Reading and diversity - which author are you reading?

[ratsy]

@Mouse I'll suggest that to her!

@Randy M. My wife did read almost all of the Mcall Smith Ladies Detective Books, and I read one just to give it a whirl. It was quite good, and as you said, the series is charming.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Excellent
There is an Indian Detective written by a woman who never was in India. Allegedly Indians thought she had as it's well done.
I think British author H R F Keating: Inspector Ganesh Ghote of Bombay (but unlike others I've listed I've not read it yet)
Ngaio Marsh : Inspector Alleyn Mysteries
Margery Allingham : Campion series
Eilis Peters: Caedfael
Peter Tremayne : (Early Celtic Christian period) Detective Mysteries: Sister Fidelma

Georges Simenon: Maigret
Van der Valk, the Dutch Detective is an British invention. Nicolas Freeling

Leslie Charteris was actually Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, a British-American citizen with Chinese father and born in Singapore. His real life was nearly as strange as Simon Templar, the Saint. But reading the many books I never realised he wasn't a regular "white Englishman".

Lots of stuff that seems like it ought to be a foreign translation is actually British.

I think choosing books deliberately based on Gender and ethnicity or Nationality of writer is a mad idea.

 

[Randy M.]

Excellent
There is an Indian Detective written by a woman who never was in India. Allegedly Indians thought she had as it's well done.
I think British author H R F Keating: Inspector Ganesh Ghote of Bombay (but unlike others I've listed I've not read it yet)
Ngaio Marsh : Inspector Alleyn Mysteries
Margery Allingham : Campion series
Eilis Peters: Caedfael
Peter Tremayne : (Early Celtic Christian period) Detective Mysteries: Sister Fidelma

Georges Simenon: Maigret
Van der Valk, the Dutch Detective is an British invention. Nicolas Freeling

Leslie Charteris was actually Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, a British-American citizen with Chinese father and born in Singapore. His real life was nearly as strange as Simon Templar, the Saint. But reading the many books I never realised he wasn't a regular "white Englishman".

Good list. Reminds me that Raymond Chandler, a Brit, Ross Macdonald (Kenneth Millar), a Canadian, and John Connolly, an Irishman, all wrote (write, in Connolly's case), American characters in American settings.

The mystery story as it first developed was a bit rigid in structure, only allowed so much deviation, so writers looked for ways to change it up. Some very good writers found a home there, the "limitations" of the form providing them with structure, but to push the boundaries and to expand what could be done included bringing in characters not found in other mysteries, and so white guys like John Ball (character, Virgil Tibbs), Ernest Tidyman (character, John Shaft) and Tony Hillerman (characters, Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn) wrote about characters from minorities in the U.S. and through a strong act of imagination and empathy wrote well enough that the respective minorities adopted the characters. (Which contrasts with Earl Derr Biggers and his detective, Charlie Chan.)

Lots of stuff that seems like it ought to be a foreign translation is actually British.

Reminds me of the saying about America and England, "Two countries divided by a common language."

I think choosing books deliberately based on Gender and ethnicity or Nationality of writer is a mad idea.

So does this indicate you don't believe in, "Walk a mile in their shoes"?

That aside, all depends on your reasons for reading, and maybe your definition of entertainment. It's generally held that if you want to understand the American South, you need to include Faulkner and Eudora Welty (among others) in your reading. They had a grip on the place and time, the way people from that region acted and thought, and it comes through in their writing.

Certainly, in my reading I can see that perception and reaction changes from writer to writer, and I firmly believe those changes are based on a combination of genetics and environment (social, cultural, political, religious values, even physical landscape, among other factors).


Randy M.

 

[ratsy]

If I remember correctly, Mcall Smith was born in southern Africa, and lived and taught in Botswana, where the series is based. So he does have first hand knowledge and experience with the subject matter

 

[Ray McCarthy]

he does have first hand knowledge and experience

Exactly, the apparent nationality, sex, ethnicity isn't a reliable guide.
I'd no idea about:
Raymond Chandler wasn't American.
Leslie Charteris wasn't a conventional Englishman.
Van der Valk wasn't written by a Dutch person
I did know who Jack London was.
Robin Hobbs was a woman till after two or three books.
Didn't know J.V. Jones was a woman till after read one book.
Samuel Delaney
That Dracula was written by an Irishman.

I did know that I was reading translations of
Jules Verne
Jostein Gaarder
Georges Simeon
Franz Kafka (Amerika is really weird, because maybe he hadn't a clue? The others are better)
Alexandre Dumas
Carlos Ruiz Zafón (two books)
Cornelia Funke
Markus Heitz
Umberto Eco
Christine Nostlinger
Giovanni Guaresch
Tacitus
Niccolò Machiavelli
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Must read the updated First Circle, I read original English translation about a year after its release).

Possibly Kazuo Ishiguro writes in English?

I'm sure I've read other non English language, but fact is a tiny proportion of non-English is translated other than famous classics. Very much higher percentage of English Language is translated to other languages. My Daughter-in-law (the one born in Kazakhstan and brought up in Germany) is as widely read as I, but mostly in German, a lot of the English titles in German. I haven't established what the other Daughter-in-law reads, but she appears to only read in English, despite not being from the West.

I have a bunch of translations of Chinese Classics on my Kindle to read sometime
I read Monkey, but it's Arthur Waley's popular abridged translation retelling rather than a proper translation of Journey to the West.


Many apparently British authors write authentically about other countries (some are not really very British at all).
Joanne Harris (French people thought Chocolat would be rubbish, then after reading decided she must be French, the reality is more complicated)
Alexander McCall Smith
H R F Keating
Jack London
Nevil Shute
Leslie Charteris
Raymond Chandler
Nicolas Freeling

As an N.I. "ex pat" I'd not have suspected Bob Shaw, C.S. Lewis and James White of being from the Province. It just shows not everyone there is like Gerry Adams, Nigel Dodds, Ian Paisley etc.

If you read outside you comfort zone and read lots, you'll read a diverse selection. As well as new books I search Gutenberg and charity shops, I take advice from friends with no interest in SF or F.
I eventually get round to reading anything my wife likes.
(Though not sure about some of the recent authors!)
The idea that you'll broaden you horizons in some magically good way by reading only Black Women for X books in a row seems bizarre. You broaden your horizon by a mix of old, classic and new. By trying different Genres.

Read lots.
My daughter says books have better CGI than Films and better polygon count and frame rate than games. I can read LOTR faster and with less distortion than the full set extended box set of DVDs.
I've almost cut out TV watching so as to be able to spend more time reading and writing.
Must spend more time writing my books and less time writing here!

 

[Randy M.]

I knew about McCall living in Botswana. Writers have to do their research, and there's probably no better research than living in the middle of the place and people you're writing about.

Exactly, the apparent nationality, sex, ethnicity isn't a reliable guide.

I agree fiction is tricky. Mark Twain started The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with,

NOTICE
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be pros-
ecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; per-
sons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,
Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.​

The question becomes, does he mean that literally or is this his way of prodding the reader toward really thinking about what he was writing? Given Twain's character as we know it, that could go either way.

I also agree that some very good writers have written outside their native language (Isak Dineson, Joseph Conrad) and used people other than their own (nationality, ethnicity, gender, etc.) as characters, often as viewpoint characters. (Sometimes doing that to present a different and maybe even contrary opinion to what a character of the writer's own grouping would be expected to say.)

But, the concerns of one nation may not be the concerns of another and seeing that through their fiction may still be an insight.

The concerns of women may be embedded in fiction written by women, and be a perspective many men are not familiar with and might not have thought of without the prod. (Guilty, as charged.)

The concerns of a minority may not ever have occurred to the member of a majority, and those concerns will bleed into fiction as well as they will other writings.

I do get what you say about preaching. Richard Wright's Native Son alternatively drew me in and repelled me. Some of the writing was wonderful, the imagery as noir as any 1940s mystery novel or movie. But he wouldn't be content with dramatizing his message, he had to address it directly and ham-handedly. Frustrating book I'm more happy to have read than happy to read.

If you read outside you comfort zone and read lots, you'll read a diverse selection.

Which is pretty much what the thread has been promoting, insofar as it has been promoting anything.

The idea that you'll broaden you horizons in some magically good way by reading only Black Women for X books in a row seems bizarre. You broaden your horizon by a mix of old, classic and new. By trying different Genres.

Kind of the most extreme version of what has been said here. If it interests you, go ahead. If not, don't. But mixing in a book or two by Black women, or gay Alsatian men, or leftist Nigerians, or states rights crazed Americans from the mid-west, doesn't hurt.

Read lots.

Something we agree on!


Randy M.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Joseph Conrad

He practically invented the Spy Genre. I assumed I was reading translations. Did he write Heart of Darkness 1899 and The Secret Agent 1907 in English?
Though The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service (Erskine Childers) is 1903. It's perhaps not exactly a Spy story.
The 39 steps in 1915.
The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins) 1859 beats Sherlock Holmes, 1887

All great classics.

gray Alsatian men

The whole werewolf thing is getting a bit passé

 

[Bick]

He practically invented the Spy Genre. I assumed I was reading translations. Did he write Heart of Darkness 1899 and The Secret Agent 1907 in English?

Yes, he wrote in English after settling in England. He gained British citizenship in the late 1880's I think. He did write when he lived in Poland, but I'm not familiar with his Polish work.

 

[MWagner]

One of the most moving novels I've read is the Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore. It's about the desperation of a middle-aged spinster to find love or hope, and it's told mostly from her point of view. It was written by a 33 year old man. Has reading it given me insight into the experience of middle-aged alcoholic Irish Catholic women, when the author was only one-and-a-half of those things? Yes, I believe it has. Probably better than a novel written by a less gifted writer who happened to be a middle-aged alcoholic Irish Catholic woman herself. Why? Because empathy and imagination.

If we don't believe empathy and imagination can give us a gateway into other people's souls, people very different from us, then what the f*ck are we doing reading and writing fiction?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Brain Moore sounds a very Protestant name, what could he know about Catholics?
Perhaps, frighteningly, based on an Aunt, School teacher or amalgam of people he knew. There are no shortage of desperate people, Catholics, spinsters/bachelors (esp. lonely are some farmers in Rural Ireland) and we have high extremes of teetotallers and alcoholics.

I think it's a believable thing for 26 year old Irish Writer. In fact it sounds as gloomy as too much Irish Literature. I had to give up reading Walter Macken (I've read most of the Novels though). At the other extreme we have Spike Milligan, Brian O'Nolan, Darren Shan, Eoin Colfer etc. Then of course the self important "experimental" James Joyce (can't stand it when he appears as cover pic on my kindle!)

Edit:
Oh no. I need to re-read "At swim two birds"

 

[GOLLUM]

Possibly Kazuo Ishiguro writes in English?

Ishiguro emigrated with his family to England when he was quite young..so his English is excellent but his Japanese is patchy at best.

I agree there are far too few books being translated into Englsih. I suppose we ought to be grateful for the ones that are eh? Some of the best fiction I find is written by non-English speakers, especially in more contemporary times from Eastern Europe, Africa and South America.

Franz Kafka (Amerika is really weird, because maybe he hadn't a clue? The others are better)

Not sure what you mean by this? You mean Kafka was not as sure with this novel than his other 2 OR because it was his first? Like the other 2 works, they are unfinished but it is a common criticism that the ending in Amerika is staged. Kafka chronologically wrote the start and end to begin with and then tried to fill in the blanks. He knew where he wanted to get to but never completed what would have been the back-end of this novel. Still I for one do not regret Max Brod's decision not to dispose of his manuscripts post-humorously.

I like your reading list! Very nice..

 

[soulsinging]

That aside, all depends on your reasons for reading, and maybe your definition of entertainment. It's generally held that if you want to understand the American South, you need to include Faulkner and Eudora Welty (among others) in your reading. They had a grip on the place and time, the way people from that region acted and thought, and it comes through in their writing.

I guess this is why I'm so skeptical of the whole notion. I don't think you get any real sense of the south from Faulkner (to say nothing of the fact that his books are nearly unintelligible). In the same sense, Joyce never made me feel at all like I understood Irish society, despite him claiming that he wanted people to be able to rebuild Dublin from Ulysses. If you want to feel the American south, you're better off watching Deliverance or trying some of the food and music.

I guess in general I think people that gain "insight" from books are vastly overstating their case. You can read an alcoholic's memoir and maybe get some sympathy, but unless you've lived it you're never going to truly know the hell of living as an addict. It's like the people that read Shogun and then classify themselves experts on Japanese history (or the way I became an expert on dinosaurs and cloning at age 10 rom Jurassic Park). It always feels like a vaguely shallow "understanding," the kind PC-conscious people love... something that lets them feel progressive and open to new things without actually having to work at it or sacrifice anything (like the time, money, or comfort it would require to actually go live in Africa for a while). It's like "well now that I know and have conquered the problems of American slaves by reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, I'm going to solve the problems of anti-Semitism by reading Anne Frank's Diary. Then it's on to a nice space opera, because it's exhausting work solving the world's prejudices one book at a time."

ps. As an aside, I am a huge Raymond Chandler fan and have read literally all of the Marlowe novels and stories, yet had no clue until just now that he was British. That's an indication of how little I know or care who is writing my books, even my favorite ones. I don't seek out white males, or avoid women or minorities... I simply literally do not notice or pay attention to the name on the book AT ALL (speaking of... anyone figure out if Tracy Hickman's a guy or girl for me?). So like I said, if someone gets enormous value out of this kind of reading, bully for them. Just don't label me close-minded because I never bothered paying attention to the races or gender of the authors the way they do.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

common criticism that the ending in Amerika is staged

All the other short stories and books are not really a particular place. Kafka had never been to America and the book suggests either he was aiming at fantasy or hadn't researched it. Apart from the ending the other work IMO is far better. Of course I've only read English translations. Metamorphoses etc, The Castle and The Trial are classics of their kind.

 

[GOLLUM]

All the other short stories and books are not really a particular place. Kafka had never been to America and the book suggests either he was aiming at fantasy or hadn't researched it. Apart from the ending the other work IMO is far better. Of course I've only read English translations. Metamorphoses etc, The Castle and The Trial are classics of their kind.

Well...his observations regarding America are based upon correspondence from relatives. As you say Kafka never traveled to America himself. Also it's worth noting that although Kafka regarded this as his American novel he originally named the book 'The Man Who Disappeared". It was his literary executor Max Brod who gave the title America posthumously. I speak German as a second language but have generally read German novels in translation.

Thanks for the 'chat'. It's getting late here, close to 1am in the Land of Oz.

Cheers.

 

[Hex]

I wonder if we're expecting the wrong things, by assuming that someone's ethnicity or gender maps directly onto what we can learn from their stories? That doesn't mean we can't learn anything, but maybe expecting to learn directly about the South from Faulkner (or from Flannery O'Connor) is asking something different from what their novels do? Just because we cannot use a story written by someone in Thailand as a guidebook to Bangkok, for example, doesn't mean the author's ethnicity or location does not inform and flavour their world view, even if we can't necessarily identify how.

I'm reminded of Susan Cooper's book The Dark is Rising, which contains the most intense and loving depiction of the southern English countryside. She wrote it when she had left England and was living in the US and her writing was coloured by terrible homesickness. I guess my point is that our experiences (or locations or gender or whatever) don't always have totally predicable effects.

 

[Ursa major]

Re Tracy Hickman. I looked at the first page on the website and unless her husband is called Laura, I reckon Tracy is a man.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

unless her husband is called Laura

Not impossible these days. But looks to me like Tracy is a man.

 

[Toby Frost]

Hickman is indeed male.

 

[GOLLUM]

Yeh. Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss co-authored a whole series of DragonLance novels which I used to read when I was younger.

 

[Randy M.]

Hi, Hex and Soulsinging.

I'm going to fade out of this discussion after this, but just wanted to clarify a point I made that I either didn't articulate well or was somewhat misinterpreted in subsequent discussion:

I didn't say that all you have to do to understand the South (as an example) was read Faulkner or Welty or Flannery O'Connor. Neither will you know (another example) what it's like to live life as a young African-American woman in a large city just by reading fiction by young African-American women who live in large cities. Reading fiction is not accomplished in an experiential vacuum. When combined with other experiences -- including other readings, viewings of film, and if you are lucky enough to get to places, time spent in the place you're studying -- may help form a fuller conception of whatever subject is being written about.

Historically, this was so. Now most of us no longer need travel stories and fulsome description in novels to show us the wonders of the world. That sort of writing lost some value with the onset of modern photography, and then with film, and then with modern modes of transportation from the ship to the train to the car to the airplane and jet. That does not mean that everyone gets to share in those adventures, though, and so there is still some value in fiction as a reflection of human experience and as an indicator of what it's like to be someone other than yourself. It's part of well-balanced experiential diet.


Randy M.