The Lottery (and Other Stories), Shirley Jackson
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
White Teeth, Zadie Smith
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion (Didion is an amazing writer. Before her, I never read non-fiction. Her prose is beautiful)
Excellent Women, Barbara Pym
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (Read this in college, shortly after reading Jane Eyre. Our whole class was in love with Rochester, and did not want to hear Bertha's slander of him. All the same, this is a truly lovely book)
The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
Beloved, Toni Morrison (I actually think I've read this, but I'm not sure).
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
Like Life, Lorrie Moore
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (Probably one of my all-time favorites. I have read it many times, and it still brings me to tears. Also one of the few successful film adaptions - the BBC/Colin Firth version, obviously)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
The Delta of Venus, Anais Nin
A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
A Good Man Is Hard To Find (and Other Stories), Flannery O'Connor
The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Alice Walker
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (Awesome. If you haven't read this, read it before any other on this list. Except Pride and Prejudice)
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
Fear of Flying, Erica Jong
Earthly Paradise, Colette
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
Property, Valerie Martin
Middlemarch, George Eliot
Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid
The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir (I was a philosophy major in college. I read most of this, but not, technically, all of it. I was so pissed to find Borders had categorized this as Wellness>Women's Studies, and not with the other philosophy books. They still categorize it this way and, while I sort of get it, I also hate it)
Runaway, Alice Munro
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
The Liars' Club, Mary Karr
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Betty Smith
And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (I love mysteries of any sort)
Bastard out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Little Disturbances of Man, Grace Paley
The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker (I wish I was as witty as Parker. She is my literary hero)
The Group, Mary McCarthy (McCarthy is under-appreciated)
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (Surprisingly, this book has one of the most accurate descriptions of the feelings of loss after a loved one dies that I have ever read)
Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
Fun Home, Alison Bechdel
Three Junes, Julia Glass
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (I read this in sixth grade, and can still remember finishing it, under the covers, around 3am, because I couldn't put it down. I had heard that line "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." my whole life, and never would have thought it could possibly be as devastating as it was to actually read it)
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Love In The Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Harsh Voice, Rebecca West
Spending, Mary Gordon
The Lover, Marguerite Duras
The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen
Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
Three Lives, Gertrude Stein
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
Possession, A.S. Byatt
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
75 Books Every Woman Must Read
Jezebel just posted the 75 books every woman must read. Here's their list (with the ones I've read in orange, plus some comments):
Sunday, April 08, 2007
My Feminist Education
I always knew I was a feminist. Even when I was just a little kid, it always bugged me when my brothers got to do something and I didn't, just because I was a girl. My parents encouraged this behavior. I had my very own Popeye shaving kit - plastic razor, shaving cream cup, and brush - and I used to "shave" with my dad in the mornings. My brothers didn't have facial hair to shave, either.
When I got to college, St. Mary's in Notre Dame, Indiana, these views were obviously encouraged. I was sort of shocked, though, at the number of women who did not feel that they were feminists. I mean, how can you not be a feminist?
But I know why they felt that feminism excluded them. Sure, they thought that women were just as good as men. They wouldn't say that they didn't support equality between the sexes. What they objected to was the association between feminism and lesbianism. Somewhere along the line, those two terms became intertwined in a way that today's young women - and some not-so-young ... I would say most women under 35 - can't seem to get past. The forerunners of the "women's movement" were so successful that a lot of women today don't see the need to fight. And so the fight for equality has been taken up by other oppressed groups. Lesbians, by nature, call into question what society expects out of women. Because they are not yet totally accepted, they have to fight. Part of what they fight for is equality between the sexes. I'm not saying that this is an absolute explanation of how "lesbian" and "feminist" began to be seen as synonyms, but I think it is part of it.
There was a time in the when it seemed that following any of what was seen as a woman's role was playing into the hands of the patriarchy. To be a "true" feminist, you had to reject everything that men have set out as being for women, or what women should do. I remember reading Adrienne Rich in college and being so furious to see "It is the lesbian in us who is creative, for the dutiful daughter of the fathers in us is only a hack. " (Adrienne Rich (b. 1929), U.S. poet, essayist, and lesbian feminist. "It Is the Lesbian In Us Who Is Creative," (1976).) I am not a hack. I am not a "dutiful daughter." But I am also not a lesbian.
Now, I know what Rich was saying. I understand that she wasn't really talking about sexuality. But still, it was upsetting to me because I felt like there was no place for me in feminism. I was (and am) an intelligent, outspoken woman. No man tells me what to do. But I am also a straight woman. I love men. It was so upsetting to me that I felt like I had to defend that position. Feminism isn't about the superiority of women - it's about equality.
I was a member of the Feminist Collective on campus, but eventually stopped going because it eventually replaced the Gay, Lesbian, and Questioning (I can't remember the full name, I apologize) Outreach group that didn't get acknowledged as a campus organization. I felt like the Take Back the Night walk was the only thing the group did that was "feminist" as opposed to "lesbian." I think I was one of two straight women who attended meetings, so I stopped going. It wasn't that I didn't support my lesbian friends, I just didn't want to support the meshing of lesbianism and feminism. It isn't lesbians or lesbianism that I have an issue with. It's the underlying notion that I can't be a "real" feminist if I like men. I feel that the blending of lesbian and feminist implies that I'm a bad feminist if I like men, and I don't think that's true.
This is all to introduce an old post I discovered at one of my favorite blogs. She wrote it three or four years ago, but it is new to me, and I love it. It's called Yes, You Are.
It very much supports my view that everyone is, or should be, a feminist. Because the definition of a feminist is simple: Any person who believes in the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. My cousin's husband has a wonderful t-shirt that says "This is what a Feminist looks like." I love it, and I want Mr to wear one because, whether he would admit it or not, he's a feminist, too.
When I got to college, St. Mary's in Notre Dame, Indiana, these views were obviously encouraged. I was sort of shocked, though, at the number of women who did not feel that they were feminists. I mean, how can you not be a feminist?
But I know why they felt that feminism excluded them. Sure, they thought that women were just as good as men. They wouldn't say that they didn't support equality between the sexes. What they objected to was the association between feminism and lesbianism. Somewhere along the line, those two terms became intertwined in a way that today's young women - and some not-so-young ... I would say most women under 35 - can't seem to get past. The forerunners of the "women's movement" were so successful that a lot of women today don't see the need to fight. And so the fight for equality has been taken up by other oppressed groups. Lesbians, by nature, call into question what society expects out of women. Because they are not yet totally accepted, they have to fight. Part of what they fight for is equality between the sexes. I'm not saying that this is an absolute explanation of how "lesbian" and "feminist" began to be seen as synonyms, but I think it is part of it.
There was a time in the when it seemed that following any of what was seen as a woman's role was playing into the hands of the patriarchy. To be a "true" feminist, you had to reject everything that men have set out as being for women, or what women should do. I remember reading Adrienne Rich in college and being so furious to see "It is the lesbian in us who is creative, for the dutiful daughter of the fathers in us is only a hack. " (Adrienne Rich (b. 1929), U.S. poet, essayist, and lesbian feminist. "It Is the Lesbian In Us Who Is Creative," (1976).) I am not a hack. I am not a "dutiful daughter." But I am also not a lesbian.
Now, I know what Rich was saying. I understand that she wasn't really talking about sexuality. But still, it was upsetting to me because I felt like there was no place for me in feminism. I was (and am) an intelligent, outspoken woman. No man tells me what to do. But I am also a straight woman. I love men. It was so upsetting to me that I felt like I had to defend that position. Feminism isn't about the superiority of women - it's about equality.
I was a member of the Feminist Collective on campus, but eventually stopped going because it eventually replaced the Gay, Lesbian, and Questioning (I can't remember the full name, I apologize) Outreach group that didn't get acknowledged as a campus organization. I felt like the Take Back the Night walk was the only thing the group did that was "feminist" as opposed to "lesbian." I think I was one of two straight women who attended meetings, so I stopped going. It wasn't that I didn't support my lesbian friends, I just didn't want to support the meshing of lesbianism and feminism. It isn't lesbians or lesbianism that I have an issue with. It's the underlying notion that I can't be a "real" feminist if I like men. I feel that the blending of lesbian and feminist implies that I'm a bad feminist if I like men, and I don't think that's true.
This is all to introduce an old post I discovered at one of my favorite blogs. She wrote it three or four years ago, but it is new to me, and I love it. It's called Yes, You Are.
It very much supports my view that everyone is, or should be, a feminist. Because the definition of a feminist is simple: Any person who believes in the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. My cousin's husband has a wonderful t-shirt that says "This is what a Feminist looks like." I love it, and I want Mr to wear one because, whether he would admit it or not, he's a feminist, too.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Reawakening the Philosopher in Me
I was reading Mano's blog and followed her link to Kottke, which I had never visited. Boy was I missing out. Today, they have a little link to Science Musings which asks the question:
They say Einstein's 1905 paper on relativity because (and I'm really baselining here, their argument is more sophisticated) Einstein's discovery is scientific fact and therefore would have been discovered and articulated by someone eventually. Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Mozart are artistic geniuses who created works singularly to them - things that could not have been created by anyone else.
This really got me thinking, and seems to have woken up a part of my brain that has been snoozing away since I graduated college, more or less. Since no one I talk to on a daily basis gives a crap about my philosophical musings, I'm just going to post them here.
Anyway, the underlying assumption to the author's conclusion is that art is completely subjective and unique and science is completely objective. That there is a concrete truth out there in the universe, just waiting to be discovered. Couldn't art be a part of that truth? Or science require a unique creativity to discover what might be out there? I know other scientists at the time were working on similar theories, but maybe Einstein had a unique creativity that allowed him to see it. Maybe Shakespeare was tapping into psychological facts that were just out there, waiting to be expressed.
It's an interesting premise to consider. Michelangelo's Pieta is a breathtakingly beautiful recreation of Mary cradling her dead son. But it is a scene taken directly from the Bible. Who's to say that some other talented sculptor of the age couldn't have created the same thing? There are certainly numerous copies of Michelangelo's work all over the world (heck, a tiny David is in my bathroom right now. He's not quite the same, being about 1/100th the size of the original and, for reasons beyond to me, at some point he acquired a gauze diaper, but it is recognizably the David).
Similarly, Shakespeare's Hamlet is also based on facts that were already out there at the time he wrote it. The first known version of Hamlet's story was written in the 13th century. And, though Mozart's version is considered the best, Don Giovanni is one of many operas based on the life of Don Juan.
So, it would actually seem that of the four options, Einstein's work is actually the only one not based on previously published information.
Chet Raymo at Science Musings concludes that because any scientist could have discovered relativity (or group of scientists, and the discovery could be any landmark one - penicillin, DNA etc), the world can do with the loss of any one scientist. But art is the result of one individual mind and could not possibly be conceived and executed by more than one person. So, we can do without Einstein, but not without Shakespeare, Mozart or Michelangelo. While I agree that the world would be a sad place had those men not lived, he's shifted the argument here in a way that I can't support. The question was about which work could be lost, not which creator of that work.
I think I disagree with the core of his argument, too, that only scientific discoveries are objectively out there, in the world, just waiting to be grabbed, and artistic creations are formed whole-cloth out of one unique mind. There are (and I hesitate to use the word, but.. I can't think of another) universal themes that have been utilised and reworked repeatedly throughout history. Works of art share inspirations - from past works of art, the Bible, and life. People, regardless of race, religion, or nationality connect on certain levels that transcend those differences. Couldn't art be out there, objectively speaking, just waiting to inspire someone?
Which of the following works would you choose to be lost, if only three could be saved: Michelangelo's Pieta, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Mozart's Don Giovanni, or Einstein's 1905 paper on relativity.
They say Einstein's 1905 paper on relativity because (and I'm really baselining here, their argument is more sophisticated) Einstein's discovery is scientific fact and therefore would have been discovered and articulated by someone eventually. Michelangelo, Shakespeare and Mozart are artistic geniuses who created works singularly to them - things that could not have been created by anyone else.
This really got me thinking, and seems to have woken up a part of my brain that has been snoozing away since I graduated college, more or less. Since no one I talk to on a daily basis gives a crap about my philosophical musings, I'm just going to post them here.
Anyway, the underlying assumption to the author's conclusion is that art is completely subjective and unique and science is completely objective. That there is a concrete truth out there in the universe, just waiting to be discovered. Couldn't art be a part of that truth? Or science require a unique creativity to discover what might be out there? I know other scientists at the time were working on similar theories, but maybe Einstein had a unique creativity that allowed him to see it. Maybe Shakespeare was tapping into psychological facts that were just out there, waiting to be expressed.
It's an interesting premise to consider. Michelangelo's Pieta is a breathtakingly beautiful recreation of Mary cradling her dead son. But it is a scene taken directly from the Bible. Who's to say that some other talented sculptor of the age couldn't have created the same thing? There are certainly numerous copies of Michelangelo's work all over the world (heck, a tiny David is in my bathroom right now. He's not quite the same, being about 1/100th the size of the original and, for reasons beyond to me, at some point he acquired a gauze diaper, but it is recognizably the David).
Similarly, Shakespeare's Hamlet is also based on facts that were already out there at the time he wrote it. The first known version of Hamlet's story was written in the 13th century. And, though Mozart's version is considered the best, Don Giovanni is one of many operas based on the life of Don Juan.
So, it would actually seem that of the four options, Einstein's work is actually the only one not based on previously published information.
Chet Raymo at Science Musings concludes that because any scientist could have discovered relativity (or group of scientists, and the discovery could be any landmark one - penicillin, DNA etc), the world can do with the loss of any one scientist. But art is the result of one individual mind and could not possibly be conceived and executed by more than one person. So, we can do without Einstein, but not without Shakespeare, Mozart or Michelangelo. While I agree that the world would be a sad place had those men not lived, he's shifted the argument here in a way that I can't support. The question was about which work could be lost, not which creator of that work.
I think I disagree with the core of his argument, too, that only scientific discoveries are objectively out there, in the world, just waiting to be grabbed, and artistic creations are formed whole-cloth out of one unique mind. There are (and I hesitate to use the word, but.. I can't think of another) universal themes that have been utilised and reworked repeatedly throughout history. Works of art share inspirations - from past works of art, the Bible, and life. People, regardless of race, religion, or nationality connect on certain levels that transcend those differences. Couldn't art be out there, objectively speaking, just waiting to inspire someone?
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