Sunday Funnies

What I'm Reading Now

Heilbrun, author, humanities professor, and one of our most astute feminist thinkers, shows how throughout the centuries, those who write about women's lives have suppressed the truth of the female experience in order to make the 'written life' conform to society's expectations of what life should be. Drawing on the experiences of celebrated women, from George Sand and Virginia Woolf to Dorothy Sayers and Adrienne Rich, Heilbrun examines the struggle these writers undertook when their drives made it impossible for them to follow the traditional "male" script of a woman's life. Heilbrun also examines literature's silence on such vital subjects as friendship between women, the female physical experience, and the richness that often imbues a woman's later years.

"Accessible, engaging and compelling."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Writing A Woman's Life, a wide-ranging study both personal and feminist, asserts that patriarchal culture has not only defined the limits of women's lives, it has determined what stories about women will be told...If it moves readers to write the full truth about female lives or live lives that are not scripted by others (male or female), its effect will be indisputably emendatory."
--San Francisco Chronicle

Booking It--Too Much Info

Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse - a biography has made you love an author more?

Interesting question! I don’t think I’ve ever disliked anyone’s work simply because I’ve learned more about them, but the opposite is often true for me. I’ve had my appreciation of beloved novels enhanced by a better knowledge of the author. I’ve liked works and then enjoyed them even more after reading about the author. Occasionally, I’ve even really disliked a work, then after getting to know more about the author’s life, done an about-face and come to appreciate the novel tremendously.

It’s not that I’m engaging in or advocating biographical criticism, but I do think that it helps to know where and when an author lived, the struggles she came up against, the political or social or familial events that were shaping her life experience, or maybe even what the author stated she was trying to do with her work.

What do you think?