Hi Jessica, I’m curious to hear which literary novels you would nominate as positive examples of the feminist agenda and strong feminist characters.

Good question – off the top of my head, maybe Julia Leigh’s Disquiet and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Although is the latter perhaps closer to the genre end of the spectrum?

The simple answer is that of course it’s possible, but Meyer and – God help us – Dan Brown didn’t bother to try. There are any number of fiesty heroines created by women (and some men) in the crime genre, and even vampires, for that matter, and an increasing number in adventure thrillers and particularly YA. Is your sub-text question whether it’s possible for men to write non-sexist works in crime or other genre? Of course. But it does go wrong sometimes, doesn’t it? Perhaps some writers are not quite as clear-eyed and progressive as they believe themselves to be – or their stated politics sit uneasily with their subconscious (or perhaps in Larsson’s case it is to do with the editing and translation, as some have claimed)? Oh, and surely it can’t hurt popular fiction authors to try a little character development and sentence-crafting – even if, again, Meyer and Brown don’t bother themselves with it too much.

“Authors of popular fiction have long argued that we should not hold their works to the same criteria as literary fiction. In other words, it’s redundant to harp on about depth of character, well-crafted sentences, realism and so on, because genre does not seek to accomplish any of these. Instead, it’s purpose is to be a page-turner, to be hyper-real. Genre is all about pace and fun, about rediscovering the voraciousness of reading, about falling into a story. It if achieves these things, then one must conclude that it is a good thriller/romance/fantasy. Or, somewhat more coolly, that it is ‘good enough for what it is’.”

I have deep problems with this analysis of genre writing, in that it is the exact opposite of every argument I have ever heard a genre writer make – or have made myself – about their work. The struggle of genre writers to be acknowledged by the mainstream literary world has less to do with wanting to lower the standards of what constitutes good literature such that “depth of character, well-crafted sentences, realism and so on” don’t apply, but rather to acknowledge that all of these qualities abound within genre writing already.

The biggest difference between the two ‘schools’, such as they are – and I agree that this distinction is often problematic – isn’t in the writing itself, but in the type of storytelling. Literature heavily favours plots that are centered on an individual’s thoughts, and which culminate in a personal epiphany of some sort (think Ulysses or The Unbearable Lightness of Being), and as this is a type of structure much more common in straight fiction than anywhere else, the assumption becomes that only straight fiction qualifies as literature.

It has always seemed to me that the division between literature and genre is utterly false: the real divide, if there is one, lies between fiction and genre. While the very best fiction automatically ascends to the ‘literature’ category, the same is not equally true of genre, and herein lies the real disparity. The fact that you’ve chosen to illustrate your point with two extremely popular novels, neither of which, if you sat down a panel of genre afficionados and authors and asked them to choose the literature of the genre canon, would make the top 10. So far as fantasy goes, Twilight is probably the most offensive choice for a representative book, given how widely it is reviled, and while Larsson’s work has earned more acclaim than not, there are still dozens of crime and thriller writers who would rightfully outrank him.

As for feminism in genre, these are both terrible examples. In fantasy, for instance, why not try the work of George R. R. Martin or Kate Elliott? It is entirely possible to write strong genre with feminism in mind, but if the only effort you make towards finding it is to treat the field as a popularity contest – which distinction most certainly cannot be said of ‘literature’ – and base your analysis on the only two titles you’ve actually heard about, of course you’re not going to find anything.

Finally, you might also like to consider the science fiction elements in the work of Margaret Atwood, particularly Oryx and Crake and, to a certain extent, the Booker prize-winning The Blind Assassin, and note that, for the first time in its history, the Miles Franklin prize was this year won by Peter Temple: a crime writer.

Also: for the record, and because I apparently can’t shut up about this, here is a short list of fantasy novels with legitimate feminist themes/undertones:

A Song of Ice and Fire series, by George R. R. Martin

The Crossroads trilogy, by Kate Elliott

The Crown of Stars series, by Kate Elliott

The Uglies series, by Scott Westerfeld

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

The Gemma Doyle trilogy, by Libba Bray

Pretty much everything ever written by Tamora Pierce

The Laws of Magic series by Michael Pryor

Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders and Dragon Haven trilogies

…and so on. I could basically do this all day. Point being, one is very unlikely to find examples of feminism in genre when one does not, in point of fact, actually READ genre.

Good on you for posting the list, Foz. Thanks very much. And I agree wholeheartedly with the last point you make.

Now I would love to see a longer list of feminist literary novels, so I can go and educate myself.

As Foz implies, there is a long tradition of feminist writing within the SF community: criticism as well as fiction. Ursula K. LeGuin is a notable example in both camps. There is also a long tradition of misogynist space opera, etc., but that’s another story.

Although LeGuin redresses the balance in the second half of the Earthsea saga, the first 3 books are often criticized for being too male-oriented. So if you are reading the saga, please suspend judgement until you have finished all 6 books.

Foz and Simon, at no point was I intending this post to deride genre, or in fact arguing that feminism in genre couldn’t be done. (The division, as I stated, is problematic in the first place). Rather, as a new crime reader, I was posing this question in hope of getting some answers, and yes as you say Atwood is a great contender. I do actually enjoy reading fantasy and I’ll look forward to reading more of those titles on your list.

Re two different criteria (note I purposely did not use the word ‘standards’), this was exactly what was argued by Child, Reilly and Morrissey on the First Tues Book Club and a fabulous session at the Wheeler Centre’s Lunchbox Soapbox: http://wheelercentre.com/videos/tag/lunchbox-soapbox/

There is also a real issue I think in the history of crime and feminism and how we critique this without being accused of literary snobbery. Larsson in particularly needs to be discussed because many do think that Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the perfect feminist avenger, and love it as such, without questioning the implications for violence against women. Twilight may not make your list of the ‘canon’, but regardless I’m sure that many would name it as one of their favourite books of all time. Ditto for the Da Vinci Code. Their influence is immeasurable and are worthy of discussion because of this.

@Jess – I got a little worked up before; sorry about that. I’ve responded more from a fantasy angle, as my crime reading tends to be minimal; I’ve read Girl With A Dragon Tattoo, though, and I wholeheartedly agree with your point about Larsson holding Salander up as a tough girl heroine on the one hand while prose- drooling over her body on the other.

When it comes to books like Twilight and the Da Vinci Code, though, while both are definitely popular and, as such, influential, I think there’s an important distinction to be made in terms of content. Yes, they’re well-known, but that notoriety doesn’t automatically make them representative of their respective genres – some would even argue that it indicates the exact opposite, at least as far as quality is concerned. It can therefore raise hackles if, when talking about genre, only such popular texts are mentioned: they are certainly not the be-all, end-all of the debate. Unless the aim is to discuss such works specifically, rather than in a wider context, making them your only reference feels either like ignorance or a deliberate strawman argument.

Sort of like what would happen if, as a left-winger, I wanted to complain about the general idiocy of right-wing political commentators, but only mentioned Ann Coulter.

OK. I’m done being opinionated now :)

Simon, you probably know this already, but LeGuin’s SF writing is often far more explicitly feminist than the Earthsea books. Indeed, to clarify my point, since SF is famously a literature of ideas, it is often the case that writers in that genre pose questions about (e.g.) gender and sexuality, which are not incidental but are actually the entire raison d'etre of the books or stories in question.

See also James Tiptree, Jr., whose biography is exemplary in this regard. Google the name if you don’t know what I mean.

“writers in that genre pose questions about (e.g.) gender and sexuality”

Indeed, a la LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.

No worries Foz – a lively discussion is all for the better.

I don’t think any book can actually speak for literature as a whole, but Twilight, Brown and Larsson do make up a huge slice of the pie. Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsals has also just occurred to me as another good example of fantasy with a feminist core. Although I am curious to hear of more crime/thriller nominations in this vein…

Re. Crime, I’m very impressed by P M Newton’s The Old School, a crime novel that’s set in Sydney and has just been released by Penguin. I think the female characters in that work extremely well, and the author (a woman) does not fall into predictable traps.

Good discussion. I haven’t yet read the Larsson books but they’ve been recommended to me on basis of feisty heroine so i’m horrified to hear she gets breast implants!

Don’t want to advocate reading ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and this is no good reason to read it, but incidentally it does have a feminist spiritual agenda in its rereading of the Christian myth of the holy grail, a reading which has been at large in feminist spiritual writing for decades.

@Jess – Tender Morsels is a truly excellent novel. Disturbing in parts, but excellent.

Like many people I enjoyed Larsson’s trilogy (and am not usually a crime genre reader). As entertaining as the novels are, and refreshing in some ways, it struck me as nothing short of hypocritical that Larsson seemed to be taking a stand against violence against women and yet the first book follows a series of grisly murders – all the victims being women. This isn’t breaking the mould.

The breast implants were just strange!

Jess, if you get a chance to read Leigh Redhead’s Simone Kirsch series, I would love to hear if you think it has a feminist core. Simone is a Melbourne P.I.

See http://www.leighredhead.com/

What about literary science fiction (yes, it does exist) & feminism?

Like Nalo Hopkinson’s ‘The Brown Girl in The Ring’.

or Octavia Bulter’s Parable of the Sower (and the others in the Earthseed trilogy).

etc

Great discussion, thanks. Clearly there is plenty of genre fiction just as compelling as literary fiction when it comes to character and ideas. And happily in spite of Twilight there is also Buffy – created by a man (I guess scripted by several people), with not just one but several hilarious and strong young women and working as vampire story and TV (if TV counts as a genre). One of the things that amazed me when the Da Vinci Code came out was the number of men who told me it was the best book they had ever read in their lives (mostly, they didn’t read much, but still). They certainly felt like they had engaged with ideas, even if, had they chosen almost any other novel on earth they might have done much better. So one question: there seem to be plenty of crime novels based around women detectives, who manage to have emotional lives, ideas and decent plot. Cornwell and La Plante types aside, are they read by men? I have no idea.