Don't worry, Luke, I don't know entirely why I posted it... I agree, it is hard to write because we are alone, but it is also therefore necessary to write. Writing is an attempt at connection, against loneliness, at least for me.
I read this around when it was originally posted, then deliberately did not reply. Instead, I put a hold on A Room of One's Own and read it over the break.
Wow, that's a great book, essay, lecture. It got me to put my ideas on race discrimination into words for the first time (at least for this particular idea). And she does it without anger, and identifies the very same reason as why "feminist" is a more-than-faintly derogatory word, particularly on the masculine tongue. Feminism is taking Sides, sides that were created by the male for thousands of years in Western and other cultures, but taking sides nonetheless.
We are, undeniably, genetically different, and treated very differently by Western culture, nay, Western civilization. Yet I disagree with the fact that male and female authors are inherently divided in the types of stories they may successfully write. It is true that a man could almost certainly have not written Pride and Prejudice, simply because there was no man who had the necessary life experience to fill those pages
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Apart from the main issue at hand, it is interesting to request a room of one's own, or to approach writing as a way of establishing the Self. Certainly, there is an element of expression in writing, particularly for tortured poets who have no other way to make themselves heard. Yet the Writers we both admire do service to the Other, telling someone else's story, making it accessible. For someone to have written an entire story in a room of one's own would be an amazement, without the human contact and access to the world that provides the stories and material that flow onto the paper. It is a balance, to have both the necessary time and conditions to write, and to have the experience and understanding of human character and characters to write with integrity.
I shall try to read Jane Eyre next break or during the summer, and thus complete the first course in this education. Do I have any masculine writers to offer in response? Perhaps Timothy Zahn, perhaps again Orson Scott Card (regardless of our shared feelings of his personal
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I think that you make a really good point about the idea that people would be confused if a work only spoke of men as lovers of women -- and yet so often women in literature are defined (at least a little) by the men they love. I think that my problem is that I like a lot of those stories. I can't hate the form of romance, because I think it says something significant (if perhaps overly idealistic at times) about the power of love to overcome individual difference and the importance of community and respectful relationships to teach us about who we are and who we can be. If writing is about declaring the self, then writing romance (in any of its forms) is about declaring the self in community with others. Any relationship must take place between oneself and the fundamentally Other person, who you can't know but must trust and respect. So in a sense this romance is the template for successful (one hopes) integration of selves and others. [Digression: this is stuff I would love to write
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I read this around when it was originally posted, then deliberately did not reply. Instead, I put a hold on A Room of One's Own and read it over the break.
Wow, that's a great book, essay, lecture. It got me to put my ideas on race discrimination into words for the first time (at least for this particular idea). And she does it without anger, and identifies the very same reason as why "feminist" is a more-than-faintly derogatory word, particularly on the masculine tongue. Feminism is taking Sides, sides that were created by the male for thousands of years in Western and other cultures, but taking sides nonetheless.
We are, undeniably, genetically different, and treated very differently by Western culture, nay, Western civilization. Yet I disagree with the fact that male and female authors are inherently divided in the types of stories they may successfully write. It is true that a man could almost certainly have not written Pride and Prejudice, simply because there was no man who had the necessary life experience to fill those pages ( ... )
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Apart from the main issue at hand, it is interesting to request a room of one's own, or to approach writing as a way of establishing the Self. Certainly, there is an element of expression in writing, particularly for tortured poets who have no other way to make themselves heard. Yet the Writers we both admire do service to the Other, telling someone else's story, making it accessible. For someone to have written an entire story in a room of one's own would be an amazement, without the human contact and access to the world that provides the stories and material that flow onto the paper. It is a balance, to have both the necessary time and conditions to write, and to have the experience and understanding of human character and characters to write with integrity.
I shall try to read Jane Eyre next break or during the summer, and thus complete the first course in this education. Do I have any masculine writers to offer in response? Perhaps Timothy Zahn, perhaps again Orson Scott Card (regardless of our shared feelings of his personal ( ... )
Reply
I think that you make a really good point about the idea that people would be confused if a work only spoke of men as lovers of women -- and yet so often women in literature are defined (at least a little) by the men they love. I think that my problem is that I like a lot of those stories. I can't hate the form of romance, because I think it says something significant (if perhaps overly idealistic at times) about the power of love to overcome individual difference and the importance of community and respectful relationships to teach us about who we are and who we can be. If writing is about declaring the self, then writing romance (in any of its forms) is about declaring the self in community with others. Any relationship must take place between oneself and the fundamentally Other person, who you can't know but must trust and respect. So in a sense this romance is the template for successful (one hopes) integration of selves and others. [Digression: this is stuff I would love to write ( ... )
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Or on Facebook, like everyone else. Also comments are enabled there.
Writing in psuedo-Woolf-an prose is fun. But needs specific inspiration.
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