Authors to Strike Off my List - Garrison Keillor

[callistra]

Garrison Keillor
"Girlish, moody fiction? No thanksWhat readers really want is dastardly deeds by dark, despicable men, or saucy wenches with pert breasts displayed like fresh fruit on a platter".
 

Could he be any more annoying? "Girlish, moody fiction"? Really? Girlish is an epithet? It's a derogatory word, is it? And breasts needs to be displayed like fruit? The whole article does not get much better.

I don't care about the message - sure, people like sex and guns. Old news. Move on. But the whole thing just drips with male privilege. And I want to know where he gets his stats from - every one I know in the industry says readers numbers are dropping, not rising. His whole article excludes me as soon as he starts talking about 'dark, dispicable men' because, you know, I like well rounded characters be they male, female, or whatever, and then really lost me when he described my body parts as how they should be, and then likens them to inanimate actions.

You know, let's try changing this opening line.

"Manly, moodish fiction? No thanks! What readers really want is dastardly deeds done by dark,dispicable women, or saucy gigilos with pert penises displayed like fresh fruit on a platter."

*goes cross eyed*

His paragraph:

They're afraid they'll come across a sentence like, "She looked out the window and saw the reflection of her own pale face against the drifted snow." Something girlish and moody like that.

My version:

They're afraid they'll come across a sentence like, "He looked out the window and saw the reflection of his own pale face against the drifted snow." Something boyish and moody like that.

Why use a sexual/gender charged word to display your disgust for a different style of writing? Why is using feminizing an acceptable way for him to show his disdain?

Him:
-- "Read my book, buttface," said the novelist standing in the dim doorway of Brad's garage. "Pick it up and read it." "I ain't gonna read your book, it's got a lot of weird words like 'languid' and 'luminous' in it," said Brad. He wondered if that was a real gun in the novelist's hand. It was. BLAM BLAM BLAM. Blood spattered all over the garage and his workbench. Blood glittered on the gunstock that Brad had been sanding for his shotgun. He wouldn't be sanding it no more. No sir.

Me:
-- "Read my book, buttface," said the novelist standing in the dim doorway of Joanne's garage. "Pick it up and read it." "I ain't gonna read your book, it's got a lot of weird words like 'languid' and 'luminous' in it," said Joanne. She wondered if that was a real gun in the novelist's hand. It was. BLAM BLAM BLAM. Blood spattered all over the garage and her workbench. Blood glittered on the gunstock that Joanne had been sanding for her shotgun. She wouldn't be sanding it no more. No ma'am.

So what he's REALLY saying is "I don't give a shit about those readers with cunts, they are RUINING my literary world."

He's doing this by using feminity as a negative. He's doing this by using an example which instantly excludes 51% of the population. He's insulting people who have a decent vocabulary, and he's also insulting and excluding men who enjoy reading other than his own subject matter. The article is dis-respectful and nasty. He's calling to a lowest common denominator that exists mostly in his mind.

PS, is it me, or is despicable spelt wrong?

Comments

[punktortoise.livejournal.com]

'Despicable' is the correct spelling.

And I might be reading it wrong, but I took Keillor's intent in his article to be not a million miles distant from the tone of, say, Ben Payne's post on gender inequity in specfic <http://benpayne.livejournal.com/402110.html>: it's satirising commonly-held male attitudes to female participation in the fiction community, not endorsing them. I'd think differently on this if Keillor's own writing tended towards gun-toting crassness, but what I've seen of his stuff is more in the direction of quiet (and somewhat parochial) satire. And I'm fairly sure he uses words like 'languid' and 'luminous' in his own writing ... so I'd say his intent here is to highlight and lampoon existing prejudices and preconceptions, rather than simply endorse them.

That's not to say that he did as good a job as Ben did ...

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Ben's was great
:-)

So maybe I'm not getting the joke...
:-)

I'd probably agree with you more if his point was clearer. I'm not going to accept that he *didn't* know what he was doing when he wrote it, so how come I'm left rolling my eyes and going 'whut'?

Am I missing a punchline?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

You know, as an ironic suggestion, he should have switched all the sexes for me!
That would have been ironic!

[nyssa-p.livejournal.com]

HAH

If he thinks it's all girlish and moody - then he's been reading far too much V C Andrews!


As for ""She looked out the window and saw the reflection of her own pale face against the drifted snow." Something girlish and moody like that."

Has he read Robert Jordan? I put the whole thing down as the MC desperately tries to find his wife in the blood splattered halls....and then stops to look in a mirror and admire his own reflection...and then resumes his desperate search! *shudders*

Yawn! If it is meant to be satirical, the author should have amped it up a bit. Lame, lame, lame! IMHO that is :P

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

Doesn't Garrison Keilor usually write satire? Without reading the article (at work! working!) it looks like more of the same.