In Brief: Point, Counterpoint
Erica Jong's review of Sarah Dunant's In the Company of the Courtesan, from the New York Times, March 12, 2006.
And then Sarah Dunant's response, from the March 26th issue.
About Me
- Sarah Johnson
- Collection management librarian, readers' advisor, avid historical fiction reader, NBCC member. Book review editor for the Historical Novels Review and Booklist reviewer. Recipient of ALA's Louis Shores Award for book reviewing (2012). Blogging since 2006.
Something is weird here. I could read the review, but to read the reply I must register with NYT. Too bad, because I don't register with these places out of principle. If it's free why register at all, and why do they care about my gender, age and nationality?
ReplyDeleteHm. I deliberately tried to find a link that didn't require people to register, but I guess that didn't work.
ReplyDeleteDoes this one work instead? I logged out of NYT and was still able to see it.
Yep, that link works, thank you.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the book, but while I think some of Jong's arguments (breaks in the use of language, pale female MC) might be correct, I considered her last paragraph very condescending. It's the old literature versus genre adage, and it isn't Dan Brown's fault that some writers want to entertain their readers first of all. I'm among these. ;)
Though if Dunant wanted to write the story of the dwarf rather than the courtesan, the marketing department seems to have got it wrong and stressed on the 'courtesan' not the 'company' on the cover. I suppose any book with an important female character nowadays runs the danger to be marketed as Women's or Feminist literature.
I put it on my To Buy list.
Possibly the marketing department didn't so much get it wrong as decide that a book with 'courtesan' in the title would be a better sell than one with 'dwarf'. I thought the last couple of paragraphs were condescending too.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, Gabriele, if sites insist that I register I generally register as Professor Mickey Mouse of the Jellystone University Medical Department, born in 1900 and a Ukrainian national. They deserve to have their databases messed up.
Ohh, now I'm tempted to sign as librarian from the Unseen University of Ankh Morpork. :-)
ReplyDeleteI meant the cover rather than the title. It has a painting showing one of these typical, well rounded women with some bits of silk draped over the body. Courtesan cliché at its best.
Good points... I agree with what both of you said.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like Jong was expecting both feminist and literary historical fiction and didn't get either. I don't think her misguided hopes are Dunant's fault, though. From what I've seen, both women and men read Dunant's novels. And I enjoy sweeping sagas, myself.
I have to say I find the idea of Erica Jong going on about High Art to be more than a little absurd. I know she's a highly educated woman who can be quite erudite, but her most enduring contribution to literature is the zipless you-know-what. Puh-leeze!
ReplyDeleteOh absolutely. I like them, too.
ReplyDeleteIf you leave out the chapters where Tolstoy muses about the nature of war and such, even War and Peace is pretty much a sweeping saga. Though I better don't tell Mrs. Jong that I wrote War and Peace fanfiction in my teenage years. ;-)
Horrors! But does it have a strong female character? Then it may be acceptable.
ReplyDeleteOh, it had the most perfect self-insert Mary Sue you can imagine. :-D
ReplyDelete