Golfing For Cats
Patricia Storms has raised a very interesting question at Booklust. Can readers be divided into "men" and "women" simply by what they read?
Behind the obvious thrust of the question - are there subjects that interest men but not women, and vice versa, and how important are these subjects to readers overall - lies the issue of authority. Do people read what they're supposed to read? I have only to frame the question to generate the answer, but it should be borne in mind that, until some strange moment in the past seventy to a hundred years, nobody read anything unless it was authorized or - small difference - forbidden. And authority is still with us. Only now it flows from cool people who have excited our envy, not from greybeards in ivory towers.
Patricia happened upon an egregious lapse at her local Chapters. The books for men were serious, and the books for women weren't. That's wrong not only because women read serious books but because nobody would think of piling the sort of literature that men read for escapist pleasure in a family bookstore - if literature is the word. I myself, however, haven't figured out how guilty to feel about dismissing books because they're escapist literature for women. And there is some truth - as my sister just reminded me - to Voltaire's acid comment, made in a very different society and can somebody please supply me with a cite, that women love wit but hate analysis. The "some truth" is that women hate to be bored too much to put up with the boring (in their free time, that is), while men are usually too shamelessly ambitious to admit that they're bored. We must remember that analysis, in the eighteenth century, could be grueling.
Books used to be good for you. Now they're supposed to be "great!" which is certainly something different. You're supposed to feel enthusiastic about what you're reading, or at least therapeutic. Reading a book that you find tedious and unsympathetic - well, who does that? No matter what hard lesson you might learn.
I proposed to Patricia an inversed signage: "Books no Man will Touch!" "Books Women will Throw Away!" But I did this just to be silly. I was reminded of the great dust jacket for Golfing for Cats, a collection of British humorist Alan Coren's writing. Between the title and the author's name, the cover was dominated by a huge swastika. Mr Coren explained with entertaining disingenuousness that he had researched popular book titles and discovered that golf, cats, and Nazis were sure winners - so why not collect 'em all? I have it here somewhere, but it's really so visually shocking that I refuse to scan it onto the site without months of trumpeted warnings.
Come to think of it, no woman whom I have ever serenaded with Golfing For Cats has ever found it remotely as funny as I do.
Comments
I think golfing for cats quite funny, though I'd second your avoidance of scanning the cover in -- who needs the grief from that!?
I'm fairly disgusted by what passes for girly escapist novels these days, but not because I think there's anything wrong with escapism, per se. I'm just not interested in shopping, and most of those novels have a cutesily-drawn chick carrying lots of shopping bags on the cover. Also, I have no desire to relive horrible pre-husband years, which most of those books seem to do. Also, my horrible pre-husband years did not consist of me living it up, cosmo-girl style, in a roomated apartment, dealing with my snide boss and running up credit card debt in my spare time. I have yet to see escapist girly fiction (not that I've looked hard) about overweight depressive stoners living in college co-ops cooking dinners for 40 in their underwear while writing papers about poststructuralist feminist theory. And I met Max at the tail end of that bloated, hazy phase of my life.Would it even be possible to write escapist girly fiction about that? But I digress (only halfway through my coffee, so forgive me).
I wonder where you get the idea that men's escapist reading is not saleable at a family bookstore. If you mean porn, I would not classify that as reading, and in any case in the age of the internet who buys porn in any format even resembling a book? (Actually, women do, under the coy "erotica" heading, and even most family bookstores have gigantic sections of that stuff now). But you can find detective, sci-fi, and spy novels everywhere, and among men who read at all, that's the stuff they are actually reading - next time you fly, look at what they are reading on the plane. It's not Ideas that Changed the World. And even if it were, I wonder how many of those books you could actually classify as serious? Serious reading involves, I think, taking notes and discussing (yes, I think Mortimer Adler had it right about that), and I don't think people are thinking deeply about most of the popular nonfiction they're reading -- all those one-substance histories, for example -- Salt, Cod, and so on. The truth is that the vast majority of even the 'serious' books -- histories, biographies, sociology, etc. -- published and read are not particularly worthy of our attention in the long run, and when we do read them we are not really giving them much attention -- perhaps we get a poorly-considered cocktail party opinion out of them -- but nothing more.
On the subject of poorly-considered opinions: "the 'some truth' is that women hate to be bored too much to put up with the boring (in their free time, that is), while men are usually too shamelessly ambitious to admit that they're bored." You are prone to making these ridiculous pronouncements, R.J. dear, and they rarely add anything to whatever argument you're making at the time, they just make you look like an ass (and I trust you'll believe me when I tell you I mean this without snark or malice.)
Not that I would argue that I, intellectual that I am, read only serious literature. Haven't made it very far into The Ambassadors, have I? I read children's sci-fi for escapist purposes, mostly. (Philip Pullman, for example. How can you not love a children's book trilogy that exalts atheism and involves nuns leaving the church because they liked sex too much and the celebration of the death of god?)
Posted by: Amy | August 4, 2005 09:41 AM
I love Philip Pullman, too! So brilliant.
More thoughtful comments later, but I had to blurt out support for Amy's escapism.
Posted by: Ms. NOLA | August 4, 2005 01:15 PM
An ass, well, not really, it could have been covered nicely by a simple introductory phrase like, 'Sometimes I think that ...', which would take it out of the realm of pronouncement and put it squarely in the seat of arm chair theorizing which is easily forgiven.
However, anyone who remembers Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape can relate to the difficulty that comes with armchair theorizing taken to the extreme. Serious reading is, to my mind, no more than reading the reader takes seriously. It is not the material that is serious, it is the reader, as Amy so rightly points out, who is serious, mulling the material over, discussing the material, perhaps even writing about the material. Beyond that, to me, it is just a matter of taste and affiliations. If you read what many others read, then you have a large cohort for approval, discussion, exploration and growth. And, if you read the rarely read, then there you are with a limited horizon. Say what you will about what has to be read, but in some ways it's all as silly as saying that someone else has to like chocolate ice cream because you like it. They only have to try it and decide. Now, if you're marketing chocolate ice cream, then we have a different story altogether. Moved to a higher plane, if you're marketing ideas because you believe they are valuable, provide growth for others, want to see them spread, then that's serious and you are likely writing seriously as well as reading seriously. But then, you're also likely living seriously. The crowd that comes here is a serious crowd to be sure, but not a group of taste snobs I'm also sure. I can't wait to buy and read Golfing for Cats. Oh, and Amy, you're right, dear RJ can on occasion seem to pontificate with the best of pontificators.
I wish I had the time to read more of The Biscuit Report and other blogs where I've often found support from a kindred spirit, but it all just brings so much to ponder, far beyond my capacity. My most escapist activity is probably sleeping.
Posted by: George | August 4, 2005 07:46 PM
Not pontificate! Portificate!
Posted by: R J Keefe | August 4, 2005 08:46 PM