Reading Resolutions, 2011

I didn't make any reading resolutions for 2010, because they seemed less necessary than they had before, but the chronic biases that have emerged over the last 12 months need some curbing I think.  No better time than New Year to set myself some goals of self-correction. 

Resolution 1: To read more male writers

I feel ridiculous writing that, when the media, academics and reading community still sometimes privilege (even revere) male writers above their female counterparts.  But, the truth is, that I have developed a semi-conscious prejudice the other way.  Thinking carefully about it, I realise it runs deep.  It isn't just that I'm more likely to choose to buy, borrow or read a book by a woman, I'm also more likely to read reviews of books by women, and pursue recommendations of female authors.  I find my eyes glancing over new books by male writers and plumping instead with women's debuts; I pick up Classics by women before Classics by men.  It's a false preference, definitely, because it's not as though experience has taught me that I like fiction by women better.  It's simply that a reading habit that originated in a desire to correct a tendency the other way has swung far, far beyond its intended target.  So in 2011 I'm going to try to correct my gender bias with a little directed reading.  Not that I'm going to choose a list of books by men and plough determinedly through them, just that I'm going to be more aware of my literary diet.

I know what you're thinking: that I'm making a fuss about something silly, because surely the aim is that we don't have to think about an author's sex at all.  It shouldn't be a conscious matter like this, and what does it matter if I don't read many books by men?  Well, first, it matters to me because it means that I'm missing out on a whole world of books that are passing me by.  Second, it matters to me because its symptomatic of an underlying bias in the way I see the world. I deplore this same kind of bias when it works the other way - when the Booker Prize longlist of 20 books only has 2 or 3 women writers on it, for example and nobody seems to notice, - and so it would be hypocritical of me to ignore it in myself.  Thus, 'read more male writers' is my battle cry.  Most particularly, I want to read more 20th century classics by men - I haven't read any Roth or Pynchon or Auster or Bellow or Faulkner - when I've read many of their female counterparts (thanks in no small part to the excellent work of Virago).

Resolution 2: To read more fiction in translation

I say this every year: my reading is too Anglo-centric.  I read very little in translation, and not for want of exposure to it; again, it's a semi-conscious bias. I'm reaching for what I know, rather than for something new.  That, and I'm inherently suspiscious of the art of translation.  Am I really reading what the author intended?  Is the writing better in the original?  If I'm not reading the original words, where does the heart of the book lie?   Anyway, I'm prescribing myself a shot of Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman, followed by some draughts from the Dublin IMPAC Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the past winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature.  I've started on this resolution already by embarking on Independent People by Halldor Laxness, translated from Icelandic by J. A. Thompson.  Laxness won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955, and I bought this book on the strength of the jacket comments from Annie Proulx, Jane Smiley and Fay Weldon, all of whom praise it in ecstatic language.  (Which, I realise, suggests that although Laxness was a man, I picked up the book because women authors I admire recommended it. Hmmmmm.  Oh well, it still counts towards Resolution 1.)

Resolution 3: To read more from my TBR

This is a mantra repeated across the lit-blogosphere with startling regularity, meaning that I'm not the only one who buys books in a frenzy of enthusiasm and then lets them sit and fade on a shelf.   It seems to me that there is a very short window of opportunity for many newly purchased or gifted books.  It lasts about a month, while the lustre of novelty hangs over it.  If I don't pick it up within that first month, then it's chances of being read rapidly decrease, until it becomes a fixture on the shelf and I feel as though I have read it even though I haven't.  It doesn't happen so much with Classics, because their appeal is not in their newness but in their timelessness; and it doesn't happen so much with non-fiction, perhaps because I choose those books more discerningly based on quite fixed interests (history, literature, nature).  But it happens all the time with recently published fiction.  I think because part of the attraction of a new book is its recent birth, its freshness, and the debate and dialogue surrounding it in review pages and online.  Six months down the line, the book that had me breaking down the door at Waterstones has been replaced in my flighty heart by another.  This is no doubt also why the vast majority of books I read in 2010 were published in 2010, or at least in 2009.  

I want to try and mitigate this tendency. (Though not eradicate it completely; I'm not going to plot my own failure by declaring a book-buying moratorium - I don't have the will power.  I know I don't, because I just took 5 minutes out of the composition of this very post to pop over to Amazon and buy a copy of Winifred Holtby's South Riding, because there is a new TV adaptation of it in the new year, and because several other bloggers seem to be reading and enjoying it.)  I'm going to try and make every other book I pick up a book from my TBR pile, and preferably from quite far down at the bottom of said TBR. 

I was going to make a fourth resolution, but no, I think three is probably enough.  The fourth will save for next year.  What do I think of my chances of success?  I think I can conquer resolution 1, if only by pursuing resolution 2.  I note, for example, that the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has never been won by a woman in its 20 year history.  Never.  If I were just to read the winners of the last decade I would more than double the number of male authors I read in a year.  Oh the irony of my taking advantage of one prejudice to recitify my own! (Is it that more male authors are being translated? Or just that they're being read?  The longlists for the prize would suggest the former.)  And resolution 3 will contribute towards resolution 1 too, because (anecdotely) I seem more likely to read the books I buy by women than the ones I buy by men.  This interconnectedness of my goals should mean that I can fulfill them all.  We shall see. 

What are your reading resolutions?

~~Victoria~~

Comments

[Kinna]

LOL, I share your concerns and thus I'm intrigued by your Resolution 1. I do read a lot more fiction by women than men. I don't mind it at all; it's a choice that I prefer. However, like you, I feel that I'm missing out on some wonderful male authors. I dicovered Colm Toibin two years ago and I want to read more by him. Also I want to read some Roth and Pynchon, Wallace etc. Male authors are more fussed over than female authors that I tend to have an instinctive knee-jerk reaction against the over-hyped ones. Looking forward to what you will read for this resolution.

I think that you will enjoy reading towards Resolution 2 especially if you will use the IMPAC and other prizes as a guide. I enjoy Eastern European literature a great deal and recommend their authors, esp Czech authors. BTW, most of them are male. Enjoy your reading in 2011.

[Stefanie]

How funny that you feel like you need to read more male writers when most of us feel like we read too many male writers! I'm hoping to read more from my TBR pile too. I only read 21 already owned books last year, less than half of the number of books I read. Good luck with your resolutions and happy New Year!

[Jodie]

Yes sadly I think I need to follow res 1 as well. Bit of a change as three years ago I had to resolve to read more female authors, but now I find my number wildly out of whack in the other direction. I think the best thing for me to do is to avoid all the hyped 'greatest' male writers of lit fic, because I just couldn't get excited about their most recent books at all last year (I found myself wanting to shout SMUG at McEwan in the same way I did back in school when we read Enduring Love). Maybe try more male genre writers, maybe try more of the early stuff from the modern greats...I don't know, but like you I hate thinking I'm missing out or that I'm giving those oppossed to The Orange Prize some kind of grounds for their 'reading books by women is sexist' junk!

Looking forward to seeing what you find when reading in translation. I remember reading that the UK doesn't publish very much translated fiction every year, but that the market is begining to grow.

[Professor Batty]

Laxness was a complicated writer, noted for his insightful portrayals of women (esp.Salka Valka and Ugla in The Atomstation. In real life, he was a rather poor husband and father.

Halldór Guðmundsson's biography of Laxness The Islander mentions that as a child Halldór spent a lot of time with his grandmother, who told him many stories about Iceland in the 1800's. He was also very interested in what women thought about issues of the day. While not exactly a feminist, he was acutely aware of the difficulties women faced, especially in light of class struggles.