The other day I found this quotation on the blog Damned Scribbling Women, written by Kate and Anneliese, and I thought it was so wonderfully provoking that I had to share it with you. (I borrowed the picture in the same place)Nathaniel Hawthorne (the American author of The Scarlet Letter): America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash--and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed.
So now we know where they found the name of their blog.
And, now a question for my readers, what do you think about the quotation?
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11 kommentarer:
Oh, that's a great quote. Scribbling women, huh? Mr. hawthorne might have had some ego issues neh?
Lilly, I really thought it went so well together with my monthly themes of femi, macho and crime for all :D
It certainly puts the gender issue into perspective.
Great quote. Even better picture.
Thank you, John, and thanks for visiting my blog.
Apropos of pictures, I think the cover of Winged with Death is fantastic. Not necessarily beautiful, but striking and memorable.
Women's fiction is generally looked-down-upon. But it certainly doesn't stop women from writing, and it absolutely doesn't stop women from buying books.
"When it comes to fiction, the gender gap is at its widest. Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain." - Why Women Read More Than Men
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229
Dorte, I'm glad our site inspired you!
Kate, I think mutual inspiration is one of the most important effects of blogging.
Julia, I know that some men look down on women´s fiction in general, but perhaps that says more about them than about the books women write? And thanks for the link which I will check out now.
My first thought was to wonder who Hawthorne's female contemporaries were-- and to consider its historical context. I love that someone took this quote as their blog name and embraced it for the now!
but now I'm also curious about Julia's link, so off I go. :)
Care, I am not sure any of them are as famous as he is so perhaps he had no need to be so envious ;)
I also like the implicit irony of that blog.
This quotation made me think about those writers who mixed themselves with the damn scribbling women and their trash. Some say D'Annunzio wrote a few of the novels attributed to Liala (the Italian Barbara Cartland) and there's a young contemporary Italian crime novelist who writes every week a romance short story for a female magazine. In between these two, there are many authors who are known to have written lots of romance novels,often in a few days and under female pseudonym, just because they needed the money.
Marco, thank you for this interesting piece of information :D
As a modern woman, I can laugh at Hawthorne, but I heartily agree with Doris Lessing who said that people who long for the good old days are usually those who were well-off. A hundred years ago I would have been a servant or a housewife (actually, I would probably have died while giving birth to my tenth child by now).
In today´s Denmark it may be time to fight for equality for men, however, and I think it may be the same in Germany.
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