In today's Guardian Review's habitual summary of book reviews, here are the names of the writers across various papers who have reviewed Martin Amis's latest, 'The Pregnant Widow': Aravind Adiga, Philip Hensher, Harry Mount, Richard Bradford, Bharat Tandon. And here are the names of the people who have reviewed Andrea Levy's new novel 'The Long Song': Ruth Scurr, Kate Kellaway, Amanda Craig. As my old maths teacher used to say: notice anything?
MEN AND WOMEN OF BRITAIN: YOU CAN NEVER ENJOY OR APPRECIATE ANY NOVEL WRITTEN BY THE OPPOSITE GENDER. GET IN YOUR COLOUR-CODED CARS AND GO HOME.
Ex-MOH who used to complain about expensive wedding trips and parties gets
engaged and changes her personality completely: ‘Now she is getting married
and is asking for crazy amounts of time and money’
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You never know when Bridezilla might appear
I wasn't familiar with this concept until a few months ago. I don't know
why I ended up reading about it, and n...
1 hour ago
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7 comments:
Then again everything I know about Martin Amis and his writing in general and have vibrationally picked up about his current book makes me want to scratch every pore on my body and hiss at passers-by. Reviewers of any gender are frankly welcome to it.
By contrast, it DOES irk me far more to see that those reviewing Levy's book appear to be exclusively female.
You do not need to answer what that says about me.
PS are there colour-coded cars? I tend to find that the gender of the driver makes far less difference than whether they are driving a BMW or not. [BMWs - the cars that seemingly come without fully functioning indicators or speedometers... and of course the obligatory nut behind the wheel...]
it seems odd to me that the sexes are becoming more polarised generally in the market place in this age when there is meant to be more equality. Pink pushchairs for crying out loud, and no toys that can be equally enjoyed by both sexes. And books. Prick lit in dark colours with big jagged typefaces and chick lit with pink on. People used just to read.
Tom Deveson did review Levy (fairly positively) in The Sunday Times, but, yeah, your broad point probably stands. Though I think Smith's On Beauty and Byatt's latest got mostly male reviewers. Maybe it (unfortunately) comes down to those writers - male or female - who are considered Important get mainly reviewed by blokes. And I do think, perhaps in some deep-seated misogynisitc way, that apart from the brilliant Alex Clark, the best critics, in the UK at least, are male. (Amanda Craig displays some pretty woeful thinking. I'm sure loads of male reviewers do as well. It's just that you mentioned Craig. So. You know.)
Samuel, I do think that to an extent men are given Important books to review. I noticed that with my own novel, I only got female reviewers until it started picking up sales and people started thinking of it as a significant debut. Then I started getting reviews from men.
Re whether any good reviewers are female, I don't read book reviews widely enough to argue the point, but if largely men are getting the good books to review, then they have more opportunities to hone their skills, yes?
Perhaps. I suppose the 'good' books give the reviewer more opportunity to sell themselves ('the second half is in knowing conversation with the unfairly neglected fifteenth-century sufi poet al-Syed's twenty-nine part prose poem, 'Medina and Me'...' etc.), but I think great critics can deliver great insights even when - perhaps especially when - reviewing mediocre fare. Alex Clark was a great critic before she started reviewing Philip Roth.
Enjoyed your novel, by the way. Thanks.
Dear Marie
I was in paradise with no good books left to read when I found your first novel. Made my day. Let's chat, shall we? I am on twitter. daniaile
Hi Daniaile! Surely the definition of paradise is somewhere the good books never run out? Glad you liked GBB. You too, Samuel.
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