cliterature

Realms of Fantasy is closing, John Updike has died of lung cancer, Diamond (the main distributor for indy comic books) is becoming less accessable, In a continuing trend Borders is choosing not to carry the latest book by highly popular author L Bujold. In the world of words (and making money there-from) things, frankly, could be better.  But what’s a grrl to do?  I like to read and I like to write, and the entertainment genres do tend to stay boutant even in a downturn.  But perhaps it is not surprise which picture of mine has made the most sales of late:

The more I think about it the more I see it.  It is often said of women that they fancy the bad boy, but they marry a good man.  But isn’t the same story told just as often about men?  Even Puss in Boots, the “cat” is willing to doing anything for the miller’s son, even thought see is set aside for the princess.  And most recently I have been reading an old adventure/romance called, robustly, The Pirate and the Lady, by Leslie Turner White (Ace, 1961).

The blurb and inside synopsis is very focused on the relationship between the pirate and his “insatiable” lady.  The lady, Genevieve, is a gorgeous 40-year-old who married to avoid the unfortunate fate of a cavalier family on the losing side, and found the respectable husband she never loved to be unpleasant and impotent,  and proceeded to cuckold him–repeatedly.  By the end of chapter two she has been surprised in bed with a sea captain by her outraged husband, shot him dead, protected and cunningly implicated her lover, and made a break for America with him to escape justice.

My kind of woman.

The sad-but-true aspect of the story is that this is not the woman the pirate marries in the final chapter.  That is, as usual, a juvenile daughter of an influential father whom the pirate has greatly impressed–the father being an earl who will get the pirate a knighthood as well as a wife (So sue me, the pirate and the father seem more in love than any other couple in the book).  And Genevieve?  Said father of the groom brushes her off in the closing scene:  ”Faint heart n’er won fair lady … As for your affair with the Lady Genevieve, that can be chalked off to experience.”

Overall it is a rather interesting book, being an adventure romance not clearly aimed at only men or only women. But it does seem that if there is an exciting older, femme fatale in the bed during act one, there with be a wedding to a princess in the epilogue. Just like the gay stories that end with some kind of suicide, or career woman old movies where she proves to the man that she is his equal… then marries him and quits work to raise the kids.  (Eat the cake too?  I don’t think so!)

Just like a woman might date James Dean, but marry Pat Boone –it seems men are meant to fantasize about fooling around with Lilith before they settle down with Eve. And when it comes right down to it, it looks like double standards right across the board. Of course, I am still reading this book (you caught me, I skipped over and read the last chapter ahead of time) and haven’t yet discovered the ultimate fate of fiesty Genevieve–keep your fingers crossed for her.  Maybe she settles down with a hot Jamaican and lives lustily ever after (however I suspect not).

Based on the Cliterature blog post “Are Women Steeple People” automated text analysers have determined:

1) Suggested keywords: steeple, do, women, not. [KeywordSuggestion]

2) Approximation of number of years of education (U.S.) required to read text: between 8.1 (Automated Readability ) and 11.8 (Gunning-Fog Score).  [Readability Tool]

3) Not plagiarised (as if!). [Copyscape] [ArticleChecker]

4) Most frequenlty used word: the.  Least frequently used word: microsoft. Average sentence length: 16.5 words. [TextContentAnalyser]

5) Automatically generated abstract: “Hands may also be “steepled” where the tips of the fingers of each hand are touched together. I also read within that men steeple there hands high which signifies confidence–women steeple lower and in covert ways. I find it in other less than authoritative works such as fan fiction and amazon reviews. Finally I find it in a number of moderately serious pastiche stories dating from the 1980s onward (the einstein paradox, 1998; my sherlock holmes, 2003; ghosts in baker street, 2006 etc) but a search of the canon, alas, also fails to produce the adjective.” [Topicalizer]  (I wonder if this would work for making a synopsis of a fiction novella?)

6) The Cliche Finder either didn’t work or didn’t find any. 

7) “…the author of this passage is: male!” [Gender Genie], see also “Weak MALE–Weak emphasis could indicate European” [Gender Guesser]

[edited to add] 8) My blog’s personality: “INTP–The Thinkers: The logical and analytical type. They are espescially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.” [Typealyzer]

I apologise, today’s topic is more than usually trivial, but here we go…..

I have this ongoing argument with MSWord spellchecker.  Well actually I have several, but that’s what custom dictionaries are for.  (An ‘e’ in the middle of judgment, I think not).  The word I am thinking of today is ’steepled’, specifically as it relates to hands.  Spellchecker assures me that the word ’steepled’ is a non-word, it fails to be, it is without existence in reality as defined by our friends at Microsoft.  (And remember, the computer is your friend.)

How to Read a Person like a Book(1973) assures me that steepling is a recognised hand gesture, but over the course of four pages absolutely refuses to use the word in adjective form.  ‘Steeple’, okay–’steepling’, fine–no steepled.  (How annoying).   I also read within that men steeple there hands high which signifies confidence–women steeple lower and in covert ways.  (With helpful pictures depicting a male in a business suit and a female in a short skirt).

I tour of the dictionaries available online, including my favorite Merriam-Webster, also fails to back me up.  Practical Aspects of Interview and Interrogation (2002) finally back me up with: hands may also be “steepled” where the tips of the fingers of each hand are touched together.  But the inverted commas are not exactly an unmitigated endorsement.

 Upon consideration (and because How to Read a Person like a Book mentions the fact) I think I learned about the gesture, and how it is described, from Sherlock Holmes stories.  A character who certainly embodies the kind of masculine arrogance that the body language experts attribute to it.  But a search of the canon, alas, also fails to produce the adjective.

 I can locate it in Sherlock Holmes pastiches by other, later authors such as a story by John Koons in the anthology called The Game is Afoot (but this is an anthology of parodies and so perhaps not to be counted on for establishing language conventions). I also find it in other less than authoritative works such as fan fiction and Amazon reviews.  Finally I find it in a number of moderately serious pastiche stories dating from the 1980s onward (The Einstein Paradox, 1998; My Sherlock Holmes, 2003; Ghosts in Baker Street, 2006 etc). 

However, “steepled’ remains elusive (not absent but extremely rare) even in modern works other than stories about Sherlock Holmes and references to architecture.  So, what do you think?  “Steepled” hands: corrupted and incorrect language, weird post-Doyle Sherlockian jargon, or a correct but modern usage? 

 And, I begin to wonder, has a female character ever been described as making this gesture?  I know that I steeple my fingers–normally with feet propped in my desk and some journal on my lap, disregarded for the moment do to having provoked a thought–or being so boring that some irrelevant thought has intruded.  Possibly this is just an affectation (and a pretentious one at that).  Or maybe just as the words describing the gesture have changed with time, its relation to gender has as well.  With women no longer keeping our confidence low and covert, perhaps women are free to steeple high and proud. (Or maybe I am just a Sherlockian Geek, or rather more butch than I realise).  Steepling, do you do it–and if so is it up high or down low?

p.s. I found there is at least two female characters in published novels described as having “steepled” fingers–can you name any?  Bonus point for each example up to a maximum of 5.

“Altered Art” is basically something make out of scrap, discarded objects and other bits and pieces.  It can be scrap-booking, cyberpunk taxidermy or pretty much anything.  Recently I have been making cute little monsters out of old My Little Ponies and mythical creatures from scissors confiscated at airports.  (I just put the finishing touched of ‘My Little Cthullu’ and sprayed on that coat of sealant that means I have to stop fiddling with it).

I recently suggested that it might be fun to make altered art based on a page from a romance novel.  This is normally done by selectively blocking out some of the words to create a different message.  It is a method often used by the poets, but can be a fun exercise for anyone (well, I thought so).  As it happens, I wasn’t exactly stampeded by people taking up the challenge.  But what was lacking in quantity was more than made up for by quality.

 Bree Bridges came up with this stunning digital approach (shown below).  Bree is half of the wonderful writing team Moira Rogers.  So show some appreciation of her obvious talent by visiting her/them at moirarogers.com.  (Go on, go and have a look.)

And here is my rather less skillful stab at the same idea–which is not at all digital and predictably came out…well, a bit rude. (Quelle surprise).  And a little bit rude in an M/M sort of why.  (ditto).

If anyone else wants to have a go at it, please do send me the results and I will be sure to post it.  That would be worth at least 5 bonus points, maybe even as many as 10.

What, nobody wants a toaster?

The preface of Dr Smith’s Smaller Classical Mythology (a.k.a. A Smaller Classical Mythology: With Translations from the Ancient Poets, and Questions Upon the Work) states: “The following work has been prepared by a lady, for the use of schools and young persons of both sexes.  In common with many other teachers, she has long felt the want of a consecutive account of the Heathen Deities, which might safely be placed in the hands of the young.”

What do I think about this, let me count the thoughts:

#1: So Dr Smith’s Smaller Classical Mythology was not written by Dr Smith.  The work was in fact “drawn up under his superintendence” at which point he put his name not only on the cover, but in the title as it is printed on the spine of the book.

#2: The female author of the actual volume is not even named.

#3: The involvement of a lady writer is implied as helping in removing (I imagine with some difficulty) the sexual references from ancient Greek mythology.

#4: No wonder there is an association between women and book writing.  Because during a period ranging roughly from the mid-eighteen century to the Edwardian period when this book was published many women from reasonably well-off or traditionally higher class (but sometimes impoverished) families were very well educated–but barred from almost every profession.  The only way a woman of education but little fortune could earn money was as a teacher or as an author (or in this case, both).  And the feminization of these professions extends to some extent to the present day.

#5: At least 10 editions were printed within the life of the books copyright.  I wonder how much the “lady” was paid for her scholarship and authorship.

#6: I would love to somehow, no matter how belatedly, discover the name of the actual author of the Smaller Classical Mythology, but does anyone know how this could be done?  Because the copy I own (a 1905 10th edition) credits only William Smith as the “editor” and other version available online (i.e the 1882 original) simply state the book is “by” William Smith.

 p.s. 5 bonus points for anyone who can come up with the author’s name.  (Current point tally–Judi: 1, Boone: 1).  You my exchange 100 points for a toaster, or one of my scissor sculptures–whichever you prefer.

In movies and literature casual mention is made of the femme fatale, but have you every thought about what this means?  The femme fatale is a dangerous woman.  Dangerous, implicitly but specifically, to a man (the ‘hero’).  She is seen as sexually attractive, but she is aloof and does not allow the man to reliably establish or control a relationship.  Indeed, if a relationship occurs she normal initiates it–she is thus labelled a ’seductress’.  And by entering this relationship the man puts himself in a dangerous situation.  Whether or not the dangerous is directly a result of the woman’s intent does not seem to factor into whether she attracts this label. 

Across history strong-minded men have been sexually magnetic, have seduced women, and in doing so have endangered them–at the very least by ruining reputations, but also potentially spreading disease, causing unwanted pregnancy, or drawing the attention of a villain to the woman and putting her life directly at risk–sometimes to directly exploit her by learning her secrets. They have, for the most part been call rakes and womanisers, normally with more admiration than horror. These men are essentially thinking of themselves, of the women they want, of their own goals and desires, and of using women to further these goals and desires. They are putting themselves and/or their cause first. In many cases, from Casanova to James Bond, these characters are heroes.

The femme fatale is simply a female character who puts her own needs and goals first. She may exploit the hero or she may be indifferent to his needs, in some cases characters called femme fatalesaren’t  trying to harm the hero at all they just fail to sacrifice themselves to protect him. The femme fatale is, in essence, a virile action hero with a vagina.

With time powerful horror/villain figures have cross the line to become potential hero material. Stories have been written or filmed with heroes who are vampires, thieves, assassins, or even serial murderers. With time, perhaps, the same will occur with the same for the femme fatale. The women who is who pursues her own agenda, and who is sexual–not to be gratuitously manipulative, or to be a sex object, or due to some deviant nymphomania–but simply because she is if she wants to have sex, she has sex–and if she sex will further a goal, she will use it.

It is time we saw more female characters who act as a hero, or as a villain, but always as herself and for herself–as the protagonist not the ‘love interest’ who is judge only in accordance with her suitability for that role for the hero’s self-interested point of view.  Goodbye femme fatale; enter pussy puissant.  The action hero who is a woman, without any conflict between the two roles.  The female hero (’heroine’ becoming as obsolete as ‘actress’) who is sans bikini, bitch-personna, or drag-king roleplay.   She may have a love interest or a sidekick, but will never be one.  Her time has come, but can you guess which characters I think fit the bill?

p.s. bonus points for identifying the character below.

When I was going through high school the New Zealand government was really pushing a campaign where the slogan was “Girls can do Anything”.It was a good idea to try and open up the vocational opportunities for women, and get girls to think about the issue when they were still at school deciding whether to pursue math and science subjects.

However the campaign quickly started producing some annoying side effects.  Because I scored well in chemistry, several teachers made a concerted effort to convince me to continue to to take chemistry.  But chemistry did not, for the most part, interest me–and other subjects did.  And while I was good at chemistry I was equally good at those other subjects.  The implicit message seemed to be that if, as a girl, I could excel in a traditionally male-dominated discipline I was under an obligation to pursue it. 

I get a similar feeling every time someone sees me reading a romance and expresses surprise.  Or they find I write romance and ask me why–as if, given that I am a reasonably bright professional women, an interest in genre romance is an almost inexplicable aberration.  Yes, I can and do read literature, scientific non-fiction, technical manuals and epic poetry and ancient Greek plays.  I also read westerns, thrillers, romance, fan fiction, comic books and erotica. 

 I don’t feel the need to justify my interest in romance.  Girls can do anything.  Girls can read anything.  Girls can write anything.  The operative word her is anything–including romance, stories with the goal of sheer gratuitous entertainment and various “chick” genres.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with chick stuff.  In fact, isn’t suggesting that an intelligent woman should not be interested in traditionally feminine genres and vocations actually reinforcing, rather than challenging, the deeply embedded-sexism that is still clinging to our culture?

No, not that P-word, the other one.  You see the word ’porn’ attached to all sorts of products these days: cat porn (LOLcats), food porn, vampire porn and so forth.  Indeed, this trend seems to be growing in the media where some journalists are quick to grab for an easy, attention-getting headline.

This spreading use of the term is interesting in three ways.  One is that it gives a word a mean that is independent of sex.  Secondly it gives modifies the implied meaning of the word–by suggesting that it refers, at least by analogy, to any somewhat gratuitous pleasure.  Finally, in almost all cases the overall spin of the word is positive.

 Meanwhile many people who write genres of pornography (a somewhat gratuitous display of sexual activity for the purpose of causing pleasure) continue to refuse to use the word at all.  The overall message is that gratuitous pussycats are wonderful, but any kind of “pussy” fiction (and I refer here to the reaction of the reader not the objectification of the heroine) is still shameful and requires extensive legitimizing (literary merit, the plot made me do it, etc) and the use of words with a higher level of sophistication.

 Perhaps this wider use of the p-word will help strip it (so to speak)of some of the unnecessary shame and taboo associated with any art form that depicts what is, after all, just one of life’s pleasures.

The most recent survey that I can find* states that only 12% of romance novels with a contemporary setting included the use of condoms (in 2000)–and in several novels the heroine is shown as rejecting condom use when the hero mentions it. In the same study undergraduates who read romance novels had less favorable attitudes to condoms and were less likely to use them. I have two somewhat conflicting thoughts that relate to whether contemporary romance novels should depict safe sex.Firstly, I feel fiction should not be socially engineered. Authors should be free to write (publishers to manufacture and retailer to sell) any material they they wish. The contents of a novel may influence, but never cause a reader’s behavior. The reader remains responsible for what they read, and for everything they subsequently do. In fact, research is very ambiguous about how fiction may affect behavior. Most studies taken to show that media (such as television) influence behavior (such as violence) probably relate more to the suggestion of a permissive environment–rather than an effect on temperament or long term behavioral tendencies.