Sexism/racism etc in older fiction

[GeoffR]

There is plenty of sexism, racism, etc. in the world today, you don't need to read books written 100 years ago to come across it. Add greed, violence, dishonesty, plenty of that then and now too.

I don't have any problem with reading books about the bad things that go on in the world. Books that avoid those issues while pretending to be set in the real world are the ones I'd avoid.

Greedy characters, violent characters, corrupt characters can all be interesting to read about. So can racist characters, sexist characters.

In real life it would be terrible to have to deal with a racist police officer, a sexist employer, etc. but I think fiction is great medium for exploring and reflecting on those attitudes.

[Deskisamess]

I was thinking about this thread, and my approach to book topics. I'm a big fan of "harmless" in most of my fiction reads. No horrible drama, no violence, no erotica, I prefer easy read "clean" type books.

For more meat in my reading, I will read more weighty topics from say Anne Tyler, or authors like her who are good at writing the "human condition" without gratuitous sex and violence.

I do read dramatic non-fiction. There is so much interesting history to learn about, in the US, and other locations around the globe. It can be disturbing to read about the horrors men have done to men in the past, or in current times, but I don't want it in my before bed harmless reads. I have still not totally finished The Last Days Of Old Bejing for this very reason.

I don't want revisionist history in my non-fiction, or the past sanitized in my fiction. I do want the fiction to be at least mostly well researched. And I appreciate the wide range of choices that we all have in our reading.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by crich70

Actually the indentured slaves could do something that those from Africa couldn't do. Change their name (after running off ) and blend into society.

I hadn't thought about that. Maybe that's why most of the Irish slaves were sent to West Indie plantations, where most of the native people were dark skinned.

[latepaul]

I was one of those who brought up the anti-semitism in Whose Body? I did so because it jars to a modern reader. I'm fully aware it is not out of place for the time when the book was written. It still jars. Of course I can read past it but it makes the experience less nice. Fortunately for me, most of the occurrences are nearer the start of the book.

Actually I was more put off by the classism, the master-servant stuff. Here it wasn't just the fact of a hierachical social order with little mobility, that's authenic, it was the way it was seen to be right and good and kind of cosy. I think that's a rose-coloured glasses view of the world at best. And the fact that Sayers uses this as the basis of humour bothers me more than the situation per se. Because that means I'm supposed to not only recognise this state of affairs but basically approve of it.

There used to be a sitcom on UK TV called "The Last of the Summer Wine". In it all the men were portrayed as basically feckless, harmless, lovable fools. Their aim was to potter about planning nonsense schemes that never really amounted to anything. The women were mostly fierce humourless battle-axes, whose role was to control their men and curtail their fun.

It ran from the early 70s until 2010 but its heydey was the 70s and 80s I think. And I always hated the fact that its portrayal of the sexes was done with this sort of wink where it wanted you to think that it was subversive because - wink, wink - look it's really the women that are in control. And yet it was blatantly obvious if you thought about it for 5 mins that it ultimately supported the sexist stereotypes. Hen-pecked husbands and over-bearing wives are most funny if the men are supposed to be in charge and the women supposed to be submissive and demur. Once that becomes less true in society the joke, if it maintains that structure, becomes cartoonish rather than satirical.

And that's how I feel about some of the stuff in these old novels. At the time it probably felt daringly envelope-pushing to have the servant be in many ways the more competent mature adult whilst the aristocrat he works for is, or at least acts, the fool. Now it just seems to reinforce the inequality.

All of which can be read as "of its time" and ignored/endured for the sake of the whole. However I think to many it's this very dynamic that feels safe and cosy. I think that's at the heart of the success of shows like Downton Abbey. I get it but it's not my thing.

[Calenorn]

Anyone reading vintage pulp needs to keep their 'historical filters' in place.

Having said that, I must second the nomination of Sax Roehmer as an author to avoid. That 'yellow peril' stuff is too much for me.

Also, I deleted Lewis Carroll after learning about his fondness for images of nude children. Can't enjoy it after that.

[DNSB]

Back when I was in high school, I ran into an omnibus of Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories in the school library. At the time I enjoyed the book being a bit young to be offended by some of the content. A few years later, I was discussing the book with one of my teachers after I referred to it in an essay and she was appalled by the racism. Her opinion was that while it was a reflection of the times (pre-WWI midwestern America) and that racism was part of the zeitgeist of the times but that I should not have mentioned such a disagreeable topic in my essay. This was during a rather violent era for the civil rights movement in the USA with Martin Luther King's assassination about 18 months in the future.

On a brighter note, I still enjoy the Jeeves stories despite Bertie being, pretty much, the stereotype of the mindless nobleman.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Back when I was in high school, I ran into an omnibus of Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories in the school library. At the time I enjoyed the book being a bit young to be offended by some of the content. A few years later, I was discussing the book with one of my teachers after I referred to it in an essay and she was appalled by the racism. Her opinion was that while it was a reflection of the times (pre-WWI midwestern America) and that racism was part of the zeitgeist of the times but that I should not have mentioned such a disagreeable topic in my essay. This was during a rather violent era for the civil rights movement in the USA with Martin Luther King's assassination about 18 months in the future.

I read Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons and enjoyed it quite a bit. I admit, you do have me curious about his Penrod stories.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by maddz

I tend not to worry too much, different times and attitudes and all that, but I do find Dornford Yates unreadable now, and cast a leery eye at Sax Rohmer too. Mind you, I'm with Deskisamess in that historical settings with modern attitudes and sensibilities much more jarring.

I'm curious what it is about Sax Rohmer that bothers you. I read a few of his books when I was pretty young, probably 50 or 60 years ago, and I remember enjoying them but that's about all I can remember about them. I recently acquired a few of them and had planned to read one in the not to distant future.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I read Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons and enjoyed it quite a bit. I admit, you do have me curious about his Penrod stories.

I read "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Alice Adams" about 2 years ago when I was reading a few early Pulitzer Prize winners. "The Magnificent Ambersons" was the second book to win that prize and "Alice Adams", which I liked even better, was the 4th. Tarkington was quite a writer. These are books that'll stay with me. They may be a bit dated in terms of the issues they directly deal with but they're both about how changing times change people and that's probably a bigger issue today than it ever was.

Barry

[Pajamaman]

Marlowe's The Jew of Malta is really something. He's soooooo brilliantly evil.

[barryem]

I remember learning about cultural relativism in a sociology course in college; the idea that we should judge a culture on it's own terms and not on our own. I think that's exactly what we should do in the case of old novels. I like historical novels and one of the things I want from them is that they be true to their times.

Mark Twain made liberal use of the N word in his novels. And I just pretended not to type it and instead typed "the N word". Does that make Mark Twain a racist or does it make me a wimp and a coward? Actually there's good reason to think Mark Twain wasn't much of a racist so where does that leave me?

A writer naturally includes the attitudes of their time and by reading their books we learn something about their time and it's pretty good practice at being open minded and that's a good thing.

If we blind ourselves to the world that used to be then we're cutting off a major source of understanding of the world today. And who are we to say we're better now than they were then? Watch the news before you answer that.

Barry

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by barryem

I remember learning about cultural relativism in a sociology course in college; the idea that we should judge a culture on it's own terms and not on our own. I think that's exactly what we should do in the case of old novels.

With regard to Sayers, though, there were allegations of anti-Semitism about her even in her lifetime. Even her own translators often asked her if they could alter the language to be less objectionable in translation.

She denied such charges, maintaining that her treatment of Jewish people was actually more favorable than that of anyone else. She felt that she was holding up a mirror to social views rather than supporting those views.

There's a lot of nuance there, but it's not a case of modern society imposing its values on the era. The discussion was there out of the gate.

moment [sic] magazine has an thoughtful article on the allegations with respect to Sayers:

Just how did the celebrated detective novelist actually feel about her Jewish characters—and why, in these books, can’t she seem to shut up about them? Why are there so many? Something is going on, something more complicated and personal than casual anti-Semitism and a good deal more interesting…

[GA Russell]

In regard to sexism, isn't a sexist simply a man who disagrees with Gloria Steinum?

If a man disagrees with Gloria Steinum about everything, he is a sexist no matter what other qualities he may have. Isn't that right?

[sjfan]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

In regard to sexism, isn't a sexist simply a man who disagrees with Gloria Steinum?

If a man disagrees with Gloria Steinum about everything, he is a sexist no matter what other qualities he may have. Isn't that right?

No more than disagreeing with Rush Limbaugh makes someone a liberal. Steinem has always been controversial in the feminist movement; she took a ton of flak from feminists (male, female, and other) in the 1970s for her views on Renée Richards.

If anything, she takes even more criticism from modern feminists for some of her views—see this Slate article for one recent example. Slate obviously has a particular political POV, but it's reasonable to look there if you're interested in how she's viewed within that end of the political spectrum.

(And it's Steinem).

[maddz]

Originally Posted by barryem

I'm curious what it is about Sax Rohmer that bothers you. I read a few of his books when I was pretty young, probably 50 or 60 years ago, and I remember enjoying them but that's about all I can remember about them. I recently acquired a few of them and had planned to read one in the not to distant future.

Barry

It’s the yellow peril attitude, especially in the Fu Manchu books. It’s less obvious in his other books, especially the ones written in the 40s and 50s, but there’s still an undercurrent. If you read them as straight-forward pulp stories, and don’t expect anything more, then they’re enjoyable enough.