Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
Is it me, or is there a slight feminist tinge to the novels of Margaret Atwood? 
I don't go for writers with an unsubtle political agenda, and I think some female 'literary' authors lay it on a bit thick (Fay Weldon, A. S, Byatt et al). That's not to say men don't do it too, e.g. 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' and 'His Dark Materials' both suffer from heavy-handed pontificating.
But I feel many women writers, perhaps from a justified sense of grievance, can't resist delivering a 'message' of some sort or other; and it is seldom acheived without harming the book. |
I'm baffled by the final sentence of this comment.
Don't ALL writers (male and female) have a "message" to deliver? Why are we reading books if the authors aren't communicating messages to us? If you're using message to refer specifically to a feminist message, well, I personally strongly disagree with the suggestion that many women writers are proselyting a feminist agenda to the point that "harms the book".
As for Margaret Atwood, "The Robber Bride" and "The Handmaiden's Tale" are two of my favorite books. I re-read both at least two or three times a year. I've also read "The Blind Assassin". One of the things I love most about these books is that the men are reasonably irrelevant. The focus of her books is on women and their relationships with each other, maternal, sororal, and oppositional. Men show up to be foils for the female characters, and then are shoved back into whatever cupboard they hide in when their scenes are over. I don't find it "feminist"...just a reflection of what women are really like. I *don't* actually spend every moment of my day thinking about the men in my life, and my most influential relationships are female. It's nice to have a writer who understands this and tells interesting stories from a similar mindset.
I don't know if you're male or female (I didn't bother to check
), but I know a few men who have read the books and not liked the irrelevance of the male characters.