THE BLINDFOLD

Finished reading The blindfold by Siri Hustvedt a couple of days ago. It was so, so good. It is her debut novel and it is slightly different to the way she writes now, which of course is only natural. Anyway, I loved it. Have a minor (read: major) obsession on Siri Hustvedt going on, which you probably have guessed from my recent posts. But I am slowly trying to get out of it, so I'm reading Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee now. Read it years ago, but the only thing I could remember was that I thought it was very good. That hasn't changed.

Other news: Marisha Pessl is finally publishing another novel. It's called Night film and will be released in August. Exciting!

A ROOM TO WRITE IN ISN'T LIKE OTHER ROOMS

Writer's room: Siri Hustvedt

THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT YOU ARE: IMPOSSIBLE.

Started reading Invisible by Paul Auster yesterday evening, finished it just now. It was incredibly good.

Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster

WEEK 6

Last week I read The bleeding heart by Marilyn French, Enduring love by Ian McEwan and The yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

OK: Curtis Sittenfeld is publishing a new novel, out on the 25th of June, called Sisterland. So.excited.I.cannot.breathe.

WHAT I WANT IS FOR MEN TO BE LIKE WOMEN

"Yes, she wanted to say, the whole world goes the same way. There is a word for hatred of all people: misanthrophy. There is a word for hatred of women: misogyny. But there is no word for hatred of men, males. Apparently such a thing is inconceivable. Oh, there was a war all right, but it wasn't women who declared it, it was men thousands of years ago. They declared women invalid and built that illegitimacy into the laws, into the very dreams of human race. That division lies curled deeply at the very root of our whole power-hungry, industrial, nature-crushing, ambitious, structured, patriarchal, hierarchical world. But when women started to fight back, men threw up their hands in horror and screamed in hate and fear about man-hating women! Yes!
   [...] So that men who don't go as far as others in their misogyny, men who are willing to admit that perhaps women can do "men's" jobs, can think, can act, men who are willing to admit that perhaps men haven't been entirely fair to women over the ages, men like that feel virtuous and pure and large and generous and expect women to fall all over with them with gratitude. Yes."
- The bleeding heart, Marilyn French