouldn’t need their arms twisting to appear on this kind of panel! Representation is crucial on this kind of panel because not only would it result in a more considered, wide-ranging discussion but it would also have more than a snowflake’s chance in hell of reflecting the interests of a wider audience. Part of the discussion was about the increasingly competitive environment of the book world as more books are available to more readers with more money to spend on books and who expect flashier covers and so on. If this is the case, then that raises the bar for writers to engage with that more diverse audience – and so they damn well should. I don’t want to read about middle class white men who write books for a living ALL, or even SOME OF the time. If this lot are anything to go by, they’re not that interesting. I want to hear from writers that reflect my life, and the lives of others doing their best with this thing called life in all its gritty, grubby, random and excellent variety.
3. And finally, they had a big old whinge about having to market themselves and their work. Oh cry me an ocean. These men have made a lot of money by doing this work. I don’t feel sorry for them. I think writers should get out there. They should defend their work, talk about it, talk to their readers and hear what their readers have to say to them. The rest of us have to sell our work for a living – that’s the deal. These guys would just like to pretend that they don’t. Ivory towers are for fairy tales. And rich white men. The rest of us must live in the real world which they might find to be a brilliant, exciting, stimulating place if they cared to join it.
My advice? Read the Wikipedia entry on the novel instead. Or have a browse round the Channel Four site on the novel which goes some way to redeem Channel Four for the programme, or the BBC book site which is doing ok too.
Ok: rant over.
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